Did you know that those who suffer from obesity have what is known as a low-grade inflammatory state? It is not yet known whether this state precedes or follows weight gain, although it is clear that the relationship between cellular inflammation and obesity exists. Here we explain what it is and how to solve it.
The inflammatory state of people with obesity shows once again that our eating behavior – thoughts, decisions and actions related to food – goes beyond wanting or not wanting, being our relationship with food much more complex than that. .
What is cellular inflammation?
We speak of silent -or low-grade cellular inflammation- to refer to the imperceptible inflammation of an organ or tissue that occurs as a consequence of the activation of inflammatory mechanisms in response to the detection of a threat.
However, although it is an important defense mechanism, its activation stimulates the secretion of enzymes that will attack healthy tissue to get rid of the problem. Thus, if it becomes chronic – due to continuous exposure to harmful agents – it ends up damaging the organ or tissue in question.
Chronic cellular inflammation ends up making the body sick in different ways and obesity is one of them.
Cell inflammation and obesity
Currently obesity can be defined as a chronic low-grade inflammatory state given by:
Changes in the gut microbiota
Oxidative stress
Excessive release of pro-inflammatory factors
Peripheral macrophage over-activation
In this sense, it seems that the relationship between cellular inflammation and obesity begins in adipose tissue : the hypertrophied adipocytes of an obese person secrete pro-inflammatory cytokines and these, in turn, attract pro-inflammatory macrophages. All these substances end up spreading through the body.
To this is added that most of the obesity-generating habits -stress, junk food, insomnia, sedentary lifestyle- are pro-inflammatory per se and, together with the pro-inflammatory substances associated with the adipose tissue of people with obesity, end up generating a generalized inflammatory state that affects most of the body.
In this way, the inflammation generated by adipose tissue is aggravated by that caused by the factors that generate it. In other words, obesity has two sources responsible for its inflammatory state: adipose tissue and the harmful habits that are behind it.
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