Covid-19 & Health Update: What is Inflammaging??

RVAchironeuro • October 7, 2021

Hey everyone:

I am continuing the theme of managing inflammation as a crucial part of health promotion and prevention of age-related illness. Here are some quotes from an excellent paper that summarizes this enormous amount of data into an easy-to-understand introduction:

“The progressively older population in developed countries is reflected in an increase in the number of people suffering from age-related chronic inflammatory diseases such as metabolic syndrome, diabetes, heart and lung diseases, cancer, osteoporosis, arthritis, and dementia.

The common denominator of these factors is the inflammatory response. Chronic low-grade systemic inflammation during physiological aging and immune senescence are intertwined in the pathogenesis of premature aging also defined as ‘inflammaging.’ The latter has been associated with frailty, morbidity, and mortality in elderly subjects.

Today, human diet is believed to have a major influence on both the development and prevention of age-related diseases. Most plant-derived dietary phytochemicals and macro- and micronutrients modulate oxidative stress and inflammatory signaling and regulate metabolic pathways and bioenergetics that can be translated into stable epigenetic patterns of gene expression. Therefore, diet interventions designed for healthy aging have become a hot topic in nutritional epigenomic research.

Remarkably, humans present a broad range of responses to similar dietary challenges due to both genetic and epigenetic modulations of the expression of target proteins and key genes involved in the metabolism and distribution of the dietary constituents. Here, we will summarize the epigenetic actions of dietary components, including phytochemicals, and macro- and micronutrients as well as metabolites, that can attenuate inflammaging.”

Bottom Line:

Just a few brief comments related to the highlighted text above:

  • Age related disorders are now seen across all age groups. For example, we are now seeing Type 2 Diabetes in young people whereas this was traditionally known only in the more elderly.
  • Chronic low-grade inflammation is now seen in all ages as most of our citizens have between one to five chronic conditions…all of which are fueled by inflammation.
  • Diet is THE major influence on creating and sustaining chronic inflammation and disease across all age groups.
  • Due to the remarkable broad range of individual responses to foods, there is no one dietary strategy that works for everyone…which is why I consistently recommend that you go through the Elimination Diet or the Renew Food Plan available on my website in the Resource section on Diet. This is how you find your own unique food plan that works for you!

  Why do I continue to write about this?? Because of what I have witnessed, in my own life and in the lives of those who come to our office to improve their health, when people eat clean, organic, unprocessed food…it is often seemingly miraculous how the body can renew itself. Most often I recommend the Elimination Diet or the Renew Food Plan and get to witness impressive results in those that stick with it.

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Health News Update: Pesticides, Cancer & Why Go Organic

By Mark Smith • June 29, 2026
Health News Update: Pesticides, Cancer & Why Go Organic 6.29.26 Hello everyone: Slowly but surely, despite the health and food industries downplaying the risks, evidence is emerging that the long-term consumption of trace amounts of toxic chemicals can add up to some serious health consequences. “Our process-based model, encompassing 31 key pesticide active ingredients, together with an innovative stratification of cancer cases by developmental lineage, reveals a robust spatial association between environmental pesticide exposure risk and cancer incidence. In pesticide-associated cancer hotspots, exposomic profiling of liver tissue—a primary target of chemical carcinogens—uncovers a distinct transcriptomic signature of pesticide exposure, implicating a non-genotoxic mode of action that disrupts core regulatory circuitries sustaining cell identity. Collectively, these findings strongly support a mechanistic link between pesticide exposure and cancer, challenging assumptions of human non-carcinogenicity derived from reductionist experimental models. This study redefines the exposome as a lineage-conditioned, mechanistically tractable framework and shows how complex pesticide mixtures can contribute to carcinogenic trajectories, with profound and far-reaching implications for global health policy and socio-ecological equity.” https://www.nature.com/articles/s44360-026-00087-0 pesticide exposure & cancer risks Bottom Line: Whenever possible, purchase your food from organic sources including local farmers that use regenerative and organic practices. Not all foods need to be organic, and to decide which ones absolutely need to be, you can access the Environmental Working Group’s yearly list of the Dirty Dozen foods that are the highest in pesticide residues. This will also include the Clean 15 foods that do not need to be organic as they are usually grown without or with very low pesticide levels. https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/dirty-dozen.php dirty dozen food guide Additionally, high quality nutrients support the natural detox processes our bodies use to get rid of any and all toxins. When we consume the Standard American Diet or Westernized Diet, we are low in the nutrients and co-factors needed to support optimal detox cleansing. So always start with food upgrades as they will carry your upgrade the farthest. Remember that most chronic health conditions start 20 years before you even notice them creeping up or becoming diagnosed. What you do now is creating your future. It used to be said that you are what you eat. Another way to say that is we become what we eat…so please take good care and make sure you always put high grade fuel into your Temple.

Health news Update: High Fat Diets Promote Inflammation and Illness

By Mark Smith • June 22, 2026
Health news Update: High Fat Diets Promote Inflammation and Illness 6.22.26 Hello again: This news has been slow to surface with the popularity of keto and paleo dietary trends, but the following information is what is known about the typical Standard American Diet, also known as the Western Diet. “Conclusion : HFD-associated low-grade inflammation results from overlapping effects of dysbiosis and high fat intake, with crosstalk between microbiota and fat-driven inflammatory processes independent of gut flora involving multiple mechanisms. For this reason, it is difficult to determine what occurs first, thus, HFD-driven dysbiosis and HFD-related inflammation should be considered partially independent but closely correlated mechanisms.” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8619527/ High fat promotes inflammation Bottom Line: As you all know by now, inflammation will cause, perpetuate, and/or aggravate every known illness or condition, including aging. The next logical question is what to eat? The answer is the Green Mediterranean food plan…which essentially going vegan but allowing some animal-based foods no more than 3 times per week. This takes some planning but is most easily achieved by using a ‘crowding out’ method. This is simply accomplished by including more and more unprocessed, whole plant-based foods in place of processed or fatty foods and naturally reducing those less than healthy items. Below is some more information to help you make the switch…knowing that you can improve your day-to-day nutrition by making small consistent upgraded choices is critical. Upgrades to improve your health path do not usually arise from one big resolution but from those small individual choices made every day…and these add up to some major improvements over several months and longer. “The gut microbiota is responsible for recovering energy from food, providing hosts with vitamins, and providing a barrier function against exogenous pathogens. In addition, it is involved in maintaining the integrity of the intestinal epithelial barrier, crucial for the functional maturation of the gut immune system. The Western diet (WD)—an unhealthy diet with high consumption of fats—can be broadly characterized by overeating, frequent snacking, and a prolonged postprandial state. The term WD is commonly known and intuitively understood. However, the strict digital expression of nutrient ratios is not precisely defined. Based on the US data for 1908–1989, the calory intake available from fats increased from 32% to 45%. Besides the metabolic aspects (hyperinsulinemia, insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, sympathetic nervous system and renin-angiotensin system overstimulation, and oxidative stress), the consequences of excessive fat consumption (high-fat diet—HFD) comprise dysbiosis, gut barrier dysfunction, increased intestinal permeability, and leakage of toxic bacterial metabolites into the circulation. These can strongly contribute to the development of low-grade systemic inflammation.”
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