Will fasting help with chronic inflammation?

Inflammation has two purposes. One is to repair an injury by way of immune cells and scar tissue. The other is to fight infection from such things as microbes, bacteria, or yeast. Let’s say you have a sinus infection and your body produces mucus in response to the pollen, dust, or whatever substance your body views as a threat. Or food allergies. Inflammation is created in response. This is called acute inflammation.

All of the inflammation creates scar tissue in such places as your lungs, joints, liver, and other places throughout your body. You could get plaquing in your arteries because of inflammation in your vascular system. When you go from acute inflammation to chronic inflammation, this is inappropriate.

Chronic inflammation does you no good. It has no long term survival benefit. In fact, if you take autoimmune conditions, your own body is attacking itself with its collateral damage. People are forced to take prednisone and steroids because cortisol suppresses an overactive immune system. They’re forced to take them because the adrenal glands are worn out and can no longer produce their own steroids.

The longer you have inflammation the greater chance you’ll develop insulin resistance, which is a prediabetic condition. The cancer spreads into areas of inflammation or old injuries.

Here’s how fasting will help. It’s the most powerful thing you can do to turn off chronic inflammation while leaving your body’s helpful acute inflammation response alone. Fasting turns off certain genes related to inflammation, a process known as epigenetics in which genes are turned on and off in response to certain factors like food, nutrition, and stress level.

If you have an autoimmune condition you can fast to turn off the genes responsible for inflammation. Or you could get pregnant since pregnancy turns off the same genes. You can also take vitamin D which is an anti-inflammatory.

I recommend intermittent fasting and then going into longer fasts. Fasting also increases your antioxidant network and helps your adrenals to not have to work so hard. You now know how to use fasting to reduce inflammation or even eliminate it.