Are We What We Eat?

Part 1

With a request to address anti-inflammatory meals, this week we are tackling what it means to have chronic inflammation physiologically, what foods commonly cause this, and foods that lower chronic inflammation! This is a HUGE topic to cover in just one blog post, so stay with me for a part 2 with an example meal plan/food prep.

To understand the importance of an anti-inflammatory diet, we need to understand how the foods we (likely) eat daily are interacting with our bodies.

While researching this topic to better explain the concept of inflammation, I read an alarming statistic. Diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular disease account for about 70% of American deaths (Kiecolt-Glaser, 2010). The common link between the three? Inflammation. 

Inflammation is a normal response our body has when it recognizes an injury in our body. Whether it’s an injury to a tissue (like when you sprain your ankle and it gets swollen) or a response to a pathogen (like when we get sick and our mucous membranes in our nose swell up), acute inflammation is a normal process. Normal inflammation occurs acutely, meaning in a specific area for a short period of time, but after a few hours or couple of days, the inflammation curtails.

This is a normal and healthy response to a pathogen or injury!

The statistic above, however, is referring to chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation is defined as “slow, long-term inflammation lasting for prolonged periods of several months to years” (Pahwa et al., 2023). I really encourage you to read the sources listed at the bottom to better understand how inflammation plays a role in disease, but here is a simple explanation.

We have a whole system of bacteria in our gut called the gut microbiome. This system of bacteria has an extremely important role in digesting food, but also in maintaining overall health of the host (us)! The gut-brain-axis is a two-way communication system between the gut microbiome (enteric nervous system) and the brain (central nervous system) via the vagus nerve. The food we eat directly effects the microbiome and can change the composition of bacteria in our gut (Alfonsetti et al., 2022). Short and simply put, this can trigger a chain response of inflammation in the immune system and leads to chronic inflammation. In another post, we can talk about how stimulation through the vagus nerve through negative feelings may also play a role in chronic inflammation of the gut… but alas, I digress…

Literature points to the “Westernized diet” as a pro-inflammatory diet, meaning that the foods we eat are causing inflammation in our gut and in turn, throughout our bodies. Foods included in this diet are high in refined starches, refined sugars, saturated and trans-fats. This diet also includes low amounts of omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants and fiber found naturally in fruits and vegetables and low in whole grains.

Now…let’s dive into the components of this diet and figure out why they cause inflammation.

Refined starches/sugars:

Foods in this category include concentrated sugars, most store-bought breads, pasta, cookies, pretzels, chips, muffins, crackers, high fructose corn syrup, ketchup, soda, even some canned fruits and vegetables.

These are high energy (high caloric value) and low nutrient foods, as they contain 78% less fiber and over 70% less B vitamins as well as vitamin E. They quickly raise the blood sugar (measured by the glycemic index) and this more chronic, high glycemic load is consistent with an increased risk of multiple kinds of cancers, metabolic syndromes and cardiovascular diseases (Donaldson, 2004). Ultimately, the increased amount of sugar causes our gut microbiome to be thrown off in proportion… bacteria that causes inflammation is found in higher proportions, while other necessary bacteria in turn lowers in proportion.

Here are some starches and sugars that are good to eat, and lower chronic inflammation:

-       Fresh fruits

o   Berries

o   Pomegranates

o   Grapes

o   Apples

-       Sweet potatoes

-       Winter squash

-       Beans

-       Potatoes

-       Beets

High Saturated and Trans-Fats:

            Foods in this category include margarine, commercial baked goods, frozen pizzas, non-dairy coffee creamers, fried foods, cured meats, bacon, fatty meats etc.

            These kinds of fats (in comparison to unsaturated) initiate an inflammatory response by activating the immune system. A high-level article published in 2018 titled “Inflammatory Links Between High Fat Diets and Diseases” explains how the hypothalamus (part of the central nervous system aspect of the gut-brain axis) is stimulated by a high fat diet being ingested. This assists the development of chronic inflammation and in turn effects the gut microbiome, allowing for more endotoxins (a toxin that is inside of a bacterial cell) to pass through our gut into our blood stream (Duan et al., 2018). This triggers the immune system’s inflammatory response, creating long-term, chronic inflammation. Crazy, right??

