Medical Scientists Collectively Agree That Preventing Or Early Treatment Of Chronic Inflammation Reduces Illnesses And Saves Lives
Source: Thailand Medical News Dec 06, 2019 5 years, 2 weeks, 4 days, 23 hours, 51 minutes ago
Medical Scientists from 22 prestigious institutions, are recommending early diagnosis, prevention and treatment of severe
chronic inflammation to reduce the risk of chronic disease and death worldwide.
Chronic Inflammation leads to a varierty of medical conditionsincluding neurodegenerative disease, cancer, autoimmune issues, etc.
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The collective group of international experts, which also includes medical scientists from the National Institutes of Health, Stanford University, University Of California (LA), Harvard Medical School, Columbia University Medical Center and University College London, point to
inflammation-related diseases as the cause of 50 percent of all deaths worldwide.
Typically,
inflammation is a naturally occurring response by the body's immune system that helps fight illness and infection. When
inflammation is chronic,problems starts as it it increases the risk of developing potentially deadly diseases.
An article, published in the journal
Nature Medicine, the authors describe how persistent and severe
inflammation in the body plays a key role in heart disease, cancer, diabetes, kidney disease, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and autoimmune and neurodegenerative disorders.
It is strongly recommended that future research should focus on identifying ways to better diagnose and treat severe
chronic inflammation, according to the authors. Doing so may not only extend life, but also help reduce chronic disease worldwide and improve health, they said.
Dr George Slavich, director of the UCLA Laboratory for Stress Assessment and Research senior author of the paper told
Thailand Medical news that it is important to make people aware of the risk factors for
chronic inflammation, which include obesity, physical inactivity, social isolation, chronic stress and inadequate or poor sleep.
Dr Slavich said, "
Chronic inflammation is influenced by many social, environmental and lifestyle factors. If we make people aware of these risk factors, our hope is that individuals will reduce the factors that apply to them."
Dr Slavich, who is also a research scientist at the Norman Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology at UCLA said research should focus on identifying new biomarkers or substances in the body that will enable doctors to screen for and better diagnose and treat severe
chronic inflammation. Currently, just a few biomarkers are known to indicate
inflammation, such as elevated levels of C-reactive protein, a protein found in blood plasma. Slavich said there are potentially hundreds of other substances in the body's immune system that may indicate
chronic inflammation, but they have yet to be identified.
Dr Slavich added, "It's also critical to recognize that
inflammation is a contributor not just to physical health problems, but also mental health problems such as anxiety disorders, depression, PTSD, schizophrenia, self-harm and suicide. This is a substantial public
health crisis."
Reference : David Furman et al. Chronic inflammation in the etiology of disease across the life span, Nature Medicine (2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41591-019-0675-0
