14 ms·

Could inflammation be the cause of myriad chronic conditions? (2019)

208 points by gardenfelder 3y ago

RagnarD 3y ago
This is far from a new thought. A great deal has been written about this.
stefantalpalaru 3y ago
[dead]
gardenfelder 3y ago
"“We were actually surprised that reduced inflammation was the biggest explainer, the biggest contributor to the benefit of activity,” says Mora, “because we hadn’t hypothesized that. We knew that regular exercise does reduce inflammation over the long term, but we also knew that acute exercise transiently increases inflammatory biomarkers during and immediately after exertion.” About a third of the benefit of regular exercise, they found, is attributable to reduced inflammation."
- NoPicklez 3y ago
  From my understanding of exercise and inflammation, is that inflammation is the bodies stress & repair mechanism kicking in as a result of muscular damage etc from exercise. The acute inflammation following exercise is the body signalling to repair itself, hopefully resulting in adaptations that make the muscles and surrounding tissue stronger. Following that your body in theory is better equipped to cope with future exercise/movement stresses, therefore attributable to reduced inflammation long term. This is why there is somewhat of a debate in the exercise community around the true benefit of ice baths, hot/cold plunges, compression leggings etc. Whilst they feel good, these work to try to reduce inflammation, which is not necessarily what we want after exercise. There is a time and a place for reducing inflammation.
  - BLKNSLVR 3y ago
    In my thesis-length comment above (below) I said that inflammation is a symptom and not a cause. Some causes are 'good', ie. exercise, and some causes are bad, ie. allergies. I treat the pain / inflammation from 'good' causes as a well-earned reward (if God exists, this is one of its greatest practical jokes). Treating inflammation from 'bad' causes (outside of genetic disposition) is probably a bad thing in that it's treating symptoms, not trying to find the cause, and in fact actively supressing the ability find the cause. Edit: added 'Treating' in front of the last sentence so it makes sense.
    - NoPicklez 3y ago
      Yep, I agree, inflammation is a symptom not a cause. (I also commented on your comment). My comment just above doesn't describe it as a cause, but a symptom, in this case muscular damage from exercise. In your case, it was due to S1 L5 discs pulling on each other during exercise, which is different. But nonetheless, inflammation brought upon as a symptom of something else. Which goes for almost everything else in the body when inflammation arises.
    - hhjinks 3y ago
      >Treating inflammation from 'bad' causes (outside of genetic disposition) is probably a bad I'm pretty sure most asthmatics would disagree.
      - lazide 3y ago
        Albuterol doesn’t treat inflammation directly, but is absolutely critical for emergency management. And control meds for children seem to (oddly) have zero actual benefit in controlled studies almost every time. But do seem to work. Which is pretty odd, no? There is a lot we don’t know about asthma. Exercise and stress reduction do seem to help, but also not in obvious ways.
        hhjinks 3y ago
        Well, asthma is multifaceted. You can have an obstruction caused by muscles contracting, or by mucus from inflammation. In either case, dilating the muscles, which is what albuterol does, can give you better air flow, lessening your perceptible symptoms. You'd still want a corticosteorid-based medicide to treat the inflammation if you have that kind of asthma, though, as the chronic inflammation can worsen your illness over time, hence my original comment.
- dukeofdoom 3y ago
  I'm just thinking that some of the longest living people are monks. They don't really exercise that much.
  - Libcat99 3y ago
    A lot of the longest living people (and maybe more telling, communities with the longest living members) are not very gym focused at all. If you walk everywhere every day, do most of your daily chores by hand, and don't sit in an office all day, you are likely getting plenty of exercise even if you never touch a set of weights or treadmill.
    - unnamed76ri 3y ago
      You’re also very unlikely to be eating a lot of ultra-processed foods and you’ll be getting a lot more natural sunlight than most.
      - agos 3y ago
        I'm not an expert on monk lifestyle but I'm pretty confident they lead a less stressful life than most here
    - WalterSear 3y ago
      They also, by definition, came of age when we knew much less about longevity. They may not necessary be living the most longevity promoting lifestyle - just one that's markedly better than the average.
    - dukeofdoom 3y ago
      I would agree with that. Maybe walking is key. After visiting Paris, and seeing lots fit people despite a diet of croissants, baguette, butter and cheese. But they also walk so much...
  - thsksbd 3y ago
    They're also the diametric opposite of idle. I know a guy who almost became a zen monk. By march he writes the allotted number of scientific papers for the year (he works for a govt lab). He's the editor of the top journal in his field. Meanwhile, he's self taught himself philosophy and teaches it (pro bono?) at a University you've heard of. He also reads >150 books / year
- Aurornis 3y ago
  Inflammatory signaling isn’t all “bad”, just like how oxidative stress and cortisol aren’t unilaterally bad. A lot of people have a really broken, superficial understanding of these topics and assume that all these processes and chemicals in our body are bad and must be reduced as much as possible, but they play important roles in the body. Many people are surprised to learn that taking a lot of antioxidants before working out actually reduces the effectiveness of exercise. Influencers have peddled this idea that oxidation is bad and antioxidants are good for so long that people think it’s a number they just need to push downward as much as possible with as many supplements as they can take.
celiaatria 3y ago
[flagged]
vonnik 3y ago
Robert Lustig makes the point in this podcast with Huberman that the sugars and transfats in processed food are responsible for a lot of inflammation that comes from the modern diet. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/huberman-lab/id1545953110?i=1000638917560 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/huberman-lab/id1545953... ~51st minute
