For years, you’ve heard how important it is to eat a nutritious diet in order to preserve good health and a healthy weight. Poor diets that are overly processed and heavy in sugar, preservatives, and saturated fats have been linked to practically every chronic disease in research after study.
Despite this, many people have not adjusted their diets or insisted that producers produce higher-quality foods. Low-quality foods cause inflammation in the body, which is connected to diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, cancer, and a variety of other serious illnesses.
What is Inflammation?
Inflammation is a natural immunological response that occurs in the body. When your body detects an injury or foreign invaders such as a virus or bacterium, it sends chemicals and white blood cells to fight them off, assisting in the healing and protection of your body. Naturally, this is a beneficial thing that contributes to your overall health.
Changes in blood flow, a rise in blood vessel permeability, and the migration of fluid, proteins, and white blood cells (leukocytes) from the circulation to the site of tissue damage are all part of the reaction. Acute inflammation is a short-term inflammatory reaction, whereas chronic inflammation is a longer-term response.
Although acute inflammation is normally beneficial, it can also generate unpleasant feelings like painful throat soreness or itching from an insect bite. The discomfort is usually just temporary and goes away once the inflammatory reaction has completed its task. Inflammation, on the other hand, might be harmful in some cases. Examples include allergic, or hypersensitivity, reactions, in which an environmental agent such as pollen, which normally poses no threat to the individual, stimulates inflammation, and autoimmune reactions, in which chronic inflammation is triggered by the body’s immune response against its own tissues.
Major Signs of Inflammation
In the first century AD, the Roman medical writer Aulus Cornelius Celsus identified the four cardinal indications of inflammation: redness (Latin rubor), heat (calor), swelling (tumour), and pain (dolor).
The dilatation of tiny blood vessels in the injured area causes redness. Heat is felt solely in peripheral regions of the body, such as the skin, as a result of increased blood flow through the area. Chemical mediators of inflammation cause fever, which contributes to the increase in temperature around the injury. The collection of fluid outside the blood vessels causes swelling, which is known as edoema. Inflammation-related pain is caused in part by tissue distortion caused by edoema, but it is also triggered by chemical mediators of inflammation such as bradykinin, serotonin, and prostaglandins.
The loss of function of the inflamed area is a sixth consequence of inflammation, as documented by German pathologist Rudolf Virchow in the 19th century. Pain that limits mobility or significant swelling that hinders movement in the area might cause loss of function.
What are the consequences of Chronic Inflammation?
Your immune system goes into overdrive when your body is out of balance, creating persistent inflammation, weight gain, pain, and disease. Chronic inflammation can develop even when the immune system is engaged but no foreign intruder is present. Food is both a key cause and a primary cure for chronic inflammation.
What Causes Inflammation?
Inflammation can be caused by a variety of factors. The following are the most typical:
- Bacteria, viruses, and fungus are pathogens (germs).
- Scrapes or injury from foreign objects are examples of external injuries (for example a thorn in your finger)
- Chemical or radioactive effects.
Inflammatory diseases and medical illnesses are frequently given names that finish in “-itis.” Consider the following scenario:
- Cystitis is a bladder ailment.
- Bronchitis is a bronchial inflammation.
- Otitis media is an ear infection that affects the middle ear.
- Dermatitis is an inflammatory skin condition.
Foods that cause Chronic Inflammation
The most common food sensitivities come from:
- Dairy products
- Gluten
- Corn
- Soy
- Yeast
- Fried food
- Artificial sweeteners
- Hormones and anti-biotics
- Artificial additives (in almost every packaged food)
Hormonal imbalance, mood changes, joint discomfort, sinus and respiratory troubles, headaches, digestive issues, exhaustion, and weight gain may occur as your body reacts to these low-level allergens. The symptoms appear gradually over time, and the cause is rarely linked to eating, with the exception of weight increase. As a result, you may turn to medicine or other medical testing and treatments in the hopes of finding comfort, but you will not find sustainable respite if your diet remains unchanged.
What causes foodborne inflammation?
Everything you put into your body has an effect on it, for better or ill. Refined foods laced with chemicals, pesticides, and other toxins, medications, large amounts of sugar, and other harmful substances that you ingest or absorb into your body wreck havoc on your digestive system, altering the PH balance, bacterial composition, and damaging the protective lining in your stomach and intestinal tract.
This is known as “leaky gut” (sounds disgusting, doesn’t it?)
The lining of your digestive track is meant to keep toxins and allergens out of your body and immune system. Food particles pass through the barrier when it is broken, triggering your immunological response. As if it were a foreign invasion, your body begins to assault your meal. This asymmetry in the immune system causes persistent inflammation in the body, which leads to weight gain and other serious health problems.
What type of food should be used to prevent Inflammation?
Allow your food to be your medicine. Simply by making positive dietary changes, you can lose extra weight, lessen chronic pain, lower your chance of significant chronic illness, and even reverse chronic illness. Remove inflammatory foods from your diet and replace them with more nutrient-dense, anti-inflammatory foods that are high in omega 3 fatty acids and antioxidants.
Here are a few foods to begin including in your diet:
- Berries are a type of berry that is (Blueberries, strawberries, raspberries)
- Vegetables with lots of leaves (Spinach, kale, beat greens)
- Fish that are fatty (such as salmon)
- Garlic
- olive oil (extra virgin)
- Fruits and vegetables (Beats, celery, red pepper, tomato, broccoli)
- Oats in their natural state
- Turmeric
- Grain (whole) (brown rice, quinoa, millet)
- Ginger
- Fruits that are in season (apples, pineapple)
- Honey that is unprocessed
- Nuts and seeds
- Legumes and beans
Adding these and other ANTI-inflammatory foods into your diet reduces oxidative stress, increases absorption of vital nutrients and triggers a number of reactions and critical body processes. These create a reduction in inflammation and begin to reverse the damage created by poor food choices.
As you continue to increase these foods in your diet and reduce or eliminate more harmful foods, you WILL lose weight and have LESS bloating, pain and swelling. If you have a chronic illness, you are likely to notice a reduction in symptoms and improved overall health.
Depending on your circumstances, a gradual shift in your diet may reduce the likelihood of backsliding, however choose based on your personal health needs and the recommendations of your healthcare professionals and nutritionists.
The Good News…
The good news is, although this is a change that some find daunting, you can still eat a wide variety of delicious foods. Fortunately, there are simple and delicious ways to begin introducing new, healthy foods into your diet.
A Quick and Easy Way to Beat Inflammation
A green smoothie is a perfect solution that endows you with high valuable nutrients and decreases your body inflammation. You can include foods such as fruits, green leafy vegetables, nuts, seeds and other prime ingredients that are nutritious and healthy in your green smoothie. Inducing green smoothie as a part of your daily diet is fun as well as healthy and if prepared properly, it will sure give you the feel of eating a dessert.
There are variety of smoothie recipes that can simply pep your healthy and your entire day. Just replace your one meal a day with a smoothie, enjoy and experience a great difference in your health within a few days.
