@cs3000 said in Oxidative metabolism reflects our biological age, metabolic dysfunction drives frailty/aging:
neutrophil - lymphocyte ratio is a common marker of poor health,
I have this high ratio myself, yet I consider having it high, with the latest CBC showing 66% to 21%, or higher than a 3:1 ratio. But I've had this way 25 yrs ago, coinciding with the time my blood pressure started going up from the safe value of 120/80.
But I have been healthy despite the high BP, which I never (until 2 yrs ago) treated with hypertensive prescription drugs (until I had to when I developed heart failure and had to go to the ICU after my heart stopped and I had to be revived at the ER). I'm saying this because I developed heart failure not because of high BP, but because I had allowed a self-induced bronchitis to be taken for granted and the hypoxemia that was left unresolved cascaded into heart failure. I say this to emphasize that it wasn't my high BP, as left un- intervened by hypertensive drugs, that caused it.
If only to support my contention that a high neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio, in my experience, while not ideal, was something tolerable, though it definitely was associated with my high BP situation. Because during that time, I wasn't suffering from any issues. This meant zero allergies, no flu for the past 25 years (nor fever), which I would say counts for high immunity. No body aches, stomach aches nor headaches. No overweight, great sugar control, normothyroid. High endurance running, and an ability to dry fast for 3 days. Also high internal metabolism, which did not require me to work out or walk to maintain s normal weight. Which meant, despite (or because of) high BP, I was very healthy.
But I have lead toxicity, and a low grade (ie no fever) internal infection I attribute to a periodontal infection that translocated, both of which persisted and caused a continual immune response that produced a persistent level of oxidative stress. Which caused my high BP.
The high BP came from having low blood volume that my body had to increase BP to compensate for, in order to ensure the lower blood volume can still provide adequate circulation and perfusion of blood through the tissues and organs without fail.
The low blood volume resulted from lower serum albumin, which was lower from its being used daily as an extracellular antioxidant to counter the oxidative stress arising from spillover ROS resulting from the immune system creating ROS to kill pathogenic microbes that was never totally eliminated, as well as the oxidative stress from the lead toxicity that never got resolved as well.
But I could not say my immune system was overactive and dysfunctional. It did what it had to do to protect me from lead toxicity and periodontal infection that needed more external intervention (heavy metal chelation and use of better methods of infection control other than pharma antibiotics) in order to eliminate.
Through it all, I had high BP which did not cause my health to deteriorate (I feel high BP was a protective adaptation though our doctors would say otherwise), and the albumin that was constantly being used up and lost, was a renewable resource in the sense that the liver kept producing more of it to replace the ones used. In this way, my body was kept from suffering any tissue destruction that may have resulted from the constant oxidative stress from heavy metal toxicity and spillover ROS my immune system generates. My tissues and organs are protected and intact.
So, I guess, what would be portrayed by mainstream medicine as dysfunctional isnt really so. And what really is dysfunctional could just be the response of medicine to try to intervene when it shouldn't. In all the ways modern medicine could.
