A treatment
which significantly boosts older people’s ability to fight off flu and
other viruses has been developed by British scientists.
Once
injected with the new chemical, the elderly and vulnerable will have a
much for effective immune system, Oxford University researchers claim.
They say the drug could give a 90-year-old patient the immune system of someone in their 20s.
If
the treatment performs well in clinical trials, it could severely
reduce a niggling public health problem which costs the NHS millions
each year.
Flu kills 5,000 people in England annually - the vast majority of them elderly or with existing respiratory conditions.
Part of the problem is that the elderly do not react as well as the young to vaccines.
The
newly-discovered drug promises to boost the power of the flu jab,
holding the potential to significantly reduce the danger of common
viruses to older people.
The
compound, called spermidine, has been shown to have a significant
impact in tests on mice - and scientists have already patented it as a
potential treatment for humans.
Each year three-quarters of those aged 65 and over take up the offer to get a flu jab free on the NHS.
The
policy is the health service’s main tool against the infection – but
the benefits of vaccinating pensioners have been seriously questioned in
recent years with critics saying there are no figures to back up claims
that lives are being saved.
This new chemical could solve that problem, the researchers say.
It could be mixed in with an existing vaccines or be delivered as a separate jab or a tablet.
The
research, published yesterday in the journal eLife, showed that the
compound restores the immune system’s inbuilt ‘memory’ enabling it to
mount a more powerful protective response following vaccination.
Tests
have shown the chemical can boost the response of mice to the flu virus
and cytomegalovirus – or CMV – a common infection which can cause sight
problems and pneumonia.
The scientists think it might be used to tackle a wider variety of viruses in future.
The newly-discovered drug, which
contains a compound called spermidine, promises to boost the power of
the flu jab, holding the potential to significantly reduce the danger of
common viruses (such as flu, pictured) to older people
Study leader
Professor Katja Simon said: ‘Viral infections like flu are unpleasant
for most people, but can be very serious for the over-65s and vaccines,
like the free annual flu jab, are the best form of protection.
‘Our aim is to make that protection even better, by adding immune boosting compounds to routine vaccinations.’
Scientists think vaccines lose effectiveness in older people because as we age, our immune system loses its ‘memory’.
It
becomes less effective at recognising infections, including those we
have had in the past and those we have been vaccinated against.
The scientists say their aim is to
make protection from viruses even better, by adding immune boosting
compounds to routine vaccinations
A
key factor is that the white blood cells that coordinate the response
to an infection – called T cells – lose the ability to form a ‘memory’
of the infection.
Therefore
when elderly people encounter a virus they are unable to mount a strong
immune response and can develop a serious, even fatal, infection.
The
new breakthrough rests on the researchers’ discovery of the key
cellular process essential for the formation of immune memory.
They showed that this process becomes defective in immune cells with age, helping to explain why immunity diminishes over time.
By
targeting this process with spermidine, the scientists managed to
restore immune memory, boosting the effectiveness of a vaccine.
Daniel
Puleston, who co-authored the research, said of the drug: ‘It’s the
equivalent of a 90 year old responding to a vaccine better than a 20
year old, which makes this a very exciting pathway to target as a
potential way of boosting vaccine protection in the elderly.’
Spermidine
works by enhancing a normal cellular process called autophagy, where
parts of the cell that have become defective or damaged are broken down
and destroyed within cells.
The
researchers found that mice lacking a gene important for autophagy
couldn’t make memory T cells when given the flu vaccine. They also saw
that levels of autophagy were lowered in T cells from aged mice,
suggesting that autophagy is a vital part of forming the immune memory
into old age.
When aged mice were given spermidine prior to flu vaccination, their T cell response was enhanced dramatically.
The
researchers have patented spermidine and will now see if they can use
the compound, or other autophagy-enhancing drugs, to improve responses
to already licensed vaccines in mice before hopefully moving on to early
safety trials in humans.
Professor
Simon added: ‘We think that spermidine could be particularly useful
alongside many of the vaccines currently in development that protect
against other viruses.
‘However, we expect it to be at least five to ten years before a drug reaches the clinic.’
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