Healing The Roots of Disease

Diabetes, heart disease, cancer, arthritis, Alzheimer’s, autoimmune disease, chronic fatigue, reflux, and depression top the list of the most common diseases in the United States and other developed nations worldwide. Once considered to be diseases of aging, they are now afflicting children and younger people at an alarming rate. These diseases may appear at first glance to be separate, entities, but science is now showing that they have a common underlying cause: chronic inflammation. When discussing inflammation, it’s important to distinguish between acute and chronic inflammation. Acute inflammation is an essential part of the healing process. A few weeks ago I fractured my left fibula in a snowboarding fall. My left leg and ankle were swollen, red, painful and warm to the touch, the hallmarks of acute inflammation. This inflammation is what initiates the healing process, signaling the rest of the body to send cells and initiate chemical processes that begin the repair process. By contrast, chronic inflammation is usually silent since we don’t experience the symptoms caused by acute inflammation. Acute inflammation is limited to the area of injury while chronic inflammation is systemic. While acute inflammation signals the rest of the body to initiate repair, chronic inflammation disrupts cellular communication, and can lead to a variety of diseases.

Dr. Jeffrey Bland, known as the “father of Functional Medicine”, details why inflammation is the root cause of most diseases in his book “The Disease Delusion”. He writes “Emergent science has found the origin of many chronic diseases in the way the imbalance in cellular communication alters the body’s regulation of inflammation.” For those of you who are patients at Fidalgo Island Health Center, it’s important to understand this is reason we use NIS (The Neurological Integration System) as the cornerstone of our approach to health. NIS allows us to identify the “imbalances in cellular communication” referenced by Dr. Bland. I can’t overstate the importance of reducing inflammation in the body since it can interfere with cellular signaling, which is the basis for all health and healing. Simply stated it goes like this: chronic inflammation → DNA Damage → Disease.

What specifically does chronic inflammation do in our bodies?

• Disrupts cellular communication

• Damages DNA and mitochondria

• Inhibits stem cell production and activation

• Inhibits detoxification

• Disrupts metabolism

• Causes obesity and diabetes

• Increases expression of genes related to autoimmune conditions

• Increases hardening of the arteries (atherosclerosis)

• Increases tau protein production in the brain which causes Alzheimer’s

• Increases the risk of stroke and heart attack

Causes of Chronic Inflammation

There are several things that can cause chronic inflammation. I’m going to focus on the ones that we have at least some degree of control over.

What we eat and drink

What we put in our bodies can be a major contributor to chronic inflammation. The food we eat can heal us or make us sicker. The first thing to avoid is the deadly trio of sugar, refined grains, and industrially processed oils such as canola, soy, corn, cottonseed, palm, safflower and sunflower oils. These are the primary ingredients in many of the foods on supermarket shelves like cookies, crackers, cereals, chips, snack foods, and baked goods. Avoid these foods like the health plague they are. Not only are the deadly trio of sugar, grains and bad oils very inflammatory, most are made with heavily subsidized, cheap grains like corn, wheat, and soy which are sprayed with glyphosate (Roundup), a known carcinogen.

The next thing to avoid are animals like beef, pork and chicken raised in confined feeding operations. These animals are raised in huge warehouses and fed industrial waste products. Not only are these animals under huge stress, they are very inflamed and unhealthy, requiring large doses of antibiotics just to keep them alive long enough to slaughter. Dr. Allen Williams, a PhD. agricultural researcher and farmer has researched the constituents of these feedstocks and found them to be very pro-inflammatory. They contain industrial oils as well as grains, and even ground up garbage. The grains are primarily a byproduct of ethanol distillation called DDG’s (distiller dried grains), and Dr. Williams has shown that they cause massive inflammation. Because of the grains used, he has also found them to have high residues of glyphosate. I recommend to stay away from beef, pork, chicken, eggs and dairy that is not grass fed or pasture raised.

After processed foods and industrial raised meat you need be wary of what you drink. Almost all municipal water supplies contain toxins including pharmaceutical residues, fluoride, PFAS, heavy metals to name just a few. Everyone should have a reverse osmosis system to filter their drinking water as it is the only filtration system that will remove these toxins.

After water you need to consider other things you drink like alcohol, soda, energy drinks and fruit juices. Alcohol is inflammatory, and I recommend consuming no more than 3-4 servings of alcohol per week. Soda, energy drinks and fruit juices are very high in sugar and should be avoided altogether.

Sleep

Sleep is often overlooked as a cause of inflammation. Current science has shown poor sleep to be a major contributor to chronic inflammation. Sleep is critical to your brain health and you need to understand the risks of not getting good quality sleep. For practical steps you can take to improve your sleep I highly recommend that you listen to this podcast with Stanford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman and sleep expert Matthew Walker.

Stress and Anxiety

Stress and anxiety trigger activation of the fight/flight response through the sympathetic nervous system. Our brain and body interpret this as a threat to our survival, and responds with a release of adrenaline along with inflammtory chemicals in preparation for possible injury. The fight/flight system is critical to our survival, and is designed to respond to immediate emergency situations, for instance a large angry dog attacking you. Once the emergency is over, the sympathetic system calms down and stops releasing adrenaline and other inflammatory chemicals. The problem with chronic stress and anxiety is that you’re in that state chronically and that sets up a cascading inflammatory response.

There are many strategies for reducing your stress and anxiety levels including meditation, exercise, and breathwork to name a few. I’ve found NIS (the Neurological Integration System) to be very helpful at reducing anxiety levels and sympathetic activation. Acupuncture is another powerful avenue to help get stress and anxiety under control.

The Good News!

While the connection between chronic inflammation and a broad range of diseases has been well established by science, this doesn’t mean you have to be one of it’s victims. The strategies outlined in this article will go a long way in managing inflammation and reducing your chance of disease. It’s up to you!