Top 9 Root Causes of Inflammation (That Doctors Won’t Address)

Chronic inflammation is quietly fueling the biggest diseases of our generation, and most people have no idea it’s happening. The real causes aren’t just aging or injuries, but hidden stressors that keep your immune system stuck in emergency mode. By the end of this episode, you’ll understand what’s actually triggering inflammation and how to turn off the alarm so your body can heal. Watch The Dr. Josh Axe Show every Monday & Thursday on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@drjoshaxe?sub_confirmation=1 🎧 Early Access! Our podcast listeners get every episode early, and you can tune in and be a part of our exclusive listeners below → Spotify Apple Podcast Order my NEW BOOK, The Biblio Diet → https://bit.ly/4oPEP3t Watch my free training on how to naturally balance your blood sugar and reverse your symptoms → DrAxeDiabetesClass.com Discover practical steps you can take today to start healing your thyroid naturally → DrAxeThyroidClass.com If you’re ready to start feeling like yourself again and balance your hormones, take my free class → DrAxeHormoneClass.com Uncover what’s really going on in your body with advanced biomarker testing for hormones, thyroid, and metabolism— plus a 1-hour consultation with a Senior Health Advisor! → MyBloodWork.com CONNECT WITH DR. JOSH AXE Instagram Facebook TikTok X LinkedIn Website Sign up for my newsletter Ask me a question Links https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK493173/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10808594/ https://www.unc.edu/posts/2018/11/28/only-12-percent-of-american-adults-are-metabolically-healthy-carolina-study-finds/ https://diabetesjournals.org/care/article-abstract/47/3/491/154155/Interleukin-6-Diabetes-and-Metabolic-Syndrome-in-a?redirectedFrom=fulltext https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5311a1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/chronic-disease/about/index.html https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/1485898 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12442909/ https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12035-010-8162-0 https://med.stanford.edu/news/insights/2025/07/ultra-processed-food--five-things-to-know.html https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4154448/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18296320/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12259798/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5988153/ https://dtsc.ca.gov/emerging-chemicals-of-concern/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10689975/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2614138/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8787084/ https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1516953113 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4282473/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2772696723000133 DISCLAIMER This content is strictly the opinion of Dr. Josh Axe and is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to provide medical advice or to take the place of medical advice or treatment from a personal physician. All viewers of this content are advised to consult their doctors or qualified health professionals regarding specific health questions. Neither Dr. Axe nor the publisher of this content takes responsibility for possible health consequences of any person or persons reading or following the information in this educational content. All viewers of this content, especially those taking prescription or over-the-counter medications, should consult their physicians before beginning any nutrition, supplement or lifestyle program. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Josh Axe?

  On June 5th, 2007, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stood in front of an environmental health summit and said, "Chronic inflammation is the defining health crisis of our time, and the sources are hiding in plain sight." He wasn't exaggerating. Today, nearly three in five adults have at least one inflammatory condition, and most don't even know the real causes. The World Health Organization calls chronic inflammation "the greatest threat to human health and the most significant cause of death in the entire world." Inflammation isn't just something you feel in swollen joints or a bloated gut.

• 0:40Josh Axe?

  It's an underlying cause of heart disease, diabetes, dementia, depression, autoimmune disease, cancer, and fast aging. The prevalence of diseases associated with chronic inflammation is expected to increase significantly over the next 30 years in the United States. Now, here's the surprising truth: The biggest drivers of inflammation often aren't necessarily what you'd think they would be. By the end of this episode, you're going to understand the real root causes of inflammation, the science behind each one, and exactly what you need to do in order to shut off inflammation for good. Welcome to the Dr. Josh Akk Show.

• 1:37Josh Axe?

  So here's what most people get wrong about inflammation. Most people know that inflammation is bad, but let me just say this: Actually, inflammation isn't bad. Too much inflammation is bad. You need inflammation in order to heal and regenerate and repair. So you actually have to have inflammation. So it's not that it's bad, it's that it's too much. Most people think inflammation is just swelling or bloating, but 90% of inflammation happens silently, inside of the body, inside of ourselves, without any outward

• 2:10Josh Axe?

  Symptoms. Inflammation is simply your immune system's emergency response team. When something goes wrong, like an infection, a toxin, an injury, or ongoing stress, your body sends out immune first responders to contain the damage and start repairs. In a healthy body, inflammation works like a smoke alarm. It's loud, it's quick, it's temporary, it alerts the system, the firefighters rush in, the damage is handled, and everything goes quiet again. But with chronic inflammation, which is the real problem, the alarm never shuts off. You know, I remember, this was last year, our family, we went on a ski trip to Park City.

