Inflammation, ageing and chronic disease

• Elderly people commonly show signs of low level systemic inflammation.
• Causes include presence of senescent cells, chronic infections and obesity.
• Systemic inflammation has been linked to multiple chronic diseases of ageing.
• Addressing dysregulated control of inflammation will attenuate chronic disease.

Acute inflammatory responses are essential for pathogen control and tissue repair but can also cause severe collateral damage. Tight regulation of the response is required to minimize host injury, but in the face of chronic infections and age-associated immune dysregulation, inflammatory processes may exert multiple detrimental effects on the organism. The signs of low level systemic inflammation commonly detectable in elderly people are associated with many chronic diseases of ageing and may even contribute to their causation. The purpose of this article is to review recent literature from the past two years providing new data on the inter-relationships between inflammatory status and chronic diseases of ageing.