Are You In Trouble With Inflammation?

Anyone interested in living a healthy lifestyle has probably heard mention of inflammation. Like diabetes, this is a term which is often banded around with regards to what we eat and the impact it can have on our bodies. Unlike diabetes, many of us have heard the term inflammation without really knowing what it means for our health.

Obviously, it’s easy enough to determine that inflammation refers to swelling within the body. You don’t need a doctor to help you work out that much. Still, the phrase is relatively broad. You may wonder where exactly this inflammation is taking place, and what it means anyway. At best, many of us imagine our entire body weight swelling when we hear mention of this term. At worst, we know so little about it that we don’t care one way or the other. 

The sad fact is that a failure to grasp what inflammation is or the damage it can do could soon result in serious illness. This is especially the case in the summer months when your body is already attempting to fight the heat, let alone deal with the added struggle of this notorious issue. But, to stand any chance at fighting this problem, it’s vital that you understand the basics. 

Far from just being a case of random swelling, inflammation is part of your body’s natural healing ability. Whenever you become unwell or suffer from an injury, your immune system will trigger an inflammatory response to fight infections. The trouble is that, often, inflammation can be triggered when there’s no injury to fight. In this instance, the cells that are supposed to protect you could start doing the opposite. When this happens, you could fall foul to issues such as –

• Fatigue
• Damaged arteries, organs, and joints
• Heart disease
• Obesity
• Cancer
• Alzheimer’s disease

Inflammation can also leave many at risk of issues such as various auto-immune problems. Admittedly, symptoms can be vague and difficult to pin down at first, but everyone could benefit from taking the following steps to stay inflammation free as much as possible. 

Change your diet

Assessing your diet is about the best thing you can do for tackling inflammation at last. While food isn’t the only factor, it is thought to play a significant part in this condition. For the most part, food’s role here comes in two parts. Certain foods, such as red meat, trans fats, and processed foods can contribute to inflammation and should be reduced or avoided. At the same time, foods like fish, tofu, and soybeans can reduce inflammation. As such, flipping your diet could go a long way towards addressing this issue.

Consider fasting

As you’ll see if you click here, intermittent fasting can also go a long way towards helping reduce inflammation. That’s because it can control the release of free radicals which can fight the problem. Admittedly, fasting done wrong can have other serious health effects, so you must do your research or seek medical advice if you want to feel these benefits. The best thing to do is keep fasts short by following methods like the 16:8, and using a tracker to help you personalize your fasting experience. Done right, though, fasting could soon ensure that inflammation is a thing of your past.

Lose weight

While weight and inflammation don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand, overweight individuals are more liable to fall foul to high inflammatory levels. In a way, this is inevitable when you consider that fatty and sugary foods are a massive contributor to this problem. Evidence suggests that overeating can also trigger the immune response, which causes damage in the first place. As such, losing weight so that you’re within a healthy BMI ensures you’re better able to keep inflammation to a more manageable level.

Don’t forget exercise

Of course, inflammation isn’t all about diet. Exercise can also help to keep levels low. Research published in ‘Brain, Behavior and Immunity’ suggests that even twenty-minutes of exercise a day can help to tackle this problem. That’s because exercise’s ability to trigger sympathoadrenergic activation can help to fight the inflammatory cellular responses which do damage in the first place.

Admittedly, there is no one easy fix for keeping inflammation at bay. As with issues such as weight, this is a goal which we need to continually strive towards, while also remembering that some inflammation is still a healthy part of body function. Still, turning your attention to simple steps like these can keep those less favorable side-effects at bay.