Viesearch - The Human-curated Search Engine

How to Know if you have inflammation in your body

Chronic inflammation is one type of inflammation that is silent and persistent. As we all know, inflammation is the body’s way to defend itself against any possible harm, which makes it vital to health.

How to Know if you have inflammation in your body

Inflammation comes with symptoms that include:

  • Readness.
  • Swelling.
  • Heat.
  • Pain.

Naturally, the body is triggered against multiple stimuli including; burns, trauma, toxins, or infections like bacteria and viruses. In fact, millions of things your body can deem to be potentially harmful, which explains why it tends to eradicate it through inflammation.

So, once the stimulus is addressed, the immune system attacks the organ affected by it. Unfortunately, this response causes tissue damage that depends on the severity of inflammation. 

Nowadays, studies proved that inflammation is the main cause of a variety of chronic diseases like autoimmune diseases. The disease depends on the type of stimulus, and the location affected in the body. 

Different types of inflammation

The difference between acute, subacute and chronic inflammation

Of course, the signs of inflammation are obvious. As when a part of your skin becomes inflamed, it appears as red inflamed, and hot. Probably inflammation happens when having an allergy or injured in any way. However, the inflamed hot skin after injury represents just one type of inflammation that holds the lowest risk among all types of inflammation which include;

  • Acute inflammation:  this is a short-term inflammation that starts after tissue damage and clears rapidly in a few days.
  • Subacute inflammation: this type takes longer than acute inflammation, as it takes between  2 to 6 weeks to heal.
  • Chronic inflammation: this one lasts months or years. The period depends on the body’s ability to eradicate the pathogen and heal the tissue.

 

How to Know if you have inflammation in your body
How to Know if you have inflammation in your body

Chronic inflammation:

Chronic inflammation has no special symptoms that mark it specifically. However, as the inflammation progresses in your body you may experience pain, gastrointestinal issues, fatigue, weight gain, and frequent infections. These signs show to be persistent and with unclear causes.

So, some factors activate inflammation, especially the chronic type, and these factors include:

1- Aging:

Inflammaging is the name of chronic inflammation that develops when we get older. Recently, studies proved that most age-related diseases are linked to chronic inflammation.

Also, it is called “sterile inflammation”, as it is a systemic inflammation that is not caused by infection. 

So, you may ask what triggers your inflammatory response while there are no pathogens lurking within your body? 

Well, as we get older, the immune system becomes weaker, and so its ability to defend the body, which results in an impaired inflammatory response that can’t eliminate pathogens. As a result, silent, persistent chronic inflammation starts to attack the body.      

2Obesity:

The excessive fats stored in the adipose tissues of obese provoke the release of inflammatory mediators. So, high inflammatory mediators mean high inflammation that develops chronic diseases.

So, chronic diseases secondary to obesity like cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, type2 diabetes, and insulin resistance can be reversed by irradicating the main cause which is chronic inflammation.  

3- Smoking: 

Despite the well-known risks linked to smoking like lung cancer, oral diseases, and vascular diseases, cigarette smoke has an inflammatory effect, moreover, it suppresses immunity.

Then, we can conclude that the immune response responsible for inflammation can be triggered due to 3 types of toxins which are;   

  • Immunomodulatory toxins that weaken immunity: nicotine and carbon monoxide.
  • Addictive toxins like nicotine and ammonia, enhance addiction.
  • Carcinogenic toxins.

Also, smoking increases the risk of developing autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis.  

4- Stress and sleep deprivation:

Nowadays, modernization has made it pretty hard to limit stress on a daily basis, which explains the increased incidence of autoimmune disease arising from inflammation.

As studies proved that exposure of long-term stress and low-quality sleep increases the inflammatory cytokines release. Therefore, consistent sleep and the ability to manage stress and meditation have become a crucial part to heal inflammation. 

5- Unhealthy diet:

Unfortunately unhealthy foods made of refined carbs and saturated and trans fats are much more convenient and tasty than healthy options. Consuming trans and saturated fats can be one of the main factors that drive inflammation.

Recently, the ketogenic diet has become the hottest topic in the world of weight loss. However, it recommends consuming fatty food and limits carbs to a very small portion a day. Yet, the keto diet restricts consuming saturated and trans fats, not to mention refined carbs and sugar. 

Related; 10 keto diet health benefits other than losing weight.

Surprisingly, the keto diet has shown to lower inflammation levels. As some fats like omega 3 have a strong anti-inflammatory property. On the opposite of trans and saturated fats that trigger inflammation.

So, following a healthy diet involves paying close attention to food quality and the type of fats consumed rather than the amount.

6- Other causes:

Some other causes that include: 

  • Untreated infection or injury.
  • Autoimmune disease when immunity mistakenly attacks body tissue.
  • Exposure to irritants or toxins for a long time.

 

The bottom line:

Chronic inflammation appears silent and not that dangerous at first. By the time, if left untreated it may result in serious complications. 

No doubt, having a healthy lifestyle can significantly slow down the progression of that condition or even eliminate it.

Fortunately, reaching out for anti-inflammatory foods and supplements to counter inflammation is a game-changer for your health and quality of life.

Check out our latest posts: