"Inflammation" is a familiar word in our daily life. Millions of people have experienced it. But what is inflammation exactly? This article will explain what inflammation is, the types of inflammation, and how to treat inflammation. It will also provide effective guidelines for improving inflammation symptoms based on red light therapy.
What Is Inflammation?
Inflammation can be obvious: your muscles may swell, your skin may become red, and you may have unexplained pain somewhere in your body. Although it is annoying, inflammation is inevitable; it is an event that every living life experiences, more like a process. Inflammation is a protective response of the body's immune system to harmful stimuli (such as pathogens, damaged cells or chemicals). Simply say, when our body are damaged or infected, local blood vessels will expand, and more white blood cells and other immune molecules will be mobilized to the damaged area, causing local redness, swelling, fever and pain. These are classic characteristics of inflammation and are part of the body's repair process. Inflammation is part of the body's self-protection and repair mechanism, but when the inflammatory response is excessive or persistent, it can also become a health hazard.
What Can Cause Inflammation?
Any damage factor that affects the body can cause inflammation; such as: virus infection, physical injury, chemical irritation. In addition, there are some special factors: 1. autoimmune diseases, in which the immune system mistakenly attacks healthy cells, 2. long-term metabolic disorders (such as obesity, diabetes) and environmental stress, which may also trigger persistent low-grade inflammation. This long-lasting, low-grade inflammation tends to have a greater impact on the body.
Symptoms Of Inflammation
Inflammation are usually manifested in the following aspects:
Redness: Local blood vessels dilate and blood flow increases, making the damaged area red. Swelling: Due to increased vascular permeability, fluid leaks into the surrounding tissues, causing local swelling. Heat: Increased blood flow in the damaged area causes the temperature to rise, and you feel hot. Pain: Inflammatory mediators (such as prostaglandins, leukotrienes) stimulate nerve endings and cause pain. Dysfunction: Due to local inflammatory reactions, the affected tissues or organs may experience functional impairment or limited movement.
In some cases, severe inflammation may also cause systemic symptoms such as fever, fatigue, and loss of appetite, even more it may cause depression.
There are good and bad types of inflammation:
Acute inflammation: usually occurs within minutes to hours and is the body's rapid response to injury or infection, helping to isolate and remove harmful factors and initiate the healing process.
Chronic inflammation: If acute inflammation cannot completely eliminate the irritation, it may turn into chronic inflammation. Long-term chronic inflammation may lead to tissue destruction and a variety of chronic diseases.
Inflammation Treatments
Currently, people usually choose to treat inflammation with medicine, like NSAIDS(ibuprofen, aspirin, etc), it can inhibit the production of inflammatory mediators, thereby reducing pain and swelling. Most anti-inflammatory medicine have hidden side effects, such as affecting kidney health, which is risky for the elderly. Moreover, medicine treatment only treat acute inflammation. It relieves the swelling and pain for temp, which is cannot cure the root of the inflammation. This is why more people choose to maintain good living habits to prevent the occurrence of chronic inflammation. People also use ice baths, heat therapy, and light therapy to deal chronic inflammation.
What Is Red Light Therapy?
Red light therapy is a non-invasive treatment method that uses specific wavelengths of red light (generally 620–760 nm) and near-infrared light (700–1100 nm) to stimulate cell activity, promote tissue repair, and modulate inflammatory responses. Red light therapy is based on the concept of "photobiomodulation" (PBM), which is the use of light energy to change cellular activity in living organisms. When red light is irradiated to the skin, it can penetrate the surface of the skin, enter the deeper tissues and be absorbed by the mitochondria in the cells. Mitochondria are the "energy factories" of cells, and cytochrome c oxidase in them is the key target for absorbing red light. The photons of red light can activate this enzyme, thereby promoting the production of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in cells, improving cellular energy metabolism, reducing oxidative stress, releasing nitric oxide (NO) and regulating cell signaling.
How Red Light Therapy Work On Inflammation?
Red light can reduce the excessive generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), thereby reducing oxidative stress. At the same time, red light can regulate the secretion of inflammatory mediators (such as prostaglandins and cytokines), relieve local inflammatory responses, and reduce pain and tissue damage. Mild red light can dilate blood vessels, improve blood circulation, accelerate wound healing and tissue repair, and reduce persistent inflammation. It's like a signal to our body. It can stimulate collagen production and improve skin blood circulation, accelerate wound healing, reduce inflammation and pain, and is often used in the rehabilitation of diabetic ulcers, sports injuries.
Conclusion: Red Light Therapy Has Positive Effects In Treating Inflammation
Inflammation is a part of everyone's life. We should learn to develop good living habits to balance with inflammation. However, chronic inflammation evolved from acute inflammation will become the culprit that seriously affects our daily life because of its high harm.
Red light therapy uses specific wavelengths of red light and near-infrared light to activate cell mitochondria, increase ATP production, and regulate inflammatory responses and blood circulation, thereby promoting cell repair, relieving pain, and improving skin and tissue health. It is widely used because of its non-invasiveness and high safety. If you are interested in red light therapy, you can click on the link below to view our red light products to learn more.
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