Inflammation – The Root of All Disease

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The Importance of All Natural Anti-Inflammatory Explained.

Inflammation is an integral part of the immune system. We’re all familiar with inflammation. When you’re cut it becomes red and swollen as a response by the immune system and as the cut heals the inflammation dies down. A similar underlying, chronic, low-grade inflammation is now being considered by more and more scientists as a major cause of diseases not only for obvious diseases like arthritis and asthma, but also for heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and even cancer. A recent special edition of Newsweek examines this quiet hazard.

Years ago oxidation was being considered as the main culprit in many diseases. Now oxidation is grabbing more of the attention. According to neuroscientist James Joseph of Tufts University, “Inflammation is the evil twin of oxidation. Where you find one, you find the other.” This discovery is solving “medical puzzles” such as people with high blood pressure have an increased risk for Alzheimer’s or why people with rheumatoid arthritis have higher rates of sudden cardiac death. All these conditions are tied with a connecting thread of inflammation.

When your cut heals the inflammation recedes, but constant exposure to cigarette smoke, excess cholesterol, and low-grade infections can contribute to a low-grade, chronic inflammation. The inflammation simmers like, “a low flame on the back burner that we’re unaware of until the pot burns.”

Diabetes has emerged as a recent example. The connection between type II diabetes and obesity are so well known that some researchers consider the two combined into a single disease of “diabesity”. According to the article, “When you gain weight, fat cells grow more biochemically active, churning out inflammatory compounds. As obesity ratchets up inflammation, inflammation in turn promotes insulin resistance, a central feature of diabetes and the so-called metabolic
syndrome that precedes it.”

Like diabetes, heart disease is linked with obesity. According to Dr. Peter Libby, chief of cardiovascular medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, “Inflammation is the alpha and omega of atherosclerosis. It’s there at every step of the process.” In the process plaque formation starts when cholesterol sticks to the artery walls and oxidizes. This triggers an immune response that attempts to clean up the problem. The inflammatory response is the body’s attempt to heal, but encourages the formation of larger plaques that can eventually block the artery and result in a heart attack or stroke.

Certain cancers are also being linked to inflammation. According to Lisa Coussens, a cancer biologist at the University of California in San Francisco, “people with chronic inflammatory bowel diseases have tremendously enhanced risk of colon cancer.” Some triggers of inflammation include, “cigarette smoke in the lungs, persistent infections like hepatitis C in the liver and chronic heartburn, which repeatedly irritates the lining of the esophagus with gastric acid.” The result includes oxidative damage to the DNA which sometimes cripples the suicide mechanism of the cell that would often allow
abnormal cells to self-destruct.

Although anti-inflammatory medications seem like an obvious answer they are fraught with problems. Inflammatory chemicals also serve important functions in the body and stopping their action may have a positive effect such as decreasing pain, but they can also have serious negative impacts. Vioxx is an example where inhibiting the COX-2 inflammatory enzyme relieved pain, but also impeded the process to prevent blood clots from forming in the arteries. Dr David Graham, an employee of the Food and Drugs Administration, estimated that up to 139,000 Americans
have died or have been seriously injured as a result of taking Vioxx.

Even standard arthritis medications called NSAIDs have serious consequences. According to a June 1999 New England Journal of Medicine each year over 16,000 people die from gastrointestinal bleeding because of the unintended interference in the body’s healing mechanism of the digestive tract. According the journal, “It has been estimated conservatively that 16,500 NSAID-related deaths occur among patients with rheumatoid arthritis or osteoarthritis every year in the United States. This figure is similar to the number of deaths from the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome and considerably greater than the number of deaths from multiple myeloma, asthma, cervical cancer, or Hodgkin’s disease. If deaths from gastrointestinal toxic effects from NSAIDs were tabulated separately in the National Vital Statistics reports, these effects would constitute the 15th most common cause of death in the United States.”

While drugs block a single target molecule greatly reducing its activity, natural anti-inflammatories have a wide-ranging, gentler action. According to Greg Cole a professor of medicine and neurology at UCLA, “you’ll get a greater safety and efficacy reducing five inflammatory mediators by 30 percent than by reducing one by 100

percent.”

Aside from avoiding the promoters of inflammation, such as cigarette smoke, there are approaches that can be used to turn down the heat on inflammation. Exercise and decreasing weight help reduce inflammation in the fat and liver cells. A diet rich in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and omega-3 fatty acids also turns down inflammation.