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Inflammation, but Not Telomere Length, Predicts Ageing at Extreme Old Age

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

101–110 of 157 posts

Re: Inflammation, but Not Telomere Length, Predicts Ageing at Extreme Old Age

#101

What is inflammation, exactly?

It's an immune system response.

It's your body trying to fix itself.

If you get injured, the inflammation around the wound is signaling your body to bring white blood cells to that location.

Unless you have some sort of imbalance in your body, like a genetic issue, it's usually better to target controlling the source of the inflammation rather than the inflammation itself.

Inflammation can be more mental than physical in many cases, as your body is going to react to your environment and the way you perceive it and raise and lower your cortisol levels accordingly.

This likely doesn't answer your question fully, but just some items to consider.

Re: Inflammation, but Not Telomere Length, Predicts Ageing at Extreme Old Age

#102
post #26

It's always strange to me how certain studies seem to gain so many upvotes on hackernews....a few thoughts: 1. This is a single study published in 2015, what does the wider literature say? Any dieticians or clinicians recommending anything from this? 2. The journal is EBioMedicine, which is not nothing but not exactly pre-eminent either. 3. This seems like just a common sense conclusion: "In Cox proportional hazard m…

All the things I've listened to regarding health an longevity have a recurring theme - inflammation happens a lot in modern life - and it decreases your lifespan.

I think type 2 diabetes is basically an inflammatory disease. More and more people are "pre-diabetes", which is basically lifestyle moving them towards type 2 diabetes.

Re: Inflammation, but Not Telomere Length, Predicts Ageing at Extreme Old Age

#103
post #102
post #26

It's always strange to me how certain studies seem to gain so many upvotes on hackernews....a few thoughts: 1. This is a single study published in 2015, what does the wider literature say? Any dieticians or clinicians recommending anything from this? 2. The journal is EBioMedicine, which is not nothing but not exactly pre-eminent either. 3. This seems like just a common sense conclusion: "In Cox proportional hazard m…

All the things I've listened to regarding health an longevity have a recurring theme - inflammation happens a lot in modern life - and it decreases your lifespan. I think type 2 diabetes is basically an inflammatory disease. More and more people are "pre-diabetes", which is basically lifestyle moving them towards type 2 diabetes.

But inflammation is just the body's natural respond to disease. Claiming inflammation hurts you is like saying wet streets cause rain.

Re: Inflammation, but Not Telomere Length, Predicts Ageing at Extreme Old Age

#104
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the things I've listened to regarding health an longevity have a recurring theme - inflammation happens a lot in modern life - and it decreases your lifespan. I think type 2 diabetes is basically an inflammatory disease. More and more people are "pre-diabetes", which is basically lifestyle moving them towards type 2 diabetes.

But inflammation is just the body's natural respond to disease. Claiming inflammation hurts you is like saying wet streets cause rain.

It might also be the body's natural response to a poor diet, or carrying too much weight.

Re: Inflammation, but Not Telomere Length, Predicts Ageing at Extreme Old Age

#105
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But inflammation is just the body's natural respond to disease. Claiming inflammation hurts you is like saying wet streets cause rain.

It might also be the body's natural response to a poor diet, or carrying too much weight.

Yes, you're more vulnerable to disease when you are living an unhealthy lifestyle. Shocker.

Re: Inflammation, but Not Telomere Length, Predicts Ageing at Extreme Old Age

#106
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious – are there legitimate ways to measure stress?

You could count the amount of hair loss or lack thereof. I bet hours of nightly REM sleep would be inversely correlated as well.

There is nothing wrong with hair loss, it is perfectly natural, even when young and it doesn't mean you are getting old, not even a little bit, it even can look good, OK?

Re: Inflammation, but Not Telomere Length, Predicts Ageing at Extreme Old Age

#107
post #93
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there's one thing that has become apparent during COVID, it's that there is great reason to be skeptical of "official government guidelines" of in situations like COVID (acutely emerging and constantly changing scenario.) They simply can't process information fast enough to make well informed statements. Now I don't have an opinion on ayurvedic medicine and it's legitimacy but something being "banned by the govern…

Traditional auyrveda and yoga is great. Cult leaders and wondercures aren't.

So if something legitimate is being promoted by a "cult leader", it makes it illegitimate?

Re: Inflammation, but Not Telomere Length, Predicts Ageing at Extreme Old Age

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it could. You can't just isolate some portion of a highly complex system and claim that the isolated portion will be beneficial in any similar system. Just for an extreme example to make the point - say some diet included a poisonous component as well as the antidote. Those eating the diet may well be just fine. However if somebody else simply looked at the poisonous part and copied only that, they would not do…

It was a flippant statement, but it’s still more right than your righteous reply. I have experience here, literally with isolation diets for immune issues on starches, common for immunologists to run, see AIP which can start extreme down to one thing. I had a friend who had to do a super intense version, luckily, mine was quick. There’s no problem with flippant statements, just bad faith replies that try and pick fig…

I never said it was bad either.

I was specifically taking umbrage with the reasoning provided - X does a lot of Y in their complex thing and gets good results, so lots of Y can't be bad - and tried to be clear about that.

Re: Inflammation, but Not Telomere Length, Predicts Ageing at Extreme Old Age

#109
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s wrong with fasting, isn’t it likely to increase life expectancy. I certainly feel better from this attempt at Ramadan (not religious just interested to try it as flat mate is Syrian). What evidence do you have that fasting -> less inflammation -> better ageing is wrong?

> What evidence do you have that fasting -> less inflammation -> better ageing is wrong? It’s wrong to frame the question as you did. The evidence should be provided to prove something, not disprove it. Is there enough evidence that fasting ultimately leads to better aging? If so, for which groups of people? Is there any underlying condition that negates the effect? That’s how science work, not the other way around.

>Is there enough evidence that fasting ultimately leads to better aging?

There never is any evidence than anything leads to better aging because longevity studies are notoriously expensive, hard to do, and prone to be inconclusive. like those diet studies that pinhole certain foods like chili peppers which supposedly reduce vascular disease.

https://newsroom.heart.org/news/people-who-eat-chili-pepper-...

"eating chili pepper has an anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, anticancer and blood-glucose regulating effect" Similar things have been said for fasting. But just like people who eat chili peppers in these studies, they differ from the normal population, most likely in more ways than just consuming chili peppers. even though there is significant consensus, like this article also affirms, that reducing inflammation might help you live longer.

You could test the theory more conclusively if you had 100.000 people participating in fasting over entire generations but you'd also have to account for changes in their diet as response to such insane study. I bet everyone would think longer and harder over shoving high-sugar foods in their mouths after explicitly consuming nothing for a period of time.

Re: Inflammation, but Not Telomere Length, Predicts Ageing at Extreme Old Age

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a flippant statement, but it’s still more right than your righteous reply. I have experience here, literally with isolation diets for immune issues on starches, common for immunologists to run, see AIP which can start extreme down to one thing. I had a friend who had to do a super intense version, luckily, mine was quick. There’s no problem with flippant statements, just bad faith replies that try and pick fig…

I never said it was bad either. I was specifically taking umbrage with the reasoning provided - X does a lot of Y in their complex thing and gets good results, so lots of Y can't be bad - and tried to be clear about that.

> claim that the isolated portion will be beneficial

> gets good results

You claim I said it’s “good”, but I said “can’t be bad” in relation to a short term allergy diet. Your super pedantic bone you picked is based on exaggerating what I said twice and generalizing it out of context, which is funny coming from a pedant.

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