It’s been a long-accepted reality that with age comes increased inflammation—a phenomenon so widely recognized it has been dubbed “inflammaging.” This age-related chronic inflammation is often linked to serious health concerns such as cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s. However, new research published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B suggests that inflammaging may not be as universal as previously thought.
The study, titled “Inflammaging is minimal among forager-horticulturalists in the Bolivian Amazon,” highlights minimal inflammaging in one non-industrialized community and notes an increase in inflammation with moderate levels of modernization in another. Led by Jacob Aronoff, a postdoctoral research scholar at Arizona State University’s School of Human Evolution and Social Change, the study examined two communities in the Bolivian Amazon: the Tsimane and Moseten.
A Unique Glimpse into Pre-Industrial Health
The Tsimane, a community of over 17,000 people across 90 villages in the lowlands of the Bolivian Amazon, live a hunter-farmer lifestyle reminiscent of human life before the Industrial Revolution. This offers researchers a unique opportunity to study health and aging processes unaffected by modern-day influences. Previous studies have shown that the Tsimane have some of the healthiest hearts and lowest rates of Alzheimer’s and dementia globally.
Benjamin Trumble, senior author of the study and professor at ASU’s School of Human Evolution and Social Change, co-directs the Tsimane Health and Life History Project. This project, which has been in place for over two decades, involves collecting demographic and biomedical data and providing medical care for the Tsimane community.
Comparative Analysis with the Moseten
To deepen their findings, the researchers also examined the Moseten, who are genetically similar to the Tsimane but underwent significant cultural changes 300 years ago when Jesuit missionaries settled among them. Today, the Moseten have access to modern amenities such as running water, electricity, and indoor plumbing.
“They’re still the same genetic group, same language group, but the Moseten now have running water, electricity, and indoor plumbing,” said Trumble, who is also a research scientist with ASU’s Institute of Human Origins and core faculty of the Center for Evolution and Medicine. “They’re kind of in an in-between place where they aren’t as industrialized as people living in the U.S., but they aren’t as traditional as a population like the Tsimane that’s still living much more like most of our human ancestors.”
This intermediate stage of modernization provides an interesting comparison for the researchers. “We measured them together in the same lab, using the same technology, and we found clearly more pronounced inflammaging in the Moseten, suggesting that inflammaging—to a large extent—is a product of industrialized lifestyles,” Aronoff explained.
Environmental and Lifestyle Influences on Inflammaging
The findings challenge the notion that inflammation is an inevitable part of aging. While more research is needed, the study suggests that environmental and lifestyle factors, such as diet and exercise, significantly impact inflammaging. It also indicates that even slight modernization can deviate the human body from its ancestral health path.
“For 99% of human history, we were physically active hunter-gatherers. Now with sedentary urban city life, we are basically operating outside the ‘manufacturer’s recommended warranty’ right now,” Trumble noted. “By working with populations that are living a more traditional lifestyle, we can get a better idea of what the baseline for human health is.”
Other possibilities include high parasitic and pathogen exposure, which is common among the Tsimane but lacking in industrialized communities. This exposure may influence the immune system’s response and contribute to the Tsimane’s lack of age-related inflammation.
“We’ve eliminated most of our parasites, and that’s a good thing. We should keep it that way,” said Trumble. “But there may be a way we can harness the potential without the negative impact.”
Future Directions and Implications
The research opens the door to potential future interventions. “One of the things that we could do in the future, potentially, is instead of, say, people getting infected with hookworm, we could figure out what are the proteins on the surface of hookworm cells—and what if we could turn that into a drug that people could take and trick our immune system,” Trumble suggested. “Our immune system would think we had that problem, and then it would develop differently to fight that off.”
Much like vaccinations for viruses like the flu, where controlled pathogenic exposure boosts the immune system’s response, a similar approach could one day apply to age-related inflammation. However, Trumble warns there is no “silver bullet,” as lifestyle and diet are also likely major contributors to inflammaging.
“We have future studies underway to look at diets, physical activity, and infectious exposures that the Tsimane are infected with that can have these anti-inflammatory effects. We’re going to have to do a lot of future studies to figure out what, exactly, are all the factors and how they work together,” explained Aronoff.
As researchers continue to explore the intricacies of inflammaging, these findings highlight the complex interplay between genetics, environment, and lifestyle, offering a promising avenue for understanding and potentially mitigating age-related inflammation.
