Your Chronic Illness Could Start With Inflammation—Here's Why

Still searching for answers while being told everything is fine? Today we're talking inflammation— what it is, how it may be driving your chronic disease, and what you can do about it. Welcome to Beyond Diagnosis. I'm Rita De Michele, and this is the podcast for health seekers exploring functional, holistic, and alternative paths to better health through expert conversations and real-life insights, brought to you by the Beyond Diagnosis Collective, your bridge to holistic support. My guest is Coach Dr. Anne Hester, a double board-certified physician in internal and lifestyle medicine who helps people take control of their health through evidence-based lifestyle care.

It is such an honor to be here. Thank you so much.

It's a pleasure to have you. Lifestyle medicine is going through the roof. People are starting to wake up to the fact that we can't keep going down the path we're going. We can't keep just eating anything we want at any age. There's so many consequences like inflammation building. You describe inflammation as like the body's silent alarm system. How does inflammation begin in the body and why do so many people have it and they don't even know?

Well, let's go back to what inflammation is. Just imagine you step off of the curb and you twist your ankle and that area is swollen and warm and painful. All of these cells, all of these things are coming into that area to try to heal it. So that kind of inflammation is good because it is a healing process. Now, just imagine that same sort of process on a smaller level throughout your body. This ongoing inflammation with all of these cells coming in, all of these things coming into the tissues, ultimately, it causes damage.

Mm.

And so acute inflammation is fine. You want to heal. Consider what it's like to make it widespread all over your body. That on a cellular level, on a tissue level, puts you at risk for diabetes, cancer, all sorts of things. And so there are many things that we do that can impact our inflammation in the body. Something as simple as white flour. The foods that we eat can be pro-inflammatory or anti-inflammatory. So basically, the closer it is To the earth, the better you are.

Do we take inflammation serious enough? And are— when people go to the doctors with their aches and pains, all the rest of it, do the doctors tell them this is most probably widespread inflammation? Or are they just given a pill and sent on their way? And then people don't realize, either, like I said, they don't even know they've got it, or they just don't take it. They said, oh yeah, my inflammation is a little bit high, and they're not taking it seriously.

No, they don't take it seriously because it's not something that people have been taught. So there's a blood test called— there's more than one, but the CRP, the C-reactive protein, it lets you know the degree of inflammation in the body. And we know that when that is high, you have a higher risk of a heart attack. That is the leading cause of death in America and many other places. And so you can actually do lab tests to get an idea of the level of inflammation in your body. But it's very important to understand that our everyday habits cause this inflammation. And just like they cause the inflammation, our everyday habits can calm it down. And so we have a lot of power over what happens in our lives.

We know, like you said in the beginning, you twist your ankle, you fall off the curb, whatever, you know that it's burning, it's swelling, and people say, oh, that's the healing of inflammation. But what are some of the signs or the symptoms As opposed to the bigger diseases, which I would like to get to, but what are some of the symptoms that someone can feel throughout their body that they're not joining the dots that that is actually high inflammation?

It's more a vague sort of symptom, more so than my finger hurts. Now technically, your finger can hurt if you have, you know, acute arthritis, if you have gout in your toes and other things, yes. But some people might just feel off, like, you know, I'm Just not feeling right. You go to the doctor. Your doctor does the routine blood test. Everything is fine, but you're not. You know something's just not right. But honestly, a lot of people who have high levels of inflammation have no idea. They don't know until the doctor tells them because the doctor just happened to get that blood test, which by the way is not a routine blood test. So if you're going in for your annual exam, that's not the sort of blood test your doctor is going to. Likely to get. And so most people, they have no idea that the level of inflammation is high, that it's an increased risk of heart attacks. And unfortunately, the first sign of heart disease for a lot of people is a cardiac arrest before they die. A lot of people don't make it to the hospital. They don't have any symptoms up until the time, then they have a fatal cardiac arrest. And that's when the family learns that they have heart disease. And so we need to be proactive. We need to be of the mindset that I need to protect myself. I need to protect my family. I need to to think about where I want to be in a few years. You know, you can choose path A, do all the things you want to do, likely live a shorter life. All that money that you put aside, you're probably going to be spending it on medical bills, but it won't be on trips around the world. Or you can start thinking long-term. There's a huge difference between the life expectancy and the quality of life. We talk about the lifespan. How long do you live? You can live 20 years in a nursing home. The healthspan is how long you live in health. Not many people want a long lifespan with a low healthspan. We can keep people alive for a long time on machines, on drugs, IV fluids, artificial feeding, but that's not a quality of life. But I want people to really understand that what happens has a tremendous amount to do with our choices. For instance, a lot of people feel If they have relatives with certain diseases, ah, I'm doomed. Nothing I do is going to work, so I'm going to enjoy life. But really, 90% of your DNA is what we call the epigenome, meaning it's not the genes. So just imagine a Christmas tree light, and every now and then you see a light, but you have this long string that you plug into the wall. That's like your DNA. The lights intermittently Those are the genes. But the long string that makes up the bulk of it, that's what we call the epigenome. Or in other words, that is what will turn those genes off and on. So the Christmas tree lights will turn the lights off or on based on our choices. And by those lights, biologically, I mean the lights that promote cancer, the lights that reduce the risk of cancer. Those genes can be turned toward cancer. Or toward protecting against cancer based on your everyday choices. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

