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Healthy Choices
Wild Alaska Pollock Rainbow Bowl with Creamy Green Dressing
Sponsored by Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI)
Enjoy a creative take on Wild Alaska Pollock and a variety of veggies for a gorgeous, nutrient-packed meal. This unique dish boasts a healthy dose of fiber, vitamin K, the antioxidant vitamin C and omega-3 fats. The creamy green dressing tops off the explosion of color, crunch and rich flavor for a delicious show-stopper dinner.
Ingredients:
Quinoa
Per serving: 150 calories, 16 g fat (2.5 g saturated fat), 2 g carbohydrate, 1 g protein, 0 g dietary fiber, 75 mg sodium.
Fish and Vegetables: Makes 4 servings.
Per serving: 550 calories, 28 g fat (4 g saturated fat), 43 g carbohydrate, 32 g protein, 12 g dietary fiber, 630 mg sodium.
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour
Directions
Mushroom & Winter Vegetable Soup
Reader's Digest Editors
Meanwhile, in a large saucepan or Dutch oven, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic, and cook for 5 minutes, or until the onion is light golden. Add the carrot and parsnip, and cook for 5 minutes, or until the carrot is crisp-tender.
Stir in the cabbage. Cover and cook for 5 minutes, or until the cabbage begins to wilt. Stir in the mushrooms and reserved liquid, the lima beans, dill, tomato paste, vinegar, salt, and 3 cups of water; bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer; cover and cook for 25 minutes, or until the soup is richly flavored.
Tip: Cabbage and mushrooms, two phytochemical-rich foods, team up in this hearty winter soup. Serve with thin dark rye or pumpernickel toast.
New Insights about Getting Active and Staying Active
By Karen Collins
If you are 45-65 or older and your lifestyle has been more “couch potato” than active, can adding more physical activity still make a difference in your health and longevity?
Many studies show that people who regularly do some kind of physical activity have a lower risk of cancer and heart disease than people who are sedentary. But few studies provide a longer-term view of health when active people become less active, and sedentary people start becoming more active.
A new study of more than 14,000 men and women provides helpful insights.
Men and women in the UK aged 40 to 79 answered questions about their weekly physical activity at the start of the study and about 3 to 4 years later. Then about 12 years later, researchers looked at whether the changes in physical activity all those years ago might be related to deaths in the years that followed.
Here are some reasonable take-home messages based on these findings combined with past research:
Aim for Progress, Not Perfection
The findings in this study make sense in the context of other research. For example, one study followed almost 200,000 adults who did not initially have heart disease, cancer or diabetes. After classifying their baseline leisure-time physical activity level compared to the recommendation for an average of 30 minutes of moderate activity five days a week, researchers tracked their development of obesity, diabetes and heart disease risk factors over about six years. Compared to people initially classified as inactive, those who met even half of the recommended target had lower risk of developing obesity, diabetes or a constellation of risk factors called metabolic syndrome. Those with the highest level of physical activity – more than double the recommended target – had even lower risk.
This second study did not report on any differences in cancer incidence related to levels of physical activity. However, a decreased incidence of obesity, diabetes and metabolic syndrome suggests less insulin resistance, inflammation and hormone levels – and that would likely reduce risk of cancer. Analysis for the AICR Third Expert Report found strong evidence that physical activity lowers risk of colorectal, breast and endometrial cancers, with potential to reduce risk of other types, too. Likewise, the new British Medical Journal study found fewer deaths from both heart disease and cancer-related to baseline and increases in physical activity.
Practical Tips
Especially until activity time becomes a normal part of your routine, change your mindset from “finding time” to “making time”.
You don’t have to go it alone. New habits can be easier to establish with at least one other person.
The 5 Types of Memory Everyone Has and Why They Matter
Reader’s Digest Editors
Your memory has two main components: a working memory faculty for thoughts that are currently active in your mind, and a long-term store of events, skills and facts.
