birdflu
You are viewing stuff tagged with birdflu.
You are viewing stuff tagged with birdflu.
As the human body ages, certain immune system organs actually shrink. For example, there’s the thymus: here, T cells (one of the primary components of the immune system’s ability to recognize and eliminate foreign antigen) are converted from naïve to mature. If you look at a picture of the thymus of a teen next to one of an 80 year old, the difference is striking. It’s not like the color and texture difference between a cancerous lung and a normal lung—there’s actually hardly any thymus left in the 80 year old’s picture. Why the geriatric thymus continues to function effectively is the topic of another post. But the fact remains: there’s a definite change in the immune system with the passage of time.