OVERVIEW
Inflammation is a word that seems to have lost its meaning.
There’s a negative connotation, but there shouldn’t be. Inflammation is a natural process initiated by the body specifically to overcome an insult to tissues.
It simply works like this: you have an injury (a scratch, a complication of infection, post-operative wounds, damaged tissue, etc.) and your body goes to work trying to heal itself.
Inflammation is at work in all symptoms ending in the suffix “itis.” It is present with acne, sprains and bruises, joint problems, infections, kidney ailments, cancer, sports injuries, broken bones, the flu, hives, eczema and cysts, to name but a few cases.
Therefore, inflammation is the process of bringing blood, heat, swelling and nutrients to the site of damage to protect the tissue and speed up healing. That’s all there is to it. But inflammation isn’t helped, it’s usually hindered by not getting to the cause…
THE PROBLEM
The medical approach to inflammation is to get rid of it and treat it like it’s some sort of disease, which it is not. As discussed, inflammation is a natural process that your body uses to speed up healing. So if you stop it with drugs, aspirin, painkillers, diuretics and steroids, then you interrupt an important part of your body’s attempt to get better. Not just that, but killing pain does nothing to address the cause of inflammation or to feed the body what it needs to get past it. Drugs contain no nutrients.
Dr David Greaves, at the University of Oxford’s Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, said, “All the drugs that we currently have for treating inflammation target pro-inflammatory molecules, and all have side-effects, essentially they’re dampening down pro-inflammatory signals, not controlling the underlying inflammation.” (medicalnewstoday.com, Jun 08)
All drugs, remember, create side effects. There’s a better way to go about helping your body…
THE NATURAL APPROACH
The most natural approach to helping your body through inflammation, which even most natural health practitioners ignore, is to give your cells the nutrition they need to go through the process quickly, completely and efficiently. This is done primarily through foods and herbs, along with common sense procedures such as using ice or heat as appropriate, resting when needed, addressing any infections, and so forth.
Concerning your diet, there are three main categories of foods to pay attention to:
- Sugar
- Artificial ingredients
- Fats
Sugar causes inflammation through a hormonal reaction, artificial ingredients are seen as foreign invaders by your body, and the right fats help fight inflammatory response
Regarding nutrition, there are certainly a number of plants and herbs that help your body move through inflammation. These include foods that feed your hormonal system, stimulate your white blood cells, increase circulation and calm your nerves, among other things.
THE RESEARCH
The typical fast food, processed food diet is ripe for inflammatory processes.
Researchers from the University of Buffalo (April, 04, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition) show that people who ate an Egg McMuffin and hash browns for breakfast had high levels of inflammatory markers in their blood for three to four hours after the meal.
“Eating that 900-calorie, high-fat meal temporarily floods the bloodstream with inflammatory components, overwhelming the body’s natural inflammation-fighting mechanisms,” says Ahmad Aljada, the lead author on the study.
The Journal of Experimental Medicine reported that a Harvard research team found a new class of fats in the human body, called resolvins, which works on inflammation. These fats are in fish oils.
Nicolas Perricone, a board certified clinical and research dermatologist reports that wheat grass contains P4D1, a “gluco-protein” that acts like an antioxidant, reducing inflammation.
Research abounds about foods versus inflammation, pertaining to certain mushrooms, cherries, cereal grasses, animal glands, calcium and other minerals, turmeric, cayenne, dandelion, buckwheat and grape seeds, to name a few.
SUPPLEMENTS
The best supplements for inflammation include those that help inflammation instead of trying to get rid of it.
InflaPlex: 6 capsules a day for adults
GreenNutrients: 10 tablets a day for adults
FishOils: 4 capsules a day for adults
Also helpful is CalMag at 8 tablets for adults
These supplements are good to have on-hand because inflammation is not a one-time occurrence in any normal life.
