What Is Inflammaging and Can You Prevent It?

3.21.2025 0 comments

Author: Trisha Houghton, CNS, ASIST

Growing old is a natural part of life, but not all aging happens the same.

Chronological aging is the standard progression of time, the sort of aging that occurs year by year. Biological aging, however, is a marker of how well your body functions and how much damage your cells have sustained.

You could be 40 years old but have the body of a 20 year old due to healthy living, or unhealthy living could cause your 25-year-old body to have the biological age of a 50-year old.

It’s all about how well you live, which is directly tied to "inflammaging".

Not sure what inflammaging is? That’s what we’ll dive into in this post…

Below, we’ll explain inflammation and how it affects the body, what causes it and how you can recognize its signs and symptoms. We’ll examine a few of the factors that contribute to inflammaging—including immune function, your diet, and lifestyle—to see what steps you can take to curb it.

By the end, you’ll have a clear idea of how you’re causing your body to age prematurely and how you can counteract that aging with a few simple age-related changes to your life.

What is Inflammaging?

The term "inflammaging" is a combination of inflammation and aging. 

It’s described [1] as a "chronic, sterile, low-grade inflammation", which develops as part of the natural human aging process. However, it’s often not a signal symptom but a process that indicates worse problems than the standard cellular breakdown and turnover that results from chronological aging.

In fact, it’s often linked to accelerated deterioration of your cells, which can lead to a wide range of health problems.

How Inflammaging Affects the Body

Before we dive into inflammaging, we need to understand what causes the inflammation in the first place.

Inflammation is your body’s natural response to threats. The inflammatory process is triggered when an injury occurs, or when there is damage to tissue or cells. Your body swells up to stabilize the injured body part or to keep the damaged tissue or cell from bleeding internally or externally or breaking down further.

Once the acute inflammation occurs, it slows deterioration and gives your body a chance to make repairs. This is why wounds, injuries, and cuts swell up initially, then the swelling goes down as the damage heals.

Unfortunately, in our modern life, there are a lot of things that can cause widespread, chronic low-grade inflammation. This is different from the acute inflammatory response that is your body’s reaction to injuries or damage. It spreads through your entire body and though it’s only minor, it’s prevalent and persistent. Your body’s inflammatory response doesn’t end when it needs to, and keeps the inflammation going.

Over time, this persistent inflammation can lead to an increase in tissue damage, as well as a higher rate of inflammatory diseases.

Chronic inflammation is connected to a number of medical conditions, including:

• High blood pressure
• Heart disease
• Autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and psoriasis
• Certain types of cancer
• Mental health conditions like anxiety and depression
• Lung diseases, including COPD and asthma
• GI tract diseases like IBD and Crohn’s disease
• Diabetes
• Parkinson’s disease
• Alzheimer’s disease
• Neurodegenerative disease
• Other age related chronic diseases

While these conditions may not be directly caused by chronic inflammation (or not only caused), the chronic inflammation can make them worse.

The chronic inflammation accelerates the breakdown of the body’s cells and disrupts the replenishment and creation of new, healthy cells.

Thus, over time, the cumulative effects of chronic inflammation can add up and the body can deteriorate at a faster-than-average rate. This is how your biological age can end up so far ahead of your chronological age. 

Common Signs of Inflammaging

Inflammaging symptoms may include:

• Joint pain, stiffness, or swelling, even to the point of reduced mobility

• Chronic fatigue and low energy levels
• Redness, swelling, or sensitivity in your skin, as well as increased psoriasis outbreaks
• Cognitive decline and an increased risk of neurodegenerative conditions
• Bloating, gas, and swelling in the intestinal tract
• Changes in bowel habits and appetite
• Reduced muscle mass and increased muscle weakness
• A weakened immune response and increased susceptibility to chronic infections and chronic conditions
• Depression, anxiety, and other mood changes
• Insulin resistance, which can lead to Type 2 Diabetes
• Chest pain, shortness of breath, and increased risk of heart attacks

While some of the symptoms are fairly mild, many are far more serious and may lead to even more severe medical conditions that can impair your long-term health.

