You’ve rolled your ankle on a recent hike and the thing swelled up like a balloon.
While slicing veggies for your healthy dinner, you inadvertently sliced your finger, too. Oops. A few hours later, it’s turned red and swollen.
This is fiery reaction is inflammation at work, and it’s a good thing. It’s a God-given response to things that cause the body harm, such as infection, injury or toxins. As the body perceives cell damage, it releases chemicals and proteins, as well as added blood, that rush in to try to bring healing. Hooray for our immune system!
Inflammation that comes to the rescue in an acute situation is a very useful tool. However, chronic inflammation that sticks around for long periods of time is extremely harmful to the body.
Chronic inflammation is core to many diseases and ailments.
Here’s a sampler of ailments that chronic inflammation has been suggested to play a role in:
- Food allergies
- Celiac disease (gluten intolerance)
- Seasonal allergies
- Common cold
- Sinusitis
- Heartburn
- Eczema
- Obesity
- Asthma
- Fibromyalgia
- Crohn’s disease
- Lupus
- Arthritis
- Rheumatoid arthritis
- Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS)
- Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS)
- Severity of symptoms leading to menopause
- Type 2 diabetes
- Multiple sclerosis
- Alzheimer’s
- Heart disease
- Stroke
- Cancer
Sheesh!
Chronic inflammation is a result of continued assault on the body. The ankle bone didn’t heal. The cut on your finger wasn’t properly cleaned and consequently became infected. Toxins remain in your environment (household cleaners, mold, polluted air or water, chemicals found on goods we purchase, etc.). An overuse of antibiotics has caused inflammation. Too much or too little exercise. Excessive alcohol (some experts say no more than 2 servings per week). A poor diet. Runaway stress. These are all triggers that result in excessive, chronic inflammation. The body is trying to overcome all these things, but can’t quite do it. The immune system is compromised.
This begs the question, “Why?” Why has the natural, healthy immune response run amok?
The answer often involves dietary deficiencies or imbalances. The importance of diet can’t be overemphasized. A crappy diet will make you feel crappy. It’ll break your immune system down, making it unable to do its job well. So when the triggers come (infection, stress, environmental exposure to toxins, etc.), the inflammatory response just isn’t strong enough to do its job of protecting you. In an effort to overcome, the body keeps sending the inflammatory chemicals… but now the inflammatory fire is burning out of control.
A healthy diet will enable all your body systems to work better, including the inflammatory response.
So… diet: what to include and what to leave out?
What to include:
- Dark leafy greens (we knew this would make the list, eh?)
- Cruciferous and other veggies
- Berries and cherries
- Fruit
- Nuts and seeds
- Beans and lentils
- Healthy fats (found in avocado, coconut oil, olive oil, fish)
- Onions and garlic
- Turmeric and cinnamon
- DARK CHOCOLATE (yay!)
What to leave out:
- Processed food and refined food (white breads or pastas)
- Fried food
- Vegetable oils (corn, safflower, soy, sunflower, vegetable)
- Sweets or other snack items (candy, pretzels, chips, etc.)
- Sodas, juices, energy drinks, and other sugary beverages
- Excessive alcohol (some studies say no more than 2 servings per week)
- Processed meats (buh-bye hot dogs)
- Dairy
This is the good news! We can improve our health greatly by changing our lifestyle. Yessss!
Inflammation is involved in so many things that plague us. We’d do well to be mindful of diet and lifestyle. We need to approach these as though our life depended on it.
Because it does.
What about you?
Are you able to consume more of the items on the “What to include” list?