• 2:51Josh Axe?

  In our rental house, and by the way, we had a, uh, a one-year-old baby at the time, Chelsea and I is our, our baby, and then we had our four-year-old. And this alarm went off, and we were there for seven days. And we had a four-day period when the alarm went off 30 times. And one time it was on for two hours. And this happened at 10:00 PM at night, and it, it was just, so let me say this. Nobody slept well, baby crying, I mean, imagine that, I mean, it going off that much. We were given a full refund afterwards because my sister-in-law, all of a sudden, you know, a very nice email, uh, talking about how, how the experience was. All that being said, this is what's happening in your body.

• 3:31Josh Axe?

  The alarm is going off constantly, and so your body is in this fight or fight, this, this, this mode, where now you have like these firefighters, and they're racing around, blasting hoses at houses that aren't even burning, and they're breaking windows and soaking walls and causing more damage than the fire itself. That's like what's happening in your body with chronic inflammation. And chronic inflammation is your immune system attacking itself in certain cases when nothing needs fixing, creating more harm than the original threat. And this, of course, happens very often with autoimmune disease, which is chronic inflammation in a way, over and over and over again, where your body will attack its own tissues like your thyroid, causing Hashimoto's thyroiditis, or your joints, rheumatoid arthritis.

• 4:15Josh Axe?

  Inflammation is more common than most people realize. Most people are inflamed and don't know it because chronic inflammation shows up in unexpected ways like fatigue, or brain fog, or mood-related issues, stubborn belly fat, poor sleep, of course digestive issues is a major one, a slow recovery from illnesses or injuries. You ever notice you get injured, it takes so much longer for you to heal now, increased food sensitivities. You know, one study published in the medical journal Frontiers in Medicine found that more than 50% of people have elevated inflammatory markers, or have been diagnosed with an inflammatory disease, and many people don't even know it.

• 4:58Josh Axe?

  That's because their symptoms, most people have come to believe are part of normal living, you know, being tired all the time, being puffy, being moody, being bloated, being stressed, people think that's normal. It's not. Those symptoms are warning signs. There are alarms going off saying, hey, there's a fire here, there's inflammation, we need to fix it. You know, you might think inflammation comes from old injuries and old age, and it does. But that's only on the surface. What actually drives chronic inflammation are invisible misfires in your hormones, poor mitochondrial health, immune system issues, leaky gut. And what I want to do now is go through the top surprising things that cause inflammation,

• 5:43Josh Axe?

  and how to start to fix it. Number one is this, and this is a big one, insulin resistance. Blood sugar issues. Insulin resistance isn't only caused by eating too much sugar and carbs, it's about cellular overwhelm. You know, your cells are so flooded with sugar that these receptor sites on your cells actually get damaged and burnt out, they actually, they go deaf, they can't hear anymore. So then sugar stays in your bloodstream and it can't get inside the cell. Here's the thing, sugar is meant to be inside your cell. Once it gets in your cell, your mitochondria in your cells will take that and turn it into ATP energy. So your body takes sugar, glucose, turns it into energy. But if it doesn't ever get in your cell... Your body is like, whoa, there shouldn't be this much sugar here.

• 6:29Josh Axe?

  Your body starts this immune reaction to deal with it. And that causes inflammation in your bloodstream. Well, your bloodstream runs throughout your body, runs to all your organs. So now your entire body is inflamed. You know, according to researchers at UNC Chapel Hill, only about 12% of American adults are metabolically healthy. That means 88% are experiencing some type of metabolic dysfunction. And inflammation is a huge part of that picture. Another study published in the Journal of Diabetes found that people with insulin resistance have a two to three times higher level of inflammatory cytokine markers, meaning they just have much more inflammation. So think about this, most people with diabetes have double to triple the levels of inflammation in their body.

• 7:15Josh Axe?

  You know, as I talked about earlier, Robert F Kennedy Jr. has talked about inflammation being the biggest issue today when it comes to chronic illness. And he actually points this out as well that, you know, today we have all these ultra processed foods. And this is what's driving insulin resistance is, you know, the public, it's a public health crisis because it's driving trillions of dollars of chronic disease of all of these processed foods we're eating. And according to the CDC, seven in 10 Americans now die from chronic diseases, many or really all of these are inflammation related. Heart disease, diabetes, liver disease and cancer. And this eats up about 90% of our healthcare dollars. Okay. And it's all inflammation.

