The Anti-Inflammation Diet

Transcription

1 The Anti-Inflammation Diet Overweight, Inflammation, and Leptin Inflammation causes our master weight control hormone, leptin, to be less effective. Leptin regulates your body s level of fat by controlling your appetite and metabolism. As you add more fat tissue, your body produces more leptin. In healthy people, the production of additional leptin signals the brain to suppress appetite and speed up metabolism you feel less hunger, burn more calories, and lose the excess fat. The problem is that chronic inflammation impairs the brain s ability to receive leptin s appetite suppressing signals. The good news is that by eating foods to reduce inflammation and avoiding foods that cause it, you will improve your body s responsiveness to leptin. When that happens, you reduce inflammation, which makes it far easier to take off unwanted pounds. Food Sensitivities, Allergies, and Inflammatory Foods Food allergies and sensitivities cause inflammation. Consuming a low-inflammatory diet will help you eliminate the excess swelling and fluid retention that accumulates in your tissues from food-

2 induced chronic inflammation. When your body senses foreign invaders, a specific cascade of events is set off in which your white blood cells and some special chemicals called cytokines mobilize to protect you. That s a good thing. However, when your immune system gets out of balance, inflammation can become long-term causing a chronic, smoldering fire inside your body that contributes to weight gain. Your body counteracts this silent inflammation by producing anti-inflammatory chemicals. Some of these interfere with the function of the hormone leptin. Excess fat leads to inflammation and the chemicals that counteract inflammation (which are necessary to keep silent inflammation from causing symptoms) make it impossible for the body s weight-control hormone, leptin, to function properly. Don t despair though there is a way to break this cycle. There is also good news: As you slim down, leptin resistance abates. When you reach a healthy weight on the correct eating plan for you, you won t have to struggle to maintain a healthy weight. Your newly-functional leptin system will control your appetite and weight. What Causes Chronic Inflammation Sugar, the wrong oils and fats in your diet, gluten and dairy for many people, yeast, alcohol, other hidden food allergens, lack of exercise, chronic stress, and hidden infections all trigger a raging, unseen inflammation deep in your cells and tissues. If you don t address inflammation by eliminating hidden food allergens or sensitivities and by eating an anti-inflammatory diet, you will never succeed at effective and permanent weight loss.

3 Allergens, Food Sensitivities, and Weight Dr. Mark Hyman, M.D. says that there s a reaction to foods that is called a delayed allergy (or IgG delayed hypersensitivity reaction). This reaction is quite common and creates a lot of suffering for millions of people. It s mostly ignored by conventional medicine, yet it plays a HUGE role in many chronic illnesses and weight problems. Have you tried and tried to lose weight but just can t get those pounds off? LISTEN UP! Inflammation caused by hypersensitivity reaction is a key for many people. This type of delayed allergic reaction can cause symptoms anywhere from a few hours to a few days after ingestion. It also causes a wide range of problems like weight gain, fluid retention, fatigue, brain fog, irritable bowel syndrome, mood problems, headaches, sinus and nasal congestion, joint pains, acne, and eczema. How many times have you heard someone say, Oh, you just lost water weight. They re right!. By removing inflammatory foods you are allergic to, you reduce inflammation that leads to swelling and fluid retention. Getting rid of this fluid by reducing inflammation is a very GOOD thing, not a bad thing. It is what will allow your body to start the healing process so you can achieve permanent weight loss and optimal health. Consuming a low-allergy diet will help you eliminate the excess swelling and fluid that accumulates in your tissues from food-induced chronic inflammation. Despite criticisms you may have heard about losing ONLY water weight, this is essential for your body to begin to heal and detoxify. And the

4 side effect is that you lose weight quickly and safely. Troublesome Insulin Levels Probably the most essential way to reduce inflammation is to reduce insulin levels. Barry Sears, PhD describes his work with members of the Stanford University swim team during one summer and how he improved their stamina and performance by giving them EPA and another fatty acid, gamma-linolenic acid (GLA) in individualized regimens. However, when the school year started, their performance deteriorated and they became easily fatigued. Dr. Sears began to suspect that the cause was their diets and that high-carbohydrate dormitory food was raising their insulin levels. He found a study which demonstrated that high insulin activates an enzyme that increaseshe production of pro-inflammatory prostaglandins. He had the swimmers change their diets and their performance improved. His conclusion was that following an eating plan which controls blood sugar and insulin levels results in the balance of prostaglandins being more anti-inflammatory, resulting in less silent inflammation. Although the goal of the swimmers was not weight loss, his findings apply to those who wish to lose weight because when silent inflammation decreases, leptin becomes more active, and we lose weight more easily.

