Media release

From: Springer Nature

Chronic inflammation not associated with ageing in all populations

Human populations with less industrialized lifestyles may not experience inflammaging, a chronic low-grade inflammation that is linked with ageing, according to research published in Nature Aging. The findings are based on data from two industrialized populations in Italy and Singapore and two Indigenous, non-industrialized populations from the Bolivian Amazon and Peninsular Malaysia.

Short-term inflammation is essential to healing infections, but long-term exposure to inflammation (inflammaging) is known to increase biological ageing and the risk of developing age-related diseases. However, whether the effects of inflammaging are consistent across all human populations remains unclear.

Maximilien Franck and colleagues analysed datasets of 19 cytokines (small proteins involved in inflammation) from 2 industrialized cohort studies in Italy and Singapore and 2 non-industrialized cohorts — the Tsimane population from the Bolivian Amazon and the Orang Asli population from Peninsular Malaysia. In the industrialized cohorts, the authors observed a consistent signature of increased inflammation with age, which was associated with chronic age-related diseases, such as stroke, cardiovascular disease and cancer. However, in the two non-industrialized cohorts, Franck and co-authors did not detect increased inflammation with age. Chronic age-related diseases were also minimal in these cohorts and were not linked to inflammaging.

The findings highlight the importance of considering cultural, environmental and lifestyle factors when researching aging processes, and challenge existing paradigms around inflammaging. Future research could explore how specific environmental conditions modulate inflammaging and its effect on health outcomes, which could lead to more targeted approaches for preventing age-related diseases across different global populations.