Get Complete Information on Some Inflammation Associated Diseases

Heart Disease:

Inflammation (triggered by environmental factors or genetic influences) plays a role in certain heart diseases, because LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol) gets embedded inside artery walls as well, where the immune system sees it as an invader to be attacked.

The ongoing inflammation in arteries, essentially a revved up immune response, can eventually damage arteries and cause vulnerable plaque to burst, resulting in damage to the vessel walls.

In trying to heal this damage, inflammatory cells come into the vessel walls and induce a sequence of inflammatory actions in the coronary artery, such as plaque rupture, thrombus formation and embolization into the blood vessels within the heart etc., placing one at increased risk for heart attack.

Since inflammation prompts the liver to produce a protein in the blood known as C-reactive protein (CRP), a test for

Arthritis:

“Arthr” refers to joints between bones “it is” indicates inflammation. The complete word “Arthritis” means inflamed joint or joints” In many types of arthritis, the body’s inflammatory response is misdirected.

In arthritis, the secretions of inflammatory cells called cytokines lead to the production of enzymes that break down cartilage in joints. The pain, redness, heat, swelling and other harmful effects of inflammation can be treated with medication, diet and exercise.

Diabetes:

It’s long been known that type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease, because the body’s immune system attacks the cells that make insulin, resulting in type I diabetes.

In recent years, the immune system has also been implicated in type II diabetes. Type II diabetes often begins with insulin resistance, in which cells stop responding properly to insulin. TNF (tumor necrosis factor) released in chronic inflammation makes cells more resistant to insulin.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD):

It is an irreversible, progressive and degenerative disorder that destroys the higher structures of the brain. There is mounting evidence that chronic inflammatory processes play a fundamental role in the progression of neuro pathological changes of Alzheimer’s disease. Whenever the brain is injured or infected, cells in the brain called glia pump out cytokines.

Normally, this response shuts down when the injury or infection is over. But in chronic neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, these glial cells are activated too high or too long or both, making them pump out even more cytokines to try to repair this damage and creating chronic inflammation, which in turn results degenerative disorder.

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD):

It is an inflammatory condition of the colon and small intestine. Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis are the major types of IBD. The main difference between Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis is the location and nature of the inflammatory changes.

In Crohn’s disease inflammation can affect any part of the gastrointestinal tract, from mouth to anus (skip lesions), although a majority of the cases start in the terminal ileum. Ulcerative colitis, in contrast, is restricted to the colon and the rectum.

Microscopically, ulcerative colitis is restricted to the mucosa (epithelial lining of the gut), while Crohn’s disease affects the whole bowel wall.

Tumour:

Recent data have expanded the concept that, inflammation is a critical component of tumour progression. Many cancers arise from sites of infection, chronic irritation and inflammation.

Inflammation aids in the proliferation and survival of malignant cells, promotes angiogenesis and metastasis, subverts adaptive immune responses, and alters responses to hormones and chemotherapeutic agents.

In addition, tumour cells have co-opted some of the signaling molecules of the innate immune system, such as selectins, chemokines and their receptors for invasion, migration and metastasis.

In certain types of cancer, an oncogenic change induces an inflammatory microenvironment that promotes the development of tumors. Recent data suggest that an additional mechanism involved in cancer related inflammation (CRI) is induction of genetic instability by inflammatory mediators, leading to accumulation of random genetic alterations in cancer cells. These insights are fostering new anti-inflammatory therapeutic approaches to cancer development.

Infection:

Infection can be defined as the injurious colonization of a host organism, by a foreign species.

In such a case, the foreign species, which can also be called the infecting organism, starts utilization of the resources of the host. The result is that the normal functioning of the host is adversely affected. In human beings, the negative effects might manifest themselves in the form of chronic wounds, loss of an infected limb, gangrene and in some cases even death.

The foreign species usually comprise of microscopic organisms like bacteria, viruses, parasites, fungi, prions, viroids, and so on.

The term “infection” has some exceptions. For example, the normal growth of the usual bacterial flora in the intestinal tract is not usually considered as an infection. The same consideration applies to the bacteria that normally inhabit the mouth.

General infections can be divided into two categories, namely systemic infection and local infection.