Aging From Inflammation Is Totally Optional. Here’s Why & How You Can Reverse It
More evidence than ever shows that inflammation is not driven by biological age, but rather our lifestyle and environemental factors. As I’ve talked about extensively on my blog right here, biological aging can be simplified down to a balance between inflammation that accrues over a lifetime vs. your body’s stem cell regeneration.
Organ damage as a result of accrued inflammation is something that we associate so strongly with aging that it’s now called “Inflammaging” — depicted in the graphic below. But while inflammation does drive damage to our organ systems and decreases our body’s ability to repair and renew our body’s tissue, it’s actually optional. This inflammatory process is not time dependent, and it’s not tied with our chronological age.
That’s because instead of inflammation being related to how long we’ve lived, it’s actually related to living in an industrialized environment.
A new study, just published in Nature Aging in June 2025, found that it’s actually specific inflammatory cytokines — the ones we associate with “aging” in industrialized countries — that drive the tissue damage to our organ systems and these cytokines are not found in non-industrialized countries, no matter how old the citizens were. The accumulation of these inflammatory cytokines were not linked in any way to the chronological age of the participants studied.
What did I love when I read this medical study?
I loved that the exact inflammatory cytokines that researchers found that increased organ damage and accrue in industrialized countries are the exact same inflammatory cytokines that grounding reduces. In fact, it makes obvious sense why non-industrialized countries, where folks are not cut off and distanced from the healing properties of the earth like folks in more industrialized areas are, aren’t having those inflammatory cytokines rise in proportion to their age.
I recorded a quick video today to help explain this study to you, and to give you a list of things you can do to — of course grounding being one of the most powerful — to make “Inflammaging” totally optional. And to read the abstract of the original study yourself, just hop over here.
On YouTube:
Inflammation Does Not Need To Accrue With Age (YouTube)
On TikTok:
Inflammation Isn’t Necessary With Aging (TikTok)
The anti-aging benefits of grounding, in a nutshell:
@laurakonivermd “Inflammaging” is optional #laurakonivermd #intuitionphysician #longevity #aging #inflammation ♬ original sound – Laura Koniver, MD
Anti-Aging Benefit #1: Grounding Lowers Inflammatory Cytokines
In this important study, published January 2019 in Frontiers in Physiology, researchers found that cytokines such as such as IP-10, MIP-1α, and sP-Selectin, all decreased in grounded subjects, compared to non-grounded controls. The average drop induced by grounding a patient was a 10 – 20% drop in cytokine concentration. Now we know that if we reduce these exact inflammatory cytokines, we reduce organ damage and diseases typically associated with aging in industrialized countries.
Anti-Aging Benefit #2: Grounding Protects Muscles
In 2010 this study, published in the Journal of Alternative and Complimentary Medicine, was a double-blinded placebo-controlled study found that when participants were grounded doing an exertion challenge, the grounded subject recovered faster, had lower pain levels, and had significantly lower blood cortisol levels (which means the grounded patients were less stressed from the exercise challenge), and significantly lower creatine kinase levels (in other words, less muscle damage.)In this 2015 study, published in the Journal of Sports Medicine , researchers had participants complete 200 deep knee bends then followed this exercise challenge with 4 hours grounding or 4 hours of sham grounding. They found that the grounded subjects creatine kinase did not increase while the ungrounded subjects had significantly increased creatine kinase — this suggested that grounding may have prevented muscle injury entirely.In this 2015 study, published in the Journal of Preventive Medicine, subjects were either grounded or sham grounded during a yoga challenge of 10 rigorous poses repeated 5 times for an entire hour. Grounding subjects had significantly improved blood flow, with decreased blood viscosity, compared to non-grounded subjectsIn this 2019 study, published in Frontiers in Physiology, test subjects completed a downhill treadmill challenge to induce long term soreness and complete muscular exhaustion, then half of them slept grounded and the other half were sham grounded. Researchers found that grounding improved recovery significantly — by day 10 the level of creatine kinase in grounded subjects was half that of the ungrounded subjects.
