Aerobic exercise tops the table for cooling inflammation after 60

As populations age, more older adults live with chronic diseases and functional limitations, and one common thread is chronic low-grade inflammation. This simmering inflammatory state is associated with decline across multiple body systems and with age-related disease risk, which is why blood markers such as C-reactive protein and interleukin-6 are so widely tracked in ageing research. Exercise is thought to help modulate these markers, but trials have used very different types and amounts of training, leaving the practical questions open: which kind of exercise, and how much? This analysis set out to rank the options against each other.

The researchers pooled 54 randomised controlled trials enrolling 2,836 adults aged 60 and over, drawn from six major databases searched up to May 2026. Using a Bayesian network approach, they compared five exercise modalities: aerobic exercise, resistance training, combined training, mind-body exercise and multi-component exercise. They also modelled dose using weekly metabolic equivalent minutes as a continuous measure, allowing for a curved rather than straight-line relationship between exercise volume and inflammatory change. Changes in C-reactive protein and interleukin-6 were the outcomes of interest.

Exercise overall was associated with improvements in inflammatory biomarkers, and aerobic exercise held the most favourable ranking for lowering C-reactive protein, with a standardised reduction of 0.83 in the pooled comparison. The interleukin-6 picture was shakier: mind-body exercise initially ranked highly, but that ranking collapsed once a single extreme-effect study was excluded, with the estimate shifting toward no effect. Baseline disease status did not significantly change the dose-response relationship. The dose analysis suggested a probable benefit region at moderate doses, but the statistical uncertainty around it was substantial.

The finding that exercise tempers inflammatory markers in older adults is consistent with the broader literature, but the modality ranking is the newer contribution: aerobic work showed the most consistent C-reactive protein signal of the five approaches compared. The analysis is equally valuable for what it deflates, demonstrating that the apparent mind-body advantage for interleukin-6 rested on one influential study. The authors are explicit that dose regions should be read as probabilities rather than fixed clinical thresholds. Head-to-head trials directly comparing exercise types in the same older populations would tighten these rankings considerably.

For an older reader, or anyone planning ahead, this is a reason to view regular aerobic exercise as the option with the most consistent record for lowering a key inflammation marker, without dismissing other forms of training, which also showed benefit. It is equally a caution against headlines crowning any single exercise style, since parts of the ranking shifted when one study was removed. The safest reading is that moving regularly matters more than the precise style, with aerobic work currently holding the strongest signal for this particular marker.