by
Mark Sisson
Mark’s Daily Apple

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Inflammation
is one of those words that people use without really thinking about
its actual meaning. So today we’re going to take a bit of a break
from the blood
lipid series to cover inflammation. In later posts, I’ll dig
deeper into how the inflammatory response works with stuff like
exercise and heart disease, but for now, I’ll just get the basics
out there.

Existence is
suffering, according to certain schools of thought. I don’t know
that I’d go quite that far, but I would emphatically state that
anyone who spends a modicum of sentient time in the space time continuum
we call existence is gonna experience some unpleasantness. A bump
on the knee, a bacterial infection, an acute injury, a persistent
illness, a death of a loved one, a broken heart. It’s a big and
often angry world that doesn’t necessarily care about you, and something’s
gotta give. When that happens and the sanctity of our bodies is
interrupted by pain, injury, or illness, our bodies respond with
inflammation.

There’s that
word again: inflammation. It pops up quite often in our circles,
usually playing either the starring role, absolutely killing it
as a supporting actor, or stealing the show with a cameo appearance
in some malady or another. Heart disease, obesity, depression,
arthritis (and any -itis, really), autoimmune diseases, insulin
resistance – all classics worthy of accolades (although tonsillitis
totally got robbed in last years Oscars), and all linked to inflammation,
sometimes even causally. So inflammation must be terrible, right?
It must be completely and unequivocally a negative trait, kinda
like how our body evolved to manufacture cholesterol
to kill us. What, didn’t you know that coronary heart disease confers
a survival advantage?

Jokes aside,
the fact that inflammation is a common, natural, innate response
to injury/pain/illness/stress is a hint that there’s probably something
necessary about it. It’s not some accident, nor is it our body hell-bent
on making life miserable for itself. On the contrary: inflammation
is our body’s way of saying it isn’t gonna take the affront of injury
or illness lying down. It’s not a passive spectator totally
reliant on the kindness of Pfizer and Walgreens and an ice pack
to get it out of a jam. Although you wouldn’t think it, what with
the barrage of altruistic allknowing medical experts and commercials
both touting some essential pharmaceutical, our bodies can actually
heal themselves. And the first responder, so to speak, is the inflammatory
process. That’s right. Pain, swelling, redness, and that radiating
sense of warmth that we feel at the site of an injury or illness
don’t manifest by accident or for kicks. That’s inflammation,
and it’s essential to our very existence in a world of hurt.

First up, acute
inflammation.

The initial
response to a pathogen or an injury is acutely inflammatory. In
other words, it is brief, lasting several days or less. All sorts
of things can cause an acute inflammatory response. Here are a few:

• Trauma (punch,
  kick, golfball to the head)
• Infection
  by pathogens (bacterial, viral)
• Burn (sun,
  fire, seatbelt buckle on a summer day)
• Chemical
  irritants
• Frostbite
• Stabbing/Cut/Laceration
• Allergic
  reaction

Things happen
pretty fast in an acute inflammatory response and involve several
different players, including the vascular system (veins, arteries,
capillaries and such), the immune system, and the cells local to
the injury. First, something painful and unpleasant happens; choose
one of the above injury options. Then, pattern recognition receptors
(PRR) located at the injury site initiate the release of various
inflammatory mediators, which in turn initiate vasodilation (or
widening of the blood vessels). This allows increased blood flow
to the injury site, which warms the site, turns it the familiar
red, and carries plasma and leukocytes to the site of the injured
tissue. The blood vessels become more permeable, thus allowing the
plasma and leukocytes to flow through the vessel walls and into
the injured tissue to do their work. Emigration of plasma into tissue
also means fluid buildup, which means swelling. At the same time,
the body releases an inflammatory mediator called bradykinin which
increases pain sensitivity at the site and discourages usage of
the injured area. These sensations – heat, redness, swelling, pain,
and a loss of function – are annoying and familiar, but they are
absolutely necessary for proper healing.

Allow
me to explain why the four primary symptoms of acute inflammation
are important:

• Increased
  blood flow warms the injury and turns it red, which can be irritating
  and unsightly, but it also carries the guys – leukocytes – that
  will be cleaning up the injury site, mopping up pathogens, and
  overseeing the inflammatory process.
• Swollen
  body parts don’t fit into gloves, are really sensitive, and don’t
  work as well as their slim counterparts, but a swollen finger
  is a finger that’s full of a plasma and leukocyte slurry and therefore
  on the road to recovery.
• Pain hurts,
  but if an injury doesn’t hurt and it’s serious, you’ll keep damaging
  it because you won’t know not to use it.
• Loss of
  function prevents you from using what could be one of your favorite
  body parts, but you don’t want to make it worse be re-injuring
  it. Besides, it’s only temporary.

These symptoms
both indicate and enable inflammation (and, thus, healing), but
what’s the deal with inflammation being linked with all
those chronic illnesses – like obesity, heart disease, and depression?
How does something normal and helpful go haywire and become implicated
in some of the most crushing, tragic diseases of our time?

Read
the rest of the article

January 9, 2012

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© 2012 Mark’s Daily Apple

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