The Hidden Dangers of Inflammation (and How To Protect Yourself Against it)

Many people worry about inflammation — and they might have a point.

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Avatar Nutrition

11 min readAug 16, 2018

Should YOU worry about getting burned by the fires of inflammation?

Markers of inflammation are linked to many diseases, including obesity, diabetes, cancer, and depression [1,2]. And this might seem like a problem for flexible dieting because inflammation doesn’t fit cleanly into the mantra of just track your macros. Questions still creep up: What about trans fats? What about red meat? What about health?

Let’s put something in perspective first. Tracking macros (protein, carbs, and fat) lets you control how your body looks and feels. If you want to lose fat, gain muscle, or rebuild your metabolism, this is the way to go, and you don’t have to worry about much else. The good news is, this doesn’t fail you when it comes to health, either because just losing weight is incredibly healthy. Oh, and building muscle is pretty good for you, too.

But there are some things that get lost when you look at the world through macros alone — and one of them is inflammation. Let’s look closely at how inflammation affects your body, and how the choices you make can douse the flames or feed the fire.

When you’re done here, you’ll know exactly what you need to worry about, what you don’t, and how to take control of inflammation.

Acute Savior, Chronic Problem

Inflammation is part of your body’s natural defense system. When you’re injured, sick, or infected, inflammation helps protect and repair you. Certain hormone-like messengers, called cytokines, trigger a cascade of helpful reactions that increase blood flow and immune responses. These cytokines are like generals ordering the armies of healing and immunity.

The acute effects of inflammation — the redness, swelling, and even pain that follow injury and infection — are powerful, necessary, and healthy. No doubt about it. The problems come when inflammation doesn’t stop, when the acute reaction becomes chronic. Instead of a powerful, short-lived response to a specific injury, your body lives in a constant state of low-grade inflammation. It’s everywhere, and it’s all the time. That’s when scientists start to see inflammation not as a healthy defense, but as a disease-causing attack that pits your body against itself.

Chronic inflammation is a symptom of the most pervasive health problem in the western world: obesity [1].

Many of the mortal diseases we fight are wrapped up in obesity, and inflammation walks hand-in-hand with most of them. Stop me if you’ve heard of these before: heart disease, stroke, arthritis, asthma, diabetes, autoimmune disease, cancer, mood disorder, cognitive dysfunction, depression. Emerging research suggests that inflammation is linked to and may even cause many of them [2].

For decades now, scientists have been hunting for the reasons why.

The Science of Inflammation

To find inflammation, doctors and scientists look for chemical smoke signals called “inflammatory markers” — or “IMs” for short. While there are far too many to name here, the most commonly-studied IMs are C-reactive protein, interleukin-6, and tumor necrosis factor alpha. (We’ll mostly stick to “IMs,” I promise.)

In the acute phase of inflammation — right after an injury or infection — IMs increase to hundreds of times their resting levels [3]. Take C-reactive protein (CRP), for instance. At “normal” levels in the blood, CRP would be less than 10 mg/L, while an acute inflammatory response may raise this number to 350–400 mg/L. This creates redness, swelling, pain, and all the obvious signs of inflammation.

But chronic inflammation — which becomes dangerous at much lower numbers — isn’t as easy to spot. Several studies have shown that gradual increases in CRP above 1 mg/L lead to significant increases in the risk for disease [4]. That’s a tiny fraction of the immune system’s power, but it’s all it takes to create a surge of long-term problems.

What does all this have to do with obesity and other chronic diseases?

Fat cells: the “loaded guns” of inflammation.

It’s becoming clearer that excess body fat (aka “adipose tissue”) becomes a factory for “adipokines,” or cytokines made by fat cells [1]. There are several theories to explain why fat cells release IMs, including cell rupture and lack of oxygen. Whatever the reason, we know that the bigger the factory gets, the more these IMs flood the body. The party starts, the usual suspects — like heart disease, cancer, and depression — show up, and inflammation mingles with them all.

Tons of research associates IMs (like CRP, IL-6, and TNF-a) with these terrible diseases. But association doesn’t mean that inflammation causes those conditions. If we’re going to learn how much we need to worry about inflammation, we need to know more than which diseases it hangs out with. What does it actually do?

The Inflamed Body

It’s hard to separate the effects of inflammation from the “normal” problems of overweight/obesity. Obesity is a melting pot of health issues that boil over into many of the major killers in the western world. And inflammation is at the scene of the crime — but is it innocent? Or does it pull the trigger?

In cardiovascular disease, inflammation might not be the problem. When controlled for other things (such as obesity), IMs aren’t associated with either ischemic heart disease or cerebrovascular diseases (like stroke) [5]. Scientists discovered this by looking at subjects who had higher IMs genetically (not because they were overweight), and those people didn’t have higher rates of cardiovascular disease. A look at many studies found that, while IMs were able to predict coronary heart diseases, they weren’t likely to be the cause [27].

But, from here on, the results are grim.

Inflammation does seem to play a role in developing diabetes [6,7]. This comes from another clever genetics study, but with the opposite result: Subjects with genetically higher IMs had higher rates of diabetes, even if they weren’t obese.

