Inflammation can occur for two different reasons, and sometimes for both at the same time. The first reason is physical injury. You fall on the ice, you get hit during sports, or some other incident occurs where the body responds with inflammation. The second reason the body can become inflamed is an invasion, and in the case of chronic inflammation, the invader is a pathogen. Regardless of what else you may have heard, those are the only two causes of inflammation.
You’ll often hear that chronic inflammation is the result of the immune system attacking itself—that is, it’s an autoimmune reaction. That’s because the medical community doesn’t yet have the tools to detect how often viruses like EBV (Epstein-Barr virus) and HHV-6 (human herpesvirus 6) , as well as bacteria like streptococci , are present in the body. These invaders, which sometimes cause injury by damaging tissue, are the true source of the body’s inflammatory responses. The body never attacks itself. All antibodies, even if they’re called autoantibodies, are actually there to attack a pathogen and take care of the tissue it’s damaged, helping it repair and heal.
As you may already know, the liver is a place where various pathogens, including viruses, accumulate, as well as the toxic substances that feed them. In addition, viruses secrete their own toxins, such as neurotoxins, which attack nerves and contribute to inflammation. Once the viral cells leave the liver, they can also attack various parts of the body. For example, as Anthony William explains in detail in his book “Healing the Thyroid,” the EBV virus attacks the thyroid gland, causing the inflammation known as Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. (For more information, see the video “Do You Have Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis?” .) Viruses also target weak spots in the body, which explains why old injuries sometimes fail to heal or reactivate for no apparent reason.
For example, if you hit your knee hard and it swells up, you’ll apply ice to reduce the inflammation. With chronic inflammation, your body also works hard to reduce it over time. When you help this process along naturally—by eating healthier foods and taking supplements—your body will respond and you’ll see improvement. Reducing inflammation through healthy eating and taking the right supplements has become a real eye-opener for many doctors in recent years. After seeing improvements in some patients, they start writing books and spreading the word. That’s great, and we should applaud them for their efforts to introduce new and yet traditional approaches. It’s important to know, however, that these methods don’t mean that the inflammation won’t come back one day, nor that you’ll get the best possible results. At the moment, doctors’ understanding of why a certain group of their patients feel better is superficial—it’s just the tip of the iceberg.
The real reason people experience relief in these cases is that making healthier food choices and getting certain nutrients cleanses the liver and blood. This reduces the fuel available for viruses and bacteria, and when pathogens are not thriving, they are not able to cause as much inflammation. Even if you choose a random diet that is relatively healthy, inflammation will decrease because it eliminates some of the pathogens’ favorite foods and frees the liver from some of the accumulated toxins and is better able to cleanse the blood. The thicker and dirtier the blood, the better the pathogens thrive and the more inflammation you experience; the reverse is also true—the cleaner the blood, the less inflammation you experience. (For more information, see the article “Dirty Blood Syndrome” .)
Avoiding gluten is a popular part of many anti-inflammatory diets, as there is a belief that gluten itself causes inflammation. (For more on this topic, see Why Gluten Is a Problem Food .) The real reason why cutting it out helps is because it deprives the bacteria and viruses in your body of food—gluten is one of their favorite foods. The medical community completely ignores this fact because they don’t believe that pathogens “eat,” but they do. (You can read more about food sources of pathogens in the book Liver Help .)
Nutritional Supplement Protocol for Chronic Inflammation
- 5-MTHF : 1 capsule daily;
- Aloe Vera: 5 cm or more of a fresh piece of the gel-like fleshy part (with the outer hard shell peeled off) daily;
- Barley grass juice powder : 2 tsp daily;
- Cat's claw : 2 droppers daily;
- Chaga mushroom : 2 tsp daily;
- Curcumin : 3 capsules twice daily;
- Lemon balm : 3 droppers daily;
- Licorice : 1 dropper daily (take for 2 weeks, rest for 2 weeks);
- L-lysine : 4 capsules twice daily;
- Magnesium glycinate : 2 capsules daily;
- MSM : 2 capsules daily;
- Mulberry : 2 droppers daily;
- Atomic iodine : 4 small drops (not a dropper) daily;
- Nettle : 2 droppers daily;
- Olive leaf : 1 dropper daily;
- Spirulina : 2 tsp. daily;
- Turmeric: 2 capsules daily;
- Vitamin B12 (adenosylcobalamin with methylcobalamin) : 1 dropper twice daily;
- Vitamin C (in the form of Micro-C) : 6 capsules of 500 g or 1 and 1/2 measuring spoons of Micro-C powder twice daily;
- Zinc (liquid zinc sulfate) : up to 2 droppers twice daily.
