Modern research points to chronic inflammation as the principal cause of bodily damage that occurs with most diseases — especially disorders of the nervous system, including cancers.

Inflammation generates enormous storms of free radicals and lipid peroxidation products, which can impair numerous functions of cells and tissues.

This process occurs with normal aging, in which we see a progressive increase in inflammation throughout the body, resulting in progressive destruction of cells and tissue.

Unfortunately, most older people are unaware of this smoldering inflammation, or they just assume it’s just part of getting old.

A number of conditions and environmental toxins can cause this type of progressive inflammatory destruction as well. But the most common cause is aging itself. Things just wear out.

The number of infections a person has experienced over a lifetime plays a major role in this “wearing out,” especially if those infections were prolonged or intense.

Latent or hidden infections — like cytomegalovirus, herpes, and other such viruses — can also play a role.

Exposure to toxic metals such as lead, mercury, aluminum, cadmium, and tin plays a significant role as well because such metals have a tendency to accumulate in specific parts of the body.

Pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and other industrial compounds accumulate in fatty tissues over the course of a person’s lifetime, significantly increasing inflammation, particularly in the brain, which contains high levels of fat.

Stress, trauma, lack of restful sleep, autoimmune diseases, excessive vaccinations, and many prescription and over-the-counter medications add to the problem of inflammation.

Drugs can also severely deplete nutrients in the body. Eating bad foods (especially omega-6 oils and sugar) instead of healthy, nutrient-rich foods adds considerably to the problem.

Finally, food additives such as MSG, hydrolyzed proteins, soy products, and carrageenan, as well as food dyes and complex mostly untested chemicals exacerbate inflammation considerably.

In the brain, inflammation affects virtually every structure, including neurons, glial cells, the blood-brain barrier, and all the blood vessels supplying both nutrients and oxygen.

Within the brain’s blood vessels, free radicals and lipid peroxidation products cause aggressive atherosclerosis that can lead to a stroke or vascular dementia.