• 7:58Josh Axe?

  About 60% of US adults live with at least one chronic condition and 40% have two or more, yet our government keeps subsidizing the very foods driving the problem. So the key is this, we have to balance our, our blood sugar. The way to fix this really quickly is stop eating sugar, stop eating processed carbs and focus on balancing your blood sugar with diet. The way you do that is more protein, more fiber, moderate healthy fat, but really focus on more protein and fiber. More protein and fiber, less sugar and carbs will help fix your blood sugar issues. And then adding in things like cinnamon, walking more. This is going to solve the problem in a big way, but stay away from the ultra processed foods and the excess carbs. That's causing insulin resistance.

• 8:43Josh Axe?

  The number two thing that really surprises people when it comes to chronic inflammation is high cortisol. So emotional stress is a major driver of inflammation. What most people don't realize is that stress doesn't just make you tense or irritable. It also changes your immune system. Chronic stress raises C reactive protein by up to 60%. According to one study in the Journal of American Medical Association. It also causes cortisol dysregulation, which suppresses immune accuracy. And here's another thing, when cortisol goes up, it also causes, the first one we talked about, insulin to go up.

• 9:23Josh Axe?

  You know, cortisol is supposed to act like a thermostat in your body, keeping your system balanced. But chronic stress breaks the dial. Instead of warning you when things are heating up, it essentially burns the house down, leaving your immune system confused, overreactive, and just your immune system just gets exhausted. And today I see we have all of these influencers online pushing this sort of culture of hustle and grind, you know, it's like, and I see this a lot in women especially. It's like women, you know, it's like you have your, from the moment you wake up, the second you go to bed, your schedule is booked out. It's like you're, many of you are playing mom and career woman and volunteer worker and full-time chauffeur.

• 10:07Josh Axe?

  All of that, and it's your going non-stop that causes cortisol to go up. One of the biggest things that I counsel my patients in that are women and moms, I say, listen, we have to start having a little bit of margin in your day. And here's the first thing, the first thing I do is get pushed back, okay? It's not possible, you know? I had a mom growing up who was diagnosed with breast cancer, hypothyroidism. She had cancer twice. I mean, my mom was sick and tired all the time. My mom had terrible health. And my mom was this mom, she had three kids, she worked as a schoolteacher, and she was just going every second of the day and very stressed. And I go back in time, here's the thing, I would have rather lived in a smaller house and had less things than my mom get cancer twice and almost die.

• 10:53Josh Axe?

  So I think it all really comes down to priorities. If you want to be healthy, you've got to set aside time and do everything you can. Listen, I'm not talking about, you know, taking two, you know, three days off a week. I'm talking about you have two days a week where you get two hours. Where maybe you go to the gym, maybe you just go for a walk, but you just have some margin in your day here and there where you get to rest and recover or do things you love to do. You've got to prioritize, you know, here, here, here's, here's, here's another metaphor to think about, you know, and this is the way Chinese medicine actually sees it. And they believe this is also a big cause of breast cancer. If you're constantly nourishing others and pouring yourself out, but you're not being

• 11:35Josh Axe?

  poured into or nursed yourself, eventually you have nothing to give. Okay. And, and this is the major cause of breast cancer is that you're, you're giving and giving and giving till you have nothing left. And then you're so depleted that then you, you, you, you get a, a condition like hypothyroidism or cancer or exhaustion or depression and one of those issues. And so it's critically important that you have some downtime, you have a level of self-care or this high cortisol is going to drive serious inflammation and burn your body out. You know, Selena Gomez has spoken openly about lupus and how emotional stress worsened her symptoms. The actor Chris Evans has discussed anxiety that manifests physically.

• 12:17Josh Axe?

  Ryan Reynolds has described living with constant fight or flight and Simone Biles has detailed how chronic stress impacted her immune stress, her digestion and recovery as an athlete. We see this with celebrities, but I see it even more so in stay at home moms, working moms, dads that are also working and trying to bring their kids to practice and do everything under the sun. Busyness is a silent killer because it raises cortisol. So the action here is do everything you can to create some margin. Here's an exercise. Write down your biggest priorities in life. And then what you, what's absolutely essential for those things. Okay. And then I want you to say no to everything else.

