Is Inflammation Bad For You Or Good For You?

Systemic inflammation can be a mixed bag. On the one hand, inflammation can help you during a period of injury. On the other inflammation can indicate that you are high risk for a variety of illnesses including heart disease. A test for C-reactive protein can be valuable in determining inflammation in your system, but one must be cautious as it cannot tell you what is causing said inflammation. To deal with excessive systemic inflammation, a healthy program of diet and exercise can be very helpful

Key Takeaways:

• One theory is that "bad" cholesterol deposits injure blood vessel walls, setting off an inflammatory response that can lead to the formation of blood clots that cause heart attacks.
• But the blood test for the hs-CRP marker isn't specific, which means it can tell you there's inflammation going on, but not why it's happening
• For a healthy person with no troubling symptoms or heart disease risk factors, it's not clear what a test to measure inflammation would add to the lifestyle advice you already know to follow

"Chronic, low-level inflammation seems to play a role in a host of diseases, including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer's, cancer and even depression. And even though the science on inflammation and disease is far from settled, tests and treatments are being promoted that claim to reduce that risk."

Read more: //www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/07/21/538377221/is-inflammation-bad-for-you-or-good-for-you