Air Pollution Affects Our Immune System Directly
Last Week in Medicine
In the COVID pandemic, older people needed more respiratory support. We think this is due to the changes in our health that occur with aging and the increased incidence of comorbid diseases. In a Nature paper that offers a new perspective on the relationship between aging and lung health, researchers present how airborne particles accumulate in the lymph nodes of the lung.
There are hundreds of lymph nodes in our bodies. These tiny structures act as filters for foreign substances, such as cancer cells and infections. If there is an infection, the lymph nodes also tend to swell, giving physicians a clue as to which area is affected.
Since 2011, Ural et al. examining lymphoid organs from organ donors have observed black lung-associated lymph nodes, even though the donor was a non-smoker. When they examined other organ-associated lymph nodes from the same donors, they found that they were at their natural color.
In their research to find the reason for this, they detected carbon particles in the lung-associated lymph nodes. They found that the black color was caused by carbon particles. They say that because of these carbon particles, the lymph nodes associated with the lung cannot function.
Interestingly, since the lymph nodes communicate with each other, these carbon particles should have been seen in other lymph nodes, but they did not find carbon particles in other organ-related lymph nodes of the same donor. This shows that the particles have a local effect.
They found that this accumulation was more pronounced especially over the age of 40. We can say that particle exposure increases with age. Therefore, it can be predicted that older individuals are more prone to lung infections.
With these studies, Ural et al. show through lymph node samples that air pollution causes direct accumulation in the lung lymph nodes and thus impairs their function, and that this accumulation increases even more, especially after the age of 40.