Anti-Aging Benefit #3: Grounding Lowers Whole Body Inflammation
C-reactive protein levels (a blood marker of whole body inflammation) Grounding studies like this one, published in 2015 in the Journal of Inflammation Research found an almost 60% drop in CRP after 4 days of grounding compared to non-grounded test subjects. Anecdotally I have seen a 30% decrease in CRP after 10 weeks of just 15 min of daily grounding. One side benefit of less inflammation is less pain = less polypharmacy. Adverse drug interactions are 4th leading cause of death in USA — every 5 min someone dies from drug interactions. If a patient is on 5 meds or more, there is a 58% chance of an adverse drug reaction — if they are on 7 or more medications, the chance of an adverse drug reaction is 82%. You can read more about that (and watch a video of me talking you through what to do to prevent this) in a free article I wrote for you here: The Fourth Leading Cause of Death: Your Medicine Cabinet
Anti-Aging Benefit #4: Grounding May Protect Bone Density
In this 2011 study, published in the Journal of Alternative and Complimentary Medicine, researchers had test subjects sleep overnight (7 hours) grounding vs. sham grounded subjects, and they found reduced renal excretion of calcium and phosphates, as well as lowered serum concentrations of both, which suggests less leaching of these minerals from bone. This indicates that these minerals remain stored in the skeletal “bone bank.” This suggests that the primary indicators of osteopenia and osteoporosis went down after just a single night of grounding! Longer terms studies are definitely needed and I can’t wait to share those results with you.
Anti-Aging Benefit #5: Grounding Reduces Cortisol
In this study, published in 2004 in the Journal of Alternative and Complimentary Medicine, subjects who slept grounded at night had a complete normalization of their cortisol patterns, suggesting deep recovery from stress. They also had such a dramatic improvement in their sleep that they reported significantly improved sleep and they subjectively felt less stressed and experienced less pain verse ungrounded subjects.
Anti-Aging Benefit #6: Grounding Improves Mental Clarity
I would be so excited to see long term studies of grounding and how that impacts dementia risk, as neruoinflammation is the primary cause of brain aging, and as we talked about already, grounding decreases inflammation throughout the entire body. And besides this, we already know that grounding (touching) the earth outside immediately impacts our brains.
This fantastic medical study, published in 2018, documents the brain wave shifts that happen near instantaneously –within milliseconds — recorded via an EEG (electroencephalogram) when the human body is grounded.Our cerebrospinal fluid, a highly conductive fluid that saturates and protects our brains, is easily grounded and may also contribute to grounding’s instantaneous effect on brain function. I published an article on this in 2023 in the American Journal of Neurology Research which you can read here. This study, published in 2015 in Psychology Reports, found a statistically significant boost to mood in participants who were grounded for 40 minutes, compared to controls who were sham grounded. The non-grounded participants had no significant improvement in mood.Why? Here are my thoughts on it, which I published in 2023 in the Journal of Neurology and Neuroscience. It’s been suggested that the Schumann Resonance acts as a globally available synchronization system to our brains (in articles like this one, published in 2003 in Medical Hypotheses.)So in 2015, researchers used EEGs and Schuman Resonance frequencies to see if there was any interaction between our human brains and the earth’s energy output. Published in the Journal Of Signal and Information Processing, these scientists found that electrical activity from the earth makes a measurable synchronization in our cerebral cortex that allows for real-time coupling between the Schumann resonance and cerebral activity. The researchers postulate this activity is the exact amount of time, length of time, amplitude of signaling, and frequency of time required for a “ping” from the planet to our human brains to occur.Even more exciting, the highest cohesion between the earth’s Schumnn Resonance and our human brains is in the parahippocampal gyrus of the brain’s cerebral cortex — this in an area of the brain that provides spatial awareness and navigation. Research into the parahippocampal gyrus of the brainutilizing fMRI has found that brain damage to that area of the cortex results in patients not being able to meaningfully interpret images. This area of the brain is also a highly sensitive early indicator of Alzheimers disease, showing signs of atrophy prior to other areas of the brain showing changes. For example, if you have damage or atrophy in your parahippocampal gyrus, you may recognize that a person is standing in front of you, but not know that it is actually your own child. Or you may recognize that there is a car parked in front of you, but not know it is actually your car. The parahypocamppal gyrus is responsible for accurate and meaningful interpretation of our surroundings, our environment, and for support in making life decisions in a contextually appropriate way. This gives a very real explanation for why time spent in nature, on the earth, grounded, helps to give rise to a feeling of centeredness and may even help give us clarity through these environmental “pings” from our planet. I would love to see more research on cognitive function and grounding, as well as long term studies evaluating grounding’s impact on dementia and congnitive decline!
Anti-Aging Benefit #7: Grounding Boosts Skin Health
I made a previous video with my 7 favorite holistic longevity tips, where I mention grounding as one of them (you can watch that here) so let me give you more information on how grounding is anti-aging to the skin!
