Your immune system is meant to flare up, fight something off, and then calm down. That’s acute inflammation doing its job. But there’s a quieter, slower process that researchers have been paying close attention to over the past two decades: a persistent, low-level inflammatory state that builds gradually as we age. Scientists call it inflammaging, a portmanteau of inflammation and ageing, and the evidence linking it to conditions like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cognitive decline, and even depression is substantial enough to take seriously.
The good news is that inflammaging isn’t something that just happens to you. Daily choices — particularly around food, sleep, movement, and stress — appear to meaningfully influence the pace at which this background inflammation accumulates. None of this is about expensive supplements or extreme protocols. It’s about the ordinary stuff, done consistently.
What exactly is inflammaging?
The term was coined by Italian immunologist Claudio Franceschi around the year 2000. The concept describes how, as we get older, the immune system shifts into a kind of low-level alert state. Inflammatory markers such as interleukin-6 (IL-6) and C-reactive protein (CRP) tend to rise with age even in people who appear broadly healthy. This isn’t the dramatic swelling you’d see with an infection or injury; it’s subtle, often undetectable without a blood test, and largely symptom-free for years.
Over time, however, this chronic low-grade inflammation appears to accelerate tissue damage, impair cellular repair, and increase susceptibility to age-related disease. Think of it less like a fire and more like a very slow smoulder that gradually weakens the building around it.
How ultra-processed food feeds the fire
The relationship between diet and inflammation is one of the more robust areas of nutritional research. Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) — a category that now makes up roughly 57% of the average UK adult’s calorie intake according to research from the University of São Paulo analysed with UK dietary data — are consistently associated with raised inflammatory markers.
UPFs are broadly foods that have been industrially formulated with ingredients you wouldn’t find in a home kitchen: emulsifiers, modified starches, artificial colours, flavour enhancers. Think supermarket chicken nuggets, pre-packaged ready meals, most flavoured crisps, and cheap sliced bread with a long shelf life. These aren’t just empty calories; several emulsifiers used in UPFs appear to disrupt the gut lining and alter the microbiome in ways that prime the immune system toward a more inflammatory baseline.
Reducing UPF intake doesn’t require a complete dietary overhaul. Prioritising whole foods — oily fish like mackerel or sardines (rich in omega-3 fatty acids), a wide variety of vegetables, legumes, nuts, and olive oil — is a reasonable, evidence-backed starting point. The Mediterranean dietary pattern has some of the strongest data behind it in terms of reducing markers like CRP and IL-6. You don’t need to move to Tuscany; you just need to nudge the ratio.
Sleep and the inflammatory clock
Poor sleep is one of the most reliable ways to accelerate inflammaging, and it’s one that many people underestimate. Research consistently shows that sleeping fewer than six hours a night is associated with significantly elevated inflammatory markers, while disrupted or fragmented sleep (even at adequate total duration) can have a similar effect.
During deep sleep, the body carries out critical maintenance: clearing cellular debris from the brain, regulating cortisol, and modulating immune function. Cutting that short on a chronic basis is roughly analogous to never letting a factory run its overnight maintenance cycle. Things start to accumulate. For practical guidance on sleep hygiene, the NHS provides a reliable evidence-based framework at nhs.uk.
Movement: the anti-inflammatory medicine hiding in plain sight
Physical activity has a direct anti-inflammatory effect, and this is one of the more exciting findings in the inflammaging space. Skeletal muscle, when it contracts, releases signalling molecules called myokines. Some of these, particularly IL-6 produced acutely during exercise (which behaves differently to chronically elevated IL-6), appear to have downstream anti-inflammatory effects.
You don’t need to be training for a marathon. The evidence supports moderate, consistent movement: brisk walking, swimming, cycling, strength training two to three times a week. A fortnight of sofa-bound inactivity is enough to measurably worsen inflammatory markers in previously active individuals. Consistency, in other words, is the mechanism. The body responds to what it’s repeatedly asked to do.