Causes of Inflammaging

There are a number of things that may cause or contribute to an increase in inflammaging:

• Cellular senescence. Your cells have a natural "turnover" rate. They grow, function, die off, and are replaced by new healthy cells. Aging cells enter a state called "senescence", in which they stop dividing though they remain active metabolically. Senescent cells produce inflammatory molecules which can contribute to inflammatory aging.
• Environmental factors. Exposure to toxins, pollutants, and environmental stressors can all be a cause for chronic inflammation that leads to accelerated deterioration of your body’s cells. Chronic exposure can drastically increase your body’s inflammatory response.
• Genetics. Genetic mutations or certain genetic expressions can impact the way your body regulates your immune system (see the next section to understand how important the immune system is for inflammation) and increases your natural inflammatory response.
• Infections. Viral or bacterial infections, especially long-term, persistent infections, can lead to chronic inflammation and overactivity of the immune system.
• Fat tissue inflammation. Your body’s adipose (fat) tissues produce and release inflammatory molecules. The more fat you accumulate, the more likely you are to suffer from inflammaging as a result.
• Dysfunction in your mitochondria. The mitochondria are the powerhouses in your cells that produce energy. Dysfunction in this part of your cells can trigger the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) that lead to inflammation and cellular aging.
• Signaling pathway dysregulation. As you age, the signaling pathways between your body’s cells can begin to deteriorate or stop working effectively. This dysregulation can manifest in an inability for your body to control inflammation.

Inflammatory processes lie at the heart of inflammaging, slowly wearing down the body over time. By paying attention to what fuels this chronic inflammation—whether it’s lingering infections, stress, or the way our cells age—we have a better shot at staying healthier for longer.

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The Role of the Immune System in Aging

As we mentioned above, it’s your immune system that triggers the inflammatory response in the first place. Inflammation is your body’s way of protecting itself against invaders, infection, and damage.

However, as you age, your immune system function decreases and loses efficiency. Your body produces less of the adaptive immune cells (which target specific invaders or threats) and instead relies more heavily on its innate immune responses (which is a general or blanket response).

The immune mechanisms increase in activity but grow less precise. In effect, your immune system ends up targeting wider and more varied threats that inadvertently damage healthy tissues.

This is a state called "immunosenescence", or age-related immune inefficiency.

Immunosenescence can allow low-grade, widespread chronic inflammation to persist because your immune system is unable to shut down your body’s inflammatory response effectively. On top of that, your body overproduces pro-inflammatory chemicals.

The combination of these two factors leads to a drastic increase in cellular aging caused by inflammation, aka inflammaging.

Lifestyle Factors That Contribute to Inflammaging

The way you live can promote inflammation and contribute to accelerated biological aging.

Certain lifestyle habits increase wear and tear on your cells, including:

• Smoking
• Excessive alcohol intake
• A sedentary lifestyle with little to no exercise
• Inadequate sleep or poor sleep habits
• Excessive stress

Every one of these pro-inflammatory factors can slow down cellular turnover, increase damage of your internal organs, and trigger an overactive immune response.

Diet and Nutrition’s Role in Inflammaging

The food you eat will also play a significant role in inflammaging.

As one study [2] made clear, "metaflammation (the metabolic inflammation accompanying metabolic diseases) is thought to be the form of chronic inflammation that is driven by nutrient excess or overnutrition; metaflammation is characterized by the same mechanisms underpinning inflammaging."

Certain foods are known to trigger an increase in inflammation in your body, including:

• White flour products, including pasta and bread
• Red meat
• Processed meat, including lunchmeat, bacon, sausage, and bologna
• Anything fried or deep fried
• Commercial baked goods
• Any food with significant quantities of sugar or artificial sweeteners
• Foods that contain trans fats, including margarine, non-dairy coffee creamers, and refrigerated or pre-prepared dough

These foods can also cause a minor inflammatory response in your body—starting in your digestive tract—which, if added on top of other causes of inflammation as seen above, can exacerbate and accelerate inflammaging.

It’s important to understand that your gut microbiome also plays a role in inflammaging.

The beneficial bacteria in your intestines can either increase or decrease the production of inflammatory markers, depending on how healthy that gut balance is. It also contributes to effective communication between your organs, and if your gut microbiome is dysfunctional, the result could be accelerated breakdown of otherwise healthy organs and tissue.

How to Curb Inflammaging 

Aging isn’t something you can stop. It’s a natural process that occurs over time, as your body keeps working and slowly deteriorates.

But you can stop inflammaging. Inflammaging is an unhealthy, unnatural state of accelerated cellular aging brought on by inflammation.

To curb inflammaging, you just need to focus on making smart lifestyle and habit choices that will actively fight inflammation and slow down your body’s natural aging processes.

Exercise and Its Anti-Inflammatory Benefits

Aging research [3] makes it clear that exercise can have powerful inflammation-regulating benefits.