Short-term (working) memory
Short-term memory is temporary. Its principle characteristic is its low capacity, meaning it’s quickly saturated. We can retain on average seven unassociated items (such as letters, words, or numbers) for a few minutes—unless you train like a memory champion with these pro tricks to get a superhuman memory. This is called the “span.” Psychologists realized that short-term memory is in constant use as we talk, think, and act, so they began to refer to short-term memory as “working memory” to emphasize its active role.
Episodic memory (personal events)
You use your episodic memory to answer questions such as, “What did you do last weekend?” or to remember the first time you saw snow or swam in the ocean. Memories, especially episodic ones, are more easily retrieved the more dramatic they are, and adopting these healthy habits that boost your brain makes that process even easier. If you think about special events from your life, such as holidays and birthdays, it’s likely that the events you remember clearly stand out for some exceptional reason, either good or bad. Ordinary examples tend to merge into each other.
Long-term memory
All the facts that you know, all the things that you can do, many of the events in your life plus all the surprising things you didn’t even know you knew: this huge store of knowledge is what makes up your long-term memory. Because it’s such a vast amount of storage to tap into, it’s a good idea to keep your brain active and alert, but also take note when it becomes harder to remember these thoughts. Long-term memory loss could be a sign of certain types of dementia. If you notice more signs your brain is aging faster than you, it’s time to talk to your doctor.
Semantic memory (facts)
Our semantic memory is our store of general knowledge: facts, concepts and vocabulary. You can even use it to improve your vocabulary in just one day. This type of memory allows us to answer questions such as, “What is the capital of Italy?” We know the answers but we generally have forgotten where, when, and how we learned them. Semantic and episodic memory often overlap when we talk about past events. For example, it’s thanks to our semantic memory that we know the result of the last national election. But the political importance of the event also allows us to recall the personal memories that we associate with it, which come from our episodic memory.
Procedural memory (skills)
These include physical and mental skills acquired over time, such as riding a bike, writing, or using a keyboard. Most of our procedural knowledge is used automatically without conscious recollection of how to apply it. Procedural memory is also known as implicit or habitual memory. While some skills that are learned, such as reading or riding a bike, endure without much practice, others such as speaking a foreign language or playing a musical instrument have a “use it or lose it” character, and must be kept in regular use to be retained. Borrow these habits of people with an impressive memory, and you’ll never have to worry about losing your brain power.
Could Decreasing Inflammation Be the Cure for Everything?
Managing your body's immune response is key to diseases of aging
by Mike Zimmerman, AARP, November 1, 2019
"Low-grade inflammation.”
It hardly sounds serious at all. An inconvenience, perhaps, like maybe a mild fever or a creaky joint. In the lexicon of aging and disease, there are far more worrisome words: cancer, heart disease, dementia, diabetes. But researchers have suspected for years that all of these health issues, and more, have at their heart one common trigger: low-grade inflammation. And now they may finally have proof.
Cardiologists in Boston have reported on a clinical trial with more than 10,000 patients in 39 countries (mean age: 61) that tested to see if an anti-inflammatory drug could lower rates of heart disease. They discovered that it could. But they also found that the same drug, canakinumab, reduced lung cancer mortality more than 77 percent, and reports of gout and arthritis (conditions linked to inflammation) also fell.
"Inflammation plays a role in everyone's health,” says Dana DiRenzo, a rheumatologist and instructor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.
When inflammation levels increase, so does the risk of disease. But understanding inflammation can be tricky because, when you get a disease, inflammation levels naturally increase as your body fights the condition. Inflammation, in other words, is both good and bad.
Given how crucial this issue is to your health, AARP spoke with some of America's top experts in the field, pored over the latest studies and created this guide to understanding — and overcoming — inflammation.
What exactly is inflammation?
Think about when you catch the flu and your body temperature rises to fight the virus. That's a form of inflammation. So is the redness and swelling that occur when you sprain your ankle; it's the process your body uses to provide the healing chemicals and nutrients needed to help repair the damage.
These are examples of acute inflammation, a temporary, helpful response to an injury or illness. Once the danger goes away, so does the inflammation.
