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Inflammation might be the root of preventable disease

harvardmagazine.com

11–20 of 240 posts

Re: Inflammation might be the root of preventable disease

#11

How can a symptom be the "cause" of a disease? Gingivitis is "inflammation of the gums", but it's "caused" by bacteria, plaque, tarter, etc... inflammation is the description of what is happening (ie, symptom) not the "cause".

This article suggests that it might be the symptom of one disease while being the cause of another disease (or range of diseases).

For example the "fat cell leak": The body is correctly responding to a real problem, but the response is so heavy handed it causes other problems.

Which is why suppressing inflammation might be an interesting area of research, but we wouldn't want to completely eliminate it because the body may lose a vital tool needed to fight illnesses and normal maintenance.

Re: Inflammation might be the root of preventable disease

#15
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go for keto + IF. It helped a lot of people.

I did. In fact that was a great start, but once you reach a certain point (in having metabolic syndrome), the Keto+IF reaches diminishing returns. It did bring me down 18 inches on the waist. The gut and hypertension will remain. In fact, my hypertension actually went up. To go further requires either Metformin or Berberine. I opted for Berberine, but time will tell.

Awesome that it worked so well for you while it did. Tip for others who may try this: don't forget to lower your macros (and, in turn, calories) an appropriate amount as your weight drops. The same diet that maintains keto at 250 lbs won't keep you in keto at 190. For much, much more: https://peterattiamd.com/

Re: Inflammation might be the root of preventable disease

#16
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go for keto + IF. It helped a lot of people.

I did. In fact that was a great start, but once you reach a certain point (in having metabolic syndrome), the Keto+IF reaches diminishing returns. It did bring me down 18 inches on the waist. The gut and hypertension will remain. In fact, my hypertension actually went up. To go further requires either Metformin or Berberine. I opted for Berberine, but time will tell.

There's no best diet, there's just a diet that works for oneself. For me it's a ton of fruits (tomatoes, clementines, .. depending on the season), vegetables (onions with leaves, spinach leaves, herbs, peppers, aubergines, carrots...) vapor-cooked or boiled in water, occasionally with some white fish, and some rice to 'cement' a bit that, some honey. No sauce and no waste or almost, no drugs (this diet is like a natural drug for me). Doing some exercise the weekend on a bike. My BMI is always around 18 (60/1.83^2)

Re: Inflammation might be the root of preventable disease

#17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did. In fact that was a great start, but once you reach a certain point (in having metabolic syndrome), the Keto+IF reaches diminishing returns. It did bring me down 18 inches on the waist. The gut and hypertension will remain. In fact, my hypertension actually went up. To go further requires either Metformin or Berberine. I opted for Berberine, but time will tell.

There's no best diet, there's just a diet that works for oneself. For me it's a ton of fruits (tomatoes, clementines, .. depending on the season), vegetables (onions with leaves, spinach leaves, herbs, peppers, aubergines, carrots...) vapor-cooked or boiled in water, occasionally with some white fish, and some rice to 'cement' a bit that, some honey. No sauce and no waste or almost, no drugs (this diet is like a natu…

Agreed. I am in a much worse state than you. Diet of any kind at this point sadly won't help me any more. Now I have to trick my metabolism into using glucose very inefficiently.

Re: Inflammation might be the root of preventable disease

#18

How can a symptom be the "cause" of a disease? Gingivitis is "inflammation of the gums", but it's "caused" by bacteria, plaque, tarter, etc... inflammation is the description of what is happening (ie, symptom) not the "cause".

Inflammation is tricky because you have accute (a hard work out, an injury, gingivitis) or chronic/dietary inflammation which is more akin to a reversible disease.

It’s like saying type2 diabeties or fatty liver disease are not diseases but symptoms caused by certain dietary habits. Though as I write this...maybe you are correct and we should look at these things like symptoms of poor diet and not diseases.

Re: Inflammation might be the root of preventable disease

#19

At the same time, anti-inflammatories slow wound healing. Here are a couple of random studies I found. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17319622 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22381097

Something I experienced about 20 years ago - I threw my back out (just was sitting, and turned my torso - and that was it), major sciatica pain.

Went to the doctor. I was prescribed a certain stretching exercise, plus also 800mg ibuprofen, bed rest, etc.

I was popping the ibuprofen "on schedule" - 3x a day. At first, it helped some, and so did the exercise. But then, the pain came back, and nothing was cutting it. Not the stretching exercises, not the ibuprofen; this was after a few weeks of doing all of this.

So I decided that since the ibuprofen wasn't helping, to just drop it. And I continued with the exercise.

...and the pain went away. I haven't had a major problem with my lower back since then (knock on wood).

My anecdotal theory is that somehow, the anti-inflammatory drug was preventing healing at high doses, and I had to quit it to get better.

I don't know if that is really true or not, all I know is that was what seemed to do the trick for me.

Re: Inflammation might be the root of preventable disease

#20

How can a symptom be the "cause" of a disease? Gingivitis is "inflammation of the gums", but it's "caused" by bacteria, plaque, tarter, etc... inflammation is the description of what is happening (ie, symptom) not the "cause".

If one system's inflammation causes another system to degrade and inflame, and so on, until the body has systemic inflammation without an infection... that over-sensitivity/self-reinforcement mechanism is arguably the problem, but also a moot point without advanced gene editing. The "fix" may be reducing inflammation so those systems can recover homeostasis.
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