October 21, 2010 This is part of a series of articles
summarizing presentations from the 1st International Workshop on
HIV & Aging, which took place in Baltimore, Md., from Oct. 4 to
Oct. 5, 2010. Jump to the table of contents to see the other
articles in this series. Alan Landay, Ph.D., from Rush
University Medical Center in Chicago, Ill., reviewed data on
what happens to the immune system as people age. Memory CD28
negative immune cells decrease, which hurts the immune system's
ability to fight pathogens based on prior, archived experience
that it had built up through our lives. However, Landay
explained that the number of memory CD4 cells in the average
50-year-old person with HIV is similar to the number of such
cells in 70-year-old HIV-negative people. Landay also brought up
an interesting term: "inflammaging." Immune activation occurs
with aging and seems to be higher in people with HIV, even if
their HIV viral load is suppressed. This activation creates
inflammatory responses and decreases the ability