How to reduce inflammation in the body fast?
Well, as you may know, not all foods were created equally. By this logic, the foods that we eat can induce or prevent inflammation.
Inflammation is one of the most common final pathways for most diseases in medicine, but let’s not jump ahead of ourselves here. Let’s decipher this topic step by step.
What is inflammation?
Inflammation is our body’s normal response to injuries, whether it’s a physical injury such a skin cut, a chemical injury such as inhaling or ingesting a harmful chemical or infectious injury such as bacterial, viral, and fungal infections.
It can also be induced when we are facing stress in our lives.
It’s important to note that inflammation is not always bad. As you can see, it’s one of our body’s physiological lines of defense. Therefore, it’s not always a good idea to try to reduce inflammation.
In medicine, we add the suffix “itis” to words, which means inflammation. For example, the term hepatitis means the inflammation of the liver, and the term pharyngitis means the inflammation of the throat (aka. Sore throat).
There are 4 cardinal symptoms of inflammation. They are: Calor, Rubor, Dolor, Tumor, and Functio Laesa.
Let’s make it simple, just think of what happens when you injure your knee? It gets hot (calor), warm (rubor), painful (dolor), swollen (tumor), and you can no longer move it (Functio Laesa).
It’s a crucial protective reaction. In fact, without inflammation, healing cannot take place.
So far, inflammation seems to be the best thing that could ever happen to you when you are injured, regardless of the nature of that injury, and that’s somewhat true; however, the inflammation we’ve talked about is the acute type, which happens shorty after you are injured and disappears after a few hours to a few days. We didn’t talk about chronic inflammation yet but I think you’re ready for it, so let’s start.
The real enemy-chronic inflammation-
When the inflammation exceeds a couple of weeks, it’s now considered chronic.
Patients with chronic inflammation come to the doctor’s office complaining of: painful joints (arthritis), stomach pain (gastritis, ulcers), painful bowel movement and lower gastrointestinal bleeding (colitis, Crohn’s disease, and Ulcerative colitis), etc.
One of the most common presentation of chronic inflammation is Asthma. In which there is an active inflammation going on in the lung tissue that makes the patient’s breathing difficult (dyspnea), and causes secretions with coughing.
Other clinical presentations of chronic inflammation include: eczema, psoriasis, and skin rashes.
So far, we’ve mentioned the most common causes for a doctor’s consultation, the most common type of chronic inflammation, and the dermatological presentations that accompanies it.
But what about the most dangerous diseases that are caused by chronic inflammation?
Well, first we have cancer, which is seen after years of chronic inflammation such as the case of chronic ulcers caused by Helicobacter pylori, which is a strain of bacteria that is resistant to the stomach’s acid milieu.
Second, Alzheimer’s disease in which a recent research has found a strong correlation between chronic inflammation of the brain and the development dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
Although cancer and Alzheimer’s disease might seem bad enough, we didn’t yet mention the deadliest disease of them all, heart disease which the American Heart Association states that it takes the lives of approximately 2,300 people each day in the united states alone. That’s one death every 38 seconds.
Chronic inflammation causes structural changes in the arteries’ walls, it increases the risk of the oxidation of cholesterol that’s found inside the plaques of arteries (especially the coronary artery), and it also increases the risk of clot formation.
So add inflammation to a chronically obese person, who has high levels of cholesterol circulating in his blood, and you’ve got yourself the perfect recipe for myocardial infarction (heart attack).
What causes chronic inflammation?
Chemical irritants
Now, everyone who lives in the city is often exposed to these irritants on a daily basis whether it is: polluted air, chemical irritants, or second hand smoking.
When these irritants get inside your body, the immune system goes haywire and starts to fight off these chemical substances the only way it knows how, INFLAMMATION. Moreover, if both the stimulus and your body’s responses last long enough, it becomes a chronic inflammation.
Why does the body do that? Well, simply because these irritants are considered foreign bodies and your immune system’s job is to kill anything that might cause you harm. Cute, huh? Unconditional love that can be destructive at some point.
Chronic infections
You’re probably familiar with infections that last a few days at most, and after taking a couple of antibiotics pills you feel better right away.
