Chronic inflammation: the root cause of many diseases

Finding out if you have chronic inflammation is critical if you want to heal

Chronic Inflammation is the root of many serious diseases and finding out whether or not you are suffering from inflammation is critical. Although inflammation is the body’s natural response to injury, when your immune system is unable to keep inflammation at bay, you may head towards premature ageing or other illnesses. So it is important to carefully consider your lifestyle and food choices.

Poor diet and other lifestyle factors may cause inflammation. These include stress, lack of exercise (or too much), tobacco, drugs, medicines. And also gluten, sugars, processed foods, coffee, alcohol, inflammatory fats, refined flours, grains, and dairy.

To add to the above list, also, toxic health and body care products, cause inflammation. These unhealthy lifestyle choices cause an epidemic of chronic inflammation and disease.

Rebalancing chronic inflammation

It is important to find out what is triggering your cause of inflammation and to try to rebalance the body through diet, detox, bodywork and so on.

Inflammation may develop diseases such as diabetes, colitis, reflux, asthma, cancer, depression, and Alzheimer. To add, also obesity, autism, metabolic disorders., hypothyroidism (and other thyroid diseases). On top of all that, also auto-immune diseases, including auto-immune diseases of the hair follicles. These are influenced by an overactive inflammatory response.

My own story with chronic inflammation

My own story with inflammation began many years ago when I was a teenager suffering from bulimia. As I got older, I also developed hormonal health issues, joint pain, adrenal fatigue, Lyme disease and hair loss. All which was a side effect from inflammation getting out of control.

After educating myself on how to curb chronic inflammation, I managed to retain control of my health. One of the things I keep a constant eye on is my diet. It’s incredibly important, and if I don’t eat properly it can affect my body.

Leaving me in pain, anger, depression and little to no energy.

WHAT IS CHRONIC INFLAMMATION?

First, Chronic inflammation can occur when acute inflammation fails to heal or remove the injury. Or also when your immune system stops working properly.

Chronic inflammation can appear gradually over time, taking years to manifest. So it is important to make sure you don’t suffer from it. Worst case scenario, it can take over your health and life.

Too Little inflammation can leave you with an infection

In the case of too little inflammation, the immune system fails to fight off the injury, leaving you with an infection.

Too much inflammation causes autoimmune conditions

On the flip side, too much inflammation can result in the body continuously attacking, healing and then attacking itself. This can lead to much more serious conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, cancer or other auto-immune conditions. The body is ‘stuck’ in a cycle of an inflammatory response.

The immune system plays a huge part in inflammation and ensuring that it functions properly is essential for good health. If the immune system becomes unbalanced, its agents will not be able to recognise the injury. This, in turn, could end up attacking healthy tissue. An example of this is ‘autoimmune’ disease. This is where chronic inflammation occurs persistently. And will not stop without proper diet and lifestyle changes.

Chronic inflammation test

A method to decipher if you have chronic inflammation is by requesting a C-reactive protein (CRP) test from your doctor. This will measure the degree of inflammation in your body.

Chronic inflammation diseases

This list is not complete, but the theory is that inflammation in the body causes the onset of many diseases. This includes hair loss problems. If you would like to see the long list of auto-immune diseases, please check out the Paleo mom’s web-page.

The list can be found on https://www.thepaleomom.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/ThePaleoApproach-List-of-Autoimmune-Diseases.pdf

MAJOR ILLNESSES CAUSED BY CHRONIC INFLAMMATION

The full list is exhaustive, but to name a few:

• Chronic fatigue is a complex multi-systemic condition involving chronic inflammation all throughout the body, due to an overwhelmed and stressed out immune system.
• Alzheimer’s, a brain disease, resulting in memory loss and dementia, is under intense study nowadays with evidence showing that chronic inflammation could be one of its primary precursors.
• Studies also reveal a connection between depression and inflammation. Low-grade inflammation can lead to this illness, or vice versa, with inflammation occurring in and around the brain. Remember how I said before that certain foods make me feel depressed, angry and sometimes even suicidal?
• Arthritis is a painful and debilitating illness that involves inflammation of the joints.
• Asthma is a chronic inflammatory response that can shut down and obstruct airways, which can be life-threatening.
• Cancer development
• Celiac disease is a severe, genetic, autoimmune and inflammatory response to wheat, rye, and other grains containing gluten, which occurs in the intestines.
• Chron’s disease is an autoimmune, inflammatory disorder of the intestines, which often creates symptoms similar to IBS/IBD (Inflammatory Bowel Diseases).
• Diabetes has a huge role in inflammation.
• More intense than food hypersensitivities, food allergies (i.e. peanut, nightshade) involve a more intense immune response, which can even involve anaphylaxis and sometimes, death.
• Arterial build up, due to poor diet or inflammatory foods, can lead to serious heart complications. Inflammation of the arteries is often a marker of possible heart disease, which can result in heart attack and even death.
• Lupus is a group of severe autoimmune, inflammatory diseases that can afflict the kidneys, liver, skin, heart and lungs through over-stimulated, damaging chronic inflammation.
• Multiple sclerosis is an inflammatory disease where the nerve endings, spinal cord, and brain are damaged by a progressive destruction of the immune system.

