{"id":5536,"date":"2020-01-02T04:31:58","date_gmt":"2020-01-02T04:31:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vivehealth.com.au\/blog\/?p=5536"},"modified":"2020-01-02T04:31:58","modified_gmt":"2020-01-02T04:31:58","slug":"natural-ways-to-reduce-and-avoid-inflammation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.vivehealth.com.au\/blog\/2020\/01\/02\/natural-ways-to-reduce-and-avoid-inflammation\/","title":{"rendered":"Natural Ways to Reduce and Avoid Inflammation"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Megan Crockart<\/a> | Balancing Nutrition<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>At this time of year after countless Christmas parties and new year celebrations, most people will be experiencing some level of inflammation from overindulging in food, alcohol, accidents minor and major that seem to happen at this time of year, food poising and the general stress from it all.<\/p>\n

Inflammation in the body has been recognised as one of the main contributors\/drivers of many types of conditions such as autoimmunity, cardiovascular disease, cancer, allergies and neuropsychiatric disorders.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look a little closer at what inflammation is, what can cause it and what we can do to reduce it to avoid increasing our susceptibility to the above mentioned conditions. Simply put, inflammation usually is a response to some form of injury but can also be a response to stress and we need a certain amount of inflammatory mediators to help address these injuries. Infections also cause an inflammatory reaction to help fight the bacteria or virus.<\/p>\n

The external signs of inflammation include heat, swelling and pain.\u00a0 The systemic effects include mild fever, feeling unwell, fatigue, headache and loss of appetite.\u00a0 The inflammatory response usually resolves as soon as the exposure has been removed.\u00a0 If the causative agent isn\u2019t removed inflammation will continue to persist.<\/p>\n

This is the inflammation we don\u2019t want – when it out-stays its welcome and we get caught up in a pro-inflammatory pattern, even after the injury\/stress\/infection has been dealt with.<\/p>\n

Any health problem that ends in -itis <\/em>can involve inflammation eg. arthritis<\/em> <\/span>is inflammation of the joints.<\/p>\n

Most chronic inflammatory diseases such as obesity, diabetes, allergic diseases etc are strongly influenced by nutrition as metabolism of food in itself causes an inflammatory reaction as a normal stress response of the cells reacting to the ingestion of food.\u00a0 Certain nutrients can then modulate these inflammatory reactions.<\/p>\n

Foods that can cause inflammation include:<\/h2>\n