Autoimmunity and Aging

National Institute On Aging

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

Autoimmune diseases as single entities may be rare, but collectively afflict tens of millions of Americans, and disproportionately impact women. Moreover, autoimmune diseases tend to co-occur in a person and are linked to many age-related conditions. In general, autoimmune diseases are underdiagnosed and involve autoantibodies that appear decades before the disease onset. However, longitudinal changes of autoantibodies as individuals age are poorly characterized, and whether these changes differ by sex is not known. Using autoantibodies to detect subclinical and preclinical autoimmune diseases, we propose assessing their pattern of change by age in women and men and investigating the autoantibody associations with age-related conditions. Using prospective studies, we aim to 1) characterize age-related changes in autoantibodies, 2) examine the association of autoantibodies and their age-related trajectories with autoimmune disease risk, 3) investigate the association of autoantibodies with non-autoimmune age-related disease and phenotypes, for overall and also separately by sex.