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Understanding inflammaging and how preventative health data could help lessen its impact
By Dominique Kent, CEO, Bluecrest
As women, we spend much of our lives juggling, I know this from my own experience.
Running a business, raising a family, caring for parents as they get older, the list is endless. Somewhere in the mix, our own health slips down the priority list.
That is why the idea of inflammaging resonates so strongly with me.
It is a quiet, creeping process in the body: low-level inflammation that builds up over time and accelerates ageing.
Unlike a sprained ankle or a winter flu, you cannot feel it happening.
Yet it’s there, silently increasing the risk of conditions that affect so many women in later life such as heart disease, osteoporosis and dementia.
My background before Bluecrest was in the care sector where I saw first-hand what happens when people live longer but not necessarily well.
Too many spent their final years dealing with pain, frailty and loss of independence.
It shaped my belief that the goal for us all should not just be about lifespan but healthspan: the years we live in good health, able to do the things we enjoy and remain independent.
Inflammaging is a direct and silent threat to this, so it’s something that needs to be addressed.
We as women face some particular challenges here. Hormonal changes during menopause remove a natural buffer against inflammation. Autoimmune conditions, which are often inflammatory, are far more common in women.
There are pressures outside of our biologies too, which often fall more heavily on women: stress, trauma, poor sleep, carrying the invisible load of family responsibilities.
All of these add to the inflammatory burden.
The danger is that inflammaging is invisible, you don’t wake up one day and feel it.
Instead it builds, and its impact often only shows when something serious has developed. This is what makes it so risky.
We already know that women’s health issues are often picked up late, misdiagnosed or brushed aside. Add a hidden process like inflammaging into the mix and you see why prevention is so important.
That focus on prevention is what drew me to Bluecrest.
Dominique Kent
The NHS has made prevention a key part of its long-term plan, and rightly so. If we can spot risks earlier, through small and regular interventions, we can act earlier. That is good for individuals and for the health system.
Inflammaging links directly to so many of the chronic conditions that we see in the headlines, the ones that put the heaviest strain on the NHS, so tackling it at source makes sense.
At Bluecrest, I see how empowering it can be when women come for a health check.
Often it is the first time in years they have put themselves at the top of the list, rather than convincing their husbands or parents to get checked out.
The results are not always perfect, but even when they show areas of concern, women tell me they feel in control.
They leave with a plan, and with knowledge which can be a huge turning point.
I also think about this in the context of business.
Midlife is often when women are at the peak of their careers, yet it is also when health issues start to appear. If hidden risks like inflammaging go unaddressed, we lose women from the workforce at a time when their skills and leadership are most needed.
For me, that’s why prevention is not just a personal issue, it is an economic one.
The good news is that there are things we can do.
A balanced diet, regular exercise, proper sleep and managing stress all help reduce inflammation. Stopping smoking and cutting back on alcohol make a difference too.
But it is unrealistic to leave it all to the individual – and we’ll fail if we add this to an already never-ending list of responsibilities that women take on.
This is where femtech has such a vital role to play.
For too long, women have lacked access to the kind of information that would allow them to make confident and informed health decisions. Now we are seeing new technologies emerge that can change that.
From wearable devices that track sleep and stress, to apps that monitor cycle changes, to biomarker tests that give an early picture of cardiovascular or metabolic risk, women can increasingly access the data they need to understand their own bodies and act sooner.
At Bluecrest, we see how powerful it is when women are given personalised health information alongside the expertise and support to understand it. It shifts prevention from being a vague idea into something tangible.
When data is made accessible, women are more likely to act, whether that is adjusting lifestyle choices, speaking to a GP, or booking follow-up tests.
For femtech to really deliver, though, it has to be part of a bigger ecosystem.
Women need healthcare services that take their concerns seriously, workplaces that respect their health needs, and innovations that are affordable and fit in with their lives.
You’re not going to go and get your inflammation levels checked if you have to take a day off work or caring responsibilities and travel 50 miles to get there.
Data is only empowering when it is clear, trusted and connected to practical next steps.
That is the opportunity now: to combine the science of inflammaging with the growing power of technology, so that women can extend not only lifespan but healthspan, with more years lived in good health and independence.
As a female CEO, I feel a responsibility to use my voice on issues like this.
Women’s health has too often been overlooked, underfunded and under-researched.
Inflammaging may be silent, but it does not have to remain invisible.
By naming it, understanding it, and taking action early, we can give women more years of healthy, independent life.
The Scottish government has launched a national review into whether NHS IVF access should be extended to single women.
The review will also consider whether wider access should be offered to couples who have children from previous relationships.
Health secretary Angela Constance said: “Access to NHS IVF treatment should be fair, timely and reflect the way people’s lives and families look today.”
Most single women are not currently eligible for NHS IVF treatment in Scotland.
Campaigners have welcomed the review.
Katie Rollings of Fertility Action said: “It’s an essential and long-awaited decision that will impact a huge number of people who are struggling to grow their families.
She said there is “no evidence” that having two parents rather than one determines whether a child will thrive.
She added: “What matters is whether a child is loved, safe, supported and has stable, positive relationships around them.”
Figures from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority show Scotland is the only UK nation where NHS-funded IVF cycles outnumber privately funded cycles.