Here are some fats that are good to eat, and lower chronic inflammation:

-       Salmon, tuna, anchovies, sardines

-       Avocados

-       Nuts

-       Grass-fed red meats (sourcing is what is important here! Trust me!)

Seed Oils

            Oh, those seed oils… Seed oils include oil from canola, soybean, peanut, grapeseed, sunflower, safflower, cottonseed and rice bran. It is currently a pretty controversial topic whether seed oils cause inflammation in the gut or not. Most literature defends the fact that seed oils lower cholesterol and should be up to 10% of our daily caloric value. However, literature is beginning to show seed oils being linked to chronic inflammation. Dr. James DiNicolantonio and O’Keefe (2018) found that the high amounts of omega-6 fatty acids consumed through seed oils lead to oxidized linoleic acid in LDLs (the bad cholesterol we all hear about), which promotes oxidative stress and chronic low-grade inflammation. And while omega-6 fatty acids are essential, they must be provided in the correct proportion. The ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 that was once 4:1 or less is now 20:1, favoring omega-6 and the linoleic acid that I previously mentioned (DiNicoloantonio and O’Keefe, 2021)

There is still more work to be done on seed oils, but I believe that we should utilize oils that we know for a fact won’t hurt us! Oils such as olive oil and avocado oil are options that are rich in monounsaturated fatty acids, which actually promotes a healthy heart without the side effect of chronic, low-grade inflammation.

Part 2:

 Now that we know what food is causing inflammation linked to chronic diseases and cancers, let’s talk about the aspects of a diet that can help reduce and fight inflammation!

Foods that are considered “anti-inflammatory” help protect our bodies from chronic inflammation. Our liver creates a protein called C-reactive protein, in the presence of inflammation (Nehring et al., 2019). Anti-inflammatory foods help lower the presence of this protein and overall help better regulate our gut-microbiome. The more diverse our gut-microbiome is, we see less inflammation, less cytotoxins and a happier gut and immune system...leading to less chronic disease!

Here are some foods to prioritize in an anti-inflammatory diet and what nutrients we can find important in them:

Fruits and Vegetables

o   Vitamin C- reduces inflammation and antioxidant

o   Folic acid- reduces inflammation

o   Lutein- antioxidant

o   Carotene- regulates oxidative stress, resists inflammatory damage

o Lycopene (in tomatoes)- protective against cancer, especially prostate cancers (Focsan et al., 2021)

o   Selenium- important in inhibiting inflammation, stimulates the formation of natural killer cells, decreases rate of tumor growth, component of an antioxidant

o   Vitamin E- anti-inflammatory

o   Flavonoids- activates antioxidants

o   Dietary fiber

Cruciferous Vegetables (Broccoli sprouts, cauliflower, brussel sprouts)

o   Sulforophane- cancer protecting properties

Kimchi, Sauerkraut, Fermented Teas

o   Prebiotics and probiotics- anti-inflammatory properties (Paul et al., 2023)

Meats

o   Pork Loin- antioxidative/anti-inflammatory effects (Gil et al., 2016)

o   Grass fed meats- high levels of omega-3 fats (again, emphasis on ethical sources and less processed meats) (provenza et al., 2019)

o   Salmon, sardines, tuna- Omega-3 rich!

o   Chicken- Neither inflammatory nor anti-inflammatory

o   Turkey- Boosts immunity

Not a food… but sunshine!

o   Vitamin D- the active hormonal form of vitamin D is shown to have anti-cancer properties.

This is just a simple list of foods to be looking for. I want to emphasize the importance of sourcing your food in creating a diet that is anti-inflammatory. Getting fresh ingredients, where there are no added preservatives, is really the key here. With fruits and vegetables, I look for organic, fresh produce that has no added preservatives (eat a fresh tangerine over a processed fruit cup). Frozen fruit and vegetables are great if you feel like your produce goes bad before you can finish it. We will dive into this further in the next post.