Perhaps worse, chronic inflammation can also be a playground for cancer. Research has shown repeatedly that inflammation of all kinds — whether the systemic type from obesity or inflammation from the natural response to infections and diseases — can predispose you to cancer [9]. And yes, it seems to be the cause [10].

The Inflamed Mind

And the negative effects of IMs aren’t limited to the things that destroy our bodies. They can also seriously plague our minds.

Depression affects around 8% of the US population [11]. And it’s clear that depression is highly related to immune system function and inflammation, as depressed populations tend to have higher levels of circulating IMs [12]. Again, this is a correlation — and isn’t necessarily the cause. But lots of research shows a clear connection between obesity-related inflammation and mood disorders [13].

And the reasons aren’t hard to find. Inflammation has a direct, negative effect on cognition [14]. It harms neurons and may contribute to cognitive decline, making your brain age faster. This can lead to reduced memory, attention, creativity, organization, and planning, as well as increased impulsivity. All this goes to show how obesity and mood disorders (like depression and bipolar disorder) are interrelated and may cause one another [13,14]. Again, the link is inflammation.

Alright, that’s all the doom-and-gloom you need to know how IMs impact your body and mind. The rest of this article will cover how the choices you make influence your body’s levels of IMs, and the ways you can and can’t control inflammation.

Diet: The Fire Hose

Lots of things are dangerous, but it’s pointless to worry about them unless you have some control. So, the next question is: Do your daily choices affect whether you have chronic inflammation? Can you control this, making it better or worse?

And the answer is: Yes. Your diet (besides having the potential to lead to obesity) can either increase or prevent inflammation. That means that food could be part of the problem, or part of the solution.

Foods are often pro- or anti-inflammatory [15], but it makes the most sense to look at the effects of nutrition on a bigger scale than a single food or meal. When scientists compare eating behaviors, certain patterns can be more or less inflammatory [15,16]. In general, diets that avoid processed foods (especially meat) in favor of more greens, nuts, and whole grains tend to create less inflammation [17].

But the most important part of the diet for controlling inflammation might be fats. Studies show that diets high in saturated and trans-fats increase IMs and the risk of disease [17]. In the opposite direction, a diet that balances saturated fats (pro-inflammation) with unsaturated fats (anti-inflammation) can improve both IMs and body composition [18]. Foods like olives (and olive oil), fatty fish (and fish oil), and walnuts all have healthy portions of unsaturated fatty acids. And while some research suggests you should mind the ratio of omega-3s to omega-6s [25], it’s probably not as important as the general ratio of saturated to unsaturated fats [26].

Fats are definitely the macro with the strongest effect on IMs, but protein and carbs aren’t totally innocent. High-protein foods can be anti-inflammatory, but red meats seem to create inflammation. As for carbs, the low-glycemic variety appears better for IMs — at least in obese people [18].

At this point, it might sound like we’re taking one giant step after another away from tracking macros. “Balance fatty acids? Avoid processed food and red meat? Choose low-glycemic carbs? This doesn’t sound like flexible dieting!” You’re right, it doesn’t.

Scientifically, there’s no doubt that these things can help. But before you throw out your macros, keep in mind what tracking your diet does for you when it comes to inflammation and disease…

Dousing the Flames: Weight Loss & Exercise

We already know that losing weight alone improves most of the health problems we’ve talked about [19]. But losing weight also has a huge, positive impact on inflammation [20].

When we get back to thinking of chronic inflammation as a symptom of obesity, it’s clear why weight loss would be the key. Studies where subjects controlled their diets and lost weight also reduced their IMs [21]. In fact, one review of the research found that the greatest decrease in IMs came from losing at least 10% of bodyweight [22]. Exercise alone might help improve IMs [23], but most research suggests that controlling your diet (like tracking macros) to lose weight is the most powerful way to reduce systemic inflammation [24].

Yes, if you’re really worried about IMs and the diseases they can lead to, by all means, pay attention to the minutiae of food choices. That would mean balancing your fatty acid intake — paying attention to what types of fat you get from macros. It might also mean focusing on your micros, getting more fruits and vegetables, and avoiding red or processed meats. But it also means you can’t lose sight of the big picture: If inflammation is a high risk in your life, it’s probably because you have excess body fat.

On the flip-side: if you’re controlling your bodyweight with nutrition and exercise, you’ve survived the two big battles, and you’re well on your way to winning the war.

Rising from the Ashes

Now you know why people talk about inflammation in fearful, hushed tones: It’s a complicated beast, and it’s mean. But you also know that you have power over it. Eating right — and the right amount — can improve your body’s inflammation. Getting those IMs under control could help you prevent disease and live longer — not to mention happier.

If you’re not sure where you stand, ask your doctor to test your IM levels. More than likely, they’ll do two tests for C-reactive protein, two weeks apart. Measuring chronic inflammation isn’t easy, and it’s not completely understood, but you might gain some insight into how your body is reacting to your diet and body composition.

Now you know how to wield your diet and exercise to beat insidious IMs, and you don’t have to fear inflammation. Understand it and take control!