The Fire You Can't Feel
Read time: 5 minutes
Can we take a moment to appreciate how beautiful this photo that I took on Saturday is!
I spent the weekend in Platja d'Aro in Costa Brava eating amazing seafood, topping up my tan on the beach, and even squeezing in a round of mini-golf.
It came at the right time, as I have just opened up testing for my new business, MeridianWork and felt like I needed a bit of a rest. If you want to check out my new website and learn more about my new venture, then hit the link below.
🔗 MeridianWork Website 🔗
I've spent the last 10-11 months building this entirely on my own, and I'm proud to see it finally become something tangible.
Talking of something tangible, there's a key part of excellent health that doesn't get thought about as much because it isn't something that you can see or feel daily, but my oh my, is it important.
So without further ado, let's get stuck into it...
Imagine a fire smouldering slowly in the walls of your house.
No flames. No smoke. No alarm going off. Just a low, quiet burn that you can't see, can't smell, and can't feel, slowly damaging the structure, year after year, while you go about your life completely unaware.
That's chronic inflammation.
And the scary thing is that there's a good chance it's happening inside you right now.
It doesn't hurt like a traditional injury. It doesn't show up in a mirror. Most people carrying it have no idea it's there. Still, it's increasingly recognised as one of the most important drivers of nearly every major disease we face.
✔️ Heart disease
✔️ Type 2 diabetes
✔️ Cancer
✔️ Dementia
And more...
The good news is that you have far more control over it than you might think, but first, we need to clear something up.
Not all inflammation is bad
This is the part most people get wrong.
Inflammation isn't the enemy. In fact, you'd be dead without it.
Yep, as dead as a doornail.
When you cut your finger, and it goes red and swollen, that's inflammation.
When you catch a cold, and your body mounts a defence, that's inflammation too.
This is your immune system doing exactly what it's designed to do. Rushing to the site of a problem, fighting off threats, and repairing damage.
It's fast, it's targeted, and once the job is done, it switches off.
That's acute inflammation.
It's essential, protective, and a sign that your body is working properly.
The problem is a different kind of inflammation entirely.
Chronic low-grade inflammation is when that same immune response gets stuck in the "on" position.
There's no wound to heal, no infection to fight, but the system keeps simmering away at a low level, month after month, year after year.
Instead of protecting you, it slowly starts to damage the very tissues it's meant to defend, and this is when sh*t can really start to go sideways with your health.
A 2024 review in the journal Physiology described this state as a shared mechanism sitting underneath a huge range of chronic diseases (1). When the body fails to properly switch inflammation off, it settles into a persistent low burn that's strongly linked to obesity, cardiovascular disease, digestive problems, and cancer.
So if we think of acute inflammation as a controlled burn, then we look at chronic inflammation as the fire in the walls!
Why it matters more than you think
Here's where the research gets hard to ignore.
In 2024, a study published in Scientific Reports followed 273,804 adults aged 40 to 69, all of whom were free of major cardiometabolic disease when the study began (2).
The researchers measured each person's level of chronic low-grade inflammation using a combined score from several blood markers, then tracked what happened to them over time.
The findings were clear ⤵
People with higher inflammation had both a higher risk and an earlier onset of serious conditions like coronary artery disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and stroke.
And it wasn't just one disease because higher inflammation predicted people developing multiple conditions at once.
This is what I meant at the very start when I said it's a quiet danger, like a fire you can't feel coming.
By the time the symptoms show up, the damage has often been building for years.
The encouraging part, though, is that this inflammation is measurable.
There are three main markers doctors use to track it:
- CRP (C-reactive protein)
- IL-6
- TNF-alpha
You can ask for a CRP test, sometimes listed as hs-CRP, at a routine check-up. It won't tell you everything, but it gives you a window into something most people never think to look at.
So, what is actually fuelling this fire?
What is it that keeps this low burn going?
Well, there are a handful of everyday factors that do most of the damage.
Poor sleep
This one surprises people, but it really shouldn't because sleep is literally linked to every element of health, and the evidence is strong.
