Inflammatory Soup part 2

It's a bold statement but all pain arises from inflammation and the inflammatory response (IR). According to the American Pain Foundation 75 million people are in chronic pain. Thats a whole lot of inflammation out there.

Inflammation has three phases
1. Injury
2. Maintanace
3. Termination

Here is essentially a dumbed down version of the cascade that is taking place.

Injury>basophils,mast cells, plateletes release>serotonin, histamine, and nitric oxide> these bind to receptors and nerves and release> substance P and Calcitonin gene related pepteide.

clotting factors in blood release >inflammatory mediators> neurokinin a, bradykinin, kallidin, t-kinin>Increased blood flow>stimulate Arachidonic acid metabolism and get>prostaglandins and attract immune cells>neutrophils, monocytes, macrophages>release cytokines>more immune cells>white blood cells.

this is the initial cascade and results in an inflammatory soup of chemical mediatiors. prostaglandin, nitric oxide, tumor necorsis factor, interleukin 1 alpha, beta, interleukin 4,6,8, histamine and serotonin.

As you can see, there is a lot things going on in the body. Again this is a very simple version, there a many enzymes and other chemicals involved in inflammation. But what I'm trying to get at is that, it's complex, it's chemicals, it's going on in your body.

So with acute inflammation what can you do?

Supplement with Curcumin. Curcumin has been shown to combat tumor necrosis factor alpha. Fish oil, I've espoused on the benefits of fish oil in the past, but it has a direct effect on prostaglandins. Eat less grains. Grains have omega 6 fatty acids which increase your arachidonic acid. The more arachidonic acid you have in your body, the more prostaglandins you will have to be released. Boswellia. Boswellia works by blocking the lethal pro-inflammatory enzyme 5-lipoxygenase (5-LOX). It also combats tumor necrosis factor alpha.

So there you go. With acute injury add these supplements and strategy to your diet and help keep the inflammation in check.