• 13:01Josh Axe?

  Get better at saying no. Write down, what do you love to do? What brings you joy? What reduces stress? For me, it's reading novels. It's doing, being part of a men's group and going out and spending time with, with other guys. It's Chelsea and I going on date nights or family vacations. For me, it's just walking in nature. So write down, but what is it for you? Write down those things. And try and get more of those in your schedule and just more downtime. Okay. Um, that's going to be big for cortisol. And another great thing for cortisol is doing some adaptogenic herbs. Could be ashwagandha, could be rhodiola, uh, but those are also helpful.

• 13:41Josh Axe?

  The biggest myth about inflammation and chronic symptoms is that they're all separate issues. In reality, your symptoms behave more like a chain of falling dominos. When one goes down, it triggers several more. And before you know it, everything feels off. This new test flips the script and my team knows exactly what to look for. I'm currently offering a simple at home blood test that actually tests for the right things. Targeted biomarkers that reveal the very first dominos impacting your hormones, your inflammation, your thyroid and your metabolism. Plus a full hour with one of my senior health advisors to review your results

• 14:24Josh Axe?

  and show you exactly how the health institute can help you stop the chain reaction. So you can finally heal. If you want to check it out and grab one before they're gone, just go to mybloodwork.com now. I can't wait to help you heal. Number three, major cause of inflammation is fatty acid imbalance. Too many omega sixes, not enough omega threes. It's not that fat itself causes inflammation. It's the imbalance in the types of fats we're consuming. Historically, humans ate close to a one to one ratio, or at the very minimum of one to four ratio of omega three to omega six fats. That balance kept inflammation pathways normalized.

• 15:07Josh Axe?

  Today, the average American consumes an omega six to three ratio that's closer to seventeen to one, or some studies showing a twenty-five to one ratio. This increase of twenty-five times more omega sixes is largely due to eating more processed foods and seed oils. High omega six intake shifts the body towards increased inflammation. Think of your inflammatory pathways like a car with two pedals. Omega threes are the brake, keeping inflammation controlled. Omega sixes are the gas pedal, activating inflammation when needed. You need both. You actually really need both. A healthy body taps the gas briefly, then hits the brakes.

• 15:50Josh Axe?

  But with a twenty-five to one ratio, it's like you're driving a hundred miles per hour with your brakes cut. The system can't slow down, so the inflammation runs hot all the time. You know, these industrialized seed oils weren't even part of the human diet until the early nineteen hundreds. Before that, people cooked with butter, tallow lard, and they used my absolute favorite, extra virgin olive oil. And in certain areas like the islands, they would use coconut oil. But that's all people used in nineteen eleven. Procter and Gamble introduced Crisco, the first industrialized fat made from hydrogenated cottonseed oil. Fast forward today, Americans now get about twenty percent of all their calories from seed oils.

• 16:34Josh Axe?

  Linoleic acid intake has increased more than one thousand percent since nineteen oh nine. According to Stanford Medicine, cottonseed, soybean, and corn oil are now in over six hundred thousand packaged foods and ultra-processed foods, which make up sixty percent of American daily calories. Now, listen, here's what you want to focus on. You want to focus on getting more omega sixes. You're going to do this by eating more wild-caught salmon, mackerel, sardines, anchovies, just more wild-caught fish. And then also getting things like walnuts, flaxseeds, and chia seeds in your diet. That's really what you want to focus on. And then, and then, now, this isn't omega three or a six, but to not push you too high

• 17:17Josh Axe?

  in omega sixes, use extra virgin olive oil. If you're like, what oil should I use? When in doubt, extra virgin olive oil.

• 17:26Josh Axe?

  The number four major driver of inflammation that most people are unaware of is being sedentary. Movement is a natural anti-inflammatory, yet most people are not moving enough. You know, I remember reading this medical journal quite a few years ago and it said in the journal, sitting is the new smoking and it's absolutely true. Um, one study found that just one hour less of sitting per day lowered inflammation by nearly 24% in women with type 2 diabetes. Think about that. Just sitting one, one less hour a day. That's walking around the house. It's, uh, walking outside. It's just moving more. 24% less inflammation. Some studies suggest that a single brief, high intensity session can lead to immediate changes in blood composition that fight inflammation.

• 18:12Josh Axe?

