{"id":1040,"date":"2016-11-05T15:57:17","date_gmt":"2016-11-05T15:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/healthyselfhealing.com\/articles\/?p=1040"},"modified":"2017-10-16T13:56:14","modified_gmt":"2017-10-16T13:56:14","slug":"chronic-inflammation-the-enemy-within","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthyselfhealing.com\/articles\/chronic-inflammation-the-enemy-within\/","title":{"rendered":"Chronic Inflammation &#8211; The Enemy Within"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1041 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/healthyselfhealing.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Inflammation-23-300x157.png\" alt=\"inflammation-23\" width=\"510\" height=\"267\" srcset=\"https:\/\/healthyselfhealing.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Inflammation-23-200x104.png 200w, https:\/\/healthyselfhealing.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Inflammation-23-300x157.png 300w, https:\/\/healthyselfhealing.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Inflammation-23-400x209.png 400w, https:\/\/healthyselfhealing.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Inflammation-23-600x313.png 600w, https:\/\/healthyselfhealing.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Inflammation-23-768x401.png 768w, https:\/\/healthyselfhealing.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Inflammation-23-800x418.png 800w, https:\/\/healthyselfhealing.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Inflammation-23.png 806w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 510px) 100vw, 510px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>At one time, plagues abounded. Without running water, flushing toilets or weekly garbage pickup, germs had the upper hand and many people died in infancy.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Times have certainly changed. Unlike our ancestors who lived much shorter lives than we do presently, our homes and public spaces are (for the most part) clean. Infectious diseases are nearly unknown and we automatically take for granted that most children will live past their second birthday.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>The top ten causes of death in 1900 \u2013 pathogens (bacteria or viruses) have changed.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Now, in the 21<sup>st<\/sup> century most non-accidental deaths are caused by heart disease, cancer, chronic lower respiratory diseases and stroke.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>These\u2026plus diabetes, Alzheimer\u2019s and even suicide are rooted in chronic inflammation \u2013 a whole different scenario than acute inflammation.<\/p>\n<p>We need to understand the difference between acute (short-term or classical) and low level chronic (long-term) inflammation.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Acute or Chronic Inflammation<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/healthyselfhealing.com\/articles\/what-you-need-to-know-about-inflammation\/\">Acute inflammation<\/a> was the only kind that was recognized for thousands of years. Our great-grandparents battled acute inflammation (battling bacteria or simple injuries) \u2026heat, redness, swelling, pain and loss of function all occurred.<\/p>\n<p><em>Then doctors and researchers started noticing a new kind of inflammation: low-level, chronic and systemic inflammation was born.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>They called it \u201cchronic\u201d or \u201ccold\u201d inflammation because it does not have the typical hallmarks of acute inflammation. No heat, redness, swelling, pain or loss of function to give clues. Additionally, unlike the acute inflammation our ancestors experienced that sped up metabolism this type of inflammation decreases metabolism.<\/p>\n<p><em>Rather than short, vicious, site-specific bursts of fighting as in classical inflammation, chronic inflammation involves a long, relatively mild system grind.<\/em>\u00a0It occurs when the body\u2019s immune system gets fired up and stays fired up over time, attacking healthy tissue alongside unhealthy tissue.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>One can be thought of as an explosion while the other is a smoldering fire. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Chronic inflammation is silent but often deadly.<\/em> It does not produce symptoms until actual loss of function occurs somewhere. Chronic inflammation is low-grade and systemic, often silently damaging tissues over an extended period. This process can go on for years\u2026until finally disease suddenly sets in.<\/p>\n<p>Inflammation can operate in stealth mode. When symptoms finally become apparent, it\u2019s usually in the form of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, osteoarthritis or other inflammation-related diseases.<\/p>\n<p>You may already be under fire from inflammation caused by no proper exercise, poor diet and too much stress. But the good news is that chronic inflammation is a problem you can act to prevent and fix.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em><strong>You do this through proper exercise supported by <a href=\"http:\/\/healthyselfhealing.com\/articles\/exercise-and-proper-nutrition-are-key-to-youth-health-and-vitality\/\">healthy eating<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Processed foods are a no-no\u2026if you are to avoid chronic inflammation than you must concentrate on eating real foods\u2026those that Mother Nature herself provides us\u2026without the additives and changes).<\/p>\n<p>Eliminating processed foods (high in inflammatory ingredients) such as refined sugars and processed fats like trans-fats and vegetable oils and getting <a href=\"http:\/\/healthyselfhealing.com\/articles\/proper-diet-plus-exercise-is-the-magic-equation-to-overall-health\/\">regular challenging exercise<\/a> are two of the most potent ways to help normalize insulin levels (used to gauge inflammation) and avoid insulin resistance.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, it\u2019s important to understand that dietary components can trigger or prevent inflammation from taking root in your body.<\/p>\n<p><em>Although experts believe it takes years of chronic cellular inflammation to trigger these types of disease, there are also subtle short-term consequences including weight gain, fatigue, aches and pains and indigestion as well as low-grade depression.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Bottom line is this: Chronic inflammation is bad for your health and decreasing chronic inflammation is key to improving health.<\/p>\n<p><em>If we want to live a long healthy life, we must avoid chronic inflammation and the only way to do that is to honor our body with what it needs\u2026consistent, proper exercise supported by healthy eating. There are no short cuts.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>If you ready to tap into the power of your self-healing processes in order to MAXIMIZE your level of health&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/healthyselfhealing.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u201cActivate The Self Healing Process Within You\u201d<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>can help you do just that.<\/p>\n<p><em>It reveals powerful but \u201csimple Lifestyle Strategies to help resist aging and maintain superior health.\u201d Inside, you&#8217;ll learn the best natural techniques for preparing your body to defend itself against disease no matter how insidious the threat.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At one time, plagues abounded. Without running water, flushing toilets or weekly garbage pickup, germs had the upper hand and many people died in infancy. Times have certainly changed. Unlike our ancestors who lived much [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,31,26],"tags":[71,72],"class_list":["post-1040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-wellbeing","category-lifesyle-habits","category-strength-training","tag-avoiding-chronic-inflammation","tag-chronic-inflammation-or-acute-inflammation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyselfhealing.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyselfhealing.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyselfhealing.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyselfhealing.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyselfhealing.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1040"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/healthyselfhealing.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1285,"href":"https:\/\/healthyselfhealing.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1040\/revisions\/1285"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyselfhealing.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyselfhealing.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyselfhealing.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyselfhealing.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}