Almost every illness has some form of inflammation as a key component. Many health professionals are now coming to the conclusion that inflammation plays a big role in heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, depression, osteoporosis, cancer and more! You’ll notice in headlines throughout health news media that read, “The Silent Epidemic,” or “The Hidden Killer”… All talking about silent inflammation in the body.
There truly is a primary and preventable cause of many serious diseases… Even for our wrinkles and laugh lines!
“Systemic Inflammation” defined as a cellular type of inflammation that you can neither see nor feel… but you sure feel the symptoms of it: aches and pains, deteriorating bones, cardiovascular problems, diabetes, insulin resistance, more and more wrinkles, headaches, stomach problems, allergies, asthma, etc. is the main culprit.
Some inflammation is obvious such as that from asthma, allergies, arthritis because you can easily FEEL the symptoms. But what about the hidden kind of inflammation?
The kind that is silent, that attacks your cells, blood vessels and organs for years without causing the slightest symptom… eventually leading to heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease or osteoporosis.
I don’t know a single person who is not at risk for this type of inflammation.
Sometimes inflammation is a good thing…. it’s that system that the body has for protecting itself from infection and healing itself from injury. Just take a look… remember when you sprained your wrist or ankle and you had a bit of swelling? That was your body creating an inflammatory response to an injury… the ankle or wrist probably swelled up a lot very rapidly. You would have felt pain and a rush of blood and fluid to the injured area acted as a natural splint to immobilize the area giving your body time to send nutrients down to the ankle or wrist so it could start the repair process. Pretty neat and ingenious actually.
When you have a fever, that’s kind of like a complete-body inflammation where your immune system is going to work real fast to kill a virus or bacteria that has invaded your body…. making it so uncomfortable for the invader that it literally dies of heatstroke!
Ok… so you get the idea that inflammation is some cases is actually a needed and wanted activity in the body…
But what about the type of inflammation that is silent, slow, chronic and unnecessary?
That’s the kind you have with allergies and arthritis. That type is not a healing nor protective kind of inflammation… but an irritating one that creates unwanted symptoms of aches, pains, breathing problems etc. and can make you feel miserable. Over time even these kinds of inflammatory conditions can worsen and spread into other areas of the body creating even further damage.
So what causes this unnecessary and unwanted inflammation? Simply… IMBALANCES! (oh gawd… there she goes again… preaching about “balance”)… Geez, I’m sorry to tell you… but it really does come from your body and the cells in the body producing becomes confused and starts producing the WRONG chemicals… and, well… you’re in trouble.
Immune-system chemicals called eicosanoids (I-kO-sa-noids), which are actually hormones, control the inflammatory response; some trigger it, others quench it as I went over earlier…. so you have pro-inflammatory hormones and anti-inflammatory hormones.
When the pro’s constantly overwhelm the anti’s, though, the body can go into a state of chronic inflammation (also known as silent inflammation). “The difference lies in the perception of pain,” says Dr. Barry Sears. “In classic inflammation, something hurts and you take action. Silent inflammation is below the perception of pain so that it can linger on for years.”
Eicosanoids are formed from fatty acids, which come in two basic types: pro-inflammatory omega-6s (especially arachidonic acid, or AA) and anti-inflammatory omega-3s (especially eicosapentaenoic acid, or EPA). Up until the early 20th century, most people ate diets in which the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 was roughly 2:1. However, omega-3 has a shorter shelf life, which is why it has been mostly eliminated from the processed consumables that started pouring out of food factories at the beginning of the 20th century. Nowadays the omega-6/omega-3 ratio is about 20:1 … and a higher ratio means more inflammation!
The amount of sugar and other refined carbohydrates in the standard American diet also fuels the silent fire. High blood sugar leads to high levels of insulin, which causes an increase in the fatty acids that cause inflammation. Insulin also promotes production of interleukin-6 (in-ter-’l–kin), an inflammatory immune-system chemical. In addition, excess sugar binds with protein to form other body chemicals, which accumulate in tissues with inflammation-provoking results.
