Your Body Is On Fire

You and inflammation have been through a lot together. When you were stricken with illnesses and injuries, inflammation turned up the heat and helped you heal. It recruited immune cells to the scene of the trouble, killed pathogens, sent out calls for needed backup, and cleaned up the debris.

The problem is, once the job is done, inflammation is supposed to get snuffed back to pilot light, and I’m here to tell you something’s gone haywire. Whether you know it or not, the burner has gotten stuck on “high,” and you’re on fire. It’s melting your brain, drying your eyes, congealing your blood, toasting your bones, and searing your heart. The inflammation has set you up for allergies, digestive problems, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, and many other chronic diseases of “aging.” Haven’t you noticed you’re aging too fast? I’m going to show you how you are literally cooking yourself from the inside, and how simple it can be for you to dampen down that internal wildfire, before it burns you up.

Food Is Fuel

Everybody knows they need food, to give them energy, and keep them alive. But did you know food also tosses fuel onto the fire? Every time you put food in your body, even when it’s impeccably good food, your immune system reacts the same way it does when it’s invaded by a pathogen: by ramping up your whole-body inflammation.

The flare up, which is called postprandial inflammation, peaks four to eight hours after you eat, and it’s non-negotiable; every meal provokes that inflammatory immune response. You can’t prevent it, because you have to eat. Among researchers, it’s now widely believed that postprandial inflammation is the major catch-22 in the health of your vital organ systems. They all need food to survive. And food is killing them.

oesn’t it seem like a design flaw, to have evolved in such a way that you have to eat, but eating ruins your health, even if you eat good food? Well, the way your body is designed isn’t the problem. Recent research has shown that consuming food can give you the nutrition you need without accelerating your demise, or it can be the terrible thing that literally consumes you. The choice is largely yours.

The Eternal Flame

Postprandial inflammation is supposed to burn significantly less hot than the fire from an immune reaction to illness or injury. It’s also supposed to burn down to embers well before your next meal. That way, your body gets a chance to cool off and avoid the damage that occurs from relentless inflammation. The problem is that several factors interfere with that all-important cool-down. They can raise your inflammatory baseline, intensify the heat of every flare up, and cause one meal’s fire to run into the next one’s, so your tissues never get the chance to cool off.

Furthermore, to your immune system, a persistent postprandial blaze is no different from chronic inflammatory diseases like arthritis, acid reflux, or asthma. Inflammation bubbles up and stays up, and your overall health goes down the drain. That’s because postprandial inflammation, and the inflammation you need to resist disease, both dip from the same pot. If postprandial inflammation is flaming out of control, your immune system won’t have the resources to respond appropriately when challenged by pathogens and cancer cells. So, you’re increasingly vulnerable to threats from every direction.

You have substantial control over many of the pro-inflammatory factors that are turning normal short-term bursts of inflammation into an inferno.

Once you understand what those factors are and how they damage you, you’ll understand how simple it can be to re-establish balance between controlled inflammation and cool relief. Don’t get overwhelmed by how many factors there are here. Instead, address them one at a time, knowing that every step you take is helping to dampen the fire.

Food Quantity: If you’re like most Canadians, you eat often, and you eat until you’re uncomfortably full. As a result, your postprandial inflammation burns often, and it burns so long after each meal that it forfeits your between-meals cool down. The overlap creates an additive effect, just as two medium-size campfires pushed together create one big bonfire.

The Fix: Reduce your food portions, and stop eating well before you feel full. Schedule your meals so they’re separated by at least four hours, so your body can get a good cool down during the intermission. And have your last meal at least three hours before you go to bed. That way, your body will enjoy a long, cool night of uninterrupted repair and rejuvenation.

Food Quality: The kind of food you eat determines how hot your postprandial fire burns. Hotter, longer-lasting, and more destructive postprandial inflammation results from eating meals with a higher overall calorie count, a higher glycemic index, and a higher content of saturated, trans-, and omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs). The most profound food quality effect on inflammation comes from the PUFAs, and particularly your ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids. Both are important for health, but your body was designed to consume them in a ratio of about four omega-6s to one omega-3. Compare that to the typical Canadian diet’s 30 to one! The consequences are profoundly inflammatory. That’s because omega-3s promote the production of anti-inflammatory compounds and block the development of pro-inflammatory insulin resistance. Omega-6s are all about promoting inflammation.

