Quick Health Quiz: How Important Is Inflammation to Your Body?
You are forgiven if you think the inflammation is very serious. News sources around the world will tell you that it contributes to the leading causes of death worldwide. Heart disease, stroke, dementia and cancer have all been linked to chronic inflammation. And that’s just the short list. So what can you do to reduce inflammation in your body?
Good question! Before we get to the answers, let’s take a look at what inflammation is and what it isn’t.
Inflammation 101
Misconceptions abound about inflammation. A standard definition describes inflammation as the body’s response to injury, allergy or infection, causing redness, heat, pain, swelling and limitation of function. This is true whether we’re talking about a splinter in the finger, bacterial pneumonia, or a poison ivy rash. But that’s only part of the story, because there are several types of inflammation:
- Acute inflammation arises suddenly, lasts for days or even weeks, then stabilizes once the cause, such as an injury or infection, is controlled. Generally, acute inflammation is a reaction that attempts to restore health to the affected area. This is the type described in the definition above.
- Chronic inflammation is very different. It can develop for no apparent medical reason, last a lifetime, and cause damage rather than cure. This type of inflammation is often associated with chronic diseases, such as
Which cells are involved in inflammation?
4 myths and misconceptions about inflammation
Inflammation is the root cause of most modern diseases.
Not so fast. Yes, a number of chronic illnesses are accompanied by inflammation. In many cases, controlling this inflammation is an important part of treatment. And it’s true that uncontrolled inflammation contributes to long-term health problems.
But inflammation is not the directcause of most chronic diseases. For example, atherosclerosis causes inflammation of the blood vessels. Yet we do not know whether chronic inflammation cause that, or whether the main contributors were standard risk factors (such as high cholesterol, diabetes and smoking – all of which cause inflammation).
You know when you’re on fire.
True for a few terms. People with rheumatoid arthritis, for example, know when their joints are inflamed because they experience more pain, swelling and stiffness. But the type of inflammation seen in obesity, diabetes or cardiovascular disease, for example, does not cause any specific symptoms. Of course, fatigue, brain fog, headaches, and other symptoms are sometimes attributed to inflammation. But many people experience these symptoms without inflammation.
Controlling chronic inflammation would eliminate most chronic diseases.
This is not the case. Effective treatments generally target cause of inflammation, rather than suppressing the inflammation. A person with rheumatoid arthritis may take steroids or other anti-inflammatory medications, which reduce their symptoms. But to prevent permanent joint damage, they also take a medication like methotrexate to treat the underlying disease causing the inflammation.
Anti-inflammatory diets or certain foods (blueberries! kale! garlic!) prevent disease by suppressing inflammation.
While it’s true that some foods and diets are healthier than others, it’s not clear whether their benefits are due to reducing inflammation. Switching from a typical Western diet to an “anti-inflammatory diet” (such as Mediterranean diet) improves health in several ways. Reducing inflammation is simply one of many possible mechanisms.
The essential
Inflammation is not an isolated villain that takes the lives of millions of people every year. The truth is that even if you could completely eliminate the inflammation – sorry, it’s not possible – you wouldn’t want to. Suppressing inflammation leaves you vulnerable to life-threatening infections. Your body cannot respond effectively to allergens and toxins or recover from injuries.
Inflammation is complicated. Although acute inflammation is your body’s natural and usually helpful response to injury, infection, or other dangers, sometimes it gets out of control. We need to better understand what causes inflammation and what causes it to become chronic. We can then treat an underlying cause, instead of blaming each disease on inflammation or hoping that eating individual foods will reduce it.
There is no quick or easy solution to unhealthy inflammation. To reduce it, we must detect, prevent and treat its underlying causes. There is, however, good news. Most often, inflammation exists in your body for a good reason and does what it’s supposed to do. And when he East causing problems, you can take steps to improve the situation.
