The influence of inflammation and frailty in the aging continuum

Inflammaging is a low-grade inflammatory state that can be considered an adaptive process aimed at stimulating appropriate anti-inflammatory response. Frailty is determined by the accumulation of molecular and cellular defects accumulated throughout life; therefore, an appropriate frailty computation could be a valuable tool for measuring biological age. This study aims to analyse the association between inflammatory markers and both chronological age "per se" and frailty. We studied 452 persons aged 43–114 years. A Frailty Index (FI) was computed considering a wide range of age-related signs, symptoms, disabilities, and diseases. Plasma concentrations of inflammatory cytokines and peripheral markers of neuroinflammation were analysed by next-generation ELISA. The mean age of the cohort was 79.7 (from 43 to 114) years and the median FI was 0.19 (from 0.00 to 0.75). The concentrations of most inflammatory markers increased significantly with chronological age, after adjustment for sex and FI. Interferon-γ was significantly affected only by FI, while interleukin (IL)-10 and IL-1β were associated only with chronological age. In conclusion, we described different associations between inflammatory components and chronological vs. biological age. A better characterization of the molecular signature of aging could help to understand the complexity of this process.