Professor Janet Lord

So it's 100% my mum.

It's basically her fault.

inflammation.

What is that?

Basically, it's an increase in inflammation in the body as you get older, so with age.

So it's the two things combined.

And most people would think that inflammation, if they've heard of it, they assume it's something that happens when they cut their hand, or if they've got a chronic disease like rheumatoid arthritis, oh, I've got inflammation.

But with aging, it's broader than that.

So it's a low level, sort of grumbling level of inflammation that goes on for years.

So if I measure inflammation in your blood, it's not like that level that you would see in an infection or if you've got a chronic inflammatory disease like rheumatoid arthritis or inflammatory bowel disease.

It's much lower than that, but you've got it for years and years grumbling away there.

It does indeed.

We didn't know for many years really what caused ageing, but now we're really beginning to understand the processes in the body that drive ageing, that cause us to become more prone to diseases like dementia, like cardiovascular disease, like even cancer.

And it turns out that inflammation is one of those key processes.

That's correct.

No, that's correct.

So like everything else in the body, inflammation isn't always bad.

It's there for a reason.

We've evolved to have inflammation.

And so its primary focus is to repair damage in the body.