Is everything inflammation?

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0:34And listeners of this show will get a$75 sponsored job credit to help your job get the premium status it deserves at Indeed.com slash podcast. Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and support the show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed-sponsored jobs. We all do it. You have a night for yourself, but don't like the sound of the silence, so you turn on the TV just for the ambience. It's a little trick that helps you feel like you've got company and aren't alone. And other insurers, well, they may make you feel alone.

1:12But when you switch to GEICO, you've got claims reps available around the clock. So whenever you need, you'll have people around to help. And let's turn on the washing machine, just for good measure. Isn't that soothing? It feels good to have support. It feels good to GEICO. Sometimes I just want to know what is wrong. Like, why am I so tired? Why does life feel so hard? And I have come to learn that if you address that question not to your sister or your therapist, but instead to TikTok, you can get a blessedly simple answer. Inflammation is the root of all disease. The root cause of almost all chronic illnesses and aging itself.

1:57To hear some people tell it, inflammation is the cause of basically everything. Like all of the problems with our health. Heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, even some forms of cancer. Acne, eczema, hair loss, hormonal issues, PMS, bloating, irregular bowel movements. You can actually look better, look younger, feel better. Everything gets better when we lower inflammation. Are you worried? Because don't worry. there are also tips. First is supplements. Curcumin is extremely anti-inflammatory. Cinnamon's very anti-inflammatory. Tip number two, consider taking a break from food. Number three, more fish.

2:41Okay, and now I am confused because it sounds like I'm supposed to eat a lot of fish sprinkled with curcumin, which I don't actually know what that is. The main active ingredient in turmeric is curcumin. Okay, great. Which on its own is not easily absorbed by your body. Uh-oh. Enter black pepper, specifically pepperine. Okay, check. But then I'm also supposed to not eat food? The ancient practice of intermittent fasting can also help lower inflammation in the body. And I'm probably also supposed to buy something? Together, they really create this potent extract in this bottle.

3:16Dylan Scott:At this point, I'm like, as much as I wanted a nice, simple explanation, this just can't be real. Like, inflammation cannot be the root of all diseases. But then I came across a recent big piece by my colleague at Fox, health reporter Dylan Scott. And the science in this piece, it was really surprising to me. Because it sounds like there is something to the idea that chronic inflammation may be behind many of the diseases of modern life. But it also sounds like we've demonized inflammation without pausing to ask what it's good for. It's Unexplainable. I'm Sally Helm. And today I ask Dylan Scott, what is inflammation?

4:06And what is it about the way we're living life that is causing something healthy and natural to creep further and further until it becomes bad for us.

4:33Dylan Scott:Dylan Scott, hello. Hi, Sally. All right, Dylan. I have seen many, many different TikToks about inflammation and how it's perhaps causing like every single health problem in our lives. And I am curious, like before you started looking into this, did you see those? Is that what sent you on this journey? Absolutely. Like I, I love something that's sort of at the intersection of there is like a genuine scientific question underlying all of this. Like this is a serious topic that a lot of, you know, well-credentialed researchers are spending their time looking into. But at the same time, it's sort of infiltrated the wellness influencer subculture that defines so much of how we talk about health these days.

5:19And it has become a catch-all culprit for a lot of different health conditions. And you've also got people out there talking about, you know, diets or supplements or some kind of other interventions that you can take to try to reduce your quote-unquote inflammation.

5:37Dylan Scott:Do you have any favorites or least favorites? So it's CMOS has become a fixation for some people, like people on TikTok. It sounds so specific that I'm like, OK, let's do it. Maybe it works. Right. Well, and people, they talk about it with such confidence. Like that is the weird like allure of, you know, a lot of this wellness content on social media is because, yeah, it's like it's quick. It's, you know, whatever, a 90 second video. It's digestible. And they're like, here, here is the elixir, the solution that will help to reduce your chronic inflammation. I think any of us would be like, well, that sounds appealing.

6:15I'd like to try that out.

6:17Dylan Scott:But as you've already said, Dylan, like this is not just TikTok nonsense. Right. Like the thing about inflammation is that there is this real body of evidence suggesting that there's something important to think about here. Yeah. So let's get into it. I actually want to start here in the realm of language, because this word inflammation, it's such a powerful word, maybe even a little too powerful, because it contains this feeling of fire within it. And I just want to start by asking you, like, is that the right metaphor for inflammation? I completely agree with you. It's a very evocative term that gives you this image of your body being ablaze.

7:04But I do think fire is, I think, in some ways an appropriate metaphor for what inflammation does. But I think we have to remember that our relationship to fire is complicated. Fire is certainly a destructive force at times, but it can also be a cleansing force. Fire is natural. Even huge forests need fire sometimes to sweep through and clean things up and allow something new to grow on top of it. And I think it's similar with inflammation, where we have a complicated relationship to it. Some level of inflammation is absolutely necessary for our bodies to function as they should. But much like fire, too much of it can start to cause serious problems.

