What is Inflammation and How Does It Cause Pain?

I’ve got a great article for you today about the “hidden cause” of so many diseases and conditions like chronic pain, heart disease, stroke, alzhiemers and others.

If you suffer from any type of ache or pain, whether it’s big or small, acute or chronic, or if you want to learn about how you can reverse and prevent damage caused by these diseases and conditions, then you I’m sure you are going to find this quick read very eye opening.

What is Inflammation and How Does It Cause Pain?

Inflammation is a response from your immune system in response to an irritant.

For example, if you sprain your ankle, your immune system creates a protein called a Circulating Immune Complex (CIC for short).

The CIC travels down to the injured ankle and causes pain and swelling.

The pain you feel is to inform you of the injury or damage. And the swelling is protective as it prevents you from moving it and causing more irritation.

This is also your body’s way of running to the problem with fresh blood, antibodies and vital cells in order to begin healing and repairing the damage.

Then what normally happens is our bodies produce proteolytic enzymes which counteract the inflammation, and things return to normal. That’s why a sprained ankle as a young child heals within a few weeks at most, but can take six weeks or more for an adult of say 45.

The problem is, after around age 25, our production of these enzymes drops off almost completely so there is nothing to tell the body to stop the inflammation. These enzymes are also responsible for cleaning the blood, fighting off viral and bacterial infections and breaking down excess fibrin (scar tissue).

You can learn more about proteolytic enzymes and how they work here

In addition to the decrease in production of proteolytic enzymes, there are also numerous other things that contribute to the build up of inflammation in our bodies.

Here is just a short list of factors that contribute to inflammation:

• Un-addressed pain and injuries
• Toxins and chemicals in our air, water and food
• Poor nutritional habits
• Bacterial or viral infections
• Allergies
• Prescription medications
• Auto-immune diseases
• Negative mental and emotional stress
  

Over time, inflammation continues to increase in our bodies causing damage to all of the tissues and organs, often without us even knowing it’s happening.

If inflammation is not controlled and the body continually fights this battle, symptoms of chronic inflammation can show itself as arthritis, colitis, chronic fatigue, sinusitis, cataracts, chronic pain, hair loss heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer’s and dozens of other ailments and conditions.

Inflammation is what slowly kills us.

More and more research is coming out now that proves this. For example, here’s a quote from a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine: “there is convincing evidence that inflammation is strongly linked to heart attacks and stroke.”

And in another study published in The Annals of Neurology, the researchers concluded, “inflammation is linked to Alzheimer’s and other dementing diseases.” And a recent Harvard study found that “half of all heart attacks are caused by inflammation”.

We know that reducing inflammation is critical to eliminating pain and preventing disease and illness, but how do you do it safely and naturally?

Here are just some of the things you can do:

• Make dietary changes – be sure to read Dr Chilton’s book “Win the War Within”
  
• Learn how to eliminate negative emotional stress
• Minimize the amount of junk that enters your body – and not just food but toxins and other chemicals
• Replace lost proteolytic enzymes with supplementation

Remember, the key is to keep in inflammation under control because it does far more than just cause swelling and pain.

Inflammation and joint health

Super Foods to Fight Arthritis

The good old saying stands valid, you are what you eat. With some thought and effective planning it’s possible to get nutrient rich food into your system, believe me your body will thank you for it. The battle against arthritis should from start from inside your body, with so choices sometimes we take things for granted. Here are some of conscious choice you could make when it comes to battle against arthritis and full pain relief.

Salmon as you might know is full of omega 3 fatty acid, the good fat which your body requires on a day to basis. Eating salmon gives you a double edge advantage , it is good for your cardiovascular health , it has been known to raise the levels of good cholesterol, bringing your blood pressure down.

Bananas – one of the richest sources of potassium and sudden energy booster, its great drink any time of the day , best of all you it doesn’t need any preparation, its easy as peel and go. The specific arthritis fighting nutrients like folate and vitamin B6 is in the right proportion in a banana. Again banana has dual benefits; it contains a high fibre content which will give you the full feeling faster than other food groups there by helping you lose weight as well. Wouldn’t you eat a banana if you can achieve full pain relief ?

If you are a seafood lover like me, don’t ignore the importance of shrimps. They contain the hard to get vitamin D, in fact it contains more Vitamin D than a cup of milk. Just like salmon it contains Omega 3 fatty acids the vitamins B12 which keeps you in good all round health. In general for full pain relief include a wide range of deep sea food.

Green tea has recently come into the lime light as super food; it’s a known fact that green tea is an effective anti oxidant and has various other properties which will help you not only in curing arthritis but also help a whole raft of other health related problems. If you were to pick one among the discussed super foods, it would be green tea.

Little planning goes a long way when it comes to your intake of food and controlling arthritis. Don’t make the common mistake which people make, they stick to good food for a week or so and then revert back to old ways, the trick is to be always conscious of what you put into your system.