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Comment by jvanderbot | Hacker News Reader

Chronic inflammation is bad. Is chronic inflammation always caused by auto-immune? Or is it also caused by things like pollutants, poor diet, or other "first world" problems?

I ask because I used to be very concerned with particulate matter (I still am, but I used to too), and it seemed a big problem with that was it triggering inflammation.

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It's been a while since I looked into this, but diet is a major factor with inflammation. Sugars, seed oils and grain-fed dairy. (Also if you eat the grains yourself!) Keto lowers it, caloric restriction lowers it (conversely excess calories coupled with sedentary lifestyle increase it), intermittent fasting lowers it.

I forget about exercise, I think it's a case of temporarily increasing it (hours) and then lowering it long-term.

Speaking from personal experience diet plays as much a role as medication in decreasing inflammation. Sugars, gluten, and some* nuts and seeds are indeed pro-inflammatory (many seeds and nuts are anti-inflammatory)

How did you measure inflammation level ?

CRP, Calprotectin are easily measurable, not so sure TNF-Alpha and Interleukins?

I don't think there's a pattern suggesting that. Many autoimmune diseases are more prevalent in less polluted parts of the world. The strongest links appear to be genetic, in that some diseases (e.g., Sjogren's syndrome) are clearly more common in people of certain geographic descents.

I'm not asking if autoimmune is caused by pollution or development. I'm asking if they both have similar effects.

There is no distinction regardless of cause, imo. Stress can epigenetically cause an autoimmune disease, and so can pollution (including smoking), excessive alcohol, processed food diet, sedentariness, etc. Often it is a number of factors that can lead to a chronically overactive immune response.

I forgot to add, some have higher genetic predisposition for an autoimmune disorder, and diet/environment/lifestyle can switch those gene sections on.

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