Inflammation Free Living

Inflammation is one of the leading causes of CVD, allergies, asthma, arthritis, dementia and diabetes, yet it is also one of nature's most formidable weapons, essential to our survival. It is a silent epidemic that is causing a marked decline in the quality and quantity of life. Here are some reasons why it should be considered a public health issue:

Inflammatory diseases are debilitating and in some cases, fatal. Conventional medicine has found treatments for the symptoms but they are expensive and can cause damaging side effects.
Inflammation has been linked to increase risk of cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's and certain cancers.
Inflammation has been indicated in the development of type 2 diabetes.
Inflammation exacerbates one ability to control weight.
The number of people affected by inflammation is growing at an alarming rate, even though we have access to amazing medicines and technologies.

Conventional medicine deals with inflammation through symptom relief and in cases of pain and acute trauma, this type of treatment is a lifesaver. However, for chronic inflammation, the underlying cause must be addressed, not just the symptoms.

The fact is, in many cases you can prevent, treat and reverse inflammatory diseases by incorporating some basic and healthful anti-inflammatory foods into your diet.

So what is inflammation and why is it so bad for us? Your body has many complex layers of security in place that protect you from intruders. First, it has four major kinds of white blood cells (WBC's):

B lymphocytes, which make antibodies designed to attack specific bacteria, viruses and other toxic proteins.
Neutrophils, which are very destructive and take out everything in their path. Designed for maximum effect, fortunately, they don't live long, just long enough to get the job done.
Macrophages specialize in surrounding intruders and releasing enzymes that breaks them down.
T lymphocytes are specialized white blood cells that track down and destroy intruders that have escaped the bloodstream and are hiding out in tissues.

When the body needs protection from an intruder, the white blood cells move in to action. In an effort to rally the forces, the WBC's and other tissues signal for inflammatory chemicals leukotrienes and prostaglandins. These chemicals make it easier for the WBC's to get to the where they need to go. Prostaglandins also stimulate nerves to send pain messages, to tell the body to stop what it's doing or to keep the body from hurting itself further. Leukotrienes help guide the WBC's to where they need to go and keeps them alive longer.

What has this to do with inflammation? Well, inflammation becomes a problem when this process doesn't shut off, even though the intruder has been dealt with and the attack is over, the inflammatory process persists. It's like your body is on high alert with no relief in sight. The body thinks it's continuing to defend itself against some noxious intruder when in fact it begins attacking healthy body tissues and continuing to produce prostaglandins and leukotrienes. More prostaglandins means more pain, redness and swelling; more leukotrienes means more white blood cells are sent which creates more damage to surrounding tissue.

Now under normal circumstances the body's healing process has a tremendous capacity for repair. When chronic inflammation is present however, the whole process gets out of balance. White blood cells flood the area again and again never allowing the body the chance to heal itself completely. Eventually, the onslaught irreparably damages and scars the tissue. This damage can look like the distortion of joints in rheumatoid arthritis sufferers or arterial scarring in athersclerosis or intestinal lesions in Crohn's disease.

To stop this downward slide we need to stop the cycle! Prostaglandin and leukotriene blockers showed great promise until studies showed an increase risk of ulcers, heart attack and stroke for the prostaglandin blockers and that the leukotriene blocker only blocked one kind of leukotriene not the whole family. Though they can be lifesaving they are far from perfect and still only deal with symptom relief, not the cause.

Two of the premises of naturopathic medicine is, first do no harm and treat the cause. This principle rules how we practice medicine and as such we look for side effect free solutions that get to the root of the problem. In this case, what is causing the overactive and chronic inflammatory response in the first place.

The goal then is to block inflammatory response by blocking the messengers and inhibit inflammation before it starts! Well, let's go back to our messengers. They need a fatty acid called arachidonic acid or AA for their production. If you limit the availability of AA, you can limit the number of messengers produced! Simple.

Let's go a little deeper. At the core of this silent killer are three hormones which, when overproduced contribute to chronic and deadly inflammation:

Pro-inflammatory eicosanoids
Insulin
Cortisol

Eicosanoids run your immune system. Autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, lupus and Chrohn's disease are examples of these hormones running out of balance. There are two kinds of these hormones: pro-inflammatory, which promote inflammation and tissue damage (prostaglandins and leukotrienes) and anti-inflammatory, which promote healing and stop inflammation.

Insulin is in the news a lot lately, due mostly to the dramatic increase in cases of type 2 and juvenile diabetes. But it's also involved in the inflammatory response. Increased insulin increases the production of AA or arachidonic acid, the building blocks for pro-inflammatory eicosanoids. If insulin is out of balance the pro-inflammatory eicosanoids are out of balance.

Cortisol adds to the inflammatory cycle too. It's an anti-inflammatory and anti-stress hormone that is sent out to lower levels of eicosanoids. Sounds innocent enough, unfortunately, chronic inflammation means it's constantly being sent out creating abnormally high levels in the body, which can increase insulin resistance and depress your immune system.

Okay, now that you have an overview of inflammation, you're going to get a pop quiz! Just kidding! I wanted to make sure you were reading it all and didn't skip to the good stuff!

Stopping the Silent Killer Cycle

We all want to be healthy, energized and fit. That goes without saying. Inflammation can rob us of our health and cause us extreme pain. We want to stop that cycle, but first things first. Before you dive in to a new diet and supplement regime, you need to find out if inflammation is negatively impacting your health. Being overweight doesn't guarantee you a place in the inflammation hall of fame. So how do you find out if inflammation is harming your health?

Biomarkers for Testing

Specific primary biomarkers in the blood indicate an inflammatory process. Though eicosanoids don't stay around long enough to be tested the fatty acid building blocks do, so measuring the ratio of good eicosanoids and bad eicosanoids gives a fairly precise marker for silent inflammation.
The next best biomarker for determining inflammation is through a fasting insulin level test. This is a blood test conducted in a clinic that determines the degree of insulin resistance. The higher the insulin levels, the more inflammation in your body.
Metabolic syndrome (a cluster of conditions that include diabetes, obesity and heart disease) is caused by insulin resistance. Your triglyceride/ HDL ratio tells your doctor if you have metabolic syndrome. The higher the ratio, the higher your insulin levels, the more inflammation you'll have.
CRP or C reactive protein is a simple blood test that determines if inflammation is present in the body.

Once your naturopathic physician determines whether inflammation is impacting your health (and this is the good stuff!) you can get cracking at dealing with it!