Inflammation & CRP, honestly — real biology, heavy hype

Inflammation is real, important, and one of the most abused words in wellness marketing. The honest headline: chronic low-grade inflammation genuinely tracks with ageing and disease, and CRP is a useful marker — but "anti-inflammatory" supplements and diets are mostly oversold around a real core.

Good inflammation, bad inflammation

Inflammation is the immune system doing its job — fighting infection, healing injury. That acute response is vital. The concern in ageing is different: a chronic, low-grade smoulder ("inflammageing") that never fully resolves and is linked to heart disease, diabetes, dementia and frailty.

You can partly measure this with a blood test for CRP (C-reactive protein), especially the high-sensitivity version (hs-CRP).

Lowering inflammation, in a trial

Lowering inflammation, in a trial — an illustrative chart on this page. Figures use honest, cited or clearly-illustrative data; they are visual aids, not personal measurements.

What the evidence supports

The marker is real and actionable.

• hs-CRP flags cardiovascular risk — and acting on it helped — In a large trial (JUPITER), people with normal cholesterol but elevated hs-CRP who took a statin had 44% fewer cardiovascular events — evidence that elevated inflammation is an actionable risk signal, not just a number. (established)
• Chronic inflammation tracks with age-related disease — Low-grade inflammation is consistently associated with cardiovascular disease, type-2 diabetes, dementia and frailty. How much is cause versus consequence is still being untangled. (emerging)

What actually lowers chronic inflammation

• The foundations, again — Not smoking, regular exercise, good sleep, a fibre-rich mostly-whole-food diet, treating gum disease, and losing excess visceral fat all lower inflammatory markers. Boring, and it works. (established)
• “Anti-inflammatory” supplements are mostly oversold — A few (like curcumin or omega-3) modestly move markers, but most "anti-inflammatory" products, powders and diets promise far more than the evidence supports. Lowering a marker also isn’t the same as preventing disease. (hype)

What we still don’t know

• Cause or consequence? Inflammation accompanies many diseases; whether lowering it (beyond treating the cause) independently prevents them is only partly answered.
• Whether chasing a low CRP helps healthy people CRP is useful in risk assessment, but routinely driving it down in otherwise-healthy people isn’t proven to extend life.

Key terms

• Inflammation The immune system’s response to threat or injury; helpful when acute, harmful when chronic and low-grade.
• CRP C-reactive protein — a blood marker of inflammation; the high-sensitivity version (hs-CRP) helps assess cardiovascular risk.
• Inflammageing The chronic, low-grade inflammation that tends to rise with age and links to age-related disease.
• Visceral fat Fat stored around the organs; metabolically active and a driver of chronic inflammation.