A study shows that chronic inflammation linked to age would not be caused by aging but by lifestyle. This was indeed not observed in non-industrialized populations.
It is called inflammaging or inflammation linked to age. It is an Alzheimer’s … We thought this inflammation linked to universal age but a study, published Monday, June 30 in Nature Agingcomes to question this belief in question.
The Italian study inchianti revealed 19 cytokines, molecules secreted by the immune system, as biomarkers of age -related inflammation. A team of researchers Columbia University Mailman School of public health wanted to know if these same markers could be generalized to other industrialized populations, in Singapore, and to two other non -industrialized indigenous populations; The Tsimané of Bolivia and the Orang Asli of Malaysia. Results ? If the biological signature of inflammaging was similar between the two cohorts in industrialized countries, they were not found in non-industrialized indigenous groups. In them, inflammation was influenced by infections and absolutely not by age.
Levels of inflammation that do not increase with age
“In industrialized environments, we observe clear ties between inflammation and diseases such as chronic renal insufficiency, said the principal author, Alan Cohen, associate professor of environmental health sciences at the Columbia Mailman School in a press release. But in populations with high infection rates, inflammation seems to reflect the burden of infectious diseases than aging itself. ”
Besides, if the indigenous populations had high levels of inflammation, sometimes even in young adults, they did not increase with age and also did not lead the chronic diseases that we know in industrialized societies.
Immune aging specific to lifestyles
Thus 66 % of Tsimané suffered from at least one parasitic infection and 70 % of Orang Asli had at least one persistent infection. But with them, inflammatory markers were not linked to chronic diseases. These diseases – diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, neurodegenerative diseases – are rare or even absent in these populations. “These results seriously question the idea that inflammation is harmful in itself”, commented Alan Cohen
The study also calls into question the hypothesis of universal aging biomarkers. According to these results, the immune aging process would be specific to lifestyle, environmental exhibitions and infections. And not to age. “Inflammaging may not be a direct consequence of aging, but rather a response to industrial life conditions.” Understanding how all of these elements interact could be a track for the development of effective planet’s effective health strategies.