- beebmam 3y ago
  What evidence does he present for this claim?
  - hombre_fatal 3y ago
    Here's Layne Norton's response to Lustig and that exact Huberman episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZPKTaVB1IU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZPKTaVB1IU It'll answer your question.
    - Etheryte 3y ago
      Surely you can provide a better summary than just linking to a video that's an hour long. No one is gonna watch all that on your "trust me bro".
      - SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
        > No one is gonna watch all that on your "trust me bro". I see you've never met the UFO/UAP community.
    - sideshowb 3y ago
      Are these people unable to write?
      - phatfish 3y ago
        You don't "go viral" writing something.
smurda 3y ago
“We use the word ‘inflammation’ colloquially, as if we understand what we are saying. But dig a little deeper and the word becomes a clown car of meanings. Is it the chronic irritation of an autoimmune disease? The lingering residue of a postviral syndrome? A nonhealing wound?” Good description of a generic catch-all term that could have a variety of specific meanings. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/12/18/all-the-carcinogens-we-cannot-see https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/12/18/all-the-carcin...
- AA-BA-94-2A-56 3y ago
  Many people on social media use the word inflammation as if they're describing a root cause that they have control over, such as dietary cholesterol or exercise. But my understanding of this word is that inflammation is a symptom– an indirect result of any number of other factors.
  - arghwhat 3y ago
    Inflammation is just an activation of the immune defense system - the swelling is entirely intentional and healthy. What is annoying the immune defense system is the problem, and can in some cases be caused by a bug in the system (auto-immune disease). Erroneously attributing correlation as causation is a common mistake. Blood cholesterol - entirely distinct from dietary cholesterol - was also commonly completely misunderstood as a cause, even though it like inflammation is a healthy and necessary response turned into a symptom...
- Aurornis 3y ago
  A lot of medical terms have been hijacked by influencers, including some influencer doctors. “Dopamine” is the other big offender. So many social media doctors and influencers building huge podcast followings with “dopamine” babble. Huberman is one of the worst offenders, but he seems to slip past a lot of people’s filters because he’s a doctor and he mixes actual studies into his extremely long podcasts so that people assume everything he’s saying is accurate.
  - 3y ago
BLKNSLVR 3y ago
Anecdote (may actually not be related, but I think it is): I had back surgery a few years ago due to infrequent recurring of sciatic pain that, during an "episode", made me unable to work for a couple of weeks at a time (I was unable walk or stand or sit for longer than two to three minutes without sciatic pain increasing to intolerable levels). It looked like a relatively simple, and not even particularly extreme, bulging L5 disc impinging on the S1 nerve. What they found out during the surgery (because there's no high-enough resolution scanning to detect this) was that the S1 nerve was actually 'tethered' to the slightly bulging L5 disc due to scar tissue that had become 'sticky' over a number of years (apparently scar tissue, in areas that get recurring aggravation, can become sticky). (Aside: the initial scar tissue was likely caused by a particularly memorably nasty football injury, after which I couldn't walk properly for a couple of weeks - knee drop the spine - yep, that'd do it) So, my issue was not actually caused by a bulging disc impinging the nerve. As it turns out, when doing physical activity (tennis, roller skating, trying to catch my misbehaving children) the S1 nerve moves slightly up and down the spinal nerve cavity as you move your legs whilst running, and this movement of the S1 nerve was 'pulling' on the 'tethered' L5 disc, causing aggravation and inflammation, and it was this inflammation impinging on the S1 nerve and causing the pain. And since the inflammation came well after the activity it takes a while to realise what's happening, such that the cause and the effect are separated by enough time as to make the (secondary) cause (ie. running activity) difficult to diagnose. My pain was caused by inflammation, but that's still only a symptom. The underlying cause, the real thing that actually needed to be fixed, for me, was the S1 nerve/L5 disc tethering. Inflammation is not a cause, it's a symptom. But it could be a symptom of an individual's genetics, and therefore not treatable by anything other than anti-inflammatory drugs. As another anecdote: I get phlegmy after eating certain things. I've heard this is a manifestation of low level allergy to whatever I've eaten. What makes sense to me is that an increased base level of inflammation is a symptom of slight allergy to something environmental. What also makes sense to me is that physical activity reduces inflammation as increasing the flow of blood around the body increases how quickly ones blood is cleansed (by the liver and kidneys and whatever else) of things that may cause inflammation. P.S. The surgery was a success, and I'm back to leading an active lifestyle - even more active than it would have been as I was able to experience life where movement is pain, and thus how wonderful it is to be free of that.
duttonw 3y ago
[flagged]
- candiddevmike 3y ago
  > Another interesting tidbit is that spinach and other similar foods once consumed in high enough quantities (as little as 1/2 a cup a week) causes little needle (Oxalates) like structures to form in our bodies, this is really bad when its in our joints. And another tidbit is that if you do over consume spinach you can be killed from it. There is so much pseudoscience in here to unpack. You're picking and choosing anecdotes from different things (oxalate intolerance is a thing but not very common, 1/2 cup of spinach for most people is very healthy) to create a fear inducing narrative. Yes, folks should watch what they eat, but spewing this garbage just muddies the waters on what could be the root cause for certain ailments.
