While unpleasant, fever, and swelling are signs of acute inflammation — a temporary response from your immune system as your body heals itself. Chronic inflammation, the other type of type, happens without injury or infection and can go on for months or years.
Chronic inflammation is linked to many health problems. A not-exhaustive list includes cardiovascular diseases (heart disease and high blood pressure), neurodegenerative diseases (Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s), lung diseases (asthma and COPD), metabolic diseases (type 2 diabetes), and some cancers (bowel cancer, liver cancer).
Our daily lives and exposures to toxins are the culprits behind most cases of chronic inflammation, explains Cleveland Clinic. Chronic stress, smoking, obesity, imbalanced gut bacteria, inflammation-causing foods high in trans fats and salt, and pollution are among the common causes.
Dr Federica Amati joined Professor Tim Spector and ZOE CEO Jonathan Wolf on the ZOE Science & Nutrition podcast to discuss inflammation and what we can eat to reduce it.
On the topic of inflammation increasing the risk of health problems, Jonathan asked: “From heart disease to diabetes, dementia, and cancer, you even threw in mental health and depression. Is this really sort of mainstream belief now?
“This is a mainstream belief,” Prof Spector answered. “It doesn’t mean it’s the only factor. It’s one of the consistent factors in all those diseases. So even if other things are going on, if you’ve got a baseline level where you have inflammation, you know, as this sort of overexcitation of your immune system, everything else is more likely to happen. So everything feeds off this because your body just isn’t working in the right way.