A Review of Chronic Kidney Disease and the Immune System: A Special Form of Immunosenescence

Immune dysregulation is a common problem and immunosenescence plays a major role in the aged population. Many chronic inflammatory diseases have the same effect in the aged such as chronic HIV-treated patients, tuberculosis patients or those with chronic kidney disease. Chronic kidney disease patients have a high incidence of vascular calcification, accelerated atherosclerosis, loss of appetite, increased muscle catabolism, renal osteodystrophy, and a high prevalence of depression because of the dysregulation of the immune system. These patients have different immune system manifestations compared with aged individuals of the same age; moreover, many geriatric syndromes are observed in this group. This review is an analysis from the nephrology perspective on the relationship between chronic kidney disease and the immune system. *Corresponding author: Kuo-Cheng Lu, Division of Nephrology, Department of Internal Medicine, Cardinal Tien Hospital; School of Medicine, Fu-Jen Catholic University. 362, Chung-Cheng Rd., Hsin-Tien Dist., New Taipei City, Taiwan, Tel: +886-2-29155739; Fax: +886-2-29107920; E-mail: [email protected] Received October 27, 2013; Accepted January 15, 2014; Published January 17, 2014 Citation: Hsu HW, Lang CL, Wang MH, Chiang CK, Lu KC (2014) A Review of Chronic Kidney Disease and the Immune System: A Special Form of Immunosenescence. J Gerontol Geriat Res 3: 144. doi:10.4172/2167-7182.1000144 Copyright: © 2014 Hsu HW. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.