Studies on the decresed cellular inununity and dietary life in the aged

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In this study we have investigated on (1)plasma vitamin E (α-tocopherol) concentration, (2)the relationship between plasma vitamin E conentration and cellular immunity, and (3)the supplemental effect of vitamin E on celluar immunity in the healthy elderly people. At first, there was no decrease of plasma vitamin E concentration of the healthy elderly people over 65 years old, which was higher than that of young people (20-30 years old). However, since vitamin E is contained in VLDL-cholesterol as the status in the blood and the elderly people, in general, show the higher concentration of VLHL-cholesterol in blood, to assess the nutritional condition of vitamin E in the elderly people needs to consider the variation of VLDL-cholesterol concentration in blood. Mitogenesis of peripheral blood lymphocytes was lower in the elderly people compared to that of young people. In addition, the decrease of mitogenesis was seen in the elderly people with the increase of age. Although there was no s … More ignificant correlation between plasma vitamin E concentration and mitogenesis of peripheral blood lymphocytes, the positive correlation was seen between vitamin E concentration divided by YLDL-cholesterol and peripheral blood lymphocytes. In the next study based on 'these results, we have investigated the change of peripheral blood lymphocyte function in 42 healthy elderly persons (male: 8, females; 34) following the intake of 303 mg α-T per day for 3 months. As its result, plasma α-T concentration increased 1.7-fold compared to that of before the supplementation of α-T, which shows that the digestion and absorption of α-T in the healthy elderly people in this study keep good conditions. Furthermore there was no change in plasma VLDL-cholesterol of the subjects following the supplementation of α-T, which resulted in the increase of plasma α-T concentration per YLPL-cholesterol. And mitogenesis of peripheral blood lymphocytes with PHA was significantly higher after the supplementation of α-T. Considering this mechanism from the change of plasma nitric oxide (.NO) concentration, there was no significant change in before and after the supplementation of α-T. From these results, it is beneficial far elderly people to maintain higher plasma concentration of vitamin E with a view to preventing pneumonia and other infectious diseases, and the deterioration of those diseases. In this study, it is suggested that the enhanced cellular immunity by vitamin E is due to the action of not nitric oxide (NO) but vitamin E itself. Less