Regarding meats, the importance again lies in getting grass fed, less processed meats. The food that the animals eat is important… because what they eat ultimately comes into our body and can affect our health. We will dive further into this with the meal plan example!

I know that this was a lot of information on what a pro-inflammatory diet looks like, and we haven’t even gotten to the meal plan yet! In an effort to make these posts a rather quick read, though, I will be making a separate continuation of this post that dives deeper into foods that are anti-inflammatory, and what an anti-inflammatory diet looks like to me. I hope this is a helpful explanation of why we might avoid certain inflammatory foods in our day-to-day diets!

So... are we what we eat? Comment what you think below!!!

References

Alfonsetti, M., Castelli, V., & d’Angelo, M. (2022). Are We What We Eat? Impact of Diet on the Gut–Brain Axis in Parkinson’s Disease. Nutrients, 14(2), 380. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu14020380

DiNicolantonio, J. J., & O’Keefe, J. H. (2018). Omega-6 vegetable oils as a driver of coronary heart disease: the oxidized linoleic acid hypothesis. Open Heart, 5(2), e000898. https://doi.org/10.1136/openhrt-2018-000898

‌DiNicolantonio, J. J., & O’Keefe, J. (2021). The Importance of Maintaining a Low Omega-6/Omega-3 Ratio for Reducing the Risk of Autoimmune Diseases, Asthma, and Allergies. Missouri Medicine, 118(5), 453–459. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8504498/#:~:text=Up%20until%20about%20100%20years

Donaldson, M. S. (2004). Nutrition and cancer: A review of the evidence for an anti-cancer diet. Nutrition Journal, 3(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/1475-2891-3-19

‌ Duan, Y., Zeng, L., Zheng, C., Song, B., Li, F., Kong, X., & Xu, K. (2018). Inflammatory Links Between High Fat Diets and Diseases. Frontiers in Immunology, 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2018.02649

Focsan, A. L., Polyakov, N. E., & Kispert, L. D. (2021). Carotenoids: Importance in Daily Life—Insight Gained from EPR and ENDOR. Applied Magnetic Resonance, 52(8), 1093–1112. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00723-021-01311-8

Huang, Z., Rose, A. H., & Hoffmann, P. R. (2012). The Role of Selenium in Inflammation and Immunity: From Molecular Mechanisms to Therapeutic Opportunities. Antioxidants & Redox Signaling, 16(7), 705–743. https://doi.org/10.1089/ars.2011.4145

Gil, J., Kim, D., Yoon, S.-K., Ham, J.-S., & Jang, A. (2016). Anti-Oxidative and Anti-Inflammation Activities of Pork Extracts. Korean Journal for Food Science of Animal Resources, 36(2), 275–282. https://doi.org/10.5851/kosfa.2016.36.2.275

Kiecolt-Glaser, J. K. (2010). Stress, Food, and Inflammation: Psychoneuroimmunology and Nutrition at the Cutting Edge. Psychosomatic Medicine, 72(4), 365–369. https://doi.org/10.1097/psy.0b013e3181dbf489

Nehring, S. M., Patel, B. C., & Goyal, A. (2019, April 21). C Reactive Protein (CRP). National Library of Medicine; StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK441843/

‌ Pahwa, R., Goyal, A., & Jialal, I. (2023). Chronic Inflammation. PubMed; StatPearls Publishing. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29630225/#:~:text=Chronic%20inflammation%20is%20also%20referred

Paul, A. K., Lim, C. L., Apu, M. A. I., Dolma, K. G., Gupta, M., de Lourdes Pereira, M., Wilairatana, P., Rahmatullah, M., Wiart, C., & Nissapatorn, V. (2023). Are Fermented Foods Effective against Inflammatory Diseases? International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(3), 2481. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20032481

‌Zinöcker, M., & Lindseth, I. (2018). The Western Diet–Microbiome-Host Interaction and Its Role in Metabolic Disease. Nutrients, 10(3), 365. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu10030365

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