Australian Lifestyle Medicine Conference
Mar 31st, 2009 by Giselle
I recently attended the Australian Lifestyle Medicine Conference organised by the Australian Lifestyle Medicine Association. This article examines the hot conference topic – “low-level systemic inflammation” and its astounding link to chronic degenerative diseases like heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, cancers, Alzheimer’s disease, arthritis and high cholesterol levels!
Not all fatness indicates disease risk. Not all leanness indicates lack of disease risk. So what is the one factor that is a potent indicator of disease risk? It is an inflammatory process called metaflammation, para-flammation or smouldering inflammation. This condition appears to be inextricably linked with individual lifestyle behaviours like:
- poor diet
- inactivity
- excessive exercise (modern endurance events)
- inadequate sleep (due to deprivation, insomnia or sleep disorders like sleep apnoea)
- mental states like anxiety or depression
- environmental stressors
- excessive alcohol
- smoking
Markers of inflammation are expressed through a range of immune mediators such as cytokines, chemokines, adipokines, myokines and transcription factors. Recently, C-reactive protein has gained more attention than NFkB, TNF alpha and Il-6 but overall, these are common markers used to identify unhealthy inducers of metaflammation. It seems, the lifestyle-related inducers listed above are associated with oxidative stress, insulin resistance and eventual development of disease states.
Regularly consuming high glycaemic foods or large quantities of highly processed carbohydrate foods leads to inflammation and aging of cells. As Professor Jennie Brand Miller, world leading authority on the glycaemic index puts it very simply, “High GI foods lead to high inflammatory markers due to oxidative stress. What happens is that the high glucose load overwhelms the power-house (mitochondria) in the cell causing lots of free radicals to be generated. This leads to death of the mitochondria and eventual cell death.” In essence, aspire to eat like traditional natives and regularly choose low GI foods.
Regular moderate level physical activity, approximately ½ to 1 hour per day most days of the week is anti-inflammatory. Getting 8 hours of good quality sleep daily is also vital. It appears that the “stress-like’’ effects of sleep deprivation and the accompanying hormonal changes are associated with obesity.
In an advanced society like ours, mental states associated with stress, anxiety and depression seem to generate acute inflammatory responses accompanied by elevated levels of cytokines. Smoking also elicits a parallel reaction. Both of which are linked to degenerative diseases.
In a nutshell, the maintenance of a disease-free state lies squarely in our hands. Health is about consistently choosing pro-life behaviours through good nutrition, exercise, good quality sleep, relaxation and powerfully choosing joy-filled states. What are your views? Please post you comments below.
It’s very interesting that you would mention lack of exercise and too much exercise as both being risk factors. It is all really a balancing act, isn’t it? Go to extremes and you put yourself at risk.
Eat a “normal” diet, lead a “normal” life and you will be quite fine. By normal I mean what we all know we should be eating and doing, as opposed to our quick-fix processed foods, eating on the run and trying to escape it all by using more quick-fixes.
I do wonder about information overload. Given the kinds of messages our minds keep getting bombarded with all day long (email, TV news with 2 scrolling tickers underneath, internet, mobile phone calls anytime and anywhere), that must have a negative impact! The average concentration span of an office worker working on a given task is now around 7 minutes. I would assert it creates an unnatural level of stress and we’re looking at a new epidemic amongst career workers just due to that. Anyone any thoughts on that?
Hi Kelly,
Yes, many of us are trapped in the confusion of quick fixes. Unfortunately, they just lead to more and more quick fixes, all of which do “half baked” jobs. At the end of the day, it is the centred existence that allows us to generate peace and clarity within that enables us to find that balance and lead the optimum life. It is in this space that common sense prevails.
Hi Kim,
You have raised a very good point. This epidemic is reaching crisis proportion. The only way to go about it is to ruthlesslessly reduce the information and concentrate on one task at a time based on priority. This way we are not paralysed or overwhelmed. Besides studies have shown that people who are very connected with the external world via internet, mobile phones and pagers tend to be quite disconnected to their “internal” world. In other words they tend to lead more reactive lives devoid of awareness or consciousness. In the long run this is not pro-life or health.