Inflammation Diseases ? Heart Disease, Alzheimer’s, and Diabetes
Inflammation diseases are all around us. In fact almost every disease or condition has some type of inflammatory component. In this article we will save you the misery of having to mull over hundred of inflammatory disease in favor of focusing on a few of the most serious ones. But before we get into inflammation diseases why don’t we quickly walk through what inflammation is in the first place.
According to the American Medical Association inflammation is redness, swelling, heat, and pain in a tissue that comes from the body’s protective response to chemicals, injury, or to infection. When body tissue is damaged specialized mast cells release chemical substances such as histamine. Histamine increases blood flow to the damaged area, which causes redness and heat. It also makes the tiny blood vessels known as capillaries leak causing fluid to ooze out of them and into the tissue causing localized swelling.
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Inflammation diseases – Heart and Arteries
Our arteries are multilayered intricate structures of tissue which provide the blood with a way to circulate thorough our bodies. When the arteries are damaged they become inflamed and swell much the same way as a surface skin cut would. When dangerous LDL cholesterol comes racing through our arteries it tends to take up residence in any damaged area, usually caused by an arterial scuff or nick, and seep in between the arterial layers resulting in blister like formation.
This sequence of event prompts the body to produce an inflammatory response. As the inflammation sets in, arterial swelling starts to occur, thus narrowing the artery and decreasing blood flow to the heart.
The last step occurs when the inflamed obstruction is coated with calcium, which puts the finishing touches on our newly formed arterial plaque deposit. As time goes by the obstruction will continue to grow, likely culminating in disaster when the plaque deposit bursts leading to clot formation, artery blockage, and ultimately a heart attack.
Alzheimer’s and Dementia
I believe that maybe next to cancer these could be the most universally feared diseases known to man, and for good reason. I mean what could be worse than completely losing all your memories, as well as your own identity.
As with heart disease it seems that chronic inflammation plays a significant role in triggering Alzheimer’s and dementia.
One clue that this could be the case stems for statistical evidence that individuals who regularly use anti-inflammatory medications (such as ibuprofen) have a lower risk of developing these devastating diseases.
While the details are a little fuzzy as to the exact mechanism which causes this phenomenon to occur researchers believe that the brains immune cells rally to attack a certain type of arterial plaque; beta-amyloid. This in turn produces inflammation in the brain thus accelerating progression of the these two potentially debilitating mental disorders.
Inflammation diseases – Diabetes
There is no arguing that diabetes is running rampant. Much of the blame is placed on diet, inactivity, and being as little as 15 percent over ones ideal body weight. All of these factors produce inflammation in various ways.
While all of these bad actors produce inflammation, perhaps the worst of the three is obesity.
Why is this the case?
When a person is overweight fat cells produce proteins called cytokines which increase inflammation. As time goes by the combination of being overweight with an increase in cytokines starts to erode the body’s ability to regulate insulin production.
There is also another theory as to why diabetes occurs and that has to do with as overall inflammation in the body increases the outer coating of our cells harden causing insulin to be repelled rather than absorbed.
In conclusion inflammation diseases are a serious problem with millions of people looking for answer as to how to quite this silent killer. Certainly, the basic cornerstone of at least muting the damaging effects of inflammation are regular exercise, weight management, and diet.
While this may be the case, there may one additional tool left in our anti-inflammatory bag of tricks; omega 3 fish oil. That’s right, that stuff your grandmother told you would cure everything. It turns out that according to numerous recent research studies it appears she might have been right. The reason being that the two primary omega 3 fatty acids in fish oil (DHA,EPA) have turned out to be powerful inflammation diseases fighters.
