So a bored immune system will find targets that really shouldn’t be aimed at. Something about that old adage of idle hands and mischief but immune systems and aging related chronic illness
kpmcc · 4h ago
If anyone wants an interesting read on inflammation / stress for lay audiences, I'd recommend 'Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers' by Sapolsky.
dapperdrake · 2h ago
Sometimes the world is really just black and white.
amelius · 4h ago
Thanks. Does it provide workable solutions? :)
koolhead17 · 3h ago
surprisingly, yes :)
otikik · 1m ago
Are they "be a zebra"?
dinkblam · 1h ago
the confusing things for a layman is the different kinds of messages we receive from those pop-science outlets.
on one hand they claim chronic or recurring inflammation is THE big health problem, and if we could it under control everything we'd be much healthier.
on the other hand there are messages like inflammation is good for your body because it keeps it working and e.g. the reason vegetables are so healthy is because they are basically indigestible and therefore cause mild inflammation, ergo good.
so what is it now? or are there different kinds of inflammation?
esperent · 49m ago
> they claim chronic or recurring inflammation is THE big health problem
> on the other hand there are messages like inflammation is good for your body because it keeps it working
There's no contradiction here. The first one is chronic, it's long term.
The second one is acute, it's short term, to heal or to deal with invaders.
Also, as the comment below mine points out, even this split is a massive simplification. There's many different types of inflammation, some good, some required for survival, and some which can do damage over time if they never get shut off.
This is like saying "it appears machines rust more near the sea than the desert". Well yeah...
adrianN · 5h ago
It is my understanding that we have tried anti inflammatory interventions and they didn’t help. So the conclusion that inflammation per se is not the problem seems to check out.
k__ · 4h ago
I dimmly remember Japanese research about how fasting induced autophagy could help.
elcritch · 2h ago
There’s dozens of pro-inflammatory signaling proteins. Our anti-inflammatories really only target a small subset of them.
Ideally you need to stop inflammatory signals at the source, but we understand very few of those.
amelius · 4h ago
Are you sure the side effects of the interventions were not the problem?
on one hand they claim chronic or recurring inflammation is THE big health problem, and if we could it under control everything we'd be much healthier.
on the other hand there are messages like inflammation is good for your body because it keeps it working and e.g. the reason vegetables are so healthy is because they are basically indigestible and therefore cause mild inflammation, ergo good.
so what is it now? or are there different kinds of inflammation?
> on the other hand there are messages like inflammation is good for your body because it keeps it working
There's no contradiction here. The first one is chronic, it's long term.
The second one is acute, it's short term, to heal or to deal with invaders.
Also, as the comment below mine points out, even this split is a massive simplification. There's many different types of inflammation, some good, some required for survival, and some which can do damage over time if they never get shut off.
> are there different kinds of inflammation?
Yes! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflammation#Types
Ideally you need to stop inflammatory signals at the source, but we understand very few of those.