Inflammation Essay

York University

Inflammation
(Types, Detection, and Treatments)

Author: Dhruv Tayal
Course: Immunobiology
Date: 31/10/2017
What is Inflammation? Inflammation is crucial in protecting your body from harm in everyday life. It is part of your body's natural response against infections, cell damage, and irritants. This response needs to be regulated as too little or too much of it can be harmful by itself. The common symptoms of inflammation include swelling (that’s sometimes warm to the touch), redness, and joint pain/ stiffness.
The lack of inflammation can lead to progressive tissue damage by bacterial and viral infections. It can also lead to a lack of tissue repair following an injury or workout.
Too much inflammation or long-lasting inflammation (Chronic inflammation), can lead to a host of diseases, such as hay fever, periodontitis, atherosclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and even cancer. In fact, everyday allergies are also caused by unregulated inflammatory responses. What are the types of inflammation?
Inflammation can be divided into either acute or chronic.
Acute inflammation is your body’s initial immune response which occurs relatively quickly (usually minutes to hours). Most inflammatory responses will fall under this category. Acute inflammation is common following injury, burns,

Prostaglandins are formed by the enzymes COX1 or COX2. The prostaglandins produced by COX1 are generally responsible for the maintenance and protection of the gastrointestinal tract, kidneys, and other organs. The prostaglandins produced by COX2 are predominantly known to cause inflammation and pain responses. NSAIDs work by primarily inhibiting the formation of prostaglandins by the COX2 enzyme. As the formation of the prostaglandins produced by COX2 diminishes, pain and inflammation also