Inflammation and Aging: The Hidden Connection (Performance & Longevity Series)

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Transcript: Inflammation and Aging: The Hidden Connection (Performance & Longevity Series)

Season 11, Episode 2  | July 31, 2025

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Welcome to Life Time Talks in our series on performance and longevity with MIORA. I’m Jamie Martin, and I’m here with Life Time’s Chief Science Officer Jim LaValle for this conversation on inflammation and aging. Inflammation is an essential function in the body, but when chronic inflammation becomes too long, it can have adverse consequences, especially when it comes to the aging process.

If we want to lengthen our health span and feel and function our best, there are certain strategies for both identifying and managing chronic inflammation. And Jim, I know this is a topic for you, a favorite topic for you. Let’s start by talking about metaflammation. I know that’s a phrase I’ve heard you say time and time again.

Yeah, absolutely. So inflammation can be silent. It’s obvious when you have joint pain that you have inflammation. Or if you look down at your ankle, it’s swollen. That’s inflammation. But metabolic inflammation otherwise known as metaflammation, leads to inflam-aging. And metabolic inflammation occurs due to a lot of reasons.

But the bottom line is that when you have metaflammation, basically your metabolism is driving inflammatory compounds that are being silently released in your body. They’re creating damage in a variety of ways. So whether it’s in your tissues or inside your arteries or neuroinflammation, all of that’s a byproduct of your body being metabolically inflamed.

So talk a little bit about this. We know metabolism is so essential for our health. So if we’re metabolically inflamed, what effect does that have overall on our metabolism and what it’s supposed to be doing in the body?

Yeah, so big topic. So when you think of metabolic inflammation, there is a lot of things that start to happen. So basically, your body is supposed to turn on inflammation in response to an attack or an assault. It could be stress. It could be a vector like a bug. It could be an environmental burden from what’s called the exposome. It can be any number of things that could create your body to trigger inflammation.
And inflammation is there to get rid of the assault. The problem is, when we’re not eating correctly, maybe we’re spiking our blood sugars or we’re under a lot of stress. Not getting enough sleep, maybe not eating right, maybe over-training, any number of things that keep us stuck in that chronic inflammation response.

So what happens then? Because you brought up a big point about metabolism.

One of the very first things that happen is that you can start to become sarcopenic. You start to lose your growth hormone signaling, and now it’s harder for you to maintain lean mass. One of the biggest things, or the crossroads of metaflammation is that you start to become insulin resistant. And that’s because when your body’s making these inflammatory compounds, it turns your insulin receptors off.

And that means you’re going to become more efficient at storing fat and less efficient at burning fat, which is a problem a lot of people were stuck in, especially when you see the whole GLP-1 revolution that’s out there. People were stuck and just searching for ways to overcome that.

Well, the next thing that can happen is so your metabolism is slowing down. You’re not burning fuel as efficiently. You can start to thin your bone. Even so, osteoporosis and osteopenia isn’t just a small framed Caucasian or Asian woman’s problem anymore. It’s happening in males and females. And then the biggest thing that occurs, and there’s some other things that can happen too, in terms of cognitive health. But I know in our series we’re going to be talking about that, but the end of the funnel is that you lose mitochondrial efficiency. And what that means is your cells are not as able to produce the energy that needs to in order to perform all aspects of your metabolism. So how am I going to burn fat? How am I going to burn fuel? How am I going to signal my hormones? All of those things get disrupted as you’re moving down this funnel of chronic metabolic inflammation.

So really that inflammation is really compromising, like you said, your metabolism as a whole, especially when it becomes obviously we need it for those acute instances, but those when it’s become chronic in the instances that you’ve said, that’s where it becomes problematic.

Yeah, and I think what we have to do is redefine metabolism, because I think a lot of times people think of metabolism is how many calories am I burning. And that’s accurate. I mean, that is a part of metabolism, but I really think people need to rethink metabolism as the sum total of all the metabolic reactions that are going on in your body today that started when you were in your mother’s womb, and all of the lifestyle choices you made, all the environmental burden, all the stressors, all that stuff created your current global metabolism.

