Inflammation. Your body’s process of fighting against things that harm it, like infections, injuries, and toxins, in an attempt to heal itself. However, it is a word I am hearing more and more these days from the clients that I work with. I’m talking about chronic inflammation more so than acute.
Chronic inflammation can be caused by many different factors, but some major culprits are:
1. Diet (Probably the biggest factor)
2. Proinflammatory dysbiosis (I see this a ton on GI-Map tests)
3. Food sensitivities
4. Lack of sleep
5. Mineral deficiencies (especially magnesium)
6. Stress (leads to magnesium deficiency)
7. Dehydration
8. Toxin exposure
Most people (including doctors and pharmacists) reach first for nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (more commonly known as NSAIDs) for relief. The most common of these are ibuprofen (Advil and Motrin) and naproxen (Aleve). When utilized in the short-term, NSAIDs can be extremely helpful. However, long-term usage can damage your gut lining and cause ulcers, gastritis, GI bleeding, edema, and increased cardiovascular thrombotic events.
Don’t get me wrong. On occasion, when I need some quick pain relief, I take ibuprofen too. Thankfully, this is a rare occasion now and not near as frequent as it used to be. I want to stress that this should not be a long-term solution for inflammation though. I have found that most people over the age of 30 are having some sort of inflammatory issues regularly. That’s why it is so important to be PROACTIVE (living a more healthy lifestyle) instead of REACTIVE (relying on NSAIDs).
As I mentioned, the first thing we can do to prevent inflammation is through our lifestyle choices:
• What we eat
• Quality and amount of sleep
• Reducing our toxin exposure
• Addressing and reducing stress
• Making sure to hydrate
We can seek to find some root causes of inflammation like gut testing, food sensitivity testing, and getting mineral levels checked. We can also use natural herbs and plants with anti-inflammatory properties that pack many other health benefits as well, some of which include:
1. Turmeric
2. Quercetin
3. NAC (N-acetylcysteine)
4. Tart cherry juice
5. Polyphenols
6. Omega 3 fatty acids
7. Therapeutic grade essential oils (Black pepper, Copaiba, Frankincense, Ginger, Cinnamon, Turmeric)
All of these can be found in food sources or high-quality supplements.
What other natural anti-inflammatories do you love?