Healing chronic inflammation through proper nutrition and a healthy lifestyle

Thankfully, Mother Nature is a powerful ally against inflammation. Only through carefully selected food and lifestyle choices we can master this beast. Moreover, we can create a solid foundation for a healthy future. If you suffer from inflammation or disease, it’s best to follow an anti-inflammation diet or Auto-immune protocol. This ensures that your body can start healing on its on own again.

THE ANTI-INFLAMMATION DIET / AUTOIMMUNE PROTOCOL

Now that you know about the dangers of chronic inflammation it’s important you understand how diet can help you heal. Dr Sarah Ballantyne, aka ‘The Paleo Mom’, describes the anti-inflammation diet, also known as the ‘Autoimmune Protocol’, as being very similar to the Paleo diet.

This is what she has to say:

“The biggest difference between a standard Paleo diet and the Autoimmune Protocol is where we draw the line between “yes” foods and “no” foods. This is to get more health-promoting compounds and fewer detrimental compounds in our diet. Those who are typically quite healthy can tolerate less-optimal foods than those who aren’t. You can think of the Autoimmune Protocol as a pickier version of the Paleo diet. This means it accepts only those foods that are clear winners.

“Foods can be viewed as having two kinds of constituents within them: those that promote health (like nutrients!) and those that undermine health (like inflammatory compounds). Some foods are obvious wins for a health-promoting diet because they have tons of beneficial constituents. And very few or no constituents that undermine health. Good examples of these superfoods are organ meats, seafood, and most vegetables.

Autoimmune protocol no foods

“Other foods are obvious fails because they have a relative lack of health-promoting constituents and are rife with problematic compounds—good examples are gluten-containing grains, sugar, dairy, peanuts, and most soy products.”

Autoimmune protocol grey area foods

She goes on to discuss the food that falls into a more ‘a grey area’, such as tomatoes, which do contain nutrients but are also known to aggravate the immune system.

Autoimmune protocols heal your body

The main aim of the Autoimmune Protocol is to ensure your body receives enough nutrients. And avoids food that can lead to disease, or at least interfere with the body’s ability to heal. As difficult as it may be, you need to cut out the foods that are most likely to be holding back your health.

But it’s not all doom and gloom! Ballantyne explains. “After a period of time, many of the excluded foods, especially those that have nutritional merit despite also containing some (but not too much) potentially detrimental compounds, can be reintroduced”

Healthy nutrition, ozone and a healthy lifestyle will make you feel better

If you are suffering from active addiction to sugars, processed foods and coffee, etc., it is advised to slowly wean yourself off from such a product. This is because otherwise, the shock to your body can be too hard. And you might not be able to keep up with your new challenge.

Some great herbs that are good to lower inflammation are garlic, ginger, turmeric, green tea,

Apart from introducing the auto-immune protocol, which is in my opinion challenging to keep up with, but so is being ill, other things that can help you to heal and lower inflammation is ozone therapy, infrared saunas, yoga, meditation, walking in nature. We need more oxygen in our bodies as we severely lack this because of our indoors and sedentary lifestyle.

My favourite books about this topic are :

• The Promise of Low Dose Naltrexone Therapy: Potential Benefits in Cancer, Autoimmune, Neurological and Infectious Disorders

• Pain Free: A Revolutionary Method for Stopping Chronic Pain

• Recovering with T3: My journey from hypothyroidism to good health using the T3 thyroid hormone

• Adrenal Fatigue: The 21st Century Stress Syndrome

• The Wahls Protocol: A Radical New Way to Treat All Chronic Autoimmune Conditions Using Paleo Principles

• Prolo Your Pain Away: Curing Chronic Pain With Prolotherapy

• Mitochondria and the Future of Medicine: The Key to Understanding Disease, Chronic Illness, Aging, and Life Itself

• Tears Behind Closed Doors: Failure to Diagnose a Thyroid Condition by Diana Holmes

• Stop the Thyroid Madness: A Patient Revolution Against Decades of Inferior Treatment

• Beyond Lyme Disease: Healing the Underlying Causes of Chronic Illness in People with Borreliosis and Co-Infections

Empowering others via my anti-ageing wellness platform and holistic health books

I hope you liked this article about chronic inflammation. If you would like to learn more about clean living and how I saved my life from being chronically ill and tired to the lively person I am today, ensure to check out other pages of this anti-ageing wellness platform.

Or if you want to discover my no BS guides on how to regain your health, hair and life, ensure to check out my holistic anti-ageing wellness books

After a frustrating decade of battling several chronic illnesses, I became disillusioned with the medical system and decided to take my health into my own hands.

Now, through my books and wellness platform, I want to empower people around the world do the same and regain their health, hair, life and beauty!