In this post I’m here to talk about the dangers of chronic inflammation.
Chronic inflammation is a harbinger for chronic disease. Under normal circumstances, inflammatory response is productive for our bodies. That is how we fight infection or if you have a sprain or a strain; the body will activate defenses that promote healing in the area.
However our systems can become overrun if the inflammation becomes chronic. This is true whether it’s inflammation as the result of structural misalignment, or through eating foods that chronically inflame the digestive system. This is most often caused by foods that carry a large amount of Omega 6 and 9s, such as grains.
Contrary to what we’ve been told for a number of years, cholesterol is not the issue, it’s inflammation. Inflammation creates roughness inside the arteries. In a natural response to this roughness, the body adapts by laying down cholesterol to smooth out the roughness and allow the blood to flow.
So it’s critical to keep chronic inflammation low. Unfortunately we see with a lot of our patients that they are in a biochemically pro-inflammatory state. And there are generally two components: from a subluxation standpoint the vertebra out of alignment interfere with nerve function, resulting in an inflammatory response from the corresponding body tissue. This can be corrected with the chiropractic adjustment.
The other component we frequently see is diets that make people prone to inflammation – if you’re eating a diet that is high grains, which contain omega 6 and 9s, and low in omega 3 (found in fish oil supplements or wild caught fish), you get a disproportionate amount of pain response. Many people are in more pain that they should be simply because their biochemical environment is pro-inflammatory. This is easily corrected through better nutrition.
Unfortunately the standard American diet is based on the grain-based food pyramid, where we have a 25:1 ratio of omega 6 and 9s to omega 3s. So even if you don’t stop eating grains, one of the best things you can do is start taking in more omega 3s to offset this. Better yet, delete grains from your diet. With more balance in your diet and omega intake, you will achieve more balance in your body’s level of inflammation.
So lower you grains, get more omega 3s, get adjusted to open up those nerve channels and you will have a life that is much less prone to chronic inflammation and the dis-ease that comes along with it.
For even more information, here is a great video entitled “Forget Cholesterol, Inflammation’s the Real Enemy”:
