Fighting the Fire Within: Tackling Inflammation for Optimal Health with Tracy Freeman, MD
In this episode of Health Gig, join BB&R’s Chief Medical Officer, Tracy Freeman, MD as she delves into the fascinating world of inflammation. Discover the definition of inflammation, its short-term and long-term effects on the body, and its crucial role in various diseases. Dr. Freeman explores the top causes of inflammation, including viruses, bacteria, toxins, and autoimmune conditions. She emphasizes the importance of a holistic approach to inflammation management, focusing on key factors such as diet, exercise, gut health, detoxification, lifestyle changes, and targeted supplements.
Join Dr. Freeman on this informative journey to understand the impact of inflammation and learn effective strategies to combat it for optimal health and well-being. This episode was recorded during the Achieving Optimal Health Conference in 2022.
More on Tracy Freeman, md
Website: https://tracyfreemanmd.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063354902988
FOLLOW HEALTH GIG:
Learn more about BB&R and Achieving Optimal Health Conference by visiting BBRconsulting.us
Quotes:
“Of course, many people say, ‘I don’t have time to exercise,’ and from the old paradigm, that would be true. But now we have “High-intensity interval training” or “HIIT.” HIIT is where you may exercise for 30-90 seconds, then take a break for 30-90 seconds. It lowers your blood sugar, your blood pressure, your heart rate, burns fat, and increases your metabolism.” - Tracy Freeman, MD
“Chronic inflammation is the basis of most diseases. We understand that this is what we need to control to stop the body from going down the wrong path.” - Tracy Freeman, MD
“We don’t really think of allergies as inflammation, but the truth is, it's your inflammatory response gone wild!” - Tracy Freeman, MD
Show Notes:
Tracy Freeman: I chose the symbol of fire to represent inflammation and what is going on inside the body. I look at it as I have to put out the fire in my patients bodies so that they can feel better.
Tracy Freeman: As we got deeper and we realized that the real problem was chronic inflammation, then we realized that these long term changes, the long term infiltration of the blood and proteins, antibodies, even the cytokines you learned about through the Covid 19 crisis. These are all things that cause damage over the long term.
Tracy Freeman: We realized that chronic inflammation is the basis of most disease and we understand that this is what we need to control to stop the body from going down the wrong path.
Tracy Freeman: Stress, of course, is going to cause all kinds of problems, all the way from leaky gut into just stress and anxiety. So you want to lower our stress because that also will trigger your immune response.
Tracy Freeman: Think of sleep as a time when your body refuels, a time when it regenerates, a time when it takes away all the stresses of the day. It assimilates all you were meant to learn and know from that day before and prepares you and refuels you for the next day. So it's imperative to get at least I would say, eight hours for the average person.
Tracy Freeman: We don't really think of allergies as inflammation, but the truth is it's your inflammatory response gone wild.
Tracy Freeman: Mucus is bringing more inflammatory cells to an area and that is okay for a short term, but for the long term it doesn't allow the body to do its processes.
Tracy Freeman: The body will kind of set up microclots or little hurdles that won't allow bad things to pursue. It is a defense mechanism that stops bad bacteria, fungus, anything in its tracks as a defense mechanism that can cause problems down the road.
Tracy Freeman: In the Covid 19 pandemic, we saw that people were losing limbs in the first wave, and that was the body's hyper immune response, trying to stop the spread.
Tracy Freeman: Sugar wreaks havoc in the body and causes the body to just go into an inflammatory storm, so to speak. So that is definitely a fire we want to lower and put out and lower the blood sugar, lower our simple carbohydrate and sugar intake.
Tracy Freeman: IgG is an antibody or immunoglobulin. That's the same thing that is the most prevalent in the body. When I see low IgG levels, I do think of mold as an issue. When I see high, I believe the body has been attacking something for at least six months.
Tracy Freeman: Cancer is an endgame of inflammation. It is effectively the body, just not turning off properly.
Tracy Freeman: Other diets that have been shown to be anti-inflammatory are the Mediterranean diet, probably the most long standing and most studied diet, the dash diet, which is a cardiovascular diet. And I would say in the holistic world, we look more at autoimmune paleo, which includes, people think of paleo as a lot of meat, but in reality we're talking about a lot of leafy greens, a lot of vegetables if you're going to do it properly.
Tracy Freeman: Increasing aerobic exercise has been shown to be effective in lowering inflammation. The sweet spot is 35 minutes a day of moderate exercise based on studies. Sitting is the worst risk factor than drinking or smoking and leads to increased risk of death by 260%.
Tracy Freeman: Hiit is where you may exercise for 30 to 90s and then take a break for 30 to 90s. The benefit of this is it lowers your blood sugar, lowers your blood pressure, your heart rate, it increases sirtuins, which are your longevity genes. It burns fat and increases your metabolism.
Tracy Freeman: Here in Washington, we have some of the highest mercury levels in the country. It's us and L.A.. We kind of battle it out for top pollution and top mercury.
Tracy Freeman: you want to detox people in your life who are a problem because you don't need the stress of it. So that's another way to get junk out of your life is to just center yourself and only have positive things in your life.
Tracy Freeman: There's a thousand relaxation techniques you can consider meditation, prayer, mindfulness. I often have my patients who have busy brains that can't settle down to do these things. I had them do tapping or emotional freedom technique because it's an action you can do by tapping on the acupressure points.
Tracy Freeman: Mitochondria are the bacteria that joined our cells several thousand years ago and they give us strength and power and they feed off things like resveratrol.
Tracy Freeman: Green tea is anti-inflammatory across the board shown to be anti-cancer.