How Inflammation Could Be Ruining Your Health – And 10 Ways To Tackle It

We’re bombarded with well-meaning health advice every day. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could take a simpler, more unified approach to health, and could the key to this lie in the levels of inflammation in our bodies?

- Vicky Powell

A SINGLE PATHWAY TO WELLBEING?

Eating well, exercising, drinking lots of water, a good night’s sleep, maintaining a healthy body weight, meditation, yoga – what’s the common health thread? The answer is inflammation. All of this advice has been linked to lowering the levels of inflammation in the body.

Some health experts believe tackling this key issue could be the single most critical step we can take to protect our health. This is because inflammation is associated with a range of health conditions – from anxiety, depression, and cancer to heart disease, back, and joint pain, difficult menopausal changes and even problems with our teeth and skin.

WHAT IS INFLAMMATION?

Inflammation is the body’s natural response to injury or illness. It is directed at repairing tissues and cells and removing harmful bacteria, viruses or chemicals in the body in order to restore us back to health.

So imagine you’ve cut your finger on a piece of broken glass. Right away, the immune system jumps into action, with white blood cells rushing to the site of the injury to do battle against the hostile bacteria that were on the glass and to deal with the physical trauma of the resulting cut itself.

From the outside, this battle manifests itself in some, or all, of the five classic signs of inflammation: pain, heat, redness, swelling and loss of function – and this is no bad thing at all.

The aim of your body is to repair your cut finger and restore it back to full health. The pain and discomfort you feel is, in a sense, actually necessary and even beneficial – it’s a sign of a healthy immune system fighting back against injury.