The Dr. Hyman Show - Inflammation isn't Something to Eliminate. It's Something to Regulate

Episode Date: August 24, 2026

Chronic inflammation may be one of the biggest forces accelerating how we age—and the surprising part is that many of the things keeping it switched on are happening every day. Poor sleep, chronic stress, blood sugar spikes, visceral fat, and ultra-processed food can keep your immune system acting like it’s under constant threat, potentially contributing to everything from metabolic dysfunction and heart disease to arthritis and cognitive decline. Here’s what I unpack in today’s episode: The hidden “inflammation switch” scientists are studying and why it may help explain how chronic inflammation drives aging and disease The everyday habits that can keep your immune system stuck in a constant state of alarm The surprising connection between mitochondrial health, visceral fat, blood sugar, and inflammation The most effective ways to help calm chronic inflammation and the simple daily shifts that may have the biggest impact Inflammation isn’t the enemy—it’s one of your body’s most important survival tools. The problem is when the alarm never switches off. By changing the signals you send your immune system every day, you can help restore balance and support healthier aging from the inside out. Resources: Track your metabolic health with Function Health: https://functionhealth.com/mark (Use code MARK2026 for $50 off your membership.) Have a question you’d love answered on Office Hours? Submit it here 0:00 Inflammation, aging, and healing 3:15 Chronic inflammation triggers and their impact 5:15 Sleep, stress, and immune system health 8:17 Ultra processed foods, mitochondria, and inflammation 10:27 Visceral fat, immune activation, and practical steps for healthy aging

If inflammation is designed to heal us, why does it begin hurting us as we age? Why does so many of us feel like our bodies are fighting a battle even when we're not sick? Maybe you're a joint sick. Maybe your brain feels foggy. Maybe you're tired all the time. You can't lose weight like you used to. Maybe your blood work keeps showing signs of inflammation, even though you're doing, quote, all the right things. Well, at first glance, those problems don't seem connected.

One affects your brain, another affects your metabolism, another affects your heart, or your joints. But what if they're all being driven by the same, underlying biological process. Over the last decade, scientists have discovered that many of these seemingly unrelated conditions are connected by one remarkably powerful part of your immune system. Think of it as your body's master inflammation switch. Its job is to detect danger to protect you, to coordinate your body's response to injury or infection, and when it's working properly, it's one of the reasons you survive.

But when that switch stays activated for too long, the very system designed to protect you can begin working against you. Now, researchers believe that this pathway plays an important role in many of the chronic diseases as a switch with aging, from metabolic dysfunction and heart disease to neurodegenerative diseases and arthritis. A scientific name for this immune switch is called NLRP3 inflammatory. Don't worry about remembering the name. What's important is understanding how it works, because once you do, you'll start looking at inflammation

and aging in a completely different way. Now, today we're going to explore what keeps this inflammation switch turned on. why modern life makes that happen more often than ever before, and the science-backed habits that help restore balance your immune system. Because longevity isn't about shutting down inflammation. It's about teaching your body the difference between a true emergency and the stress of everyday modern life. This episode was brought you by function.

Get access to over 160 lab tests annually at functionhealth.com slash mark. Now before we can understand this hidden inflammation switch, we have to rethink inflammation itself. because inflammation has gotten a bad rap. People hear the word and immediately think, oh, bad. But that's not simply true. Inflammation is one of your body's oldest survival tools. It's how you heal.

It's how you fight infection. It's how you recover after exercise. Imagine you cut your hand while cooking dinner within seconds your immune system jumps into action. Blood vessels widen, immune cells rush to the area. They destroy bacteria. They clear away damaged tissue. They begin rebuilding healthy skin.

That's inflammation doing exactly what it was designed to do. The same thing happens after a challenging workout. Your muscles experience tiny amounts of damage. Inflammation arrives not to hurt you, but to help rebuild stronger muscles than before. In other words, inflammation isn't something to eliminate. It's something to regulate. The problem comes when your immune system never gets the message that danger has passed. Imagine your home smoke detector.

If there's a real fire, you want that alarm blaring. It could save your life. But imagine the fire goes out. The smoke detector keeps screaming day after day, week after week. the alarm becomes the problem. So when we have an acute injury, we want that inflammation to take over. We want the body to start to bring in all the repair chemicals and the cytokines and the inflammatory repair molecules, and that's all great. But that's acute. What happens in modern life is that we are exposed to chronic inflammatory triggers. The biggest one being our inflammatory

diet, changes in our microbiome as a result of that, chronic stress, lack of sleep, lack of exercise, environmental toxins, all these things create this low-grade inflammatory response to the body that doesn't feel acute, but it creates this constant immune activation that damages healthy tissues instead of protecting them, which raises a fascinating question. Why does the alarm system stay on, right? This is a really important discovery in immunology. Inside every immune cell, there's a remarkable molecular security system. Scientists call this the NLRP3 inflammatory. Osama. Don't worry about remembering the name, like I said. What's more important is understanding what it does. Think of it as your body's internal smoke detector. Its job is to constantly

scan for danger, bacteria, viruses, damaged cells, environmental toxins, metabolic stress, and when it detects a real threat, it sounds an alarm. It activates the powerful inflammatory messengers, things called cytokines like interleukin 1, beta, and interleukin 18. These help coordinate the body's defense. Now, those signals are essential for fighting infections. and for repairing injury. That's exactly what you want, if you have pneumonia, or if you step on a rusty nail. But here's where modern life creates a real problem. Your inflamosome can't always tell the difference between an actual emergency and the constant barrage of unhealthy signals we experience every day. Poor sleep, chronic stress, ultra-processed food, high blood sugar, visceral fat,

damage mitochondria, sedentary lifestyle. Over time, these signals can repeatedly activate this immune alarm. So instead of switching on occasionally, it stays on far. more than it should. Now, researchers believe that chronic overactivation of the NLRP3 in phlegasone plays an important role in many diseases associated with aging, including type of diabetes, atheroscosis, or hardening the arteries, when you get clots and heart attacks, fatty liver disease, osteoarthritis, neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's. It's not the only cause, but it's increasingly recognized as a central player inflammatory signaling. So naturally, the question becomes one of the biggest things in our daily

lives that keep flipping this switch. Let's start with something we all underestimate. Sleep. We tend to think of sleep as passive, like we're simply turning off our brain for the night. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sleep is when your body repairs. Your brain clears metabolic waste, your hormones rebalance, your immune system recalibrates. Think of sleep as the nightly reset button for inflammation. And when you constantly get enough high quality sleep, your immune system learns to turn the alarm off. But when you're chronically sleep deprived, the opposite happens. your body interprets sleep loss as a stress. Inflammatory signaling increases.

Recovery slows down. Blood sugar becomes harder to regulate. Even your appetite changes. One poor night of sleep won't ruin your health, but when poor sleep becomes normal, your immune system begins acting like it's constantly under attack. The next signal isn't physical. It's emotional. Stress, a big one.

Now, here's something important. Your immune system doesn't distinguish very well between different kinds of stress. Whether you're running from a predator or worrying about your finance, or answering emails until midnight, your biology often responds in remarkably similar ways. Your nervous system shifts into fight or flight, stress hormones rise, your body prepares for the danger, and that response is incredibly helpful for a few minutes. It becomes harmful when it never ends. Today, many of us are living in a constant state of low-grade survival mode, always rushing, always stimulated, always connected, and your immune system is listening to every single bit of it.

And this is why managing stress isn't just about feeling calmer. It's about changing the biological signals your immune system receives every single day. Now, sometimes the most powerful anti-inflammatory practice isn't another supplement. It's taking a walk, calling a friend, meditating, breathing deeply, spending time in nature. These simple habits tell your nervous system we're safe. When your nervous system feels safe, your immune system, it often follows. I know one of the hardest things a patient can hear is everything looks normal, especially when they don't feel normal.

They're exhausted, their joints hurt, they can't be clearly. And they know something isn't right. I've seen this happen for years. Take autoimmune conditions. They often begin long before they're discovered. And the markers to help identify them like A&A and thyroid antibodies, well, there are always included in routine physicals. So people spend so much time and money trying to explain symptoms and to get answers.

That's exactly why we built function. Function gives you access to 160 plus lab tests annually that measure signals in your blood, including nutrients, liver health, inflammation, and hormones. You can also complete your health baseline with an annual MRI that helps you see organs, tissues, and other changes. Check your health at functionhealth.com slash mark, and if you're one of the first 1,000 people this week, use the code Mark 2026 for a $50 credit under $365 year membership. So let's talk about ultra-process food next and bloodshare.

This is where metabolism enters the picture. Every time you eat, you're sending information to your immune system. Whole foods send one message, ultra-processed foods, send another message. Diaside, refined carbs and sugars, industrial ingredients, added sugars, highly processed foods. I mean, these contribute to blood sugar spikes, visceral fat, oxidative stress, chronic low-grade inflammation. Researchers sometimes call this meta-inflammation, inflammation driven by metabolic dysfunction. Now, over time, those repeated signals keep the immune system and the alarm switch on. Not one cookie or one slice of birthday cake.

It's about the overall pattern. What you eat most of the time matters far more than what you eat once in a while. And one of the simplest ways to calm inflammation is eat foods your immune system recognizes, like vegetables, healthy fats, high-quality protein, beans, nuts and seas, lots of colorful plants, rich in polyphenols, food becomes information. and your immune system is reading every meal. But your cells still have to process that information, and that's where one of the biggest drivers of inflammation comes in, your mitochondria.

Now, this surprises almost everyone. When people think about inflammation, they don't usually think about mitochondria, but they should. Mitochondri are your cells power plants. They produce energy that powers virtually everything your body does, but they're also incredibly sensitive. As mitochondria become damaged, they begin producing more free radicals or reactive oxygen species,

like oxidative stress. They release distress signals. Your immune system interprets those signals as danger, which can activate inflammatory pathways like the NLRP3 inflammation. But mitochondria are remarkably adaptable. Exercise stimulates your body to build healthier mitochondria. Quality sleep supports mitochondria repair. Itophagy helps recycle damage mitochondria.

And nutrient-intense foods provide the building blocks they need to function officially. Every workout, every walk, every time you challenge your muscles, you're not just burning calories. you're improving the health of the very organelles that help regulate inflammation. And finally, the biggest signal that keeps your immune system activated, visceral fat, which a lot of people have. This is fat sort of deep inside your abdomen wrapped around your organs. Unlike the fat just beneath your skin, which is the septuantinous fat, visceral or organ fat isn't simply stored energy. It's metabolically active.

It behaves almost like its own endocrine organ. It also acts like an immune organ. It produces inflammatory molecules called cytokines. It recruits immune cells. It creates a constant stream of signals telling your immune system is something is wrong. This is one of the reasons improving metabolic health has such profound effects on inflammation. When people lose visceral fat, they improve insensitivity, they build muscle, they stabilize blood sugar. But not just changing their weight, they're changing the conversation happening inside their immune system, which is why I spend so much time talking about metabolic health,

because metabolic health is immune health, and immune health is longevity. Now, here's what I find so exciting about this science. The same things that flip your immune alarm on can often be reversed. Your immune system is incredibly responsive. It isn't fixed. It's constantly adapting the signals that you send. So instead of asking, what's the best anti-inflammatory supplement, I encourage you to ask a different question.

What signals am I sending to my immune system every day? Because everyday healthy choices changes that conversation. Strength training improves insulin sensitivity and reduces visceral fat. interval training supports mitochondrial health. Eating colorful fiber-rich foods nurses your gut microbiome and provides polyphenols that help regulate inflammation. Omega-3 fats from fatty fish, flax, and walnuts, well, they help balance inflammatory pathways. Quality sleep gives your immune system time to reset. Stress reduction calms both your nervous system and your immune system. So notice something? None of these are exotic biohacks.

They're the foundations of health. And that's the beautiful thing about longevity science, the habits that help you feel better today are often the same habits that help you age better tomorrow. Now, we've covered a lot of science today, but at the end of the day, this isn't about memorizing the name of a protein complex or an inflammatory pathway. It's about understanding the signals you're sending to your body every day. So let me answer a few questions I hear most often. Can one supplement turn off the inflammation? No. Some nutrients like omega-3 fats, curcumin, they have been studied for their anti-inflammatory effects, but no supplement can replace daily signals created by sleep, nutrition, exercise, stress management, metabolic health. Another question I guess, can fasting

help reduce inflammation? For some people, yes, it can. Emerging research suggests that time-restricted eating and fasting can influence some of those inflammatory pathways and the cellular repair processes. But fasting isn't a magic solution. It's one tool in a much bigger toolbox. Should I measure inflammation. Yes. One of the most useful markers we have is high sensitivity C-reactive protein or HSCRP. Think of it as a general barometer of inflammation of the body. That's important to understand when it can and can't tell you. An elevated CRP doesn't tell you a wire inflame. It tells you that your immune system may be responding to something that could be a poor metabolic health from a bad diet. It could be an infection. It could be an unimmune condition.

It could be poor sleep. It could be something else. That's why I never look at HSCRP by itself. I always interpret it alongside the rest of the whole story. Your metabolic health, your blood sugar, your cholesterol, your triglycerides, your liver health, your lifestyle, and most importantly, how you're actually feeling. This is one of the reasons I'm so excited about function health. Instead of looking at one marker in isolation, function measures CRP, all and more than 100 other biomarkers across metabolism, heart health, hormones, nutrients, liver function, inflammation, toxins, and looking at those markers together,

it gives you such a more complete picture of what's driving your health, rather than just treating a single lab value. But in functional medicine, we're not asking, is the inflammation high? We're asking, why is the inflammation high? And that's where the real opportunity to improve your health begins. And here's what I hope you take away from today's conversation. Your immune system isn't broken, is doing exactly what it was designed to do. The challenge is modern life keeps convincing it that you're under attack.

Too little sleep, too much stress, ultra-processed food, physical activity, metabolic dysfunction and day after day, those signals keep pressing the alarm button. But here's the empowering part. Your immune system is always listening. Every healthy meal, every strength workout, every walk after dinner, every night of restorative sleep, every time you calm your nervous system, you're sending your body a different message. You're safe. The dangerous past.

You can stop fighting. That's what healthy aging really looks like, not eliminating inflammation, but restoring balance because longevity isn't about sentencing your immune system. It's about helping it become wiser, knowing exactly when to fight and just as importantly knowing when to rest. That's how we don't just add years to our lives. We add like to our years.

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