Pictured Recipe: Cherry Tomato Confit Broken bones, dementia, heart disease, diabetes and cancer might not seem to have much in common. But they all share a common link, and that's inflammation. Inflammation is the immune system's way of trying to repair damage from an injury or illness, per the National Institutes of Health. In the short term, that's a good thing. Long-term, not so much. "When inflammation becomes chronic—from things like eating an unhealthy diet, smoking, too much alcohol consumption or being sedentary—those same defense mechanisms go into overdrive, injuring cells and tissues, causing permanent damage," says Joan Salge Blake, Ed.D., RDN, a professor of clinical nutrition at Boston University and host of SpotOn!, a nutrition and health podcast. "For example, chronic inflammation can injure the blood vessel walls, paving the way for atherosclerosis and that nasty plaque buildup that leads to heart disease." While you may not always be able to prevent a broken ankle or...