- the_af 3y ago
  There's no polite way of saying this, but I'll say it anyway: most of your comment reads like pseudoscience to me.
- voisin 3y ago
  > When we don't follow a natural cycle of fasting What does a natural cycle look like? 12 hours? 16 hours? More?
  - Izkata 3y ago
    Probably whatever happens before "breakfast". Basically, don't have a midnight snack.
  - Broken_Hippo 3y ago
    Winter. All jokes aside, any "natural" fasting would probably be directly related to how much food is available, how perishable it is, and how long it keeps. Late winter and early spring were pretty hard times for folks living in places with 4 seasons (the time of Christian lent, in general). "natural" fasting was likely just a result of food availability. And recommended and/or normal eating times have changed a lot through history, much as the foods we eat have. And so much of what we "know" is speculation: We can't realistically tell how often or what times any pre-history civilisation ate, for example.
AnimalMuppet 3y ago
The opposite of Betteridge's Law: Yes, of course.
keepamovin 3y ago
Definitely. I think people live in way more stress than they are aware of. You don't really get aware of how much stress you lived in until you 'detox' from all that by doing something like yoga and meditation consistently for a while. Then you see, "Oh my god, there's a new way to be. I never knew I could feel like this." And you realize, like, holy shit...people are living their lives, locked up and trapped by this stress, and they're just used to it so they don't see it? Ugh...so bad. And so much avoidable suffering. I guess that's also why something like "low-dose aspirin" is effective against many different conditions. People here also mention diet, which is think is true as well. One thing I noticed after regular yoga and meditation was my dietary choices totally changed. Things that I used to eat didn't feel healthy anymore--it was not based on any education (this was back in early 2000s I was not exposed to any of the current obsession with diet at that time), just my body's awareness. Obviously the genesis of these things would be complex, but that inflammation/stress/cortisol would play a significant role in worsening conditions, maybe to the point of being the "camel straw" that causes them, and would also play a significant role in harming the body's ability to heal itself from these...is pretty obvious I'd say. Exercise helps with this right? Exercise, aspirin, diet, avoiding definite inflamers like alcohol, cigarettes (tho some nicotine by itself might actually be good, cigarette not good), toxic chemicals in environment and food...practicing the right way in these things probably help a lot because of their connection with inflammation.
- TibbityFlanders 3y ago
  [dead]
- csdvrx 3y ago
  > avoiding definite inflamers like alcohol, cigarettes (tho some nicotine by itself might actually be good, cigarette not good), There is 0 evidence nicotine might be good, and lots of evidence it isn't.
  - keepamovin 3y ago
    Quite an extreme statement. It’s important to remember these questions are often nuanced and could even be considered unsettled. Do you or anyone have any evidence of what you claim? I’m very interested in it. I guess I’m referring to how it’s neuroprotective specifically, thank you! :) I’ve seen the direct opposite claim made here too. If this is already a settled question as I think you’re suggesting, it would be super high value information content for you to post that conclusion, I reckon.
boringuser2 3y ago
I've always generally disliked this thesis because it feels wishy-washy, and, also, pharmaceuticals that suppress inflammation don't increase longevity by any appreciable amount, and pharmaceuticals that increase longevity don't act directly on inflammatory markers (metformin et al). It all feels geared towards selling you a very vague promise of health and longevity through some obscure supplement or medication.
dukeofdoom 3y ago
This seems like it should not work, but who knows. Grounding – The universal anti-inflammatory remedy https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2319417022001706 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S231941702...
- unsupp0rted 3y ago
  It’s not impossible “grounding” turns out to be a thing, but every sentence of this article reads like hand-wavey pseudoscience.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
amai 3y ago
„The metabolic stress that is a hallmark of modern life, the stress that the body has not evolved to handle, is constant eating“ That is why fasting can be helpful for your health.
xtracto 3y ago
In 2004 [1] (20 years ago!!) Time magazine ran a pretty interesting article about inflammation and its effects on the body. I remember It got my attention as I had just started suffering with "IBS". Fast forward 20 years and It is still pretty relevant. I recommend reading it. [1] https://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20040223,00.html https://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20040223,00.htm...
- gurjeet 3y ago
  Parent comment links to the cover. A link to the article itself: https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,993419,00.html https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,993...
incomingpain 3y ago
