• Question: What makes to much inflammation?

    Asked by anon-253474 to James_the_Scientist on 14 May 2020.
    • Photo: James Beswick

      James Beswick answered on 14 May 2020:

      Good question! Inflammation is normally a very natural and important process that is part of our body’s defence against infection. However, sometimes our body ‘overreacts’ to things, and the inflammatory response gets out of control. Imagine if the fire brigade turned up and soaked everything with water because someone lit the candles on a birthday cake – that wouldn’t be sensible! It’s a little bit like this in diseases like Alzheimer’s, which puts your body on ‘high alert’. Your body recognises there is something not quite right that could be dangerous, but overreacts and causes more harm than good.

Comments

  • Photo: Sophie

    Sophie commented on :

    This is an excellent question! Inflammation can be genetic. For instance in rheumatoid arthritis you’re more likely to develop the condition if you have faulty HLA genes.These faulty genes cause your body to no longer recognise what is part of your own body and what is not. Our immune systems should only react to things that don’t belong to us, but sometimes they go wrong and they start attacking themselves. When they do they cause lots of inflammation and damage.This is called an autoimmune disease. However, it’s not always written in our genes. Often it’s a combination of our genes and our environment. Factors such as too much stress, smoking and poor diet may cause us to develop these autoimmune conditions. I hope this helps to answer your question 🙂