Naturally Fight Inflammatory Ageing

 It stings. Redness. Swelling on the side of the nail. But it's ignored. Then it hurts to touch and redness begins to spread. Now there is something yellow developing right where it pains the most. The finger is inflamed and becoming infected. It is clear to see and simple to treat.

It's a natural response. I'm sure it has happened to you... you're cutting your nail and find a little piece attached along the side, so you pull it off. It hurts for a split second but it's done and your nail looks good. Shortly after, it begins to feel tender to touch. Your body is fighting an infection. Myeloid cells produce nasty inflammatory chemicals to kill or inhibit the growth of bacteria and parasites.

In this case, we might need a little help... it might be as simple as cleaning and soaking the nail in alcohol or antiseptic or using a cream to stop the infection getting out of control.

...protect you from those diseases and premature ageing.

Conversely, inflammation is neither good or bad. It is simply your body's means of reacting and gathering immune cells to take action. Inflammation is good for defending your body. Good for your immunity. Also, it is administered to aid any damaged tissue during its repair. So, after a badly twisted ankle, it's likely to swell to help begin the healing process. Overall, an inflammatory response is normally well regulated and does not cause excessive damage. It is self-limiting and rapidly resolved.

Excessive Inflammation can Accelerate Ageing

However, when something is seriously wrong, excessive inflammation can accelerate ageing and cause joint pain and disease. Cronic inflammation is associated with cancer, obesity, heart disease, arthritis, diabetes, allergies, asthma, IBS, Crohn's disease, psoriasis... oh, a long list. Not good at all.

It's no wonder inflammation is a hot topic. It's mentioned in almost every area of your wellness and a key factor contributing to our ill health and signs of ageing. It feels imperative that we get it under control. For this reason, Anti-Inflammatory Diets popped up. Good doctors often recommend we take a healthy diet to help us reduce inflammation.

Would you believe some people fair best with croissants and ice-cream?

Clearly, nutrition is beneficial. It is heavily tied to disease and ageing, although, these diets only scratch the surface. They claim to protect you from those diseases and premature ageing. It's because numerous experts believe many dietary elements may influence inflammation. The foods you choose to eat could stimulate inflammatory conditions.

With that in mind, altering nutrition, therefore, may prevent diseases or be used as a therapy for the conditions.

Anti-Ageing & Weight Loss by Relieving Food's Stresses

The allure of such diets grabs us with promises of weight loss and anti-ageing by relieving stresses food can put on your body. Foods that you find difficult to digest are removed. Ingredients that may cause an inflammatory response are taken out. And any foods that your body cannot tolerate are eliminated. By removing possible causes from your diet, you could avoid damages. And that would include limiting toxins from pesticides, hormones, and antibiotic residue. Thereby, improving your nutrient supply which would improve cellular function and your metabolism.

To be precise, we need to recognise differences... Inflammation triggers or stimulators. Your diet can alter your reaction over time. It can promote an inflammatory response and nutrition can reduce inflammation too. However, a trigger such as possible food allergens like cows’ milk protein and peanut protein can directly cause an asthma attack. Also, an over-the-top response to wheat, rye and barley gluten and gluten-like proteins can result in celiac disease, the chronic inflammation of the small intestine.[1]

Findings like this still keep us concerned... But on the whole, as they say... Butter's Back!

Therefore, an anti-inflammatory diet may be selling to the high street rather than a personalised approach. Often, you'll find these diets suggest you remove grains and refined carbs and dairy too. Although, it might not be applicable to you. You could be absolutely fine eating these foods. Prof. Eran Segal's TedTalk reveals some recent research that backs the idea of an individual nutritional approach to health. Would you believe some people fair best with croissants and ice-cream?

I mean, travel to Andalusia, Spain and try taking away their white bread... or take away pasta from the Italians... It's just not going to happen. And why would they need to? Because they look to have adapted to eating such trigger substances.

In reality, it does look as if we all have a minor and varied response to such triggers so maybe balancing your ancestry with the quantity is the way to go.

Actually, scaring us into believing broad food categories are bad for us has never been proven true. Take saturated fat as an example... there's no proof, what's so ever, this section of fats are bad for us. They do not clog your arteries or make you unhealthy and kill you. Despite this, specific saturated fatty acids can activate inflammatory cells. The fact that a saturated fat called sialic acid, with large amounts found in red meat fats and small quantities found in milk and cheese has been shown to stimulate inflammation. Findings like this still keep us concerned about the amount of animal fat we're consuming.[2,3]

To be specific, free saturated fatty acids could be driving inflammation. Obesity, type 2 diabetes, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, and atherosclerosis could be inflamed by this type of fat. But on the whole, as they say... Butter's Back!

Barrier Breakdown Key Factor in Inflammatory Diseases

In all honesty, even though nutrition is not the only part to spur ageing and illness, a bad diet is a stimulating force. Anyway, a key factor in some inflammatory diseases such as inflammatory bowel diseases and types of dementia, known as type 3 diabetes, are being linked to the breakdown of barriers stopping compounds getting through. As you can imagine, when something is in you that shouldn't be there, bad things can happen. These elements can damage your blood-brain barrier or the lining of your gut. It's not good at all.