Chronic inflammation, on the other hand, is a slow, creeping condition caused by a misfiring of the immune system that keeps your body in a constant, long-term state of high alert, says Robert H. Shmerling, clinic chief in the department of rheumatology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.
It's often the chronic inflammation, not the viruses themselves, that causes much of the damage.
Why is chronic low-grade inflammation a problem?
"Over time, inflammation damages healthy cells,” says Roma Pahwa, a researcher for the National Institutes of Health who specializes in the inflammatory response. Here's why: When cells are in distress, they release chemicals that alert the immune system. White blood cells then flood the scene, where they work to eat up bacteria, viruses, damaged cells and debris from an infection or injury. If the damage is too great, they call in backup cells known as neutrophils, which are the hand grenades of the immune system — they blow up everything in sight, healthy or not. Each neutrophil has a short life span, but in chronic inflammation, they continue to be sent in long after the real threat is gone, causing damage to the healthy tissue that remains.
The inflammation can start attacking the linings of your arteries or intestines, the cells in your liver and brain, or the tissues of your muscles and joints. This inflammation-caused cellular damage can trigger diseases like diabetes, cancer, dementia, heart disease, arthritis and depression.
And because it's low grade, “its slow and secret nature makes it hard to diagnose in day-to-day life,” Pahwa says. “You have no idea it's even happening until those conditions show symptoms."
How can something natural to our bodies be so toxic to our health?
"It can be complicated to figure out if inflammation is friend or foe,” Pahwa says. Looking at the four main causes of chronic inflammation, however, sheds some light.
And getting older increases inflammation, too?
Unfortunately, yes. The older we are, the more exposure we've had to stuff like environmental toxins, stress, alcohol, bad foods and chronic diseases. Plus, aging makes it more difficult for our bodies to properly manage our immune systems, to extract nutrients from food and to shed extra pounds. “There are thousands of articles in the science literature related to aging and inflammation,” says Thomas Buford, an associate professor with the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine's division of gerontology.
So what makes chronic inflammation happen?
Chronic inflammation is a cascading effect of reactions in the body, Pahwa says. Here's a (very) basic breakdown of what's going on.
There are “pro-inflammatory foods"?
Yes, and they're the same foods you've been warned about by everyone from your dentist to your cardiologist. (And that's no surprise, because gingivitis and sclerotic arteries are both inflammatory conditions.) Foods high in sugar or high in unhealthy fats (think deli meats and fried foods) are top of the list.
"We don't fully understand it yet,” Buford says, “but now we know our gut microbiome, made up of trillions of bacteria, influences physiologic processes throughout the body.” We're born with a balance between good and bad bacteria in the gut. When that balance is thrown off — known as dysbiosis — it can lead to trouble. “A disregulated microbiome has been associated with metabolic diseases, pulmonary diseases,nervous system conditions, Alzheimer's — and these associations grow as we learn more and more,” Buford says.
Wild Alaska Pollock Rainbow Bowl with Creamy Green Dressing
Sponsored by Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI)
Enjoy a creative take on Wild Alaska Pollock and a variety of veggies for a gorgeous, nutrient-packed meal. This unique dish boasts a healthy dose of fiber, vitamin K, the antioxidant vitamin C and omega-3 fats. The creamy green dressing tops off the explosion of color, crunch and rich flavor for a delicious show-stopper dinner.
Ingredients:
Quinoa
- 1 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
- 1 cup quinoa (any variety)
- 2 cups low-sodium chicken broth or water
- ⅓ cup mayonnaise
- ⅓ cup plain yogurt
- 2 Tbsp. lime juice
- 1 tsp. honey
- Pinch of black pepper
- 3 Tbsp. water
- 1 cup packed fresh spinach leaves
- ⅓ cup extra virgin olive oil
- Salt, to taste
- ½ lb. sugar snap peas, sliced in half on the diagonal
- 12 cherry tomatoes, halved
- 8 radishes, thinly sliced
- ½ cup cilantro leaves
- 2 medium avocados, sliced
- Cooking spray
- 4 (6-oz.) Alaska pollock fillets
- 2 Tbsp. olive oil
- 1 to 2 tsp. ancho chili powder, to taste
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 1 lime, cut into 4 wedges
Per serving: 150 calories, 16 g fat (2.5 g saturated fat), 2 g carbohydrate, 1 g protein, 0 g dietary fiber, 75 mg sodium.
