Chronic Inflammation

Simply defined, inflammation is a response of body tissues to injury or irritation, characterized by pain and swelling, redness and heat. Basically, inflammation is the body’s way of healing itself when it is injured. For example when you cut yourself and the cut becomes red and puffy, that really means that your body is doing its job to heal you as fast as it can. Once the cut is healed, the pain and swelling go away, signaling the tissue is healed. This is called acute inflammation.

A broader definition for inflammation is a complex biological response of tissues to harmful stimuli, such as pathogens, damaged cells, or irritants. By this definition, we are now discussing the body’s response to virtually any negative stimulus, not just an injury. This is a really important concept to understand, because this means that as long as that inflammatory stimulus is around, inflammation will occur.

Many of us may think that you don't have pain or other symptoms, so your body doesn't have inflammation. But, the truth is that inflammation affects every one of us to some degree, whether we know it or not. Lifestyle factors such as stress, unbalanced diets, nutrient deficiencies, inactive lifestyles and exposure to environmental pollutants all cause inflammation in the body. But unlike a cut or bruise, this type of inflammation isn’t transient – it never completely goes away, so the body is constantly in a state of low-grade inflammation. This 'lifestyle-influenced' inflammation is referred to as chronic inflammation.

Chronic Inflammation is a low-grade ongoing or recurrent condition that occurs when the immune system perceives itself to be under attack. In some cases this is the correct response, however many cases of chronic inflammation are due to what is called an autoimmune response. This is where the immune system attacks other parts of the body – joints, organs, and/or tissues – inappropriately. Chronic inflammation often produces symptoms of pain and swelling that either occur continuously, or repeatedly and intermittently flare up.

It's important to remember that we can’t always feel this type of inflammation, but that’s not to say that it’s any less important. In fact, this often silent, chronic inflammation is the culprit of many degenerative diseases, including arthritis, cancer, atherosclerosis, obesity, diabetes, congestive heart failure, fibromyalgia, digestive diseases, and Alzheimer's disease… just to name a few. Because we are beginning to understand the relationship between inflammation and lifestyle factors, we can address this with specific anti-inflammatory techniques such as measuring your pH, eating anti-inflammatory and detoxifying foods, and physical activity. This means that we can reduce the impact of inflammation. According to peer reviewed, published research, SierraSil supports this healing process by curtailing the inflammation on a gene suppression level. With a healthy inflammation response, the repair process can begin and inflammation symptoms such as pain and swelling subside.