Top 5 Causes and of inflammation in your body (and what it’s doing to your health)

What is Inflammation?

The word “inflammation” has its roots in Latin, and the literal translation is to “set afire.” Inflammation happens in everyone, whether you’re aware of it or not. Your immune system creates inflammation to protect the body from infection, injury, or disease. Inflammation refers to your body’s fight against things that harm it, like infections, injuries, and toxins, in an attempt to heal itself.

When something damages your cells, your body’s natural reaction is to release chemicals that then trigger a response from your immune system. This response includes the release of antibodies and proteins, as well as increased blood flow to the damaged area.

Inflammation is classified into two main types:

• Acute inflammation usually occurs for a short, often severe duration. It often resolves in two weeks or less. Symptoms appear quickly. This type restores your body to its state before injury or illness. Acute inflammation is a normal part of the healing process and may occur when you’re experiencing a sore throat or even a small cut on your skin. Acute inflammation should go away within a few days, unless it’s left untreated.

• Chronic inflammation is a slower and generally less severe form of inflammation. Longer lasting than acute, it can occur even when there’s no injury, and it doesn’t always end when the illness or injury is healed.

Chronic inflammation happens when this response lingers, leaving your body in a constant state of alert. Over time, chronic inflammation may have a negative impact on your tissues and organs. Some research suggests that chronic inflammation could also play a role in a range of conditions, from cancer to stroke.

Whereas acute inflammation often causes quite noticeable symptoms, such as pain, redness or swelling. Chronic inflammation symptoms are usually much more subtle, which makes them easy to overlook.

What causes chronic inflammation?

There are a variety of causes of chronic inflammation, including:

• untreated causes of acute inflammation, like an infection or injury;

• an autoimmune disorder which involves your immune system mistakenly attacking healthy tissue; and

• long-term exposure to irritants, like toxic chemicals or polluted air.

Whilst these issues don’t cause chronic inflammation in everyone, some cases of chronic inflammation don’t have a clear underlying cause.

There is a great amount of evidence to suggest that a range of lifestyle factors may significantly contribute to chronic inflammation, factors such as :

1. *Diet

2. Chronic Stress

3. Sleep

4. Smoking

5. Obesity

*in our next edition we’ll be looking at some of the specific foods that can fight inflammation.

How does chronic inflammation impact the body?

When you’re living with chronic inflammation, your body’s inflammatory response can eventually start damaging healthy cells, tissues and organs. Over time, this can lead to DNA damage, tissue death and internal scarring.

This damage to your body’s healthy calls can be linked to the development of several diseases, including asthma, type 2 diabetes, rheumatiod arthritis, cogntivie decline, dementia in older adults and even cancer.

Support to make positive lifesyle changes is one of the key components of my Wellness Pillar in “Radiant”, my 1:1 90 day coaching experience.

Here’s what Steph had to say about her time working with me:

"Working with Beccy has honestly been one of the best decisions I made in relation to my overall well-being. I now feel so much more capable of managing the day-to-day stress in my life. My time with Beccy enabled me to discover my own inner strength and resources- Thanks Beccy!”