The devastating part "Inflammation" plays with is virus!

So what part does "Inflammation" play in the immune system? Well, inflammation is the normal response of your body's immune system to injuries and harmful things that enter the body. In the right proportion . . . inflammation is a good thing! It alerts immune cells to quickly react to the damaged area to fix the problem. During this process, you may feel symptoms like pain, warmth, swelling and redness.

But . . . if the inflammation is severe enough, it can cause a general reaction in the body like feeling ill, exhaustion and fever. These are all signs that the immune system is very active doing its job and needs a lot more of your energy.

Now, Chronic inflammation is when the body can't turn the inflammation process off and this has been linked to certain diseases such as heart disease or stroke, and autoimmune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. This normally occurs due to a poor diet.

Chronic inflammation slows down the immune system's normal function and it can cause everything from Allergies to Diabetes to Obesity, Cancer and Aging!

So how does inflammation affect this VIRUS? Well, have you ever heard of "Cytokine Storm" before? Cytokines are a group of proteins secreted by cells of the immune system that act as chemical messengers. A cytokine storm is basically "Intense" inflammation caused by an out-sized immune system response to a perceived threat!

You see, the immune system normally uses protein called "cytokines" as weapons in fighting a disease such as with this virus. The people that don't get this virus have ample Antibodies and adequate inflammation response to kill the virus. However, the people that get this virus and/or don't survive, are people that their body produced more "Cytokines" (inflammation) than the body's immune system could handle. Basically an immune reaction gone wild, which can cause the immune system to attack its own body.

So personally I believe it may not be the virus that is killing people . . . it may be their own immune system due to an overactive inflammation response. I'll tell you a little story . . . 12 years ago I had my gallbladder removed and had to have a stent placed between my liver and bowel . . . where my gallbladder used to be. After surgery, I spent the next 30 days in and out of the hospital with severe infection and unbearable abdominal pain. At the end of that month, they decided to remove the stent connecting my liver to my bowel because they said my body was rejecting the stent. My body was attacking the stent and ME! After the stent was removed, the pain and infections went away.

This was my "Cytokine Storm"! So the moral to this story and optimal health is to keep inflammation under control. Tomorrow we'll talk about how to do that.

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