A history of inflammation

Inflammation is a hot topic today. But for everyone, the word doesn’t necessarily create a picture in their mind of what it means. I understand that it can be overwhelming and maybe a little irritating with the amount of information available today, on nutrition, health, fitness, everything related to wellness. How do you know what it all means? Where do you go for information about sound? My goal is to be that resource for you, to help you make sense of it all..

Today I want to help simplify this idea of ​​inflammation.

Let me first tell you the story of a real person living with painful inflammation and the resolution that came with a change in diet. Jason is a client who came to me because he had been living with episodes of severe pain for years. He was sick and tired of the aches and pains. He had a history of high blood pressure, he had experienced debilitating bouts of gout over the years, as well as a rheumatic disorder that was treated with prescription steroids for years. All he was experiencing was inflammation processes (more on this to come).

Jason was willing to make gradual changes to his diet: cutting out sodas, replacing his usual high-sugar breakfast with a higher-protein meal, and increasing his intake of fruits and vegetables. Shortly thereafter, a stressful work time of year that historically resulted in a significant taste relapse ended with significantly less pain than he had experienced the year before. By changing his diet from foods that create inflammation to those that helped reduce it, he also reduced his symptoms!

In Jason’s story, he didn’t even make any big changes to his diet. He started small, because that was what worked for him. He did very well and got results. Even small changes can cause a significant improvement in symptoms! And when you continue down the path of reducing inflammation, eliminating foods that irritate your body, adding foods that are powerful sources of nutrients, healing years of gut damage from the standard American diet or medication use, the results can keep getting better and better.

What would those results be like?

• Reduced risk of heart disease.
• Improved intestinal health by reducing the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome, gas, bloating, chronic digestive discomfort.
• Reduced risk of autoimmune diseases.
• Weightloss.
• Improvement in a multitude of inflammatory conditions (diagnosis you may have received) ending in “itis”.

What is inflammation?

Let me try to make this simple. There are 2 different types of inflammation: acute and chronic. Acute inflammation is the body’s normal response when something harmful affects any area of ​​your body. Acute inflammation will cause symptoms that I am sure you have experienced, such as warmth, redness, swelling, pain, or loss of function. This is how your body protects itself: it removes the cause of the injury and begins the process of repairing the damage.

The human body is extraordinary! Each and every day puts you in danger and your body’s immune system protects you from getting sick. In general, he is very good at his job: keeping things under control to keep you healthy.

Unfortunately, it’s not perfect. Sometimes this acute process of keeping you well can go awry and can lead to a chronic response.. This could happen for a number of reasons: You didn’t do a good job of removing what you should have, you make a mistake and start to recognize your own healthy tissue as something harmful (an autoimmune response), or maybe there’s an irritant that lingers for a long period of time.

Think of it this way: Acute inflammation is like a storm hitting your neighborhood. Some damage has occurred, needs to be cleaned up, things will be resolved and you will move on. Chronic inflammation is like that storm that hits your neighborhood 24/7/365. There is never a chance to clean up and move on.

Acute inflammation can make you sick, but you will recover. However, chronic inflammation has been linked to nearly every disease state today, including autoimmune diseases, obesity, allergies, metabolic syndrome, heart disease, and diabetes, in addition to aging!

What are the symptoms?

If you or someone you love experiences any of these, you may be living with chronic inflammation.

• Diagnosed with an autoimmune disease.
• Strive to reach a healthy weight.
• Continuous muscle and joint aches and pains.
• Exhausted.
• Regular constipation, diarrhea, or both.
• Mental fog: which makes it difficult to solve problems or carry out simple tasks.
• asthma or allergies

Inflammation is a word that gets thrown around a lot these days. It continues to be understood as an important factor in health versus disease.