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Inflammation might be the root of preventable disease

harvardmagazine.com

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Re: Inflammation might be the root of preventable disease

#51
post #22

I find these sorts of arguments to be... odd. “Inflammation” includes so many normal homeostatic processes that it’s essentially a tautology to point to inflammation as being a critical component of disordered homeostasis. The biggest key as to whether a molecule is considered inflammatory is what type of biologist discovered it first.

>The biggest key as to whether a molecule is considered inflammatory is what type of biologist discovered it first.

I'm super ignorant of this field. Do you have examples of molecules that would be classified differently if found by different researchers?

Re: Inflammation might be the root of preventable disease

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure, but if you cure the first problem, then the inflammation goes away, then you cure two problems instead of one. So is inflammation really the actual problem? This is like saying water damaged my carpet without acknowledging the real problem... that firemen were putting out the fire. No one cares about a mold problem in carpet if your house burns down. If we treated health issues in the same common sense way we w…

I think it's analogous to overwhelming tech debt - stuck in an operational hell because there is no reprieve to actually put out any of the fires.

The root cause is all the little issues, but you can't get there without first tackling the inability to fix any of the issues (labor shortage/unreasonable expectations/so on).

Re: Inflammation might be the root of preventable disease

#53
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, and anti-oxidants actually prevent aerobic conditioning in athletes.[1]. Presumably oxidative stress is a signal to the body to become more aerobically efficient. Yet at the same time, oxidative stress is linked to numerous diseases. Biology is hard. [1] Derek Lowe’s blog (don’t have exact link)

"Biology is hard" doesn't really express what I think people don't get about biology (granted I'm not a biologist). With everything complex, not just living creatures, the real problems are caused by failure to maintain a negative feedback loop properly, and pushing on it doesn't help because the negative feedback is still there almost the same way as normal and has to be to avert complete disaster.

I'm not sure your explanation was any easier to grok for people, how about this:

Inflammation is what the body uses to clean out disease and heal itself.

The individual mechanisms used to do this could be considered analogous (but very different from) a short antibiotics regimen.

In the short term or localised to one area it is beneficial. But at a systemic always on level there are negative side effects where these systems begin to overwhelm/damage healthy functions/cells.

Re: Inflammation might be the root of preventable disease

#54

In my case, inflammation is a side effect of insulin resistance, like my fellow 83 million Americans with metabolic syndrome. If I can reverse the cause long enough, the liver should stop dumping fat into the adipose tissue and triglycerides may drop.

To piggy back another comment take a look at Jason Fung's clinical work with people with metabolic syndrome/Type 2 diabetes. It's focused on using fasts to so-to-speak "reset" a metabolism. https://idmprogram.com

https://m.youtube.com/channel/UC8bWMq7Ahg3CUz3ish9dvuw

Re: Inflammation might be the root of preventable disease

#55
post #22

I find these sorts of arguments to be... odd. “Inflammation” includes so many normal homeostatic processes that it’s essentially a tautology to point to inflammation as being a critical component of disordered homeostasis. The biggest key as to whether a molecule is considered inflammatory is what type of biologist discovered it first.

>The biggest key as to whether a molecule is considered inflammatory is what type of biologist discovered it first. I'm super ignorant of this field. Do you have examples of molecules that would be classified differently if found by different researchers?

I think what they are referring to is molecules like Cytokines [1] which are found in responses to [infection, immune responses, inflammation, trauma, sepsis, cancer, and reproduction] (from Wikipedia)

Inflammation and immune response seem entirely connected.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine

Re: Inflammation might be the root of preventable disease

#56

I found the last part about SPMs and anti-inflammatory molecules, very interesting and encouraging. Being a colitis patient, I have found out in my own experiments, that eating a diet rich in well sourced fish and chicken decreases my inflammatory symptoms and is very filling at the same time.

I found that gluten irritated my Crohns.

I recently started Remicade - it reduces the immune system to try to stop the auto-immune problem that is Crohns. It was eye opening what other little aches and pains went away once the immune system was turned down a bit and the inflammation was lowered

Certainly the extra inflammation was causing other problems where the inflammation is the main cause.

Re: Inflammation might be the root of preventable disease

#57
More reason to keep an eye on hsCRP and take steps if it gets too high. (Most labs use The article brings together different issues, like fasting, fat tissue, exercise, diet, sugar and chronic disease.

Reposted with a summary here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ketoscience/comments/bh2s9a/could_i...

Re: Inflammation might be the root of preventable disease

#58

I found this area interesting: > “A fat cell is almost like a primitive immune cell,” says Hotamisligil. “It can request the assistance of immune cells when in trouble, but if the stress continues, and the immune cells remain, they start changing their character and behavior from helpful to harmful.” ... > When overloaded with stored lipid, fat cells begin to lose their functional and structural integrity and may sta…

the fat -> immune response is reminiscent of cardiovascular diseases too
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