Recent studies and experience have revealed that inflammation is at the root of diseases including heart disease, cancer, auto immune diseases, etc. When our bodies are under chronic stress (from physical and emotional stressors) it can create an inflammatory state in your body. Inflammation short term is a way that our bodies create healing from an acute stress such as a cut, fracture, or illness. We need to have the ability to create an inflammatory state short term in order to heal properly. This is ok and does not cause problems.
The problem arises when we are exposed to stressors on a regular basis and our body is in a constant state of fighting inflammation. This can translate into heart disease, cancer, dementia, auto immune diseases, etc. The body is in defense mode and actually starts hurting itself because it was not designed to stay in this high defense mode for a prolonged time.
Let’s look at heart disease. For a while now, we have been fed the information that lowering cholesterol will help reduce heart disease. These medications are some of the top prescribed medications in the country. However, many doctors who used to promote the use of cholesterol lowering medication now retract that recommendation. It is now felt that the cholesterol lowering medication only appeared to help a little bit by lowering inflammation–not by having cholesterol be “perfect”.
Cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease, rather it is caused by a combination of factors including inflammation in the body. There are too many people with “perfect” cholesterol having heart issues and people with “horrible” cholesterol numbers that do not–inflammation has been definitely linked to people having heart disease no matter what their cholesterol number is. In fact, if your cholesterol level is too low it messes with your hormones and overall functioning. You need a healthy cholesterol level because cholesterol is actually an important part of every cell in your body.
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