  For example, in one study, breast cancer survivors were found to have increased cancer fighting proteins in their blood after, and a lot of times it's just get on, get on a treadmill or a spin bike, do an interval session for 10 minutes. And that will make a radical difference in your body. Another study found that resistance exercise at moderate levels, three times a week, significantly lowered CRP levels and inflammation in just six weeks. Major, major changes. So movement is key. And listen, I do think the ideal is a combination of doing some weight training and cardio, but just even walking, walking makes a big difference. And the best time to walk for inflammation, by the way, is around your meals. So you wake up in the morning and you eat breakfast, go for a walk.

• 18:55Josh Axe?

  You're at lunch, even at work, go for a 15 to 20 minute walk. That's all it takes. A 15 to 20 minute walk will make a major difference in your inflammation. The number five surprising cause of inflammation is leaky gut and hidden infections. You know, infections don't always make you feel sick, but they keep your immune system stuck in war mode. An example of this, if you have chronic parasites or long COVID or Epstein Barr, a lot of these viruses sort of stay active, keeping your immune system, um, at war. You know, another thing that we, that I want to mention here is leaky gut. This is also called intestinal permeability. It's not rare, it's very common. I think, I think probably 60% plus of people have it.

• 19:40Josh Axe?

  And in people with, for instance, autoimmune disease or chronic joint pain, pretty much everyone has it. According to one study published in the Gastroenterology Review, leaky gut shows up in dozens of conditions, including IBD, IBS, fatty liver, alcoholism, pancreatitis, diabetes, chronic heart failure, kidney disease, and depression, and of course, other digestive issues and food sensitivities. That's a big one. If you have chronic food sensitivities, histamine reactions, autoimmune, those are also connected to leaky gut. You know, among people with IBS, one study found that around 30% or more of people tested positive for anti-flagelline antibodies,

• 20:24Josh Axe?

  a sign of barrier dysfunction and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. And here's how it works. When the gut lining becomes leaky due to inflammation typically, leaky gut, undigested food particles, toxins, bacterial fragments slip into the bloodstream. This triggers your immune system because your body's like, whoa, gluten is in the bloodstream, casein's in the bloodstream, a parasite's in the bloodstream. We have to get rid of this. Okay? So your immune system goes into, goes into war mode. And your body reacts as if it's under attack. Your body floods the system with this, with these inflammatory cytokines, which then spreads to your joint, your skin, your brain, your organs. And that's why you develop a chronic health condition.

• 21:09Josh Axe?

  Now, I've noted this before with Justin Bieber's struggle with Lyme disease and chronic fatigue are examples of immune activation, leaky gut, all, all the symptoms he was having. These are, this is leaky gut immune reaction due to a Lyme infection and how it was affecting his body. You know, Lyme often turns the immune system into a low-grade alarm where it just doesn't turn off. Almost all infections do this over time. And Justin Bieber said he felt super tired all the time and he just couldn't understand why. And this is exactly how stealth infections work. They hide beneath the radar. They will infiltrate your organs. You know, places like your liver and they'll just sit there causing inflammation over and over and over again.

• 21:53Josh Axe?

  And if you've dealt with something like um cr- just fatigue, something out of nowhere, or maybe it came on over the course of a few months. It is oftentimes an infection. It can be mold. It can be a parasite, can be a virus. It could be a bacteria. But these will cause issues and they're also connected to leaky gut as well. But those are major causes of inflammation, especially if you are noticing major fatigue. Now here's another really surprising connection to inflammation. Poor exercise form and going beyond your limits. You know, I want to share a personal story that led me down a wrong path. I ended up having this back issue. So I injured my back about 10 years ago

• 22:35Josh Axe?

  while doing CrossFit and just lifting too heavy doing Olympic lifts. And um and I ended up herniating two discs in my back. Of course, that's major inflammation. And I was never taught properly. I want to share something back in high school. When I was in high school, I had a strength coach who would tell players, including myself, "Don't let your knees go over your toes," right? So anytime I would squat, I would squat incorrectly and I was taught to move incorrectly. So I was just shearing and damaging my joints. It's like driving your car out of a light. You're just shearing things down. And I had to relearn all of these patterns, but doing things like CrossFit and certain types of exercises,

• 23:16Josh Axe?

  I was damaging myself. I see people in the gym all the time doing stuff like really heavy and you know, they're in their 30s, 20s or 30s. And what they don't realize is when your muscle gives out and you get to the end of a set and you keep going, especially doing really hard jarring lifts or heavy weight. Once your muscles weaken, your joint takes on more of that stress. So you're starting to wear the joint down. So both overtraining and incorrect movement patterns.

