Removing inflammation markers in blood

Inflammation is the culprit in so much of what goes wrong in the human body, including congestive heart failure caused by infection, disease or defect. Researchers have invented a new machine that filters out markers in the blood caused by inflammation to try to improve heart function. The procedure, called plasmaepheresis, is still theoretical at this point. Initial efforts resulted in also filtering out other important immune response chemicals and some patients needed antibiotics after the treatments.

Well, I guess it's one of those good ideas we discover, though the patients we use it with first are really just letting us experiment. The hope is that down the road the process can be perfected and used as a supplemental therapy to help people feel better while we work on finding more lasting solutions to the real problem that we'll never fully get over--dying.

Aerobic Exercise is a monster-killer

Yes, we all know that exercise is good for us. But the ubiquitous "they" don't usually tell us specifically why. Now they're starting to be able to do that. First, they've recently discovered that excess fat (especially in the abdominal area) can lead to chronic inflammation throughout the system.

In a test done with a small group of healthy volunteers (20-45) they subjected their blood samples both before and after exercise with an infectious agent and then analyzed the blood for a substance called "tumor necrosis factor" (TNF). Sounds kind of like a monster in a sci-fi thriller, doesn't it? Anyway, the levels of this little TNF monster were significantly lower after exercise than before--and TNF is considered the first step in the inflammation process.

So if you're one of the many who've said, "Oh, so what about exercise," maybe being able to name a specific and icky-sounding culprit will help you fight your urge to consistently choose the couch over the aerobic crunch.