General Medicine and Pharmacology – Two Different CEU Classes
As human beings approach the sixth decade of life, they begin to suffer from increased illness, a functional decline, and the psychological and existential issues surrounding the end of life.
- Medical professionals must have a basic understanding of both the normal aging process and aberrant aging issues to diagnose and treat elderly patients correctly with all drug therapies.
Aging and increased longevity are opposite processes that occur in elaborate and complex biological and physiological settings. These physiological sites include cells, mitochondria, blood, immune and organ systems. Many changes occur in all of these systems with aging.
One of the most powerful changes occurs in immune reactivity associated with everything from pollution to diet, sleep patterns, and obesity. The phenomenon of inflammaging, the opposite of health and longevity, is now understood as a subclinical constant inflammatory state manifested by elevated levels of proinflammatory factors from the immune system and adipose cells.
