Inflammation
Inflammation has beneficial and harmful effects in the body. Short-term inflammation can be like a fire on the stove to cook food for health and nutrition. Long-term inflammation can be the same fire spreading throughout the house consuming everything. The defining difference is often how long and how widespread the inflammation is.Inflammation employs some very powerful tools to accomplish its objectives. Pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines, along with various enzymes and proteins are its main tools. Cytokine proteins such as Interleukin-1 and Interleukin-6, Tumor Necrosis Factor, Interferon, and others ignite the fires of inflammation. Chemokines are proteins that help to guide our immune cells to where they need to go.
Short-term inflammation
Short-term inflammation plays a beneficial role in immunity, tissue repair, clearing infections, exercise, and healing. It increases blood flow to improve the supply of nutrients and the presence of immune cells to injured tissues. It increases fluid to help stabilize joints after an injury. It initiates mechanisms that ensure that our body's "first responders", the white blood cells, are able to get to where they need to go to fight off infections. It is a vital part of a long life and it is regulated by anti-inflammatory factors that turn off the inflammation when it is no longer needed.Long-term inflammation
Long-term inflammation creates harmful effects and can be associated with every type of disease and condition. Short-term inflammation can play a role in repairing damage to cells and tissues, but long-term inflammation can turn that around and destroy those very same cells and tissues.Long-term inflammation is necessary for the persistence of most diseases and conditions. It is defined by chronic levels of cytokines, chemokines, and pro-inflammatory enzymes and proteins. Unchecked, cytokines can unleash a whirlwind of inflammation and destruction known as Cytokine Storm.
Causes of long-term inflammation include infections, genetics, imbalances in the gut flora (microbiome), medications, alcohol, smoking, environmental toxins, chronic stress, nutrient and antioxidant deficiencies, and a loss of immune system regulation. These usually exist in combinations of each other and candida and inflammation are almost always present.
A very common combination is infections, genetics, flora imbalances, toxins, nutrient and antioxidant deficiencies, and a loss of regulation. This is the most common combination that drives Long candida, Long Covid, Long TBI, and Long Lyme.
The chronic release of pro-inflammatory substances leads to other nutrient deficiencies that further increase levels of inflammation. The whole process quickly becomes an ongoing cycle feeding upon itself and driving relentless inflammation. This type of low-grade chronic infection escapes detection through routine blood testing, and so it is never addressed. At the same time, one can experience such a wide range of symptoms that the clinical picture is confusing to doctors who have nothing to offer other than chasing the symptoms with medications.
Symptoms
Symptoms can range from mild to severe, may last for weeks, months, or even years. The symptoms can improve, worsen, or re-emerge over time. Symptoms can include anything related to inflammation. Symptoms can range from general fevers, aches and pains to fatigue, "brain fog', sleep disturbances, hormonal imbalances, skin conditions, cholesterol, blood sugar, and blood pressure issues, and on and on. Left unchecked, long candida can play a role in autoimmune diseases, cancers, obesity, neurological degeneration, and diabetes. There are over 125 conditions related to fungal candida infections.Breaking the cycle
The Candida Plan has proven itself as the best holistic approach to correcting fungal candida infections for over 35 years. Chronic long-term fungal candida infections that lead to Long Candida are typically easy enough to correct with the Candida Plan and we have seen amazing results consistently in people using the Plan.That being said, there are often some very common genetic components that are poorly understood, as well as the effects of various toxins, nutritional imbalances, microbiome alterations, oxidative stress, and others. On top of this, it is often the body's response to Long Candida that creates the most harm and damage. Understanding where this is taking place and why can turn complex cases into simple ones.
Genetic testing is a very is often necessary can complex cases, as well as Oxidative Stress, Total Toxin, and Microbiome tests. The benefits of testing is in the ability to the make the difficult cases easier to understand and address. The only other option is hit-or-miss.
We can spend a lifetime chasing the wrong answers or we can target the best options for a quicker recovery and pursue those. There are no other better options than these available to us.
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Dr. Jeffrey S. McCombs, DC, is founder of the McCombs Center for Health, the Candida Plan, the Candida Library, and author of Lifeforce, The Everything Candida Book, and The Everything Guide to Autoimmune Diets. Check out our podcast, Candida Diet Tips Recipes, and Insights on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Buzzsprout, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music and Alexa Flash Briefings. For advanced testing protocols, consider our Functional Genomic, Oxidative Stress, Microbiome panels and our ProDrome Scan and Bioscan testing – https://shop.candidaplan.com/meta-omics-advanced-testing-integration/Contact Us – (888) 236-7780, or support@candidaplan.com