Ep. 3: Happy hormones for all (not “just for the ladies!”), and the role of inflammation (Part 2 of 2)

Continuing from episode 2, we look at the role of inflammation in imbalanced hormones and why managing inflammation is important for each and every one of us. Chronic inflammation is now being implicated in many, if not most diseases, from heart disease and cancer to depression and diabetes, so we then go on to discuss simple health hacks to tone down levels of inflammation in the body. Show Notes Transcript In today's episode, we're going to be building on our earlier discussion in episode two. In that episode, we looked at the role of relative estrogen excess with respect to hormone balance, and the various symptoms that can present as. Now today we're going to go on to look at the key relationship between hormones and inflammation. Inflammation is such an important topic to understand and address because it seems that each month - and each week almost - more research comes out to suggest that chronic inflammation is linked to many if not most diseases, ranging from heart disease to cancer, depression and diabetes. This is something that Chinese Medicine has long understood - that link between inflammation and health. In Chinese medicine we've outlined diet, stress management and lifestyle practices to mitigate inflammation and promote health. Let's start with a brief look at what inflammation actually is. In basic terms, inflammation is our body's innate protective response in the face of harm or hurt - such as a cut, a bruise, a sprained ankle, or an infection. In these situations, the body will mobilize cells, chemicals and processes that will help to clear out the muck of an injured or infected site, and to remove and break down damaged tissue; it will protect against further encroachment by bacteria or other infective agents and it will start to heal the affected area. Inflammation is classically characterized by four signs - redness, pain, heat and swelling. These four arise as byproducts of the various biochemicals and processes that the body activates in the process of healing an injury or infection. Anyone who's had a sore throat, a cut, a bruise, a swollen joint or a sprained ankle has experienced these four signs of inflammation and when they are limited by time - meaning that they are switched off once the healing and repair has occurred - this inflammation is a healthy and adaptive response. It feels like these days we hear a lot about inflammation. It's a term that's often thrown about, and it generally has negative connotations. So it's important to point out that inflammation is not all bad. These four classic signs of inflammation that we just mentioned - redness, pain, heat and swelling - they're byproducts of the body doing healing work, which is why shutting down inflammation with measures such as anti-inflammatories or cortisone injections will certainly limit pain, but at the same time, it will put a stop to any essential healing going on in that acute situation. And this is why we're now finally seeing research that bears out this fact: there's a study that I've attached in my show notes, and it talks about how putting cortisone shots into knees actually has poorer longterm health outcomes, both with respect to pain and mobility, and also with a greater deterioration of knee cartilage in those knees that had cortisone injected in them. And this is because it literally puts a blanket on any healing process and shuts it down. But that's a topic for another episode, because it is something that I'd love to get into on a deeper level! So, back to inflammation and hormones! As I mentioned, when occurring over a short, defined period, inflammation is an adaptive process, meaning that it's a positive process that facilitates healing and helps to restore our system to a state of balance. The problem arises when the inflammation becomes chronic or repeated, and this is the side of inflammation that gets the deservedly bad rap. Unlike acute inflammation, chronic inflammation doesn't get shut off when the injury or infection is resolved - it keeps being retriggered, which leaves the body on high alert, which then will drain resources from other areas of the body and disrupt their function. These are areas like digestion, mental health, emotional health, circulation, and of particular interest to us today - in light of this episode - also hormones or the endocrine system. Chronic inflammation very often goes hand in hand with a dysregulation or imbalance of stress hormones (cortisol and adrenaline). Last week in episode two we talked about a process called pregnenolone steal. This is the process by which the stress hormones will steal the common building blocks that are essential for all hormones, but particularly the sex hormones. So when we're pumping out a lot of these stress hormones and have a high demand for them, in order for the body to make more of them, it will steal the building blocks that it also needs to use for the sex hormones, thusdepriving our levels of those. Now, unlike acute inflammation, which is often localized and always time limited by definition, chronic inflammation can be broad, widespread, and systemic - that means diffused throughout the body and therefore disruptive to many of the body's systems. And because of this, it's now widely accepted to be a major factor in most diseases. Unlike acute inflammation, which has the very obvious signs of redness, pain, heat and swelling, chronic inflammation can be sneakier and less obvious to spot - it can often be silent or just have low-grade, less dramatic symptoms like fatigue or brain fog or generalized pain or joint pain and mucus. Very often when I see patients with these symptoms, we'll have a look at what's going on in the diet, lifestyle, stress, emotional health and so on - and we'll investigate if there's some inflammation going on as well. So what are some of the culprits in chronic inflammation? Well, as it happens, there are many trigger factors for chronic inflammation that are the same ones that we discussed last week, with respect to elevated estrogen. So let's have a look at what some of those trigger factors are - and these are in no particular order. We'll start with number one, and that is toxic load. Now, toxic load just refers to the generalized and sum load of all of the toxins that our body - and more specifically our liver - has to deal with in order to detox and restore our bodies back to balance. These are very often things in our immediate environment such as the phthalates and parabens in products like moisturizers, shampoos, detergents, packaged foods with their plastics leaching into them, and also things like environmental pollutants on a grander scale - whether it's petrol fumes or even (of particular relevance to us now in New South Wales and Queensland, where we have all these tragic fires going on) is all that smoke pollution. That constant irritation of the mucus membranes of the respiratory system is going to be contributing to a perpetual state of low grade inflammation in some people. Number two is sleep, and the pace of modern life. Sleep isn't a sexy health hack - it's not some shiny new gadget or superfood that's going to give you amazing healing results. But the fact is that sleep is such a potent healing tool because when we're asleep, our body can drop into the parasympathetic nervous system mode, which is where we rest, digest, repair and heal - and the body and brain can clean and heal at rest. So it's so important for our health on every level. The pace of life and the society that we live in glorifies busy-ness, and being overwhelmed is almost a badge of honour and you know, rather than calling it out and consciously slowing down or letting some things drop by the wayside (and I know that may not always be possible!) we just push on, and punch down some more caffeine or sugar or energy drinks to keep us going. That can feel amazing in the short term, because all of those substances trigger our sympathetic nervous system - the fight or flight system - so they release cortisol and adrenaline, which are stress hormones. In the short term these can make us feel invincible and clear-headed, so we think "this is great, we'll just keep going!". What that does though, is that it doesn't allow enough time in the parasympathetic mode - in the rest and digest mode. That's the time when our body goes around and mops up any pockets of inflammation and just tones down the whole inflammatory response. I think we have this idea that "more is more", and we'll just push on through, but there was a very interesting example recently in Japan, where the whole culture of overwork has actually become a major public health concern. In fact it's so endemic that there's even a word in Japanese, karoshi, which means "overwork death". In light of this big burden on public health, Microsoft in Japan recently trialled a four day work week. What they found was that by cutting 20% of the workweek, rather than dropping in productivity, productivity actually went up by 40% and in a bonus to the environment, costs went down: there was 23% less electricity used and a whopping 58% less pages printed, and all for more productivity. It just goes to show that more is not always more! So when guilt potentially sets in, whenthat little voice in your head goes "well, you can't rest, there's more stuff to do", I think it's good to remember that sometimes having a rest can actually yield greater results. Number three in the list of trigger factors for chronic inflammation are, not surprisingly, inflammatory foods. And this is something that we will go into further in future episodes, when we have more time to focus on that. But just top line, these are things like polyunsaturated vegetable oils (canola oil, sunflower oil, soy oil) which unfortunately are so prevalent in packaged foods, and even in seemingly healthy foods - if you actually look through the ingredients, you'll see that in probably 95% of cases,...