Gingivitis is "inflammation of the gums", but it's "caused" by bacteria, plaque, tarter, etc... inflammation is the description of what is happening (ie, symptom) not the "cause".
This article suggests that it might be the symptom of one disease while being the cause of another disease (or range of diseases).
For example the "fat cell leak": The body is correctly responding to a real problem, but the response is so heavy handed it causes other problems.
Which is why suppressing inflammation might be an interesting area of research, but we wouldn't want to completely eliminate it because the body may lose a vital tool needed to fight illnesses and normal maintenance.
That doesn't change the fact that the "cause" of the whole issue is not a symptom.
For example, you can get a blood infection from really bad gingivitis. But it's quite a leap to blame inflammation as the "cause" when it's really plaque (or a myriad of other related things). I think this is the foundational problem with health sciences.
There is a lot money to be made treating symptoms, very money little to be made curing people.
I think what the other poster is saying that the bi-products of the inflammation response in themselves can also cause a problem. Yes, the obesity is probably the "cause" in the first place, but telling a person to go on a weight loss diet is going to be a bit late if that's not going to save them before the inflammation kills them.
If you've got 2 or 3 different things killing you at once, you're gonna have to deal with the "most killing" one the most, so to speak.
AFAIK 40% of thin people also have health problems from the metabolic syndrome (e.g. CVD, diabetes), whereas 20% of the obese are healthy.
People focus too much on obesity, but obesity is more like a marker rather than a cause (even if it can make things worse by fat cells becoming inflammatory).
And I have to agree with the parent, we have an obsession with treating the symptoms instead of the cause. And there are cases in which treating those symptoms does not reduce the all cause mortality rate
The perfect example is statins. A high LDL-p might in fact be the body’s response to infection and by impairment of LDL particles production or by accelerating clearance, you can end up doing more harm than good, even if a high LDL-p is a good marker for CVD. And then you’ve got a ton of side effects that reduce quality of life, because such pills are a blunt tool with a lot of downstream effects, some of which are unforeseen.
And to put salt to injury there are studies showing that statins don’t reduce the all cause mortality in patients that haven’t suffered a stroke already. Or that even in patients that suffered a stroke, the life extension is measured on average in only a couple of months. Which actually makes a lot of sense if you really think about it.
While I don't disagree with the concept of prioritization, that's not the same as cause and effect.
Inflammation is an effect that _can_ cause other problems. But as far as I know, inflammation is a symptom of other problems, not a cause in and of itself.
The article claims that inflammation is both a symptom of other problems (when in reasonable ranges of signalling) and a causer of problems (when signalling too much).
I know the title of the article itself is a bit sensationalist, but I would assume that any tests aiming to determine if inflammation is the cause of a problem in specific would also check to make sure that the inflammation was in the "starting to cause harm" range rather than merely in the "signalling" range.
Of course a symptom can cause other problems, this has been addressed in multiple other comments. But suppressing a symptom (inflammation) does not remove the cause of the problem.
fyi:
>Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."
Your imunorespknse to a modern diet is one example of what triggers a cycle of inflammation. The diet isn’t necessarily good for you, but isn’t inherently bad. A 70,000 year old metabolism treats food the same way it did 70,000 years ago - turning much of the food into fat and surging you with insulin. This is what causes the inflammation. Your body isn’t in an era of scarcity - this response isn’t needed, nor is the subsequent inflammation
If the body's response to the current diet in the US (not necessarily in other countries) causes system wide inflammation, then the cause of the damage is diet/food, not inflammation. Inflammation is the symptom, regardless if there are cascading effects, they still start with the root cause.
The idea is bacteria in the gums cause inflammation (red swollen flesh, more white cells, metabolic changes) causes clogged arteries causes heart attacks.
The symptoms of gum disease (a generic term) can be inflammation (I am not a dentist). But suppressing the symptom of inflammation doesn't cure gum disease.
