Inflammation, the silent epidemic that accelerates cancer or Alzheimer's
The Western lifestyle hijacks the body's natural response to defend itself from threats and turns it into a health problem.
Inflammation is in fashion. Or more than inflammation, anti-inflammation. The networks are full ofinfluencers and tips to reduce inflammation: diets, supplements, shakes, anti-inflammatory foods. But what exactly does it mean to be inflamed? What impact does it have on our health? Is it really that bad?
Let's start at the beginning. The truth is that, despite the bad reputation it's received in recent years, inflammation per se It's not harmful. On the contrary, it's an essential defense mechanism of the body to fight pathogens such as viruses and bacteria; to convert vaccines into long-term protection; to help us heal wounds; and to prevent cancer cells from proliferating and generating a tumor.
"It is absolutely essential that we have inflammation to survive," says Sílvia Vidal, researcher and coordinator of the inflammatory diseases group at the Hospital de Sant Pau Research Institute in Barcelona.
"It's a natural and beneficial response of the body to protect us, and it can appear anywhere in the body," continues Vidal, who emphasizes that this crucial action of the immune system is acute and occurs for a short period of time.
For example, let's say we are cooking and cut ourselves with a knife; At that moment, the cells in the damaged area begin to release molecules that are captured by immune cells circulating in the blood, especially neutrophils, which circulate alertly to any signals they may find in the blood vessels. These enter the wound area, recognize the damage and potential pathogens, and set off the immune system's alarm.
This is when an orchestra of actions is set in motion: the blood vessels in the area dilate and become more permeable to facilitate the arrival of blood and, therefore, more immune cells. This causes us to feel swelling, heat, pain in the wound, and redness. White blood cells appear in the wound and consume any potential bacteria that may have entered with the cut. The pus that sometimes oozes from wounds is a sign that the white blood cells have done their job and then died. Finally, more white blood cells arrive to clean up the damage and repair it. When the problem is resolved, the same signals that set off the alarm are turned off, and the immune system returns to balance. This would be an episode of acute inflammation.
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When the alert fails
Now, health problems begin when this immune system response is not deactivated within a short period of time and becomes chronic. Furthermore, instead of being localized to one part of the body, it spreads like wildfire throughout the entire organism, causing irreversible tissue damage.
Scientific research in recent decades has linked a chronic systemic inflammation with an increased risk of developing a host of health problems, from asthma to obesity, cardiovascular problems, neurodegeneration, depression, and cancer. It can also contribute to the development of autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn's disease, or multiple sclerosis.
If we were to make a comparison, the body's defense system would be like the police, firefighters, and medical services responding to an accident or fire. They arrive alerted by calls from neighbors or witnesses, they act, resolve the situation, restore traffic, and leave. So far, so good.
But if they start receiving false calls from different parts of the body or they get confused and act recklessly, attacking cells and tissues that are not damaged or that are not pathogenic, generating inflammation, collateral damage occurs that, if maintained over time, if it becomes... In addition, the emergency system becomes stressed and exhausted from constantly acting everywhere, which causes it to respond less efficiently to real threats, such as cancer.
"Many of the mechanisms of inflammation can damage healthy cells in the environment. In the end, [the immune response] is like bleach thrown on an area: it eliminates the pathogen, but it also damages the surrounding cells. Vidal.
And the situation also worsens as we age, when the immune system begins to lose its refinement, becomes more inefficient and starts to make mistakes and can no longer combat threats as effectively. Advancing years is also a process associated with higher levels of inflammation. Older people frequently experience a chain of urinary or respiratory infections. In fact, from the age of 50, but especially from the age of 60, the amount of inflammatory molecules circulating in the blood increases. Starting at age 65, most adults often have at least one chronic illness., which feeds back into inflammation, such as cancer, type 2 diabetes, or cardiovascular disease. And from the age of 85, One in three people in Catalonia has Alzheimer's.