They get a better picture if they're going to the doctor and they feel— so we're not, so we're not at the disease part yet, but when they're feeling tired, foggy, bloated, all of those, they've got pains in their muscles or their joints, and they go to the doctor and explain all that, they're not getting anywhere. What is the test that they can ask for? When you describe the blood test, And it's not a common one. So what would they ask the doctor? So if they're advocating for themselves and say, I feel all this, I've read about, or I've heard about inflammation, I want this test. What is it?

The easiest thing is just to say the test for inflammation. So there's more than one. CRP is called the C-reactive protein, CRP. And then there's another one called the ESR, the erythrocyte sedimentation rate. I mean, so instead of getting into trying to remember that, just say, hey doc, can you check me for inflammation? That's probably the easiest way to go.

To understand the root cause of so many of these diseases that people have, inflammation is most probably the root cause, but our lifestyle choices, you were saying, create the inflammation, which is— so is it really the root cause, or is it our choices that are the root cause? But what are some of the most common diseases that you find connected to inflammation that people are not joining the dots to?

Diabetes. is one of the most common diseases. Heart disease. I mentioned that CRP, when that level is high, we know that there's a higher risk of a heart attack. And since a lot of heart attacks are fatal before you get to the doctor, you don't wanna play with that. You wanna do everything you can on the front end to decrease your inflammation aside from anything the doctor's doing. Because the doctor may or may not say, okay, I'll order the test. Some say, ah, I don't think you need to worry about that. You take control. If you know what you can do to put yourself in the driver's seat going in the right direction, you do that. Don't wait on the doctor or anybody else to make the choices that you can make today.

It's so important to take control, isn't it? To feel confident that you can speak to a doctor or that you have the— actually, I think it actually more goes down to you have the right to say what you want And, and to, you know, say that what you're giving me doesn't work. You know, I know that for a quick story, my husband, he was on a nerve medication and it was— he was losing his sight. And we told them, he didn't appreciate it. So I said, well, that's it, we find someone else. And that's the right people have. Like you were saying, you have to advocate for yourself.

Absolutely, you do. You do. The patient should be the center of his or her healthcare team, not the doctor.

So let's talk a little bit more about what you specialize in, Which is the lifestyle medicine and how that helps people with their health, with the problems that they're having, whether they had, like you said, whether they have heart disease, diabetes, chronic pain, stomach. I think inflammation affects all the digestive areas, doesn't it?

Oh yes, it affects everything.

It affects everything. What foods most likely will fuel inflammation?

Ultra-processed foods. If it's in a bag or a box, it's been processed, processed to different extents. If you go shopping and you look at the aisles that they have the fresh fruits, the fresh vegetables, you know, the milk, whether it's soy milk, almond milk, cow's milk, whatever the case may be, you know, the healthy cuts of meat, those are the foods that your body wants. Your body is not a petri dish. Your body does not enjoy It's when you ingest foods that were manufactured with these chemists who say, well, this combination of fat, sugar, and salt will hit the pleasure centers of the brain, make the person want more and more and more, and will make our company a ton of money. No, we're not experiments. The natural things on this earth are the things that your body wants. Once you start adding in all of these chemicals, stuff you can't even pronounce, All of these ways, these manufacturing mechanisms, putting all these things together, you're getting yourself into trouble. The closer you are to Mother Earth, the better. And so let's take a look at ultra-processed foods. So I have a mini orchard in the backyard because I'm really into whole foods. So if I go and I pull an apple off the tree, that's a whole food. And I don't use the chemicals to spray because that's the horse of another color. But if I go in the house and I chop it up and I put some butter and sugar and cinnamon in it, I'm processing it. But then if I go and I make this batter, this dough, you know, with flour, white flour, and, you know, butter and everything, and I put it together and I make a little fritter and I fry it, you know, then that is another level of processing. And so the closer you are to the natural state of the fruits and the vegetables and the meats and the milks and also, and all those things, the better you are because you don't, your body was not made to be a chemistry lab. And when you add all of these manmade ingredients, all of these processes for preparing things and taking out the natural fiber and the vitamins and all the nutrients, and you say, this is quick, it's simple, it tastes good.

