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Chronic inflammation
A fire that never goes out
Inflammation is how a body fights and repairs, and it is meant to flare and then stop. This one never stops: a low, body-wide burn that rises with the years even when there is nothing to fight. It is quiet enough that you cannot feel it and loud enough to damage tissue for decades.
What you can doa lot you can do
Sleep, weight, muscle, oily fish — and the two nobody mentions: look after your gums, and treat a quiet infection rather than living alongside it. This is also the one entry here you can actually watch. An ordinary blood test shows it, which makes it the rare case where you can see whether what you changed worked.
The science, in one sentence
A low, persistent, body-wide inflammatory state that rises with age even without an infection to fight.
In the glossary
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