What’s the biggest health scourge America faces today?
Heart disease is a good answer. It kills more Americans than anything else.
Cancer comes in a close second.
Alzheimer’s is another good guess, especially since there is nothing doctors can do to stop it or even slow it down.
Diabetes is also terrible and has reached epidemic proportions. Nearly half of American adults now have prediabetes or full-blown diabetes.
The truth is, there’s one health condition that is far worse than any of these.
That’s because it causes all of these deadly illnesses and many more.
A recent medical journal review called inflammation “the most significant cause of death in the world today.”[i]
Some inflammation is necessary. It’s the body’s natural response to injury and illnesses. It involves white blood cells and other immune substances attacking viruses and bacteria that invade your body. Without inflammation, you would quickly die. Infections would take over your body.
But chronic inflammation is another story.
It happens when your body always has inflammation, even when you’re not fighting an infection or healing from an injury.
It can be caused by autoimmune disorders like arthritis. Things like smoking or exposure to pollution can trigger it.
Chronic inflammation causes:[ii]
- Heart disease. Inflammation damages the endothelium—the layer of cells that line arteries. This leads to atherosclerosis and heart attacks.
- Cancer. Inflammatory reactions damage DNA and create mutant cells that become cancerous.
- Diabetes. Research shows that diabetics have high levels of inflammatory molecules.
- Alzheimer’s disease. The brain seems to have its own immune system. And scientists have found that it releases inflammatory molecules related to Alzheimer’s.
5 Best Natural Ways to Lower Inflammation
Here are the best natural approaches to fighting inflammation:
- Do yoga. Yoga is one of the world’s oldest ways to manage stress. And stress increases inflammation.
Research from the University of Hong Kong shows practicing yoga on a regular basis lowers inflammation.
Julie Montagu is one of England’s top yoga teachers. She says the a pose called the warrior II is an excellent way to reduce stress and inflammation.[iii]
Begin with your feet about four feet apart. Raise your arms parallel to the floor, with your palms facing down. Extend both arms out to either side so that your shoulder blades open.
Turn your right foot out 45 degrees and keep your left foot parallel to the back of your mat or space.
Slightly bend your right knee. Feel your tailbone push down slightly as you keep your gaze focused on your fingers to your right.
Hold this pose for one minute, inhaling and exhaling deeply as you do so. Repeat on the other side.
2. Avoid inflammatory foods. They include soda and other sweetened drinks, refined carbohydrates such as white bread and sugary foods, foods with trans fats such as margarine and French fries.
3. Eat anti-inflammatory foods. They include berries, fatty fish (salmon, sardines, mackerel, anchovies), cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, kale), avocados, bell peppers, and chili peppers.
4. Stay trim. Being overweight promotes inflammation. A great way to lose weight is with time-restricted eating (TRE).
A study was published in the journal Cell Metabolism. Scientists had 19 overweight people do all their daily eating during a span of just over 10 hours.
It didn’t matter when they started eating, as long as they had their last food of the day about 10 hours later. They could eat whatever they wanted and as much as they wanted.[iv]
After 12 weeks, the study participants had lost 3% of their body weight on average. They lost 3% of their belly fat and reported getting better sleep.
To do TRE, start by eating breakfast 15 minutes later than usual. And have dinner 15 minutes earlier. Each week, shorten your eating window by a half hour by eating breakfast 15 minutes later and dinner 15 minutes earlier.
Stop reducing your eating window when it is at 10 hours. So if you eat breakfast at 8 a.m., you should finish dinner by 6 p.m.
5. Exercise. Inflammation increases in most people as they get older. But a recent study found that older men who were aerobic exercisers had levels of inflammation almost as low as 25-year-old men.[v]
When you stop chronic inflammation you eliminate the root cause for the most feared illnesses of our time.
Editor’s Note: Discover other natural, nondrug methods to improve your health by reading our monthly journal, Independent Healing. It’s your best source for unbiased, evidence-based health information. To find out how to subscribe, go HERE.
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[i]https://tinyurl.com/rlrtvcr
[ii]https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/Inflammation_A_unifying_theory_of_disease
[iii]http://juliemontagu.com/biography
[iv]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550413119306114?via%3Dihub
[v]https://journals.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1152/japplphysiol.00495.2019