Have you ever wondered why women appear to age faster than men?
Our counterparts may now be a Silver Fox or Yul Brynner look-alike. They may have a wrinkle or three, but they are described as Statesmen or patriarchs or, in some instances, just grumpy.
Older women become matronly or worse still, invisible.
With so much societal emphasis on how we look, the appearance of wrinkles, thickening middles, achy joints and worrying that our brain often feels like mush, can cause significant angst.
Unfortunately, this makes us prime targets for those who have a product to sell.
We are bombarded with adverts for thinning hair, dry skin, belly fat blasters and all sorts of ‘influencer’ tips on what foods to eat, what exercises you simply must do and what haircut you should never get over the age of 50.
If baloney and wishful thinking are not your style, it’s time to look at what the science tells us and importantly, what you can do to stay fit, healthy and able to continue with those activities you love.
Because the truth is, we all age.
The difference is in how we feel.
Do you feel old, or are you just getting started?
For women two factors are at play.
Inflammageing – the hidden accelerator and amplifier of ageing.
This is as it sounds, inflammageing is the combination of chronic low-grade systemic inflammation and ageing.
I first heard about this concept at a presentation delivered by Professor Garry Egger, academic, author and Pioneer of Lifestyle Medicine, over ten years ago.
The inflammatory response.
It’s important to differentiate between acute and chronic inflammation. In acute inflammation, like an ingrowing toenail, the cause is injury or infection. Your toe hurts and looks red and swollen. This is a normal immune response and a sign that your system is working as it should.
In chronic inflammation, it’s hidden from sight, is generalised and builds slowly over time (as in decades). Here the immune response doesn’t get switched off and some of the immune cells start producing proinflammatory cytokines that can cause tissue damage.
This is the prelude to the development of chronic disease like type-two diabetes, heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, depression, anxiety and Alzheimer’s.
Inflammageing makes you look and feel older than your age. It contributes to frailty, which affects 25% of people over the age of 80 but is not uncommon in forty-year-olds!
Women have a x4 higher risk of autoimmune disease.
This sex bias is thought to be due in part to the understanding that women tend to have stronger immunity compared to men.
A recent 2026 Australian study showed female inflammatory cells run at a higher baseline, which explains why women are generally better at fighting off viral infections and mount stronger responses to vaccines.
This should be a bonus, but it also means women are at greater risk of developing an immune overreaction. This is thought to be why 80% of autoimmune disease occurs in women.
The contribution of menopause to the ageing process.
If you’re a woman going through peri or menopause and your GP is tut-tutting at your rising blood pressure, cholesterol level, HbA1c or weight, this is because in addition to the rising levels of inflammation, declining levels of oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone are aggravating the changes happening in the body.
More than just a sex hormone, oestrogen plays an important anti-inflammatory role.
This is the reason why women are less likely to develop heart disease prior to menopause.
Loss of this protective mechanism at menopause associated with other changes in immune regulation and contribute to a persistent inflammatory state leading to various symptoms.
- Your joints ache, become stiff and sore and you find it takes longer to recover from sporting activities.
- Your metabolism changes, you may be told you’ve got fatty liver or insulin resistance, and you haven’t got the same level of energy you used to have. Despite your best efforts to eat healthily and move more, the dial on the scales keep creeping up.
- Your skin is now drier than the Kalahari desert, those laughter lines around your eyes are now deep furrows and your mouth has those tiny puckers like a dog’s bottom. You’ve also noticed that your hair is becoming thinner.
- You try to ignore the fact you’re not quite as cognitively sharp as you used to be, the car keys keep ending up in the fridge and you find it harder to retain information. What was the title of the last book you read for book club last month?
- Your blood pressure is increasing along with your cholesterol, and your GP is suggesting further investigation of your heart health.
The light at the end of the tunnel.
What I learnt from Professor Egger was that it’s possible to address inflammageing using Lifestyle Medicine Principles.
Managing Inflammatory Balance
Chronic disease doesn’t arrive overnight.
This is where making healthier lifestyle choices across the lifespan can make the biggest difference and remembering it’s not about paying attention to just one of these factors, they all matter to help reduce potential cell damage from excess inflammation.
Nutrition
The best foods to eat are those found in the Mediterranean diet. Lots of colourful vegetables, especially leafy greens, fruits and berries, legumes including all those delicious beans like chickpeas, kidney beans, cannelloni beans etc, seeds and nuts, lean protein including oily fish, chicken and some red meat, whole grains, healthy fats like olive oil and avocado and plenty of water.
Things to avoid are the obvious culprits like ultra-processed and fast foods and sweetened drinks.
If you enjoy fermented foods, yogurt, kefir, kombucha and sauerkraut are good sources of probiotics, and feed your microbiome with lots of fibre (more beans) to stay healthy.
Exercise
Daily exercise works to support metabolic health and reduces inflammatory markers. Working your muscles is key, whether you go to the gym, jog around the block or enjoy a brisk walk with the dog. Restoring and maintaining function allows you to participate in those activities you enjoy.
Strength and resistance training twice a week are essential to maintaining muscle mass.
Did you know that 10-12 weeks of consistent moderate exercise (brisk walking) in sedentary adults can lower inflammatory levels closer to younger individuals?
It’s never too late to start.
Sleep
Poor or disrupted sleep increases inflammatory markers like IL-6 and CRP associated with an increased risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and chronic pain. Even one night of sleep deprivation in a young healthy person has been shown to alter immune system regulation. Yikes.
While we all have poor nights sometimes, the message here is to make sleep a non-negotiable and prioritise it – no excuses! It’s deep sleep that reduces inflammatory signalling and helps to regulate the immune system.
7-9 hours of good quality, uninterrupted sleep is the aim. How close are you to achieving this?
Stress less
Some stress is normal. It’s high levels of chronic stress associated with elevated levels of cortisol that do the damage and disrupt the immune balance.
It sets up a vicious cycle where the high stress disrupts sleep, alters mood and causes fatigue and exacerbating high levels of inflammation.
If stress is an issue this is where taking time out to rest and relax through time in nature, practising meditation or yoga, doing breathing exercises or listening to music can help.
Avoid risky substances
Smoking is a strong inducer of inflammation, while alcohol is detected as an inflammatory agent by immune cells in the liver.
Lifestyle Medicine is a Preventative Healthcare Approach
Lifestyle medicine is entirely evidence-based. Multiple studies have shown its effectiveness in both prevention and treatment of a wide range of chronic diseases. By focusing on the root causes of these, healthcare practitioners enable their patients to stay well.
Inflammageing can be managed.
I’d love to hear.
What are you doing to help counteract chronic inflammation and extend your health span?
