"CARDIAC AGEING", REFLECTED BY A NARROWING OF HEART RATE VARIABILITY: The physiological ageing process of the heart goes along with a narrowing of heart rate variability as shown by various groups, including our own. Arguments in favour of a causal relationship between inflammation and cardiac ageing come from an experimental study with healthy human volunteers who had received a low dose of endotoxin: such a proinflammatory stimulus leads to a reversible narrowing of heart rate variability (7). Also in senescence heart rate variability steadily declines, paralleled by a steady increase of basal inflammatory activity.