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:

1. poor diet
2. inactivity
3. excessive exercise (modern endurance events)
4. inadequate sleep (due to deprivation, insomnia or sleep disorders like sleep apnoea)
5. mental states like anxiety or depression
6. environmental stressors
7. excessive alcohol
8. 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.

Australians are among the fattest people in the world. This has caused a host of chronic diseases to develop. A cluster of some of the above-mentioned conditions is commonly called metabolic syndrome. It is often said that obesity is harder to cure than cancer! For over 10 years, it has been known that obesity is directly associated with inflammation.

More and more experts are seeing body weight or fat as potential ‘markers’ of other health problems, like cancer, heart disease and diabetes. Low grade form of inflammation commonly called metaflammation seems to result from certain lifestyle behaviours. Some of these behaviours are responsible for making us fat.

Certain food choices and lack of activity are now known to contribute notoriously to ‘metaflammation’. According to studies, merely changing or reducing weight without adopting all aspects of lifestyle changes aimed at reducing inflammation are doomed to fail in the long run. To achieve better overall health outcomes, all aspects of lifestyle that contribute to reducing inflammation should be adopted.
Sleep is a factor that is largely neglected in our modern society. We now know that less than 7 hours sleep a day has been shown to raise inflammatory makers. This is related to psychological stress which has been known to cause pro-inflammatory responses. Chronic stress causes a chronic rise in stress-related hormones like cortisol and the concurrent reduction in the ‘feel-good’ hormones – endorphins. Chronic stress and depression are directly associated with metaflammation. Metaflammation leads to numerous disease states as a result of insulin resistance! In other words, science has shown that you can sleep yourself and relax yourself slim! Wow, how awesome is that? If you did nothing else but get good quality sleep and adopt deep relaxation, you could be a few kilograms lighter than you are now! How is that for good news?

Hence the winning formula for keeping trim involves a complete lifestyle overhaul combining:
1. Good sleep
2. Stress management (so you have little or no stress in your life)
3. Plenty of exercise – take every opportunity to move!
4. Good solid ‘anti-inflammatory’ diet filled with back-to-basics ‘earth foods’
5. No smoking

All of these health-enhancing factors have not changed since the time of Hippocrates. How remarkable is that? These 5 simple factors make up the entire prevention armoury. They say the more things change the more they stay the same, this must be one of those things!