Home » News & Events » Is ‘inflammaging’ part of getting older?
This “chronic, smoldering low-grade inflammation,” as one researcher described it, is associated with many health issues.
by Richard Sima for the Washington Post
As we age, we tend to have more aches, pains and diseases. Researchers believe that some of these may be related to persistent inflammation.
They call it “inflammaging” — age-related inflammation, which is present even in the absence of injury or illness.
It is considered a hallmark of aging and is characterized by a “chronic, smoldering low-grade inflammation,” said Vishwa Deep Dixit, a professor of pathology and immunobiology and the director of the Yale Center for Research on Aging.
This chronic smoldering is unfortunately associated with a host of health issues, but new research suggests that not everyone may experience inflammaging. Some Indigenous people don’t seem to get inflammaging at all compared with people in industrialized countries.
Either way, researchers are studying how to curb this type of inflammation to stave off its health effects.
Inflammaging “sets up the environment” for potential neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia or Parkinson’s, said Juan Pablo de Rivero Vaccari, an associate professor of neurological surgery at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine who has been studying the immune response for 20 years.
Understanding inflammaging is crucial for understanding the biology of aging and what we “can do to stall the degenerative diseases that emerge from inflammaging,” Dixit said.
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