Fish and Vegetables: Makes 4 servings.
Per serving: 550 calories, 28 g fat (4 g saturated fat), 43 g carbohydrate, 32 g protein, 12 g dietary fiber, 630 mg sodium.
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour
Directions
- In a saucepan over medium-high heat, heat oil. Add quinoa. Stir for 5 to 6 minutes, or until the quinoa pops and sizzles and smells toasty.
- Add broth or water and bring to a boil. Adjust heat to a simmer, cover pot and cook for 15 minutes, or until the water is absorbed and the grains are tender. Fluff with a fork and keep warm.
- In a blender, combine mayonnaise, yogurt, lime juice, honey, pepper, water and spinach leaves. Purée until smooth. With the blender on, gradually add the oil. Add salt to taste.
- Bring a saucepan of salted water to a boil. Add snap peas and cook for 2 minutes. Drain in a colander and transfer to a plate. Place tomatoes, radishes, cilantro and avocados on large plate.
- Preheat broiler to high and set an oven rack 4 inches below the broiler. Line baking sheet with foil and spray with non-stick spray. (Or use non-stick foil.)
- Place Alaska pollock fillets on baking sheet and brush with oil. Sprinkle with chili powder and pepper, and gently rub spices into fish. Squeeze a wedge of lime over each fillet.
- Broil for 5 to 7 minutes, or until fish is lightly browned and cooked through. Cover loosely with foil and let fish rest for 5 minutes.
- To assemble, divide quinoa evenly between four bowls. Arrange snap peas, tomatoes, radishes, cilantro and sliced avocado over top. Place Alaska pollock on top and drizzle with dressing. Serve with extra dressing on the side.
Mushroom & Winter Vegetable Soup
Reader's Digest Editors
- ½ cup dried shiitake mushrooms
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 large carrot, thinly sliced
- 1¼ cups frozen baby lima beans
- 1/3 cup tomato paste
- 1½ cups boiling water
- 1 large onion, finely chopped
- 1 large parsnip (about 8 ounces), thinly sliced
- 1 small head green cabbage (1½ pounds), shredded (about 8 cups)
- 1/3 cup chopped fresh dill
- ¼ cup red wine vinegar
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
Meanwhile, in a large saucepan or Dutch oven, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic, and cook for 5 minutes, or until the onion is light golden. Add the carrot and parsnip, and cook for 5 minutes, or until the carrot is crisp-tender.
Stir in the cabbage. Cover and cook for 5 minutes, or until the cabbage begins to wilt. Stir in the mushrooms and reserved liquid, the lima beans, dill, tomato paste, vinegar, salt, and 3 cups of water; bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer; cover and cook for 25 minutes, or until the soup is richly flavored.
Tip: Cabbage and mushrooms, two phytochemical-rich foods, team up in this hearty winter soup. Serve with thin dark rye or pumpernickel toast.
New Insights about Getting Active and Staying Active
By Karen Collins
If you are 45-65 or older and your lifestyle has been more “couch potato” than active, can adding more physical activity still make a difference in your health and longevity?
Many studies show that people who regularly do some kind of physical activity have a lower risk of cancer and heart disease than people who are sedentary. But few studies provide a longer-term view of health when active people become less active, and sedentary people start becoming more active.
A new study of more than 14,000 men and women provides helpful insights.
Men and women in the UK aged 40 to 79 answered questions about their weekly physical activity at the start of the study and about 3 to 4 years later. Then about 12 years later, researchers looked at whether the changes in physical activity all those years ago might be related to deaths in the years that followed.
Here are some reasonable take-home messages based on these findings combined with past research:
- Don’t give up on yourself. People who initially had a sedentary job and did no leisure-time physical activity, but then increased physical activity in the next few years, had significantly fewer deaths over the next 12 to 13 years than those who continued a sedentary lifestyle. And this was true even after researchers adjusted for factors like smoking, alcohol, weight and diet quality. Likewise, these findings did not change based on whether or not someone had a history of heart disease or cancer at the start of the study.