7:53Dylan Scott:I do feel like I need to ask a kind of basic question before we go much further here, which is, Dylan, what is inflammation? In essence, inflammation is your immune system going into attack mode and either sending like immunity cells or other kinds of chemicals that your body can release to try to get rid of some outside invader that your body perceives as having infiltrated it and wants to get rid of to keep you healthy. And so obviously, if that outside invader is a cold virus or the influenza virus or some bacteria or something like that, like that's what we call acute inflammation. And that's, you know, that's something that we've known about for ages.

8:40Even like ancient doctors knew that like the body goes into some kind of response when you get sick.

8:46Dylan Scott:And it's like, OK, great. Yes, get it gone. I don't want that. I mean, yeah, for this kind of acute inflammation that we're talking about in response. to a virus or a bacteria or a wound, you know, back in the ancient times that you might have gotten on the battlefield or something, you know, the red skin or puffy skin that can surround a wound. And like, it can be painful, it can feel hot. But at the same time, that is like your body responding to a problem and trying to fix it. And so, I mean, my sense is that like, the word developed because like it has these literal associations with heat.

9:21But I do think it's created this problem unintentionally where it just sounds like something negative. Inflammation sounds like something that you want to get rid of. And it certainly, like, put me in a different mind space when I learned that, like, oh, no, like, inflammation is, you know, it's your body repairing itself. Like, that sounds positive, but it's not maybe, like, where your mind naturally goes when you hear the word inflammation. I mean, and what you're saying, like, cold virus,

9:47Dylan Scott:wound. We've like felt and seen that. Like I can imagine my throat being swollen if I have a cold. But the scary thing is that it sounds like there's this secret other inflammation that can happen where it's just like invisible, microscopic in your whole body. Tell me about that. Is that the bad one? So as one of the scientists I talked to for my story put it, like every cell in your body can experience inflammation. Oh, God. And a lot of that inflammation, to your point, is happening at the molecular level that we're never going to be able to perceive with our own eyes. But even there, even with this invisible type of inflammation, there's a good kind and there's a bad kind.

10:29So once again, it's more complicated than you might think. There's first like what scientists call homeostatic inflammation. And this is basically like your body doing routine maintenance. Like your cells, you know, we don't like to think stop and think about this, but like, you know, they're degrading slowly over time. Your body's stepping in all the time to make repairs.

10:50Dylan Scott:And I'm even thinking like, I guess if you like lift weights or work out or something, like do you? Exactly. Well, we want that. I mean, we need that type of. Yes, exactly. When you work out, when you lift weights, your muscles tear, they're injured basically. And part of the reason that you get stronger is because then inflammation takes hold. It repairs those muscles and it repairs them back stronger than they were before. I mean, That's the essence of strength training. So that is exactly that kind of inflammation at the invisible level. That's desirable. That's just a part of your body functioning as it's supposed to.

11:24The third kind of inflammation and this other kind of invisible inflammation is what we're concerned about. And I've come to think of it as this like chronic low-grade inflammation that is above those routine maintenance levels that is not like sort of your body's normal homeostatic state of being. And that kind of inflammation, which can persist over a long period of time, is the kind of inflammation that scientists and physicians are worried about that we're beginning to realize can be associated with a wide range of health problems. All right. So I'm just recapping. Sure. Right. Inflammation happens when your body goes into like defense mode and your immune system sends blood containing like chemicals to help fight pathogens or heal a wound.

12:13And I can imagine why blood flowing to an area could lead to redness and swelling and heat and all those things. But it sounds like the concern is that being in constant defense mode like this can actually cause its own problems. Yeah. And that is chronic inflammation. And, okay, honestly, Dylan, I can see why it is a concept that people are gravitating towards.

12:38Dylan Scott:Because it's just like something in the world is leaving us in this constant state of being a little bit agitated and, like, a little bit overheated. and that just kind of feels true to me. But I want to dig in on whether it is true. Like, what is going on here? So tell me first, like, what causes chronic inflammation? So I do think that your idea of sort of our bodies being agitated is really appropriate because there is increasingly evidence that it is modernity itself, our industrialized lifestyles that are at least contributing to this rise in chronic low-grade inflammation that leads to chronic health problems over time.

13:27It was easily the most interesting thing that I learned in reporting out this story. I mean, if you think about human beings and our immune system, like those are things that develop over these really long timelines, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of years. And when you think back to, you know, hundreds of thousands of years ago, when modern humans were developing and their immune systems were evolving, we didn't live very long. And so, like, any kind of problem of, like, you know, while your inflammation is starting to slowly increase over time, like, had a pretty finite endpoint if you're not living past 40.

