Inflammation
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Inflammation and Disease
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For decades, physicians have advocated that high cholesterol levels are to blame for heart, or cardiovascular, disease (CVD), and have monitored patients accordingly. We are now starting to understand that while cholesterol factors into CVD, it is not the mob-boss we originally gave it credit as. The real culprit behind CVD is silent inflammation occurring within the arteries in response to oxidative, or free radical, stress and other factors. Silent inflammation, primarily due to unhealthy lifestyle habits and environmental pollutants, is the primary cause of CVD and many other degenerative conditions.
What is Inflammation?
As the immune system’s natural response to injury or infection, inflammation is actually a valuable healing mechanism. Our immune systems are constantly working, while we sleep and live our day-to-day lives, to protect and regenerate our bodies. Although immune cells differ depending on the nature and location of the particular defense situations at hand, inflammation is a common characteristic response.
Inflammation will manifest itself, at the site of a burn or cut, for example, as heat, swelling, and/or redness. Against a virus or bacterial invasion, the immune system may initiate inflammatory responses such as fever, nausea, or diarrhea. All of these are localized and specialized responses which characterize acute inflammation. We usually recognize the need to shield and treat such acute inflammation situations, or otherwise rest and recuperate, so that we can “get back to normal.” Inflammation, here, is the deviation, not the norm.
When Inflammation Gets Out of Hand
We are generally unaware, however, when the body is defending against less noticeable invaders like free radicals. Such defense occurs naturally and regularly on a molecular level, as we generate free radicals through everyday metabolic activities like breathing, exercising, and eating. Free radical activity may increase as a result of various lifestyle habits, including ingestion of inflammatory foods, heavy exercise, emotional stress, and exposure to environmental toxins.
When the amount of free radicals in the body exceeds the body’s resources to neutralize them, the immune system calls its forces into action, and inflammation results. Habitual (or those that seem “normal”) behaviors or environmental exposures contributing to inflammation cause inflammation which becomes chronic (and perhaps “normal”). Lifestyle, then, plays a huge role in disease prevention.
Chronic, or silent, inflammation will eventually compromise the immune system through the triggering and re-triggering of intermingled immune responses. Without a regulated progression of inflammatory events from initial alarm to new cell formation stages, the system becomes too chaotic and can result in disability. Chronic inflammation which is “the norm,” and usually under the radar, may not alarm us until we are faced with a full-blown autoimmune disorder or other degenerative disease condition. Knowing how to recognize the warning signs of silent inflammation, then, is crucial.
Warning Signs of Silent Inflammation: Inflammatory Markers
To detect silent inflammation, a health care professional can test for inflammatory markers in the blood. Inflammatory markers are biochemical substances, or messengers the body sends out into the blood to signal to other cells how and where to act in response to a particular pathogen or injury. Inflammatory markers to watch out for include C-reactive protein, lipoprotein(a) or Lp(a), interleukin 6, homocysteine, and fibrinogen. In particular, high levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), an antibody-like blood protein, indicate chronic inflammation, and therefore risk of degenerative diseases such as cardiovascular disease (CVD).
In 2000, through a study led by Cardiologist Paul Ridker, doctors at Harvard University published results which revealed the central role of inflammation in CVD. Noting that half of all heart attacks occur in people with normal cholesterol levels, the doctors found that, in addition to cholesterol testing, measuring levels of CRP, serum amyloid A, and homocysteine could significantly improve screening methods for CVD and help better predict risk of future cardiovascular events such as death from heart disease, heart attack or stroke, or necessity of blood vessel surgery.1
Detection of inflammatory markers can help you assess your risk of CVD and other degenerative diseases. Truly, with inflammation, it has become about finding, rather than killing, the messenger(s). Ask your health practitioner to test your blood if you are obese, regularly consume fast or other processed foods, habitually participate in strenuous athletic activity, experience chronic emotional stress, or have high blood pressure or diabetes. Likewise, if you believe you have been significantly exposed to environmental toxins, you might want to test for markers of silent inflammation. Remember, folks, prevention is so much easier than cure.
Top Five Causes of Inflammation
1. Ridker PM, Hennekens CH, et al. C-Reactive Protein and Other Markers of Inflammation in the Prediction of Cardiovascular Disease in Women. N Engl J Med. 2000;342(12):836-843 available at http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/342/12/836
© 2009 - 2010 Heart MD Institute, PA
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