Health Matters: Inflammation

(An extract from my book ‘Basic Health Knowledge’) (This is for information only. In case of illness please consult a qualified medical doctor)

- BY PRIYANTHA HETTIGE

lhe most important word in the health dictionary T's inflammation. People need to know for their own sake, what this is, how it arises in the human body, what effect it has on our health, and how to reduce its bad effects.

Inflammation is where the body’s self-defence, the immune system goes into action when there is some damage that has occurred in or to the body. It is our major defence mechanism to protect the body from infection and disease.

This word ‘inflammation’ gives the feel of hotness, and that is what it is—a pinkish colour to any one or all of our internal organs. For example, healthy lungs are whitish-grey in colour but the lungs of a chronic (=long term) asthmatic are a little pink. This is due to an allergic reaction due to a cause which results in inflammation. It is called an autoimmune response and in this case, is where the body’s own protective mechanisms are attacking the body by mistake!

Inflammation is healthy when it is used by the body for a short time but when prolonged, any longterm inflammation becomes harmful.

US medical and food researchers warn us that long term inflammation is a major factor, a root cause of human illness and premature death. Therefore, you may think that it is worthwhile to take a big interest in inflammation, its causes and prevention because your life and happiness could depend on it at some time.

Causes of long-term inflammation.

Please note that the greatest cause of inflammation is due to what we eat, especially foods cooked in seed oils — cooking oils!! Heavily advertised cooking oils, touted as healthy, make us sick! That is the message the independent food and health experts based in the USA, tell us. Unprocessed oil from seeds is not harmful, but heavily processed seed oils are quite harmful!! These oils are all highly industrially processed with chemical additives.