when I was getting diagnosed with crohns. One of the thoughts was that I had hepatitis, I did have an inflammed liver, so yes. My immediate response was that I had gotten the vaccines for hep a,b,c. I was going to mexico, so it was to be safe but that was a few years earlier.. But there are many different ways for the inflammation. long story short... crohns. aka inflammatory bowel. I then spent years looking to understand crohns and all the recent research. Notably, it is correct that inflammation is the cause of many if not all of these diseases. But the obvious question is what's causing the inflammation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_of_Crohn%27s_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_of_Crohn%27s_diseas... Pretty extensive article and I didn't try any of the extreme things. I abided basically everything I could here. Which did improve the situation, chemo was probably the best but lots of major consequences, cannabis was probably the best overall with only minor addiction problems. But did let me figure out what isn't on this page. Basically figured out the cure to crohns, but what's super annoying was that... how did my GI doctor never talk to me about this? If he told people the cure, he'd be out of a job basically? So I post my idea to reddit and crohns forum and I get banned for medical misinformation. Kind of surprising... So then I went backwards, if this is the cause of crohns, what else might happen. I then figured yes for sure UC and rheumatoid arthritis are just the same thing. But also almost certainly lupus, celiac, etc. So yes, the myriad of chronic inflammatory conditions are caused by what causes the inflammation but for some reason nobody wants to know. I remember when Jeff Geerling had his crohns problems recentlyish, I posted here the cure and got flagged and shit on. Very illogical to me, but alas I'm just a programmer and not some doctor. So whatever.
- hnfong 3y ago
  It seems like (if I'm reading it right) you cured yourself so congrats on that. Do note that unless you somehow cured at least a couple other people with Crohns using your method, it's quite possible that it only works for a small number of people (of which you are one), or even that you somehow had a mistaken understanding of the causation (i.e. something else cured it). I personally don't think it's a big deal, but there might be a risk of others trying your method and getting adverse results (I don't know what it involves so I'm just speculating here). Some people are offended that chronic disease patients with some intelligence can know their disease better than specialist doctors though. I never understood this reaction, I guess it's just some kind of gatekeeping that every profession has...
jklinger410 3y ago
Sure! But what causes the inflammation?
tomohawk 3y ago
The answer is an unqualified yes for at least one of my family members. After seeing many doctors over many years and receiving many diagnoses that didn't add up and which did not result in any health benefits, we finally saw benefits from change in diet. The starting point was a healthy, balanced diet, with very little sugar/sweets, no alcohol. Starting BMI was in normal range. Removing all grains from the diet helped out. Family member lost a size in clothes, but did not lose weight. This was reduction in inflammation throughout the body, and relieved some symptoms. Trial and error led to eventually getting on the lion diet (only red meat. no veg, fruit, grain). This has led to correcting of many health issues. Family member is now off of blood pressure medicine, can think clearly, no longer has signs of rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, etc. If you're interested, look up 'mcas'. Every person is different, but transformation to health after many years is marked.
- dualogy 3y ago
  > Trial and error led to eventually getting on the lion diet (only red meat. no veg, fruit, grain) Of course, if one is subscribed to any or many of the various general anti-red-meat narratives, from environmental to medicinical, they won't be interested in taking this up anyway, so the below advices is for the others really, any potential quick-adopters. It's a mighty fine regime but: for starters, this better be fatty red meats, not overly lean, since this WoE usually (by prescription or just general satiety dynamics of meat-to-satiation) tends to dial down carbs severely or cut them completely, and you want plenty of your 2X00 kcal / day to come from not proteins but either fats or (if you still think them desirable or necessary after a while) carbs, and trust me you'll soon-enough rather gobble extra helpings of butter or yolks (or the copious meat fats that usually get trimmed off) than drink tablespoons of oils.. burning proteins for fuel energy is an emergency measure, they're not an ideal "calorie source for burning". (Search terms: "protein poisoning" or "rabbit starvation" in the absence/lowness of both carbs and fats.) The second caveat is that pork is generally categorized as red-meat just like the ruminant kinds (in the modern world, beef and lamb, but everywhere humans evolved had their own variants, whether gazelles or caribou) but while I can vouch for years of daily satisfaction with a ruminant-meat+butter+eggs setup with no sense of lack or deficiency, I somehow deep down wouldn't trust the non-ruminant, only-so-labelled "red meat" of pork to deliver a like track record (and I have no cultural/religious imperative to be either halal or kosher). I like me a good piece of salami or bacon every once in a blue moon just fine, but the "lion diet" or sustainable human carnivory regime isn't about thriving-on-cold-cuts-and-pork-chops, without even having tried I think that quite impossible. The third reminder is to mind nutrition completeness: fresh fatty ruminant meat and soft-boiled / sunny-side-up eggs (ie. with runny yolks but cooked whites) are "nutritionally complete" as far as a human cares (ignoring the modern notion of roughage aka "fiber" as some sort of nutrient, what's by-definition undigestable/unabsorbable is not simultaneously nutritive as-in nourishing). BUT processed meats incl. cured / smoked hams, sausages, patés and all that jazz aren't, neither is a roast that has been baking away in the oven for 2+ hours. Slightly pink and still-quite-juicy and you're good for sure. Whether that's steak or just mince. (And for that aspect, another good reason to emphasize ruminants over pork, fowl or seafoods. Doesn't mean the latter are taboo or "bad food", just perhaps in-the-long-run not "the staple" for max well-being.) So to sum up: 1. ensure sufficient non-protein kcal inputs still (I can only speak for animal fats myself), 2. mostly-ruminants is likely superior on a basically-meat-only regimen, 3. for full nutrition ensure absolute dominance of fresh-not-processed meats and of rare-or-medium-rather-than-over-cooked meat. Also, listen to appetite and fullness signals much more alertly and trust them. There'll be days of gorging and feasting as well as lean days this way, but they're directed by something better informed about your body than current science: namely, your body.
b3nji 3y ago
Yes. You are what you eat.