A pro-inflammatory lifestyle
But why isn't the alarm signal deactivated? There are several reasons: sometimes, cells forget to send signals to deactivate inflammation once the threat has passed; in other cases, the original threat doesn't go away completely, as in the case of persistent bacterial infections or a tumor. Or it may also happen that the body responds to a threat that doesn't exist, as is the case with autoimmune diseases.
In many cases, vicious cycles are also generated that are difficult to escape. Consider bad cholesterol: it can accumulate in the arteries, block them, and cause serious cardiovascular problems. Therefore, when the immune system detects that this substance is beginning to be deposited on the walls of blood vessels, it tries to eliminate it. It does this by generating inflammation: white blood cells—neutrophils—arrive at the site of the cholesterol and request reinforcements by secreting pro-inflammatory molecules, which, in addition to inflaming the area, the artery, begin to damage the tissue.
If cholesterol continues to adhere to the walls of the vessels, inflammation continues, but it is not limited only to the areas where the cholesterol plaques are. As the immune system circulates through the blood throughout the body, inflammatory molecules are distributed everywhere. That's why "you are more likely to have your cardiovascular system altered," warns Vidal.
Ultimately, points out Antoni Castro, head of the internal medicine research group at the Dr. Josep Trueta Girona Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBGI), all the body's systems are related: immune, metabolic, hormonal, and cardiovascular.
In fact, that's why more and more scientific studies are finding correlations between lifestyle and the degree of inflammation. There are recent studies that have concluded that in Amazonian populations, for example, people are not as inflamed as in Western populations.And within industrialized countries, there is often a gap between rural and urban environments. Poor diet, a sedentary lifestyle, chronic stress, and exposure to environmental toxins create an extremely harmful combination that strips us of our natural defenses.
"If you have an immune system in a constant state of alert, exhausted from generating inflammation, when a real threat, like cancer, arrives, it won't be able to respond," warns Vidal.
And what to do?
There are factors we can control and others we can't, that's clear. What is in our hands is no surprise, but it is a magic solution, in the sense that it's been proven to work: maintaining good lifestyle habits is the best guarantee for aging in the healthiest way possible.
What does good lifestyle habits mean? Well, regular exercise, which is one of the best medicines we have, boosting DNA repair and proven to reduce the risk of serious illness. Also, getting plenty of rest, keeping stress at bay, and following a healthy diet. And by healthy diet, we mean the Mediterranean diet, "which favors the intestinal microbiota, rich in fruits and vegetables, nuts, fermented foods, whole grains, and healthy fats," because "it provides food for the good bacteria in the gut, which secrete anti-inflammatory molecules," says San Pablo.
For Castro, from IDIBGI, right now we are all too focused, including public health, on "allocating resources to the health system, diagnosis, and treatment, when there are many public health studies that show that what would really improve the health of the population would be to prevent health problems from appearing." It seems like a nonsense, and yet it is not being implemented. "We must invest in health, in healthy living, and not in medications to fix problems that we could prevent," Castro concludes.
In recent years, it seems that being bloated is synonymous with being fat.
"There is systemic inflammation in the body that is related to excessive fat accumulation," Antonio Ruiz, an immunologist at the University of Murcia, told SMC Spain . The cells responsible for accumulating fat, adipocytes, produce a series of mediators that induce chronic, low-intensity inflammation that affects other organs and tissues. Adipocytes become inflamed because they increase in number and size; they don't breathe well because they don't receive enough oxygen. Consequently, they generate free radicals, molecules that cause widespread damage.
"If you eat poorly and begin to accumulate fat, this fat is capable of secreting inflammatory signals that promote the entry of immune cells into the fatty tissue area; and this, in turn, promotes inflammatory signals and the accumulation of more fat," explains Antoni Castro, head of the internal medicine research group at Josep Trueta.
It's a vicious cycle that feeds itself within chronic inflammation. And there comes a point when that inflammation and damage are no longer reversible, and the tissue reaches the point of collapse.
