Full Transcript What Inflammation Means 0:01 Hi, it's Dr. 0:02 Susan Sklar with the Thought of the Week, and this week we are going to talk about inflammation and your brain. 0:10 I want to just take a moment to explain inflammation because a lot of people don't really understand what that means. 0:18 We call inflammation the brain, brain on fire. 0:21 And the reason for that is if you can think of a situation where you actually observe the inflammation, for example, if get a splinter or a cut and it 0:33 starts to get irritated. 0:34 The first thing that'll happen is it'll feel sore. 0:37 Then the skin and tissue in the area will turn red and eventually become what's swollen. 0:43 And this is the result of your body fighting off something it perceives as harmful, like a splinter with some germs on it or a cut that may have, 0:54 whatever the object was, may've had some bacteria on that your wants to be sure doesn't travel and spread throughout your system. 1:02 So inflammation is your body's way of taking care of you. 1:06 However, in some circumstances, inflammation and the inflammation response goes awry.
Signs and Causes of Brain Inflammation 1:12 And we see that happen with brain inflammation. 1:16 Some of the symptoms, like how do you know if your brain is inflamed, having brain fog, memory problems, depression, a slower functioning brain, 1:26 all of these can be signs of brain information. 1:30 The causes of information are many. 1:32 but we know that predisposing risk factors are things like diabetes, a history of head trauma, autoimmune disease and other places in your body such as 1:44 rheumatoid arthritis which affects the joints, ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease which affect your intestine. 1:51 These auto immune disorders produce chemicals called cytokines. 1:56 The cytakines travel across the blood brain barrier which is supposed to protect your brain But in certain circumstances, 2:03 it's kind of leaky, and these cytokines come across and start inflaming your brain. 2:10 In addition, you have cells in your brains called microglia. 2:14 These are protective helpers and carers for the neurons, or nerve cells, in the brain, so they normally will carry away debris. 2:24 Things like beta amyloid, which we know has been implicated in Alzheimer's, they will clear away dead neurons, dead nerve cells. 2:33 But sometimes the microglia get activated. 2:35 And they get activate by inflammation in other parts of your body or by a head trauma. 2:43 Once they activated, they don't seem to shut down.
Microglia and Neurodegeneration 2:47 Some of the early signs of activation is that your brain may function more slowly than previously. 2:54 Other things that can happen are that you're brain energy is decreased. 2:59 so that your brain fatigues more easily. 3:02 And then finally, after the microglia have been activated for long enough, they will start to actually kill off your own nerve cells. 3:10 That's when we see people with impairments from Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and some of the other neurodegenerative disorders. 3:20 Some of things that you can do about brain inflammation are to do things like remove inflammatory foods from your diet. 3:30 We know that gluten and grain as well as dairy products tend to be very inflammatory. 3:36 So eliminating those products. 3:39 Eating a huge variety of vegetables, multicolored vegetables because the antioxidants that are in those vegetables are anti-inflammatory. 3:51 Supplements are helpful for reducing inflammation. 3:55 Fish oil.
Diet and Supplements to Reduce Inflammation 3:57 vitamin D, and curcumin. 3:59 And lastly, there are lifestyle changes that are very important. 4:03 Removing refined carbohydrates from your diet. 4:07 We do know that diabetes is a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease because of the blood sugar regulation problems that occur that end up inflaming your brain. 4:18 So removing refined carbohydrate from you diet and if you're a diabetic, really getting your diabetes under tight control. 4:26 And last of all is stress. 4:28 Stress is very inflammatory producing for your brain. 4:32 And I know it's not easy to get rid of the stress in your lives. 4:36 You have elderly parents you might be taking care of or teenagers or your job may be very stressful or maybe you have a long commute to work. 4:44 All of these things are stressful and not good for you brain and although you may not be able to remove them from your lives,
Stress Reduction and Self-Care 4:52 you certainly can do things to diminish the effects of stress on your brain. 4:57 What are those? 4:59 Meditation, yoga, prayer, Tai Chi, getting a massage, all of these are stress reducers that actually will undo some of the physiologic damage that's done 5:15 by stress in your life. 5:16 So I know you can't remove stress, But you can at least start by taking better care of yourself and go get a massage. 5:23 Relax. 5:25 We'll talk to you next time.
Comments