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The Ravages of Chronic Inflammation and How to Manage It Through Lifestyle Choices
Introduction
Despite growing up in Southeast Asia, my academic schooling was firmly rooted in Western science. So, like any Western doctor, I believed that every disease had its own unique cause and required its own unique solution. Cancer happened when normal cells mutated and then developed into tumors. The solution was to poison all cells, abnormal and normal, with chemotherapy and radiation. Heart attacks occurred when a blood clot blocked the flow of blood to the heart. The solution was invasive surgery that cut through the ribcage and into the chest cavity to rearrange the blood vessels. Alzheimer's disease occurred when abnormal cell-killing structures developed in the brain. The solution was pharmaceutical drugs with side effects like nausea, vomiting, and ironically, confusion. In the late 1990's, everything I knew about disease was turned upside down. Study after study came out showing that the world's most feared diseases all had one thing in common - inflammation. The implications of this discovery were enormous. If inflammation was at the heart of cancer, cardiovascular disease, arthritis, digestive tract diseases, macular degeneration, Alzheimer's disease, and chronic fatigue syndrome, then instead of having to solve seven problems suddenly we only had to solve one. If we understood the unifying thread behind these debilitating diseases, alleviating their painful effects could become easy, direct, affordable, and available to most people.  Inflammation can affect us all. If you're in good health now, managing inflammation could be your ticket to a disease-free future. If you're currently struggling with an inflammation-related disease, lowering levels of inflammation in your body will not only increase the quality of your day-to-day life, it may even extend your lifespan. Are You Suffering From Inflammation? Here is a list of symptoms commonly associated with low-grade chronic inflammation.
What is inflammation? If you've ever stubbed your toe or gotten a splinter, you're familiar with the telltale signs of inflammation: redness, heat, swelling, and pain. But, did you know that inflammation can happen on the inside of your body too? Even though you can't see it, inflammation can eat away at your blood vessels, your digestive tract, your brain, your joints, and the inner structures of your eyes. Inflammation is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it protects you. When you get a splinter, inflammation makes sure that immune cells arrive at the scene of the injury to kill any bacteria or viruses that may have entered the broken skin. That's what all that redness, heat, swelling, and pain is about. Your immune system is going to war! On the other hand, inflammation can kill you. It can cause diseases no one wants to get, like cancer, arthritis, heart disease, digestive tract diseases, macular degeneration, Alzheimer's disease, and chronic fatigue syndrome. So when is inflammation good and when is it bad? The simple answer is that short-term inflammation is good and long-term inflammation is bad. Inflammation can be compared to firefighters battling a house on fire. They're supposed to arrive at the scene, turn their hoses on full force, put out the fire, and then go home. The house will sustain some water damage, but at least it will still be standing at the end of the day. But what would happen if, once the fire was out, the firefighters kept on spraying the house? What if they kept their hoses on for days or months or years? Eventually they would destroy the house. Like firefighters, inflammation is only supposed to stick around as long as a threat exists. That's why your inflammation levels shoot through the roof if you have a severe bacterial infection. But, quickly go back to normal once the bacteria is successfully eliminated.3 When the body doesn't turn off the inflammation response - when all those inflammatory chemicals stay in the system for a long time - it ends up destroying the very tissues and organs it was meant to protect. Having high levels of inflammation for short periods of time is helpful, but having low levels of inflammation for long periods of time is deadly. What triggers chronic inflammation? So what exactly causes the immune system to go haywire? What triggers chronic inflammation? No one knows for sure, but scientists have some good theories. One of the major suspects behind chronic, low-grade inflammation is chronic, low-grade infection. When you get a cold, food poisoning or yeast infection, your immune system goes into inflammation overdrive to protect you from the invading germs. Once the threat is conquered, inflammation goes back down to normal levels. But, what happens when the virus or bacteria or fungus doesn't completely go away? What if small amounts of it hang around in your system for months or even years? Then, instead of launching a short-lived all-out attack, the body settles for continual low-grade inflammation. Chronic infection and chronic diseases go hand in hand. One study found that a shocking 85 percent of heart attack sufferers had chronic gum disease, which is caused by a bacterial infection.4 People who've had three or more urinary tract infections in their lifetime have double the risk of developing bladder cancer.5 And folks who are infected with Heliobacter pylori (the bacterium that causes ulcers) are six times more likely to get stomach cancer than healthy folks.6 In all of these cases, a bacterial infection causes inflammation, and inflammation causes disease. Other suspected causes of chronic, low-grade inflammation include smoking, air pollution, elevated levels of LDL (bad) cholesterol, high blood pressure, diets high in sugars and bad fats (both saturated and trans fats), and lack of exercise. Even emotional stress can set off the inflammatory response. A fascinating four-year study found that people who felt chronically