5 Foods that can boost insulin levels: Milk and milk products like cheese and yogurt Sweeteners; beware of so called healthy sweeteners such as agave and honey (best choice is stevia) Flour products of all types; grains High sugar fruit such as bananas, pineapple, watermelon, oranges, and dried fruits How to Reduce Inflammation 1. Choose the right fats. One very important way is to control the type of fat we consume. Prostaglandins are made from fats. Some prostaglandins promote inflammation and some reduce it. The essential omega-3 fatty acids eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) tip the balance toward the production of anti-inflammatory prostaglandins. Although optimally healthy people can make EPA and DHA from other omega-3 fatty acids, those with allergies and gluten intolerance often lack this ability so they must get the EPA and DHA they need pre-formed. The best dietary source of these fatty acids is fatty fish. Most people need more omega-3 fatty acids than they can consume easily by eating fish so they benefit from fish oil or krill oil supplementation. How much fish oil you need is an individual matter. 2. Avoid inflammatory foods. While everyone is different, there are some foods that irritate the immune system more than others. The list includes sugar, glu

6 ten (wheat, barley, rye, oats, spelt, kamut), dairy (milk, cheese, butter, yogurt, ice cream), corn, eggs, soy, nuts, nightshades affect about one-third of our population (tomatoes, bell peppers, potatoes, eggplant), citrus, yeast (baker s yeast, brewer s yeast), sodas, and junk food. 3. Avoid eating too much meat and other animal products. Foods containing arachidonic acid, such as eggs, organ meats (including liver, heart and giblets), beef, and dairy products promote inflammation. Avoid eating too much meat and eggs. Through a complicated process the body breaks down arachidonic acid into inflammatory compounds, including the hormones, prostaglandins and leukotrienes that control the mechanisms of inflammation, constrict blood vessels and promote blood clotting. Eat moderate amounts of freerange, organic chicken and plenty of wild caught fatty fish like salmon. Limit red meat to about twice a week. You can have an egg a day. A 2008 report from the ongoing Physicians Health Study supports the idea that eating an egg a day is generally safe for the heart. Only choose eggs from cage free or patured, organic fed chickens. 4. Avoid fried foods and high heat cooking. Overcooked food or foods cooked at high temperatures including French fries, blackened and/or barbecued foods, fried chicken, high-heat frying, and deep-fried foods incite the inflammatory response because they create advanced glycation end products (AGES), something the body treats as an invader. AGES are produced when a protein is bound to a glucose molecule, resulting in damaged, cross-linked

7 proteins. As the body tries to break these AGES apart, immune cells secrete large amounts of inflammatory cytokines. Many of the diseases that are considered a part of aging are actually caused by this process. 5. Deal with Stress in a Healthy Way. It is important to reduce stress. Stress causes cortisol to rise, which deposits fat on the belly. Your responses to stressful situations is the key. You will always have stress in your life so your response is your first line of defense. Living with gratitude and a thankful heart is an excellent step toward stress reduction. Also, planning ahead is extremely helpful. When you are organized, you reduce a lot of daily stress. Your Elimination Diet For the next four weeks, you should omit the top 5 foods that contribute to inflammation and weight gain. This program is based on a simple elimination diet. Ditch the following: sugar gluten dairy soy yeast products

8 For 4 weeks you will not eat any of these foods plus no sodas, snack food like chips, fast food, fried food, or junk food. Follow the other guidelines for an anti-inflammatory diet. Remember you eat something from this group, you could have a delayed reaction that takes several days to show up. You may also need to eliminate some of the other foods that trouble many people such as the nightshade family (potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers) and citrus to get to the source of everything that causes inflammation in your body. If you do omit these groups, at the end of four weeks, you could introduce one food a week to see what happens. If you notice any symptoms anything at all you can t eat that food. Your 4-Week Menu Plan You can follow the 4-week menu plan in The Anti-Inflammation Diet. It is a diet plant that omits the inflammatory foods and offers you four weeks of delicious recipes. References