But, that’s not what’re we’re talking about here. We’re talking about chronic infections that last for weeks and months.
One example is stomach ulcers, which in some cases are caused by a bacteria we’ve already mentioned, Helicobacter pylori. What this bacteria basically does is penetrate the deeper layers of the stomach wall. Now, in an attempt for the inflammatory response to kill the bacteria, it destroys those layers digging a hole in the stomach, and that’s how you end up with an ulcer.
In the long term, this bacteria and the resulting chronic inflammation cause alter the DNA structure of the gastric cells resulting in cancer.
This is why when a patient presents with an ulcer, it is absolutely necessary to do an upper gastrointestinal endoscopy and take a biopsy to analyze for cancer. The risk is just too high to ignore.
It is also the reason why we don’t treat gastric ulcers with just antacids such as over-the-counter Omeprazole, but we also add two more antibiotics to get rid of the bacteria and heal the ulcer once and for all.
Food sensitivity
Most people confuse food sensitivity with food allergy even though they are quite different. Talking in details about this difference would be out of the scope of this article, but to put in simple words:
Food allergy:
It is a quick immune reaction that can be lethal, a famous example would be peanut allergy. If a person with peanut allergy eats peanuts, their tongue and face might get swollen, their breathing might become difficult and they may even suffocate.
The most severe form of food allergy is anaphylactic shock, which will kill the patient in a couple of minutes if they don’t receive an injection of Epinephrine (Epipen).
This is why these patients always have their Epipens in their pockets no matter where they go.
The immunoglobulin responsible for this reaction is IgE.
Food sensitivity:
This time the reaction is much slower and much gradual that it won’t even cause symptoms after you consume the culprit food; however, it causes what we call low-grade inflammation which is the type that we’ve been talking about.
Low-grade inflammation is not severe nor acute enough to kill you, but chronic enough to cause all kinds of problems (arthritis, skin rashes, and cancer).
The immunoglobulin responsible for this reaction is IgG.
Midline weight excess
The extra fat cells in our body work as a factory for inflammatory substances production, these substances are called cytokines and they’re the major players in inducing inflammation and maintaining it.
The production of these cytokines is done by all the fat cells in our body, but excessively in the extra belly fat. This is why abdominal circumference is of the diagnostic criteria for the metabolic syndrome (syndrome X).
In fact, in medicine people who are really obese are considered to be in a constant state of inflammation. In other words, they’re dealing with chronic inflammation.
Chronic insomnia
Chronic sleep disturbances triggers the alert system in our bodies: the body is like “there must be a problem, turn on the protective mechanisms (aka. Inflammation)”
Like I said earlier, our body’s immune system is like an overprotective father that offers his children unconditional love, which sometimes is just too much, and can cause a lot of trouble.
Sleep apnea has also been identified as a culprit in inducing chronic inflammation.
Inflammatory response to food
We have mentioned earlier that foods are not created equally; some foods have anti-inflammatory properties while others can cause an inflammatory response.
So, here’s a list of 8 foods that cause inflammation:
1- Sugar
Whether it’s white sugar or brown sugar, it doesn’t really matter. Sugar is the number one cause of inflammation no matter what name it carries.
Whether it’s corn syrup, dextrose, maltose, fructose, golden syrup, etc. they all have the same pro-inflammatory properties.
2- Oils
There are many types of oil, the good ones and the bad.
You can differentiate the two simply by looking at the ratio of the omega 3/omega 6.
The oils that are high in omega 3 are good for you overall health, but especially for your cardiovascular system. These oils are found in
Fish (salmon, tuna, herring, and sardines).
Nuts and seeds (such as flaxseed, chia seeds, and walnuts).
Plant oils (such as flaxseed oil, soybean oil, and canola oil)
Fortified foods (such as certain brands of eggs, yogurt, juices, milk, soy beverages, and infant formulas)
The oils to avoid are:
- Grapeseed oil
- Cottonseed oil
- Corn oil
- Safflower oil
- Sunflower oil
These oils are usually found in fast food and processed food.
What about trans-fats?
