What is inflammation, why is it important for the body and when does it become dangerous for us.
When our body is faced with an infection, we develop a fever, with arthritis, our joints hurt, and with a bee sting, we experience pain. All this is a manifestation of inflammation occurring in the body, writes Inverse.
Immunologists Prakash Nagarkatty and Mitzi Nagarkatty from the University of South Carolina decided to dot the i and told how our immune system reacts to infections, vaccinations, autoimmune diseases, and when the body begins to attack itself.
Scientists note that, as a rule, inflammation is associated with pain from injuries or diseases that they can cause. It is an important part of our body’s normal immune response, but problems start where a normally “beneficial function” of the body overreacts to a stimulus and is delayed.
The term “inflammation” refers to all the actions of the immune system to fight the body against potential or actual infections. However, researchers identify 5 physical signs of acute inflammation:
- heat;
- pain;
- redness;
- edema;
- loss of function.
In this case, a weaker inflammation may well occur without obvious symptoms, but the cellular process underlying the inflammation will be the same.
Scientists told how the immune system works on the example of a bee sting. Sensing toxins, bacteria, and physical damage, the immune system sends various types of immune cells to the site of injury—T cells, B cells, macrophages, and neutrophils, to name a few. The former kill any infected cell and prevent the spread of the virus, the latter produce antibodies, the third and fourth absorb bacteria and destroy them.
These immune cells also produce hundreds of different molecules called neurotransmitters that help repair damage and deal with threats. However, mediators kill not only bacteria, but also some healthy cells. This causes blood to leak from the blood vessels, resulting in fluid build-up and an influx of large numbers of immune cells, causing swelling, redness, and pain during the bite.
When the immune system clears out an infection or foreign agent, parts of the inflammatory response take over and help repair damaged tissue. After just a few days, our body neutralizes the poison from the bite and eliminates all the bacteria that got inside and heals the damage.
However, the situation changes when inflammation occurs for the wrong reasons or is too prolonged (becomes chronic) – as a result, the damage caused by it can become dangerous.
For example, allergies develop when our immune system mistakenly recognizes actually harmless substances as a threat. In such cases, the harm can be harmless, such as itching and redness, or dangerous – a person cannot breathe due to swelling of the throat.
In addition, chronic inflammation can damage tissues over time and even lead to a variety of clinical disorders, including cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative disorders, obesity, diabetes, and even some types of cancer.
Scientists note that in some cases, our immune system is able to perceive our organs and tissues as invaders. As a result, this leads to inflammation in the whole body or certain parts of it – we can develop autoimmune diseases such as lupus or arthritis.
The researchers note that inflammation mainly manifests itself at the cellular level, but its mechanism is not at all simple. A number of studies show that stress, nutrition, genetic and environmental factors can also influence inflammation.