A landmark 2016 analysis led by Dr Michael Irwin at UCLA, published in Biological Psychiatry, pooled 72 studies covering more than 50,000 people (3). It found that poor sleep quality and insomnia were consistently linked to higher levels of inflammation. Irwin's conclusion was blunt: bad sleep should be treated as a risk factor for inflammation, on the same level as a poor diet or a lack of exercise.
A processed, Western-style diet
Diets high in refined carbohydrates, sugar, and heavily processed foods actively switch on the body's inflammatory pathways.
Not really a shock, is it?
This is one of the most studied areas in all of nutrition, with tens of thousands of papers linking dietary patterns to inflammatory markers.
Excess body fat
Fat tissue, particularly around the belly, isn't just sitting there passively. It actively pumps out inflammatory signals. The more excess fat you carry, the more fuel you're feeding the fire.
If you want to know more about this, I did a video on it last year.
A sedentary lifestyle
Again, are we really surprised when we see this? Sitting still all day is its own independent driver of inflammation and can and will damage your health in multiple ways if you let it.
And a few others worth mentioning:
Chronic stress, smoking, heavy drinking, and even poor gum health have all been linked to raised inflammation throughout the body.
So now you're clued in on inflammation and what might be driving it, what can you start doing right NOW to improve the situation?
How to put out the fire
Well, the great news is that the power is very much in your hands because almost every one of those drivers I just mentioned is something you can change.
The 'bad' news? It requires a LOT of consistency and effort on your behalf.
But so is anything in life that's worth having.
Four levers do most of the work.
1. Move your body. Both lifting and cardio.
This is the strongest and most consistent tool we have. A 2023 review in Experimental Gerontology pooled 40 studies covering nearly 1,900 people and found that exercise significantly lowered all three major inflammatory markers (4).
Both weight training and cardio worked, and resistance training stood out as particularly effective for lowering CRP, that inflammation marker I mentioned earlier. Don't just choose one and think that's enough, please aim for a combination.
2. Eat a Mediterranean-style diet.
The evidence here is exceptional! A 2025 analysis of 33 separate trials, covering nearly 3,500 people, found that a Mediterranean diet significantly reduced inflammation (5). This is backed by the famous PREDIMED trial, a five-year study of around 7,500 people, where a Mediterranean diet rich in extra virgin olive oil and nuts produced lower inflammation than a standard low-fat diet, with the effect lasting for years (6). The foods doing the heavy lifting are ones you already know:
Extra virgin olive oil, oily fish, nuts, vegetables, fruit, legumes, and whole grains. Real food, mostly plants, with plenty of good fats. You can't get enough of these!
3. Protect your sleep.
If poor sleep raises inflammation, good sleep lowers it. Seven to nine hours, consistently, is one of the most powerful anti-inflammatory tools available to you, and best of all.... It's free.
4. Consider oily fish or omega-3s.
An analysis of 32 separate reviews found that omega-3 supplements can lower inflammatory markers, though the effect is modest and the research isn't unanimous (7). My take: get it from food first. A couple of servings of oily fish a week, salmon, sardines, and mackerel, is the safest and most reliable route. I hate these, so I get them from walnuts and a good supplement.
Now, before I wrap up, I want to be straight with you about a few things.
You can't get inflammation to zero, and you wouldn't want to. The goal isn't elimination, it's making sure you're not living in a chronically elevated state. A single blood test can be misleading. A recent cold or a hard workout can temporarily spike your markers.
What matters is the trend over time, not one number on one day.
And while lifestyle is the biggest lever most people never pull, it isn't the only factor.
Genetics, age, and certain medical conditions play a role, too. This isn't about blame. It's about focusing on what you can actually control.
Because the truth is, most of what drives this fire is in your hands. What you eat. How you move. How you sleep. The basics. The same unglamorous fundamentals that solve so much of our health.
You can't feel this fire, but you can put it out, and the sooner you start, the less it costs you down the line!
Have a great week and I'll catch you next time.
Mark ✌️
