Inflammatory Disease Archives - Inflammation Advisor

What Are the Symptoms of Celiac Disease?

June 14, 2014 by info Leave a Comment

What are the symptoms of celiac disease? There is more than one type of gluten intolerance condition out there. Celiac disease is one major type of gluten intolerance. The problem is that if you one, it may not be so easy to diagnose. Let’s take celiac disease for instance. Those who are diagnosed with it may have been labeled with something else at first.

What is Celiac Disease?

Celiac disease is a condition of the digestive system that occurs when certain people eat foods containing the protein, gluten. Gluten can be found in certain grains: rye, barley, wheat and triticale (a wheat-rye blend). Often called celiac sprue or gluten-sensitive enteropathy, it is an abnormal response of the immune system when this protein is present. In the presence of gluten, the immune system attacks the intestine.

This occurs in the small intestine. Here, food that is broken down into its nutrient components are absorbed and then transferred to the bloodstream. The lining of the small intestine are covered with fingerlike projections called villi. They increase the surface area. When gluten is present in someone with celiac disease, the villi become flat, decreasing the surface area and damaging the intestines. This affects absorption of nutrients.

The lack of absorption impacts the entire body. In children, lack of nutrients can create a “failure to thrive” situation causing rickets (osteomalacia) and anemia. Children often exhibit these celiac-disease symptoms as soon as they are introduced to cereals. In adults, symptoms of celiac disease can include abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhea, vomiting, and constipation and foul-odor stools. Vomiting is more common in children.

The Problem with Celiac Disease Diagnosis

Celiac disease, like other digestive conditions, is hard to nail down. The symptoms common to celiac disease can be attributed to several other conditions within the digestive ailment spectrum. To make matters worse, some adults are asymptomatic. This makes diagnosis a challenge even though the small intestines are still being damaged by the body’s immune response.

Celiac disease is often mistaken for irritable bowel syndome (IBS) or even Crohn’s disease. IBS doesn’t cause damage to the intestines but that can only be proven through biopsy and endoscopy. Crohn’s disease can occur in any area of the digestive tract. There is a form of celiac disease called refractory sprue in which symptoms disappear when gluten clears the system but return even on in a gluten-free environment.

To get the correct diagnosis if you suspect celiac disease, check your family history. Certain genes can contribute to this condition. Of course, you can usually not experience symptoms if you avoid all forms of gluten. A “low gluten” diet is not going to be good enough if your sensitivity is higher. Complete avoidance becomes necessary. If someone in your immediate biological family has it, chances are you could be expressing that gene. Ask for an antibody test. Two antibodies will show up in blood work: Immunoglobulin A anti-tissue transglutaminase and Immunoglobulin A antiendomysial. An endoscopic procedure of the upper GI tract can confirm through biopsy of the small intestine as well as visual evidence. If your doctor does not know about gluten intolerance or celiac disease blood tests, you can get them done on your own here.

Misdiagnosis or lack of treatment can lead to more pain until you get the right program going. Once you do, give it a few weeks for the gut to repair itself. One fairly safe way to boost the healing process (unless you have a problem with sodium retention or severe high blood pressure) is DGL licorice. This form of licorice has had most of the ingredient that can raise sodium levels and blood pressure removed. But, DGL is amazing in its ability to heal the mucous membranes of the gut. You can get it here. Another product with a special form of aloe and other ingredients is Digestinol, available at this site.

And, if you are looking for a gluten free online store, Katz Gluten Free is a great site where you can discover tasty options.

Is there a difference between Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Irritable Bowel Syndrome?

May 6, 2014 by info Leave a Comment

Is there a difference between inflammatory bowel disease and irritable bowel syndrome? You may have heard both of these terms used interchangeably before – inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). The truth is that these are two very different conditions. To answer the question in the title, yes, there is a difference between the two and if you keep reading, you will find out what that is.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Let’s begin with the easier condition to explain. Irritable bowel syndrome, or IBS for short, is actually the name given for a group of symptoms that involve the intestinal area of the digestive tract. Common symptoms of IBS include: constipation, cramping in the abdominal area (your belly), bloating, belly pain and diarrhea. As a person with IBS, you may exhibit all or some of these symptoms. They may go on for several months at a time.

