Tokyo Centenarian Study: Aging inflammation hypothesis

The biomedical characteristics of centenarians are (1) low level of albumin, cholesterol, and HDL-cholesterol; (2) high level of CRP and Il-6; (3) high level of thrombin-antithrombin complex, suggesting centenarians are malnourished, in proinflammatory status and prothrombotic conditions. The score of ADL and MMSE is also low. The nutritional status is associated with inflammation, the level of ADL and MMSE. Since proinflammatory cytokines, such as IL-6 and TNFα are known to cause malnutrition, we think that inflammation is partly responsible for the malnutrition. We proposed an ‘aging-inflammation ‘hypothesis. Aging causes excessive inflammatory response, resulting in malnutrition, which in turn contributes to the low level of ADL and cognitive function in centenarians. The suppression of excessive inflammatory reaction may ameliorate the low objective QOL.