Yes.

But that path may cost you 10 years of your life, or it may cost you all the money you put aside for retirement. You may be spending that on medical bills. And so we need to stop and think. We live in a fast-paced world. The quicker it is, the better. That's the mindset. But we need to get past that and realize that we are destroying ourselves with that mindset. You know, it's not like you're going to spend all of your life preparing for your first 2 days at a great preschool. If you look out, you take it out. If I live to be 70, 80, 90, do I want to be in a wheelchair? Do I want to be in a nursing home? Do I want to be traveling cruises, all these things with family and friends? And the choices that you make now can actually determine where you are 10, 15 years from now. Even if you're alive, it can determine the quality of life that you have in the future.

When you're speaking to your clients, do you find that That may be one of the issues, is that they're not thinking about where they want to be in 10 years' time or where they want their— how they want their health to be. It's very much, I'm in the moment and I'm stressed and I've got family and I've got work and I need something quick. I race to the supermarket, I grab a box, I bring it home. That's part of the whole thing. Bingo!

Bingo! That's exactly what's going on.

Exactly, exactly. Like, I love the saying someone once said to me, Natural food has one ingredient and that's it. An apple has one ingredient. A pumpkin has one ingredient. It's a pumpkin, you know, and that's it.

Yes.

You know, we don't have all these other things. What about if someone has an intolerance? Like, you know, if you have an allergy, allergy is completely different. But what happens if you have an intolerance to a food and you're not, you don't realize, like you might be having irritable bowel. And you haven't connected that you can't take milk, or you don't realize that the coffee that you're having, you may not be processing or digesting it properly like someone else, and that's causing inflammation. Would you suggest that someone— it would be good for someone to get a food tolerance test if they're feeling all these aches and pains and they can't pinpoint what it is?

They certainly can, but the cheapest and easiest thing to do is you take things out of your diet. If your diet consists of A, B, C, D, and E on an average day. One week, take out A. Go a week, see how you feel. No difference. Okay, A wasn't it. Try to take out B. And you can give yourself a food challenge at home to see what things agree with you and what things don't. Case in point, I'm a vegetarian now, but when I, you know, was into meat, I used to go get the double cheeseburgers and the French fries and everything. And by the time I was finished eating, I was like this. Now I'm exhausted, no energy. And in addition to just overeating and eating the junk, I don't do well with white flour. To this day, if I eat a piece of white toast, I'm going to feel it. I feel like I'm immediately zapped of my energy. I know for me, I don't even want to go there. There's no point. You know, I may try something and I know I'm going to regret it, so why do it? And so just become more in tune with your body. If you feel a certain way after a certain meal, ask yourself, what was in this meal? What can I take out of my diet? And if you do those things and the symptoms don't come back, you have your answer.

And I think it also helps to make you more intentional about what you're doing. So you become more intentional about what you're eating. I think that's one of the areas that has definitely been dampened. You know, we eat quickly, we eat in front of the TV, we We talk, we stand and eat or whatever. It's not intentional anymore and really thinking about what we're doing. When someone says, I've got food coma, for example, would that be like inflammation of the brain? You know how people go, oh, I've gone into a food coma, they just want to sleep after they've eaten.

