More reasons to be exercising - many aspects of the biology of an exercising older mammal are improved over one that is sedentary, and the bugbear of inflammation is one of them: "We tested the hypothesis that regular aerobic exercise reverses arterial inflammation with aging. Compared with young controls, old male B6D2F1 cage-restricted mice demonstrated increased arterial activation of the pro-inflammatory transcription factor, nuclear factor κB (NFκB) ... Similarly, aortic expression of the pro-inflammatory cytokines [were] greater in the old mice. Macrophage and T lymphocyte abundance was unchanged with age in the aortic intima and media, but was markedly increased in the adventitia and perivascular fat tissue of old mice. This pro-inflammatory arterial phenotype with aging was associated with vascular endothelial dysfunction, as reflected by impaired nitric oxide-mediated endothelium-dependent dilation (EDD). Voluntary wheel running (10-14 weeks) in old mice normalized [all of these age-altered features]. Short-term voluntary wheel running started late in life reverses arterial inflammation with aging in mice possibly via 'outside-in' actions. These anti-inflammatory effects may play an important role in the amelioration of age-associated vascular dysfunction by regular aerobic exercise."

Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21622824