When we think of inflammation, we usually link it to a soft tissue injury where the body has become inflamed to protect the impact. We then use cryotherapy, or ice treatment, to reduce the inflammation until the area has healed and the pain has gone.

However, increasingly, doctors and researchers at the forefront of medicine are finding that many of the major degenerative conditions of old age, such as heart disease, arthritis and Alzheimer’s disease, share a common cause. This is not the obvious ‘wear and tear’, placing everyone in the mode of a worn-out piece of machinery – when all the bits begin to stop working due to them wearing out. The cause related to these diseases is purely chronic; it is low-grade inflammation.

This association first became apparent with arthritis – when associate professor of immunology and rheumatology, William Robinson, and his colleagues at Stanford University carried out studies showing that osteoarthritic joint tissues contain larger than usual numbers of inflammatory cells. These secrete certain substances early on in the progression of the disease and appear to be its central driver.

These substances trigger a chain of events that eventually escalate into an attack against the joint itself, mounted by the body’s own defence systems, ordinarily only deployed against invading micro-organisms.

With heart disease, even conservative groups, such as the American Heart Association, now acknowledge the role of inflammation, after studies have shown that men with the highest levels of C-reactive protein in their blood (a recognised marker of inflammation) are more than twice as likely to suffer from the condition.

Even LDL cholesterol (the so-called ‘bad’ guy in heart disease) has a role to play in the inflammatory process. In an attempt to repair the damage to arterial walls, it ends up clogging them by laying down plaque.

In general, inflammation is not a bad process. It is characterised by heat, swelling, redness and pain. The body’s immune system is attempting to heal an injury or infection by increasing the flow of nutrients carried by the blood and lymphatic system into damaged areas. At the same time it flushes away harmful pathogens and damaged cells.

Once the invader has been dealt with, the inflammation is switched off

Now diabetes has joined the list of diseases related to inflammation, where it has been shown to be the common culprit. Chronic conditions, such as joint pain, heart disease and diabetes, are inflammatory warning signs that the body is struggling to maintain health in the face of an overwhelming assault of some type of stressor. In the case of diabetes, it is usually some ‘food-provoked’ inflammation.

Findings from Stanford University offer laboratory confirmation of what many practitioners of functional medicine discovered in their clinical practice. John Mansfield, author of Arthritis: The Allergy Connection (Chivers Press, 1991), who successfully treated several thousand arthritic patients in the UK at his clinic in Surrey before recently retiring, maintains that most forms of arthritis are “environmentally induced” by an intolerance to certain foods or environmental chemicals. Around 90 per cent of patients can be improved or fully cured by just making certain lifestyle changes.

A similar situation was discovered when treating diabetes. Patrick Kingsley, author of The New Medicine, also found when treating diabetic patients that inflammation was a key indicator.

Dr Kingsley noted that one fifth of type 2 diabetics are not overweight, so this cannot be linked to obesity. Furthermore, if food is supposed to give you energy and if diabetes is the result of eating too much, why are diabetics often always hungry and lacking energy?

Hunger is a mechanism that tells your brain that muscle cells need more fuel. So why doesn’t eating more provide that fuel? Presumably, something has stopped the fuel from doing its job. Perhaps something has stopped the sugar from entering your muscle cells.

The secret cause of diabetes, Dr Kingsley found, is inflammation. This is an essential function the body uses to fight off an invading organism, a splinter or anything else that should not be there. In the process of inflammation, many powerful chemicals are produced, all with specific tasks to perform. Once the invader has been dealt with, the inflammation is switched off.

Here comes the technical bit: one of the chemicals is called TNF (tumour necrosis factor)-alpha. Inflammation produces this chemical. However, TNF-alpha also destroys GLUT4, so glucose cannot be taken into the muscle cells, which means that glucose is diverted to the fat cells.

TNF-alpha also stimulates the production of fat cells, and fat cells produce TNF-alpha. Hence there is a lot a TNF-alpha floating around in an inflamed, overweight person. TNF-alpha goes on to destroy other chemicals, but to keep this article light, the ultimate result is that glucose does not get into the muscle cells, they cannot use their normal, alternative supply of energy in the form of fatty acids and affect the body’s weight and energy levels.

Next week we will look at how to identify any culprits (foods) that may be affecting the body and increasing inflammation.

kathryn@maltanet.net