Why Inflammation Isn’t The Villain You Think It Is

TL;DR

• Inflammation is an important process that helps our tissues heal and protects us from infection. It happens in response to injury, illness, or perceived injury/illness.
• For minor, acute injuries, we don’t want to impede the inflammation process. We may therefore want to avoid taking NSAIDs or icing.
• Studies have shown that NSAIDs and icing can impede muscle recovery and growth in athletes.
• Inflammation becomes problematic if it gets carried away or becomes long-term. This can happen after a serious injury or illness, an autoimmune disorder, or in response to chronic stress.
• To reduce chronic inflammation, we can take a number of steps described below.

If I asked you for your thoughts on inflammation, you’d probably wonder why I asked such a weird question and then say something along the lines of: I know it’s bad and I know I don’t want it! You might talk about how you’re actively taking steps to reduce inflammation. For example, you might pop fish oil vitamins or turmeric pills. You might dunk in ice baths or drink buckets or water or crunch on kale or take an ibuprofen when a headache comes on. Regardless of what you’re doing, many of us take steps to reduce inflammation.

However, what if I told you that inflammation isn’t all bad? What if I told you that inflammation is the misunderstood villain in the movie who is really good at heart and just trying their best? Don’t get me wrong, chronic (long-term) inflammation is bad news. But there’s a reason our bodies experience inflammation in the first place. While it might seem like your body is out to get you as soon as you hit age 30, there is (mostly) a method to its madness.

The Important Role of Inflammation

This is probably pretty obvious, but I’ll say it anyway: we experience inflammation when we have an injury or illness (or our bodies think we are experiencing an injury or illness). Injuries and illnesses both indicate that our body has been attacked and is in need of resources to repair itself. Inflammation is our body’s way of directing resources to an attacked area. In this post, I focus on inflammation in response to injury rather than illness.

Specifically, when we have an injury, white blood cells register that our body is under attack. Like sentinels on the lookout, they sound the alarm and send out soldiers (i.e. chemicals) to injured or infected tissues to protect them from “invaders.” They also send out neutrophils and macrophages to eat up damaged tissues, clearing the way for new healthy tissue.

A few days into that process, those macrophages switch from clearing up damaged tissues to building new, healthy ones. They actually switch from being pro-inflammatory to anti-inflammatory. The body is crazy, right?! This process leads to increased blood flow to an area.

Without the inflammation process, we wouldn’t be able to build new, healthy tissue. Our damaged tissue would also be at greater risk of infection. Indeed, in a study of mice, scientists genetically altered a group of mice so that they could not experience inflammation after an injury. The other group was not genetically altered. Both groups of mice were injured and the group that could not experience inflammation never healed.

If Inflammation Is So Great, Why Is It Painful?

If inflammation just healed tissues and improved blood flow, we’d want to increase it instead of decrease it. Unfortunately, inflammation has a pretty gross byproduct: fluid leakage. It’s pretty hard to think of two words that are less appealing when put together. This fluid leakage is what leads to swelling, redness, and pain, the classic things we think of when we consider inflammation.

It’s like your body is undergoing a big construction project to tear down a crumbling building and build a beautiful new one in its place. We all know that a byproduct of construction is a big messy traffic jam. In this case, the beautification project is your body’s helpful neutrophils and macrophages tearing down old, damaged tissues and building new, healthy tissues. However, the traffic jam is the resulting fluid leakage that can put pressure on your body’s other systems and make you feel generally gross.

So despite the (*barfs a little*) fluid leakage situation, you can see that inflammation serves an important purpose. It sounds very sensible and valuable for our body to have a system that directs resources to ailing tissues and produces new, healthier ones.

Why Inflammation Gets a Bad Rap

There are three problems with inflammation, however, that have turned it into the much-maligned villain we think of today. First, inflammation can sometimes get carried away. Like an over-zealous general with the war cry of, “destroy everything in your path,” sometimes in the process of getting rid of those damaged tissues, our body starts consuming healthy tissues as well. This leads to slower recovery after an injury and is more likely to happen after a severe injury.

