1/kloc-0 has no infection or cancer over the age of 0. The most common cause of death of the elderly in Taiwan Province Province is respiratory failure caused by pneumonia infection. Even if they live a long life, they have no quality of life. In Japan, these elderly people over 1 10 have always been in good health, without infection or cancer, and even their cognitive function has been maintained very well.
"centenarians are not uncommon, but those who are over 100 years old are rare. Japan's 20 15 national census found that there were 6 1763 centenarians, but 146 exceeded 165438. These people who have lived for a long time rarely have problems with cancer, stroke and cardiovascular disease. The research team said.
This research was conducted by Hirosuke Hashimoto, a researcher at RIKEN, Japan, and published in the Journal of National Academy of PNAS in 20 1 19 10. They used the blood cell bank to analyze the immune cells of these elderly people and found that their "immune T cells" were much more special.
What are T cells?
T cell: It is an immune lymphocyte, mainly including cytotoxic T cells (CD8), helper T cells (CD4), regulatory/inhibitory T cells and memory T cells.
Among them, cytotoxic T cells are one of the most important immune cells in the body. They function like cell killers and cytotoxins, and can identify and destroy cancer cells.
The immune system of these old people is stronger than that of young people. The number of these immune cells is amazing. The research team found that 70 centenarians have an average of 5,887 immune cells in their blood, while the average age between 50 and 80 is only 3,999. Moreover, the cytotoxic T cells of centenarians account for 80% of all their own T cells, while the control group only has 10% or 20%.
Istock photo file ID: 63675 1974 "What's more, CD4 T cells, which are originally auxiliary, actually have the function of killing cancer cells and viruses! And they are all cells "copied" from "the same" CD4 cell. These cells can find some cancer cell factors that other T cells are not easy to find, and can remove abnormal cells at an early stage. The research team said.
In addition to anti-cancer, these special CD4 T cells can also resist viral infections, such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV. No wonder they don't have many chronic diseases.
How to activate T cells? The study of these T cells has also brought a ray of light to immune cell therapy. Scientists also tried to extract CD4 T cells from these healthy centenarians and observe the changes of these cells. If this process of "producing new toxicity" can be replicated, others can also cultivate their own T cells, which can be the next step in cancer immune cell therapy.
Academia Sinica also has the technology of "jelly cells", which can help cells to be cultured and propagated in vitro, so as to obtain enough cells to fight cancer. The future of eliminating diseases by immunization may not be far away.
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The academic impact factor of PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) 20 18 is 9.504. The magazine will publish more than 3,000 research papers every year, covering physics, social sciences and biology, and all articles should be "understood by the public".