Health. Age-related inflammation depends on lifestyle, not time.
A study shows that chronic age-related inflammation may not be caused by aging, but by lifestyle. This has not been observed in non-industrialized populations.
It's called inflammaging, or age-related inflammation. It's a chronic inflammation linked to aging, responsible for a decline in overall health, poorer organ function, and an increased risk of diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer's.
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It's called inflammaging or age-related inflammation. It's a chronic inflammation. linked to aging, responsible for a decline in overall health, poorer functioning of organs, an increased risk of suffering from diseases such as cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's, etc.
This age-related inflammation was thought to be universal, but a study, published Monday, June 30 in Nature Aging , challenges this belief.
The Italian InCHIANTI study revealed 19 cytokines, molecules secreted by the immune system, as biomarkers of age-related inflammation. A team of researchers from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health wanted to know if these same markers could be generalized to other industrialized populations, in Singapore, and to two other non-industrialized indigenous populations; the Tsimané of Bolivia and the Orang Asli of Malaysia.
Results? While the biological signature of inflammaging was similar between the two cohorts from industrialized countries, they were not found in non-industrialized indigenous groups. In them, inflammation was influenced by infections and absolutely not by age.
This age-related inflammation was thought to be universal, but a study published Monday, June 30, in Nature Aging calls this belief into question.
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"In industrialized environments, we see clear links between inflammation and diseases like chronic kidney disease, said lead author Alan Cohen, associate professor of environmental health sciences at the Columbia Mailman School in a press release. But in populations with high infection rates, inflammation appears to reflect the burden of infectious disease more than aging itself.
Moreover, although indigenous populations had high levels of inflammation, sometimes even in young adults, these did not increase with age and did not lead to the chronic diseases we see in industrialized societies.
While the biological signature of inflammaging was similar between the two cohorts from industrialized countries, they were not found in non-industrialized indigenous groups.
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Thus, 66% of the Tsimané suffered from at least one parasitic infection and 70% of the Orang Asli had at least one persistent infection. But in these populations, inflammatory markers were not linked to chronic diseases.
These diseases – diabetes , cardiovascular diseases, neurodegenerative diseases – are rare or even absent in these populations. "These results seriously challenge the idea that inflammation is harmful in itself," commented Alan Cohen
The study also calls into question the hypothesis of universal biomarkers of aging. According to these results, the immune aging process is specific to lifestyle, environmental exposures, and infections. Not to the act of aging.
"Inflammaging may not be a direct consequence of aging, but rather a response to industrial (living) conditions." Understanding how all of these elements interact could be a path to developing effective health strategies on a global scale.
Nature aging, Colombia university
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