All about inflammation.

All about Inflammation:

Inflammation is body’s natural response to injury, viruses and bacteria. It is required. Inflammation becomes problematic when it does not move away and becomes chronic. Long term inflammation may lead to symptoms that affect your overall health, your immune system creates inflammation to protect the body from infection, injury or diseases. Sometimes with autoimmune diseases like certain types of arthritis and inflammatory bowel diseases, your immune system attacks healthy cells.

Types: It is classified into two types, acute and chronic.

Acute inflammation:

It usually resolved in two weeks or less. Let’s take an example. You fall down and cut your skin. The area around the cut swell up and become red because your vessels dilate and blood flow to the area increases so that it can heal. The blood also starts clotting and slow down. So that you do not bleed out. Your immune system starts producing a large number of white blood cells to fight any infection or bacteria. At the same time, your cells around the injured area start multiplying and dividing to begin repair quickly. All of these processes together present in this condition. That is acute or good inflammation.

Chronic inflammation:

When the wounded area does not go back to normal. Chronic inflammation occurs from heart attacks, stroke, cardiac arrest, cancer and chronic stress. Because of chronic emotional stress, your body may not multiply the number of WBCs, but it increases a certain protein marker in your blood called CRP. (C- reactive protein). Difficulty in losing weight could also be a reason for chronic inflammation.

Inflammation and heart disease:

Inflammation is main cause of heart and other diseases. Heart has vessels and arteries, when clogged with plaque or cholesterol can lead to a cardiac arrest. You have endothelial cells that line your vessels in the heart. overconsumption of sugar and salt and sedentary lifestyle can lead to these endothelial cells getting inflamed and damaged. It sends out signals to your immune system, which overreacts when the inflammation is chronic, leading to heart diseases.

Inflammation and digestion:

Other effects of chronic inflammation are IBS, colitis, indigestion, fluctuance, bloating and Crohn’s diseases. IBS is mainly a result of stress and improper digestion of food. When you have inflammation because you eat too much junk food, sugar or salt, you develop insulin resistance, which means your cells stop responding to insulin and you have higher blood sugar levels and thus more storage of fat.

When we eat too much junk food, cells start expanding to hold the excess fat. All expanded cells trigger the immune system, which in turn, triggers inflammation. When you have chronic inflammation, your metabolic rate decreases, you have hunger pangs, unnecessary food cravings, which mean you have upset the biological, chemical and physiological working of your cells.

Inflammation and arthritis:

Again, arthritis is caused by inflammation. Causes of rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis and certain kind of spondylitis are malnutrition at the cellular level, physical stress, lack of activity and sedentary lifestyle. Over exercising can also be a chief cause. when you put too much stress on your joints, especially the ball and socket joints and muscles and cartilage through jumping exercises, the wrong form of weightlifting and over exercising without enough time for recovery, Inflammation becomes chronic because we do not give our body the right nutrition to repair the muscles, cartilage and joints.

Obesity is also leading cause of arthritis. Your knees and ball and socket, joints and spine carry a specific amount of weight, which is your ideal weight. Excess weight over a long period of time results in the cartilage, tendons and muscles in the surrounding area to get weaker and weaker, when the body responds with inflammation. Due to lack of calcium and vitamin D3, body gets inflamed, and bones get brittle and weaker. Vitamin D3 deficiency compromises the production of hormones.

Constipation leads to accumulation of toxins in the body and makes your body acidic and inflamed. Excessive consumption of alcohol, smoking, sugar, salt and processed food can also make your body acidic and inflamed. If the body becomes too acidic, the cells begin to become toxic and body functions become dangerous. One of the studies has shown that cancer cells grow faster in the acidic environment.

If you eat more acidic foods, calcium and magnesium depletes. They both are highly alkaline. Due to calcium deficiency, you have found with vitamin D3 deficiency automatically, because D3 requires calcium to be absorbed in the body. Due to lack of magnesium, your liver and kidneys will not function properly. It can lead to life threatening disorders; Thus, our diet should be 80% alkaline and 20% acidic in nature. We have to follow 4 pillars of right eating habits for overall wellness and protect our body from chronic disorders. To know more on 4 pillars of right eating habits, read this article, https://sparklinglifestyle.in/4-pillars-of-right-eating-habits/

Foods and Lifestyle changes to reduce inflammation in the body:

• Grains can be acidic in nature, but raw food, water and juices all are alkaline.
• Some foods contain bromelain is an important enzyme. Keep your body alkaline and reducing inflammation, such as pineapple, black seeds, fenugreek seeds, white and black sesame. They are easily available and inexpensive.
• Copper is a trace mineral in the human body that strengthen the muscles around your joints, your cartilage and the tendons around your joints. so, make sure that you drink a glass of water in the morning, out of a copper mug or vessel.
• Mixing coconut oil with camphor and apply on affected area, camphor contains anti-inflammatory properties and coconut oil contains the ability to be absorbed into your tendons and joints.
• Taking a bath with sea salt as it contains iodine. Iodine is essential for an under active thyroid gland. Fill a bathtub or a bucket with a sea salt and soak your limbs and body in, because your body will absorb iodine from that act to correct an imbalance.
• Pranayama trains your lungs to send the right amount of oxygen to your inflamed cell and joints and remove the excess carbon dioxide.
• Reduce the number of processed foods which causes inflammation in the arteries of your heart, joints and everywhere else. You must eat simple home cooked food and reduce the frequency of outside food.
• Remove dairy products and move to a plant-based diet to reduce inflammation in your arteries.
• Indian foods such as turmeric, cinnamon, garlic, onion and cooked tomatoes are anti-inflammatory.
• We must consume cooked food with raw food, because that cooked food alone without a raw food in the diet creates inflammation in the body.

Conclusion:

Once you start doing these small things that address the root cause of the problem, and not just a symptom, you will feel much better. To know more overall wellness, do visit my website and follow my Instagram page.