Borrowed Time: The Science of How and Why We Age

by Sue Armstrong

Interestingly, however, Lord's investigation revealed that the real culprit here was not simply the imbalance between cortisol and DHEAS, but also the effects of clinical depression – a condition that affects more than a third of their hip-fracture patient, and is probably also caused by the hormone imbalance, since this is known to affect mood. Checking everyone's neutrophil activity, they found that in all patients, these vital little fighters were still able to seek out and swallow bacteria, but those in depressed patients were unable to administer the coup de grâce to the engulfed pathogens. Surprisingly, in those who didn't become depressed, immune suppression was not such a big deal in hip-fracture patients though everyone – depressed and non-depressed alike – became more frail following their falls. But what if the trauma a person suffers is psychological rather than physical? Lord and her colleagues monitored the neutrophil activity of elderly people who had lost a loved one, and found that ‘bereavement is as powerful a stressor as a hip fracture, and it persists. We followed bereaved older adults for a year and their immune systems stayed suppressed.’ Recalling the stories one hears so often about a couple, married for 40 years or more, where one of them dies and the other soon follows, she commented, ‘They go down with infections; it's nearly always pneumonia. So I always say they die not of a broken heart, but of a broken immune system.’