Chronic Inflammation and Autoimmune Disease
If you are a frequent blog reader on our site, you are probably well aware of the fact that current research has strongly linked chronic inflammation to chronic disease.
But what does that really mean? How do I know if I have “inflammation”? What can I do about it? These are great questions that we will try to tackle in the next series of blog posts as it is so important to your current and future health.
Let’s start with an unfortunately common form of chronic disease: autoimmune disease. Did you know that up to 23.5 million Americans suffer from an autoimmune disease?1 For those of you who don’t know what an autoimmune disease is, it is an illness that causes the immune system to produce antibodies that attack normal body tissues. The specific autoimmune disease is defined by the type of antibodies that are created and which normal body tissues the immune system attacks. Lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), Multiple Sclerosis, Crohn’s/Colitis, and Type 1 Diabetes are all autoimmune disorders, to name a small few.
Unfortunately, in clinic we are seeing the number of these cases rising in practice and in fact, 1 in 5 Canadians are expected to develop Rheumatoid Arthritis by 2036.2
If you have an autoimmune disease, do you ever wonder how it developed? Well, at some point, you had an inflammatory response in your body that continued long after it was needed. Essentially, your body perceives an injury or a threat within your own tissue, where of course, no real threat exists, and so a normal, acute immune response became a chronic and maladaptive one. For example, if you have RA, your body thinks your joints are injured so it continues sending inflammatory chemicals to “heal” the area. Rather than healing- since it doesn’t need healing in the first place- it just causes swelling and tenderness, making mobility difficult. You can see how the way to treat any autoimmune disease is to interrupt the chronic inflammatory response thereby stopping it from targeting normal body tissue. For more information on inflammation, please see https://doctords.com/blogs/news/all-about-chronic-inflammation .
So, over the past decade I have been searching for something to provide to patients as an extension of my practice to help them get to the root of pain and chronic disease and to help keep them healthy and well for as long as possible. This strong connection between chronic inflammation and chronic disease kept turning up in my research…and so did turmeric. Turmeric is one of nature’s most powerful anti-inflammatory and antioxidant, as confirmed by over 6000 research studies. After years of extension research with our partner scientists in India, we have developed a breakthrough turmeric formula, Dr. D’s Ultra BioTurmeric, that has been clinically proven to lower inflammatory blood markers and to substantially decrease the subjective reports of pain in patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis. For more information on this study, visit https://doctords.com/blogs/news/the-research-behind-dr-ds-ultra-bioturmeric
Now let’s take a step back for a minute. I don’t want you to think that all inflammation is bad. Inflammation is the immune system’s response to injury, toxins or infection, essentially, that’s how we heal. This short-term, or acute, inflammation is beneficial when it is under control, however, inflammation that persists longer than necessary, in other words, when it gets out of control, is known as chronic inflammation.
What’s important to know is that turmeric’s anti-inflammatory action does not prevent a healthy, or acute, inflammatory response. It instead helps to regulate the unhealthy inflammation, and helps to return the body’s defense mechanisms back to normal. In other words, turmeric enables your body to move back into the range of a healthy inflammatory response system, so that you have inflammation when you need it and your body can turn off the response when you don’t, thereby preventing the unnecessary harm to your body that is typical of autoimmune disease.
To bring home this point further, I like to use the example of the unfortunately common autoimmune disorders of the digestive system, Ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease. Ulcerative colitis is characterized by ongoing inflammation in the large intestine and rectum whereas Crohn’s can affect anywhere along the GI tract. If intestinal inflammation remains untreated, it can decrease your gut’s ability to absorb nutrients from your food, as well as promote the overgrowth of bad gut bacteria such as candida (or yeast). In this way, your gut health is highly related to your overall health. Turmeric, having anti-fungal properties, can prevent candida overgrowth. It also reduces intestinal cell damage and infection in the digestive tract, and can repair ulcers. Turmeric can therefore reduce pain and inflammation associated with autoimmune disorders such as Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn’s. When you reduce the inflammation in your gut and balance out the healthy bacteria in your digestive tract, you will be better equipped to absorb nutrients which can help to regulate and improve your immune health. This is a perfect illustration of how turmeric can not only help with the disease or condition at hand, but can also aid the body in returning back to a healthy inflammatory response system…in other words, a healthy, more effective and efficient, immune system.
For more information on how you can lead an anti-inflammatory lifestyle, visit our blog https://doctords.com/blogs/news/tips-and-tricks-to-leading-an-anti-inflammatory-lifestyle
*THE CONTENT IN THESE BLOGS IS STRICTLY EDUCATIONAL AND NOT INTENDED TO BE A SUBSTITUTE FOR PROFESSIONAL MEDICAL ADVICE, DIAGNOSIS, OR TREATMENT. ALWAYS SEEK THE ADVICE OF YOUR PHYSICIAN OR OTHER QUALIFIED HEALTHCARE PROVIDER WITH ANY QUESTIONS YOU MAY HAVE REGARDING A MEDICAL CONDITION OR YOUR GENERAL HEALTH. ALWAYS THOROUGHLY READ AND FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS ON THE LABELS OF YOUR SUPPLEMENTS AND/OR MEDICATIONS. NOTE THAT THE CONTENT IN THESE BLOGS MAY BECOME OUTDATED AS NEWER RESEARCH IS PUBLISHED.
Sources:
- Genentech. Autoimmune Disease 101. https://www.gene.com/stories/autoimmune-disease-101
- Bayshore Healthcare. Rheumatoid Arthritis. https://www.bayshore.ca/care-by-medical-condition/rheumatoid-arthritis/
Excerpts taken from The Power of Turmeric: A Healing and Preventative Guide, Dr. Fabio Di Stefano, Publisher Production Solutions, 2018