If one system's inflammation causes another system to degrade and inflame, and so on, until the body has systemic inflammation without an infection... that over-sensitivity/self-reinforcement mechanism is arguably the problem, but also a moot point without advanced gene editing. The "fix" may be reducing inflammation so those systems can recover homeostasis.
Sure, but if you cure the first problem, then the inflammation goes away, then you cure two problems instead of one. So is inflammation really the actual problem?
This is like saying water damaged my carpet without acknowledging the real problem... that firemen were putting out the fire. No one cares about a mold problem in carpet if your house burns down.
If we treated health issues in the same common sense way we would not focus on symptoms, but on causes.
I think it's analogous to overwhelming tech debt - stuck in an operational hell because there is no reprieve to actually put out any of the fires.
The root cause is all the little issues, but you can't get there without first tackling the inability to fix any of the issues (labor shortage/unreasonable expectations/so on).
Inflammation is tricky because you have accute (a hard work out, an injury, gingivitis) or chronic/dietary inflammation which is more akin to a reversible disease.
It’s like saying type2 diabeties or fatty liver disease are not diseases but symptoms caused by certain dietary habits. Though as I write this...maybe you are correct and we should look at these things like symptoms of poor diet and not diseases.
I think it's a hard problem, especially if you have to tell someone they have control over the cause. (certainly not always the case)
Recently a couple of friends had heart issues. One event went so far as the Mayo clinic and the doctors there said that she needed to stop eating white sugar (one issue at least) because it was scratching her arteries and causing inflammation.
Is inflammation really the problem she is having? She is overweight and didn't want to change her diet. All she heard was "inflammation is the problem", not "change your diet".
> inflammation is the description of what is happening (ie, symptom) not the "cause"
If you chemically turn off inflammation and the negative downstream effects disappear, then inflammation is arguably a cause of those negative effects. Inflammation is supposed to be a healthy response to various conditions, but that isn't always the case, so when it's causing negative effects it becomes a pathology and arguably a cause.
Now if you're trying to argue some sort of infinite regress, then the Big Bang tautologically caused everything and nothing else is a meaningful cause.
The term "root cause" was not invented for nothing. One should always try to find the root cause since if you do not find it you are fighting a symptom instead of a cause.
There is a huge amount of research about what causes inflammation so it is correct to say that inflammation is a symptom not a cause.
I think because a symptom can be part of a cascade of problems doesn't mean we should ignore or dismiss the root cause as the most important thing. As far as I know suppressing inflammation is a temporary stop-gap, not a cure.
Can you demonstrate where inflammation does not have a root cause?
Immune disorders like MS. The immune system attacks the persons own tissues. It’s the inflammation that causes the damage. Prevent inflammation and you stop the disease.
Sure, the immune system is at fault, but it’s the inflammation that causes the damage. Since we don’t have great tools to tweak the immune system, if we prevent inflammation, we can stop the disease.
I don't get why you're so resistant to the idea that sytstemic inflammation (not gingivitis) can simultaneously be a symptom of one condition and the primary causal factor in many others. The article gives plenty of examples of conditions where inflammation does seem to be the root cause. It feels like you haven't read it, in which case I highly recommend doing so. It's quite educational and not not at all biased towards a big-pharma solution.
The article also gives sound reasoning for why metabolic stress, i.e., overeating, eating crap and not exercising, could be the most common cause of chronic inflammation. I would guess that psychological stress is another big factor given it's known ability to exacerbate autoimmune and inflammatory conditions. So the cure for most cases of chronic inflammation is going to be the usual mix of diet, exercise, sleep and stress management. We already know that these are the most effective preventative measures against age-related diseases and this research gives us a better understanding of the underlying mechanics.
So, what I think is happening is that excess acidity (and other chemical derangement) causes inflammation which promotes infection which causes more inflammation. It's a vicious cycle with a positive feedback loop.
Gingivitis is "inflammation of the gums", but it's "caused" by bacteria, plaque, tarter, etc... inflammation is the description of what is happening (ie, symptom) not the "cause".