Chronic Inflammation
Inflammation as discussed before is an immune response. On the other hand, chronic inflammation is a disease. Chronic inflammation persists and your body succumbs. This ongoing inflammatory response causes progressive damage to the body that leads to a variety of diseases.
How can acute inflammation turn into chronic inflammation? When an injury sustains or injury occurs subsequently the inflammatory response is going to continue. However, this doesn’t happen (occur) now. Exogenous bacterial epidemic is not a threat in the present times. So, what is the cause for chronic inflammation? There has to be another kind of stressor that is bringing about the inflammatory response.
A few factors that bring the inflammatory response:
Toxic diets: High sugar, high processed carbohydrates, high industrial fat—for example the very well marketed sunflower and corn oil, which contain highly processed polyunsaturated fatty acids. Consumption of highly processed polyunsaturated fatty acids can cause cancer and heart diseases. There seems to be a definite link to these diseases and chronic inflammation.
Lack of sleep: Poor sleep is linked to elevated inflammatory response.
Lack of physical exercise: Lack of activity is linked to systemic, low-grade inflammation.
Poor intestinal health: Intestinal health is paramount to the human immune system. When there is inflammation in the intestine, it leads to disturbed gut health.
Insufficient omega 3 intake: Omega-3 fats form the precursors for anti-inflammatory eicosanoids. Poor omega-3 status means insufficient anti-inflammatory response.
Excessive omega-6 intake: Omega-6 fats form the precursors for inflammatory eicosanoids. High omega-6 status when combined with poor omega-3 status means excessive inflammatory response.
So watch out. Inflammation can creep in silently without any notice. It wrecks havoc to your health and well being. Also, chronic inflammation is often associated with free radical damage. More on free radical damage in a later blog entry. However, chronic inflammation is a silent killer because inflammation caused by free radical damage is usually not associated with pain, for some internal organs do not exhibit pain. Importantly, since there is no pain you may not be aware of the serious damage it causes.