208 points by gardenfelder 3y ago

RagnarD 3y ago

This is far from a new thought. A great deal has been written about this.

stefantalpalaru 3y ago

[dead]

gardenfelder 3y ago

"“We were actually surprised that reduced inflammation was the biggest explainer, the biggest contributor to the benefit of activity,” says Mora, “because we hadn’t hypothesized that. We knew that regular exercise does reduce inflammation over the long term, but we also knew that acute exercise transiently increases inflammatory biomarkers during and immediately after exertion.” About a third of the benefit of regular exercise, they found, is attributable to reduced inflammation."

NoPicklez 3y ago
From my understanding of exercise and inflammation, is that inflammation is the bodies stress & repair mechanism kicking in as a result of muscular damage etc from exercise. The acute inflammation following exercise is the body signalling to repair itself, hopefully resulting in adaptations that make the muscles and surrounding tissue stronger. Following that your body in theory is better equipped to cope with future exercise/movement stresses, therefore attributable to reduced inflammation long term. This is why there is somewhat of a debate in the exercise community around the true benefit of ice baths, hot/cold plunges, compression leggings etc. Whilst they feel good, these work to try to reduce inflammation, which is not necessarily what we want after exercise. There is a time and a place for reducing inflammation.
- BLKNSLVR 3y ago
  In my thesis-length comment above (below) I said that inflammation is a symptom and not a cause. Some causes are 'good', ie. exercise, and some causes are bad, ie. allergies. I treat the pain / inflammation from 'good' causes as a well-earned reward (if God exists, this is one of its greatest practical jokes). Treating inflammation from 'bad' causes (outside of genetic disposition) is probably a bad thing in that it's treating symptoms, not trying to find the cause, and in fact actively supressing the ability find the cause. Edit: added 'Treating' in front of the last sentence so it makes sense.
  - NoPicklez 3y ago
    Yep, I agree, inflammation is a symptom not a cause. (I also commented on your comment). My comment just above doesn't describe it as a cause, but a symptom, in this case muscular damage from exercise. In your case, it was due to S1 L5 discs pulling on each other during exercise, which is different. But nonetheless, inflammation brought upon as a symptom of something else. Which goes for almost everything else in the body when inflammation arises.
  - hhjinks 3y ago
    >Treating inflammation from 'bad' causes (outside of genetic disposition) is probably a bad I'm pretty sure most asthmatics would disagree.
    - lazide 3y ago
      Albuterol doesn’t treat inflammation directly, but is absolutely critical for emergency management. And control meds for children seem to (oddly) have zero actual benefit in controlled studies almost every time. But do seem to work. Which is pretty odd, no? There is a lot we don’t know about asthma. Exercise and stress reduction do seem to help, but also not in obvious ways.
      - hhjinks 3y ago
        Well, asthma is multifaceted. You can have an obstruction caused by muscles contracting, or by mucus from inflammation. In either case, dilating the muscles, which is what albuterol does, can give you better air flow, lessening your perceptible symptoms. You'd still want a corticosteorid-based medicide to treat the inflammation if you have that kind of asthma, though, as the chronic inflammation can worsen your illness over time, hence my original comment.
dukeofdoom 3y ago
I'm just thinking that some of the longest living people are monks. They don't really exercise that much.
- Libcat99 3y ago
  A lot of the longest living people (and maybe more telling, communities with the longest living members) are not very gym focused at all. If you walk everywhere every day, do most of your daily chores by hand, and don't sit in an office all day, you are likely getting plenty of exercise even if you never touch a set of weights or treadmill.
  - unnamed76ri 3y ago
    You’re also very unlikely to be eating a lot of ultra-processed foods and you’ll be getting a lot more natural sunlight than most.
    - agos 3y ago
      I'm not an expert on monk lifestyle but I'm pretty confident they lead a less stressful life than most here
  - WalterSear 3y ago
    They also, by definition, came of age when we knew much less about longevity. They may not necessary be living the most longevity promoting lifestyle - just one that's markedly better than the average.
  - dukeofdoom 3y ago
    I would agree with that. Maybe walking is key. After visiting Paris, and seeing lots fit people despite a diet of croissants, baguette, butter and cheese. But they also walk so much...
- thsksbd 3y ago
  They're also the diametric opposite of idle. I know a guy who almost became a zen monk. By march he writes the allotted number of scientific papers for the year (he works for a govt lab). He's the editor of the top journal in his field. Meanwhile, he's self taught himself philosophy and teaches it (pro bono?) at a University you've heard of. He also reads >150 books / year
Aurornis 3y ago
Inflammatory signaling isn’t all “bad”, just like how oxidative stress and cortisol aren’t unilaterally bad. A lot of people have a really broken, superficial understanding of these topics and assume that all these processes and chemicals in our body are bad and must be reduced as much as possible, but they play important roles in the body. Many people are surprised to learn that taking a lot of antioxidants before working out actually reduces the effectiveness of exercise. Influencers have peddled this idea that oxidation is bad and antioxidants are good for so long that people think it’s a number they just need to push downward as much as possible with as many supplements as they can take.

