The most common drugs used for pain and inflammation are the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) like ibuprofen.  It is estimated that some 30 billion doses of these drugs are consumed each year in the U.S.  A growing body of research is suggesting that these drugs may actually increase the bone loss associated with osteoporosis.  It […]

We previously discussed how DAMPs or damaged associated and PAMPs or pathogen associated molecular patterns can chronically activate inflammation.  The damage associated referring to tissue components released from degenerative tissue such as joints.  The pathogen associated referring to chronic infections such as in the gut. In this 3rd blog on what triggers chronic inflammation we […]

In the last blog we discussed how DAMPs activate inflammation.  DAMPs is an acronym for damage associated molecular patterns. (When tissue is injured, white blood cells infiltrate the area and trigger inflammation when the DAMPs which are pieces from the damaged tissue activate the receptors.)  The purpose of the inflammation is to clean up the […]

What is Triggering It? In the introduction to this series of blogs on inflammation I mentioned that understanding and reducing its impact comes down to 2 points: In response to what is triggering it, these factors can be helpful in response to infection and in resolving injury, or harmful in response to chronic lifestyle triggers […]

Inflammation is a basic part of protecting us against infection and inducing repair after injury.  It literally is an important process to allow us to survive in our environment.  Unfortunately, the inflammatory process can be activated by the wrong circumstances and persisting long after it should have been quieted.  When this occurs, inflammation literally switches […]

One of a Few Common Chronic Diseases That We Are Now More Likely to Face Advances in research have helped the U.S. enjoy decreasing rates of several chronic diseases over the past 3 decades.  Autoimmune disease has been a notable exception to this trend increasing rather dramatically.  This trend has been broad with sharp increases […]

A parallel observation occurring as humans age and develop the common age related diseases is that the intestinal microbiome shifts to a different population.  That begs the question whether these are simply unrelated changes or does one contribute to the other.  In the previous blog I discussed the interesting study which found that fecal medical […]

The human microbiome, or the microbes that live in and on us are vast and diverse.  These microbes number 100 trillion with the majority residing in the digestive tract. For a perspective on 100 trillion, the number of microbes in the human microbiome is 10 times greater than the number of our own cells. As […]

There is a tendency for us to have progressive inflammatory activity as we age.  This inflammation is a part of virtually every chronic disease from heart disease to cancer to autoimmune disease.  As would be expected all of these diseases become progressively more common with age in parallel to what is happening with inflammation.  This […]

In a previous blog we discussed some of the research findings on long SARS-CoV-2 which is a persistence of symptoms after the infection has been resolved.  It seems that the inflammatory response which is part of the immune activation against the virus seems not to turn off when it is no longer needed.  That leads […]