What Is Inflammation And How Does It Affect Your Health?
Inflammation has been a HUGE ‘buzz word’ on social media lately. It has been correlated with negative health outcomes and many people are now focused on ‘minimizing inflammation’ to reduce adverse events and symptoms. But what does all this exactly mean and how does inflammation impact your overall health? Keep reading to find out!
What Is Inflammation?
Inflammation is a normal immune response in our body to defend itself when injury or infection occurs. Acute inflammation is a sudden and temporary response to injury or illness. Common signs and symptoms include redness, warmth, swelling, and pain at site of injury. This typically occurs with a cut/scrape, sprain/strain, bacterial and viral infections.
On the other hand, chronic inflammation is a long-term response to inflammatory stimuli that lasts several months to years. Symptoms vary from person to person but the most common symptoms I see in practice are chronic fatigue, brain fog, joint pain, bloating, inability to lose weight, food sensitivities and other GI issues.
Other symptoms of chronic inflammation include…
–Mood disorders: anxiety, depression, ‘acting out’ in children
–Gastrointestinal: abdominal pain, bloating, constipation, early satiety, acid reflux
–Musculoskeletal: joint pain, joint redness/swelling, morning stiffness, muscle pain
–Immune: frequent infections, allergies, inability to get better after illness, swollen lymph nodes
–Dermatological: skin rashes
–General: fever
Sequelae of Chronic Inflammation
Chronic inflammatory conditions are the most significant cause of death in the world. Recent estimates by Rand Corporation showed that nearly 60% of Americans had at least one chronic inflammatory condition, 42% had more than one, and 12% of adults had 5 or more chronic conditions.
Worldwide, 3 of 5 people die due to chronic inflammatory diseases like stroke, chronic respiratory diseases, heart disorders, cancer, obesity, and diabetes. (1, 2)
The prevalence of some specific chronic inflammation-mediated diseases are as follows: (3)
• Diabetes: 9.4% of the American population had diabetes in 2015, and it was the 7th leading cause of death in the U.S.
• Cardiovascular Diseases: CVDs account for 1 of every 3 deaths in the U.S. Coronary heart disease accounts for the most deaths, followed by stroke which is 1 of 20 deaths
• Arthritis & Joint Diseases: During 2019-2021, it was estimated that approximately 21.2% of Americans had doctor-diagnosed arthritis 4
• Allergies: Sixth leading cause of chronic human diseases with more than 50 million Americans being affected each year
Or In Other Words…Chronic Inflammation Can Cause
Autoimmune Disease: Multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, ankylosing spondylitis, psoriasis
GI Disease: IBS, IBD (Crohn’s/Ulcerative colitis), SIBO, intestinal permeability aka “leaky gut syndrome”
Endocrine Disease: Insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, adrenal fatigue, Hashimoto’s/Grave’s
Cardiovascular Disease: Hypertension, hypercholesterolemia
Neurodegenerative Disease: Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s
And many other conditions as well!
So…What Causes Chronic Inflammation?
DIET AND LIFESTYLE!
Some Common Risk Factors Include…
• Age: Increased age is positively correlated with elevated levels of inflammatory markers. This may be due to mitochondrial dysfunction, free radical accumulation over times, or increase in visceral fat
• Obesity: Many studies have reported that fat tissue is an endocrine organ, secreting inflammatory mediators. Some reports show that BMI is proportional to the amount of pro-inflammatory cytokines secreted.
• Diet: Diet rich in saturated fat, trans-fats, or refined sugar is associated with higher production of pro-inflammatory molecules, especially in overweight individuals or individuals with diabetes (likely due to insulin resistance)
• Smoking: Cigarette smoking is associated with lowering the production of anti-inflammatory molecules and inducing inflammation.
• Low Sex Hormones: Studies show that sex hormones like testosterone and estrogen can suppress the production and secretion of several pro-inflammatory markers and it has been observed that maintaining sex hormone levels reduces the risk of several inflammatory diseases, including cancer.
• Stress and Sleep Disorders: Both physical and emotional stress is associated with inflammatory cytokine release.
Stay tuned for a follow up blog post SOON on both conventional and holistic treatment approaches we can take to reduce your inflammation and improve health outcome!
References:
1. Barcelos IP, Troxell RM, Graves JS. Mitochondrial Dysfunction and Multiple Sclerosis. Biology (Basel). 2019 May 11;8(2)
2. Tsai DH, Riediker M, Berchet A, Paccaud F, Waeber G, Vollenweider P, Bochud M. Effects of short- and long-term exposures to particulate matter on inflammatory marker levels in the general population. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2019 Jul;26(19):19697-19704.
3. Pahwa R, Goyal A, Jialal I. Chronic Inflammation. [Updated 2023 Aug 7]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2024 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK493173/