Exercise both "stimulates an increase in plasma pro-inflammatory cytokines" and "increases anti-inflammatory cytokines". It doesn’t stop inflammation, but controls it. Essentially, it helps your body find the right balance, just enough inflammation to make repairs to damaged tissue and cells without overproducing inflammatory chemicals.

Exercise can decrease the markers of systemic inflammation, decreasing the levels of inflammatory cytokines produced by your body in response to stress, toxins, etc. It can have tissue-specific effects and lead toan overall decrease in inflammation.

To benefit from this effect, you simply need to do 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise per day, or up to 150 minutes of the same per week. 

That being said, that’s just a minimum. Why not aim to double that with 60 minutes of exercise—resistance training, running, cycling, etc.—four to six days each week? That much exercise will do wonders to slow inflammaging and build new muscle tissue, including cardiovascular muscle tissue (which decreases your risk of heart disease).

Your Anti-Inflammaging Diet

A number of studies have been conducted into the best diet to curb inflammation, and the one that keeps getting mentioned over and over is the Mediterranean Diet[4].

The Mediterranean diet is rich in anti-inflammatory natural fats, whole grains, vegetables, fruits, seeds, and nuts. It’s also free of processed foods and promotes a higher intake of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and fiber.

Not only will these foods help curb aging, but they’ll also improve your gut microbiome at the same time.

Supplements That May Help

A few supplements that may help to curb inflammation and slow down biological aging include:

• Curcumin, from turmeric root. Curcumin is a powerful natural anti-inflammatory agent and antioxidant.
• Omega-3 fatty acids, derived from flax and fatty fish. It can have powerful inflammation-curbing effects and reduce your risk of chronic disease, including Alzheimer’s, heart disease, and diabetes.
• Green tea extract. It’s loaded with potent antioxidants like polyphenols and catechins that will improve cellular health and help regulate inflammation.
• Ginger, which contains the antioxidants zingerone and gingerol. Not only will these antioxidants reduce inflammation, but they can improve blood sugar control, reduce diabetes risk, and aid in digestion.
• Bromelain, an enzyme found in pineapple. It has anti-inflammatory properties with similar effects as aspirin, but all-natural and with fewer side effects.
• Resveratrol, an antioxidant found in red grapes and red wine.It shows potential as an inflammation-suppressor that could improve chronic inflammatory conditions.

Add these supplements to your healthy, natural diet to slow inflammation and aging.

Preventive Lifestyle Tips

Living a healthy lifestyle to keep inflammaging in check doesn’t require a major overhaul, just a few shifts in your habits:

• Quit smoking.
• Cut back on your alcohol intake, to no more than one drink per night.
• Reduce your stress through meditation, mindfulness, and frequent relaxation.

• Reduce your exposure to environmental toxins and pollutants at home, at work, and when around town.
• Improve your sleep habits. Try to get a solid 6 to 8 hours of sleep every night.

These shifts in lifestyle, even among older adults, will go a long way toward curbing inflammaging and maintaining good cellular health.

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Conclusion

Inflammaging is a serious threat, one that could cause your body to wear out and break down well before its time. As you saw above, it can contribute to a wide range of serious health conditions. Left unchecked, you may find yourself growing old in body while you’re still far too young.

That’s why it’s so important to do your part to curb inflammaging. Live an active lifestyle, move more, eat healthier and more natural foods, and cut back on the habits that could cause inflammation in your body.

Do that, and you’ve got a shot at turning back the clock on biological aging and living a longer life with healthy aging!

FAQs:

What are signs of gut inflammation?

Signs of gut inflammation include fatigue, bloating, gas, diarrhea, constipation, and blood in the stool. These symptoms may be caused by any number of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD) like Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.

What are the consequences of inflammaging?

Inflammation can lead to accelerated breakdown of your body’s cells. This exacerbates your risk of disease, including Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, metabolic disorders, arthritis, dementia, certain types of cancer, and cognitive decline.

What foods are inflammatory?

Foods that contain high quantities of saturated fats and hydrogenated oils, artificial sweeteners, sugars, and refined carbohydrates are all inflammatory.

Resources

Inflammaging

Inflammaging: a new immune–metabolic viewpoint for age-related diseases

Inflammageing: chronic inflammation in ageing, cardiovascular disease, and frailty

Inflammaging

Inflammation and aging: signaling pathways and intervention therapies

Inflammaging as a target for healthy ageing

Chronic Inflammation (Inflammaging) and Its Potential Contribution to Age-Associated Diseases

Inflammaging and ‘Garb-aging’

Anti Inflammatory Diet

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