“Children are filled with allergies and adults are, too, although they don’t know it,” says Nancy Appleton, PhD, nutritionist and author of Stopping Inflammation: Relieving the Cause of Degenerative Diseases . She says that food allergies in particular are more common than many people think; such allergies can cause leaky gut syndrome, in which disordered bowel walls allow toxins and wastes to invade the bloodstream, spreading inflammation throughout the body.
All of this inflammation prompts the body to create cortisol, the main anti-inflammatory hormone produced by the adrenal glands. And while a little cortisol is good thing, continued inflammation means continued cortisol production, which can cause anything from insulin resistance (a diabetes precursor) to dying nerve cells to immune-system suppression…not a pretty sight.
Ahhh… now you see the hormone and inflammation connection???
Heart attacks are commonly caused by the rupture of fatty deposits called plaques within coronary arteries. Pro-inflammatory eicosanoids inside an unstable plaque can trigger the inflammation that increases the likelihood of rupture. And if that wasn’t enough, inflammation amplifies the cardiovascular risks posed by high blood pressure.
You can look at virtually every chronic disease and see a considerable inflammation content. Take diabetes, for example: According to many doctors, the incidence of this disorder has gone up 33% over the past decade …the same time period that has seen dramatic jumps in both obesity and silent inflammation.
The brain, too, suffers when inflammation goes out of control. People who have taken anti-inflammatory agents long-term have a much lower incidence of Alzheimer’s disease than the general population. Other neurological disorders including multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s…also have strong inflammatory components.
Is there a way to douse the flames of inflammation?
Is there any good news about silent inflammation? Yes…that you can take refuge in your kitchen instead of a prescription bottle. Fighting silent inflammation is a lifelong struggle and therefore diet becomes your most cost-effective way to keep it under control.
You can start by ditching the sugar bowl (along with other refined carbs, such as white bread, pastries and chemicals made from the nutrients you eat. Simply put… if you don’t eat the correct nutrients your body pasta). Sugar is addictive, literally, just like cocaine, alcohol, caffeine or tobacco. Soft drinks are a particularly insidious sugar source; lemon water is a good alternative. I also recommends building your diet around vegetables, fish and, if you aren’t a vegetarian-free-range, organically fed meat. Be sure to avoid foods that provoke a discomforting response; even healthy foods such as apples, whole wheat and mushrooms can cause allergic reactions in sensitive people.
First let’s clear up the definition of the word “diet”… it’s actually become a … dirty little word in our language today, “I hate diets”, “you never stick to your diet”, “Do I have to go on another diet?”
The word “DIET” comes from an ancient Greet word which means, “way of life”! “NO!”, you say! It can’t be… but , yes… it’s a way of life… not a temporary thing that you should hate doing!
We have so destroyed the true meaning of the word… and turned it into another one of those “four-letter dirty words” that we hate for anyone to say or suggest to us…
So I hate to tell you this… but you’re just going to have to DIET!!!!! (smile) because it’s the food you eat as a way of life - obviously if it means “way of life” … it doesn’t mean “way of death”… eating dead non-food items is not a “way of life”! Eating non-food items contributes to inflammation and then to ill health. Simple.
You want to beat disease? You want to beat old age? Then you’re going to have to change your “way of life” (diet)… no other way … we have an easy to use anti-inflammation dietary guideline that anyone can follow… let’s get you tested properly and start with the right information…
Let us help you find exactly what you need to do to enhance and repair YOUR “way of life”.
The other step is to get more of the healthy, inflammation-easing omega-3 fats into your life. But I usually suggest you obtain your EPA directly in the form of high-dose fish oil, taken with food. We do carry a very very good brand that works just great. Just call our office for help on that… trust me… not all Omega 3’s on the market are the same and are good quality… Many will give you untold indigestion and cause you to burp a really foul smelling taste.
Silent inflammation not only threatens your health, it menaces the healthcare system as we know it. Six years from now, in the year 2011, our entire healthcare system will crash into chaos when the baby boomers, suffering from inflammation-based diseases, can access Medicare,… warns one doctor. We can’t pay the bills looming ahead, no matter how rich our nation is. Preventing disease by quenching inflammation’s hidden fires is the best way to go for the country, and for you.