Now, your gut microbiome is recognised to play a role in breaking down your gut lining. Bad bugs doing damage. Also, your diet can clearly have an influence too. Therefore, the bugs living in you may indirectly influence inflammatory diseases. Due to the interactions between your gut microbiota and inflammatory cells within the gut, they play a role in your inflammatory response.

That being the case, a combination of prebiotics and probiotics have been shown to produce anti-inflammatory effects. Additionally, prebiotics and probiotics improve inflammatory markers. They improve the microscopic structure of gut tissues, consequently, they can reduce a leaky gut.

Stress Spirals Body's Defence Out of Control

All in all, your body's defence response can get out of control. A number of aspects contribute to inflammation. One that we are familiar with is stress... actually, oxidative stress. Essentially an imbalance between free radical production and your ability to neutralise harmful effects. These free radicals are produced in multiple ways including from food, drink, drugs, pollution, stress, lack of sleep, exercise, infections, and poor organ function.

It's because part of your inflammatory response produces oxidants that can damage your cells. These oxidants and oxidized cells begin the production of inflammatory eicosanoids and cytokines. Illness and signs of ageing soon follow. This chronic inflammation provokes Telomere (the end caps of DNA) dysfunction and accelerates ageing.

That's why we often look to defend our bodies from oxidative stress with antioxidants. Well, maybe we simply feel good things about antioxidants and buy into the term, along with anti-inflammatory claims, knowing they're good for us. With that understanding, we look to foods and their nutrients. You may now be more familiar with some of the antioxidant vitamins like vitamin C & E and less familiar with lycopene, lutein, astaxanthin carotenoids. These antioxidants reduce your exposure to oxidants and decrease an inflammatory response.

Another well known anti-inflammatory supplement is fish oil... actually, omega 3 fatty acids. Today, it is more common to take an actual omega 3 supplement or Krill oil because the DHA and EPA quantity is higher and that's the potent nutrient we want. Also, taking ALA, the plant omega 3 doesn't appear to be anti-inflammatory because we have to convert ALA into the biologically active EPA, which we are not very good at.

It's also good to know that eating small amounts of dark chocolate, regularly, is anti-inflammatory. And, as we are often told, fruits and vegetables protect us from inflammation.

Nevertheless, the big question is...

...Does inflammation cause ageing or is ageing the cause of inflammation?

Most lead us to believe we are causing inflammation, which leads to signs of ageing. But, could it be that we are already causing signs of ageing and DNA and cell and organ damage that begins to increase inflammation to a chronic level?

Prof. Valter Longo, director of the USC Longevity Institute, puts a twist on a common perspective. He says we have to be careful...

"Inflammation can come from dysregulation of immune cells and other cells in the body."

The professor sees inflammation as a response to ageing. As your DNA becomes damaged and the process of making new cells gets broken, the result is a misfunctioning cell. And this malfunction leads to inflammation.

"The evidence that inflammation is the driver (of ageing) is not there. There are very few studies actually showing by increasing inflammation you increase ageing." It's possible but unlikely inflammation causes ageing. "All organisms have a program and this program is there to keep them healthy and young, up to a certain point. And now there are ways to make this program longer or shorter." Therefore, centenarians might have a stronger program for longer.

"When these programs fail, inflammation is one of the things you see happening along with other problems."

On the whole, as a marker for health, inflammation is an important one. Therefore, inflammation could be an indication that your systems are not working properly. To see these markers for health, you can monitor C-Reactive protein (CRP) and Interleukin-6 (IL6) and TNF-alpha together and with an effective anti-inflammatory lifestyle, you should see them go down.

When things get really bad, damaged cells can become senescent cells. These cells no longer perform as they were intended and, instead, produce inflammatory cytokines. This can damage the surrounding tissue.

But Prof. Longo believes it's possible to push the reset button and go back to a more youthful condition.

Anti-Inflammatory Diet Lifestyle to Reduce Ageing

An anti-inflammatory diet lifestyle looks to be a beneficial approach. With this, signs of ageing and inflammation are reduced. Your body clock gets turned back. Admittedly, changing your diet and losing weight is helpful. Inflammation markers are decreased with weight loss. It looks likely that reducing fat cells will reduce inflammation, as well as, the effect of the nutritious diet used to lose weight.[4]

With that in mind, the various ways you can lose weight appears to be more important than the diet itself... Low-fat, low-carb... it doesn't matter. Lose weight and see inflammatory markers drop.[5]

Above all, your lifestyle will keep you young and fit and well. It's not just about what goes into your mouth, but your quality of sleep and daily movement and exercise and removing as many toxins from your environment too. Everything that goes into your day will help to keep you in check. Thereby, creating an anti-inflammatory lifestyle.