Inflammation has been linked to a lot of bad things so knowing what causes it can be of some help. If you’re not sure exactly what is inflammation than in a nutshell it is when the body tries to heal an injury. Of course things are much more complicated than that. The body itself is a fascinating thing and is a survival machine. Say you are walking through the woods and step on a strange rock that sprains your ankle.
What then happens is that the ankle will probably get red, maybe even hot and then expands. This is an example of inflammation. The human body senses this injury and sends in the police, fireman, paramedics, shrinks, superman and also president Obama.
The point is that this swelling is extra blood and this carries a lot of various minerals and nutrients to heal the injury. However the immune system, which is mostly white blood cells gets to act like a jealous boyfriend or girlfriend and starts to attack a whole bunch of stuff even if there is no enemy around.
As you can probably guess this leads to a lot of innocent bystanders that get hurt and this is a big reason that inflammation can be unhealthy. Have you ever wondered why someone should ice an injury to prevent swelling, well this is one reason to do this. Heat increases blood to an area and this can be beneficial in some situations as well.
What causes inflammation is anything than can cause an injury and this includes food as well. The major food culprits are as follows
1) Processed foods- Yep hot dogs are on this list as well as potato chips and
2) Sugars- I’m not talking about the sugar in in apple but the kind that everyone likes such as donuts, and cupcakes
3) Trans fats – the guys are not really fats but are fake wannabes. Instead of good fats being used in cells these guys get in there and then it’s too late. Think of it like you are about to get surgery done and then find out at the last moment that your surgeon was really just an artificial doctor and a high school freshman.
4) Refined grams – Stuff like white breads, white rice and foods that are stripped of nutritional value.
So now that we now some of the main reasons that cause inflammation how can we stop it? The easiest answer would not to get injured and to avoid foods that cause this process. Another way that could surprise you would be to consume omega 3 like in fish oil.
Fish oil is good because it doesn’t have contaminations like a lot of fish and tuna have. To fully understand how omega 3 fish oil can help it’s good to know omega 3’s close brother which is called omega 6. They are both fatty acids and both use enzymes that help control the inflammation response. When we have more omega 6’s in our diet than omega 3 we promote inflammation.
Omega 6 is extremely common in many people’s diets and is found in breads, meats, cereal and grains. Also eating omega 6 can deplete someone’s omega 3’s in their system. Getting omega 3 is the challenging part. This is because it’s found in fish and nuts which are two things that
a lot people don’t eat. Plus nuts can increase the chance of obesity. If you don’t believe me about the obesity part I’ll give you a can of nuts while you’re watching some TV and I’ll bet you that can will be empty in a short amount of time.
I recommend taking a fish oil supplement because it’s an easy way someone can get omega 3 and reduce inflammation. There are a lot of products that someone can use and to help choose a good one I endorse viewing a free guide about how someone can choose a good supplement. To view this guide click on free guide on supplements.