Inflammation: Help, Hindrance, and Snake Oil Opportunity

Chronic inflammation has been found to have some connection with heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer’s, arthritis, diabetes, overweight, autism, and cancer.

         Cause?  Effect?  Neither?

         Though testing for inflammation is not routine, it can be done.  When there is inflammation in your body, your liver produces C-reactive protein.  When CRP levels are high in your bloodstream, this indicates the presence of inflammation.  How high is too high?  Should you do something about elevated CRP?

         So far, we only know inflammation is associated with certain diseases.  And we know that inflammation is part of the way our bodies fight infection.  Would it be healthful to try to eliminate chronic inflammation?  Or should we leave inflammation alone and try to eliminate the associated disease condition?

         No one knows for sure.

         But that doesn’t stop the snake oil salespeople.  As you can see from my posts on May 17 and May 19, plenty of people have inflammation cures to sell you.

         A better suggestion comes from the U C Berkeley Wellness Letter of January, 2008:

         “How to ‘tamp down’ inflammation—The same steps that help prevent cardiovascular disease may reduce chronic inflammation.

                  Don’t smoke.

                  Ask your doctor about low-dose aspirin.

                  If you take a statin, it also works agains inflammation.

                  Control your blood pressure.

                  If you are overweight, lose weight.

                  Exercise.

         What do you know, living healthy might keep you healthy or bring you back to health.