Blocking Inflammation Isn’t the Same as Ending It

If you have thrown everything at your inflammation — anti-inflammatory diets, supplements, medications — and it keeps coming back, there may be a reason that is not about dosing harder. Blocking inflammation and ending it are two different things.

Blocking inflammation is not the same as ending it. — Andrew Heyman, MD

An active process, not just an absence

We tend to picture inflammation as something that fades on its own once you stop provoking it. In fact, switching inflammation off is an active program — the body makes specialized “pro-resolving” signals that clean up debris, call off the immune cells, and restore calm. When that program is weak, inflammation lingers even without a fresh trigger.

CDR1 that will not resolve often reflects a resolution deficit — too little of the pro-resolving signaling that actively switches inflammation off. — Andrew Heyman, MD

Why “more anti-inflammatory” can miss

Blockers — whether a drug or a botanical — muffle the fire alarm. They do not necessarily put out the fire or clean up after it. If the real problem is too little resolution signal, more blockade does not supply what is missing.

Supplying resolution

The pro-resolving signals (resolvins, protectins, maresins) are built from omega-3 fats — EPA and DHA. Providing the raw materials, and where appropriate the specialized mediators themselves, shifts the goal from suppressing inflammation to actively resolving it. Repairing the barriers that keep leaking new triggers in matters just as much.

The reframe

A “stuck” inflammation is often not too much fire — it is too little of the signal that ends the fire. That changes the strategy from blocking harder to helping the body finish the job it is already trying to do.