Is this perhaps a nice example of confirmation bias in scientific research? Seems so! Or shall we call it junk science?
When comparisons with indigenous people are biased! It is very popular to do such comparisons between individuals living in highly developed societies and those living in more rural, primitive conditions. The myth of the Noble Savage (since about 1670s CE) comes to mind.
Maybe the hypothesis of chronic, low-grade inflammation as a "hallmark of aging" is flawed too.
Only two indigenous populations were studied. Sorry, too few!
No mentioning at all of the shorter lifespans of the indigenous people! What a glaring omission! How many indigenous individuals live up to 100 years? Many of them don't live long enough to develop chronic, low-level inflammation with age.
Apparently, the researchers were strangely oblivious (except for briefly mentioning it) that the indigenous people were suffering from other, serious health conditions that are largely overcome by individuals living in highly developed societies.
"Inflammation, long considered a hallmark of aging, may not be a universal human experience, according to a new study by researchers ... The research suggests that "inflammaging"—chronic, low-grade inflammation associated with aging—appears to be a byproduct of industrialized lifestyles and varies significantly across global populations. The findings are published in Nature Aging ...
While the inflammaging signature was similar between the two industrialized populations, it did not hold in the Indigenous groups, where inflammation levels were largely driven by infection rather than age. ...
Key findings include:
- Approximately 66 percent of Tsimane had at least one intestinal parasitic infection; over 70 percent of Orang Asli had a prevalent infection.
- Inflammaging markers were strongly linked to chronic disease in industrialized populations, but not in Indigenous groups.
- The study challenges the assumption of universal aging biomarkers, suggesting instead that immune-aging processes are population-specific and heavily influenced by the exposome—the totality of environmental, lifestyle, and infectious exposures.
..."
From the abstract:
"Inflammaging, an age-associated increase in chronic inflammation, is considered a hallmark of aging. However, there is no consensus approach to measuring inflammaging based on circulating cytokines.
Here we assessed whether an inflammaging axis detected in the Italian InCHIANTI dataset comprising 19 cytokines could be generalized to a different industrialized population (Singapore Longitudinal Aging Study) or to two indigenous, nonindustrialized populations: the Tsimane from the Bolivian Amazon and the Orang Asli from Peninsular Malaysia.
We assessed cytokine axis structure similarity and whether the inflammaging axis replicating the InCHIANTI result increased with age or was associated with health outcomes.
The Singapore Longitudinal Aging Study was similar to InCHIANTI except for IL-6 and IL-1RA.
The Tsimane and Orang Asli showed markedly different axis structures with little to no association with age and no association with age-related diseases. Inflammaging, as measured in this manner in these cohorts, thus appears to be largely a byproduct of industrialized lifestyles, with major variation across environments and populations."
Nonuniversality of inflammaging across human populations (no public access)
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