Inflammation: Friend or Enemy?

Inflammation is a word we all heard about, and we know that it can happen for different reasons, but what we don’t know is what precisely means of inflammation and the real causes behind this specially chronic inflammation. In this blog, we would like to help you to understand chronic inflammation and how it can affect your health in the long term.

Types Of Inflammation

The inflammatory response can be classified into two main types:

• Acute
• Chronic

Acute-Inflammation

Acute inflammation is a short-term response with visible localized effects such as cuts, sprained ankles, sore throats, etc. The injured area becomes red and swollen, and these signs gradually subside as the body heal itself.

Chronic-Inflammation

Chronic or persistent inflammation is long-term and low-grade inflammation, which means it produces a systematic inflammation throughout the body and can last for months or years.

Chronic-Inflammation can cause many health conditions like fatty liver disease (NAFLD), insulin resistance, type-2 diabetes, cancer, and heart disease, etc.

Causes Of Chronic Inflammation

Inflammation occurs when a physical factor activates the immune response. Some factors that can cause inflammation include:

• Eating Inflammatory Food– Some food causes inflammation. For example-

• Sugar
• Refined Carbohydrates (Potatoes, white rice, fine flour)
• Gluten
• Dairy Products (Caesin protein)
• Trans fats
• Artificial Sweeteners
• Food cooked at higher temperature
• Excess of omega-6 from various vegetable oils
• Food Preservatives like MSG (mono-sodium glutamate)

• Leaky Gut
• Environmental Toxins
• Stress
• Poor Sleeping Habits
• Smoking
• Age
• Obesity
• Hormonal Imbalance
• Certain Medication

Some Diseases That link with Inflammation-

• Tuberculosis
• Rheumatoid Arthritis
• Hepatitis
• Asthma
• Chronic Peptic Ulcer

What Are The Symptoms Of Chronic Inflammation

• Acute-Inflammation shows visibly localized symptoms, like Pain, Redness, Swelling, Heat, etc.
• Chronic-Inflammation symptoms are generally silent. Therefore, it gets to unnoticeable. Some symptoms are:

• Fever
• Chest Pain
• Abdominal Pain
• Body Rashes
• Fatigue
• Mouth Sores

Complications & Risk Of Chronic Inflammation

Chronic inflammation develops silently, it is long-lasting, and most of the time the individual may not know he/she is suffering from chronic inflammation. In other words, It is the root cause of many serious diseases and is considered a major threat to human health.

Chronic Inflammation can affect human health and consequently plays a contributor to many diseases. For instance:

• Cardiovascular Disease
• Cancer
• Diabetes
• Rheumatoid Arthritis
• Inflammatory Bowel Disease
• Chronic Kidney Disease
• Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis

Check Your Chronic Inflammation Level

There are mainly 5 tests available that can detect and measure the level of inflammation in the body, that include-

• Rheumatoid factor (RF)
• Serum TNF-alpha
• Serum Ferritin and Serum Iron
• Erythrocyte sedimentation rate
• Pro-inflammatory cytokines like IL-6, IL-1, IL-8, IL-10 and IL-18
• C-Reactive protein
• Fasting Insulin

How Can We Naturally Curb Chronic Inflammation

Some obvious factors that cause Inflammation can not be altered, like age, but it is good news that a healthy lifestyle modification can reduce the inflammation. Some lifestyle changes include:

1. Stay Active

It is crucial to do some kind of physical activity. 30 minutes of daily exercise (5 days in a week) has been shown to reduce inflammation.

2. Manage A Healthy Weight

Maintain a healthy body weight is important to reduce inflammation. Similarly, eating healthy food in moderate quantities is a key to manage a healthy weight.

3. Consume Fiber Rich Diet

• Anti-inflammatory Diet, rich in fiber helps to reduce inflammation. Make a habit to read nutrition labels of packaged food items, so, you will keep track of your fiber intake.
• Add vegetables and fruits in every meal.
• Always choose whole grains, and avoid refined grains.
• Replace your carbohydrate sources with whole complex carbohydrates.
• Add nuts and seeds packed with ALA/Omega-3 to reduce C-Reactive protein.

4. Moderate Dairy Intake

It is found that full fat and fermented dairy product can increase inflammation. However, consuming dairy products with limited intake is acceptable.

5. Get Good Quality Sleep

• A quality sleep is a reset program of our body. It helps to heal, repair and grow the body tissues.
• Sleep is the most important factor, we need to take care of. People with poor sleeping habits develop greater inflammation along with other health issues.
• It is recommended to have at least 7-8 hours of quality sleep per night.

6. Stress Management

• In today’s hectic life, stress comes as a complimentary gift. If not taken care of, stress can overtake your life.
• Stress can be of many types, physical, mental, social, financial, or emotional, if persists for a long time, it starts affecting the body’s response, increase inflammation and can be harmful to our health.
• Stress can be managed by some activities, for example: self-care, eating a healthy diet, good sleep, being physically active.

7. Reduce Salt Intake

Although sodium is an important nutrient, however, consuming a high salt diet is a potential factor that causes inflammation.

8. Eat Unrefined Carbohydrates

• Refined carbohydrates like white rice, white potatoes, white bread, fine flour and white sugar promotes insulin resistance that increases inflammation.
• On the other hand, complex carbohydrates like whole grains, starchy veggies, fruits, unprocessed food, etc. helps to reduce inflammatory effect of insulin.

9. Avoid Inflammatory Food

Some food is considered inflammatory food because it induces inflammation. for example processed food & meat, refined carbohydrates, fried food, alcohol, etc. It is recommended to eliminate inflammatory food from your diet.

10. Say No to Smoking & Alcohal

Smoking and drinking may induce inflammation. It is suggested to stop or limit your smoking and drinking to combat chronic inflammation.

In Summary

To sum up inflammation, it is important to understand that, inflammation is a body’s natural defense mechanism, So it is beneficial, however, it can be harmful if turn to life long chronic phase. It is essential to understand and address the root cause, factors, and prevention measurement to reduce inflammation.

A little self-awareness and lifestyle modification can work like a magic pill to reduce inflammation and lowers the risk of severe diseases link to this.