In 2024, more than 6,000 cycles of fertility treatment were carried out among more than 4,000 patients in Scotland. Both figures were slightly lower than the record highs recorded in 2022.
The past 20 years have also seen a rise in the number of same-sex female couples and single women receiving fertility treatment.
In 2024, 625 IVF cycles were carried out for women in same-sex couples in Scotland, with more than one third funded by the NHS.
There were 330 cycles involving single women, of which 50 were NHS-funded.
In England, single women can access IVF through the NHS, although eligibility varies according to the local health trust’s policy.
Current Scottish rules state that couples are eligible if they have been living in a stable relationship for two years and neither partner has been sterilised.
Couples where one partner already has a child can be eligible, but those where both partners have children from previous relationships are not.
Eligibility rules also require a body mass index above 18.5 and below 30, and state that couples must not smoke, drink alcohol or take drugs during treatment. The mother must be under 42.
The Scottish government said the review would also examine consistency of access to fertility preservation, including during cancer treatment, as well as reducing waiting times for donor eggs and sperm.
Same-sex female couples already have access to NHS IVF, but they can face long waits for donor eggs or sperm, as can heterosexual couples who require donor treatment.
The National Fertility Group will lead the review and make “costed, demand-modelled recommendations”, which are due to be published by early summer 2027.
The group will include fertility experts from Scotland’s four NHS-assisted conception units in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee.
Prof Sarah Martins Da Silva, an NHS consultant and chair of fertility medicine at Dundee University, said there were questions to be answered in a resource-stretched NHS.
“As a fertility specialist I’m never going to be disappointed if the criteria is widened,” she said.
“But with single people, as an NHS clinician looking at the competing demands we have, I’d ask the question about whether being single is a health condition that needs to be funded.”
Da Silva said NHS waiting lists were full of couples who require donated eggs or sperm because of medical conditions including cancer and could face longer waits.
“It’s slightly a disservice to them,” she said.
“There would need to be a real investment and resource without making everybody wait an extraordinary long time.
“With the current financial environment we work in, if you’re talking about new money, where would that come from?”
She said she would welcome changes that encouraged more people to donate eggs or sperm and questioned whether arguments about children needing two parents were necessarily relevant to the debate.
“On the one hand bringing up a child is quite an expensive process, and if you don’t have that support, it can be very difficult.
“But on the other hand, many people start off as a couple and divorce.”
Da Silva also welcomed plans for the review to consider eligibility for couples who already have children, describing the move as “fantastic”.
The FDA has granted accelerated approval to AstraZeneca drug Etcamah for certain adults with advanced breast cancer carrying an ESR1 mutation.
Etcamah, also known as camizestrant, was approved in combination with a CDK4/6 inhibitor, either abemaciclib, palbociclib or ribociclib.
The treatment is for adults with hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative, locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer when an estrogen receptor-1 (ESR1) mutation is detected during aromatase inhibitor and CDK4/6 inhibitor therapy using an FDA-authorised test.
ESR1 mutations are acquired resistance mutations that tumours may develop during treatment with aromatase inhibitors, a type of endocrine therapy commonly used as a front-line treatment for locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer.
Fewer than 5 per cent of patients have the mutation when HR-positive metastatic breast cancer is diagnosed, according to the FDA. After disease progression on an aromatase inhibitor, nearly 40 per cent have the mutation.
Acting FDA commissioner Kyle Diamantas said: “Women living with metastatic breast cancer face an uphill battle as their tumors continuously evolve to escape treatment.
“We owe them every weapon in our arsenal.
“Today’s approval delivers a win to these patients by granting them a targeted therapy designed specifically to overcome resistance, giving them more time before their disease progresses.”
The accelerated approval programme allows earlier approval of drugs that treat serious conditions and fill an unmet medical need based on surrogate or intermediate endpoints.
For Etcamah, approval was based on how long patients lived without their disease worsening, measured from when the resistance mutation was first detected in their blood.
The FDA said it has not yet been confirmed whether intervening when the mutation is detected, rather than waiting until disease progression is confirmed, results in a clinically meaningful benefit. Confirmatory studies are therefore required to verify and describe clinical benefit.
Angelo de Claro, director of the FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence, said: “I commend both the FDA and the sponsor for their commitment to advancing cancer care and securing this accelerated approval.
“This marks the first FDA approval of a cancer therapy guided by the detection of a resistance mutation in circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) before imaging tests show that the disease is progressing.
“But additional evidence is needed to confirm clinical benefit.”
Circulating tumour DNA, or ctDNA, consists of small pieces of tumour DNA released into the blood and can allow earlier molecular detection of resistance mutations.
The FDA also authorised the Guardant360 CDx assay as a companion diagnostic to identify patients with breast cancer who have ESR1 mutations for treatment with camizestrant.
Efficacy was assessed in a clinical trial comparing a switch to Etcamah plus a CDK4/6 inhibitor with continued treatment using an aromatase inhibitor plus a CDK4/6 inhibitor.
Estimated median progression-free survival was 16 months in the Etcamah group, compared with 9.2 months in the aromatase inhibitor group.
Etcamah’s prescribing information includes a boxed warning about the risk of irregular heart rhythm when taken with certain other medicines. It also includes warnings about an abnormally slow heart rate and potential harm to an unborn baby.
The FDA convened its Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee for the application on 30 April 2026.
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Attending both events?
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