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Low grade, persistent inflammation is identified as one of the biological hallmarks of aging in humans, as well as a risk factor for diseases such as Alzheimer’s and cancer, reported researchers at the Leibniz Institute on Aging—Fritz Lipmann Institute (FLI) in a September study.
“If you have a constant activation of immune cells, this can lead to their exhaustion, which in turn leads to problems when you have an infection," said Francesco Neri, who headed the research group Epigenetics of Aging at FLI in Jena, Germany.
The result is that "immune cells may no longer respond properly."
Normally, inflammation is the body's normal response to fight pathogens or to remove damaged cells from our tissues. Once the immune cells have reached their goal, the infection is over, the wound is healed, and the inflammation subsides. Aging-related chronic inflammation, however, is not local. The immune system ramps up its overall activity, producing a chronic, low-grade inflammation. This is often called "inflammaging."...