John Arts Abundant Living www.johnarts.co.nz

If you have a health problem that ends with ‘itis' it is an inflammatory disease. The term arthritis describes various inflammatory joint diseases. More specifically, bursitis describes the inflammation of the fluid filled sac (bursar) in joints. Tendonitis is inflammation of tendons and so on. If you have an ‘itis' you have unwanted inflammation.

I remember about 15 years ago having bursitis in my elbow. Goodness me it hurt. My elbow was swollen, hot to touch, red and very painful. In my case, this was caused by an infection and needed IV antibiotics. Following this, I had a weakness in my elbow which lasted till about 10 years ago when I started adopting seriously anti-inflammatory diets and supplements.

The four main indicators of inflammation are; swelling, redness, heat and pain. This is of course what we can feel and observe. Inflammation goes a lot deeper than that. Our immune system responds to real – or imaginary – threats by sending a cocktail of chemicals with exotic names including prostaglandins, histamine, complement and cytokines. These chemicals cause a series of events that include dilation of blood vessels, which increases blood flow. This extra blood flow causes both heat and redness. These inflammatory chemicals then cause capillaries to become more permeable causing protein rich fluid to leak into tissue spaces. With joints, this causes swelling, stiffness and of course pain. They also attract white blood cells to help clear out pathogens and dead tissue.

This inflammatory response is critical when needed to repair damage or fight off bugs. It is unwanted when it occurs in otherwise healthy tissue. It is even worse when it is triggered to fix something it cannot repair. This is generally what happens with osteoarthritis. The joint tissue has eroded and the immune system thinks this is something it needs to fix and inflames the joint unnecessarily. Anti-inflammatory medicines such as diclofenac or ibuprofen block the unwanted inflammation reducing the symptoms. Even better, is when you can coax the immune system into shutting down the unwanted inflammation.

There are many naturally occurring compounds including antioxidants and some fats that actually switch inflammation off and bring sanity to inflamed tissue. If you have an ‘itis' it is essential you adopt the dietary changes and supplements that can reduce inflammation and your ‘itis' may reduce or even disappear. To join my weekly newsletter visit www.johnarts.co.nz or visit www.abundant.co.nz

John Arts is the founder of Abundant Health. To contact John phone 07 578 9051 or 0800 423 559.