Two weeks ago I spent Saturday and Sunday glued to the computer screen from 8:30 to 5:30 for a teleconference class on brain inflammation. This may seem like a really boring topic, and it would be if there wasnot a very real probability that this is the underlying cause for the physical and emotional challenges you or someone you know experiences regularly. In fact regularity and persistence of any symptom often has a brain inflammation cause behind it.
Most of my patients come to see me for various issues that respond well in one or two treatments to my non-force chiropractic and a bit of lifestyle adjustment. This is great. But the last few years I am finding more and more patients have issues that are stubborn. They might respond well and be fine for a week or two, then they flare up in the same spot again. Others are showing more stubborn metabolic troubles like digestive problems,
brain fog, immune issues, and so on. I had been figuring that this is just the product of patients getting older, but nothing about getting older inherently means you should have such symptoms. People seem to be simply getting more reactive to their environments, activities, diet, and lives. Something is up.
This weekend seminar opened a whole new understanding as to why patients are suffering. This stuff is so cutting edge for us clinicians, that there are not even diagnostic terms to describe this. Conventional medicine has no idea this even exists. This is the work currently being done by biochemists and medical researchers in universities all over the world. This stuff is not new to them and tons of published research is available on this whole study area. Unfortunately none of this research has resulted in new wonder drugs or medical procedures that can heal these issues. Consequently medicine has not embraced this whole arena, since there is nothing they can do that fits within their treatment paradigm.
About the only information that has been brought to
the public’s attention is the concern with concussion syndrome in sports. Watching famous sports figures from the past turn into vegetables before our eyes because of the downstream consequences of hits to the head grabs people’s attention. The stories of mood disorders, violence, and suicides that often result from post concussion syndrome are forcing changes in how we approach contact sports. What is missing is even a glimmer of understanding of the complex pathology and broken physiology that is happening in the brains of these sports figures. What is also missing is the understanding that this stuff is happening every day with people that are in car accidents, to those who have slips and falls, and head bumps of all sorts. And that is just the traumatic brain injury cases. All sorts of other insults can cause the same brain breakdowns. How much of this is happening in your brain?
One of the big difficulties with understanding this topic is how the first injury or insult is not when the symptoms show up. People get injured and they seem to recover and be fine, sometimes for years and years. The injury or insult leaves permanent changes in how the immune system in the brain functions. It is not until a
second injury or insult, often much lighter than the first, comes along and then all of a sudden the person’s brain literally catches fire with inflammation. Depending exactly which brain area is involved, virtually any symptom can result.
So why is this? The brain is not constructed the way we have been taught. We think of the brain as a big bundle of nerves, but in reality only about 10% of the brain is nerves. Most of the brain is made of specialized immune cells called glial cells. The three main types are those that wrap around nerve pathways to protect them and make the nerve signals travel much faster. A second type form the protective covering around the blood vessels to keep bad stuff out of the brain and also moderate nerve transmissions. The third type are the ones that concern us today. They are called microglia.
When they are normal and healthy they look like long legged spiders that crawl around the brain cleaning up damaged tissue and promoting healing. But if something happens that threatens them, like a brain impact, infection, toxic chemical exposure, too much stress, and so on, they change. Their long legs pull in and they become like little armored trucks that shoot out poison bullets. They are in warrior mode to protect the brain from infection. The problem is that once they convert into warrior status, they stay that way forever.
Why is this a problem? Any time they feel threatened, they come out guns blazing shooting poison darts every which way. They were designed to fight infections by killing the invading bacteria with their poison, but if they are triggered by other things like a second hit to the head, a toxic exposure, stress, and so on, they still have the same reaction. All that poison release starts shutting down healthy nerve function and even kills your nerves. If this is happening in the part of your brain that is for feeling your hand, you will experience hand numbness. If it happens in the part of your brain for thinking, you experience brain fogginess. If it happens to be the part of your brain for mood, you might have sudden bouts of anger and violence, or depression, or crazy mood swings. If it hits your pain perception area you might end up with body pain anywhere or even everywhere like in fibromyalgia.
The kind of situations I am looking at right now are patients that had some head trauma years ago and they thought they were fine afterwards. Now they are experiencing pain after a relatively minor auto accident that shook their head up. They might end up with symptoms all over their body in ways that make no sense based on the mechanics of this current
accident. The problem is their converted warrior glial cells (called primed microglia) have gotten turned on and are guns blazing all over the place in the patient’s brain creating brain inflammation and crazy symptoms. How do I explain this to the insurance company, or to the patient? This article is a start.
Day one of this seminar was all about explaining the details of this process and then covering the level one simple care for these patients. Day two was spent on the more complex presentations and heavy functional neurology techniques for diagnosing and treating these cases. The simple level is for dealing with microglia activation in a brain that is still protected from the
common inflammatory insults from the body by having the blood brain barrier still intact. This barrier keeps most harmful things out of the brain that would trigger the primed microglia from going crazy. Level two care was all about recognizing when this protection has been lost and the patient is on their way to permanent brain damage. The worst case situation is when the immune system starts forming actual antibodies against the brain tissue. Normally the immune system in the body that forms antibodies can’t get into the brain, but if the blood brain barrier is broken down, this happens and now you have an autoimmune disease of the brain.
Covering significant portions of this seminar will take several newsletters, but let me start with some helpful information. Addressing brain inflammation is done through lifestyle factors and plant nutraceuticals. In the early stages there are several critical factors that must be addressed to try to prevent a breakdown of the blood brain barrier. This is because once that happens things get way worse. An absolute must if you have any
brain inflammation is all alcohol consumption and smoking must stop completely. These directly attack the blood brain barrier. No healing can even begin to take place if you do not have a good blood oxygen supply to the brain. Any anemia or poor blood flow issues must be addressed. After that the two most important critical concerns are getting enough good quality sleep and getting the right kind and amount of exercise. Next in order of importance is addressing the diet. At a minimum all inflammatory foods must be eliminated. Even better is getting your body shifted over to a ketone-based energy system (a keto diet) as ketones directly reduce inflammation in the brain. After this there are a load of different plant flavinols that help heal the brain and reduce inflammation. The steps go on and every patient is unique.
There is no permanent fix for this problem. Once those microglia have switched into warrior mode (called M1 state), they are that way for the rest of your life. Unlike immune cells in the rest of your body that die and are replaced every few months, brain immune cells last
you for your entire life. All you can do is everything necessary to turn the warrior mode down to resting state (called M2 state) by living a clean anti-inflammation life. What this looks like has already been addressed in many of my previous newsletters. It is just now we know why those health habits work. It is all about the brain.