Inflammation

The word inflammation is still largely misunderstood, with the misconception that it is extremely bad for you and needs to be reduced at all costs.

Well, that is not entirely true, as inflammation and having a healthy inflammatory response is extremely important for keeping us all healthy.

A double edged sword

Inflammation can be somewhat of a double edged sword; in one instance it is required by the body to help promote tissue repair and recovery as well as fighting off nasty bugs and viruses.

And on the other, it can cause tissue degeneration and lead to illness and disease.

The pain associated with inflammation has probably affected us all at some stage in life, from a simple fall and banging your knee to the debilitating effects of osteoarthritis.

Shining some light on inflammation

Inflammation is our immune system’s response that your body activates in order to deal with anything that it perceives as an ‘attack’.

Ideally, when you get sick or injure yourself you want a fast and strong inflammatory response that ensures you deal with an infection or injury.

Usually this response will be short and sharp or ‘acute’ which results, in most cases, to no harm being done and then settles down.

For example, if you twist your ankle, the body will produce a variety of symptoms including pain, heat and swelling, as after all, you don’t want to walk on the ankle just in case you cause more damage.

Inflammation and illness

In another instance, if you get a cold or the flu, your immune system will respond quickly by producing a whole host of different chemicals that will work to do a variety of things from raise your temperature temporarily and make you feel ill so you won’t feel like doing anything, thus allowing the body to heal itself.

Chronic inflammation

Chronic inflammation, however, is a whole new ball game – it is the process that is associated with every chronic and autoimmune disease, and if it stays elevated will have bleak consequences for both your short and long-term health.

Some people are genetically more prone to having an overly aggressive inflammatory response. This can the be magnified by eating the wrong type of diet high in processed foods or even by exercising too often and not getting enough rest.

Lifestyle and environmental factors will both have a huge effect on your inflammation levels and inflammatory response will largely be dictated by external factors.

Contributors to inflammation

There are also a whole host of other factors that will contribute towards elevated inflammation, from heightened stress levels to a lack of sleep.

This might be one of the reasons as to why people that are trying to lose weight seem to continually fail. As being genetically predisposed to naturally higher inflammation levels can dramatically affect your ability to lose weight.

And again, this can be affected further still through overtraining and / or eating pro-inflammatory foods such as bread, pasta and vegetable cooking oils.

Consuming a diet high in inflammatory foods has many negative health connotations and will also affect your bones and teeth as your body’s ability to regulate its pH levels will be dramatically reduced.

Top 5 inflammatory foods to AVOID!

1. Sugar is by far the worst for inflammation and is void of any nutritional value.
2. Refined/processed grains have no fibre, a high GI and are void of nutrients.
3. Cooking oils are full of pro-inflammatory Omega 6.
4. Additives and sweeteners, MSG, food colouring and aspartame being a few.
5. Trans Fats that are found in fast foods and margarine.

 

Conclusion

So, in conclusion, your health and wellbeing can and will be affected by various parameters including your lifestyle, environment and your genetic predispositions.

Epigenetics is definitely the future for which all health care, fitness plans and routines will be based upon.

Muhdo is pioneering this science, allowing each of us to understand our individual genetic traits, and largely taking the confusion out of genetics and epigenetics with the gamification of your health, which allows you to track your health at a genetic and cellular level.

We’ve had a lot of interest and questions asking us to expand on more health-related issues such as high blood pressure, stress and sleep – looking at the top 20 health issues facing the majority of population.

Do you have a question?

We would love your help, if either yourself, friend or family member has a particular health issue that you would like us to explain in more detail then please let us know.

We can then go through as to why it might be occurring and provide you with useful recommendations from either a nutritional or lifestyle standpoint, which should hopefully benefit you.

If you have any questions surrounding Muhdo or the science of epigenetics, or if you would like us to explain any health issues in further detail, then please email us at info@muhdo.com.