Inflammation

I’m going to be discussing inflammation.

I started out in the fitness industry. I became a sports therapist back in 1995. I’ve been dealing with inflammation from injuries.

When I left the fitness industry I went back to train in nutrition, but primarily focusing on the low carb high fat lifestyle.

I studied under Professor Tim Noakes. As a doctor and a scientist and himself an athlete, he’d run 70 marathons and ultra marathons and written an array of books on the subject.

He found himself with type two diabetes, and obviously as an athlete, that was a bit of a shock,  when you found it was down to the carb loading which so many  athletes do.

He then went on a mission with a low carb high fat lifestyle and all the huge benefits it entails.

After leaving the fitness industry, I had gained a lot of weight.  I wasn’t thinking about inflammation or  the health aspects, I just wanted to lose weight fast.

I did that through the keto diet and combining that with intermittent fasting. Because it worked so fast, I really wanted to understand why, because it went against everything that I’d studied previously, being a level three personal trainer we were taught that,  carbohydrates are needed  for energy, breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

I wanted to understand the scientific data, because this was still quite a fairly new concept. And I’m really glad, because what I have found is that health has definitely improved, inflammation has definitely reduced through following this regime.

Let’s talk about what is inflammation. It is something that is needed, initially, because it’s the first port of call as it were to trigger the healing response.

We do not need prolonged inflammation. Chronic inflammation leads to all kinds of diseases.

Heart disease, stroke, cancers type two diabetes are all on the increase. The NHS is spending 10 billion per year on diabetes.

There are millions of people walking around with insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome and if nothing is done about it to reverse that, they are heading towards type 2 diabetes.

Trauma or Overuse

Say you pull a hamstring or pull a calf muscle, there’s  heat in that area, definitely pain, there will be redness and swelling.

You would have torn some muscle tissue and blood vessels, possibly tendon or ligament damage.

There are a few reasons for swelling and pain, first is to stop you doing what you’re doing, to prevent doing any further damage.

It’s going to initiate the healing response and the body needs to know what tissues you need repairing.

In the first 24 to 48 hours, we would recommend ice, to reduce inflammation, to  keep the blood flow away from that area. Just like if you had a leaky pipe, the plumber would turn off the water supply first.

So that is inflammation caused by trauma, an outside force (fall) or overuse.

What about cellular inflammation?

The causes are

Stress

Cortisol is a stress hormone. It’s there for a good reason.  Our ancestors, years ago were being chased by saber toothed tigers. We needed the flight or fight response.

Nowadays we haven’t actually got a sabre toothed tiger chasing us, there is actually no danger. However, there’s a lot of perceived danger, which is a key.

The body is under so much stress, all the time cortisol is present. The goal of the inflammation is to respond to the stimuli, and to create balance.

Other causes can be chemicals, viruses, bacteria, allergens, artificial light not enough sleep, not enough vitamin D

So what can we do about it, because we do not want cellular inflammation for too long because as I said that’s going to go on to cause a problem, heart disease, stroke, cancers type two diabetes.

Our diet has changed dramatically. I would pretty much guarantee that 3 million years ago, if we were eating the foods that we eat now, we wouldn’t be here. The human race would not have survived this long.

Too many processed carbs, too much fructose in the liver, which turns into the dense LDL that causes inflammation. Vitamin D would help eliminate that but most people are vitamin D deficient.

Also most people in the western world have too many omega 6 in their diet and not enough omega 3.

The ratio should be at a 3:1 and if not, cellular inflammation and also cell fluidity is reduced, where the cells which are surrounded by fat, if they’ve come more from bad vegetable (polyunsaturated) oils, thicken the cell wall, so that nutrients from your food struggle to get through.

By balancing out the omega 6:3 ratio can sort this problem out within 4 months.

I use test based nutrition with my clients, where we test the blood before and after, offer a balance oil to correct this. For more info go to http://www.karenrobertscoaching.com/immune-system-boost-registration/

To reduce cellular inflammation, we need to go back to eating real foods, unprocessed foods, get exercise, get sunlight, or supplement with Vitamin D. Consume a low carb diet and eat more oily fish and olives.