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Cause of Aging: Inflammation?
By john | January 1, 2008
Just finished reading an excellent article here about a potential huge cause of aging: inflammation. From the article:
“Inflammatory factors predict virtually all bad outcomes in humans,” says Russell Tracy, a professor of pathology and biochemistry at the University of Vermont College of Medicine, whose pioneering research helped demonstrate the role of inflammation in heart disease. “It predicts having heart attacks, having heart failure, becoming diabetic; predicts becoming fragile in old age; predicts cognitive function decline, even cancer to a certain extent.”
And this:
So why should our own immune system rely on such an apparently dangerous mechanism? The answer lies in the fact that infectious disease has historically been the number one killer of human beings, and responding to this threat has profoundly shaped our biology. Possessing a fierce and ferocious immune response primed to keep us alive long enough to reproduce was an evolutionary no-brainer.
My takeaway from the article is this: the less you get sick, the less inflammation, and the longer you might live. Just another reason to eat healthy and exercise regularly, in particular to keep inflammation from occurring in your body
Topics: aging |