Inflammation in your 40s

Inflammation in your 40s

Why is it that we get more inflammation as we get older?  We're all likely to get inflammation at some point in our lives, but it becomes more prevalent once we hit our 40s.  You get to the gym and your joints start barking at you during your warm up.  Inflammation is typified by redness, heat or swelling, but it’s the pain and associated loss of function that show up when we’re training that can prevent us from progressing, or worse, stop us training altogether.

What’s happening in the body during acute inflammation?

The cells of the immune system are triggered to release hormones (histamine and bradykinin) known as inflammatory mediators.  These mediators cause the blood vessels in the affected area to dilate, allowing more blood to flow to the area.  This causes redness and heat.  The increased blood flow also carries more immune cells to the injured tissue which can accelerate the repair process.  They trigger the tissue to allow more fluid to enter causing swelling, and irritate the adjacent nerves causing pain in an effort to protect the area.

Acute inflammation is vital for immune responses to invading pathogens or acute traumatic injuries.  This process enables repair and cell turnover in multiple tissues.  In contrast, chronic inflammation normally causes low-grade and persistent inflammation, leading to tissue degeneration.

Why do we get more chronic inflammation as we age?

Once reason is cellular senescence.  Cellular senescence is a process that results from a variety of stresses and leads to cells that no longer divide, or support the tissues of which they are part.  Instead, they emit a range of potentially harmful chemical signals that encourage nearby healthy cells to enter the same senescent state.  Unfortunately for us, the number of senescent cells in several organs increases with age.  

Therefore, as we get older, we naturally have elevated levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, such as interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), and acute phase proteins such as C-reactive protein (CRP) and serum amyloid A (SAA), which may induce muscle atrophy.  If we hit the big pepperoni pizza with extra cheese too hard, the additional visceral fat tissue can also produce IL-6 and TNF-α.

In effect, inflammation is nature’s way of telling you to slow down, which is exactly what we want to avoid at Forties Lab.

Inflammation and health overall

Inflammation isn’t just keeping you out of the gym, or causing you to curse during your big leg day sessions.  It’s worse than that.  Researchers are still working to understand the implications of chronic inflammation on the body and the mechanisms involved in the process, but it is a common link in a number of age-related diseases such as cardiovascular disease, arthritis, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease and some forms of cancer.  Bummer. 

So, the simple fact of the matter is, if you want to live a long and healthy life, you have to keep inflammation in check.

Inflammation and exercise

When we exercise, we put the body under stress.  The right amount of stress is key, as progressive overload is what allows us to get stronger, bigger, or fitter.  This delicate balancing act is what changes as we age and we often notice it for the first time in our 40s.  The same training volume, with the same diet and level of sleep that we thrived on in our 20s and 30s now tips that balance, putting the body under too much stress and the body flips into protection mode.  The inflammation that’s meant to protect us instead causes our body to fight against itself.  The system breaks down, and we become more vulnerable to injury, our muscle recovery is impacted, keeping us out of the gym.

The good news is that, somewhat paradoxically, if we get the balance of exercise stress right, it can also reduce inflammation. 

Hitting the gym and looking after ourselves can keep our body fat levels down, reducing visceral fat and therefore some of the pro-inflammatory cytokines, helping to prevent some of the inflammation associated with getting older.

A 2017 study in Brain, Behavior, and Immunity found that just 20 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise (in this case, even just walking on a treadmill) can have an anti-inflammatory effect.

A test for inflammation

How do you know if you have chronic inflammation? There’s a simple blood test to measure CRP, and a level between 1 and 3 milligrams per litre of blood often signals a low, yet chronic, level of inflammation.  High levels of CRP have been linked with an increased risk of heart disease.  CRP levels can also indicate an infection, or a chronic inflammatory disease, such as rheumatoid arthritis or lupus.

How do we keep a lid on inflammation?

But all hope is not lost. The process of healing your body can be improved with several small, simple changes which we should all be able to work on as part of a healthy lifestyle:

  • Regular exercise, with the right volume and frequency
  • Keeping body fat low
  • Reducing stress
  • Getting plenty of sleep
  • Eating inflammation fighting foods
  • Ditching inflammation causing foods 


We'll cover many of these strategies in other articles as this is one of our key challenges in our 40s and if we can crack this we're on to a winner.

Inflammation - so what?

  • Some inflammation is good.  Too much is usually bad.  The goal is to recognize when inflammation is simply doing its job, and when it can cause problems
  • Acute inflammation is a natural and protective response by the immune system to pathogens or injuries.
  • Chronic inflammation is a cause of major disease and if we want a healthy lifespan then we must make special efforts to manage it.
  • Managing inflammation is key to getting the most out of your training in your 40s, and beyond. 
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