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Thursday, July 04, 2013

Inflammation explained by Dr Eric Bakker

Here is a "Practitioner" article by health expert, Dr Eric Bakker.  It is one of the best articles I have come cross yet about inflammation.  But, first, a few comments:

I have written a number of times about the importance of inflammation for healing and how the widespread use of anti-inflammatory medications cause more harm than good.

 

Healthy inflammation signals healing is taking place


Inflammation is regulated by the adrenal glands.  If inflammation appears to be uncontrolled, or excessive, then treat the adrenals to improve their health and avoid, at all costs, chemically suppressing the healing processes (inflammation).

Unfortunately you never hear this from mainstream medicine, including your doctor and physiotherapist.  Why?
  • Anti-inflammatory medications, such as Voltaren and even aspirin, are multi-billion dollar industries in world-wide sales and exert huge influence on the institutions that train health professionals.
  • Medicine denies the existence of adrenal fatigue, subscribing instead to the nonsensical belief that such conditions develop magically in an instant to be a life-threatening condition known as "Addisons".  That there is nothing in between this and good health can only be explained by the fact that medical treatment of choice is powerful steroids that actually destroy adrenal function!
  • If the body has healthy, strong adrenals through nutrition and lifestyle measures then the need for expensive physiotherapy and medical procedures, including the need for patent medicines and non steroidal anti-inflammatory medicines would be largely redundant.
Here is the article by Dr Bakker



Inflammation and Adrenal Function
Eric Bakker ND
Many people have a tendency to see inflammation as a disease process, but inflammation in fact is a necessary innate response of our body’s immune system, a process that brings the necessary resources required to a specific area to fight an infection or to heal an injury.  Inflammation is a natural process that is vital as part of the body’s healing process. But an inappropriate inflammatory response can be very damaging and even destructive, and many now believe that inappropriate and out of control inflammatory responses indeed underpin most chronic disease today, including heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

Acute inflammation can occur under different circumstances, for example, if you fall and injure your leg, inflammation occurs.  You can also develop inflammation in response to a bacteria or a virus in your respiratory tract, along with symptoms such as fever, nasal swelling, sneezing, discharge and congestion.  However in this case, a foreign body has caused the inflammatory response.

Chronic and ongoing inflammation is a response initiated by an over-reactive immune system.  Diseases such as ulcerative colitis, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis or rheumatoid arthritis, like many autoimmune diseases, represent a spectrum of diseases in which white blood cells become highly overactive.  Excessive production of the chemical messengers called cytokines in many autoimmune diseases lead to excessive inflammation, and an improperly functioning immune system will often reflect in chronic uncontrollable inflammation.
Autoimmune disorders are among the leading causes of death among women under age 65, according to a study published in a public health journal in America in 2000.  It is safe to assume that our rates are similar in NZ and Australia. 
Particularly with chronic autoimmune disease, how much inflammation occurs will depend to a large degree on cortisol, and as soon as adrenal weakness occurs, the body will become increasingly susceptible to any type of inflammatory response.  With each incremental reduction in the output of cortisol, the body’s inflammatory responses increase and inflammatory reactions such as pain, redness, heat, swelling and loss of function only increase over time.  Bacterial and viral toxins may eventually become unopposed, surging inflammation upwards as immunity worsens.

The “wonder drugs” such as prednisone and hydrocortisone are commonly prescribed by doctors to suppress such autoimmune responses, these steroidal drugs are a synthetic analogue to the body’s own cortisol.  While your patients may experience a temporary relief of the symptoms of inflammation and an increase in their wellbeing, the effects are only short lived and repeated dosages are required, much to the detriment of the body due to the incredible damage caused by their long-term use.

It is important for the body to have its own constant and regular supply of endogenous cortisol, and for this reason approximately 96 percent of serum cortisol is bound to serum proteins, including serum albumin and corticosteroid binding globulin (CBG).  Free cortisol (only about 4 percent) passes easily through cellular membranes, where it binds to intracellular cortisol receptors.  In this 3-way system, the body has ways of accessing cortisol either immediate, intermediate or in a delayed sense as the need arises.  With any immediate and short-term stress, serum cortisol is often sufficient to supply the body’s needs, and if a person has a further minor injury or continued stress then they will have access to the cortisol bound to the albumin.  However, with a more serious injury or prolonged chronic stress, the body has then access to the corticosteroid binding globulin.  This clever innate system allows a person to always have access to cortisol when required, and as you can imagine, this form of subtle control over cortisol does not occur when a person is taking synthetic prednisone or hydrocortisone.

With inflammation, it is therefore in your patient’s best interest to improve their adrenal function to its maximum potential, and let’s look at three key ways to achieve this objective in your clinic:
Point 1: Diet and Lifestyle. As you are no doubt aware, one of the best ways for your patients to reduce inflammation in the more immediate sense is for them to change their diet and lifestyle.  Being a skilled practitioner, you will be sufficiently acquainted with the pro-inflammatory foods and drinks, and it is best that your patients are instructed to follow a low-inflammatory diet approach for some time.
Any diet high in the pro-inflammatory foods, along with a lifestyle high in stress coupled with chemical exposure will most always set the scene for leaky gut syndrome (LGS), and LGS will often pave the way for inflammation and set the stage for autoimmunity, a disease of “no known etiology”.  Dr. Wilson’s AF Program therefore has a strong focus on diet as well as lifestyle modifications.
Point two: Focal infections. The second point is to be on the look-out for any hidden or focal infections, many of your patients may potentially have dead or diseased teeth (root canals), mercury toxicity, or a low-grade infection or inflammatory response involving the ileocaecal valve, bowel pockets, candidiasis, SIBO (small bowel overgrowth), tonsils, appendix or gum issues in the mouth.  The panoramic x-ray taken from a patient in my clinic with rheumatoid arthritis clearly shows an infection in one of her root-canalled teeth.
Point three: Treat Adrenal Fatigue.  Thirdly, suspect and treat adrenal fatigue in any patient who has low grade or a chronic inflammation.  But before you do, I’d like you to seriously consider using the most clinically effective and value for money adrenal fatigue products in the business, products formulated by the doctor who coined the phrase “adrenal fatigue” and who has devoted his entire professional life to clinical AF practice and research, a well respected clinician who has developed the most effective AF treatment protocol in our industry.  Since early 2007, Dr. Wilson’s Adrenal Fatigue Program has set the standard how countless health-care professionals now treat patients with adrenal fatigue in their clinics both throughout Australasia as well as in many countries throughout the world.
My clinic has now treated several thousand AF patients, utilizing Dr. Wilson’s Program, and we have seen many remarkable outcomes in autoimmune patients, including reductions and in many cases an actual cessation of steroidal drugs. Yes, it is possible to have your patient lessen her dependence on steroids, particularly if you carefully follow the three-point approach above.  Are you still using those very basic adrenal formulations in your clinic, and have you seriously considered utilising Dr. Wilson’s Adrenal Fatigue Program yet?   At Nutrisearch, my technical team and I are always happy to give you the guidance or assistance you need in helping you to get started in improving your patient’s outcomes today.


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