About Immunity

(7) About Inflammation

What do you know about inflammation?

When you hear the term “inflammation,” you probably immediately think of something harmful. However, inflammation can actually be healthy. This is known as “physiological inflammation.” When inflammation is harmful, it is known as “pathological inflammation.” In other words, there are both good and bad forms of inflammation.

When there are problems in the body that should be eliminated, immune cells are recruited and they act to restore the body to normal. As a result, blood flows to the problem area, such as a wound or infection, and causes swelling, redness, pain, or fever. This is inflammation. In other words, inflammation is part of the process of eliminating and repairing problems.

Inflammation plays a crucial role in fighting pathogens, repairing damaged tissues, and maintaining the body. This is called “physiological inflammation.”

However, if the “physiological inflammation” does not stop at a predetermined stage, it will develop into “pathological inflammation.” Pathological inflammation can also be referred to as chronic inflammation. This harmful form of inflammation is the source of many health problems that are widespread today, such as obesity, diabetes, and dementia.

Even though there are both good and bad forms of inflammation, in everyday conversation, the word “inflammation” usually means “bad inflammation.”

However, if you do not distinguish between “good inflammation” and “bad inflammation,” it can be confusing when you start thinking about the immune system and immunity. You might ask yourself, “If the immune system is over-activated, can bad inflammation occur?” Immune activation means that “good inflammation” occurs promptly when needed, and it quickly goes away when the work of immune cells is finished. The development of “bad inflammation” means that the immunity is rather inactive. For example, the immune cells in charge of suppressing the immune system do not work, or they work too well and prevent healing from occurring effectively.

Michal Schwartz, an Israeli neurologist, wrote in her book entitled Neuroimmunity: a new science that will revolutionize how we keep our brains healthy and young that “Anti-inflammatory drugs cannot treat brain disease. Using drugs that indiscriminately stop the entire immune response eliminates the physiological inflammation that is essential for healing.” And she has shown that causing “physiological inflammation,” the good form of inflammation, is effective in treating brain diseases like dementia and depression (*1).

(*1) Neuroimmunity: a new science that will revolutionize how we keep our brains healthy and young (Michal Schwartz with Anat London）