When most people hear “inflammation,” they picture a swollen, red, painful joint after an injury. That is acute inflammation — the body''s normal, helpful first response to damage. It arrives, does its job, and resolves.
The kind I worry about more is different: chronic, low-grade, whole-body inflammation. No obvious swelling, no single injury — just a persistent, smoldering state that quietly interferes with healing, accelerates joint wear, and contributes to heart disease, diabetes, cognitive decline, and frailty as we age.
Why does this matter for your knee or shoulder? Because tissue repair happens in the environment your whole body creates. A tendon trying to heal in a body with high inflammatory tone is swimming upstream. This is one reason two patients with identical MRIs can have completely different outcomes from the same treatment — the biology of the person matters as much as the picture of the joint.
Where does chronic inflammation come from? The usual suspects: excess body fat (fat tissue is hormonally active and produces inflammatory signals), poor sleep, chronic stress, inactivity, smoking, and diets heavy in ultra-processed food. It is measurable with simple blood tests, and — this is the encouraging part — it is genuinely modifiable.
Regular exercise, strength training, better sleep, and a diet built on whole foods all measurably lower inflammatory tone. There is no shortcut that replaces them. This is why our treatment plans often address sleep, nutrition, and training alongside the joint itself: treating the person, not just the picture.
If you feel like your body heals more slowly than it used to, there is usually a reason — and often, something we can do about it.