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Inflammation, ladies is a biological process that has received quite a bit of press in recent years and has been the subject of numerous different health trends, most popularly in the fields of diet and weight loss. Inflammation is defined by the National Institute of Health as “a very complex response to an injury, infection, or other stimulus, in which many different cells types and secreted factors orchestrate protective immunity, tissue repair, and resolution of tissue damage.” Now that’s a mouth full, right?

There is also a new trend in the research and information field that inflammation may have a key role in the aging process, with some thought-leaders even surmising that inflammation is the primary cause of aging in human beings. That may or may not be true, but we can certainly review the current information available to figure out if inflammation is something we should be aware of to help us age gracefully.

Most research has been done to understand the role of inflammation in the elderly, especially concerning degenerative diseases. While scientists are still working to understand the overall role of inflammation in the lifespan of the aging process from youth onwards, there seems to be a fair amount of consensus that it plays a primary role in the accelerated aging process seen in the elderly.

A recent panel organized by National Institute of Health and National Geroscience Interest Group on aging stated that “It is now recognized that a mild pro-inflammatory state is correlated with the major degenerative diseases of the elderly.”

This begs the question of how does inflammation start or how does it originate?

It is a hard question to articulate and requires a great deal of medical and scientific jargon to properly express, however a summary from a recent study in Recent Patents on Inflammation & Allergy Drug Discovery, expresses a good general outline, “Inflammatory process induces oxidative stress and reduces cellular antioxidant capacity. Overproduced free radicals react with cell membrane fatty acids and proteins impairing their function permanently.”

What exactly does that mean? Well, inflammation most simply put is the body’s response to an abnormal event in the body that it is attempting to repair. The most common or simple version might be a stubbed toe that swells, turns black or blue and eventually over time as healing occurs returns to normal. That process is the body inflaming the hurt area to protect it or heal it.

Chronic inflammation is the case of internal inflammation over time that can lead to the aging processes. As the research study stated, it induces stress and reduces certain capacities in the body, many of which are key to the aging process, in order to deal with other stresses within the body.

Being that we have a basic idea of the aging process and inflammations role in it, how do prevent inflammation from occurring? The jury ladies is still out officially, although two different recent studies examined the role of caloric-restriction on the inflammation process.

Both studies, from the Aging Research Reviews and Antioxidants and Redux Signaling respectively, examined the anti-inflammatory actions of aging-retarding caloric restriction and exercise. It would seem that, while perhaps not a complete surprise, a poor diet, and sedentary lifestyle would increase inflammation and therefore the aging process and y’all have heard me over and over again talk about how diet and exercise is so important to your overall health, so that news shouldn’t be so surprising to y’all who follow me regularly.

In fact, the study from Antioxidants and Redux signaling found that “major chronic aging-related diseases such as atherosclerosis, arthritis, dementia, osteoporosis, and cardiovascular diseases, are inflammation-related.” It is certainly not a coincidence that most of these conditions are also symptoms of a sedentary lifestyle and poor diet choices.

As a summary, it is fair to conclude that inflammation has a high correlation and may be a direct cause of many aging and degenerative conditions we face now and later on in life.

We also are safe to surmise that inflammation is a reactive process of our body to attempt to heal events that are not ideal for homeostasis, or events that place stress on the body.

In the case of inflammation, these events are seen at the molecular level in our cells and result from the bad kind of stress, stress that comes from poor diet choices, lack of exercise, inadequate sleep, and neglecting personal self-care which leads to inflamed cellular responses.

To summarize the research ladies, in the simplest terms, inflammation increases the process of aging, and poor diet, lack of exercise, I’m adding in inadequate sleep and the neglect of personal self-care increases inflammation; therefore, eat a healthy diet, exercise, get adequate sleep, and practice mindfulness self-care to help inhibit the aging process!

 

References:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3616233/

 

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ben/iad/2009/00000003/00000001/art00009

 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1568163708000299

 

http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/ars.2006.8.572