And that metabolism is driving you either towards an improved healthspan and living longer, more vital with resiliency as you age. Or it’s leading you towards some sort of chronic illness, because people should really think about aging as an illness. And meta formation is what drives accelerated aging versus hey, I’m going to live long. I’m going to feel resilient. I’m going to have a great healthspan. That’s really how we want to redefine the concept of inflammation, metaflammation, and people understanding their metabolism.

I mean, I think that is huge. And I think we’re going to get into this with the next question about aging as an illness. I’d love for you to speak to that as we talk about how inflammaging and metaflammation affect the health span and lifespan.

Oh, sure. So when you get metabolically inflamed, basically, your body’s making more inflammatory cytokines, which are just signaling compounds. Your body makes anti-inflammatory cytokines that keep you resilient and can make pro-inflammatory cytokines, which have their role when we’re under acute duress. But we don’t want to be making those all the time. So what are the things that can occur?

Well, one of the areas is that when you’re making a lot of inflammatory cytokines, your gut gets more permeable. So people will say, well, how is it I could eat Jif Peanut Butter when I was a kid, but now I’m sensitive to peanuts? Or I used to be able to eat wheat bread, but now when I eat gluten, I notice my belly bothers me, I’m holding water, I’m getting a headache, I’m getting a skin rash. That’s because chronic metabolic inflammation is broken down the gut barrier. And now compounds are getting through the gut, hitting the antigen presenting cells and making that happen.

So metabolic inflammation or that inflammatory signaling affects the gut. The other thing it can do is affect cognition. How many people talk about having foggy brain?

So many.

Or what I call — I always say, I ask people this question. I say, well, do you feel like you’re pushing a thought through Jell-O?

That’s a really good visual.

Exactly.

— don’t seem easy.

And people will answer, yeah. I mean,

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— can’t process quick. It’s like, are you crisp? And the reason that happens is that when you start to get inflammatory cytokines that are getting released in the brain, that triggers the immune system of the brain to literally create more oxidative stress, which damages your neurons and changes your processing because you don’t have as much neuronal efficiency. So cognitive health, gut health.

And then the obvious are things like accelerated aging of your skin. That’s due to excessive inflammatory signaling. So you always can see when people are aging quickly is part of it is their skin. And then probably the biggest one. The real crossroads of health is our cardiovascular health. So when you have metabolic inflammation, that leads to vascular damage, meaning that you start to plaque your arteries, your arteries get more stiff, so your blood pressure starts to go up.

So literally all aspects of the bad outcomes of aging. So the diseases of aging relate to metabolic inflammation and loss of mitochondrial function. So when I talked about the bottom of that funnel, when the mitochondria not being as efficient, not having as much mitochondrial content in your cell or they’re damaged, that’s associated with all chronic illnesses.

Which this episode is really setting the foundation for our entire series that we’re doing here because of the, just as you explained it, it really is like this funnel down effect for all of these things. When we have this inflammation, it funnels down and can start affecting different aspects of our health and well being, ultimately leading to chronic illnesses. As you’ve talked about. You’ve talked about gut health, you’ve talked about cardiovascular health. How do we go about if someone is like, I know I’m not living my most vital, most resilient life, how do we identify the sources of chronic inflammation in our bodies?

I mean, there’s the obvious signs, like you said, the joint aches and pains. But some of those silent ones, how would somebody know if they’re dealing with chronic inflammation if the signs aren’t outward?

If the signs aren’t outward, then the best way to do it is laboratory testing. And, the other point I want to make is this just doesn’t happen in people when they’re 55. Actually, two really recent studies, one from Stanford, showed that people age at an accelerated rate at the age of 42 and 62. So you should be thinking about managing metabolic inflammation in your 20s and 30s.

