Bad Inflammation ". Ontario British Columbia Saskatchewan Other. Back to home. Home » Blog » Good vs. Bad Inflammation. Good vs. Share this post. When is inflammation bad?
Talaro, Kathleen Park. Foundations in Microbiology. Seventh ed. M 5. Post Views: 0. Pain is essential to alert our bodies that something wrong is going on, and pain lets us know that a particular part of the body needs extra care. The other three factors heat, redness, and swelling are equally important, because they allow the immune system to come into action.
The expansion of the capillaries and the increased blood flow bring the immune cells , such as neutrophils and monocytes, into the affected area. These immune cells are our internal warriors. They are the fighters that protect us against the agents causing the inflammation, such as the flu virus causing the sore throat or bacteria that are trying to enter the body through a wound in the skin. This protective function of inflammation, although it is very clear to us now, was not discovered until the nineteenth century when a Russian zoologist named Elie Metchnikoff proposed that inflammation may be protective rather than harmful [ 2 ].
In summary, inflammation is a reaction of our bodies, driven by the immune system, against potentially harmful elements. Inflammation is then good and necessary for the preservation of our health.
Although the job of the inflammatory reaction is to send our internal troops to the site of injury to protect us, sometimes this response is so strong that it causes some collateral damage.
As explained earlier, cells from the immune system are brought to the area, thanks to the increase in blood flow. The earliest cells to arrive are the neutrophils, which are a type of white blood cell that contains small sacs also called vesicles inside, filled up with protective factors such as anti-bacterial proteins or enzymes that can help to break down infectious organisms.
The neutrophils then release those factors into the inflamed area to neutralize the infecting virus or bacteria. However, if too many of these factors are released from neutrophils at the same time, then the factors will also cause damage to the body.
In those cases, too much inflammation can become dangerous. Anti-inflammatory medicines can then be used to help control the inflammatory reaction, to prevent it from overshooting.
Many different types of anti-inflammatory drugs are available with or without a prescription, for example aspirin, paracetamol, ibuprofen, and dexamethasone. Why are scientists still performing research to find new ones? Acute inflammation is the kind that occurs in the examples mentioned earlier sore throat, stubbed pinky toe, etc.
Chronic inflammation can last several months or even years and occurs in diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis inflammation in the joints , atherosclerosis a disease of the blood vessels , or even obesity. This type of inflammation is very difficult to control, in some cases, because the medicines are not very effective and in other cases because patients experience side effects after taking the medicines for too long.
Those patients can then suffer the effects of chronic inflammation for years or even for their entire lives, and that is why scientists are still trying very hard to discover new anti-inflammatory medicines to help patients with chronic inflammation. Upon injury, tissues release chemical substances such as prostaglandins, which cause the enlargement of blood vessels leading to redness, heat, and swelling. Together with prostaglandins, other types of pro-inflammatory substances include things called chemokines, cytokines, and interleukins.
These are chemicals that serve as flag signals to guide the immune cells that are circulating in the blood to the site of injury. Then, these immune cells enter the tissue and get activated, releasing the enzymes and anti-bacterial products contained in their little vesicles.
These factors are called pro-inflammatory factors, and their purpose is to neutralize the injurious i. What really happens in the body during an inflammatory reaction is quite similar to a battleground, where two armies the body and the disease-causing bacteria fight against each other. During the battle, many cells and bacteria may die and need to be removed from the affected area, and the damaged tissue needs to be repaired.
McGavock Professor. They emit waves of chemicals that can kill germs outright, and protein messengers called cytokines to carry out a bewilderingly wide array of duties. Obesity and its constant companion, type 2 diabetes, are at epidemic proportions in this country. One thing that connects them is inflammation. Normally, the first responders to the site of injury or infection are white blood cells—including macrophages.
They produce waves of chemicals, including cytokines, which can kill germs and sound the alarm for other populations of inflammatory cells. But fat cells can produce cytokines, too. And as fat tissue grows, it attracts inflammatory cells, particularly macrophages.
The burden of obesity also crushes fat cells to death. And that makes the problem worse, as inflammatory cells move in to clean up the debris. Inflammation also antagonizes the action of insulin, the hormone that stimulates muscle and liver to absorb glucose from the blood. And obesity, insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, in turn, increase the risk for heart disease. During the past three years, Vanderbilt researchers Lan Wu, M.
One group of white blood cells, invariant natural killer lymphocytes, overproduces inflammatory cytokines that worsen insulin resistance. Another group, innate-like regulatory B lymphocytes, secretes an anti-inflammatory cytokine, interleukin IL Normally the forces of inflammation are held in delicate balance. Wu and Kaer restored balance in an animal model by isolating regulatory B lymphocytes from lean mice and transferring them into obese ones.
The cells made their way to the fat tissue and released IL, which improved insulin sensitivity. Again, inflammation may be involved here. Linton, M. Stephen Schillig Jr.
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