Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Palmer S
PROVIDER: S-EPMC5828591 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Feb
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Palmer Sam S Albergante Luca L Blackburn Clare C CC Newman T J TJ
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20180205 8
For many cancer types, incidence rises rapidly with age as an apparent power law, supporting the idea that cancer is caused by a gradual accumulation of genetic mutations. Similarly, the incidence of many infectious diseases strongly increases with age. Here, combining data from immunology and epidemiology, we show that many of these dramatic age-related increases in incidence can be modeled based on immune system decline, rather than mutation accumulation. In humans, the thymus atrophies from i ...[more]