“Inflammaging” sounds like just another marketing buzzword wellness companies are throwing around. You would be wise to take the condition seriously.
A combination of inflammation and aging, the term describes a simmering form of inflammation—the immune system’s response to a perceived threat—that is chronic and low-grade, and builds stealthily as you age. It is associated with an increased risk of heart attack, cancer, Alzheimer’s and other conditions.
Inflammaging happens to everyone to some degree as we age, and some people don’t develop much. But scientists say we should pay closer attention. More research is showing the damage it can cause.
Researchers are studying potential drug treatments, and some doctors are pushing for more and better tests for chronic inflammation. Meanwhile, there are simple things you can do to fight inflammaging: exercise regularly, get enough sleep and eat a diet that is heavy on fruits and vegetables and light on red meat.
“Inflammation is an intrinsic component of all chronic disease,” said Dr. Luigi Ferrucci, a geriatrician and scientific director of the National Institute on Aging who has studied the phenomenon in aging people for nearly three decades.
What is inflammaging?
The term “inflammaging” was coined by Dr. Claudio Franceschi, a retired professor of immunology at the University of Bologna, in a 2000 paper. Last year, scientists proposed adding chronic inflammation to a list of biological features that manifest with age and can accelerate it, dubbed the “hallmarks of aging.”
Inflammation isn’t inherently bad. It is the body’s natural way of protecting itself from harm. That can be helpful in fighting off a viral infection like Covid, or in healing a cut on the finger. It normally subsides once the healing is done.
Chronic inflammation also comes from the body trying to protect itself. But it doesn’t subside, and can harm rather than heal. People develop systemic inflammation as they age, as their bodies respond to substances or conditions they perceive as abnormal: a buildup of fat cells in the abdomen, for example.
One likely source of inflammaging is cellular senescence, when damaged aging cells stop dividing, build up and secrete inflammatory proteins.
Levels of chronic inflammation rise in people as they age, but people develop it at different ages and to different degrees. “In some people, it can start immediately even when you are a child. In other people you can stay at a very low level until age 70 or 80,” Franceschi said.
What inflammaging does
Studies show how important a role chronic inflammation plays in the biggest diseases of aging, both triggering and worsened by them.
“It’s a vicious cycle,” Ferrucci said. “Inflammation creates damage, and the damage in the tissue generates inflammation.”
High levels of inflammation have been linked to an increased risk of death from any cause—a seven times higher risk compared with those with the lowest levels of inflammation, according to one study examining blood samples from more than 160,000 patients.
Women with high levels of chronic inflammation had a 70% greater risk of a heart attack, stroke or death from a cardiovascular cause than those with low levels, according to a separate study published in August by researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, who followed the women for 30 years.
“There’s tremendous risk with inflammation alone,” Dr. Paul Ridker, lead author of the study and director of the Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention at Brigham and Women’s. “We need to start prevention a lot earlier.”
Chronic inflammation also drives Alzheimer’s disease. Plaques and tangles that build up over many years can trigger a chronic inflammatory response, said Rudolph Tanzi, director of the McCance Center for Brain Health at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
Testing and treating
Blood tests measure markers of inflammation such as high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and ferritin, but most can’t distinguish between temporary and prolonged inflammation. They also don’t pinpoint the source.
“Is it because of your arthritis, or is it because of your liver disease, or is it because you have polymyalgia, an autoimmune sort of thing?” says Dr. Ardeshir Hashmi, section chief for Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Geriatric Medicine.
A team of researchers in the U.K. analyzed records from 160,000 patients who had received inflammatory marker tests. In roughly 85% of cases where patients had higher than normal markers, doctors found no evidence of infection or disease.
Treating chronic inflammation can be tricky.
A drug has to tamp down inflammation without blocking the immune system. Some patients who have atherosclerosis or are at high risk of cardiovascular disease are treated for inflammation with a low-dose version of the drug colchicine, approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2023 for that use. The drug has been used for years to treat gout, a joint-pain disease.
Researchers are studying whether other drugs, including GLP-1s, can lower inflammatory markers. And Novo Nordisk and CSL Behring are testing potential anti-inflammatory medications in patients who have cardiovascular disease or are at high risk.
Some people have experimented with taking medications such as metformin and rapamycin to target inflammaging. Both drugs, approved by the FDA for other uses, have shown potential to target inflammaging, but more research in humans is needed.
Otherwise, the best ways to ward off inflammaging today? All the things you should be doing anyway: exercising consistently, not smoking, maintaining a healthy weight and eating healthfully.
Some research suggests the Mediterranean diet, which emphasizes nuts, whole grains, fish, fruits and vegetables, is particularly protective against inflammation. Red meat, by contrast, promotes inflammation.
Most important for brain health is seven to eight hours of sleep a night, said Tanzi. The brain gets rid of amyloid that triggers inflammation then, he said.
“Every time you go from dreaming or REM to deep sleep, I call it a rinse cycle.”
Write to Alex Janin at alex.janin@wsj.com and Betsy McKay at betsy.mckay@wsj.com