- Use it or lose it (at least partially). People who were active at the beginning of the study but then decreased activity had fewer deaths than those who started off sedentary and stayed that way. But those who decreased activity didn’t hold on to the health protection experienced by people who maintained or increased their physical activity over time.
- Some is good; more is better. People who got the recommended average of 30 minutes of moderate activity five days a week had fewer deaths in the next 12 years than people who were sedentary. And there were even fewer deaths among those who participated in the equivalent of at least an hour of moderate activity (or 30 minutes of vigorous activity) five days a week.
Aim for Progress, Not Perfection
The findings in this study make sense in the context of other research. For example, one study followed almost 200,000 adults who did not initially have heart disease, cancer or diabetes. After classifying their baseline leisure-time physical activity level compared to the recommendation for an average of 30 minutes of moderate activity five days a week, researchers tracked their development of obesity, diabetes and heart disease risk factors over about six years. Compared to people initially classified as inactive, those who met even half of the recommended target had lower risk of developing obesity, diabetes or a constellation of risk factors called metabolic syndrome. Those with the highest level of physical activity – more than double the recommended target – had even lower risk.
This second study did not report on any differences in cancer incidence related to levels of physical activity. However, a decreased incidence of obesity, diabetes and metabolic syndrome suggests less insulin resistance, inflammation and hormone levels – and that would likely reduce risk of cancer. Analysis for the AICR Third Expert Report found strong evidence that physical activity lowers risk of colorectal, breast and endometrial cancers, with potential to reduce risk of other types, too. Likewise, the new British Medical Journal study found fewer deaths from both heart disease and cancer-related to baseline and increases in physical activity.
Practical Tips
Especially until activity time becomes a normal part of your routine, change your mindset from “finding time” to “making time”.
- Find a fit for you. As noted in the studies above, the goal is to find a way of being active that works for you long-term. That will be far easier when exercise meets your individual preferences, rather than leaving it categorized as something you “should” do.
- Socializing with others, Family time or Private time? What type of activity will you give you more joy, better stress relief and an easier fit in your lifestyle? You may want to focus on one of these or go for a mix.
- Quiet or Exhilarating? For example, yoga or walks in nature can be perfect for some people. Others thrive with sports like pickleball or dance classes like the swing.
- Are you more likely to stick with a walking habit by combining it with something else you enjoy? Stay safe by keeping volume low enough that you remain aware of human and vehicle traffic around you. But listening to music, podcasts or audio books can have you so engaged that you want to walk a little longer. You can download audio books for free from your local library and listen to them on your smartphone as you walk.
You don’t have to go it alone. New habits can be easier to establish with at least one other person.
- Set a daily or weekly “date” to walk with friends or neighbors. Many friends and patients have told me that having people expecting you to show up removes a major hurdle to getting out the door.
- If you don’t have friends or family who want to be active with you, check options at your local Y and community or senior center. Consider learning a new skill. Everyone in the class will be a novice like you, and you’ll meet new people who share an interest in being active.
- Fit it in and Schedule it in. Little bits of activity accumulate when you park farther from the door, take the stairs, and get off public transportation one stop earlier. For many people, however, reaching the recommended minimum of 30 minutes a day will take a bit more planning.
Try the Move Your Way weekly activity planner to create a personalized mix of activities that meet targets recommended for lower cancer risk and better overall health.
The 5 Types of Memory Everyone Has and Why They Matter
Reader’s Digest Editors
Your memory has two main components: a working memory faculty for thoughts that are currently active in your mind, and a long-term store of events, skills and facts.
Short-term (working) memory
Short-term memory is temporary. Its principle characteristic is its low capacity, meaning it’s quickly saturated. We can retain on average seven unassociated items (such as letters, words, or numbers) for a few minutes—unless you train like a memory champion with these pro tricks to get a superhuman memory. This is called the “span.” Psychologists realized that short-term memory is in constant use as we talk, think, and act, so they began to refer to short-term memory as “working memory” to emphasize its active role.