The second problem can occur when the body thinks there’s an enemy and sends resources to combat it, but there isn’t one. This problem is much like another misled protagonist—Don Quixote fighting a windmill, thinking it’s a dragon. This misguided response is what happens with autoimmune disorders like Celiac’s disease, Rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus. Your body becomes entangled in a resource-heavy fight based on misguided premises. Blood cells, they’re just like us!

The third problem, and the one we most commonly hear about, is when inflammation moves from acute (or short-term) to chronic (long-term). Chronic inflammation can happen when we’re consistently exposed to physical or mental stressors. They can be stressors the body perceives to be issues but are not (like in autoimmune disorders), chronic infections or pollutants, or the one that may resonate with most of us—chronic stress. Chronic inflammation can eat away at tissues causing progressive muscle loss. Plus, chronic inflammation puts your body in a perpetual fight-or-flight mode, straining many of your body’s systems.⁵

What Does This Mean For Us?

These are all important reasons to combat chronic inflammation. I’ll get to some strategies for this in the next section below.

However, our all-out focus on chronic inflammation and our association with inflammation and pain has meant that we tend to do all we can to stop inflammation from ever occurring, even when it is likely valuable. We ice at the first sign of injury and down NSAIDS (even preventively) to avoid even the least bit of discomfort. But doing so may actually prevent our bodies from recovering quickly.⁷

For example, many NSAIDS stop an inflammatory enzyme called COX-2 from operating. COX-2 is partially responsible for starting up that process of building up new tissues.⁴ NSAIDS can also reduce pain, which sounds great, but may prevent you from listening to your body’s signals if it’s not ready to get back into your regular workout routine.⁸

NSAIDs and other means of reducing inflammation certainly have a place. However, the key is that you probably shouldn’t take NSAIDs preventively, unless directed by a doctor. If you have a minor, local, acute injury, inflammation researchers generally recommend that you avoid NSAIDs and icing for the first few days as your body starts on its helpful inflammation process.

Of course, if you have a chronic or serious injury or have any doubts as to whether your injury is minor or how to treat it, make sure you consult a doctor.

Combatting Chronic Inflammation

As mentioned above, it’s chronic inflammation that causes the bigger problems and that we want to reduce. Chronic inflammation is the inflammation that gets carried away and clears away good tissues and sends our body into constant, high alert, wasting resources and energy.

You can help tamp down chronic inflammation by:

1. Getting enough sleep (ideally 7-9 hours a night).
2. Drinking water. The typical recommendation is 8-10 cups a day. However, a more informative sign with whether your pee is consistently a light color.
3. Regularly exercising. Walking, running, yoga, weightlifting, swimming, biking, and tennis are all good options. Ideally you should aim for 2 strength training sessions per week and 150 minutes of moderate cardiovascular activity per week. Keep in mind that over-exercising is, however, associated with chronic inflammation.
4. Quit smoking and limit alcohol.
5. Maintain a weight that is healthy for you.
6. Cultivate strong, social relationships.
7. Engage in activities that reduce stress, like a favorite hobby or spending time in nature or with animals. It’s also important to limit activities that cause stress, like scrolling on social media or managing your work/life balance.
8. Consume anti-inflammatory foods and limit inflammatory foods. Anti-inflammatory foods include: fruits, leafy greens, nuts, fatty fish (like salmon and mackerel), tomatoes, and olive oil. Inflammatory foods include: soda, refined carbs (like white bread), fried foods, red and processed meat, and margarine, shortening, and lard.
9. Add spices. Turmeric, rosemary, ginger, cinnamon, and cumin are all associated with lower levels of inflammation.

Take Home Message

So if you have a minor injury, you may have the best outcomes by giving your body rest and recovery and foregoing NSAIDs and ice. You should also avoid taking NSAIDs preventively except under the direction of a doctor.

If you aren’t sure the best course of action, have a serious injury, or discomfort lasts more than a few days, seek out medical advice for the best course of action.

If you are interested in related content, check out my posts on pairing foods for maximum nutritional benefit, acupuncture, and getting a good sleep naturally. Please consider liking, subscribing, or sharing if you enjoyed this post, I always really appreciate it.

And remember that I am not a medical professional. This advice is only for informational and entertainment purposes and should not be used in lieu of medical treatment. Before making any medical decisions, please consult with a medical professional.