celiaatria 3y ago

[flagged]

vonnik 3y ago

Robert Lustig makes the point in this podcast with Huberman that the sugars and transfats in processed food are responsible for a lot of inflammation that comes from the modern diet. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/huberman-lab/id1545953110?i=1000638917560 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/huberman-lab/id1545953... ~51st minute

beebmam 3y ago
What evidence does he present for this claim?
- hombre_fatal 3y ago
  Here's Layne Norton's response to Lustig and that exact Huberman episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZPKTaVB1IU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZPKTaVB1IU It'll answer your question.
  - Etheryte 3y ago
    Surely you can provide a better summary than just linking to a video that's an hour long. No one is gonna watch all that on your "trust me bro".
    - SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
      > No one is gonna watch all that on your "trust me bro". I see you've never met the UFO/UAP community.
  - sideshowb 3y ago
    Are these people unable to write?
    - phatfish 3y ago
      You don't "go viral" writing something.

smurda 3y ago

“We use the word ‘inflammation’ colloquially, as if we understand what we are saying. But dig a little deeper and the word becomes a clown car of meanings. Is it the chronic irritation of an autoimmune disease? The lingering residue of a postviral syndrome? A nonhealing wound?” Good description of a generic catch-all term that could have a variety of specific meanings. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/12/18/all-the-carcinogens-we-cannot-see https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/12/18/all-the-carcin...

AA-BA-94-2A-56 3y ago
Many people on social media use the word inflammation as if they're describing a root cause that they have control over, such as dietary cholesterol or exercise. But my understanding of this word is that inflammation is a symptom– an indirect result of any number of other factors.
- arghwhat 3y ago
  Inflammation is just an activation of the immune defense system - the swelling is entirely intentional and healthy. What is annoying the immune defense system is the problem, and can in some cases be caused by a bug in the system (auto-immune disease). Erroneously attributing correlation as causation is a common mistake. Blood cholesterol - entirely distinct from dietary cholesterol - was also commonly completely misunderstood as a cause, even though it like inflammation is a healthy and necessary response turned into a symptom...
Aurornis 3y ago
A lot of medical terms have been hijacked by influencers, including some influencer doctors. “Dopamine” is the other big offender. So many social media doctors and influencers building huge podcast followings with “dopamine” babble. Huberman is one of the worst offenders, but he seems to slip past a lot of people’s filters because he’s a doctor and he mixes actual studies into his extremely long podcasts so that people assume everything he’s saying is accurate.
- 3y ago

BLKNSLVR 3y ago

Anecdote (may actually not be related, but I think it is): I had back surgery a few years ago due to infrequent recurring of sciatic pain that, during an "episode", made me unable to work for a couple of weeks at a time (I was unable walk or stand or sit for longer than two to three minutes without sciatic pain increasing to intolerable levels). It looked like a relatively simple, and not even particularly extreme, bulging L5 disc impinging on the S1 nerve. What they found out during the surgery (because there's no high-enough resolution scanning to detect this) was that the S1 nerve was actually 'tethered' to the slightly bulging L5 disc due to scar tissue that had become 'sticky' over a number of years (apparently scar tissue, in areas that get recurring aggravation, can become sticky). (Aside: the initial scar tissue was likely caused by a particularly memorably nasty football injury, after which I couldn't walk properly for a couple of weeks - knee drop the spine - yep, that'd do it) So, my issue was not actually caused by a bulging disc impinging the nerve. As it turns out, when doing physical activity (tennis, roller skating, trying to catch my misbehaving children) the S1 nerve moves slightly up and down the spinal nerve cavity as you move your legs whilst running, and this movement of the S1 nerve was 'pulling' on the 'tethered' L5 disc, causing aggravation and inflammation, and it was this inflammation impinging on the S1 nerve and causing the pain. And since the inflammation came well after the activity it takes a while to realise what's happening, such that the cause and the effect are separated by enough time as to make the (secondary) cause (ie. running activity) difficult to diagnose. My pain was caused by inflammation, but that's still only a symptom. The underlying cause, the real thing that actually needed to be fixed, for me, was the S1 nerve/L5 disc tethering. Inflammation is not a cause, it's a symptom. But it could be a symptom of an individual's genetics, and therefore not treatable by anything other than anti-inflammatory drugs. As another anecdote: I get phlegmy after eating certain things. I've heard this is a manifestation of low level allergy to whatever I've eaten. What makes sense to me is that an increased base level of inflammation is a symptom of slight allergy to something environmental. What also makes sense to me is that physical activity reduces inflammation as increasing the flow of blood around the body increases how quickly ones blood is cleansed (by the liver and kidneys and whatever else) of things that may cause inflammation. P.S. The surgery was a success, and I'm back to leading an active lifestyle - even more active than it would have been as I was able to experience life where movement is pain, and thus how wonderful it is to be free of that.