Fix #1: Forget corn oil, soybean oil, and safflower oil, which dominate in omega-6s. Replace them with the delicious and diverse oils whose omega-3 content overshadows their omega-6s, such as hemp seed oil, flaxseed oil, and berry seed oils, plus the monounsaturated oils that contain predominantly omega-9 fatty acids and have a more neutral 6-to-3 profile, such as olive, argan, and green tea seed oils.  Replace conventional fatty red meat with fatty cold water, wild-caught fish such as sardines and mackerel. And eat a half dozen or so pecans, almonds, or walnuts every day.

Fix #2: Again, reduce meal and portion size. This will automatically reduce the overall calorie count of your meals and, as you’ll see in a moment, douse your inflammatory baseline in more ways than one.

Fix #3: Choose foods that have a low glycemic index and are minimally processed, emphasizing dark-green leafy vegetables such as collards, kale, and seaweed; brilliantly coloured whole fruits and vegetables; and a modest amount of whole grains. Cut sugar, soda, refined flour, and fruit juice. In addition to significantly lowering your inflammatory baseline, you’ll shrink your waistline and boost insulin sensitivity.

Body Fat: Being even just a little overweight increases your background inflammation, and intensifies your postprandial inflammatory response. That’s because fat cells (adipocytes) are close relatives of immune cells called macrophages, and both have the ability to secrete pro-inflammatory chemicals called cytokines that trigger and intensify all types of inflammation. There’s a built-in biochemical pathway that can stamp out those pro-inflammatory chemicals coming from fat cells, but it malfunctions whenever high-fat or high-calorie meals are eaten. As a result, being overweight causes a higher level of background inflammation, which increases both your postprandial inflammatory response and your 24/7 inflammatory burden. The resultant inflammation can directly damage your arteries, promote atherosclerosis, and sabotage your metabolism by increasing your insulin resistance, making it next to impossible to lose weight. Welcome to a vicious cycle: Fat begets inflammation, inflammation begets fat, and around we go.

The Fix: Start changing your metabolism by exercising every day in a way that’s strenuous enough to get you sweating. This will boost your mitochondrial activity and help break that vicious metabolic cycle. At the same time, cut your calorie and dietary fat intake so your adipose cells won’t automatically react to each meal with a cytokine surge, causing a fat-promoting inflammatory flare up.

The Fix: Request the CRP test no later than at your next annual exam, and every year thereafter.

Normal levels will vary somewhat with the laboratory, but, in general, you’ll want your CRP to be below 1 mg/L. A CRP higher than that is like a smoke alarm, warning you that you’re smouldering.

Teeth and Gums: A healthy mouth is critical to controlling inflammation. Studies show that the chronic inflammation of periodontal disease is a common culprit in significantly increasing a person’s overall inflammatory burden and, as a result, the destructive potential of other sources of inflammation.

The Fix: Take charge of your oral health. Here are some quick tips;

Brush consistently after meals, of course, with the softest toothbrush you can find.

After you eat, even a snack, swish a capful of 3 percent hydrogen peroxide around in your mouth for about a minute then spit it out. (Avoid any mouthwash that burns or feels “tingly.” The sensation is a sure sign that the stuff is inflaming your gum tissue, exactly the situation you’re trying to get rid of.)

For the truly devoted, brush before meals, too, and scrape your tongue twice a day.

Special Foods and Supplements: If you’ve already been diagnosed with a chronic inflammatory disease such as atherosclerosis, diabetes, allergies, arthritis, and any other condition whose name ends in –itis, you’re faced with the sobering fact that by raising your background inflammatory burden, these conditions automatically escalate your postprandial inflammation, even if your meals are carefully crafted to not be excessively inflammatory. By adding the best natural anti-inflammatory and antioxidant supplements to your daily regimen, you can help counteract that pro-inflammatory effect.

The more you can do to keep the fire burning low, the better your health will be.