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answers to your health questions
Taming the Flames
How to beat back chronic inflammation and protect yourself from related disease. BY EMILY KANE, ND, LAC
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:I’ve heard that all disease and pain is linked to inflammation at some level. Is that true? How can I prevent inflammation? First off, there are two types of inflammation: acute and chronic. The acute type is a natural immune response to infection or injury. Think of it as the body’s way to repair damage. Acute inflammation occurs when you bang your elbow hard, cut your finger, or catch a bug. In these settings, inflammation is essential—without it, injuries could fester, and even simple infections like the common cold could become deadly. The “workhorses” of the immune system are your white blood cells, which are basically cunning little sacks of enzymes that break open at the site of injury, dump their enzymes, and “digest” the debris of tissue damage or the mess created by the bad bugs. Because extra blood (which carries the white blood cells) is directed to the damaged area, that part of your body will temporarily become swollen, warm, red, and tender. These are the hallmarks of inflammation.
Chronic Inflammation If your immune system works well and isn’t dealing with battles on multiple fronts, and your underlying health is good, typically you make short work of the injury or infection. But when your immune system is overwhelmed, or your underlying health is compromised because of years or decades of
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poor dietary and lifestyle choices, then the inflammation can become chronic. If the swelling, heat, red appearance, and tenderness persist for months or years, that means you didn’t resolve the initial insult. You will need to assess where your immune system got overwhelmed, then take steps to restore your health. Chronic inflammation can occur because of inability to heal from injury or infection, or as a response to unwanted substances in the body, such as toxins from cigarette smoke or an excess of fat cells (especially fat in the belly area). Inside arteries, inflammation helps kick off atherosclerosis—the buildup of plaque. Your body perceives this plaque as abnormal and foreign, so it attempts to wall off the plaque from the flowing blood. But if that wall breaks down, the plaque may rupture. The contents then mingle with blood, forming a clot. These clots are responsible for the majority of heart attacks and most strokes. Inflammation can be measured with a simple blood test called C-reactive protein (CRP), which is a marker for
inflammation, including arterial inflammation. Nearly 25 years ago, Harvard researchers found that men with higher CRP levels—greater than 2 milligrams per liter (mg/L)—had three times the risk of heart attack and twice the risk of stroke as men with little or no chronic inflammation. Another older, less expensive (but still useful) test is the “Sed Rate” or ESR, which measures how long it takes the sticky, non-liquid content of the blood to settle out after being drawn out of a vein. For men ESR should be below 20; for women below 40. Neither of these tests indicates the location of inflammation—that requires a discussion with your healthcare provider, a good physical exam, and possibly some radiologic imaging or additional bloodwork. In general, animal foods promote inflammation because that tissue is quite similar to our own flesh, thereby potentially “confusing” the immune system. This is not to say that all meat is bad. Humans are omnivores. However, factory farmed and processed meats are not healthy foods and will definitely lead to chronic inflammation. Same
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• JANUARY 2022
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11/19/21 4:57 PM