Episodic memory (personal events)
You use your episodic memory to answer questions such as, “What did you do last weekend?” or to remember the first time you saw snow or swam in the ocean. Memories, especially episodic ones, are more easily retrieved the more dramatic they are, and adopting these healthy habits that boost your brain makes that process even easier. If you think about special events from your life, such as holidays and birthdays, it’s likely that the events you remember clearly stand out for some exceptional reason, either good or bad. Ordinary examples tend to merge into each other.
Long-term memory
All the facts that you know, all the things that you can do, many of the events in your life plus all the surprising things you didn’t even know you knew: this huge store of knowledge is what makes up your long-term memory. Because it’s such a vast amount of storage to tap into, it’s a good idea to keep your brain active and alert, but also take note when it becomes harder to remember these thoughts. Long-term memory loss could be a sign of certain types of dementia. If you notice more signs your brain is aging faster than you, it’s time to talk to your doctor.
Semantic memory (facts)
Our semantic memory is our store of general knowledge: facts, concepts and vocabulary. You can even use it to improve your vocabulary in just one day. This type of memory allows us to answer questions such as, “What is the capital of Italy?” We know the answers but we generally have forgotten where, when, and how we learned them. Semantic and episodic memory often overlap when we talk about past events. For example, it’s thanks to our semantic memory that we know the result of the last national election. But the political importance of the event also allows us to recall the personal memories that we associate with it, which come from our episodic memory.
Procedural memory (skills)
These include physical and mental skills acquired over time, such as riding a bike, writing, or using a keyboard. Most of our procedural knowledge is used automatically without conscious recollection of how to apply it. Procedural memory is also known as implicit or habitual memory. While some skills that are learned, such as reading or riding a bike, endure without much practice, others such as speaking a foreign language or playing a musical instrument have a “use it or lose it” character, and must be kept in regular use to be retained. Borrow these habits of people with an impressive memory, and you’ll never have to worry about losing your brain power.
Could Decreasing Inflammation Be the Cure for Everything?
Managing your body's immune response is key to diseases of aging
by Mike Zimmerman, AARP, November 1, 2019
"Low-grade inflammation.”
It hardly sounds serious at all. An inconvenience, perhaps, like maybe a mild fever or a creaky joint. In the lexicon of aging and disease, there are far more worrisome words: cancer, heart disease, dementia, diabetes. But researchers have suspected for years that all of these health issues, and more, have at their heart one common trigger: low-grade inflammation. And now they may finally have proof.
Cardiologists in Boston have reported on a clinical trial with more than 10,000 patients in 39 countries (mean age: 61) that tested to see if an anti-inflammatory drug could lower rates of heart disease. They discovered that it could. But they also found that the same drug, canakinumab, reduced lung cancer mortality more than 77 percent, and reports of gout and arthritis (conditions linked to inflammation) also fell.
"Inflammation plays a role in everyone's health,” says Dana DiRenzo, a rheumatologist and instructor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.
When inflammation levels increase, so does the risk of disease. But understanding inflammation can be tricky because, when you get a disease, inflammation levels naturally increase as your body fights the condition. Inflammation, in other words, is both good and bad.
Given how crucial this issue is to your health, AARP spoke with some of America's top experts in the field, pored over the latest studies and created this guide to understanding — and overcoming — inflammation.
What exactly is inflammation?
Think about when you catch the flu and your body temperature rises to fight the virus. That's a form of inflammation. So is the redness and swelling that occur when you sprain your ankle; it's the process your body uses to provide the healing chemicals and nutrients needed to help repair the damage.
These are examples of acute inflammation, a temporary, helpful response to an injury or illness. Once the danger goes away, so does the inflammation.
Chronic inflammation, on the other hand, is a slow, creeping condition caused by a misfiring of the immune system that keeps your body in a constant, long-term state of high alert, says Robert H. Shmerling, clinic chief in the department of rheumatology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.
It's often the chronic inflammation, not the viruses themselves, that causes much of the damage.
