Introduction:
The Continuum of a Unified Theory of Disease proposed the idea that one
of the mechanisms responsible for chronic inflammatory diseases is the
indiscriminate suppression of efficient acute inflammatory conditions,
especially fever with antipyretic drugs [1]. It further posited that
in the presence of low-grade chronic inflammation, the organism is
incapable of producing efficient acute inflammation in response to
pathogenic stimuli. Many immunological studies have provided evidence
for the necessity to preserve the acute inflammatory phenomenon in its
entirety [2-4]. The mutual exclusion of the two phenomena has been
observed in some conditions [5-7], while other studies have used
acute inflammation to cure the body of a chronic condition [8].
While Sibley et al. conducted a study to examine the incidence of viral
infections in patients with multiple sclerosis and found that multiple
sclerosis somehow ‘protected’ the patients from viral infections
[5], no other study, as far as the authors are aware, has
investigated chronic inflammatory diseases in general for this
phenomenon.
We hypothesised that efficient acute and chronic inflammation are
mutually exclusive. We sought to test this by examining the existing
clinical data from a private homeopathic medical practice, with the
primary objective to investigate whether acute and chronic inflammatory
conditions occur concurrently.