lonely had inflammation levels two to three times as high as people who felt connected to friends and family.7 Age is another factor. The older we get, the more pro-inflammatory chemicals our bodies produce.8 Chronic Inflammation and An Imbalanced Immune System Our Immunity is rooted in two major systems: the innate and the acquired immune system. The innate immune system is what we were all born with and deals with many of the more nonspecific threats to our bodies.9 The acquired immune system is what we develop based on our behavior, environment, and exposures. This means that the more bugs or allergens we're exposed to and successfully fend off, the more our acquired immune system grows in complexity. These two branches of the immune system are constantly communicating with each other to maintain balance in the body. Their communication system involves specialized sensors and signals that unleash a cascade of biochemical reactions, producing metabolites that activate genes to relay protein messages that communicate an inflammatory call-to-action. Most critically, they are designed to turn that action off when they aren't needed anymore. But patients with chronic inflammation may show increased levels of certain pro-inflammatory markers, even when there is no obvious reason for inflammation. Some of these markers include C-reactive protein, IFN-gamma, IL-1, IL-6, NF-KB and TNF-alpha. These are the same mediators that become elevated in an acute reaction — but the difference is that the acute phase is turned off when the job is done. As I've mentioned above, we need a healthy balance of inflammation to stay healthy. But if your body is constantly on the defensive, it makes sense that your overall health would be compromised. First of all, inflammation takes a lot of your body's energy and resources. Second of all, our inflammatory cells have evolved to be powerful (this helps rid us of invaders before they can do harm!) — and having a constant, low-grade flow of powerful inflammatory markers in the blood stream can cause damage with time. To make matters worse, once the balance is disrupted, the immune system's hyperactivity can self-perpetuate and quickly spiral into disease. Recent research at Harvard Medical School supports the connection between an imbalanced immune system and metabolic disorders, like type 2 diabetes10. Scientists found an abundance of immune cells called mast cells in diabetic and obese mice. In healthy individuals, mast cells help to heal damaged tissue, but they accumulate in the fat tissue of obese and diabetic mice and can leak "molecular garbage" into this tissue when unstable. The good news is, the group of mice given a healthy diet and immune system support, had nearly a 100% recovery! We'll have to wait and see if the same results play out in humans. How Inflammation Reduces Your Energy: In our modern culture where everyone seems intent on accomplishing more things in less time, feeling fatigue isn't the exception — it's the rule. Would it surprise you to learn that your lack of energy could be directly related to the amount of inflammation in your body? Think about the last time you were sick — really sick; so sick that you couldn't work. How did you feel? How was your energy level? Did you find it difficult to do anything more than lie around on the couch watching movies all day? If so, you've had a direct experience with inflammation-related fatigue. As you may remember, inflammation is a response of the immune system to a foreign invader. So when you're fighting a cold or flu, your immune system is releasing high levels of inflammatory chemicals to beat off the bad guys. Those chemicals also have an effect on your brain making you feel drained of energy. This is a built-in evolutionary response of the body — as long as you're on the couch, your immune system can devote all of its energy to fighting the infection. People who are chronically tired may be exhausted because their bodies have been battling a low-grade infection for months, or even years. Eventually that kind of chronic, low-grade inflammation takes its toll. Unfortunately, Western medicine doesn't have much to offer people who feel drained day in and day out. Doctors may advise you to get more sleep, eat a healthy diet, and start a mild exercise program — all sound advice. But sometimes even with lifestyle changes, the lack of energy doesn't go away. Your doctor might then recommend that you see a mental health professional (as if the fatigue is all in your head), or take antidepressants (as if the depression is making you fatigued rather than the fatigue making you depressed). This advice does not address the true source of the problem — and may make it worse.11 Living an Inflammation Free Lifestyle: The Choice is Ours Each day, we make many choices that affect the levels of inflammation in our body. What we eat, how often we exercise, how much we sleep, our level of exposure to toxic chemicals inside and outside the home, and even the feelings we experience can all impact whether our body produces more anti-inflammatory chemicals or pro-inflammatory ones. Our goal is to move out of a chronic state of inflammation and toward a state of health. Taking various supplements is a great starting place. But, those supplements will be even more effective if we make conscious lifestyle choices too. Since many conditions share a common thread of inflammation, the lifestyle recommendations for one disease are the same as for the others. Nine Things You Can Do Right Now To Reduce Chronic Inflammation (1) Eat Smart. One of the most powerful tools at our disposal to fight inflammation is our diet. Each time we sit down to a meal, we can make food choices that either raise or lower the level of inflammation in our body. Foods That Promote Inflammation:
Anti-Inflammatory Foods:
