Your Mind, Habits, and Food Can Trigger Cytokines That Fire up Inflammation – How to Change
Chances are, you never heard of cytokines until the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the world. That’s when most of us learned that these important signaling molecules can set our immune system on a fatal overdrive.
Dr. David Hanscom and 10 co-authors discuss this problem—and its many critical dimensions—in a white paper called “Lowering Inflammation Lengthens Life.” Among other points in the paper, they highlight that the main danger with COVID-19 wasn’t the rate of infection, but its “high potential to trigger a fatal, inflammatory response.” That response came in the form of a cytokine storm.
Cytokines are small proteins used for cell signaling. They play a variety of roles in the body, but one of the most important—and problematic—is their role in activating an immune response.
In this role, you can think of cytokines as little signal flares that are sent out to tell other elements of the immune system where to fire. In a cytokine storm, too many of these little proteins congregate and set off a fatal immune reaction.
The problem is, you don’t need an infection to set cytokines off, nor to have a self-defeating immune response.
The body and mind are inseparable, and thoughts and feelings tell our bodies how to respond. When you perceive a threat and get stressed, that tells your body there is trouble brewing and it should get ready to fight or flee. Along with a shift in hormones, cytokines are spread out and stand ready to fire up the immune response.
You can think of your immune response like a fire that burns out the invaders but causes a certain amount of collateral damage along the way. That collateral damage is worth it when you face a real pathogen or physical threat, but isn’t worth it when you are just being triggered by incendiary news programs, fear mongers, and conflict entrepreneurs, not to mention financial distress, toxic food, and any number of other common stress triggers.
That fire is called inflammation, and when it runs overtime, it contributes to virtually every disease, physical as well as mental. Of particular note is autoimmunity, which is when the immune system attacks the body instead of any kind of invader.
The link between stress and inflammation has been known for decades and was highlighted in a research review on autoimmunity published in the journal Autoimmunity Reviews in 2007.
“Many retrospective studies found that a high proportion (up to 80 percent) of patients reported uncommon emotional stress before disease onset. Unfortunately, not only does stress cause disease, but the disease itself also causes significant stress in the patients, creating a vicious cycle.”
That vicious cycle is common with stress and illness generally. Stress leads to disease and disease leads to stress. The only cure is to resolve the root cause: stress. That requires taking a holistic look at our patterns of daily living, our internal reactions, and ways we can change ourselves and our lives to limit or resolve causes of stress.
Few events in recent decades have been as universally stressful as COVID-19. We also learned, at a new level, the problem of out-of-control cytokines, which can cause “failure of multiple organs,” wrote Hanscom et al.
“This is the cause of ARDS [adult respiratory distress syndrome], the most common cause of death from coronavirus, which impedes the lungs from providing oxygen to the blood,” they noted.
Inflammation is also a contributing factor to cancer, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS, asthma, rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and even depression.
Medical experts often offer valuable nutritional and lifestyle advice to minimize inflammation and the conditions it can cause. For example, Harvard Health warns that inflammation-causing foods should be avoided for optimal health.
Inflammatory Foods
- Added sugars, especially in soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages
- Fried foods such as French fries and fried chicken
- White breads, pastries, and other refined carbohydrates
- Processed meat, such as hot dogs and sausages, and too much red meat
Your body considers many processed foods, with their added sugars and oils, to be foreign invaders, poisons of a sort, and so triggers inflammation to deal with them. Fortunately, just as there are foods that trigger inflammation, there are also foods that calm it down, most notably fruits, vegetables, and cold-water fatty fish, as noted by Harvard Health.
Anti-Inflammatory Foods
- Kale, spinach, and other green leafy vegetables
- Salmon, tuna, sardines, and other fatty fish
- Blueberries, cherries, strawberries, and other fruit
- Tomatoes
Lifestyle Sources of Inflammation
The mental triggers of inflammation are often overlooked, a fact that Hanscom and his co-authors make efforts to draw particular attention to.