This study, published August 2015 in Health, was a double blinded placebo study that showed clear evidence of dramatically boosted circulation throughout the body after only one hour of grounding.Published 2014 in the Journal of Cosmetics, Dermatological Sciences and Applications, researchers showed that grounding through the soles of the feet boosted blood circulation all the way up in facial skin tissues, suggesting the positive effects of increased circulation are available even in distant sites of the body that are far away from the grounding point of contact.This very important medical study, published in 2013 in the Journal of Alternative and Complimentary Medicine, shows that grounding for only 2 hours significantly reduced clotting risk, by decreasing the zeta potential on red blood cells and making them flow through the circulatory system or the body more smoothly. The zeta potential of the red blood cells were boosted, on average, by 270%. This in turn increased the average blood velocity of the patients by 260%. Boosted blood flow and circulation means skin is repairing more quickly — seen in decreased ulcers and boosted wound repair but cosmetically in more hydrated, youthful skin.A 2023 study, published in Lab On A Chip, found that DC (earth) energy accelerated healing and improved collagen integrity resulting in wounds healing three times faster, and in compromised diabetic skin the repair was same rate as normal, non-diabetic skinAnd this one, published in 2015 in the Journal of Cosmetics, Dermatological Sciences and Applications which shows in a double blinded placebo based study that grounding significantly improved blood flow to the skin of the face.And if you want to see images of grounding improving wound healing, you can look through this study published in 2015 in the Journal of Inflammatory Research.In addition, the sleep benefits we talked about in #5 above also means that collagen repair is enhanced in a second way thanks to grounding. Recent studies have found a direct correlation between sleep and collagen integrity, suggesting that beauty sleep is real. In this one (published Jan 202o in Nature Cell Biology) researchers found that poor sleep actually caused a decrease in the structural integrity of collagen with an increase in collagen misalignment. So over a lifetime, decreased sleep quality may literally be visible in your skin as your collagen becomes more misaligned, weaker, less elastic, and contributes to accelerated aging.Conversely, improving sleep over a lifetime helps boost skin healing and even boosts anti-aging benefits by improving collagen integrity and skin repair while you sleep. If you’d like to hear me talk more about why sleep actually does improve your skin’s appearance, and a bunch of things you can do to improve your sleep quality (including grounding!) you can hop over here to listen to my podcast on Beauty Sleep.
All together, it would be very hard to beat the head-to-toe health boost grounding can give you! Protecting your body from head to toe, decreasing those inflammatory cytokines while protecting the muscles and bones that allow continued stem cell regeneration.
To read all of this information compiled in a medical publication you can freely print and share, I published that for you in Jul of 2024 in Trends In General Medicine, which you can read (and print and share) right here:
Grounding: An Anti-Aging Breakthrough?
Citation: Laura Koniver. Grounding: An Anti-Aging Breakthrough? Trends Gen Med. 2024; 2(3): 1-7.
For those who want to ground for longer periods of time than they can realistically be outside, especially as the colder months arrive this fall and winter, here are the only grounding tools I endorse… ones I have specialty hand crafted using medical grade stainless steel and organic cotton and raw, all natural silk, in an eco-ethically manner from start to finish, in my Grounding Boutique right here:
Lately I’ve seen at least 5 different grounding companies use my name, image and content to make it appear that I medically endorse their grounding tools. One even used a voice over and a fake “doctor” (an actor in a generic white jacket) to describe my own personal informal grounding & weight loss study that I conducted over ten years ago… this actor described the study that “he” conducted, including all the results I’ve shared freely right here on my website, without giving any credit to me as the physician who ran the study.
They then pretended the study was conducted using their synthetic plastic mats, which I would never endorse. How on earth does it make sense to rub vinyl plastic against our precious human bodies to get grounded (introducing microplastics into our organ systems) and then clog a landfill for centuries, destroying the planet we depend on for our health?
ABSOLUTELY NOT.
I would never endorse cheaply made, mass produced grounding tools that use synthetic plastics like vinyl “leatherette” and p0lyester that will sit in a landfill for 500+ years. These companies do not care about the earth and they certainly don’t care about your health, as they are pretending a medical doctor (me) is promoting their unethically made products just to make a buck.
The only grounding tools in the world that I am aware of that are ethically hand crafted by artisans who are paid a fair ethical wage, that are hand sewn using eco-friendly materials like natural, unbleached cotton, organic hemp, and raw silk, are the ones made right here in my Grounding Boutique:
The post Aging From Inflammation Is Totally Optional. Here’s Why & How You Can Reverse It appeared first on Intuition Physician.
