Chronic Inflammation and Aging: Inflammaging

By Longevity Lab · Published: July 21, 2026

Based on peer-reviewed research — full source list at the end of this article. This is educational information, not medical advice.

Inflammaging is chronic, low-grade inflammation that rises with age and smolders for years without symptoms. Researchers treat it as one of the mechanisms that run through aging as a whole, because it shows up in heart disease, type 2 diabetes, dementia, Sarcopenia and frailty. The word “inflammation” usually brings to mind redness and pain, the acute protective response that flares and then settles down. The version that matters for longevity is quieter and far more persistent. Here is where inflammaging comes from, whether you can measure it, and what actually lowers it.

What inflammaging is

Acute inflammation is a normal mechanism: it reacts quickly to infection or injury and then fades. The problem is chronic low-grade inflammation, which smolders with no obvious cause and intensifies with age. The term coined for it is inflammaging (from inflammation + aging). It is not a disease but a background state that speeds up age-related processes throughout the body.

Why it matters for longevity

Chronic inflammation is now considered one of the common roots of age-related disease. It is woven into atherosclerosis, type 2 diabetes, neurodegeneration, osteoporosis, sarcopenia and frailty in old age. Precisely because it is a shared mechanism linking different diseases, longevity researchers find it so interesting: lowering the inflammatory background could in principle move several risks at once. Visceral fat sits at the center of that overlap, which is why a waist-based index such as the Lipid Accumulation Product (LAP) is used to gauge cardiometabolic risk more closely than body weight alone.

Where chronic inflammation comes from

The main sources:

• aging (senescent) cells, which release pro-inflammatory signals, covered in a separate article on senolytics;
• excess Visceral fat, because abdominal fat tissue actively produces inflammatory molecules;
• chronic stress and short sleep, which keep the inflammatory background up (see stress and aging);
• inactivity, smoking, and a diet heavy in ultra-processed food and sugar.

Can inflammation be measured

Partly. The widely available marker is hs-CRP — high-sensitivity C-reactive protein: it goes up with inflammation and is used in cardiovascular risk assessment. Other measures exist, including interleukin-6, but they are used less often in routine practice. One caveat matters: a single test reflects a lot of things, including a cold you had last week, so what counts is the trend, read together with your doctor. hs-CRP also feeds into composite estimates of biological age: it is one of the nine blood markers behind the PhenoAge Calculator — biological age from a blood test. There is more on the useful markers in the article on blood tests and biological age.

What lowers inflammation

The good news: you do not need exotic remedies. If stress and sleep are the part you are least sure about, the Stress-aging index calculator combines a PSS-10 score with sleep quality, activity and diet into a profile of accelerated aging. The basics are what the evidence supports:

1. regular physical activity, both aerobic exercise and strength training;
2. a diet rich in vegetables, fiber, fish and olive oil, with less ultra-processed food and sugar, along the lines of the Mediterranean pattern;
3. enough sleep and a way of handling stress;
4. quitting smoking and losing excess weight, especially around the abdomen.

“Anti-inflammatory” supplements and superfoods are often overrated. What moves the inflammatory background most is sleep, movement, body weight and quitting smoking.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

Disclaimer. This article is for information only and does not replace medical advice. Talk to a qualified clinician before changing anything about your health.