By Ben Fuchs | Pharmacist Ben
One of the latest red herring boogie men of the medical world is inflammation, which many doctors will tell you is the cause of accelerated aging and disease.
Well, of course inflammation is related to all illness including cancer and diabetes and digestive distress and adrenal ailment and every other symptom known to man. Inflammation is immune system manifestation. It’s the way immune system activation shows up. And inflammation completely changes the health milieu of the body’s chemistry. Disease cannot help but result. The biggest shock is how long it sometimes takes.
Inflammation/immunity typically means one thing and that is that there is a breach in the body’s defenses. Historically battles sites would forts or city walls. The objective of an enemy invader was to breach the fort or the walls. And typically the site of the battle, at the direct juncture or connection between the enemy invader and the city wall would be a horrific scene. There’d be all kinds of dead bodies and blood and guts and body parts. If the battle had been raging for days or weeks eventually there would be all kinds of rotting and putrefying flesh. The smell would be hideous. Can you imagine the horror?
Now, in your imagination, take our walls and cities and dead bodies and replace them with your digestive wall and the rest of the body and dead, rotting cells and pus. You see where I’m going here folks. Of course symptomology will result. Blood sugar changes would be inevitable. Pancreatic and Liver function challenges likewise cannot help but result. And from there it’s a short hop to the adrenal glands which must provide emergency energy to fuel the chronic distress response. And then? Everything from diabetes to heart disease to depression, mental fog and emotional disorders. Everything, really, including the Emperor of All Maladies, cancer, which is the title of a new book on the subject. The study which focused ON INFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASE AND WAS published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences didn’t really reveal anything that hadn’t previously been suspected although it did highlight a specific molecular mechanism, connecting inflammatory chemistry to tumors. My point is who cares about the specifics of the molecular mechanism. You see, that what scientists do when they perform these investigations. They look for specific molecular markers so they can create drugs that manipulate the specific molecules. That’s the wrong approach. It creates the illusion, that whatever you’re doing you can keep on doing and we can sell you a drug at a ridiculous cost – and keep in mind the cost of these drugs both creating them and selling is borne by everybody in the form of higher insurance costs and other ways too- keep in mind if a patient is interacting with an inflammatory trigger and then takes a drug that masks the symptoms, but doesn’t do anything for the inflammation, we, all pay for that patient!
There is no need folks to find the specific molecule, we just need to do simple things, maybe not easy, but simple! Stop activating the immune/inflammation system. And where is the largest percentage of immune attack’? The digestive system. What we’re talking about here folks is the digestive link to all disease. Yes its inflammation and there is no disease that can possibly occur without inflammation. But the inflammation is not the problem. It is a sign of the problem It is secondary to the problem. And what’s more significant it is the body’s way of healing and resolving the problem. The inflammatory process should never be suppressed except as a last resort. There’s a reason why drugs like Vioxx and prednisone and even Motrin are associate d with significant side effect and toxicities including death. The inflammation is not the problem, and more studies that highlight specific molecules that are related to the inflammatory process aren’t needed to take care of the problem. All we need to do is begin to incorporate lifestyle changes. I talked to a good friend of mine yesterday. He’s a diabetic and has a history of kidney problems. Now keep in mind diabetics’ often have problems with their kidneys and have to take special care of these important organs. Blood sugar explosions, remember we talked about glycation in the past and how small blood vessels are especially prone to damage. Well the kidneys are made up of tiny blood vessels that are easily damaged by high blood sugar and my friend has all the signs of kidney problems. When I told him that he better thinking about changing his diet, well let’s just say that didn’t go over so well. But that’s really the choice we’re left with folks. Whether it’s diabetes or kidney disease or inflammation of any kind. The medical model that targets this molecule or that enzyme flat out doesn’t work. That’s why I say ambulatory medicine is an abject failure. The responsibility for health and wellness is not the doctors or the drugs companies. It’s ours.
So what’s the solution? Eat your veggies, among other strategies, and eat more protein, essential fatty acids and get yourself on a well-rounded supplement program that feature digestive support and blood sugar control. And, don’t forget to breathe deeply in for oxygen and to move lymph and exhale deeply out to move out acid and toxins. Is it simple? Very! Is it easy? Maybe not so but definitely worth it.
