Inflammation Deep Dive

A lot of people hear “Inflammation” as a bad thing, but some inflammation is actually a good thing. Inflammation is the result of your body triggering a white blood cell response to an outside “invader”- so any time you get a cut, an infection, or an injury, the inflammatory response is what helps you heal- without it, those injuries and illnesses would stick around forever. But sometimes it’s not so great. In some inflammatory diseases, like rheumatoid arthritis, the body initiates this inflammatory response when there’s no outside pathogens and attacks your bodies cells and tissues, causing what’s known as an autoimmune disease.

There’s 2 types of inflammation- acute and chronic. You’ve felt and seen acute- it’s when you cut yourself and the tissue around the cut gets a little red and puffy. It can also be an achy joint, a stuffy nose (in the case of a viral infection) or a bump in response to hitting your head. Typically, these symptoms die down after a few hours or days and the injury goes away.

Chronic inflammation on the other hand is when the inflammatory response, for whatever reason, gets turned up too high and the immune system continues pumping out it’s attack, even if there’s nothing external to attack- and what does it turn to to attack? Your own body. But you may not even feel the impacts of chronic, low-grade inflammation until something goes very wrong inside your body. In the short term it can manifest in general symptoms ranging from fatigue to joint and abdominal pain. But long term, chronic inflammation has been linked to everything from diabetes, heart disease, cancer and a weakened immune system, which makes sense right? It basically means your immune response is working overtime, constantly, and like anything , it’s going to get worn out.

Neuroinflammation is inflammation specifically of the brain and nervous system, and it has een found in studies to contribute to everything from neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s & Parkinson's to even obesity. New studies are showing it as a major contributor to chronic depression.

Short term, the symptoms of neuroinflammation are a little bit different that your other forms of inflammation. While the brain does a really good job of telling us where else there’s pain in the body, it doesn’t actually have it’s own pain receptors. So neuroinflammation can look more like “brain fog”, lack of concentration, and more downstream symptoms like high blood pressure, elevated blood sugars, or cognitive decline.

Now, let’s look at some of the top drivers of inflammation for both your brain, and your body as a whole.

The first is excessive sugar consumption- A 2018 study at the University of Bonn found that your body responds to fast food and sugar the same way it responds to a bacterial infection- by triggering an inflammatory response. Every time you eat too much sugar your body has to work overtime to break it down in to energy, causing excessive inflammation, particularly in your brain. There’s a growing body of research connecting Alzheimer's to this insulin response, with many even referring to Alzheimer's as Type 3 diabetes.

Too much alcohol- Alcohol is one of the few substances that passes easily through your blood brain barrier, which is what helps you get that giggly feeling pretty fast, but it’s not so great for your brain. It’s also a known neurotoxin, which a lot of people don’t realize. Heavy, and even moderate, consumption of alcohol has been closely linked to neuroinflammation and shrinkage of the brain. Does this mean we can never drink again? Like sugar, everything in moderation- but above 2 drinks a week (yes a week), know that you're probably putting stress on your brain, liver, and other body parts.

Long term environmental exposures- This covers a range of things, but basically, all the un-natural things that we come in contact with every day. Chemicals in highly processed foods, environmental pollutants, pesticides in our foods and chemicals that come in contact with our bodies from things like shampoos, lotions and clothes. These add up overtime, and vary depending on where you live, where your food is sourced from and other personal factors.

Chronic stress- This is a big one. Stress can be a good thing- back in the days your stress triggered that fight or flight reaction that could help us run from cheetah's or catch that night's meal. But today, there's no more cheetahs to run from (hopefully). Instead, we’re overstressed from our jobs, families, constant barrage of the news cycle and lack of natural light. So our body is just constantly in the “fight” stage, but there’s nothing to fight so it’s never really over.

Other systemic inflamers- Stressors to your body like obesity, IBS and autoimmune diseases will cause chronic inflammation in your body and brain.