duttonw 3y ago

[flagged]

candiddevmike 3y ago
> Another interesting tidbit is that spinach and other similar foods once consumed in high enough quantities (as little as 1/2 a cup a week) causes little needle (Oxalates) like structures to form in our bodies, this is really bad when its in our joints. And another tidbit is that if you do over consume spinach you can be killed from it. There is so much pseudoscience in here to unpack. You're picking and choosing anecdotes from different things (oxalate intolerance is a thing but not very common, 1/2 cup of spinach for most people is very healthy) to create a fear inducing narrative. Yes, folks should watch what they eat, but spewing this garbage just muddies the waters on what could be the root cause for certain ailments.
the_af 3y ago
There's no polite way of saying this, but I'll say it anyway: most of your comment reads like pseudoscience to me.
voisin 3y ago
> When we don't follow a natural cycle of fasting What does a natural cycle look like? 12 hours? 16 hours? More?
- Izkata 3y ago
  Probably whatever happens before "breakfast". Basically, don't have a midnight snack.
- Broken_Hippo 3y ago
  Winter. All jokes aside, any "natural" fasting would probably be directly related to how much food is available, how perishable it is, and how long it keeps. Late winter and early spring were pretty hard times for folks living in places with 4 seasons (the time of Christian lent, in general). "natural" fasting was likely just a result of food availability. And recommended and/or normal eating times have changed a lot through history, much as the foods we eat have. And so much of what we "know" is speculation: We can't realistically tell how often or what times any pre-history civilisation ate, for example.

AnimalMuppet 3y ago

The opposite of Betteridge's Law: Yes, of course.

keepamovin 3y ago

Definitely. I think people live in way more stress than they are aware of. You don't really get aware of how much stress you lived in until you 'detox' from all that by doing something like yoga and meditation consistently for a while. Then you see, "Oh my god, there's a new way to be. I never knew I could feel like this." And you realize, like, holy shit...people are living their lives, locked up and trapped by this stress, and they're just used to it so they don't see it? Ugh...so bad. And so much avoidable suffering. I guess that's also why something like "low-dose aspirin" is effective against many different conditions. People here also mention diet, which is think is true as well. One thing I noticed after regular yoga and meditation was my dietary choices totally changed. Things that I used to eat didn't feel healthy anymore--it was not based on any education (this was back in early 2000s I was not exposed to any of the current obsession with diet at that time), just my body's awareness. Obviously the genesis of these things would be complex, but that inflammation/stress/cortisol would play a significant role in worsening conditions, maybe to the point of being the "camel straw" that causes them, and would also play a significant role in harming the body's ability to heal itself from these...is pretty obvious I'd say. Exercise helps with this right? Exercise, aspirin, diet, avoiding definite inflamers like alcohol, cigarettes (tho some nicotine by itself might actually be good, cigarette not good), toxic chemicals in environment and food...practicing the right way in these things probably help a lot because of their connection with inflammation.

TibbityFlanders 3y ago
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csdvrx 3y ago
> avoiding definite inflamers like alcohol, cigarettes (tho some nicotine by itself might actually be good, cigarette not good), There is 0 evidence nicotine might be good, and lots of evidence it isn't.
- keepamovin 3y ago
  Quite an extreme statement. It’s important to remember these questions are often nuanced and could even be considered unsettled. Do you or anyone have any evidence of what you claim? I’m very interested in it. I guess I’m referring to how it’s neuroprotective specifically, thank you! :) I’ve seen the direct opposite claim made here too. If this is already a settled question as I think you’re suggesting, it would be super high value information content for you to post that conclusion, I reckon.

boringuser2 3y ago

I've always generally disliked this thesis because it feels wishy-washy, and, also, pharmaceuticals that suppress inflammation don't increase longevity by any appreciable amount, and pharmaceuticals that increase longevity don't act directly on inflammatory markers (metformin et al). It all feels geared towards selling you a very vague promise of health and longevity through some obscure supplement or medication.

dukeofdoom 3y ago

This seems like it should not work, but who knows. Grounding – The universal anti-inflammatory remedy https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2319417022001706 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S231941702...

unsupp0rted 3y ago
It’s not impossible “grounding” turns out to be a thing, but every sentence of this article reads like hand-wavey pseudoscience.
deleted 3y ago
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amai 3y ago

„The metabolic stress that is a hallmark of modern life, the stress that the body has not evolved to handle, is constant eating“ That is why fasting can be helpful for your health.

xtracto 3y ago

In 2004 [1] (20 years ago!!) Time magazine ran a pretty interesting article about inflammation and its effects on the body. I remember It got my attention as I had just started suffering with "IBS". Fast forward 20 years and It is still pretty relevant. I recommend reading it. [1] https://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20040223,00.html https://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20040223,00.htm...

gurjeet 3y ago
Parent comment links to the cover. A link to the article itself: https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,993419,00.html https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,993...

incomingpain 3y ago

when I was getting diagnosed with crohns. One of the thoughts was that I had hepatitis, I did have an inflammed liver, so yes. My immediate response was that I had gotten the vaccines for hep a,b,c. I was going to mexico, so it was to be safe but that was a few years earlier.. But there are many different ways for the inflammation. long story short... crohns. aka inflammatory bowel. I then spent years looking to understand crohns and all the recent research. Notably, it is correct that inflammation is the cause of many if not all of these diseases. But the obvious question is what's causing the inflammation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_of_Crohn%27s_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_of_Crohn%27s_diseas... Pretty extensive article and I didn't try any of the extreme things. I abided basically everything I could here. Which did improve the situation, chemo was probably the best but lots of major consequences, cannabis was probably the best overall with only minor addiction problems. But did let me figure out what isn't on this page. Basically figured out the cure to crohns, but what's super annoying was that... how did my GI doctor never talk to me about this? If he told people the cure, he'd be out of a job basically? So I post my idea to reddit and crohns forum and I get banned for medical misinformation. Kind of surprising... So then I went backwards, if this is the cause of crohns, what else might happen. I then figured yes for sure UC and rheumatoid arthritis are just the same thing. But also almost certainly lupus, celiac, etc. So yes, the myriad of chronic inflammatory conditions are caused by what causes the inflammation but for some reason nobody wants to know. I remember when Jeff Geerling had his crohns problems recentlyish, I posted here the cure and got flagged and shit on. Very illogical to me, but alas I'm just a programmer and not some doctor. So whatever.

