Silent Inflammation Part II – By Doctor Gisela Heldt

In the seventies doctor Ohlschläger found out that many pathological states are caused by oxidation – harmful substances reach the cells and avoid normal regeneration. Patients were then not medicated when they took vitamin C, vitamin E, selenium or dietary supplements with other therapeutic remedies. You can sometimes hear this even today that people who are suffering from cancer are treated in the “academic way” and shall not take vitamins or minerals – it is said they would be worse because of that. Luckily meantime medicine is rethinking and acknowledges the positive effect of dietary supplements.

Another phenomenon is that our cells produce “free radicals”. Free radicals are substances that are broken down again in our cells. Unfortunately some of these radicals manage to escape the cells. The organism protects itself against damage with antioxidants. But one has to get the antioxidants from somewhere … we get them when eating. Anti oxidants are in plants – the so called secondary phytochemicals. – Why isn´t this enough? Our ancestors who lived a million years ago took daily much more plants than we do. This has changed. In our times we take concentrated nutrition – cereals in bread, pasta, pizza etc. The dishes are quickly cooked and saturate for a long time. But our genes ask still for the same anti oxidants that our ancestors took a million years ago. That means, our body does not get enough of these phytochemicals that reduce inflammation because we do not eat enough plants.

Inflammation can cause age spots / liver spots, rheumatism, arthrosis, diabetes mellitus, high blood pressure, arteriosclerosis, autoimmune diseases, allergies – that means it can cause every lifestyle disease. Even burnout is one of these diseases – stress causes inflammation in the whole body. But what can we do against silent inflammation that causes every old-age disease?

1 The most important is to take anti oxidants in a plant-based nutrition – and additional natural vitamins like vitamin C, vitamin E, alpha lipoic acid, medical mushrooms etc and minerals.

2 Avoid taking sugar, the worst of all refined foods, even fructose – you may only take natural fructose that is contained in fresh fruits.

3 Season your meals with anti inflammatory spices.

4 Take anti inflammatory fats like Omega-3 fatty acids and reduce taking Omega-6 fatty acids.

5 Physical activities help enormously.

6 Reduce stress and do something to find your inner balance (read funny tales, watch humorous movies …)

Conclusion

Aging, chronic and modern lifestyle diseases including burn out come always along with “silent inflammation”.  You can recover and prevent illnesses when following an “anti inflammatory” lifestyle with the right nutrition, practicing physical activities and taking care of the inner balance.