The fire inside - why do we need to control inflammation

The Fire Within

A little bit of a good thing is ok, too much is not. We need inflammation in our body to heal and mend. If we cut or injure ourselves, if we have an infection, disease or allergen, you want your body to mount an inflammatory response (innate immunity). Your immune system needs to step into action, send specialised blood cells to the affected area to repair any damage and stop the spread of infection. These specialised cells can also mop up and clear out damaged cells

Thats an inflammatory response you want - we need acute inflammation. Without acute inflammation cuts and bruises would never repair, new muscle would never build after exercise.

Inflammation becomes a problem however when it goes from acute to chronic.

Chronic inflammation - it just won’t go away

With chronic inflammation, instead of small localised areas of the body becoming temporarily inflamed, your full body remains in an inflammatory reponse, unresolved and with no end in site - that’s not good - and we know now this continual state of inflammation, that can last year after year after year in the body, can in fact be the precursor for many chronic diseases

Time magazine mentioned in their famous 2004 cover article (see above) that as far back as the 1860s a renowned pathologist, Rudolf Virchow speculated that cancerous tumours arise at the site of chronic inflammation. Now researchers are exploring the possibility that mutation and inflammation are not mutually exclusive and that one may reinforce the other and left unchecked, can transform normal cells into abnormal cells

Inflammation has now been linked to cardiovascular disease, gastrointestinal disorders. autoimmune disease like rheumatoid arthritis and furthermore foster the proliferation of abnormal cells in the body. More recent research has drawn links between inflammation, cognitive function and some mental health disorders like depression, dementia and Alzheimers.

You want to be at your peak performance, and be the best you can? Understand inflammation and how you can control it

So why worry about a bit of inflammation ?

So remember this statement.

Your brain is the first part of the body to suffer when you are chronically inflamed.

It doesn’t matter if the inflammation is in your heart, your index finger, or your stomach, if you have inflammation in your body, the most significant thing to understand, is that your body will release chemicals called cytokines that will then negatively affect your cognitive function.

The understanding of the mechanism is worth another blog, but just understand at the moment that if any part of you is inflamed, your brain will be inflamed, your cells will not work properly, and your mitochondria (the little power plants of your cells that create energy to power the cells and their function) will be damaged and unable to operate properly.

If you want to live a long healthy happy life, that is not what you want

( I will go into a whole different blog about these fascinating organelles called mitochondria at another time)

What can we do to lessen the bodies inflammatory response ?

And here’s the clincher. It appears many of the attributes of our Western lifestyle, diet high in sugars and consumption of poor forms of fats, low levels of exercise, high levels of stress, all can contribute to this unwanted inflammation.

I know we all get bombarded with these messages about what to do and what not to do but the more they know and research, the more they know how important these things are to reduce inflammation and the inflammatory response in the body

Reduce stress and sleep well

• Get outside

• Get exposure to sunlight

• Lower our exposure to toxins

• Be careful what foods we eat

• Exercise regularly

Other things to help

• Low level Light therapy

• Magnesium

• Curcumin

• Infrared and Near Infrared

• Cold therapy

We will drill down into these later, but just make a note to yourself, Inflammation that is chronic is not good, and can have enormous impacts on your physical and mental health. Cells can be damaged by long term inflammation which can lead to poor cellular energy production and consequently poor health

We want optimal health - lets do what we can to reduce inflammation

To live a long and healthy life, inflammation is important to understand. here are some insights

TIME MAGAZINE FEB 2004