hnfong 3y ago
It seems like (if I'm reading it right) you cured yourself so congrats on that. Do note that unless you somehow cured at least a couple other people with Crohns using your method, it's quite possible that it only works for a small number of people (of which you are one), or even that you somehow had a mistaken understanding of the causation (i.e. something else cured it). I personally don't think it's a big deal, but there might be a risk of others trying your method and getting adverse results (I don't know what it involves so I'm just speculating here). Some people are offended that chronic disease patients with some intelligence can know their disease better than specialist doctors though. I never understood this reaction, I guess it's just some kind of gatekeeping that every profession has...

jklinger410 3y ago

Sure! But what causes the inflammation?

tomohawk 3y ago

The answer is an unqualified yes for at least one of my family members. After seeing many doctors over many years and receiving many diagnoses that didn't add up and which did not result in any health benefits, we finally saw benefits from change in diet. The starting point was a healthy, balanced diet, with very little sugar/sweets, no alcohol. Starting BMI was in normal range. Removing all grains from the diet helped out. Family member lost a size in clothes, but did not lose weight. This was reduction in inflammation throughout the body, and relieved some symptoms. Trial and error led to eventually getting on the lion diet (only red meat. no veg, fruit, grain). This has led to correcting of many health issues. Family member is now off of blood pressure medicine, can think clearly, no longer has signs of rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, etc. If you're interested, look up 'mcas'. Every person is different, but transformation to health after many years is marked.

dualogy 3y ago
> Trial and error led to eventually getting on the lion diet (only red meat. no veg, fruit, grain) Of course, if one is subscribed to any or many of the various general anti-red-meat narratives, from environmental to medicinical, they won't be interested in taking this up anyway, so the below advices is for the others really, any potential quick-adopters. It's a mighty fine regime but: for starters, this better be fatty red meats, not overly lean, since this WoE usually (by prescription or just general satiety dynamics of meat-to-satiation) tends to dial down carbs severely or cut them completely, and you want plenty of your 2X00 kcal / day to come from not proteins but either fats or (if you still think them desirable or necessary after a while) carbs, and trust me you'll soon-enough rather gobble extra helpings of butter or yolks (or the copious meat fats that usually get trimmed off) than drink tablespoons of oils.. burning proteins for fuel energy is an emergency measure, they're not an ideal "calorie source for burning". (Search terms: "protein poisoning" or "rabbit starvation" in the absence/lowness of both carbs and fats.) The second caveat is that pork is generally categorized as red-meat just like the ruminant kinds (in the modern world, beef and lamb, but everywhere humans evolved had their own variants, whether gazelles or caribou) but while I can vouch for years of daily satisfaction with a ruminant-meat+butter+eggs setup with no sense of lack or deficiency, I somehow deep down wouldn't trust the non-ruminant, only-so-labelled "red meat" of pork to deliver a like track record (and I have no cultural/religious imperative to be either halal or kosher). I like me a good piece of salami or bacon every once in a blue moon just fine, but the "lion diet" or sustainable human carnivory regime isn't about thriving-on-cold-cuts-and-pork-chops, without even having tried I think that quite impossible. The third reminder is to mind nutrition completeness: fresh fatty ruminant meat and soft-boiled / sunny-side-up eggs (ie. with runny yolks but cooked whites) are "nutritionally complete" as far as a human cares (ignoring the modern notion of roughage aka "fiber" as some sort of nutrient, what's by-definition undigestable/unabsorbable is not simultaneously nutritive as-in nourishing). BUT processed meats incl. cured / smoked hams, sausages, patés and all that jazz aren't, neither is a roast that has been baking away in the oven for 2+ hours. Slightly pink and still-quite-juicy and you're good for sure. Whether that's steak or just mince. (And for that aspect, another good reason to emphasize ruminants over pork, fowl or seafoods. Doesn't mean the latter are taboo or "bad food", just perhaps in-the-long-run not "the staple" for max well-being.) So to sum up: 1. ensure sufficient non-protein kcal inputs still (I can only speak for animal fats myself), 2. mostly-ruminants is likely superior on a basically-meat-only regimen, 3. for full nutrition ensure absolute dominance of fresh-not-processed meats and of rare-or-medium-rather-than-over-cooked meat. Also, listen to appetite and fullness signals much more alertly and trust them. There'll be days of gorging and feasting as well as lean days this way, but they're directed by something better informed about your body than current science: namely, your body.

b3nji 3y ago

Yes. You are what you eat.