There’s also a compounding benefit here. Regular movement improves sleep quality, helps regulate blood glucose (a key driver of inflammatory signalling), and reduces visceral fat, which is itself an active producer of pro-inflammatory cytokines. These effects aren’t separate; they reinforce each other, which is why thinking about body systems as isolated problems rarely serves us well.
Stress, cortisol, and chronic immune activation
Psychological stress activates the sympathetic nervous system and triggers cortisol release. In short bursts, this is entirely appropriate and not harmful. But chronic stress, the low-level ambient kind that many people in the UK experience through financial pressure, work demands, or poor work-life balance, keeps cortisol elevated for sustained periods. And cortisol, over time, has a paradoxical effect on inflammation: it initially suppresses it, but prolonged exposure appears to reduce immune cells’ sensitivity to cortisol’s signal, effectively removing the brake.
This is where process efficiency offers an interesting analogy. When a system is chronically overloaded and never gets a chance to reset, its ability to manage any individual demand degrades. The same is true of the stress-immune axis. Giving the nervous system regular opportunities to downregulate — through breathwork, time in green spaces, social connection, or deliberate rest — isn’t indulgent; it’s genuinely protective.
Mindfulness-based practices have decent evidence behind them specifically for reducing inflammatory markers. A 2019 review in Brain, Behaviour, and Immunity found that mindfulness meditation produced small but meaningful reductions in circulating CRP. This isn’t magic; it’s physiology.
What inflammaging research actually tells us to do
The frustrating and liberating truth is that there’s no single lever to pull. Inflammaging appears to be a cumulative product of many inputs, which means there’s no silver bullet, but also means there are many places to make meaningful progress. The habits most consistently supported by research are:
- Reducing ultra-processed food and increasing dietary variety, particularly fibre-rich plant foods and oily fish
- Protecting sleep, both duration (seven to nine hours for most adults) and quality
- Moving regularly, with a mix of aerobic activity and resistance training across the week
- Managing chronic psychological stress through whatever sustainable methods work for you
- Maintaining social connection, which has independent anti-inflammatory effects in the research literature
None of these require a prescription or a hefty spend. Most are free or nearly so. The challenge, as ever, is not knowledge but consistency, and treating these habits not as a detox phase but as the background setting of daily life.
Inflammaging will occur to some degree regardless. But the pace at which it accumulates, and the extent to which it contributes to disease risk, appears to be substantially within our influence. Starting with sleep and food quality, the two with the broadest downstream effects, is a reasonable place to begin.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is inflammaging and how does it differ from normal inflammation?
Inflammaging refers to the chronic, low-grade inflammatory state that develops gradually with age, even in people who appear healthy. Unlike acute inflammation, which spikes in response to infection or injury and then resolves, inflammaging persists at a low level and is associated with increased risk of age-related diseases including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and cognitive decline.
Can you test for inflammaging with a blood test in the UK?
There is no single definitive test, but markers like C-reactive protein (CRP) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) are sometimes measured as part of broader health assessments. Some private health clinics in the UK offer inflammatory marker panels, though these are not routinely available on the NHS unless there is a clinical reason to investigate.
Which foods are most linked to chronic low-grade inflammation?
Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) including ready meals, flavoured snacks, reconstituted meat products, and many mass-produced baked goods are most consistently associated with raised inflammatory markers. Conversely, diets rich in oily fish, vegetables, legumes, nuts, and olive oil, broadly resembling a Mediterranean pattern, are associated with lower levels of inflammation.
How much exercise do you need to reduce inflammaging?
Research suggests that consistency matters more than intensity. Meeting the NHS guidelines of at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity per week, combined with muscle-strengthening activities on two or more days, appears to produce meaningful anti-inflammatory benefits over time. Even regular brisk walking has been shown to reduce circulating inflammatory markers.
Does stress really make inflammation worse as you age?
Yes, chronic psychological stress is linked to persistently elevated inflammatory markers, partly because prolonged cortisol exposure appears to reduce immune cells’ sensitivity to cortisol’s natural anti-inflammatory signal. Practices that support nervous system regulation, such as mindfulness, time outdoors, and maintaining social connection, have modest but real evidence behind them for reducing this effect.