Microinflammation: The Slow Burn Behind Symptoms You Can’t Explain

Dr. Taz MD (0:00)

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If you are tired, achy, foggy, and carrying weight that will not move, I do not think you have four problems. I think you actually have one. Let's talk about microinflammation and what actually calms it down. Inflammation traditionally is treated as acute, a three-alarm fire, something that you have to run and solve immediately. But chronic, low-grade inflammation is rarely screened for. The HSCRP is hardly a part of a standard physical set of labs. Each symptom that I just talked about, those four, usually gets its own appointment. And usually, and I'm sure you're agreeing with me, each of those symptoms often get their own prescription. Anti-inflammatories manage the three-alarm fire, but never really ask the question of what's going on underneath, what's switching it on, why is it even there to begin with?

Here's what we understand when we think differently, when we think holistically or through the functional medicine lens. We understand that micro-inflammation is real. It's a slow burn, it's happening below the threshold of a standard test and above the threshold of just feeling good. It's systemic, which means that's the reason why it's showing up in your joints, your brain, the gut and your skin all at one time. And unrelated symptoms, although they seem unrelated, are usually one pattern, not four different problems.

Inflammation and micro-inflammation are usually driven by daily inputs. That means our food, our sleep, your stress, your gut, they all matter. And they are all modifiable. That's the good news.

But there are about six different ways I see over and over again that micro-inflammation will show up in you. And I want you guys to be able to recognize it. So maybe again, jot these down if you think this is relevant to you or even share it with me in the comments below.

Just feeling tired all the time. Your immune system is running in the background. It's consuming energy and nothing you do will lift that constant fatigue. Morning stiffness and achiness. Have any of you experienced that? That's the inflammatory signaling that accumulates overnight. Brain fog and low mood. That's another way that inflammation will actually cross into the brain and affect our neurotransmitter signaling, whether we're anxious or depressed, sad or happy.

Stubborn weight, especially around the middle. Inflammation and insulin resistance reinforce each other and will cause oftentimes that middle weight gain that takes forever to lose. Your skin, whether it's a breakout, acne, eczema, rosacea, the skin mirrors the gut at every age. And then getting sick more often or taking way longer to recover. This means that your immune system is busy, busy keeping up, and it's responding poorly to new challenges because it's already in a subtle micro-inflammatory state.

Let's get to the root cause. In functional medicine, we ask why does the immune system do what it's doing? Why does it get switched on and start to overreact? Or in some cases, underreact? And we want to solve it for you. We understand that blood sugar swings, constant crashing of blood sugar, you're high, you're low, you're all over the place, causes micro-inflammation. At first, undetectable, but over time, so obvious you can no longer ignore it. We know that the gut is the root of inflammation. I have been talking about this forever. That almost 75% of the inflammation I see actually begins in the gut. Ideas like gut permeability or gut dysbiosis, these are things we have to pay attention to. And they're a reason why the immune system turns on, turns off or overreacts. Stress and cortisol. We know that cortisol is an anti-inflammatory until you're in a cortisol loop that does not shut off. When you are in that cortisol loop, you then enter the place where cortisol becomes pro-inflammatory, causing many of the symptoms that you experience day to day.

Sleep is an opportunity for inflammation to quiet down. So poor sleep or insufficient sleep is a window where inflammation no longer has an opportunity to resolve. And we know that ultra-processed foods, along with, you know, a lot of the fast foods that are out there, all of those things are impacting you towards an inflammatory signal. Visceral fat, which we've talked about, is metabolically active and also produces inflammatory messengers, and then hidden infections, sensitivities, the environmental load, all of that is worth looking at when the basics are already in place.