Anti-Inflammatory Food

Inflammation is at the root of many diseases, yet often overlooked when dealing with the management or treatment plan. Another aspect that gets overlooked is diet. But, before we look at how anti-inflammatory food can help reduce that nasty inflammation, let’s first define inflammation.

There are two primary types:

Acute meaning short, sudden, sometimes severe, may last a few days or weeks.

Chronic meaning slow, creeping, mild to severe and develops over months and years.

Acute Inflammation

We all know acute inflammation. For example, the insane headache, the fever or the heat you feel when you get a mild infection or injury. These are all excellent indicators of acute inflammation. However, this is usually short-lived and physically manifests your body, mobilizing a very effective defence strategy. So it’s actually a good thing.

Our first reaction may be to stamp it out immediately and take pain medication. (It is, after all, very uncomfortable, and it’s in our DNA to avoid pain). But, pain and discomfort aside, this process is doing exactly what it needs to be doing. Our immune system is going into hyperdrive to speed up the healing process and get us up and running as quickly as possible.

THE QUESTION: If inflammation is good, why would it be at the root of diseases?

Excellent question; so glad you asked!

The problem is that when the inflammation doesn’t go away, it leads to chronic inflammation.

Chronic Inflammation

Unlike acute inflammation, chronic inflammation isn’t always as apparent. It’s tempting to use a heavy word like insidious, but in truth, it is, yet again, the body correctly reacting to its environment. Correct or not, long term low-level inflammation can be very damaging to us. The immune system gets overworked and then becomes like a toddler that’s just been given a few caffeine concentrated energy drinks. Anything and everything is fair game for an enthusiastic attack. Your immune system struggles to discern good from bad and can begin attacking healthy cells; this leads to disease.

While this is all a very descriptive way of explaining inflammation, the folks at Harvard Medical School did a great job explaining it from a medical perspective. If you are dealing with any form of inflammation or the diseases listed below, I highly recommend reading the article: Understanding Acute and Chronic Inflammation

Diseases Caused by Inflammation

Most of our health issues can be traced back to chronic inflammation, but here are some of the big ones. I would love to say these conditions are rare, but they are almost as common as the flu: (The list is also much longer, but these are the most common)

• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Allergies
• Cardiovascular Disease
• Intestinal Permeability (aka Leaky Gut)
• Obesity
• Diabetes

Inflammation can also cause general pain and discomfort that do not fall neatly under a diagnosis.

So What Does Food Have To Do With All Of This?

Food actually has a lot to do with it. There are many foods in our modern diet known to cause inflammation. Granted, these foods have varying levels of inflammatory effects. Much of the reaction depends on the person, but they cause inflammation nonetheless.

If you are battling with general malaise, pain or one of the many conditions linked to inflammation you may want to consider cutting some of these foods out. (See below)

The good news is that there are also foods that help our body fight this inflammation, and they are readily available; we need to know the difference. To help you, here are some foods to avoid and foods to include that can assist you on your anti-inflammatory journey.