Trans-fats are modified forms of fat. Industries take the fats that are saturated and biochemically transform them in unsaturated fats (healthy fats). These artificial fats; however, are not stable and can cause oxidative damage to your body which can cause chronic inflammation, participate in the pathological process of many diseases, and even cause cancer.
So no, no trans-fats.
How to identify them?
Well, they usually appear on the food label as trans-fat or partially hydrogenated oil. So, when you read that, stay away.
3- Milk
That’s right, cow’s milk.
60 percent of the world’s population cannot digest milk. In fact, researchers say that being able to digest milk beyond infancy is actually abnormal.
Now you might be thinking that if you’re unable to digest milk, then you should have symptoms, right?
Well, not quite.
If you have symptoms such as bloating and stomach pain after consuming milk, then you probably have lactose intolerance and that’s not what we’re talking about.
Again, we’re talking about that low-grade inflammation that isn’t that easy to identify and usually comes with arthritis, skin rashes, etc.
4- Red meat
Red meat contains a substance called Neu5Gc, which is again considered to be a foreign invader by the body.
Red meat is also linked to:
- Colon cancer
- worse prognosis for ovarian cancer
- heart disease
5-Alcohol
Moderate consumption of alcohol is defined as 1 glass of wine for 3-4 times a week for women and one drink a night for men.
Moderate consumption of alcohol isn’t really associated with inflammation.
However, excessive alcoholism is linked to inflammation of the food pipe, esophageal cancer, laryngeal cancer, hepatitis, and cirrhosis.
6-Artificial food additives
Substances like monosodium glutamate (MSG) and aspartame are notoriously known for being a major player in the induction of inflammation.
So, avoid foods that are packaged and turn to the whole food sections in the supermarket.
For a more comprehensive list, check out this great piece by eatthis.com written by Olivia Tarantino.
How to reduce inflammation in the body fast
Alright, we’ve talked about a lot of bad news; however, it’s not all doom and gloom. There are some foods with anti-inflammatory properties that can reduce the inflammation in the body quickly.
Here’s a list of the foods you should consume to reduce your inflammation:
1- Whole foods
Whole grains, fish high in omega 3, fresh seaweed, etc.
2- Oils that are rich in omega-3
These include:
- Olive oil
- Avocado oil
- Macadamia oil
3-Tea
Tea is the second most consumed beverage in the words, second only to water.
Black tea:
It has been researched that black tea causes the blood vessels to dilate, contrary to red meat which does the exact opposite.
This is very important because pro-inflammatory substances have been connected to constricting blood vessels, which only increases the inflammatory response and deteriorates the health of the vessels. Black tea is like an antidote to all of this.
Green tea:
It has many anti-inflammatory properties that reduce both the risk of cancer and cardiovascular diseases.
Tulsi (aka, holy basil):
Which is an ayurvedic herb that comes from India with pure anti-inflammatory actions.
The good news is that there are some organic teas out there that are composed of both green tea and Tulsi combined.
4-Spices
Turmeric:
Which contains a powerful compound called curcumin.
Studies have shown that turmeric’s anti-inflammatory effects are on the same level as hydrocortisone, which is a powerful corticosteroid and that’s simply staggering.
It also has anti-cancer properties.
Turmeric can be used to prepare many meals such as: egg whites, sandwiches, beans, and lentils.
Ginger:
If you like the taste of ginger, you can put in any food you like.
Like turmeric, it has powerful anti-inflammatory benefits and also has the added benefit of helping with nausea and vomiting which is why we give ginger to pregnant women who suffer with nausea/vomiting as it makes more sense to give a pregnant woman a natural component rather than a pharmaceutical drug.
Note that this does not mean that all natural products are considered safe. For more information, check out my other article on identifying health and nutrition fraud.
Conclusion
The tips given in this article might require lifestyle changes especially dietary changes, which isn’t that easy to accomplish.
However, if you really want to reduce inflammation in your body fast, you have to apply what you’ve learned.
The good news is that these tips won’t just reduce your inflammation but will also improve your overall health and lower the risk of many diseases including cancer.
In the end, I want to ask you about which type foods do you use as an anti-inflammatory? What about the foods that have pro-inflammatory properties and caused you trouble? I urge you to share your stories in the comment section as I’m eager to read them.