Because if you’re really active and performing at a high level, you train hard. The harder you train, the more you need to recover. And the harder you train, the more you can trigger that silent inflammation. If all those lifestyle components aren’t right. So lab testing is key, especially if hey, I’m not really feeling anything yet, but is there something silent brewing?

So let’s talk about that comprehensive blood work that can help identify this. what does that look like? What are the markers that you’re looking for in the comprehensive blood work to help identify that inflammation?

Sure, there’s quite a few, but some of the big ones are a morning cortisol. And cortisol is a stress hormone. So when you’re making too much cortisol, well, that means your sympathetic dominant. You’re under a lot of stress. Your blood vessels are probably constricting. And stress relates to things like blood pressure and cognitive function. So cortisol and then its surrogate is DHEA. And people have heard about that as the fountain of youth pro-hormone, people taking DHEA.

So DHEA, actually, helps protect the brain against excessive cortisol. So it keeps the hippocampus of your brain from swelling, which is really good.

We don’t want that.

We don’t want that because eventually it shrinks and then you start having short term memory problems. So cortisol and DHEA are important. Glucose and insulin and hemoglobin A1C are important. When people have elevated glucose or elevated insulin or they have elevated cortisol, these are the two really big markers that show that you’re going to be aging at an accelerated rate.

And then there’s other markers that are important. Things like c-reactive protein. It’s a marker that shows, well, is there some inflammation in your body? Especially cardiovascular-wise. Then there’s homocysteine. So homocysteine is a byproduct of what’s called methylation. Real popular topic. Everybody’s talking about methylation these days. And bottom line is when you’re really low in B vitamins, you can start to elevate your homocysteine levels.

And elevated homocysteine, that starts to damage your brain, your arteries, and your kidney tissue. And you’re going to accelerate your aging. It’s interesting because people go down all these rabbit holes of really advanced testing and are listening to all kinds of information on longevity. But what I find is a lot of times people aren’t looking at these basic markers. Another one is lipids.

Cholesterol in itself isn’t bad. You need cholesterol to make your hormones. Cholesterol helps to repair your cell membranes, but there are fractions of your lipids that are pretty unfriendly and can accelerate aging. That’s why an advanced lipid panel where you’re looking at things like lipoprotein little A, which might be the most important cardiovascular marker as it relates to future cardiac risk, which happens to be our number one killer. So why wouldn’t we want to target that?

But there’s other advanced lipid markers like apolipoprotein B. LP-PLA2, sounds really technical. But here’s the thing. These are all fractions of cholesterol that the more your metabolically inflamed or have metaflammation going on, the more you make the bad actor lipids instead of the protective lipids. And you can identify that.

So other aspects would be things like looking at your sex hormones as you’re aging. And I find people at younger and younger ages are having problems with balance in their sex hormones, mainly because when you’re under a lot of stress then you make a lot of cortisol, you shut down the signal to make sex hormones. So that’s really important. And then things like — I know it gets overwhelming.

There’s a lot here, there is a lot —

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We’re going to go into all of this.

I know. It’s exciting for me because things like kidney function are really important. So looking at your filtration rate of your kidneys that’s a measure of reactive oxygen species, are the balance of what’s called redox potential. Everybody makes oxidative stress. You need to in order to burn fat. It’s called oxidative phosphorylation. That’s really good. But the problem is is when we start making too many free radicals and now all of a sudden we’re damaging all our tissues.

So there’s a lot of markers in lab tests. And I’ve always liked doing advanced lab testing to really cast a wide net to understand how is your whole body functioning. Because here’s the deal you’re only as strong as your weakest organ. So when we talk about longevity and performance health, you’re only as strong as that weakest organ. So we want to get a full thought of, how is your body operating? And the best way to do that is through labs. And, obviously, there are other labs that you could do as well. There’s salivary labs, urinary labs. But a great blood test is the way to start.

