Aging is generally associated with an increase in chronic inflammation. There are multiple hypothesis why that might be the case, including cellular senescence causing issues that the immune system tries to clear up to issues with the immune system itself.

These chronic inflammations are associated with a wide range of issues, including dementia.

This study is interesting as it provides some preliminary information challenging the notion by looking at inflammation markers across populations with different levels of industrialization. And found that in non-industrialized populations, inflammation is associated with infections, but not with aging, compared to industrialized countries. It suggest that there is a lifestyle effect that impacts how we age.

It should also be noted that while there are biomarkers associated with inflammation, they are rather broad with different molecular functions and there is no consensus panel that we can pull out, rather it is a bit of a patchwork of markers that are involved in immune signalling (e.g., cytokines) and/or modulating immune responses.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-025-00888-0

The Tsimane and Orang Asli showed markedly different axis structures with little to no association with age and no association with age-related diseases. Inflammaging, as measured in this manner in these cohorts, thus appears to be largely a byproduct of industrialized lifestyles, with major variation across environments and populations.

Gastrointestinal inflammation triggered by what we eat, particularly emulsifiers, is an active interest of mine atm. I'm starting to look at what I eat that detrimentally affects the gut lining and its associated flora. As I get older. I'm in my early 60's, I'm finding what I eat affects the chemical equilibrium of my stomach and guts. Re: emulsifiers, a lot of the pre-made food I eat contains synthetic emulsifiers that are known to compromise the ability of the mucous layer to act as an effective physical barrier to the gut flora, allowing them to detrimentally interact more closely with surface cells of the gut and stomach. These can cause inflammatory responses along the lining, leading to compromised colonic functioning. It was also, interestingly, recently reported that certain gut bacteria are strongly associated with multiple sclerosis onset. A friend, who has MS, mentioned coincidentally that it has been suggested to him by his medical care team to eat more probiotics. There does seem to be an increasing publicly-aimed focus on gut functioning and its associated inflammatory vulnerabilities.

Edited July 1Jul 1 by StringJunky

From Nature Article Abstract

with major variation across environments and populations.

I do not have access to the article itself, but this line in the abstract stood out for me.

The question

What are these major variations and what are the sample sizes they represent ?

seems highly significant to me.

Some more information is available here

https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/news/aging-related-inflammation-not-universal-across-human-populations

The BBC also ran the article with comments, a couple of days ago but I cna't find it now.

+1 for raising it and to stringjunky for his additional information.

15 hours ago, StringJunky said:

Gastrointestinal inflammation triggered by what we eat, particularly emulsifiers, is an active interest of mine atm. I'm starting to look at what I eat that detrimentally affects the gut lining and its associated flora. As I get older. I'm in my early 60's, I'm finding what I eat affects the chemical equilibrium of my stomach and guts. Re: emulsifiers, a lot of the pre-made food I eat contains synthetic emulsifiers that are known to compromise the ability of the mucous layer to act as an effective physical barrier to the gut flora, allowing them to detrimentally interact more closely with surface cells of the gut and stomach. These can cause inflammatory responses along the lining, leading to compromised colonic functioning. It was also, interestingly, recently reported that certain gut bacteria are strongly associated with multiple sclerosis onset. A friend, who has MS, mentioned coincidentally that it has been suggested to him by his medical care team to eat more probiotics. There does seem to be an increasing publicly-aimed focus on gut functioning and its associated inflammatory vulnerabilities.

Yup. I got rid of emulsifiers, ultra processed junk, high FODMAPs and bad lipids, and it dialed inflammation way down. Fermented food generally seems to help - Icelandic oat skyr has been a revelation. People should have a chance to live the lifespan their telomeres allow, and not the whim of irritable immune systems.

7 hours ago, studiot said:

I do not have access to the article itself, but this line in the abstract stood out for me.

The question

What are these major variations and what are the sample sizes they represent ?

seems highly significant to me.

Some more information is available here

https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/news/aging-related-inflammation-not-universal-across-human-populations

The BBC also ran the article with comments, a couple of days ago but I cna't find it now.

+1 for raising it and to stringjunky for his additional information.

So just some quick information, will add details when I got more time, but all cohorts are longitudinal: InCHANTI cohort is an Italian age study with ~1,500 folks with a broad age range, the Singapore study (SLAS-2, IIRC) had close to 3,000 with mostly folks >55. The Tsimane cohort (TLHP) had around 600ish participants. I am not familiar with the Orang Asli cohort and will need to dig out the paper again.

I remember looking into emulsifiers and being told they were biologically inert, but it never made sense to me since so much of our body's system relies on gravity for one reason or another. Keeping particles suspended when they normally would sink can't be good for the system. All so we don't have to shake the bottle, and so the product always looks better on the shelves.

22 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

I remember looking into emulsifiers and being told they were biologically inert, but it never made sense to me since so much of our body's system relies on gravity for one reason or another. Keeping particles suspended when they normally would sink can't be good for the system. All so we don't have to shake the bottle, and so the product always looks better on the shelves.

Yes, emulsifiers seems mainly about maintaining visual presentation for as long as possible. Inflammatory responses to the often synthetic additives in food seem to initiate a lot of common first world health problems.