Inflammation has gone from a condition you should worry about to a marketing buzzword used to sell everything from drugs to juice to cereal.

Well, at least they got it half right: You should worry about inflammation, and do what you can to bring your own levels down.

But forget the drugs, juice and cereal — because none of those things will ever beat the anti-inflammatory powers of plain old fish oil, and the latest research proves it again.

A new look at data on 702 patients who took part in one of 11 clinical trials finds that people who take fish oil supplements have lower blood levels of homocysteine, an inflammation marker linked to everything from heart risk to dementia to bone breaks, according to the study in Nutrition.

Other studies have also found that fish oil can put the hurtin’ on homocysteine.

One published in 2009 found that omega-3 supplements reduced levels of the inflammation marker by 22 percent in diabetics — versus just one percent among those who took a placebo.

And that’s really only the beginning of the benefits.

Studies have found that healthy omega-3 fatty acids can help protect your heart, eyes, and gums while raising levels of HDL (“good”) cholesterol and lowering levels of deadly triglycerides.

Fish oil can also help boost the mood and beat depression — especially among seniors.

The best sources of these omega-3s are fatty fish such as salmon, tuna, trout and herring — and the highest concentrations are often in the one part of the fish you’re probably not eating: the liver.

Researchers looked at a dozen fish commonly eaten in Spain and found all had livers rich in the long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids you need for good health.

And if you like anchovies, good news: The livers of these famously oily little fish had some of the highest omega-3 levels of all.

But why stick to the liver when you can eat anchovies whole?

OK, I know that’s not for everyone — but if you don’t like anchovies, fish livers or even fish itself, there’s a simple solution: a high-quality fish oil supplement from a company you trust.

Some can leave a fishy aftertaste or, even worse, a case of the “fish burps,” but don’t give up — refrigerate your capsules instead.

And if that doesn’t work, try a different brand until you find one that leaves you with all the benefits… but none of the burps.

Millions of seniors battle the three S’s in their later years: the stoop, the shakes, and the shuffle. And most docs will respond with their own S: the shrug as they tell you it’s just part of getting older.

Bull.

Just because you’re getting older doesn’t mean you have to sit back and tolerate a slow descent into feebleness — and now, a new study finds that the three S’s aren’t signs of aging.

They’re warning signs of something much more serious.

Researchers have been tracking some 1,100 aging priests and nuns since 1994, examining them for the “typical” signs of aging — like the three S’s — while they’re alive, and then studying their brains after death.

In autopsies of 418 of the volunteers who lived to an average age of 88, the researchers found a surprising number of microscopic brain lesions — including lesions in 30 percent of the patients who had never suffered a stroke or brain disease.

Those who had the most trouble walking in their final years often had multiple lesions, and two-thirds of the patients overall had at least one blocked blood vessel in the brain — leading researchers to conclude that these blockages may be the real cause of the three S’s.

The only problem here is that they’re so small they can’t be spotted in a living brain with any current technology — only under a microscope during an autopsy.

If it’s a warning, it’s a real quiet one — and if you think spotting these lesions is hard, treating them can be downright devastating: In many cases, the choice comes down to doing nothing, or undergoing a risky brain surgery that no senior wants to face.

Fortunately, emerging research has found that fatty acids can work wonders when it comes to brain injuries, especially the omega-3 fatty acid docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) found in fish oil.

That’s no surprise, since more than half of your brain is fat, and one of the main fats in your brain is DHA.

Some studies have shown that this essential fatty acid can help improve patients who suffer from the types of brain lesions associated with cognitive decline, while other recent studies have found that DHA may help the brain to recover from traumatic injuries.

It’s too early to say whether fatty acid supplements can prevent or heal the types of brain lesions uncovered by the new study — but why wait? The omega-3s can help your brain, heart, eyes, and more — and unless you’ve got a pretty steady fatty fish habit, you should be taking this stuff anyway.

The “senior moment” — it’s one of the most common stereotypes in movies and on television. But the “senior moment” used so often for cheap laughs isn’t nearly as “common” as you’ve been led to believe.

In fact, most seniors barely experience any significant form of cognitive decline over the years.

If you’re a senior yourself, you already knew that — and you’re probably more than a little annoyed by those constant portrayals of doddering oldsters who can’t remember what they had for breakfast.

Which is why you likely won’t be surprised to hear about a recent study that found that two-thirds of all seniors experience very little cognitive decline in their golden years.

For ten years, researchers tracked 1,049 nuns, priests, and monks between the ages of 56 and 102 who were dementia-free at the start of the study and gave them annual cognitive tests.

They found that only a third of the volunteers suffered either a moderate or rapid cognitive decline, with the rest experiencing declines so small that one of the authors of the study said it wasn’t much of a change at all.

But while the study published in the journal Age and Aging proves that you can remain sharp even as the years go by, too many doctors still assume that a failing memory is a normal part of growing old.

So when older patients complain that they can’t quite remember as well as they used to, docs often just shrug it off.

“You’re just getting older,” they say. “Nothing to worry about.”

That’s just patronizing and insulting — because a failing memory could be something to worry about after all. Docs who can’t or won’t take it seriously aren’t worth remembering anyway.

In many cases, the little slips written off as senior moments – and even some cases of dementia itself — are actually the warning signs of completely fixable problems, including sleep disorders, nutritional deficiencies, and drug side effects.

A good naturopathic physician can help get it all straightened out in no time.

And if — like most seniors — you haven’t experienced any memory problems, there are steps you can take right now to help keep it that way.

A number of studies have found that moderate drinkers have a lower risk for dementia, including one that found a drink or two a day can slash the risk of Alzheimer’s disease by 40 percent. (Read about it here.)

Other studies have found that sleep, B vitamins, coffee, and the pigment astaxanthin can all help protect the brain and lower your risk of cognitive decline, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease.

I’ll have more on another study based on the same group of priests and nuns tomorrow — one that blows another aging stereotype right out of the water.

Stay tuned.

The connection between emotional overload and heart attack has been known since… well, forever.

But in case you had any doubt, a new study puts it to rest: Heart attack survivors with anger and stress issues have a dramatically higher risk of a second attack.

The researchers gave psychological tests to 228 heart attack patients — including 200 men — to measure levels of anger and stress, then tracked them for 10 years.

Or most of them, anyway — because of the 51 patients who suffered a second heart attack in that time, 28 died… and I think you already know who was more likely to be among them.

Overall, the researchers say more than half of the patients who scored high for either stress or anger eventually suffered either a fatal or nonfatal second heart attack, while more than 75 percent of the patients with low scores managed to avoid it.

Breaking it down, anger turned out to be worse than stress — although not by much. The researchers say patients with
high anger scores were 2.3 times more likely to have a second heart attack than those with low scores.

Patients who battled stress, on the other hand, were 1.9 times more likely to suffer a second attack, according to data presented at the European Society of Cardiology’s annual meeting.

But of course, the important thing here isn’t the study — we’ve known all along how anger and stress can wreck havoc on your health, especially when it comes to your heart.

What’s more important is that both anger and stress are completely within your control — and if you’ve been living with too much of either (or both), it’s time to turn yourself around, whether you’ve already experienced a heart attack or are still working your way towards one.

I know that’s easier said than done — some old habits really do die hard, after all. But if you don’t make those changes to your own life, those habits might not be the only things that die.