(2) Add high quality supplements if you are not getting a sufficiently healthy diet. There is an extensive and growing body of evidence natural remedies play a vital role in treating and preventing a range of debilitating chronic illnesses.. The following are the top seven natural anti-inflammatory and antioxidant supplements to help us prevent and even treat, some of the world's most feared diseases:
(3) Give Ourselves the Gift of Sleep Sleep is underrated. When life gets hectic, sleep is usually the first thing to go, because we know we can "get by" on fewer hours than our bodies would like. Research shows that getting less than six or seven hours of uninterrupted sleep a night increases our risk of all kinds of diseases, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity35. Scientists suspect that when we wake up before our natural sleep cycle is complete, our body assumes there must be a life-threatening reason. The response is to produce stress hormones and increase blood pressure so we can manage the "threat". Our immune system then kicks into high gear, releasing inflammatory chemicals into the blood stream to prepare for a possible injury. Just one night of inadequate sleep can cause our levels of inflammation to rise! 36 Between seven and nine hours of uninterrupted sleep can help repair and restore our immune system. Though many scientists are still debating why we sleep, we know that a good night's sleep is one of the best anti-inflammatories out there! We need to give ourselves the gift of sleep and make getting to bed on time a priority. (4) Get Moving There are many reasons why exercising is good for us:
Most of us think of exercise as anything that makes us sweat, but a balanced exercise program will include three elements:
(5) Get Regular Massages Exercising keeps everything flowing in our body - our blood, lymphatic fluids, and vital life energy ("chi'). Massage has similar benefits. It is wonderful for getting rid of knots and tension, but it also increases blood and lymphatic circulation. Additionally, a good massage will help move toxins out of the areas where they usually congregate (buttocks, belly and back muscles), whether it is every week, every two weeks, or every three weeks39. There are many different kinds of massage techniques, including shiatsu (Japanese pressure point therapy), rolfing (soft-tissue manipulation techniques designed to realign the body), Swedish (long, flowing strokes), and Ayurvedic (oil massage performed with two therapists, one working on either side of the body. (6) Detoxify Our Body Because we are constantly encountering huge amounts of toxins every day - in our homes, our workplaces, in the food we eat, water we drink, and the air we breathe - it is a good idea to detoxify our body every six months. Otherwise, we will store these toxic chemicals in our fatty tissues where they can stay for decades, contributing to inflammation and ultimately harming our health. In fact, the average person has traces of over 90 toxic chemicals in the blood and urine. A detox program aims to remove the cause of disease before it makes us ill. It's a time-honored way to keep immune response high, elimination regular, circulation sound and stress under control, so our body can handle the toxicity it encounters40. Detoxification programs include:
(7) Meditate Meditation is very simple. It is just sitting/lying quietly and reconnecting with the wisdom of our body. When we sit in silence, and turn our attention away from our thoughts and toward our body, we learn how to listen to what it's telling us. We may notice tension in our neck and shoulders, our heartbeat is anxious or erratic, and/or our breathing is shallow. All of these are important messages from our body, telling us to stretch, or to do something relaxing, or to breathe deeply. If we listen quietly, all the answers are within us! There are many types of meditation to choose from:
(8) Change Your Mind Whether we view the glass half empty or half full is a profound impact on our health. Optimists are 23 percent less likely to die of heart failure than pessimists — and 55 percent less likely to die from cancer, diabetes, etc. It is a perfect example of the mind-body connection, negative feelings, such as depression, anxiety, hostility, and stress can cause our body to release a slew of inflammatory chemicals that put us at risk for disease. We may seem like slaves to our emotions, yet, we have more control over them than we believe. When we take time to notice the thoughts that are causing us to feel a certain way, we get a little distance from them. We can question whether the thoughts are really true, instead of blindly accepting and reacting to them. Most of the time, we will find these destructive thoughts aren't true, and only serve to harm our emotional and physical health42,43. An easy way to boost our happiness, is to write down (before we go to bed) three things about our day that went well and why. Research has shown that doing this easy little exercise for just a week boosts happiness levels for over six months. Some people call this, a gratitude list. (9) Give Back One of the keys to happiness is serving something larger than ourselves, and as we already know, happy people have lower levels of inflammation. Find a cause we are interested in helping and volunteer. There is tremendous peace and satisfaction that can be gained from transcending the small details of our life in order to make the world a better place. As the saying goes, "What we give back, we get back many folds". Restore Balance and prevent disease: Start Right Now! It's certainly disturbing that chronic inflammation is at the root of nearly every modern disease on the rise today. But the good news is that we also have the opportunity to make everyday choices to profoundly lessen our chances of getting chronically ill or manage our existing illnesses with the minimum use of allopathic medication. Simply being aware of inflammation is a great start. If we start reducing chronic inflammation right now, we can improve our health and start feeling more energetic and connected to our body, mind and spirit. References
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