When is inflammation good

Inflammation is the health villain du jour. And for good reason: From heart disease to depression , out-of-control inflammation can mess up our bodies in lots of ways. But amidst all the anti-inflammation hubbub, it's important to remember that some inflammation helps sweep out invaders that could make you ill—or worse.

Unlike chronic inflammation aka, long-term , the short-term or "acute" kind is often beneficial. While bad inflammation continuously cycles through your system at low levels, she says, the helpful kind tends to flare up and dissipate quickly. Here are 6 times when inflammation does your body good. A bee stung you. Along with pain comes almost immediate swelling. Harvard Health Letter. Toth, M. AJP: Endocrinology and Metabolism. The Journals of Gerontology. J Neuroinflammation Review. Kershaw, E.

J ClinEndocrinolMetab. The current post " Good vs. Bad Inflammation ". After the discovery of the existence of pro-resolving factors, which have the mission of repairing the damaged tissues and restoring the body to a state of balance, scientists realized that inflammation could be treated in a radically different way than doctors had been treating it for years Figure 2.

In the past, the typical way to treat inflammation was always to try to reduce the action of the pro-inflammatory components of inflammation, in order to reduce the collateral damage to the body. However, scientists now believe that we can instead increase the action of the pro-resolving factors [ 8 ] to start the healing process more quickly!

In addition, we also now know that the pro-inflammatory factors are necessary to activate the pro-resolving factors [ 9 ]. In other words, the pro-inflammatory factors act as signals for the body to produce and send the pro-resolving, reparative factors after the battle.

This is important, because it means that if we completely eliminate the pro-inflammatory factors by using strong anti-inflammatory medicines, then later we will not have the signals that stimulate healing. So, a pro-resolving strategy to control inflammation seems to be safer, because it will involve using drugs that mimic the way the body naturally resolves inflammation.

However, this does not mean that we should discard all the older anti-inflammatory drugs. In fact, a combination of both types of medicines might be very beneficial. The way we understand and deal with inflammation is changing as we now have much more knowledge about all of the components of the inflammatory response, including the pro-inflammatory and the pro-resolving factors.

We now know that inflammation is a necessary, protective reaction of our bodies without which we would not survive, although some collateral damage sometimes happens. The switch from reducing inflammation to increasing its resolution is now widely accepted among the scientists, and it brings new hope for those patients for whom the usual anti-inflammatory drugs do not work. The arsenal of protective pro-resolving factors we know to date is large, although we also believe that many more pro-resolving factors remain to be discovered by the scientists of the future.

There are many types of immune cells, including granulocytes neutrophils, eosinophils, and basophils and mononuclear cells monocytes and lymphocytes.

Examples include prostaglandins, cytokines, chemokines, and interleukins. Examples include resolvins, melanocortins, and annexin A1. The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

I would like to thank Mauro Perretti, Sophie Wahalatantri and Scarlett Bland for their critical review of the manuscript. I also thank Arthritis Research UK grant for funding my research. In this issue: inflammation. Cell —7. Your food choices are just as important as the medications and supplements you may be taking for overall health since they can protect against inflammation.

Pitis says. Eat more fruits and vegetables and foods containing omega-3 fatty acids. Some of the best sources of omega-3s are cold water fish, such as salmon and tuna, and tofu, walnuts, flax seeds and soybeans. Other anti-inflammatory foods include grapes, celery, blueberries, garlic, olive oil, tea and some spices ginger, rosemary and turmeric. The Mediterranean diet is a perfect example of an anti-inflammatory diet. This is due to its focus on fruits, vegetables, fish and whole grains, and limits on unhealthy fats, such as red meat, butter and egg yolks as well as processed and refined sugars and carbs.