CANCER, HEART DISEASE, dementia, diabetes: In the lexicon of ageing and disease, these are some worrisome words. But researchers have suspected for years that all of these health issues, and more, have at their heart one common trigger: chronic low-grade inflammation. And now they may finally have proof.
In 2017, researchers in Boston reported on a clinical trial with more than 10,000 patients (mean age: 61) in 39 countries that tested whether an anti-inflammatory drug, canakinumab, could lower rates of heart disease. They discovered that it could, but they also found that it reduced lung cancer mortality more than 67 per cent, and reports of gout and arthritis (conditions linked to inflammation) also fell.
“Inflammation plays a role in everyone’s health,” says Dr Dana DiRenzo, a rheumatologist and instructor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, USA. 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.
When is inflammation a problem?
When you catch the flu and your body temperature rises to fight the virus, that’s a form of acute inflammation. So is the redness and swelling that occur when you sprain your ankle. The process is a temporary, helpful response to an injury or illness. It provides the healing chemicals and nutrients your body needs to repair the damage. Once the danger goes away, so does the inflammation.
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