Chronic Inflammation: The Silent Process Behind Almost Every Chronic Disease

you wake up tired even though you technically slept.

your body hurts for no particular reason.

you feel anxious more often then before. maybe a little depressed. or perhaps just generally unwell for no discernable reason.

you can’t think clearly as well as you used to. you feel exhausted by 2pm. your digestion isn’t what it used to be. and you catch colds more frequently then the people around you.

and so you begin to rationalize away all these little annoyances

stress, getting older, poor diet, poor sleep, etc…

maybe that’s all it is

but maybe, just maybe, it’s something else. something that has plagued you for years in the background of your life. something that has made you feel this way while you blamed everything else.

a little something called inflammation.

inflammation is a physiological response your body makes to things like an injury or infection.

your body launches an attack on whatever is infecting or injuring you then calms down once the infection or injury clears up.

and it’s supposed to be temporary. that’s how the system is designed.

but chronic inflammation is different.

your body’s emergency response system just isn’t shutting down like it’s supposed to and is instead leaking into the rest of your life in the form of low-grade, persistent, long-term inflammation.

here’s a list of things that can arise from long-term, low-grade inflammation within your body:

chronic fatigue, insomnia or sleeping too much, pain throughout your body, joint and muscle pain, depression, anxiety, unexplained mood changes, constipation, diarrhea, acid reflux, weight gain or loss that isn’t compatible with your diet/exercise, getting sick more often then you should.

the list goes on as it can vary from individual to individual.

and this is where the danger lies.

the fact that many of these symptoms are pretty mild is what’s so insidious about this condition.

you see, a glaring symptom will often cause you to go to the doctor, have tests done and get a proper diagnosis.

but chronic inflammation isn’t quite like that.

it’s more like a slow poison, changing your life for the worse bit by bit until you’re living a life you didn’t realize was abnormal.

the other reason chronic inflammation is so insidious is that it plays a part in, or is a major factor in developing a long list of diseases.

cardiovascular disease, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, copd, allergic asthma, alzheimer’s disease, chronic kidney disease, inflammatory bowel disease.

inflammation is responsible for a significant chunk of the diseases listed above but that doesn’t mean that it is the cause of all of them.

that’s not what any of the studies i’ve seen say.

this is just a list of diseases for which long-term, low-grade inflammation is either a contributing factor or a known characteristic, etc.

it’s a very important distinction to make.

hopefully now you understand why i’ve decided to write this post.

you don’t wake up at 58 years old and suddenly wonder how your body ended up here.

a lot of these processes have been running for years while you were busy calling the warning signs normal.

that’s why when we examine chronic inflammation, we have to look at it as a process.

and once you understand what that process is actually doing inside your body, a lot of problems that seemed completely unrelated start looking a lot less related.

it’s 7:52 am. black coffee, raw honey, candle going. rocket man by elton john playing in the background.

this one's more clinical than usual and more science-heavy than personal, but it might be one of the most important things i write this month.

let’s get into it.

"The body is a self-healing organism, and given the right conditions, it can restore itself to health." — Hippocrates

before we go further, i need to correct something people get wrong constantly.

inflammation itself is not the villain of this story.

acute inflammation is actually a healthy response that allows us to heal.

when you are injured, have an infection, have some kind of tissue damage, or you get foreign organisms in your body, your immune system reacts.

blood flow increases to the affected area to initiate the healing process and your immune cells work to clear out whatever unwanted visitors you have such as pathogens and damaged tissue.

this is perfectly normal and healthy. inflammation is just one part of this process. your body can even exhibit this type of inflammation on purpose.

acute inflammation starts fast and can get severe quickly, but it's meant to be short-lived. think cellulitis or an acute case of pneumonia, lasting days rather than years.

the issue isn’t acute inflammation. your body needs that to clear out infections and heal wounds.

the problem is when your body is inflamed.