Inflammation is the body's immune response to an infection or tissue damage. Normal inflammation is usually sudden and acute, such as injuring a shoulder tendon from lifting weights of throwing a baseball. Inflammation can be good for you, such as when your body heats up to eliminate a virus or pushes blood to an injured area. Chronic inflammation is a different story - it is a disease in itself. When inflammation is sustained, it is no longer protecting your organs, it is attacking them.
Chronic inflammation breaks down your body making you feel old and feeble.
The Evils of Chronic Inflammation
Degenerative diseases
Chronic inflammation is at the core of Alzheimer's, heart disease, and some cancers. It is also responsible for arthritis, aching muscles, stiff fingers, allergies, and asthma. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find a disease in which inflammation does not play a part! It is effecting millions of people every day as the consequence of an injury, nutritional imbalance, or a deficiency.
Aging
Most older people have some amount of persistent inflammation. This inflammation can accelerate the aging process by increasing the amount of free radicals and by promoting the destruction of healthy cells. The cardiovascular and nervous systems, the two most important systems to our health, are where chronic inflammation is the most prominent.
Run away inflammation can strike if changes are not made to combat it. As we get older, we have more inflammation. As our inflammation increases, we age quicker, etc. Keeping inflammation under control should be the main focus of anti-aging strategies, but thats not the case!
Other inflammation diseases and disorders
Arthritis
Injuries (tendonitis, muscle strains, bursitis, cuts, broken bones)
Infections (common cold, any type of flu, parasites)
Allergies
Cardiovascular
Cancer
Obesity
Diabetes
Why we are Inflamed
Most often nutrient deficiencies and a toxic diet are the causes of inflammation.
Omega-6 vs Omega-3s
Omega-6 fatty acid is pro-inflammatory by boosting the production of enzymes that cause inflammation. The current ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 in our modern diet is between 10 to 1 and 25 to 1. Historically diets contained a more natural ratio of 1 to 1. There are several reasons for this drastic change.
Trans fats - Not only do trans fats increase the bad cholesterol and decrease the good cholesterol, they also inhibit the body’s ability to process omega-3 fatty acid.
Non organic, grass fed meat - Meats from a conventional farm/factory are fed soy beans and corn, which are high in omega-6 (pro inflammation) and low in omega-3 (anti-inflammation).
Processed foods - Refined vegetable oils, snack foods, sweets, and soybean oil (prevalent in fast food) contain omega-6 and no omega-3. In addition, virtually all processed foods are high in MSG, sugar, and salt (all very highly inflammatory). Also, lunch meats and hot dogs contain the toxic substance sodium nitrate.
Toxins
When your body is overloaded with toxins, it responds with chronic inflammation. Pesticides and herbicides sprayed on our food, cigarettes, chemicals in household cleaning products, artificial sweeteners like aspartame, BPA, chloride and fluoride in water, and alcohol can all contribute to the toxicity of your body.
In fact, it is almost impossible in today’s world to completely avoid all the substances that will add to the toxicity of your body if you don’t follow a strict organic diet. For example, meat from animals raised in a conventional farm will be filled with toxic hormones and anti-biotics, and are raised on pesticide-treated feed.
With the modern Western diet full of processed foods and artificial additives, its not hard to see why chronic inflammation is effecting millions of people. So what can you do about it?
Solutions to reduce inflammation
Most people deal with inflammation by taking non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) like ibuprofen. An astounding 30 billion tablets of NSAIDs are sold per year in the U.S. These drugs will not actually treat the causes of inflammation, but simply mask the symptoms. No over the counter or prescription drug can ever make up for nutrient deficiencies, and will most likely increase the toxicity in your body. To understand why chronic inflammation is a modern day epidemic, look no further than our deteriorating diets.
A great first step would be to eliminate processed foods and the toxins you ingest as much as possible. Since most of us don't have a super strict diet, there are several supplements that I would like to recommend. These can do wonders for your aches and pains in addition to protecting you from degenerative diseases. Eliminate inflammation and get your youth back!
Supplements to help battle inflammation
Increasing your omega-3 intake is the easiest and possibly the most important step to take to reduce inflammation
DHA Capsules, O-Mega-Zen3 (40 Vegcaps, 300mg, vegan)
Omega 3s from fish oil
Detox! Eliminate your body of all the toxins that inflame you. Chlorella and Spirulina have amazing detox properties that can even remove heavy metals from your body! Read more about the amazing benefits of these two super foods here.
Below are Chlorella and Spirulina products from Sunfoods and Live Superfoods. Both are know for their dedication to selling quality organic green natural superfoods. Avoid products that not organic. If they are sprayed with pesticides, they could be doing more harm then good. Read more about the amazing properties of chlorella and spirulina here.
Sunfoods (Sunfood.com
) and Live Superfoods (Raw Superfoods Superstore
) are high quality stores that have sustainably grown, organic, and raw superfoods. Highly recommened for those looking for the highest quality spirulina and chlorella. Sunfoods
Also see Live Superfood's Organic Spirulina
and Organic Cracked-Wall Chlorella
for high quality Spirulina and Chlorella in powdered form.For those strapped for cash, Now Foods ( sold at eVitamins
) has the cheapest spirulina and chlorella powders out there. The catch is they have a very strong taste. I recommend mixing these powders in vegetable juice, after a few weeks you will grow accustomed to the taste. Spirulina powder
Chlorella powder
Sources
(5)http://www.smartskincare.com/aging/aging-mechanisms_inflammation.html
(6) The inflammation syndrome by Jack Challem
(7)http://theconsciouslife.com/top-10-inflammatory-foods-to-avoid.htm
(8)http://www.livestrong.com/article/11837-ease-arthritis-pain-reducing-processed/
(9)http://www.livingwithrheumatoidarthritis.com/Processed-Foods.html
(10) http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/QAA400149/balancing-omega-3-and-omega-6.html
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