14:04It's not really going to become that much of a concern. And at the same time, we were living in a world where there are all kinds of pathogens out there. There are viruses and bacterias, as well as like, you know, physical risks that our body is confronting all of the time. And we didn't have any kind of medical interventions to try to address it. So basically like our immune systems evolved for pretty short lifespans compared to how long we live today and a really high infection risk compared to what we face today. An unfortunate byproduct of our longevity is that our bodies do experience more inflammation over time.

14:43I mean, and that's interesting, just to pause you quickly, Dylan,

14:45Dylan Scott:because that is kind of another example of like, it sounds bad, but maybe it's good. Like in that explanation of chronic inflammation, it's like, well, it's a trade-off for a longer life. Yeah, there's a lot of these things. All kinds, honestly, Sally, like all kinds of chronic health conditions are at least in part a byproduct of the fact that we live longer and our bodies just have more time for these problems to develop.

15:12Okay, I am hearing you that aging is a part of what's going on here. But can you go back to what you were saying at the beginning about the role that modernity might be playing here? So there does seem to be this role of industrialization, you know, pollution, changes to our food production, that is also playing a role in driving this chronic inflammation problem in addition to aging. We don't face nearly as many infection risks from viruses or bacterias as we used to because we have modern sanitation and modern hygiene, but we are still being exposed to all kinds of stuff like pollution and synthetic chemicals in our clothes.

15:56And our immune system's natural response to that is to kick in the inflammation and try to respond to it. But the thing is, it's not necessarily that there's a virus or bacteria or this sort of short-term health problem that our inflammation is able to respond to and then resolve. Instead, it's just this miasma that we're living inside of that we're being exposed to all the time. And I do think it kind of not just agitates our immune system, but it causes our immune system to go a little bit haywire.

16:30Dylan Scott:Wow. Okay. So this is getting complicated, Dylan, because I think what you're saying to me is that we already talked about those two types of kind of systemic inflammation. One helps us stay at homeostasis. It like helps us kind of just respond to the stuff that's coming at us all the time and heal and move on. And one is like chronic inflammation, this like slightly elevated, but it doesn't need to be type of inflammation. And that one can cause disease, can cause all kinds of trouble. And it sounds like what you're saying to me is that like maybe in the evolutionary past, it would have been one and now it's the other.

17:12Dylan Scott:Like in the evolutionary past, this type of inflammation would have been necessary. Like we would have been fighting all these pathogens. So heating up a little would have killed the bacteria and we would have moved on. But now it's almost like we're heating up a little, but it doesn't kill the plastic piece or whatever that's floating in our body. The plastic piece or whatever is just in our body. And you're continually being exposed to it. Right. Yeah. So it doesn't solve a problem. It just leaves us in a sort of slightly agitated inflamed state, and then that causes other problems. That's what's going on?

17:46Right. Whoa. And I mean, I think like thinking about the food supply in particular is maybe helpful here. Like to simplify a very complicated story, like our food production has completely changed like within the last century. Like if we're talking about these long evolutionary timelines for our immune system to adjust and adapt, like we have sent a shock to the system just in like the last hundred years with the advent of mass agriculture and things like ultra-processed foods. And when you think about the ways that this kind of chronic low-grade inflammation continues to persist, like every day you're eating some kind of, maybe even despite our best efforts, you're eating some kind of new ultra-processed food or you're eating more sugar than is naturally healthy or maybe more fat, especially if you live in the United States.

18:39And so your body goes into this response to try to do something about it. But like, how can there's nothing to resolve the next day you're going to eat something again that's once again going to continue to perturb your immune system and start these inflammatory responses. And so, yeah, it's like you can't escape it. Like we live inside of modernity. Like you step outside and there is like air pollution. You, you know, like look at our clothes and they have these new synthetic chemicals that do inevitably seep into our skin and into our bodies a little bit. And then especially with food and food processing, like there's just this constant exposure to things that your immune system doesn't recognize and doesn't know what to do with and thinks that it wants to get rid of, but it never can because that exposure is continual and constantly renewed.

19:30and so i think that's i hope that's sort of a a helpful way of thinking about how like your body is doing something that's natural in response to these unnatural exposures but it's sort of an endless cycle an endless loop that continues to drive this inflammation over time and eventually does lead to tissue damage and some of the more serious health problems that we worry about.

19:54Dylan Scott:Yes. I mean, I have heard of absolutely one million things that seem to be caused or worsened by inflammation. Like the range is huge. So what do we actually know about whether inflammation is contributing to all of these diseases and health problems? Yeah. So there's, I do think this is, it's important to pause and say like, this is where a lot of science is happening like right now. After the break, Dylan tells me about the work that is happening to find the line where healthy, cleansing fire turns dangerous.

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