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what is inflammation
What is Inflammation and How Does It Cause Pain?
Inflammation is a response from your immune system in response to an
irritant.
For example, if you sprain your ankle, your immune system creates a
protein called a Circulating Immune Complex (CIC for short).
The CIC travels down to the injured ankle and causes pain and swelling.
The pain you feel is to inform you of the injury or damage. And the
swelling is protective as it prevents you from moving it and causing
more irritation.
This is also your body's way of running to the problem with fresh blood,
antibodies and vital cells in order to begin healing and repairing the
damage.
Then what normally happens is our bodies produce proteolytic enzymes
which counteract the inflammation, and things return to normal. That's
why a sprained ankle as a young child heals within a few weeks at most,
but can take six weeks or more for an adult of say 45.
The problem is, after around age 25, our production of these enzymes
drops off almost completely so there is nothing to tell the body to stop
the inflammation. These enzymes are also responsible for cleaning the
blood, fighting off viral and bacterial infections and breaking down
excess fibrin (scar tissue).
You can learn more about proteolytic enzymes and how they work here
http://www.losethebackpain.com/proteolyticenzymes.html
In addition to the decrease in production of proteolytic enzymes, there
are also numerous other things that contribute to the build up of
inflammation in our bodies.
Here is just a short list of factors that contribute to inflammation:
* Un-addressed pain and injuries
* Toxins and chemicals in our air, water and food
* Poor nutritional habits
* Bacterial or viral infections
* Allergies
* Prescription medications
* Auto-immune diseases
* Negative mental and emotional stress
Over time, inflammation continues to increase in our bodies causing
damage to all of the tissues and organs, often without us even knowing
it's happening.
If inflammation is not controlled and the body continually fights this
battle, symptoms of chronic inflammation can show itself as arthritis,
colitis, chronic fatigue, sinusitis, cataracts, chronic pain, hair loss
heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer's and dozens of other ailments and
conditions.
Inflammation is what slowly kills us.
More and more research is coming out now that proves this. For example,
here's a quote from a study published in The New England Journal of
Medicine: "there is convincing evidence that inflammation is strongly
linked to heart attacks and stroke."
And in another study published in The Annals of Neurology, the
researchers concluded, "inflammation is linked to Alzheimer's and other
dementing diseases." And a recent Harvard study found that "half of all
heart attacks are caused by inflammation".
We know that reducing inflammation is critical to eliminating pain and
preventing disease and illness, but how do you do it safely and naturally?
Here are just some of the things you can do:
* Make dietary changes - be sure to read Dr Chilton's book "Win the
War Within"
* Learn how to eliminate negative emotional stress
* Minimize the amount of junk that enters your body - and not just
food but toxins and other chemicals
* Replace lost proteolytic enzymes with supplementation
Remember, the key is to keep in inflammation under control because it
does far more than just cause swelling and pain.
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