• 23:41Josh Axe?

  Will wear your body out and cause major inflammation. So they're like, they're, these are repetitive micro injuries, which then lead to local inflammation, which then leads to chronic inflammation. You know, what one study looked at this in particular, more than half of regular exercisers, that's 56% reported getting a sports or exercise injury. And, and the other thing I see, it's, it's, it's bad movement patterns, which this is why getting a good trainer who really knows what they're doing can help you with the movement patterns and help with like, you know, doing core work and, and stabilizing the knee by working your adductors and, and abductors and, and those types of things really matter. You know, most people have really weak glutes and, and tight hamstrings and those cause issues, but there are bad movement patterns. The other thing that happens is oftentimes people aren't warming up correctly.

• 24:26Josh Axe?

  It's like, I'm going to go play pickleball and you just run out there and start playing and then you get injured doing something like that. So it's really important that you improve your exercise form and you actually train for the thing you're going to do. And so seeing a good physical therapist or a good structural integrative practitioner, like I, I actually do a, um, a bi-weekly zoom. I have a trainer that I really love in, in, in St. Louis. And so I will, he will, he will watch me and I get together with a couple of times a year and, and most of my exercises today, or let me say most, half are, are, are, are me doing type, certain types of therapy for strengthening certain things for longevity. All of my exercise today is longevity-based exercise.

• 25:09Josh Axe?

  I do not exercise, if I have pain, I immediately stop and I'm training certain things so I don't have pain and I can move functionally. And so rather than me trying to bench press as much as I can, like I was in my twenties, I don't do that anymore. Okay. You would have seen me when I'm doing, um, you know, squats today, doing wall sits with a ball between my knees and, and doing different types of exercise to support and heal my joints. That's what I'm focused on today and you want to be doing the very same because that will also limit inflammation. The number seven major root cause of inflammation is this environmental toxins and alcohol. Environmental toxins like glyphosate, industrial chemicals, pesticides, the chemicals in our

• 25:51Josh Axe?

  plastic ware and our cleaning products and our personal care products, they're everywhere. You're exposed to up to 80,000 chemicals if you live in the United States, many of which were never tested thoroughly for safety. The average person has 200 industrial chemicals in their blood and these chemicals like glyphosate kill off good bacteria in their gut, causing leaky gut and damaging your immune system, which then causes inflammation. And then alcohol is a major contributor to toxin intake. Basically it overwhelms your liver. So then your liver also can't detoxify and balance out estrogen, that hormone, that causes inflammation. So a lot of issues there.

• 26:30Josh Axe?

  Also, alcohol increases gut permeability. So it causes leaky gut by up to 60% for the 24 hours after consumption. Toxins clog up your detox pathways, especially we talked about your liver, also causes issues with your gut microbiome. So alcohol has so many downsides. So what I would say is, you know, one, drink filtered water. There's a lot of toxins in your water. So simply getting water that is reverse osmosis, even if it's just a sink filter or a Berkey filter, major, major benefits there. Look at your personal care products, look at your cleaning products. Next time you buy, just buy the natural stuff. It's pretty easy. The things that are using vinegar

• 27:12Josh Axe?

  and essential oils and, and those types of things. So make those switches and then try and stay away from the dirty dozen foods. Buy more organic food whenever you can to stay away from glyphosate. That'll make a big difference. The number eight driver of chronic inflammation that surprises most people is chronic light exposure. Blue light exposure at night along with deregulated circadian rhythm. So not getting outside in the morning or just not enough time outside. I mentioned this before, a few podcasts ago. The average person today spends 10% of their time outside. A hundred years ago, they were spending 70% of their time outside during the day. 70%. I mean, that, that, that is a big thing. And it's been shown in studies that if you are not spending time outside,

• 27:57Josh Axe?

  or, or here's another one, if you're a shift worker, where, where your, your circadian rhythms are really thrown off, you have much more inflammation, hypertension, cardiovascular disease. So, um, there's this thing of also just going to bed on time, like living in tune with nature, the way God created you. So really, when the sun's going down, you go down. When it comes up, you go up and, and then get outside some and not looking at blue light at night. Now, now here's why blue light's an issue. Blue light after sunset suppresses melatonin. That's the hormone that signals your immune system to repair and calm and rejuvenate. When melatonin drops and circadian rhythms get disrupted, the body produces more inflammatory cytokines,

• 28:40Josh Axe?

  pushing you towards chronic inflammation and poor metabolic health. So that's what's happening. If, if melatonin is, by the way, melatonin is so important as a hormone. It is cortisol's opposite. Most people cortisol's staying up too high, melatonin's too low. We have to ship that back. The, the biggest lifestyle way you do that is spend more time outdoors. Do not look at blue light at night.

