A Primary Root Cause: Inflammatory Factors
Inflammation is now known to be an underlying factor in many of the degenerative
diseases and disorders that most often destroy the health of Americans. This
includes cancer, cardiovascular disease, arthritis, and diabetes. Inflammation is
also a primary culprit in the onset of autism, ADHD, asthma, and allergies.
Inflammation can exert healing effects, by bringing extra blood flow to distressed
areas of the body – anywhere from a bruise to a blood vessel. Too often, however,
the effects of inflammation damage and destroy healthy cells, and create long-
term dysfunction of tissues and organs.
Inflammation is extremely common among children with 4-A disorders. It is, in
fact, as common as allergy among 4-A kids, and often exists in tandem with allergy.
Inflammation contributes to allergies, and allergies contribute to inflammation.
This cycle can be self-perpetuating, and go on indefinitely, unless parents,
patients, and doctors actively intervene.
Here’s how the cycle works:
(1) A food or inhalant allergy creates inflammation.
(2) This inflammation causes the immune system to become overreactive and
hypersensitive.
(3) This over-reactivity and hypersensitivity then causes the immune system to
attack normally harmless substances, such as molecules of milk or pollen. This
immune attack is the allergic response.
(4) Then allergies create even more inflammation.
Distant inflammation is one root cause of allergy that is often overlooked. For
example, many doctors fail to realize that airway allergies are often exacerbated by
distant inflammation, in the gut. However, this happens quite often. Therefore,
patients can frequently overcome airborne allergies when they resolve their
intestinal inflammation.
It’s easy for inflammation to affect distant areas of the body. When one part of the
body is inflamed, it sends out immune cell messengers, or cytokines, that travel
throughout the body. These messengers then trigger inflammation in many
different areas of the body, including the joints, the mucus membranes of the
airways, the lining of the gastrointestinal tract, and even the brain. Each of these
areas then sends out its own inflammatory messengers, creating even more
inflammation, in a feed-forward phenomenon. All of this inflammation contributes
to allergies. And the allergies, of course, then cause even more inflammation.
Inflammation’s destruction was revealed recently by researchers at Johns
Hopkins University Medical Center, who had performed autopsies on the brains of
a number of autistic children who had died in accidents. The brains of almost all
of these children showed signs of neuroinflammation.
Widespread inflammation now appears to be a common denominator in virtually
all atopic disorders, including eczema, hay fever, and food allergies, and is also a
major component of bowel dysbiosis, immune dysfunction, autism, ADHD, and
asthma. Inflammation is one of the ties that binds these problems together.
All of the various elements that contribute to inflammation must be recognized, and
remediated.
What Causes Inflammation?
Food – specifically if it is high in saturated fat and low in essential fatty acids.
Other inflammatory foods include sugars, and allergenic foods.
Another source of inflammation may be subclinical chronic infection, as well as
heavy metal overload, in some children.
Stress can contribute to inflammation, by promoting production of pro-
inflammatory immune system messengers, such as interleukin-6. These
messengers create further inflammation, and this inflammation harms children
with autism and ADHD. This makes the children feel even more stressed out,
causing further inflammation, in a repetitive cycle.
Injury almost always creates inflammation, as the body attempts to bring in extra
nutrients to the injured area, and take out dead and damaged cells.
Infection is another common cause of inflammation. Many children who suffer
from the 4-A epidemics have persistent infection, particularly in their
gastrointestinal systems. These infections can last for years, because so many 4-
A kids have impaired immunity.
To intervene in the cycle of inflammation-disorder-inflammation, parents and
doctors must remove as many of the sources of inflammation as possible, and
must also counteract existing inflammation.
Nutrients are among the very best treatments for inflammation. The most powerful
nutritional anti-inflammatories are:
Anti-Inflammatory Nutrients
• EFAs, including omega-3 (such as EPA and DHA) and GLA (such as borage
oil, black currant seed oil, or evening primrose oil).
• Quercetin, which is a natural antihistamine, and an anti-inflammatory plant
chemical.
• Pycnogenol, which many people take in relatively high doses for allergy
symptoms, due to its anti-inflammatory and anti-allergic properties.
• Curcumin, the active ingredient in the spice turmeric, which has powerful anti-
inflammatory effects.
• Transfer factor, which helps modulate immunity (by promoting Th-1 activity).
This helps stop inflammatory immune overreaction, particularly when it is related
to Th-2 skewing.
• Zinc, another immune modulator, which enhances cellular immunity.
• Vitamin E, an antioxidant that helps prevent oxidation of the EFAs.
• Vitamin A, an antioxidant that is typically low in children with the 4-A
disorders.
• Vitamin C, an antioxidant and immune modulator, which can counter oxidant
stress and inflammation.
Medications for Inflammation
Some pharmaceutical drugs can decrease inflammation, including:
• Actos This is a drug that improves insulin sensitivity. It is most commonly
used for diabetes and metabolic syndrome, but appears to soothe inflammation.
Extensive research is now being done to look into its far-reaching anti-
inflammatory effects in the treatment of colitis, psoriasis, and neurological
disorders.
• Namenda, which is F.D.A. approved for the treatment of Alzheimer’s
disease, works by blocking the activity of glutamate, an excitatory amino acid that
is often implicated in neuroinflammation.
For some time, physicians believed that the popular Cox-2 inhibitors, which are
used for rheumatoid inflammation, would help with neuroinflammation. However,
they have not proven to be particularly effective. They appear to be more active
peripherally than in the brain.
There is no single medication, supplement, food, or lifestyle alteration that can
fully halt the force of inflammation. A comprehensive anti-inflammatory strategy,
applied as part of a larger restorative program, is the only viable solution.
