The truth is we have all had some type of uncontrolled inflammation. It is like an ugly monster we all have to shake hands with occasionally, like it or not.

Any diagnosis that ends with “itis” means that particular area of your body is absolutely out of control with inflammation. So, if you’ve ever had bronchitis, arthritis, sinusitis, tendonitis, or hepatitis, (or any other itis)you’ve had chronic or uncontrolled inflammation.

However, the latest scientific evidence points to the fact that by the time inflammation heats up so much in one area that it causes you to visit the doctor, the rest of your body, especially your heart is reeling from it too.

In fact, according to Dr. William Meggs in his book The Inflammation Cure, “One of the strongest disease connections discovered so far is the relationship of inflammation to heart disease (italics ours)-specifically, atherosclerosis, the disease responsible for more deaths worldwide than any other single cause.”

So that bout with bronchitis or arthritis really means your immune system is totally out of balance, chronic inflammation is on the march and your heart is paying the price.

The “Smoke Signals” That Reveal Chronic Inflammation

While heart disease is the most prevalent debilitating disease linked to chronic inflammation, there are many others. Like a wise Indian tracker, savvy medical researchers are following the “smoke signals” and pinpointing chronic inflammation as the source of the fire.

Some examples:

Long standing scientific research links the onset of Type I diabetes with an inflammatory attack on the pancreas and some newer research links chronic or uncontrolled inflammation to Type II diabetes.

Being overweight and especially being obese really throws the body’s inflammatory response off. In fact, fat cells produce inflammatory chemicals. This fact explains why people who are significantly overweight are prone to both heart disease and diabetes.

Auto-immune disorders such as lupus or multiple sclerosis arise directly from out-of-control inflammation reactions. In effect the body is attacking itself. And, while decreasing the amount of inflammation in the body won’t cure an auto-immune disorder, it may help avoid the common inflammatory diseases commonly tied to these disorders.

Are you tired or fatigued all the time? Are you suffering from depression? These troubling illness have also been linked to chronic inflammation. Recent research shows that decreasing inflammation, or more precisely, balancing your body’s level of inflammation, will increase energy levels and may even relieve a person of depression.

It would not be correct to say that inflammation always causes cancer or even that inflammation affects a pre-existing cancerous condition. But medical research shows that sometimes inflammation does cause cancer and, in some cases, inflammation can cause an already established cancer to amplify.

The good news is (especially if you or a loved one is coping with a major illness) you can now treat the root cause of the disease, illness or condition rather than the symptom. You now know that by attacking the ugly inflammation monster, your getting to the real root cause of the problem and putting yourself back on the road to health.