腎虛與衰老的微觀比較研究

COMPARATIVE STUDY OF KIDNEY DEFICIENCY SYNDROME AND SENESCENCE

衰老最重要的表現是組織與器官的細胞退化、逐漸失去增殖的能力，以及過度的細胞凋亡。隨增齡而老化是個不可抗拒的生理過程，但就每個人而言，年齡變化對各器官組織帶來的影響，個體差異卻很大，僅以年齡制定衰老界限，或從外表來估計衰老程度，往往不夠全面，內在組織器官老化及微觀的基因調節失控可以導致整體老化的加速與老年慢性疾患。“腎”在五臟之中歷來為醫學家所推崇，喻為先天之本，至明代提出“命門”學說成為生命的根本，全身各臟的陰陽均由腎陰、腎陽來“養”與“溫”，五臟病久都會及腎，腎似乎是各臟器的調節中心。腎又主生長、發育、衰老的生理過程，腎虛可出現一系列“未老先衰”的症狀，如宏觀的腎虛辨證標準：腰膝酸痛、肢軟、牙齒疏鬆、頭髮脫落、耳鳴耳聾、性功能減退等。由於衰老是不可逆的生理過程，老年人必然進入合乎生理規律的腎虛階段，因此屬於“生理性腎虛”。Kidney Qi plays a very important role in processes of birth, growth, strength, senescence and death during human life. Kidney Qi displays a kind of deterioration when senescence comes. So senescence is called “physiological Kidney deficiency” also. We have done a series of researches in order to the question that if there exists a common connotation between Kidney deficiency syndrome and senescence. First we compared these two statuses on such macroscopical levels as neuroendocrinological systems and Neurology-Endocrinology-Immune network followed by comparing related parameters on microscopical levels such as cellular, molecular and gene expression levels. At the same time we also applied the method of “verifying syndrome by the way of medicinal treatment” to these studies. All our results demonstrated that there are common or similar manifestation with respect to dysfunction of neuroendocrinological systems, impaired function of NEI networks, as well as the excessive apoptosis of T lymphocytes and the unbalanced expression pattern of apoptosis regulatory genes. We also verified that Kidney-tonifying recipes had consistent and identical modulatory effects on Kidney deficiency syndrome and senescence, and embodied these effects on systematic, network, cellular, molecular and gene expression levels. All these researches tell us that although Kidney deficiency syndrome and senescence are different when they are referred to as timing, degree, organ localization and metabolism, the still display a kind of highly comparable consistency in the fields of systematically governing network-NEI network and T lymphocytes apoptosis and expression pattern of apoptotic genes macroscopically and microscopically. In summary, there indeed exist essential and intrinsic relationship between Kindy deficiency syndrome and senescence.