Are You Inflamm-Ageing?

How Your Favourite Festive Foods Are Secretly Causing Inflammation and Ageing You Faster

Please be fairly warned that what I am about to tell you in this article will be highly unpopular. In fact, after reading this article, you might even call me the Scrooge of the festive season! Or if I am lucky, maybe you will see this as invaluable information to help avoid inflammageing (yes, it is a real word!). But if you are looking for insights to kickstart the new year feeling younger and in high hopes, read on.

Inflammageing is a steady increase in pro-inflammatory biomarkers as we age. This is not due to some overt infection, but rather chronic low-grade inflammation that occurs unbeknownst to the untrained eye. Symptoms may include a weak immune system, fatigue, bloating, headaches, weight gain, high blood pressure and other seemingly innocuous reoccurring symptoms. Our fond indulgence in unhealthy festive foods is a main driver of inflammageing.

You may wonder what do our favourite festive foods have to do with chronic inflammation? Well, actually...everything! Food means many things to us. It is connected to our taste, culture, comfort and memories.

But at its fundamental core, food is an environmental chemical that affects our cellular epigenetics (how we control our gene expression) and hence, our health. But rarely do we think this way.

Before jumping into why our favourite festive foods might be causing inflammation and ageing us faster, let us first contextualise health in Singapore today. According to the Ministry of Health (MOH), the prevalence of diseases such as high cholesterol and high blood pressure in adults (age 18-69 years) in Singapore is almost 40%, while diabetes and obesity affect about 10% of the adult population.