STAT+: New study challenges understanding of how age, chronic diseases and inflammation are linked

Reducing inflammation has become all the rage lately, with many medical experts pointing to anti-inflammatory diets and other lifestyle changes as ways people can reduce their risk of chronic disease as they age. But a new study suggests that inflammation’s effects on health are more complex than scientists previously understood. 

In a study published in Nature Aging on Monday, researchers found that people living in non-industrialized societies experience less age-related chronic inflammation — termed inflammaging — than their counterparts in industrialized societies. Inflammaging is considered a hallmark of aging and has been believed to be a one-size-fits-all predictor of chronic age-related disease such as heart problems and diabetes.

This study “challenges the notion that inflammaging, at least as we’ve been measuring it, is something that’s universal across humans,” said Alan Cohen, an associate professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University and the study’s corresponding author.

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