Way to start there. And we went through a whole bunch of those. The one other thing that came up for me as you were chatting is what about genetics? What role do they play in this? Or your risk for inflammation, is that less? I mean, I know with cardiovascular health there’s more there, but what about with inflammation? Is there any sort of genetic risk factor or it’s really more about the lifestyle factors?

That’s a great question. I would say it’s more important about the expression of your genes. So genes are important. I’ll give a good example though. I have all the bad genes. You know what I mean. I mean the obesity genes, the diabetes genes, the heart disease genes. But my lifestyle and understanding environmental burden has helped me to keep that on track so that those genes don’t express.

So genes are important because it’s the hand that you’ve been dealt. What’s more importantly is what do you draw when you throw in some cards? That’s basically the way you need to look at that. And so epigenetics expression, in my opinion, trumps your genes because epigenetics, you can control a lot of that.

Yeah, which takes us right into my next question. So what is MIORA’s approach to managing metaflammation? How do we start — if you get all this information, you’re working with a health provider. You’ve got all these biomarkers. Where do we start with this?

Well, the foundation for all of it is, can we help you eat better? And that’s where the dietitian plays a role. Can we get you to move better? That’s where our fantastic dynamic personal trainers come into play. Creating a plan with results in mind. But the real start to MIORA is getting a very advanced lab panel that identifies where your metabolic roadblocks are. Where are you at most risk?

When you get rid of the big risks, a lot of times the rest of the body will start to align. You’re getting rid of those weakest links. You’re fortifying your body against that. So a very comprehensive lab test that incorporates cortisol, glucose, insulin, A-1C, sex hormones, a very comprehensive thyroid panel versus just a one marker thyroid panel. In addition to looking at kidney function and liver function and lipids, all of these things are looked at so that at MIORA we get a full look at where your metabolism is at. But even more importantly, the questionnaire and your biometrics make a difference.

How are you feeling? Because I have to tell you. I mean, I’ve been at this 40 years in precision health. So I started in literally in 1985 professionally. A lot of times people were feeling things before their labs start to shift. So it’s important to categorize, well, what are you feeling? And then there’s other people that feel really good. Like you said, hey, I’m normal, I feel great. And then you look at their labs and you go, oh, we got a mess on our hands,

So you’ve got the extremes of hey, I’m feeling a lot, my labs aren’t showing it yet. And then you’ve got hey, I’m not feeling anything and your labs are showing something. But the majority of people are in that gray area, where they know something isn’t right. Why can’t I lose that last 15 pounds? Why do I feel cognitively sluggish? Where is this bloating coming from? How come I can’t sleep?

So that gray area is what really starts to trigger a thought towards where you need to start with your health. And of course, you get all the backup you need. So regular visits with health care providers. Regular re-checks if you need it with the dietitian. And of course, getting that personal training, I think, is incredibly important because it helps to keep the goals right in front of you and you can measure those goals. And that’s the biggest thing about MIORA is in the journey of looking at your labs. We’re looking at where you were. and then where you are today.

Yeah, it’s a shifting baseline. You talk about that gray area and I think that’s such an interesting place to be because, like you said, there’s these extreme ends. But so many people have just that baseline in the gray area has become their normal. And this is just the way it is. And I think what we’re seeing here is like, no, you can live a more vital, more engaged, more vibrant life as a whole. And I think this type of approach creates a sense of accountability.

So you have those places along the way, the three month, six month, nine month, whatever that looks like for you, where you can reassess in that baseline and answer the questions, do the blood tests, and get more information about how you really are doing in your body and feeling.

Yeah, I think there’s two things that I think has driven my career and passion in this area is, first of all, people deserve vitality at every stage in life. I don’t care if you’re six years old or 86 years old, you should have the right to feel the best you can feel. MIORA is there to help people feel the best they can, perform the best they can, whatever age they’re at. If you’re 24 years old and feeling things, you should try and fix them.

