Aging, Inflammation, and Cancer

Less chronic inflammation, less cancer: "Cancer is generally recognized as an age-related disease. In fact, incidence and mortality rates of most human cancers increase consistently with age up to 90 years, but they plateau and decline thereafter. A low-grade systemic inflammation characterizes ageing and this pro-inflammatory status underlies biological mechanisms responsible for age-related inflammatory diseases. On the other hand, clinical and epidemiological studies show a strong association between chronic infection, inflammation and cancer and indicate that even in tumours not directly linked to pathogens, the microenvironment is characterized by the presence of a smouldering inflammation, fuelled primarily by stromal leukocytes. ... Centenarians are characterized by a higher frequency of genetic markers associated with better control of inflammation. The reduced capacity of centenarians to mount inflammatory responses appears to exert a protective effect towards the development of those age-related pathologies having a strong inflammatory pathogenetic component, including cancer. All in all, centenarians seem to carry a genetic background with a peculiar resistance to cancer which is also an anti-inflammatory profile."

Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18671998

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