Why is chronic low-grade inflammation a problem?
"Over time, inflammation damages healthy cells,” says Roma Pahwa, a researcher for the National Institutes of Health who specializes in the inflammatory response. Here's why: When cells are in distress, they release chemicals that alert the immune system. White blood cells then flood the scene, where they work to eat up bacteria, viruses, damaged cells and debris from an infection or injury. If the damage is too great, they call in backup cells known as neutrophils, which are the hand grenades of the immune system — they blow up everything in sight, healthy or not. Each neutrophil has a short life span, but in chronic inflammation, they continue to be sent in long after the real threat is gone, causing damage to the healthy tissue that remains.
The inflammation can start attacking the linings of your arteries or intestines, the cells in your liver and brain, or the tissues of your muscles and joints. This inflammation-caused cellular damage can trigger diseases like diabetes, cancer, dementia, heart disease, arthritis and depression.
And because it's low grade, “its slow and secret nature makes it hard to diagnose in day-to-day life,” Pahwa says. “You have no idea it's even happening until those conditions show symptoms."
How can something natural to our bodies be so toxic to our health?
"It can be complicated to figure out if inflammation is friend or foe,” Pahwa says. Looking at the four main causes of chronic inflammation, however, sheds some light.
- An outside infection that's hard to kill: You contract a chronic infection like hepatitis C or Lyme disease that lingers in the body for a long time. Your body responds with inflammation that also lingers a long time. In fact, it's often the chronic inflammation, not the viruses themselves, that causes much of the long-term damage related to these diseases.
- Genetics: You inherit a genetic propensity toward a health issue. In some cases, the genes related to these health issues can be turned on by inflammation: Diabetes and cancer are two genetically related diseases that can be triggered by inflammation. In other cases, the gene itself causes a misfiring of the immune system that causes the inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, lupus and other diseases.
- Environment: Pollution, air and water quality, environmental allergies and a host of other environmental factors can trigger and sustain inflammation.
- Lifestyle: Obesity, unregulated stress, tobacco use, drinking too much, lack of physical activity, lousy sleep and, of course, poor diet are all linked to chronic inflammation.
And getting older increases inflammation, too?
Unfortunately, yes. The older we are, the more exposure we've had to stuff like environmental toxins, stress, alcohol, bad foods and chronic diseases. Plus, aging makes it more difficult for our bodies to properly manage our immune systems, to extract nutrients from food and to shed extra pounds. “There are thousands of articles in the science literature related to aging and inflammation,” says Thomas Buford, an associate professor with the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine's division of gerontology.
So what makes chronic inflammation happen?
Chronic inflammation is a cascading effect of reactions in the body, Pahwa says. Here's a (very) basic breakdown of what's going on.
- Something triggers the immune system. Whether it's a chronic disease, an autoimmune disorder, weight gain, psychological stress, poor nutrition, exposure to chemicals or allergens — something puts your body in a state of stress and keeps it there.
- The immune system responds. The body goes into attack mode with its inflammatory response, which also includes blood vessel expansion to increase blood flow to the problem areas. Blood is the primary delivery system for all these substances.
- And responds … and responds … and responds. An endless cycle of pro-inflammatory foods, rampant stress, bad sleep and more keeps this process in constant motion because we never give the body a break.
There are “pro-inflammatory foods"?
Yes, and they're the same foods you've been warned about by everyone from your dentist to your cardiologist. (And that's no surprise, because gingivitis and sclerotic arteries are both inflammatory conditions.) Foods high in sugar or high in unhealthy fats (think deli meats and fried foods) are top of the list.
"We don't fully understand it yet,” Buford says, “but now we know our gut microbiome, made up of trillions of bacteria, influences physiologic processes throughout the body.” We're born with a balance between good and bad bacteria in the gut. When that balance is thrown off — known as dysbiosis — it can lead to trouble. “A disregulated microbiome has been associated with metabolic diseases, pulmonary diseases,nervous system conditions, Alzheimer's — and these associations grow as we learn more and more,” Buford says.
