Inflammation: The Secret Leading Cause of Disease and What to Do About It
by SixWise.com

Inflammation is your body's natural response to outside invaders it perceives as threats. Specifically, it's a process in which your body's white blood cells protect you from foreign substances such as bacteria and viruses.

However, when your body is in a chronic state of inflammation, the inflammation can lodge in your muscles, joints and tissues. In fact, chronic inflammation is a leading cause of many diseases, both physical and neurological, including heart disease.

What Causes Inflammation?

Many factors, including emotions, diet and lifestyle, contribute to inflammation. Diet is a big one. Foods are naturally pro-inflammatory or anti-inflammatory, so depending on what you eat you may be fueling inflammation in your body.

Pro-inflammatory foods include sugar, soda, alcohol, bread and red meat (how many of these do you eat or drink?). Trans fats, which are found in many snack foods, fried foods, crackers, candies, baked goods, cookies, vegetable shortening, some margarines, salad dressings and many processed foods, are particularly problematic. Studies have found that eating trans fats increases systemic inflammation, which is a risk factor for heart disease.

A study in the December 2004 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition looked at a similar issue: The effect of trans fats on inflammation and heart disease in people who already have heart disease. According to the study authors, "Our results suggest that TFA [trans fatty acids] are strongly associated with systemic inflammation in patients with chronic heart failure. This finding suggests a novel potential mechanism whereby TFA intake may affect the health of patients with established heart disease."

As for foods that are anti-inflammatory, these include-you guessed it-fruits and vegetables.

Other factors that can increase your risk of chronic inflammation include:

• Being obese or overweight

• Eating a poor diet

• An existing heart condition

• A family history of heart disease

• Diabetes that's poorly controlled

• A sedentary lifestyle (no, or very little, exercise)

• Smoking

• Long-term infections

• Gum disease

• Stress

How do You Know if You Have Chronic Inflammation?

There are several tests you can take to determine the level of inflammation in your body. One such test is a C-reactive protein (CRP) blood test, which may be covered by insurance and can be done along with a cholesterol test. CRP level is used as a marker of inflammation in the arteries. (A CRP level under 1.0 milligrams per liter of blood means you have a low risk for cardiovascular disease, 1.0 to 2.9 milligrams means your risk is intermediate and more than 3.0 milligrams is high risk.)

Another test that's often covered by insurance is a fasting blood insulin level. This test is used to screen for diabetes and heart disease, but it's also a marker for inflammation. The higher your insulin levels are, the more inflammation your body is producing,

Is Inflammation Serious?

Inflammation is associated with a host of diseases like crohn's disease, colitis and arthritis, and many of them are life threatening. Said pathologist Ed Friedlander, M.D., "Probably your own death will be caused by your last inflammatory response ... Whole body inflammation, formerly a popular term used especially by surgeons for the patients who they could not save, is going out of fashion in favor of multiple organ failure."

Here's a brief list of how chronic inflammation can affect your organs:

• Inflammation of the heart (myocarditis): Shortness of breath or fluid retention

• Inflammation of the small tubes that transport air to the lungs: Asthma attack

• Inflammation of the kidneys (nephritis): High blood pressure or kidney failure

• Inflammation of the large intestine (colitis): Cramps and diarrhea

How to Reduce Inflammation in Your Body

One of the safest, low-risk things you can do is to modify your lifestyle and dietary choices. This means eating a variety of anti-inflammatory foods, limiting or avoiding all together the pro-inflammatory foods, exercising and quitting smoking (if you do). This gives you only room for positive side effects.

On the other hand, the conventional methods to treat inflammation are high in risk. These would include medications like COX-2 inhibitors, which have been highlighted in the media lately because of their link to heart problems. One such drug is the popular anti-inflammatory medication Vioxx. Vioxx was pulled from the market in September 2004 after a study showed that patients taking the drug faced twice the risk of heart attack. Other anti-inflammatory meds like Bextra, Celebrex and even over-the-counter Aleve, have also been linked to increased heart attacks and stroke.

Fortunately, there are safe alternatives to COX-2 inhibitors. Garden of Life's For Your Inflammation (FYI) formula is a synergistically balanced whole food, herbal and enzyme blend that is clinically proven to reduce the effects of inflammation. It was formulated to provide the body with the building blocks needed to rebuild and support healthy cartilage and connective tissue, as well as to control and prevent inflammation throughout the body. For Your Inflammation:

• Supports joint integrity with collagen-stabilizing building blocks that promote joint lubrication to lessen friction.

• Provides vital amino acids that assist in the production of collagen.

• Reduces acidity that can lead to inflammation.

• Supports immune function, which can prevent the body from attacking its own tissues.

• Enhances enzymatic activity to cleanse the blood of toxic proteins that exacerbate an overactive immune system.

• Reduces oxidative stress by helping to destroy harmful free radicals.

Best of all, it contains herbs that may slow the COX-2 inflammation process by inhibiting the enzymes that produce pain, and it may be used safely everyday with no known side effects.

Sources

Inflammation & You

Trans Fats Associated with Systemic Inflammation in Patients with Heart Disease

Tests for Inflammation

What You Need to Know About Inflammation

Inflammation and Repair

Tart Cherries--Natural Cox-2 Inhibitors