It’s been a long-accepted reality that with age comes increased inflammation – so widely accepted it’s been dubbed “inflammaging.” With this increase in age-related chronic inflammation also comes serious health concerns, such as cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s. But according to new research, inflammaging isn’t as universal of an experience as previously thought.

Published today in Proceedings of Royal Society B, “Inflammaging is minimal among forager-horticulturalists in the Bolivian Amazon,” the work highlights little inflammaging in one non-industrialized community, and notably found an increase of inflammation with moderate levels of modernization in another.

An international research team has identified more than 400 genes associated with accelerated aging across seven different sub-types.  The findings lend support to what is known as the “geroscience hypothesis” — the idea that to treat the multiple chronic illnesses that come with aging, we must treat aging itself.