• 29:03Josh Axe?

  That's it. That's how you fix it. Wear blue blockers at night. And then also don't, don't be on your phone or screen, especially two hours before bed.

• 29:12Josh Axe?

  Are you interested in functional nutrition tips to burn fat, reduce inflammation, improve your brain and energy levels and heal naturally? Then I want to encourage you to listen to my friend, Dr. Dave Jockers podcast, the functional nutrition podcast. This podcast is designed to help you with easy, actionable steps to improve your nutrition and lifestyle, understand your lab work and address the root cause factors that may be driving up inflammation in your body. Now I've been friends with Dr. David Jockers for 20 years and he's truly a world expert in functional nutrition, cellular healing and so much more. If you want to learn the best nutrition and natural healing tips, tune into the Dr. Jockers functional nutrition podcast on Apple iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever you can listen to podcasts worldwide.

• 29:59Josh Axe?

  The number nine root cause of inflammation that surprises some people is loneliness. One study of over 200 older adults found that people who reported feeling lonely had significantly higher levels of CRP, the key marker of inflammation. Studies show that loneliness is as bad for your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, being obese, being physically inactive, and heavy alcohol abuse. That's how bad loneliness is. And so it's so important to cultivate good relationships. I mean, this is something that I am really, it's one of the things that I am probably most conscious of. Am I spending time with quality people where I can encourage and love them? They can encourage and love me?

• 30:44Josh Axe?

  And it's this iron sharpens iron mentality. You know, I have a men's group of some really great guys, five other guys, so it's a group of six, and we're going to go on a ski trip to Park City this year. You know, we'll get together, do a couple of trips a year. We meet once a month, read a book together, we do dinners, we get the families together, we do everything we can to build quality relationships. Similar thing, Chelsea and I, you know, we go to church, we have her family and my family we hang out with, but we're really conscious about building good relationships. And prioritize that for yourself. Don't go wide on social media, go deep with a group of people. Think about the five people you need to spend more time with and a couple other couples. Spend more time with them and also think about, how can I add value to them? How can I bless them? How can I improve their life?

• 31:27Josh Axe?

  And when you hang around those five people, make sure they're virtuous people, they're encouragers, they're good people, that you, that make you better and help you with any type of loneliness and depression, they help bring you out of that. And one other way to fix that is go to your place of worship. You know, join a growth group at a place like church and go to regular attendance and do those things. That's a great place to meet community. You know, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. once said, "You can't fix a sick society until you fix the root causes." And the same is true for your body. Inflammation is not always your enemy, but a lot of these symptoms we have, it's a message. It's an alarm saying, "You need to fix what's going on." You know, I want to, I want to challenge you with this.

• 32:11Josh Axe?

  Okay, here's some things, some action steps you can take. Identify one root cause of inflammation from today's list that might be affecting you, and start to fix it. Think about this. Fix your omega-3 fatty acid ratio. Take an omega-3 supplement. Eat more salmon. Move every hour, you know, just for five minutes. Go on more walks. Heal your gut by, you know, drink, here's a great tea, turmeric ginger tea. It's a great tea to drink throughout the day, great for inflammation, reduce your toxic load. These things all add up and make a big difference in your life. And when you can lower inflammation, you're going to unlock more energy, you're going to balance your hormones, have more clarity, more longevity, because healing can happen when the alarm finally goes silent. That's good news. I want to say, thanks for tuning in here to the Dr.

• 32:56Josh Axe?

  Josh Akk Show. Remember, each and every week, we're diving deep into the science and principles of how you can heal physically, mentally, spiritually, and take your health and your life to the next level. Remember to subscribe. It's the number one thing you can do to support the show. We've got so many great episodes coming out this year, and subscribing makes such a big difference, and you won't miss our best episodes. And sometimes we get shadow banned, right? We cover things, really controversial topics on here, like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and cancer and all kinds of things. And those episodes don't always show up if you're not subscribed. So, thank you all for subscribing, for sharing this with friends and family. I'm so grateful for it, and I'll see you on the next episode.