And the other thing that always made me a little nutty, I guess, is when people would hear, oh, you’re 40 now, you should expect to feel poor.

Yeah, it’s all downhill. I mean, over the hill.

Over the hill.

Got half a life to live yet. And I think it’s important for people to understand that there’s a lot they can do to reach for that vitality they deserve. Get the best performance they can. Live as healthy as you can, as long as you can. That’s the purpose of MIORA and that’s why its longevity and performance health.

I love that. So let’s say somebody, they know they’re not feeling their best. We obviously want to encourage them when they can to use our services and use MIORA But if there were two to three things to somebody say, I know I’ve got this inflammation in my body. What are two to three actions that somebody could start taking today to maybe start taking control? As you said, this is something we have influence over. What are some of the lifestyle habits that they could implement?

There’s some really good things. First of all, getting a sauna. Saunas are a great way to help your body detoxify. It helps to stimulate your base metabolism. A lot of people don’t realize that it helps to affect your metabolic rate and can help even with heart rate and the pliability of your arteries. So getting in a sauna is pretty good if you’re coming into a Life Time. Making sure you’re getting enough hydration is really important. I find that a lot of times people are just dehydrated, and that’s one of the reasons their kidney function numbers don’t look so great.

I mean exercise, but understand that don’t over exercise. And I think we get sometimes trapped in that. And that’s why the guidance is needed. And then probably the single biggest thing to control metal formation is not flexing your blood sugar so much. So the bottom line is the more your blood sugar goes up and then drops so that you start to get this oscillation, it’s called in your blood sugar, that oscillation, the bigger the change in your blood sugar, that is the single biggest cause of cardiovascular disease because it triggers inflammatory cytokines.

So managing your diet from this perspective of low glycemic foods, making sure that you’re eating good quality sources of protein, plenty of vegetables. Those are simple things that you can do. If you want to think of a couple of dietary supplements that everybody could benefit from, omega 3 fatty acids, fish oil, omega 3s help with a healthy inflammation response. It keeps your body in that homeostasis or balanced state.

So omega 3s are super important. But you need to get a quality omega 3. And of course, I’m partial to what Life Time has done because they’ve taken that approach of, hey, we’re going to search for the best fish oil.

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And make sure that the mercury is not in there, make sure that we have a definitive amount of EPA and DHA, which are the two omega 3 fatty acids you want.

Then the other one that’s really straightforward is magnesium. People need to take magnesium. We don’t eat enough vegetables. It’s where you’re going to get magnesium from. And magnesium really helps everything from mitochondrial function, to blood sugar regulation, to blood vessel dilation, to keeping your muscles from being tight.

Those are just a couple of simple supplements that you can do. And obviously, if you get your vitamin D level checked through a lab test, something that if you’re up, especially in Northern climates, people are prone to low D. Getting adequate vitamin D is important as well. There’s other things that you can do, obviously, but those are three simple things. In addition to the lifestyle areas, I failed to mention, get good sleep.

We’re going to delve into that in a whole episode.

And try to manage your stress as best you can. That’s easier said than done in a lot of cases based on people’s life circumstances, but those are the basics.

Cool OK, so we covered a lot, and I know we’re going to delve into a lot of these topics that you mentioned more specifically as we get deeper into our series, but is there anything you want to make sure that we cover or add before we sign off on this first episode?

No, I think it’s important for people to understand that in the aging process, if you want to be vital, if you want to have a great lifespan, a health span, you’re going to have to work at it. And I always say to my clients, it’s work, but it’s worth it. Why don’t you want to get up in the morning and have energy and power through your day and be better with your kids, and better with your family, and better with your coworkers, and be able to serve your community better? That’s the power of healthspan.

I love that. I think that’s a great way to wrap up this first episode. Jim, thank you for joining me. And if our listeners and viewers want to learn more, they can visit miora.lifetime.life. We’ll be back.

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