“Any mental or physical threat, perceived or real, is going to be met with a defensive response from your body,” writes Hanscom and his co-authors. “Although threats come in many forms, they always activate pro-inflammatory (Pro-I) cytokines.”
The mental threats that trigger stress and inflammation are especially insidious—and overlooked, they note.
“If you don’t feel safe and peaceful, you are carrying elevated levels of inflammatory cytokines.”
Mental Triggers of Inflammation
- Memories
- Negative thoughts
- Repressed and suppressed thoughts and feelings
- Insecurities (social, financial, physical, etc.)
- Cognitive distortions
- Loss of purpose
- Social isolation
Families, for example, can trigger cytokine storms to a degree. According to Hanscom et al., when you’re angry at your family, you should “disengage” because “no relationship is improved by angry interactions—ever!”
How do your spouse and children feel when they’re around you while you’re angry? Ask them, the “Lowering Inflammation Lengthens Life” authors say. Listen, without comment, to your family for a month, suggest the authors. You can also make a conscious choice to be an anti-inflammatory influence in your own household.
“Commit to being a source of inspiration and joy to your family,” write the authors, which means not criticizing or making your children feel unsafe.
“Advice should be given only when asked for,” they suggest.
They also encourage parents to find out who their children really are and consult the classic parenting book “Parent Effectiveness Training” by Thomas Gordon.
How Do We Calm Mental Causes of Inflammation?
According to Hanscom et al., the primary goal when it comes to reducing inflammation is to “decrease stimulation of your nervous system.” That includes re-examining what role over-stimulating behaviors may be exerting on your personal life.
What are some of these inflammation traps? According to the authors they include:
- Watching intense video games or violent movies
- Watching newscasts that upset you
- Arguing with family members
- Discussing your pain or health problems with non-medical people
- Complaining about anything, including the pandemic
- Gossiping
Anger and Forgiveness
Anger may give us a feeling of power and seem to alleviate our anxiety, but it’s a dangerous trap. Since anxiety creates a need for control, anger arises to exert control. Specifically, write the authors: “When confronted with a threat, you’ll produce anxiety that you may or may not be aware of, but your first impulse is to defend yourself. This is the fight response, necessary for survival. You will experience some level of upset, ranging from slight annoyance to all-out rage. Your body elevates Pro-I cytokines and stress hormones to increase your odds of success in defending yourself. Your dopamine (rewards) and testosterone levels also increase.”
Anger has the effect of covering up our vulnerability, write the authors. “Even if regaining control is out of the question (and you can’t control your thoughts), anger allows you to feel as if you are in control. What’s more, anger is nearly impossible to relinquish.”
The problem with that is the problem with any rewarding but unhealthy behavior—it can become habitual.
Since bullies have lower inflammatory markers than the bullied, the immediate but ultimately self-defeating benefits of anger can be seen.
The healthy counter to anxiety and anger (and the need for control they often arise from) is surrender and forgiveness.
Many, perhaps most, people, harbor a certain amount of “victimhood” and resentment toward those they feel who harmed them. But according to the authors of “Lowering Inflammation Lengthens Life,” forgiveness is a gateway to peace of mind—and reduced inflammation.
“Remaining upset, regardless of the reason, keeps your body full of stress hormones and elevated levels of proinflammatories with significant negative consequences.”
“Conversely, if you cannot move on, you truly are stuck. You must especially forgive the person or situation that has treated you the worst and forged your deepest wounds. Be kind, and don’t forget to forgive yourself.”
Clearly, lifestyle and diet can help us overcome dangerous inflammatory states. But, it’s important to remember that emotional and mental states can also contribute to these unwanted immune system reactions. Fortunately, we can address them all in natural and helpful ways.
Martha Rosenberg is a nationally recognized reporter and author whose work has been cited by the Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Public Library of Science Biology, and National Geographic. Rosenberg’s FDA expose, “Born with a Junk Food Deficiency,” established her as a prominent investigative journalist. She has lectured widely at universities throughout the United States and resides in Chicago.
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