The words inflammation and body in the same sentence truly give us the heebie jeebies! But it’s way more of common scenario than you can imagine. What exactly is inflammation? Think of inflammation as the body’s natural response to protect itself against harm (yes, it can actually be a good thing). Inflammation occurs for many reasons and some common causes are, pathogens like bacteria or viruses, or external injuries like scraping your knee or getting a splinter in your finger. In these cases, inflammation acts as a natural defence that helps our bodies maintain a healthy state (see, we told ya) in response to an invading threat or injury. However, in other cases, inflammation can be the cause or the consequence of harmful diseases like arthritis, heart disease, diabetes.
Types Of Inflammation:
There are two types of inflammation, acute and chronic. Acute inflammation commonly occurs as the body’s natural defence against infection or injury, such as when you bang your knee or cut your finger. Your immune system dispatches an army of white blood cells to surround and protect the area, creating visible redness and swelling. Think of this as your own protective army that actually works round the clock to take care of you in case of any external attack. The process works similarly if you have an infection like the flu or pneumonia. So in these settings, inflammation is essential, without it, injuries could fester and simple infections could be deadly. Gotta thank that loyal army!
Chronic inflammation, on the other hand, happens when inflammation occurs in healthy tissues or lasts too long, for months or sometimes years. This type of inflammation can lead to longer term damage of previously healthy tissues and gradually inhibit the body’s ability to repair itself. This could be because of toxins from cigarette smoke or an excess of fat deposition, proteins from food not able to get digested in the gut such as gluten and other inflammatory substances in food.
What Actually Is Inflammation?
Researchers described the four cardinal features of inflammation as heat, swelling, pain and redness, and a recently known fifth feature, loss of function. Whether you cut your skin, burn a finger or get hit with the covid virus, your body sends a flood of immune cells to the scene, where they gobble up bacteria, viruses, dead cells and debris. White blood cells called neutrophils rush to the area to fight infection leading to pus. Blood-borne cells called monocytes take up residence inside the tissue. And cells called macrophages begin releasing compounds called cytokines, which then sound the alarm for reinforcements. Soon, troops of immune cells flood the site, destroying foreign invaders and damaged tissue in equal measure. Once all of the pathogens are annihilated and the last troops of cytokines attack, the inflammatory process recedes and makes way for healing.
Inflammation is largely the body’s defence mechanism against things that should not be in the body. The same physiological process that reddens the skin around an insect bite and causes swelling in a scraped knee can also lead to a host of ailments, ranging from cancer to alzheimer’s to diabetes and severe cases of COVID-19. Usually, inflammation enables our bodies to fight off bacteria, viruses and other toxins. But if that immune response continues unchecked, even after the threat has passed, the immune system can turn on healthy tissue leading to autoimmune conditions like Hashimoto’s, lupus, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, psoriasis etc. You may have heard of some of these not-so-glam diseases in the oh-so-glam media (Kim Kardashian has psoriasis, Selena Gomez has lupus!)
The Gut Feeling…
Inflammation is the immune system’s messenger, sharing information between organ systems, including one of the most sensitive and responsive immune network area – the gut. Like security guards at the gates of the digestive system, the immune system’s role is to allow the good guys (like vitamins, minerals, proteins and fatty acids) to enter the body and the bad guys (like toxins and other pathogens) to be turned away. Our gut is a hollow tube from our mouth to our anus. That means the gut is equally exposed to the outside of our bodies as the inside and it sees all foreign exposure first. So it makes sense that systemic inflammation likely originates in the gut. When the gut is operating well, the toxins can’t get past the intestinal cells and their tight junctions. In a healthy digestive tract, the white blood cells never even see the invaders. But if too much bad bacteria infiltrates the gut and the balance of good bacteria to bad is out of whack, the lining of the digestive tract can be damaged—loosening those once-tight junctions causing leaky gut. With the intestinal barrier that separates microorganisms from the rest of the body is compromised, particles, toxins and bacteria can enter the bloodstream and cause further damage. That breakdown of the gut’s intestinal lining causes the immune system to go into overdrive while trying to take out foreign invaders, which can lead to generalized inflammation that wreaks havoc on every organ system in the body.
There’s Bad News
Nearly 70% of the world’s population is expected to live in urban areas by 2050 and its important to understand how a person’s genetic background impacts the inflammatory response their body activates when it senses a potentially harmful invader such as viruses or bacteria. T cells, a type of white blood cell that helps protect the body against invading threats play important roles in driving inflammatory processes and maintaining human health. Our bodies have developed mechanisms to regulate their location, activity, and function. However, aging is one of the most common factors that can cause T-cells to dysregulate, infiltrating tissues that they would not otherwise. This in turn causes declines in both immune cell diversity and function. With aging, our bodies undergo a process called immunosenescence, or aging of the immune system, that is, the same immune cells that mount a response against a pathogen are at work with aging. But instead of an acute, high-level response, it’s a sort of low-grade, unresolved inflammation that hums in the background. This type of inflammation is called “inflammaging”, which is a sort of chronic, nagging inflammatory response that doesn’t fight anything, but it builds up over time, damaging tissues.
And There’s Good News
So the basic tenets of that healthy lifestyle probably sound familiar by now: Exercise, eat a whole-food, plant-based diet that limits sugar and saturated fat, and practice stress-reduction strategies, such as meditation, yoga and deep breathing. Most important, get your annual flu shot (data show that getting vaccinated against the flu significantly reduces the risk of heart attacks and even Alzheimer’s disease) and get plenty of sleep (always a good idea, no?) Your body will thank you with good health and a long, long life!