- Researchers found lungs become more inflammatory with age
- Ibuprofen can lower that inflammation
- Old mice on ibuprofen were able to fight the disease like young miceÂ
Mark Prigg for MailOnline
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Ibuprofen can make your lungs look younger – and could even help fight tuberculosis, researchers have found.
New research shows that the lungs become more inflammatory with age.
However, an Ohio team found that ibuprofen can lower that inflammation.
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An X-ray showing the lungs in a 16 year old healthy male. researchers say that Ibuprofen can make your lungs look younger – and could even help fight tuberculosis.
HOW THEY DID IT
The researchers gave old and young mice ibuprofen in their food for two weeks and then examined their lung cells.
Old mice in the study were 18 months old – equivalent to about 65 in human years – and young mice were 3 months old, a similar age to human young adults.Â
After this diet modification, several pro-inflammatory cytokines in the lungs of old mice had been reduced to levels identical to those in the lungs of young mice, and the macrophages in old mouse lungs were no longer in a primed state.
In fact, immune cells from old mouse lungs fought tuberculosis bacteria as effectively as cells from young mice after lung inflammation was reduced by ibuprofen.Â
The ibuprofen had no effect on the immune response to TB in young mice.Â
‘Very few researchers have linked inflammation to infectious disease in old age, even though TB in particular will drive that inflammation even further,’ said Joanne Turner, associate professor of microbial infection and immunityat Ohio State and senior author of the study.
‘The inflammation-associated changes that we saw in the lung were a small finding, but an important finding because the implications are great,’ Turner said.Â
‘We should be able to modify the environment in the lung.Â
‘If we can reverse the inflammatory environment in a very straightforward way, that is a positive.’
The research is published in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology.
Though this line of work might someday support the use of ibuprofen as an adjunct therapy for elderly people with TB, researchers said they are not recommending use of the drug for the purposes of lowering inflammation.
‘You can actually reduce your inflammation as you age by being lean, eating well and exercising. And we know that in the elderly, people who are fitter live longer,’ she said.Â
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‘Inflammation is associated with sickness and frailty.’
Though the research was conducted in mice, Turner co-led a previous study indicating that both mouse and human lungs develop the same profile of pro-inflammatory proteins and fatty molecules with age, creating an environment that impairs the immune response to infection.
‘Essentially, ibuprofen made the lungs of old mice look young, Turner said.Â
Researchers said they are not yet recommending use of the drug for the purposes of lowering inflammation
‘Putting young mice on ibuprofen had no effect because they had no lung inflammation, which implies the ibuprofen reduced the inflammation and changed the immune response in the old mice,’ Turner said.
‘It might be that ibuprofen works on specific pathways to lower inflammation, and that might help with control of TB.’
More than 9 million people worldwide are estimated to have active TB infections, and about 1.4 million people die of tuberculosis each year.
The researchers gave old and young mice ibuprofen in their food for two weeks and then examined their lung cells.Â
After this diet modification, several pro-inflammatory cytokines in the lungs of old mice had been reduced to levels identical to those in the lungs of young mice, and the macrophages in old mouse lungs were no longer in a primed state.
Most previous research establishing inflammation’s links to aging and disease has tested blood for elevated proteins that signal an inflammatory environment.Â
These researchers found the same proteins in the lungs of old mice.Â
Research has already established that the inevitable inflammation that comes with aging is linked to such conditions as Type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
Turner and colleagues have extended the work to test whether ibuprofen affects the elderly mouse immune response to TB infection.
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