WHY WE GET INFLAMEDTo understand why med-
itation may work against
metainflammation, it helps
to understand exactly what
inflammation is, and what
effects it can have on our
health.
First, there’s more than
one kind of inflammation.
Acute inflammation is trig-
gered when you’re wounded
or battling an infection. One
of the body’s most elegantly
engineered processes, your
blood vessels constrict to
stop bleeding. Then swarms
of inflammation-promoting
cells, starting with neutro-
phils, flood the injured area.
(You may notice redness
and swelling at the wound
site during this process.)
These trigger scab for-
mation and skin healing,
and help form new blood
vessels, until it’s almost like
the whole thing never hap-
pened. The inflammation
naturally ebbs away once
healing is completed.
If acute inflammation is
like a raging fire that burns
in place until an infection is
obliterated, metainflamma-
tion is like having embers
burning deep within your
body. You may never notice
the smoldering until it
erupts as chronic illness,
notes Garry Egger, PhD,
Director of the Center for
Health Promotion and
Research.
Instead, this low-grade,
chronic, and systemic in-
flammation quietly spreads,
affecting arteries and
certain organs and causing
allostasis, a disruption of
their normal processes.
Allostasis is present in
many, if not most, forms of
chronic disease. “We can’tsay it ‘causes’ such disease,
but it is highly correlated,”
Dr. Egger says.A CHRONIC CONNECTIONThe triggers of metainflam-
mation are like a huge crazy
quilt that reflects the costs
of living in a modern, indus-
trialized society: processed,
packaged, and fast foods;
inactive lifestyle; obesity;
not enough fruits and vege-
tables; too little sleep; pollu-
tion; chemicals that disrupt
our endocrine system (and
promote obesity); and social
issues, including inequality
and economic insecurity.
These familiar life condi-
tions all cause physical and
psychological stress, which
in turn can ignite the slow
burn of metainflammation
deep within the body.
But as with many phys-
iological processes, howmetainflammation leads to
disease isn’t cut-and-dried.
Instead, research suggests
it’s a response your immune
system mounts to a variety
of triggers, which over time
leads to the development of
various chronic conditions.
In other words, how peo-
ple develop chronic diseases
related to inflammation is
complicated, says Leonard
H. Calabrese, DO, Profes-
sor of Medicine, Cleveland
Clinic Lerner College of
Medicine at the Cleveland
Clinic in Ohio.
Metainflammation can
interfere with immune
system regulation, says Dr.
Calabrese. People’s immune
systems react differently
to this dysregulation—de-
pending on myriad factors,
from your genetic history to
environmental or lifestyle
factors—and they may
respond with inflammatory
diseases such as rheuma-toid arthritis, Crohn’s dis-
ease, or psoriasis, to name
just a few.
In fact, some 70% of all
diseases, including diabetes,
arthritis, asthma, chronic
obstructive pulmonary dis-
ease, heart disease, irritable
bowel syndrome, depression,
chronic anxiety, and even
some forms of cancer may
have an inflammatory trigger.PUTTING OUT THE FIREReversing widespread in-
flammation doesn’t happen
overnight, but a good start
is reducing the physical
and psychological stressors
that can be triggering the
reaction. Along with a diet
rich in plant-based foods
and exercise, mindfulness
meditation is a noted help.
“I think the evidence is
strong that mindfulness—
especially the more you
practice—‘downregulates’
inflammatory genes,” says
Dr. Calabrese. Simply put,
that means that a consis-
tent mindfulness practice
can “turn off ” the process
by which genes trigger
inflammation.
In a UCLA/Carnegie
Mellon study conducted in
2012, a course of Mindful-
ness-Based Stress Reduction
(MBSR) reduced C-reactive
protein (a significant mark-
er for inflammation). The
researchers concluded that
MBSR could be an effec-
tive treatment for blunting
pro-inflammatory gene
expression in older adults.
It seems to target neuro-
genic inflammation—which
is caused by inflammatory
mediators released from
sensory nerve endings, and
is a key factor in chronic →22 mindful August 2019mindful health
ILLUSTRATIO
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