Um, not necessarily. When you eat a big meal, you know, and you have all of this blood supply in your gut, and so you need to digest it, so you need a lot of blood. And so you may not have as much blood flow going To your brain because all of it is just rushing because you just ate a huge meal and you need to digest it. The fact that you just ate a lot and maybe something that you ate, like I said, I don't do well with white flour. Our gut is like the second brain. So when they told us that in medical school decades ago, it's like, yeah, yeah, I don't believe it. It's so true. Your gut does so much. It, it deals with your immune system. It's like one layer. Of your gut. You know, you have the bacteria and the stool and then this layer and then the inside. You said you have this area of your immune system that is strongly influenced by what's in your gut. The gut microbiome, that means the trillions of bacteria, viruses, fungi, and so forth, little microorganisms in your gut. Those rule the show. For instance, a lot of people have heard of Prozac, Paxil, and all these drugs for their mood, depression, and anxiety? Well, they're in a class called SSRI, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, because serotonin is your feel-good hormone. You get high levels of serotonin, you don't have as much stress, you don't have as much depression. Well, your gut makes 90 to 95% of the serotonin in your body. And when you have a happy gut, you feel better. You don't have the same level of anxiety and depression because your gut is able to churn out this serotonin that naturally makes you feel good. Exercise. Releases endorphins, makes you feel good. And so all of these things can be interconnected— what you eat, how you sleep, how you move, how you handle stress, and the toxins in your environment. All of those things are related. And also something else that's really important— there's a love hormone called oxytocin. When you hug somebody you love, when you pet your gorgeous puppy, all of those things make you release oxytocin. The love hormone. Well, oxytocin counterbalances cortisol, the stress hormone. The stress hormone cortisol fuels all this inflammation over and over. When your cortisol cortisol level is high, your inflammation can be sky high. And something as simple as holding hands with somebody you love, playing with your puppy, anything that makes you feel that love. It's actually releasing a hormone that helps block the inflammation hormone. So that's great.

For people who eat healthy, they eat a whole food diet, you know, they exercise, but their stress is high. And how much does stress play into increasing our levels of inflammation throughout the body?

Stress is huge. When you're ultra stressed, your cortisol levels are high. Let me give you an example. A person under stress, you can do an MRI of the brain before and after long-term stress. At first, things look normal. After long-term stress, they repeat the MRI. Same person, the brain has changed. The CEO of the brain, the prefrontal cortex that deals with your higher cortical functions, is smaller. Hippocampus that deals with your memory is smaller. The amygdala that deals with your stress and anxiety It blooms. So there is a physical basis. You can see on the MRI that the good parts of the brain are shrinking under stress and the bad part of the brain, the anxiety, all of that, that area is larger. And so you're literally changing your biology, your anatomy with the chronic stress. And if I may, I'd like to give a couple of things people can do to help with stress.

Absolutely.

So there is this area called tapping, ETF. And so what you do is literally just tapping. Take a few fingers, you tap the top of your head, you tap here for your eyebrow, underneath your nose, underneath your chin, and then right by your breastbone. You can raise your arm and do it right under your arm. That has so much to do with relieving stress. It's unbelievable. You can do it anytime. So let me give you some examples. Some people prior were people who were in war. They had PTSD. This was in America. So they took these retired soldiers who had seen a lot and they were clinically diagnosed with PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. They took them through extensive tapping, not just what I did, but the full program. At the end of the program, almost half of them no longer clinically had PTSD. PTSD. They also took the program to Rwanda. You may remember that a lot of people were murdered with machetes and so forth. And adults who saw their parents macheted to death, who had PTSD, they took them through this full program. And when it was over, a lot of them no longer had PTSD. They remembered, but they did not have that stress, that pain associated with it. When you're at a stoplight, you're feeling stressed, you can tap absolutely free. You're sitting around waiting for something, tap. Doesn't cost you a penny. Other things that are important, you can take, you can do box breathing. 4 breaths, 4 seconds in through your nose, hold it for a second, out through your nose, hold it for a second. It's a box. Same amount each time. It doesn't have to be 4 seconds. It can be 5. There's no magic number about 4. Breathing exercises are huge. See, things as simple as like chamomile tea, a hot bath with lavender salts, beautiful music in the background. So many things can be done. Exercise is an excellent stress reliever. Excellent. Your body releases these chemicals that decrease the stress. So by the time you finished, a good workout, your stress level has already come down here. And so you don't need a pill all the time. If your doctor says your anxiety is sky high, take a pill. You do what your doctor says. I'm a health coach. I'm not your doctor. I'm just telling you some things that you can do to naturally bring it down. And you might find you start doing these things and you say, Doc, I feel better. And your doctor says, okay, let's cut the dose in half. And then 3 months later, This could happen again. So your body can heal from the inside. It just needs the proper tools.

