What Is Inflammaging and Can You Actually Change It?

“Inflammaging” sounds like a word invented by the wellness industry to sell you something.

It wasn’t.

The term was introduced by researchers in 2000 to describe a pattern they were seeing in older adults: chronic, low-grade inflammation that persists even when there is no obvious infection or injury.

Unlike the inflammation that makes your ankle swell after a sprain, inflammaging is usually quiet.

You may not feel it.

There is no flashing warning light.

But over years or decades, this persistent immune activation may contribute to many of the conditions we associate with aging, including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, frailty, cognitive decline and some cancers.

That sounds alarming.

The more useful question is whether it’s inevitable.

And increasingly, the answer appears to be no.

Before we try to eliminate inflammation, we need to understand why it exists.

Inflammation is one of the body’s most important survival systems. When you encounter an infection, cut your skin or damage muscle during a workout, your immune system sends inflammatory signals to contain the threat and begin repair.

That is acute inflammation.

It turns on for a reason and, ideally, turns off when the job is done.

Inflammaging is different.

Think of acute inflammation as a fire department responding to an emergency.

Inflammaging is more like a crew that never fully leaves. The trucks remain outside. The alarms keep chirping. Resources continue being diverted, even though there is no fire to put out.

The problem isn’t that the immune system is working, it’s that it may have trouble returning to baseline.

There is no single cause.

As we age, damaged cells and cellular debris accumulate. Some older cells enter a state known as senescence. They stop dividing but remain biologically active, releasing inflammatory molecules that can affect nearby tissue.

Visceral fat can also produce inflammatory signals. So can poor metabolic health, disrupted sleep, smoking, chronic infections, inactivity and changes in the gut microbiome.

At the same time, the aging immune system may become less precise. It can be slower to respond to a real threat while remaining more activated in the background.

This creates a frustrating combination: less effective immunity when you need it, more inflammation when you don’t.

But there’s an important nuance.

Researchers still don’t have one universally accepted way to measure inflammaging. Markers such as high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, or hs-CRP, interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor-alpha can provide information, but none offers a complete “inflammaging score.” A single elevated marker is a signal requiring context, not proof that your body is aging badly.

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For years, inflammaging was often presented as a near-universal consequence of getting older.

Then researchers looked beyond industrialized populations.

A 2025 study published in Nature Aging compared inflammatory patterns across older adults in Italy and Singapore with two non-industrialized Indigenous populations: the Tsimane in Bolivia and the Orang Asli in Malaysia.

The classic inflammaging pattern appeared in the industrialized populations.

It did not consistently appear in the nonindustrialized groups.

The researchers concluded that inflammaging, at least as measured through the cytokines in their study, may be heavily influenced by industrialized environments and lifestyles rather than aging alone.

This doesn’t prove that aging has nothing to do with inflammation, but it does suggest that the environment in which we age matters.

Our food, movement, sleep, metabolic health, infections, stress and daily exposures may shape the inflammatory burden we accumulate over time.

Age may load the gun.

Lifestyle and environment may influence how often the trigger gets pulled.

Probably, but not through one intervention.

The strongest evidence points toward reducing the major inputs that keep the immune system activated.

Exercise is one of the most reliable tools we have.

A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials in older adults found that exercise training reduced several inflammatory markers, although the effects varied according to the type of exercise and the health of the participants.

Resistance training appears especially valuable because it addresses several problems at once.

It helps preserve muscle.

It improves glucose disposal.

It can reduce visceral fat.

And over time, it may lower resting inflammatory markers. A separate meta-analysis found that resistance training reduced CRP in older adults, with more consistent benefits in longer and more frequent programs.

The lesson isn’t that one hard workout “detoxes” inflammation, it’s that a body that moves regularly tends to manage inflammatory signals better than one that doesn’t.

Fat tissue isn’t simply stored energy, it’s metabolically active tissue.

Visceral fat - the fat stored around internal organs - can release inflammatory molecules and contribute to insulin resistance.

In a randomized trial of women with obesity, a two-year lifestyle intervention combining a Mediterranean-style eating pattern, increased physical activity and weight loss lowered CRP, IL-6 and other inflammatory markers.

This isn’t a message about pursuing thinness, it’s a message about improving metabolic function.

Waist circumference, blood pressure, glucose regulation, triglycerides, fitness and muscle mass often tell us more than body weight alone.

There is no berry, spice or green powder that switches off inflammaging.

Dietary patterns matter more than individual ingredients.

In a randomized trial involving 180 people with metabolic syndrome, a Mediterranean-style diet improved endothelial function and reduced markers of vascular inflammation compared with conventional dietary advice.

In practical terms, that pattern looks familiar:

Vegetables and fruit.

Beans and lentils.

Nuts and seeds.

Olive oil.

Fish.

Adequate protein.

High-fiber carbohydrates.

Fewer ultra-processed foods.

The value isn’t in eating perfectly, it’s in creating a food environment that your metabolism and immune system can handle repeatedly for decades.

As I’ve written about in the past, sleep is not simply downtime for the brain.

It’s part of immune regulation.

A systematic review and meta-analysis found that sleep disturbance was associated with higher levels of CRP and IL-6, two commonly studied markers of systemic inflammation.

One bad night isn’t going to age you overnight.

But years of fragmented, inconsistent or insufficient sleep may become another signal telling the body that something is wrong.

This is also why persistent snoring, suspected sleep apnea or chronic insomnia shouldn’t be dismissed as inconveniences. They deserve attention.

The goal isn’t to suppress your immune system.

You need inflammation to heal, adapt to exercise and fight infection.

The goal is flexibility.

A healthy immune system should be capable of responding aggressively when necessary and settling down afterward.

That’s the difference between resilience and chronic activation.

It’s also why I would be cautious about anyone selling an “anti-inflammaging protocol” based on one blood test or one supplement stack.

Inflammaging isn’t a disease that can be diagnosed with a single consumer score.

Instead, it’s a biological pattern shaped by many systems.

I wouldn’t begin with an exotic test.

I would begin with the areas most likely to lower unnecessary inflammatory load while improving nearly every other dimension of health:

• Strength train two or three times each week.

• Walk most days and build cardiovascular fitness.

• Eat mostly minimally processed foods with adequate protein and fiber.

• Protect a consistent sleep schedule.

• Improve blood pressure, glucose regulation and visceral fat when necessary.

• Stop smoking.

• Address chronic dental problems, untreated sleep disorders and other ongoing sources of inflammation with the appropriate clinician.

Then, where clinically appropriate, use markers such as hs-CRP as context rather than as a verdict.

The objective isn’t to micromanage every cytokine. It’s to build a body that has fewer reasons to remain on high alert.

Inflammaging matters because it connects many of the things we already care about:

Muscle. Metabolism. Cardiovascular health. Brain health. Recovery. Immune function.

But it also teaches us something more encouraging: aging isn’t simply a collection of biological processes happening to us - it’s an ongoing interaction between our biology and our environment.

You can’t control every part of that interaction, but you can influence more of it than you may think.

Inflammaging isn’t something you defeat with a hack, it’s something you gradually turn down through the same unglamorous behaviors that repeatedly show up in credible longevity research.

Movement. Strength. Sleep. Metabolic health. Real food. Consistency.

Not a perfect life, just a body with fewer fires to fight.

Yours in Health,

Ryan Frankel