Question: Why do we become inflamed?

Helena Fisk answered on 12 May 2020: last edited 12 May 2020 12:02 pm

Hi Tom, This is a great question!

Inflammation is actually part of a healthy immune response. We need inflammation to trigger healing processes. For example, if you were to badly cut your hand your body would respond to this to protect you. You would probably feel pain and the wound may also feel warm and look red. You might also see a bit of swelling and may lose function of your hand (it may hurt too much to write or type – which might get you out of doing your homework for a day or two haha!). Our body responds in a similar way to protect us when we catch a virus or bacterial infection. Usually, our immune system senses when we are recovering from the injury or illness and the inflammation goes down again (self-resolves).

However, in some cases inflammation may not resolve or our immune system may mistake our healthy body for a threat and react with an inflammatory response.
An example of inflammation which goes on for a long period of time is obesity. There is constant low level inflammation which is needed at first to help us respond to increased fat intake but does not self resolve and causes problems over a longer period of time (such as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and type 2 diabetes).

Some people may also be born with or develop autoimmune diseases (in which our immune system mistakenly attacks our healthy body) that involve inflammation such as inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis or rheumatoid arthritis. Developing these conditions can be influenced by our genes which we inherit from our parents and grandparents, our race/ethnicity, and sex.

I hope that helps 🙂