THE DESTRUCTIVE AND DEADLY
EFFECTS OF INFLAMMATION
Gerd Altmann – Pixabay
Inflammation is the common denominator of many chronic age-related diseases such as arthritis, gout, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes. But according to a Yale School of Medicine study, even in the absence of a disease, inflammation can lead to serious loss of function throughout the body, reducing healthspan — that portion of our lives spent relatively free of serious illness and disability. A recent issue of Eurekalert discussing a study from the October issue of Cell Metabolism called, “Canonical Nlrp3 Inflammasome Links Systemic Low-Grade Inflammation to Functional Decline in Aging“
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This is interesting when considering the recent study on quality of life and longevity. The bottom line was that even though people are living on average much longer than they used to, their health and quality of life are much lower — particularly in those later years. I’m not surprised. Much, if not most of this has to do with Inflammation. The problem is, when I talk to my patients about Inflammation (including many healthcare providers), I find that few really understand what it is. This despite the fact that the word is used almost ubiquitously in the media and in healthcare.
INFLAMMATION is the collective name given to a group of several dozen chemicals made by your Immune System. Although these chemicals are necessary — even vital —- for health and healing, they can be driven to excessive levels by a wide variety of things including cruddy diets, smoking, food sensitivities, parasites, heavy metal toxicity, low grade infections, etc, etc, etc. Now we can add one more thing to the list — birthdays. It seems that the older we get, the more “Background Inflammation” is created by our Immune Systems. This helps contribute to a host of inflammatory disease processes that are specifically associated with aging, including DEGENERATIVE ARTHRITIS, OSTEOPOROSIS, DIABETES, ALZHEIMER’S, PARKINSON’S, Dementia, Cataracts, GOUT, THYMUS DEGRADATION, and numerous others.
Although the point of the study concerned developing drugs to down-regulate the “Immune Sensor Nlrp3 Inflammasome” (their latest specific culprit in the aging process), my advice makes more sense. Start right now with a simple program designed to squelch inflammation at its source. Then follow and refine this program your entire life. For more information on how to proceed, HERE, HERE, and HERE are wonderful places to start.
