The Dangers of Inflammation in the Body

Healthforus Inflammation is regarded as the “Secret Killer” in modern science circles and for good reason! While natural inflammation is a good thing, when inflammation in the body goes awry and becomes chronic inflammation, it could lead to serious diseases such as arthritis, allergies, heart disease and even cancer.

Acute Inflammation vs Chronic Inflammation

Natural inflammation is termed “acute inflammation” and is a normal function meant to keep the body healthy.  Acute inflammation is triggered when damage to the body occurs through stress, injury, or toxic exposure. Usually, this type of inflammation is short-term and tolerable. It comes on at the first sight of damage and is then turned off once the body has had sufficient time to repair that damage. The only side effects we may notice are pain, redness, and swelling.

Chronic Inflammation is more long-term and is actually the result of the body’s inability to turn off the normal inflammatory response.  When the inflammatory response cannot be shut off, the body begins to have difficulty determining damaged cells from healthy cells and essentially starts attacking everything in sight. The result is a breakdown in the health of your body as a whole, long-term pain and susceptibility to a variety of painful and, potentially, life-threatening diseases.

Preventing chronic inflammation

Modern medicine would have to think that the only solution to beating chronic inflammation is to adopt a lifestyle of pain relievers and anti-inflammatory drugs. These drugs may be prescribed things such as glucocorticoid steroids, or common NSAIDs found over the counter like aspirin, or ibuprofen. The problem is that a lot of these drugs have side effects of their own which can encourage further illness.

The better approach to preventing or correcting inflammation in the body is to adopt an anti-inflammatory lifestyle complete with an anti-inflammatory diet and anti-inflammatory supplements.

An anti-inflammatory diet encourages eating mostly fresh foods (particularly fruits and vegetables) rich in vitamin B6, Niacin amide, vitamin E (in a low dose), vitamin C, and minerals such as magnesium and zinc- all natural inflammation fighters- and cutting out the processed foods and sugars.  Probably the most popular example of an anti inflammatory diet is the Zone Diet . You may read foods to reduce inflammation in the body to learn more about some useful foods/drinks you should take if you feel discomfort with inflammation.

Additionally, it’s important to supplement your diet with anti inflammatory supplements to make up for any nutrients that your body may be lacking.  For example, an Omega-3 supplement and Vitamin D (which 2 out of 3 individuals are currently deficient in).

Nopalea, the natural anti inflammatory

Even if you do decide to move toward an anti inflammatory lifestyle through diet, you should not disregard Nopalea as a supplement to help you along. There is no telling that every day you are going to get the right balance of nutrients so Nopalea could act as your “safety net”. Additionally Nopalea contains 24 rare antioxidants called Betalains which are found in only a handful of fruits and vegetables of the world and are scientifically proven to be the most powerful inflammation fighting compounds on the planet.