Inflammation is often mentioned in daily life, such as nail infections in the fingers, boils on the face, redness, swelling, heat and pain as if they are on fire. When you say “I have an inflammation”, people usually think that it is an infection, so you should use or take some anti-inflammatory drugs. However, from a medical point of view, is inflammation the same as infection? Many people do not feel good about inflammation, “What good is inflammation to me? Only uncomfortable!” , lest it happen to them! But what if I told you that inflammation and infection are not the same thing; that inflammation may actually have benefits! What would you think?
I. Inflammation
Inflammation is short for inflammatory response, which is strictly defined as the body’s or tissue’s response to an injurious stimulus, note the words injurious stimulus! If this reaction occurs in an organ or part of the body, we are accustomed to affix a “inflammation”, such as cystitis, appendicitis, prostatitis, etc. Inflammation itself is an important component of the immune system and is the body’s attempt to protect or heal after an injury has occurred, resist invasion by foreign enemies (bacteria or viruses, etc.) and repair damaged tissue. Without inflammation, a wound can deteriorate making the infection fatal. Of course inflammation is not much of a good thing for the body, especially in the negative effects of chronic disease. Here is an example from life, like what happens in the body when you accidentally stab your finger.
A barb sticks the finger, producing damaging stimuli including mechanical damage and introduced bacterial foreign bodies, etc. Sentinel cells in the tissue (mast cells, etc.) pick up on this and immediately send out an “emergency signal” (releasing biochemical proteins called cytokines, such as histamine, etc.) and call in various immune cells and hormones in the body to help.
Then a series of actions take place at the tissue level: the body starts “recruiting” to increase the number of leukocytes (mainly neutrophils), blood vessels dilate to increase local blood flow, and more blood carrying “troops” reaches the site of injury; capillary wall permeability The capillary wall permeability increases, and the leukocytes in the blood vessels attach to the vessel wall and swim out into the intercellular space through a series of movements and deformations, and assemble at the site of injury.
Leukocytes are the main “guards” of our body, containing a large number of digestive and lysogenic vesicles, which are a powerful weapon against external enemies and damage. They gather in large numbers and begin to engulf germs or foreign bodies and start “fighting”.
At the same time, various cells release hormones such as prostaglandins, which promote local hemostasis, damage removal and tissue healing. However, the entry of leukocytes and hormones into the interstitial space is accompanied by fluid entry, and the direct effect of hormones and swelling can also stimulate nerve endings and produce pain.
Under the condition of normal immune function and not heavy damage, the body will win comfortably. After the “battle” the battlefield needs to be cleaned up, and leukocytes and macrophages, etc., take on the task, they themselves die after phagocytosis and digestion of the damaged material, are cleared by the body and restore tranquility, thus the inflammatory process ends.
This series of coherent behaviors is a biological evolutionary “conditioned reflex” in response to an intrusion, and our inflammatory response is classified as acute or chronic for different stimuli, the above example is acute, similar to acute bacterial cystitis, tonsillitis or appendicitis, etc., meaning that it occurs quickly and the effects mostly subside within a few days.
Chronic inflammation is a long-term “wear and tear” condition, including rheumatic heart valve disease, allergic asthma, ulcerative colitis, etc. Chronic inflammation can also be caused by lifestyle or environmental factors, including overweight, poor nutrition, smoking, stress, pollution, and alcohol abuse. Chronic inflammation, also known as persistent, low-grade inflammation, does not actually have a clear “target” to attack when there is an internal movement and the body instinctively mobilizes an inflammatory response. When there is no foreign body or germ to take out and nowhere to go, the leukocytes begin to attack the normal internal tissues or organs. This aspect will be described later.
From a medical point of view, acute inflammation is more intense but can be “good” because it is the body’s effort to heal after damage; chronic inflammation, although not obvious to the body, is “bad” and may gradually damage the organism. But good or bad, it is our body’s response.
Infection
Infection is the process of invasion and proliferation of pathogenic microorganisms, including bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites, etc., in other words, damage to stimulate the stomach organism. These microorganisms enter the body and trigger an inflammatory response similar to the one described above, and since we coexist with them all the time, infection is the most common cause of inflammation.
However, there are some exceptional cases where the body experiences an infection without a significant inflammatory response. For example, asymptomatic bacteriuria in the urinary system: most people have sterile urine, and in these people the infection enters the urinary tract without the body going into a violent state, with very little or no inflammatory response, and the bacteria “living peacefully” with the body without discomfort. This often does not require intervention, except in the case of the elderly, pregnant women and children; similarly, the flora in our intestinal tract, not only does not cause “inflammation”, but also helps the body to absorb vitamins and is called “beneficial bacteria”. Another example is AIDS, where HIV infection first deactivates the lymphocytes of the immune system, inhibiting the initiation of the inflammatory response, which is not felt by the body at the beginning of the infection. However, as the virus replicates in large numbers, the immune deficiency eventually becomes too weak to defend against other threats and collapses wholesale.
Is there non-infectious inflammation?
Of course there is, and there is a lot of it! Gout attacks do not have pathogens such as bacteria, but still have intense swelling and pain in the toes (acute arthritis), which is caused by large amounts of uric acid penetrating from the blood into the joints to form crystals, which the body attacks as a foreign body. Similarly, there are rheumatic heart disease, glomerulonephritis, lupus erythematosus, and even broken feet (traumatic injuries), among others.
More common in the urinary tract is bacterial cystitis, in which a woman’s E. coli bacteria invade the bladder via the urethra, attach to the mucosa, divide and proliferate to form colonies, damage the mucosa, and prepare to set up camp (infection occurs).
The body quickly detects the movement, the mucosal cells send a message to the immune system, the submucosal vessels become congested, cytokines are released to increase vascular permeability, fluid penetrates, and the bladder mucosa becomes congested and swollen; leukocytes are attracted to move and gather in large numbers from the vessels to the diseased mucosa and meet the germ. Leukocytes constantly engulf the digestive germs, many fall down with injuries, but reinforcements keep joining (acute inflammatory process).
Ladies experience pain, urinary tract irritation (cytokines, tissue swelling, hormone-mediated, etc.), hematuria (high vascular permeability, leakage of red blood cells), and cloudy urine (discharge of “sacrificial warriors”).
The distressed and worried, rush to the doctor, check the urine (multiple red and white blood cells) and take oral antibiotics. In the end, the immune system and antiseptic drugs work together, the germs are completely removed, the bladder mucosa is gradually repaired, the woman’s urine color turns clear, the irritation and pain gradually disappear, and she eventually recovers.
After all this talk, can you still remember everything clearly? To summarize: infection and inflammation are actually two mechanisms, the former is the invasion and proliferation of pathogenic microorganisms, the latter is the body’s histological response to injury and its substances; inflammation can occur as a result of infection or not; infection is the most common cause of inflammation.