Inflammation is part of your immune system’s normal response when something happens that your body needs to deal with. If you cut your finger, for example, the area becomes red, warm, swollen, or sore. This is your immune system responding to the area to protect the damaged tissue and start repairing it. Once the problem has been handled, that inflammatory response should settle down.

But inflammation doesn’t always happen in a way you can see or feel, and it doesn’t always shut down completely. As we get older, a much lower level of inflammation can continue in the body for long periods of time.

Researchers call this inflammaging. It describes the low-grade, ongoing inflammation associated with aging that can gradually affect cells and tissues even though you feel perfectly fine. (Nature Reviews Cardiology)

It’s not something you wake up one morning and notice. It happens while you feel fine, going about your day working, traveling, exercising, going out to dinner, and living your normal life. Over years, however, that ongoing inflammation can affect how well different parts of your body function and is associated with a lot of the health problems that become more common as we get older. (Nature Reviews Cardiology)

Why Does Inflammaging Happen?

As we get older, the immune system changes. An inflammatory response that once settled down fairly quickly can stay active longer, leaving more inflammation in the body even after the original problem has passed. (Nature Reviews Immunology)

Aging cells can add to that. Some damaged or worn-out cells are removed, while others stay in the body and release substances that keep the immune system switched on. As more of these cells build up over the years, they can add to the ongoing inflammation associated with aging. (Nature Reviews Cardiology)

Daily habits can add to it too. Poor sleep, inactivity, smoking, chronic stress, and higher amounts of abdominal fat have all been linked with more chronic inflammation. That means inflammaging develops from a combination of the changes that happen as we age and the things that keep adding inflammatory stress over time. (Nature Medicine)

What Influences Inflammaging?

Once you understand where inflammaging comes from, the next question is what can help keep that inflammation low. This is where your daily habits matter, because some of them can either add to chronic inflammation or help reduce it over time.

Regular exercise is one of the clearest examples. Reviews of exercise studies in older adults have found that ongoing exercise reduces markers of chronic inflammation. That gives you a strong reason to keep moving as you get older. (Cytokine)

Sleep matters too. When poor sleep becomes a regular pattern, it can affect the immune system and is associated with higher levels of inflammation. The concern isn’t one bad night, but when disrupted sleep becomes the way you sleep most nights. (Biological Psychiatry)

Stress can affect inflammation through a different pathway. When stress becomes chronic, the hormones and signals involved in the stress response can change the way the immune system functions and contribute to higher levels of inflammation over time. (Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews)

None of this means a stressful week, a few bad nights of sleep, or a vacation with less exercise is aging you overnight. Inflammaging happens over time.

How Food Affects Inflammation

What you eat can cause inflammation in several ways. Food affects blood sugar, body fat, the bacteria living in your gut, and whether your body has the nutrients it needs for your immune system to work properly. Because these things happen every day, what you eat regularly affects the amount of low-level inflammation your body needs to deal with over time. (Nature Medicine)

One of the eating styles that has been studied extensively is the Mediterranean diet because it’s full of vegetables, fruit, beans, whole grains, nuts, seeds, olive oil, and fish. A review of randomized trials found that people following a Mediterranean diet had reductions in several markers of inflammation compared with control diets. (Nutrition Reviews)

There are reasons those foods affect inflammation. Fatty fish such as salmon, sardines, mackerel, and trout provide the omega-3 fats EPA and DHA, which the body uses to make compounds that help bring an inflammatory response to an end. Walnuts, chia seeds, and flaxseed provide a different omega-3 called ALA. Your body converts some ALA into EPA and DHA, but only a small amount is converted, so plant sources of omega-3s don’t provide the same amounts of EPA and DHA that you get directly from fish. (British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology; NIH Office of Dietary Supplements)

Many of these foods also provide magnesium, zinc, and other nutrients the immune system needs to respond normally. Magnesium is found in foods including pumpkin seeds, almonds, beans, spinach, and dark chocolate, while zinc is found in meat, shellfish, dairy foods, beans, nuts, and seeds. Vitamin D, which also plays a role in immune function, is found naturally in foods such as fatty fish and egg yolks, is added to some fortified foods, and can also be made by the body when skin is exposed to sunlight. (NIH Office of Dietary Supplements: Magnesium; Zinc; Vitamin D)

Plant foods bring something else to the table. Berries, vegetables, fruit, tea, coffee, cocoa, herbs, and spices contain compounds called polyphenols. Research has found that polyphenol-rich foods can affect inflammatory activity in the body, and some evidence suggests that getting these compounds from whole foods may have a greater effect than taking isolated polyphenol extracts or supplements. (Nutrition Reviews)

This is why the conversation about food and inflammation is much broader than finding a few foods labeled “anti-inflammatory.” Different foods provide different fats, nutrients, fiber, and plant compounds that affect the processes involved in inflammation in different ways.

Body Fat Can Contribute to Chronic Inflammation

Fat tissue is active tissue that releases hormones and other substances that communicate with the rest of your body. As body fat increases, especially the fat stored deeper in the abdomen around your organs, it can contribute to low-level chronic inflammation. This is why a growing waistline can matter even when your weight hasn’t changed dramatically. (European Journal of Clinical Investigation)

As we get older, we can also lose muscle while gaining fat without seeing much movement on the scale. Regular physical activity and strength training help preserve muscle and can help reduce the amount of fat that contributes to chronic inflammation. (The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition; Cytokine)

Your Gut Is Part of This Too

Your digestive tract is home to trillions of microorganisms, called your gut microbiome. They interact with your immune system every day.

Your microbiome changes as you age, and diet, medications, physical activity, health conditions, and other factors affect those changes. Researchers are studying how changes in the gut can contribute to inflammaging and the way the immune system changes with age. (Ageing Research Reviews)

Fiber-rich foods such as vegetables, fruit, beans, whole grains, nuts, and seeds help feed the bacteria living in your gut. That can affect the balance of your gut microbiome and the way it interacts with your immune system. (The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition)

What This Means for How You Age

Inflammaging happens gradually, which is part of what makes it easy to ignore. You can feel fine, stay busy, work, travel, exercise, and go about your normal life while low-level inflammation is still affecting what’s happening inside your body.

Over time, the things you do repeatedly can affect how much chronic inflammation is happening in your body. Sleep, exercise, food, stress, smoking, and changes in waist size can all be part of that. (Nature Medicine)

Aging is about more than the number of years you’ve been alive. What’s been happening in your body during those years matters too.

If you’re noticing changes in your energy, sleep, waist size, strength, recovery, or health markers and aren’t sure whether they’re connected, the Health Changes Brief will help you understand what deserves a closer look and what may need to be considered together.

Request the Health Changes Brief.