The cause of IBS is not known. Certain foods, stress or other lifestyle choices may exacerbate your symptoms but not a lot is known about what bothers the intestinal area in the first place. It is speculated that the fault may lie in the processing of the signals sent from the brain to your small and large intestines. Because the condition mostly occurs in women, hormonal changes might be another potential culprit. The only mainstream medical cure is to treat the symptoms with drugs. In integrative medicine, however, there are a number of different treatment options, including but not limited to a personalized food intolerance/allergy avoidance program, acupuncture, and melatonin.

Inflammatory Bowel Disease

The name alone gives a clue as to what separates these two digestive conditions. With inflammatory bowel disease, or IBD, the intestinal area actually exhibits an inflammatory process in response to certain triggers. Symptoms may include: diarrhea, bloody stools, joint pain, skin issues, fever, loss of appetite, weight loss, and severe pain in the abdomen (the area below your stomach where your intestines are located).

Inside your body, the intestines (large and/or small) show changes as well. The area affected can become red, swollen, and subject to strictures from scar tissue, ulcers and fistulas (abnormal opening between two body structures). There are two kinds of inflammatory bowel disease that are most often talked about: Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.

Ulcerative colitis often affects the innermost layer of the intestinal wall, the area closest to the bowel that travels through it. Crohn’s disease can affect deep inner layers of tissue as well in the intestines, particularly the ileum – the last part of the small intestine and the beginning of the large intestine. Also with Crohn’s disease, any area of the digestive tract from the mouth to the anus is subject to be affected.

These are serious conditions, and you need medical evaluation and treatment. Still, there are more benign integrative treatments possible, including but not limited to high dose probiotic and prebiotic supplements.

On the surface, it may seem like both conditions are similar. Your physician may use the same tests to diagnose your condition. With most symptoms that pertain to the intestinal area, the doctor will want to rule out any even more serious condition first before looking into IBS or IBD. Either of these conditions may affect your life in major ways as long as the symptoms continue.

What Is Rheumatoid Arthritis

April 1, 2014 by info Leave a Comment

What is rheumatoid arthritis? Arthritis is a general term for a family of diseases that cause joint pain and stiffness. Over 100 types of arthritis have been identified. According to the Arthritis Foundation, more than 50 million Americans suffer from some type of arthritis. Rheumatoid arthritis is one of the most serious of these.

Rheumatoid arthritis is different from some other types of arthritis in that it is an autoimmune disease, meaning that the immune system of the body begins to act in a harmful way, attacking the body instead of helping it.

Scientists are unsure of the exact cause of rheumatoid arthritis, although there seems to be a genetic connection. It is 2-1/2 times more prevalent in women than in men. The disease usually presents itself between the ages of 25 and 50, but it sometimes occurs in childhood.

Arthritis Symptoms

If you have rheumatoid arthritis, you may notice that your joints feel tender and stiff when you wake up in the morning.

Rheumatoid arthritis is usually worse in the morning. It often begins in the finger joints, then over time it can progress to other joints in the body such as the hips, knees or shoulders. In its advanced stages, rheumatoid arthritis can cause hard lumps to develop under the affected joints, impeding movement and causing pain.

One of the unusual symptoms of this kind of arthritis is that it is symmetrical. That is, you will feel pain in the same joints on opposite sides of the body at once.

What Causes Arthritis Pain

In this type of arthritis, the immune system begins to act abnormally, attacking healthy joints. Immune cells move from the blood to the joints, inflaming and irritating them. The irritating fluid builds up in the joints, and wears down the protective cartilage which provides cushioning between the bones. The buildup of fluid is what causes the feeling of inflammation, stiffness and tenderness.

What Helps Arthritis Pain: Diet And Exercise

There is significant help for the pain of rheumatoid arthritis.

Eating a healthy diet can help with RA symptoms. Fish and nuts are high in Omega-3 fatty acids, which helps to reduce inflammation. Dark leafy greens and berries are high in anti-oxidants, which boost the immune system. Overall, a diet high in fruits and vegetables, whole grains and lean protein is recommended as the best diet for people with RA. Supplement your diet with vitamin B6 and folate, which are often lacking in people with arthritis.

If you are overweight, losing weight will help with symptoms, since excess weight can make them worse. You should also stop smoking, since smoking has been suggested as a possible cause of this type of arthritis.

Exercise is medically proven to help with the pain of rheumatoid arthritis. Low-impact aerobic exercises are recommended, such as walking, dancing, stair-climbing and swimming. Isometric exercises are also a good choice. Stretching exercises help with hand and wrist pain.

