Dr. Mark Hyman explains how hidden inflammation drives chronic disease and what lifestyle changes can reduce it. He covers the causes of inflammation, its connection to common health problems, and practical steps to lower it through diet and habits.
This is Dr. Mark Hyman. Welcome back to my blog. A simple blood test can save your life. It's called C-reactive protein and it measures the degree of hidden inflammation in your body. Today we're going to talk about how to cool off that inflammation. Now this is important because almost every modern disease is caused by or affected by hidden inflammation, heart disease, cancer, obesity and dementia, as well as the obvious things like arthritis, autoimmune disease, allergies and digestive disorders. If your immune system and your ability to balance the inflammatory and the anti-inflammatory forces in your body are impaired, watch out. You're headed toward illness and premature aging. By addressing the causes of inflammation and learning how to live an anti-inflammatory lifestyle can lead you to optimal health. Later, I'm going to review the causes and tell you how to cool off inflammation. But first, I want to help you understand more about inflammation. You see, everyone who's had a sore throat or rash or hives or a sprained ankle knows about inflammation. Those are normal, appropriate responses of our defense system to infection or trauma. We need it to survive and it helps us determine friend from foe. The trouble occurs when that defense system runs out of control, like a rebel army intent on destroying its own country. We are familiar with an overactive immune response and too much inflammation and lots of common conditions, things like allergies, rheumatoid arthritis or autoimmune disease or asthma. But few people know that hidden inflammation which you don't feel, can run amok and is at the root of all chronic illness we experience like obesity, heart disease, diabetes, dementia, cancer, depression and even autism. A study of generally healthy elderly population found that those with the highest levels of C-reactive protein, which is that inflammatory marker, and interleukin-6, which also measures inflammation, were 260% more likely to die during the next four years. the increase in deaths was due to both cardiovascular and other causes. Now we may feel healthy but if this inflammation is raging inside of us then we're in trouble. The real concern is not our acute response to injury or infection or insult but the chronic smoldering inflammation that slowly destroys our organs, our ability for optimal function and leads to rapid aging. Now our common treatments such as anti-inflammatory drugs like aspirin or ibuprofen or Steroids like prednisone, though often useful for acute problems, interfere with the body's own immune response and lead inevitably to serious and deadly side effects. As many people die from taking anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen as die every year from asthma or leukemia. Stopping these drugs would be equivalent to finding the cure for asthma or leukemia. The real effects of statin drugs like Lipitor in reducing heart disease may have nothing to do with lowering cholesterol, but to their unintended side effect of reducing inflammation. But is that the right approach to addressing the problem? No, it's downstream medicine. The question is, what's the upstream medicine point of view in thinking about inflammation? How do we go upstream and find the cause? First, we have to identify the triggers and the causes of inflammation. And then we can help the body's natural immune balance reset by providing the right conditions for it to thrive. So if inflammation and immune imbalance are at the root of most modern disease, how do we find the causes and get the body back in balance? Thankfully, the list of things that cause inflammation is pretty short. One, it's poor diet, mostly sugar, refined flours, processed food, and inflammatory fats such as trans fat and saturated fats. The next is lack of exercise, which makes you inflamed. Stress also does. as do hidden or chronic infections with viruses, yeast, bacteria, or ticks. Hidden allergens from food or the environment can cause a problem, as can toxins like mercury and pesticides, and also environmental molds and other allergens. So those are the main causes of inflammation. It's mostly diet, it's allergens, toxins, infections, bad diet and stress, basically. So my job is to find those inflammatory factors unique to each person and see how various lifestyle, environment, or infections spin that immune system out of control, leading to a host of chronic illnesses. See, carefully listening to a person's story and a few specific lab tests can help me figure out the root cause in most people. It's important to understand that this concept of inflammation is not specific to any one organ or medical specialty. In fact, if you read a medical journal from any of the specialties, you're going to find endless articles about how inflammation is at the root of problems with their organ. The problem is there's almost no communication between specialties and everybody is treating the downstream effects of inflammation when addressing the cause could help people with multiple problems that are really linked together by inflammation. Take for example a man who came to see me who wanted to climb a mountain and asked for help to get healthy. He was 57 years old. He was on about 15 medications for about five different inflammatory conditions: high blood pressure, pre-diabetes, ulcerative colitis, reflux or heartburn, asthma, and an autoimmune disease of the hair follicles called alopecia. Now all these are inflammatory. I asked him how he felt and he said great. I said, I'm surprised because I see you're on so many medications. Yes, he said, but everything was very well controlled with the latest medication given by the top specialist he saw in every field. The lung doctor for his asthma, the gut doctor for his colitis and reflux, the heart doctor for his blood pressure, the hormone doctor for his pre-diabetes, the skin doctor for his hair loss. I asked him, with all these top specialists he saw, Did anyone ask him why he had five different inflammatory diseases and why his immune system was so pissed off? Was it just bad luck that he got all these diseases or was there something connecting all these problems? He looked kind of puzzled and said no. And then I searched for and I found the cause of his problems. Not the same for everybody with these conditions, but they were his problem. And it was gluten. He had celiac disease and autoimmune disease related to eating gluten. the protein found in wheat, barley, rye, spelt, and oats. Now six months later, he came back after he'd stopped gluten. He lost 25 pounds, he had no more high blood pressure, asthma, reflux, or colitis. He said he had a normal bowel movement for the first time in his life and his hair was even growing back and was nearly off all his medication. Okay, so once you've figured out the cause and gotten rid of it, how do you live an anti-inflammatory lifestyle? Here's what I recommend. It's disarmingly simple but an extraordinarily effective way to achieve optimal health and what I call ultra wellness. Eat a whole foods, high fiber, plant-based diet, which is inherently anti-inflammatory. That's plant foods, basically. That means unprocessed, unrefined, whole, fresh, real food, not full of sugar and trans fat and low in the powerful anti-inflammatory plant chemicals called phytonutrients. Also, I want you to get an oil change. Eat healthy fats from olive oil, nuts, avocados, and omega-3 fats from small fish like sardines, herring, sable, and wild salmon. I also want you to exercise. Do I need to say more? It's the most powerful anti-inflammatory out there. And I also want you to learn to actively engage your relaxation response. That's the vagus nerve, a powerful nerve that relaxes your whole body and lowers inflammation by doing yoga or meditation or deep breathing or even taking a hot bath. Now if you have food sensitivities or allergies like gluten and dairy, find out what they are and stop eating those foods. I also want you to try to take probiotics which help your digestion get healthy and balances inflammation in your gut. And also a multivitamin, fish oil, vitamin D also help reduce inflammation. So taking a comprehensive approach to inflammation and balancing your immune system is important to help address one of the most important core systems of the body. The future of medicine may no longer have specialties like cardiology or neurology or gastroenterology but new specialists like Inflammologists. By understanding these concepts and these core systems that are the basis of optimal health and what I call Ultra Wellness, you don't have to wait.
