Is flammation a word?

English is one weird language that might not seem so weird only to native English speakers. For the vast majority of the world that learns/learnt English as a second (or third) language, which includes me, it is one crazy set of rules that we have to memorize in order to become proficient in it. If there is one rule when it comes to the language it is that no rule is ever consistent.

Take that word, consistent. The opposite is inconsistent. However, the opposite of flammable is not inflammable, but, shockingly, inflammable means the same as flammable. Head meets desk!

So, when there is a word “inflammation”, does it then imply that it is synonymous with “flammation” or is the opposition of “flammation”? Or, does one word have nothing to do with the other? Is there even a word “flammation”?

Rest assured that this post is not about the English language. It is about inflammation, however. Inflammation as in how it relates to, affects, our health. Do not get stressed out about English grammar. In fact, stress also causes inflammation, which is bad for you. So, take a deep breath and read on.

For quite some years now, I—and you too, I am sure—have come across plenty of news reports on how the body’s inflammatory responses are related to various diseases. If anything, these days medical experts seem to use two words while trying to figure out the causes for many illnesses: Inflammatory and autoimmune. Both involve the immune system, though they differ in the nasty effects that they produce. Or so I understand.

My mother suffered from multiple myeloma for nearly six years, and she died because of the complications that resulted from it. What causes this painful disease? Chronic inflammation perhaps plays a big role here. What triggers the chronic inflammation? Well, nobody knows.

Here’s what experts seem to know for sure: Health problems with inflammatory origins seem to be more common now than before. I hadn’t even heard of multiple myeloma until my mother’s diagnosis. Perhaps you didn’t know of such a cancer until you read this post. But, you and I know certainly know of a common inflammatory problem these days: Peanut allergy.

This essay in the Scientific American makes it clear and straightforward:

Food allergy is fundamentally a disease of inflammation. The immune system recognizes certain proteins in a food as unwelcome and launches a cascading reaction that often involves an antibody called IgE. The antibody triggers a whole-body inflammatory response: hives, swelling, vomiting, and, in the worst cases, crashing blood pressure and an inability to breathe.

And:

“Inflammatory diseases of many kinds are more common than they used to be,” says Brian Vickery, a professor of pediatrics at the Emory University School of Medicine and director of the Food Allergy Program at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, who is a principal investigator on multiple clinical trials. “Eczema, type 2 diabetes, atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, cancer, depression—all these things have inflammatory origins and are more common now.”

Peanut allergy.

If you are as old as I am, or older, then our experiences are perhaps similar when it comes to peanut allergy. We did not know of anybody with peanut allergy when we were kids.

As a kid, I loved the raw peanuts in shells that my mother boiled in salt water. Many summer afternoons we have spent in the backyard under the tamarind trees eating those boiled peanuts. With the shelled peanuts, Amma made a sweet with jaggery and peanuts that were wonderfully tasty and also filling. Plus, this was also a way to get protein into the vegetarian diet.

I am confident that I came to know about peanut allergy only after a few years here in the US. I have always wondered if the sterile environment in which most kids grow up here doesn’t help schooling the immune system on how to react to foods. Through the years that I lived in the old country, kids crawled and played on the floor, which was not always clean, and, as all kids always do, often stuck their fingers in their mouths, which compelled their systems to learn to deal with all kinds of triggers.

What do experts think?

Researchers have proposed that cleaner modern life, early antibiotic exposure, and microbiome damage from detergents and surfactants—all components of what’s called the hygiene hypothesis—might influence how often allergies develop. Genetics may predispose people to react to certain foods. There may be a clue as well in which foods provoke reactions. Up to 90 percent of food allergies are caused by just eight things: peanuts, milk, eggs, fish, crustaceans, tree nuts, wheat and soybeans. (These are the foods that, according to a 2004 U.S. law, have to be declared on labels; a separate 2021 law added sesame to the list.) Why these foods are especially allergenic also puzzles researchers. They contain complex proteins, which remain intact during digestion and may trigger the immune system in ways other foods do not; these proteins also may have similarities to common environmental allergens.

The final few words in that excerpt particularly intrigued me: “these proteins also may have similarities to common environmental allergens.” The author does not expand on this point, however. If I were the editor, I would have asked the author to add a couple of sentences describing a few common environmental allergens before moving on.

Even multiple myeloma is thought to be a result of the environment to which we are exposed now in contrast to the cleaner environment of quite a few decades ago. Could it be the chemical benzene, for instance? Some people’s systems respond to benzene in ways that lead to cancers, which is a disease of inflammation.

Scientists have been working on this peanut allergy (and food allergies in general). But:

scientists worry that the fundamentals of peanut allergy still elude them. Why it exists, what triggers it, what keeps the immune system from outgrowing it—these basic questions remain unanswered. But the ability to tackle them is growing. “This field is still relatively early in its development compared with oncology or respiratory medicine, which are targeting very specific biological pathways with very specific precision treatments,” Emory’s Vickery says. “We’re not close to that yet. But can I see that on the horizon? Yes.”

Here’s what Dr. K. advises, based on his own practice. Now, keep in mind that Dr. K. is not a medical doctor but earned a Ph.D., which allows him to list himself as “Dr.” with airlines that offer that option, and he does that hoping it will lead to free upgrades. (I like referring to myself in the third person, which sometimes can be annoying, I am sure.)

A whole lot of vegetables and fruits on a daily basis is damn healthy, as long as you don’t fry those veggies in fat of any kind, and as long as you don’t add sugar to the fruits. Foods like yogurt that have healthy bacteria are awesome, especially when you are hungry.

If I had my way, I would have idlis and yogurt practically every morning. Idli, for those unfamiliar with the dish, is made by steaming batter that is made from rice as grains and the protein rich urad bean. The batter is typically fermented at least overnight. The steamed food with yogurt might seem so boring, but then you forget what a boring person I am!

The fact that I don’t have scientific evidence to back me does not prevent me in believing in the awesome anti-inflammatory powers of ginger and black pepper. It is no surprise that Ayurvedic concoctions often include these two. Make dishes with ginger and black pepper every single day if you want.

What we eat and drink day in and day out will have a significant impact on inflammation and anti-inflammation. These are within our control, unlike benzene in the environment, right? Well, we will fight to make the environment around us less toxic while consuming healthy foods.