Low risk in women aged multi-system abnormalities

A study published online on the press in the Gerontology Society of America's Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences said that the state of weakness in adults is related to a critical mass of abnormal physiological systems, including the status of each system, and that the relationship is not linear. This research is the first evidence that the weakness is measured in number of abnormal physiological systems, not only with a specific abnormality, chronic illness or age. It proposes major changes in the system biology with age, and the underlying fragility. Clinical consequences, the prevention and treatment is more effective if a certain improvement in several systems of intervention, not just one.

According to the report, three or more systems significant predictors of abnormal and fragile, and the dominant indicator, the number of abnormal systems, not a system. The study was performed on the database of women aged 70 - 79 years of the Women's Health and Aging Studies I and II and to assess the association of eight physiological measures of fragility. Anomaly in any system (anemia, inflammation, insulin-like Growth Factor-1, dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate, hemoglobin A1c, micronutrients, obesity and fine motor speed) are significantly related the state of weakness. However, for adapting the system within each measure, the average number of serious systems said the fragility of a system of sound speed of the engine, remained an independent predictor, when the mass of the system was abnormal .

The data indicate that half of the disabled had three or more abnormal systems, compared to 25% of the pre-frail and 16% of non-fragile. Less than 21% of fragile had zero or one system Abnormal (eight).

Frail elderly are a group with an increased risk of serious adverse clinical outcomes, including death, disability, rotation, and loss of independence. Thanks to the work of Dr. Fried and his colleagues at Johns Hopkins University, frailty was defined as a medical syndrome, the clinical recognizable, if a critical mass of symptoms and signs. Fragility is the simultaneous presence of three or more of the following: low resistance, low energy, slow performance engine, low physical activity, weight loss or not. The results in the current document on Dr. Fried body of work around the weakness, and an application for the design of therapies, such as new drugs.

"We found that the probability of weak increases in proportion to the number of abnormal physiological systems, and the number of abnormalities was highly predictive of the likelihood of weakness, considering that the different systems," says Linda S. Fried, MD, MPH, Delamare Dean and Professor of Public Health at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and lead author. It adds: "It indicates that other therapeutic alternative of a lack of system, such as testosterone, estrogen and growth hormone, it is unlikely to improve or to prevent the fragile, unless it improves several physiological systems. It can import explainthe public health still physically active as we age because to improve many aspects of biology and health. "Given the fact that most physiological systems are classified influence or resolve a change can not be independent of others. These data suggest that the acceleration of low probability may occur because the number of abnormal escalation systems, and proposes that the threshold is exceeded, there is a downward spiral of the nature of the progression of fragility and its consequences. "The systems studied here have many physiological links with others," said Dr. Fried, "in accordance with the concept of" majority rules "in the systems biology past a critical level in Dysregulation of physiological systems, the systems may be affected adversely affect other systems to normal operation and put the system to a state dysregulated, resulting in the fragility of a complex system dysregulated.

"This research provides evidence of the interaction of a number of factors contributing to the weakness of the elderly," said Richard Suzman, PhD, Director of the Department of social behavior and the National Institute on Aging, funding of research. "It underlines the need for reflection on the overall fragility."

The number of chronic diseases is also an indicator of weakness, regardless of the number of abnormal physiological systems. It supports the fragility of the final common path of several causes and that the burden of disease is a factor of aging and associated physiological dysregulation.