ABSTRACT
The process of life for the individual is the struggle to preserve its integrity. However, the preservation of the integrity of the organism comes with a price, systemic inflammation. Accordingly, ageing is associated with chronic, low-grade inflammatory activity and the major age-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s diseases, Parkinson’s diseases, atheroscle rosis and type 2 diabetes, are initiated or worsened by systemic inflammation, thus suggesting the critical importance of unregulated systemic inflammation in the shortening of survival. In the present review, the influence of the anti-inflammatory cytokine interleukin(IL)-10 on these major age-related diseases development is reviewed in the light of the inflammation mecha nisms involved in their pathogenesis. The experimental and clinical observations reported sug gest that IL-10 may play a central role in protection against major age-related inflammatory diseases. So, typing of IL-10 functionally relevant polymorphisms might allow to evaluate the individual risk for inflammation mediated disease leading to unsuccessful ageing. In fact, it is an emergent evidence that polymorphic alleles of inflammatory cytokines, involved in high cytokine production, are related to unsuccessful ageing and, reciprocally, controlling inflam matory status may allow to better attain successful ageing. So, the major findings reported in recent papers on cytokine polymorphisms and longevity suggest that those individuals who are genetically predisposed to produce low levels of inflammatory cytokines or high levels of anti-inflammatory cytokines (i.e., IL-10) have an increased capacity to reach the extreme limit o f human life-span.
