Diet

Is it possible to reduce inflammation by changing our diet? The answer is yes. There are many scientific studies showing that certain foods cause inflammation while others reduce inflammation. Some people have chronic inflammatory diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, ulcerative colitis and they report improvements in their symptoms when changing their eating habits. Today I’ll answer some questions: What is the anti-inflammatory diet? Is it healthy? For how long do I have to try until I see the benefits? So, let’s talk about anti-inflammatory diet today First, I need to explain what inflammation is, so you understand why the anti-inflammatory diet is so important. Inflammation is a natural response of the body to various triggers, including infections, injuries, and attacks. The immune system sends white blood cells to fight off the threat, such as bacteria or cancer cells. It is important to understand the role of inflammation in maintaining the body’s health and to take appropriate measures to manage it. However, in auto-immune diseases there will be chronic inflammation that is not normal. Auto-immune diseases occur when your immune system recognize your own cells as something that is threatening, and then, it will start attacking the normal cells. This is what happens in rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, ankylosing spondylitis, inflammatory bowel diseases, some types of thyroiditis, diabetes type 1, multiple sclerosis and many other diseases. We don’t know if fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition is an auto-immune disease or not, but there are some recent indications that people with fibromyalgia have some chronic inflammation going on, because there are some inflammatory markers that are higher in people with fibromyalgia. Now, if you are overweight pay attention to this. Fat tissue releases pro-inflammatory molecules, such as leptin and cytokines. So, even if you adhere to an anti-inflammatory diet, your levels of inflammation may not go down because your body is constantly releasing these pro-inflammatory substances from the excess fat that you are carrying around. Before I continue, remember that this article is for educational purposes only. If you have a condition that needs medical advice, please talk to your doctor. And if there is an emergency, go to the nearest emergency department. I usually do not recommend my patients to do a radical diet for a few months and after that they can come back to their regular diet. My approach is to incorporate healthy eating habits in your life for good. If this diet is overwhelming to you, try changing one thing at a time. It is better to go slow and stick to it, than to abandon it because you could not persevere. Remember, you are what you eat. So, what is an anti-inflammatory diet? I’m sure you will NOT be surprised by it, as there are a lot of common sense in this diet. If you know someone who need to read this article “share” below and send to them. 1. Avoid white bread, white flour and gluten. Replace by gluten free flour like almond flour, oat flour, brown rice flour, corn flour, tapioca or cassava flour. 2. Avoid white sugar any kind of sugar or artificial sweeteners. Replace by home made sugar-free jams or just plain fruit that already contains sugars. It takes time to retrain your taste buds to sense natural sugars in fruits, vegetables or milk. Once you train your taste buds without any added sugar or sweetener you will be surprised how awful it tastes when you add anything to sweeten your drinks or food. 3. Avoid soda, pops and any kind of carbonated drinks. Replace by water, home made teas, freshly squeezed citrus fruits like oranges, lemons and limes. Or berry smoothies, like strawberry, blackberry, raspberry or blueberries. 4. Avoid processed foods. Replace by fresh, raw vegetables and fruits. Replace processed meat by buying raw meat, poultry or fish, and you cooked yourself at home, then it is very different from boxed meat or fish. I find that very few people understands what processed food is. Just look at the package food that you have in front of you. Is it in the original state that you would find in nature? So, if the food that you have has been cooked, canned, frozen, packaged or changed with fortifying substances or preservatives, then, this is processed food. Even the healthiest ingredient can be processed and then you lose all the benefits. For example, fish is very healthy, we will talk about that later, but if you buy a box where the fish has been prepared in a factory, fried in unhealthy oil, and added preservatives to last longer in the shelves, then it is processed fish. 5. Avoid unhealthy fats like trans fats or hydrogenated oils. Just read the labels and you will find these unhealthy fats in a lot of ingredients, including margarine, shortening, packaged meats, hot dogs, cookies, muffins, cupcakes, frozen pizza, microwave popcorn, and many more. Replace by healthy fats, like extra virgin olive oil, canola oil, and nuts like walnuts and almonds. Check my other video about omega-3 fatty acids. Well, if you like this video so far, give a thumbs up here. Let’s continue 6. Reduce red meat. There is no need to eliminate all red meat from your diet if you want to follow an anti-inflammatory diet. Watch my video about vitamin B12 to hear more about deficiency of this vitamin, especially in people who restrict red meats from their diet. But it is good to limit the amount of red meat to one or two meals per week. Replace red meat by beans, lentils, chickpeas and whole grans like kernels, quinoa, bulgur, brown rice or oatmeal. Also green leaf vegetables like spinach, kale and brocolis are highly recommended. 7. Limit the amount of alcohol. There is no need to eliminate alcohol completely, but it is important to reduce the amount for a number of reasons, to avoid intoxication, alcohol use disorder and also obesity, as alcohol contains a lot of calories. Replace sweetened cocktails, beer, spirits