I could imagine from what you've just shared with us that if someone continuously has a negative dialogue happening, that the mind-body connection, that that negative mindset would obviously then fuel inflammation throughout the body. And then it's that cascade of symptoms.

The negative mindset, over time, it can destroy your life. It can cause disease. It can increase your risk of multiple diseases. So your heart and your mind, I don't just mean the physical heart. I mean how you feel, your mind, how you think. All of these things are interwoven. So I mentioned it's something as simple as petting your beautiful puppy decreases your inflammation because the love hormone Helps block the cortisol that's trying to cause inflammation. So absolutely, what you do, your mindset, your actions have a huge impact, not just on how you feel, but there are physiologic mechanisms that tear your body down as a result. So I have a client who had the CRP level done. His doctor was very proactive, and for years. It was very high. Didn't know what he was doing wrong. He was exercising. Sometimes he even walked 20 miles in a month, and the level remained high. I put him on this regimen to do things, specifically the diet. I changed the diet. We focused more on whole food, plant-based sorts of things. I encouraged him to sleep. We worked on some things as far as stress. The blood test, most recent blood test, is almost completely normal, where it had been almost actually over twice normal for a long time. The power of your choices cannot be understated. You get to choose. I wrote this song. It's called This Life Is Designed by Me. And, you know, it is an encouraging song. It's a faith-based song. It encourages us, you know, that we need to do a lot. There are things that we can do. We can design our own future. We can design our own life within reason. We don't have all power, but the decisions that we make can change our life expectancy, change the trajectory. As I mentioned, just imagine your genes having these off-on switches. Your mom and your dad, they may have the gene that increases your risk of diabetes, and you do all the wrong things, you get diabetes. But you do all the right things, you're moving that switch the other direction. You're moving it against diabetes despite what your family history is. And so that is one of the most important things that I'm going to leave with people today is you have choices. Don't let outside forces manipulate you to the point that you feel, I'm stressed, I've got to do this to get through the day. They're making their money. The pharmaceutical companies, they're making their money. The food manufacturers making these foods with ingredients that you can't even read, they're making their money. You're losing your money. You're losing your money in medical bills, in time off of work, in lost productivity. You're losing happiness and time with your friends and your family. So realize that you have the ability to create your vision and act with precision to make it happen. You matter, and you need to take control of your life.

That's very empowering. Just as it's so empowering to know that we're not a victim to our genes. We do have the power and the choice if we make the right choices.

So lifestyle medicine is 6 pillars: a whole food, plant-predominant diet, stress management, adequate sleep, restorative sleep, the social connections for the love hormone, the toxin avoidance. And I don't just mean alcohol and tobacco. I mean The perfumed lotion that you put all over your body, the chemicals are being absorbed. And then exercise. Some of the most powerful things would be the whole food plant-based diet, exercise. You don't have to join a gym. I have— I work at home. I have a desk that I lift up when I'm typing on the computer. I put a treadmill underneath it and I walk. Sometimes I just run in place at the computer. I do tai chi. You can do all sorts of things. You can exercise. Any place you are, and then as far as the third, I'm going back and forth between stress and sleep. I'm going to have to go stress because stress rewires your brain, and it does many other things. But if you're not as stressed, guess what? You're going to sleep better. If you sleep better, guess what? You're not going to have all those cravings for the junk food the next day. You don't have all the cravings for the junk food. Then your gut microbiome is going to be happier and producing all these chemicals that make you feel good and not blah. And so these things are very intricately. Woven together. And so again, whole food, plant predominant diet. Eat as many different colors of fruits and vegetables in a week as you can. The plate method is half of your plate would be like non-starchy vegetables, a quarter would be healthy meat, a quarter would be something like grains or starchy vegetables. And of course you need to add fruit as well. Drink plenty of water, stay hydrated. But if you do that regularly, you are rewiring your body, you're rewiring your gut. And your gut is your second brain.

It's just getting back down to basics, getting back down to nature. Look at how our grandparents lived their lives. They ate healthy, they moved, and well, they either had some form of stress release— most of them had faith, or, you know, we now have, you know, other practices— but do something that you love. Thank you for coming on. And for everybody, if you do resonate with what Coach Dr. Anne has been saying about lifestyle medicine, it doesn't have to be just about inflammation. For anything that you're experiencing, uh, all her details will be in the show notes. Connect with her. Thank you so much for sharing this knowledge with us.

Thank you for having me. It was really a pleasure, Nam.