How ‘Inflammaging’ Drives Cancer—and Points to New Treatments
- sciart0
- Jun 6
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 7
Excerpt: "People are more likely to get cancer as they age. Dr. Miriam Merad has an unconventional idea of how that might be reversed: using allergy drugs and other seemingly unlikely medications to damp a condition known as “inflammaging.”
The immunologist and oncologist has spent years examining malignant tumors to learn why people over age 50 account for nine in 10 cancer diagnoses in the U.S. She and her research team at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City have homed in on an answer: the aging immune system. Their studies of individual immune cells in human lung tumors, as well as in old mice, have revealed how chronic, or pathogenic, inflammation in older people—dubbed inflammaging—interferes with the immune system and fuels cancer growth.
Merad and other researchers are testing whether existing anti-inflammatory medications usually used to fight rheumatoid arthritis or allergy conditions like asthma or eczema can slow cancer in older patients. They are also searching for new drugs. “Aging is something that we think we can transform,” says Merad, director of the Marc and Jennifer Lipschultz Precision Immunology Institute at Mount Sinai.
Inflammation is the immune system’s reaction to a threat. Immune cells circulate in the body, attacking invaders such as viruses and cancer and calling for backup—more immune cells—when necessary. Working correctly, they can beat back Covid-19 or heal a cut on the finger. But the immune system can also overreact, fueling inflammation that gets in the way of healing or leads to disease. It misfires like this more as people age.
“A big focus of the field right now is to separate beneficial inflammation, the one that protects us from microbes and from tumors, from the pathogenic inflammation that is enhancing cancer progression, promoting atherosclerosis, promoting damage in the older brain,” Merad says."