Natural Treatments And Alternatives – What to Take for Arthritis

Conventional medical treatment of rheumatoid arthritis usually includes anti-inflammatory or corticosteroid medication to ease symptoms. Doctors also prescribe medications to stop the harmful action of immune cells by suppressing the immune system. Unfortunately, because the immune system is suppressed, infection and even serious illnesses can be side effects of the medication.

If you are suffering from rheumatoid arthritis, there are a number of natural alternatives that you should consider trying. Natural treatments can help you gain control over your arthritis symptoms. More symptom relief can mean better quality of daily life for you to enjoy your family, friends, work, and hobbies.

Cold compresses can help to reduce swelling and inflammation at the very beginning of an arthritic attack, but they should only be used for a short period of time, about 15 minutes. Heat treatments are preferable, as they help with the stiffness of arthritis. Moist heat is the best, so try a warm shower or bath, or apply a moist heating pad or warm moist towel to the area.

Acupuncture seems to help some people with rheumatoid arthritis pain, as does the use of visualization techniques. In visualization, you close your eyes and picture yourself in a quiet, relaxing setting. This helps to reduce stress and can help to reduce pain levels as well.

Fish oil supplements can help defeat the effects of RA in your body. Fish oil contains Omega-3 fatty acids, which help with inflammation in the body. Green tea extract is another helpful anti-inflammatory. If you are taking prescribed medication, you should ask your doctor before taking natural supplements, to avoid any possible interactions with your medication.

A diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis may be frightening at first, but if you take proactive charge of your symptoms, it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. There are many things you can do to help defeat your symptoms and enrich your life. You can even get specialized lab tests that go beyond what your doctor usually tests – these can look for the root causes of your inflammatory problems and help guide you to the best ways to fix them for your individual needs.

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Omega 3 Fatty Acids from Fish Oil in Critically Ill Patients with Sepsis

January 11, 2014 by info Leave a Comment

Omega 3 fatty acids from fish oil are widely considered to be a useful way to help reduce inflammation in the body. Usually we think of omega 3’s (mainly ALA, DHA, EPA) in terms of preventing inflammation-related health problems, joint conditions, depression and bipolar disorder, and more. But inflammation can get out of control in acute health situations as well. One serious acute problem is sepsis, potentially including septic shock and death.

Ten percent of patients who end up in an intensive care unit can suffer from sepsis. Even more patients can have some lesser but still serious form of systemic inflammatory response syndrome. Now a study on patients in an intensive care unit who went into a life-threatening acute complication of infection, that is, sepsis, had better outcomes when treated with fish oils (Hall et al JPEN J Parenter Enteral Nutr 2014). Sepsis can lead to failure of multiple key organs in the body and death. It is something that needs everything Western medicine can bring to bear on the problem to keep the person alive and survive the crisis.

In this type of crisis, patients are not able to eat – they are too sick. But the doctors who performed this study gave the fatty acids by a means other than oral, i.e., parenterally. They looks at the extent of organ failure in persons who got standard conventional care versus those who got the same standard care with omega 3 fatty acids added.

They found that the severity of the sepsis and organ failure was signfiicantly less, with lower rates of death in comparison with standard care alone. This is very encouraging. They found the treatment to be safe and potentially able to save lives. Of course if someone had a history of severe allergic reactions to fish, this is not an option. While not tested, perhaps flax oil is an option for such people. It is important to note, however, that the relative proportion of fatty acids like ALA are higher in flax oil than in fish oil, so it would remain to be seen if this might help in sepsis.

Still, if you were ever to end up in this type of bad medical crisis, making sure that you started off supported over the long term by good anti inflammatory diet and natural supplements like fish oil before a problem like sepsis might ever become an issue for your health. Bacterial infections most often lead to sepsis. In a relatively younger and healthier person, sepsis may be relatively less likely, but not impossible, e.g., if you had a “burst appendix” or an infected wound in a diabetic that led to a huge immune response to the infection.

And, if you are diabetic, by all means optimize your nutritional status to reduce your risk of ever having to deal with a sepsis crisis in the hospital. Zinc status is key – if you don’t know if your zinc levels are OK, ask your doctor to get a simple blood test to check them. You probably need daily supplementation, as poorly controlled diabetes by itself can cause the body to lose zinc, making infections more likely in the first place.

