Sean Munroe

3/25/15
Period 8
Bodys Defender goes on the Attack
Inflammation, an important response in the immune system for fighting viruses, has also been
destroying the very tissues it was meant to heal. Scientists realized the effects inflammation had on
rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis years ago; but now scientists are beginning to realize the
effects that inflammation has on chronic diseases related to aging including atherosclerosis, diabetes,
Alzheimers disease, and osteoporosis.
You may wonder why your inflammatory response has evolved in such a way that it is keeping
you alive when younger, but contributing to your aging and oldness when you are older. To understand
this you need to travel back in time to the hunter-gatherers where injuries and infections was an ever
growing problem. To survive that time period the human race evolved a vigorous inflammatory response.
Through studying inflammation scientists are looking for solutions to chronic illnesses,
particularly in the arteries where heart attacks arise. A huge misconception of heart attacks is that high
cholesterol causes most heart attacks. This is wrong, in fact only(only) 3 out of 10 heart attacks are
caused by severe blockages. Instead, most heart attacks are caused when he artery is narrowed to less than
half of its capacity. This could not be explained by high cholesterol. Instead, inflammation was in the hot
seat, and it had been periodically since the mid-1800s. By the 1980s inflammation was a major research
topic again, and eventually a new explanation for heart attacks was in place. It is written in the article as
follows, immune system cells that cause inflammation burrow into the artery wall and begin gobbling
up droplets of fat. These fat filled cells form a plaque and inflammation thins its fibrous cap. Eventually
the cap ruptures and the plaques contents spill into the bloodstream--along with pro inflammatory
cytokines, which encouraged clotting. Suddenly, the artery fills with a cloud of rapidly coagulating blood
cells. If the cloud is large enough, it forms a clot that blocks the artery and causes a heart attack or stroke.