Inflammation - Find out why you are inflamed

What is inflammation?

Inflammation due to dietary imbalances (dietary trauma)

Inflammation due to macro-trauma (obvious injury: car accident or fall)

Inflammation due to micro-trauma (subtle injury: maintaining bad postures)

The inflammatory process, also called inflammation, is best viewed as the body’s response to injury, and the function of inflammation is tissue healing. In short, the inflammatory process is a chemical process, and no matter the source of injury, inflammation is the outcome.

From a practical perspective, we are all dealing with the inflammatory process at this moment to varying degrees, and this is because we all experience injury on a daily basis, which is either overt (macro-trauma) due to falls and accidents, or subtle (micro-trauma) due to normal activities of daily living. Some of us heal better than others, and part of this is a genetically determined issue; and it is also a dietary issue.

No doubt, all individuals have heard that we can prevent heart disease and cancer by eating more fruits and vegetables, and by eating less fat and sugar-concentrated foods. Why is this? Because fruits and vegetables are anti-inflammatory, while high fat foods (excessive saturated fat, trans fats, and omega-6 fatty acids) and sugar foods cause inflammation, and both heart disease and cancer are pro-inflammatory diseases.

With this in mind, we can begin to see that our diet can be a source of injury or chemical trauma. The topics of dietary trauma, macro-trauma and micro-trauma are discussed more below.

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 Unlike the inflammation caused by physical injury, simply eating the wrong foods can lead to inflammation…this can literally be viewed as “dietary” trauma.

In short, the human body’s biochemistry is altered when we eat inappropriate foods. Subtle biochemical injuries occur in tissues when we eat a diet that is deficient in fruits and vegetables, and contains excess sugar, vegetables oils (soybean, corn oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, peanut oil and cottonseed oil), and trans fats found in nearly all packaged food and deep fried foods like french fries. The inflammation associated with a poor diet can initially occur without symptoms, so it is very subtle. However, over time, this chronic, initially symptom-free, diet-driven inflammation can lead to the chronic diseases that plague modern man, causing chronic aches, pains and endless suffering.

Every time you eat the wrong foods, you create inflammation in your body that will slowly but surely lead to the expression of chronic pain, cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, or whatever disease to which you may be genetically predisposed to develop. Not surprisingly, diet and supplements can often help to prevent and treat these conditions. In short, we need to eat vegetation and animals that ate vegetation, take appropriate supplements, and we need to exercise more…this is all we need to do to promote an anti-inflammatory state. It is this simple.

However, we tend to eat pro-inflammatory foods and maintain a sedentary life, which leads to a state of chronic inflammation. Indeed, far too many individuals depend on anti-inflammatory drugs to get through the day. Consider that well-known drugs, such as corticosteroids, aspirin and ibuprofen, and the now infamous COX2 inhibitors such as Vioxx and Celebrex, are taken for the purpose of reducing inflammation. More specifically, these drugs are taken to reduce the production of certain chemical mediators of inflammation. The most well known is prostaglandin E2 (PGE2 for short).

Not well-known is the fact that PGE2 is formed from fatty acids that we eat. Specifically the omega-6 fatty acids found in all grains, cereals, flour products, most processed packaged foods, and the commonly used oils, including soybean oil, peanut oil, corn oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, and cottonseed oil. Additionally, most of our domestic meats and eggs are fed exclusively grains and corn, and this leads to a meat and egg supply that is pro-inflammatory from the perspective of fatty acids. Domestic animal products contain excessive saturated fat and pro-inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids, and too few anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acids.

As stated earlier, humans are supposed to eat vegetation and animals that ate vegetation (grass/pasture fed meats, chicken and eggs are available), which represents an anti-inflammatory diet. However, as stated above, humans now eat grains, seeds, various seed oils, grain-fed animal products, etc., which leads to an excessive production of PGE2.

PGE2 is known to be a potent stimulator of pain. PGE2 also promotes the breakdown of cartilage that occurs in arthritis, and the boney breakdown that occurs in osteoporosis. The same PGE2 also promotes cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, inflammatory bowel disease, dysmenorrhea, endometriosis, and many other conditions. A National Institutes of Health website devoted to essential fatty acids, states that numerous diseases are promoted by omega-6 mediators, including heart attacks, thrombotic stroke, arthritis, asthma, colitis, headaches, menstrual cramps, cancer metastases/spread, and osteoporosis.
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In short, inflammation should actually lead to healing, however, when too much PGE2 and other similar chemicals are produced, healing does NOT occur…instead chronic pain and many diseases develop, which cannot be effectively treated or reversed unless the diet is changed to one that is anti-inflammatory. Clearly, most of us living in the modern time are excessively inflamed to varying degrees.

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Inflammation due to macro-trauma

Most of us think about inflammation in the context of an acute injury, in which swelling takes place. This is called acute inflammation and it is typically caused by obvious physical injuries of some kind, such as a car accident, spraining an ankle, or twisting the wrong way and straining the neck or back. The term “macro-trauma” is used to characterize this type of physical injury that leads to immediate or “acute” inflammation.

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Inflammation due to micro-trauma

Physical injury can also be subtle, and so the term “micro-trauma” is used. The best example of a micro-trauma is working in a posture that stresses, progressively weakens, and subtly damages our tissues without an obvious injurious event that one can remember. Inflammation and pain appear to develop slowly, as there is no significant injurious event like a car accident. Before we know it, we have a chronic, achy type of pain that always seems to be around. We often mistakenly shrug these aches and pains off as “aging;” which is only partly true. Research now tells us that aging is driven by chronic inflammation and appropriate dietary habits can reduce the biochemical inflammation markers of aging.

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