Aging is accompanied by the development of low-grade systemic inflammation, termed 'inflammaging', characterized by raised serum C-reactive protein (CRP) and pro-inflammatory cytokines. Importantly, inflammaging is implicated in the pathogenesis of several of the major age-related diseases including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and dementia and is associated with increased mortality. The incidence of infection with the persistent herpes virus cytomegalovirus (CMV) also increases with age. Cross-sectional studies have proposed CMV infection as a significant driver of inflammaging, but a definitive case for CMV as a causative agent in inflammaging has not yet been made. We studied longitudinally 249 subjects (153 men, 96 women) who participated in the Hertfordshire Ageing Study at baseline (1993/5, mean age 67·5 years) and at 10 year follow-up. At both times, anthropometric measurements were made and subjects provided blood samples for analysis of inflammatory status and CMV seropositivity. In the cohort as a whole, serum CRP (P < 0·02) and pro-inflammatory cytokines TNFα (P < 0·001) and IL-6 (P < 0·001) were increased between baseline and follow-up sampling whereas levels of the anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10 were decreased (P < 0·001). These changes to cytokine status over time occurred equally in the 60% of subjects who were seropositive for CMV at baseline and follow-up, the 8% who were CMV negative at baseline but who became CMV positive by the 10 year follow-up, and also in the 32% who were CMV seronegative throughout. We conclude that CMV infection is not a primary causative factor in the age-related increase in systemic inflammation.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 17. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 24 February 2026.
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#15,254
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Outputs of similar age from Aging Cell
#9
of 33 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,089,221 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 91st percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,266 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 24.5. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 71% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 33 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 72% of its contemporaries.
