What is inflammation? There’s a defensive war going on in your body, conducted by intelligence officers (ordinary cells), signalers (interferons and cytokines), generals (endothelial cells), armed soldiers (white blood cells). Their mission: to detect, envelop, destroy, and purge your body of bad germs, viruses, parasites, oxidizing molecules, and cancerous cells. That war, necessary for existence, leaves behind redness, swelling, heat, pain, loss of function. Inflammation.
Inflammation can be acute and short-term, depending on the insult to the body: a sprain, poison ivy, acne, pneumonia, burns. Short-term, the army is deployed, does its job, and the body is healed.
But chronic long-term inflammation has a dark side, playing a role in health concerns like heart disease, diabetes, cancer, psoriasis, asthma, skin aging, inflammatory arthritis, and inflammatory bowel disease. Read more