What Happens When Inflammation Won't Go Away?

Key takeaways

• Recognize chronic inflammation as a hidden cause of fatigue and brain fog, not just aging.
• Reduce inflammation by choosing whole fruits, limiting processed foods, and moderating alcohol and caffeine.
• Boost health by practicing meditation, prioritizing sleep, staying active and managing stress effectively.
  
  

Summary

Chronic inflammation could be the hidden cause behind your ongoing fatigue and brain fog, affecting your overall health more than you realize. Unlike acute inflammation, which is a short-term protective response to injury or infection, chronic inflammation lingers for months and can contribute to serious conditions like osteoarthritis, cardiovascular disease and dementia. The good news is that making simple lifestyle changes — such as improving your diet by choosing whole fruits over processed juices, reducing ultra-processed foods, moderating alcohol and caffeine intake, and practicing regular meditation — can significantly reduce inflammation and help restore balance to your body.

Understanding chronic inflammation is crucial because it’s not an inevitable part of aging but a manageable health issue. By adopting anti-inflammatory habits, you can ease symptoms such as muscle weakness and persistent pain while improving mental clarity and energy levels. Prioritizing quality sleep, staying active and managing stress effectively are key steps that empower you to take control of your health and reduce the risks linked to long-term inflammation.

The key takeaways and summary were created with the assistance of generative AI. An AARP editor reviewed and refined the content for accuracy and clarity.

Full Transcript:

[00:00:00] What if some of the exhaustion, aches or brain fog you’re feeling isn’t just about getting older? It could be your body stuck in a constant state of defense.
[00:00:09] That’s chronic inflammation, and it may be affecting your health far more than you realize. So what happens when inflammation won’t go away?
[00:00:18] To answer that, it helps to start with what inflammation actually is and what it’s supposed to do.
[00:00:24] Most of us think of inflammation as something bad, but that’s only part of the story. Dr. Mladen Golubic: So inflammation is a way how our body tries to heal itself.
[00:00:34] It’s a beneficial response. It’s a, it’s a protective response. It is part of our physiology, the way we respond to stressors like
[00:00:45] traumas or viruses or bacteria. Rachel: So in small doses, inflammation is actually a good thing. But not all
[00:00:53] inflammation behaves the same way. Dr. Bibi Ayesha: Acute inflammation is body’s response to an injury or infection.
[00:01:00] You could conceptualize it with a splinter affecting on your skin, and you could see all these changes that happen with pain, heat, redness,
[00:01:10] swelling or loss of function. Rachel: Once the problem is resolved, the inflammatory response shuts off.
[00:01:16] That’s acute inflammation. Short-term, targeted and helpful. Chronic inflammation is when that switch gets stuck on.
[00:01:24] Bibi: Chronic inflammation is when this inflammatory state stays for, like, many, many months. If you’re having, like, evening rise of temperature, if you feel tired all the
[00:01:33] time, if you’re in pain more than normal or having weakness in your muscles, that is what happens in chronic inflammation.
[00:01:40] Doctors don’t rely on symptoms alone to diagnose it. Blood tests can show markers of ongoing inflammation.
[00:01:46] Mladen: General causes of chronic inflammation for most individuals are lifestyle factors.
[00:01:52] Suboptimal diet, sedentary lifestyle, poor sleeping habits, high level
[00:01:58] of uncontrolled stress, social isolation, loneliness, using toxins, excessive alcohol, smoking.
[00:02:08] Another factor, aging. There’s even a word for the slow increase in chronic inflammation
[00:02:13] over time: inflammaging. Mladen: Inflammaging is enhanced inflammatory response that progresses as we age.
[00:02:22] The older we get, the more signs we have of low, simmering,
[00:02:28] chronic level of inflammation. Rachel: Chronic inflammation isn’t just uncomfortable. Over time, it’s been linked to serious health conditions,
[00:02:36] especially as we get older. Bibi: It could cause, like, osteoarthritis. It could accelerate the cardiovascular diseases.
[00:02:42] It could cause dementia. Rachel: But here’s the good news. Chronic inflammation isn’t inevitable, and some of the most effective ways to
[00:02:49] reduce it come down to everyday choices. Mladen: We can do a lot about that, and it’s, and it’s not rocket science.
[00:02:58] We all have to sleep. We all have to eat. Why don’t we do it in a little bit better way? Let’s say you want to eat more anti-inflammatory foods, which would
[00:03:07] be adding more fruits, for example. Instead of drinking orange, you eat orange.
[00:03:14] Yeah. Simple change. Ultra-processed refined foods. White bread, white pasta, you know, those are the things that really will add this
[00:03:24] fuel to this low simmering inflammation. Bibi: Stay away from excessive caffeine, smoking and your alcohol consumption.
[00:03:32] Mladen: Meditation, sitting, laying down, doing nothing, it’s profoundly effective.
[00:03:38] If you take people who never meditated and you instruct them and they do it for, for eight weeks, and you draw their white blood cells and
[00:03:45] you look at genes expression, you can see that the key regulators
[00:03:50] of inflammatory response go down. Rachel: So here’s the takeaway: When inflammation becomes chronic, small lifestyle changes
[00:03:59] could be just the thing to help you feel better, think more clearly and bring your body back into balance.
[00:04:07] For more in-depth health news and information, visit aarp.org/health.