Another natural remedy strategy in patients with sepsis is homeopathically prepared remedies. Researchers did a placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial of appropriate homeopathic remedies added to standard care. Over the long-term, people with sepsis had better survival rates 180 days after treatment began if they had homeopathic remedies added to standard care (Frass et al Homeopathy 94(2):75-80, 2005).

Bottom line – take care of yourself with an anti inflammatory preventive approach to health care. But, if you get into trouble, you and your family should ask about other natural supplements like omega 3 fatty acids to add to standard care. This just might give you an edge against life threatening inflammation.

3 Top Natural Remedies for Alzheimer’s Disease Inflammation

January 5, 2014 by info Leave a Comment

Three top natural remedies for Alzheimer’s disease inflammation show a lot of promise for a less toxic way to slow down and perhaps prevent the loss of memory and other cognitive problems. Options based on scientific research include natural anti inflammatories such as curcumin, high dose vitamin E, and vitamin D3. Actually, ginger, rosemary, and various other plant-based natural remedies may also help to improve memory function. Many natural remedies that are anti oxidants are also exceptional at anti inflammatory effects.

Curcumin and Memory

The anti inflammatory herbal derivative curcumin from turmeric is a powerful natural remedy to help protect brain cells from neuro-inflammatory changes that can lead to memory loss (Wang et al Neurosci Lett 2013). The ways in which it can work in Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders are multiple. As with many herbs, curcumin appears to have a modulatory effect on different pathways involved in inflammation and oxidative stress.

One strategy for improving the biological availability and effectiveness of curcumin in the brain is to look for micro- and nano- size forms of the supplement. Nanoparticles are effective tiny carriers for herbs, nutrients and drugs that otherwise do not get out of the gut into the body or into the cells very well. Another somewhat larger but still more effective way to deliver curcumin is liposomes; this form is available more widely in commercial products as Meriva at health food stores and naturopathic offices.

Vitamin E and Alzheimer’s Dementia

A 2014 double-blind placebo-controlled study published in the prestigious medical journal JAMA found that high doses of alpha-tocopherol (2000 IU/day) were better able to slow functional deterioriation in patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease compared with placebo or the drug memantine (Dysken et al JAMA 2014). The vitamin E alone group had fewer serious side effects than the groups who got drug alone or a combination of the drug plus the vitamin E. Caregiver burden was also less for longer in the vitamin treated participants.

This study highlights the common problem with past research on nutrients in which the investigators choose to test much lower doses of a given natural supplement and then find that it “does not work.” Yes, this type of research issue means that you would not be using a nutritional supplement in the amounts typically available from dietary uses. Still, acknowledge this fact and look at the wide safety margin and broad benefits that many of these natural supplements offer, in contrast with the dangerous side effects of many drugs.

Vitamin D3 and Mild Cognitive Impairment

Vitamin D3 is deficient or at sub-optimal levels in a large proportion of the population. This nutrient is more of an essential hormone for In older adults, lower levels of vitamin D3 is associated with poorer performance on tests of executive function (ability to make decisions, change course when things are not going well, adapt to changes in your environment – Annweiler et al Dement Geriatr Cogn Disorder 2013). Another study reported lower levels of vitamin D3 (25OHD) were associated with greater mild cognitive impairment in non-demented elderly with perceived memory issues (Annweiler et al Eur J Neurol 2012). Other studies have found similar issues in older women with cognitive impairment.

The criteria for deficient and for sub-optimal levels of vitamin D3 are not yet well-established. Some researchers believe that people want to titrate their blood levels up to the range of 50-80 ng/ml (where 20 or less might be deficient) and 100 or more would be toxic). As with many nutritional supplements, the goal is a Goldilocks goal — that is, the level that is just right, not too small and not too big for your needs and unique body. Recommended daily allowances can be too low for people with impaired gastrointestinal absorption for various reasons. Therefore, asking your doctor to test your vitamin D levels and to follow them as you increase your dose (starting around 1000 IU/day) until you achieve the optimal levels is the best strategy.

In summary, optimizing your intake of curcumin (liposomal or nano forms), vitamin E, and vitamin D3 (the more biologically active form of the vitamin) may help stave off inflammation-associated cognitive impairment and even progression of Alzheimer’s disease if you take the right doses and the right forms of each natural remedy.

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