Inflammation is the root cause of almost every disease we face today.

Inflammation & Disease

The following conditions and diseases are most likely to have their origins directly from inflammation: cancer, cardio-vascular disease, diabetes, high blood-pressure, high cholesterol, arthritis, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, hepatitis, colitis, dermatitis, asthma and obesity, along with many others.

“Inflammation,” it's serious effects in precipitating many diseases has very strong scientific support.

Inflammation has gained the attention of the scientific community not only because of its presence as an underlying process in disease, but because research shows that it plays a part in causing genes — which predispose us to certain diseases — to turn on.

Researchers now know that just because you have the gene for heart disease, for instance, does not mean that the gene will be active, or expressed. That’s controlled by an internal switch, which responds to diet and lifestyle.

In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in May 2008, the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in California presented a study that found that changing lifestyle changes genes. After only three months, more than 500 genes were beneficially affected —upregulating (“turning on”) disease-preventing genes, and downregulating (“turning off”) genes that promote cancer, heart disease, inflammation and other illnesses.

This is the first time that comprehensive lifestyle changes have been shown to beneficially affect gene expression — even in men with prostate cancer.

Dr. Tanya Edwards is medical director of the Center for Integrated Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic and has been focused on the effects of lifestyle on disease throughout her career.

Q: What is inflammation?
Inflammation is the natural response that the body makes to a stimulus that requires the body to bring in the troops. When you cut yourself, the inflammatory reaction immediately takes place. It brings in the white blood cells to make sure bacteria are fought off and platelets to control bleeding. So all the things you find when you cut yourself, including redness and pain, are all the hallmarks of inflammation.

Q: What has that got to do with diet?
That same response is constantly going on in our bodies due to a great variety of things. Maybe a virus enters our gastrointestinal tract and so an inflammatory process begins. But what we also know is that many foods produce pro-inflammatory molecules when they are metabolized, while others produce anti-inflammatory molecules.

The subtle inflammation that goes on in our bodies all the time is the underlying cause of just about all disease. It is the common denominator.

Q: Does that include things like heart attack and stroke?
Yes, even Parkinson’s disease, stroke, arthritis and cancer. They all have their origins in the inflammatory process. So where diet becomes important is that if everything you’re eating is broken down into inflammatory molecules, you are going to tip the balance in your system to an inflammatory state. If you are eating only anti-inflammatory foods, the opposite occurs. We should note that while most cancer is environmentally induced, your genetics are also an important risk factor.

Q: Is that inflammatory nature of certain foods the result of modern processing?
Absolutely. Primitive people ate only free-range meat. It was much lower in fat and, since those animals were grazing, they had a higher proportion of omega 3 fats as opposed to saturated fats. So when we make animals stand in one place and not get exercise, when we feed them grains and corn instead of grass, they make more fat and much more of it is saturated fats.

Although fertilizers and pesticides compromise these foods as well, they do not impact the inflammation response. They impact the detoxification systems, and because they can mimic hormones, they can impact the body in that way.

Q: Is this all based on good science?
Yes it is.

Q: How long have researchers been studying inflammation?
Oh, about 30 years.

Q: Does anything besides food and trauma produce inflammation?
Stress does. It’s not just food. A lot of stressors will produce inflammation. And your own body fat also produces inflammatory molecules.

Q: If you ingested no inflammatory food and were in a state of good health, what would be the result?
You would feel really good, your emotional state would be the very best, and your joints would feel nice and easy. Things would just work the way they are supposed to work.

Dr. Andrew Weil is founder and director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine, University of Arizona Health Sciences Center. He’s also well-known as a writer and lecturer and has made many TV appearances discussing matters of health. He responded to our questions by e-mail.

Q: What are the problems chronic inflammation causes?
Chronic low-grade inflammation is the root cause of many serious illnesses, especially those related to aging. The good news is that lifestyle choices, including regular physical activity, a consistent program of healthy stress management, and working to avoid exposure to environmental toxins, such as tobacco smoke and certain agricultural chemicals, can all help reduce unhealthy inflammation in the body. A healthy diet, however, is the single best way to influence the inflammatory response and optimize health.

Q: Is it principally meat in the diet that causes inflammation?
You don’t have to be a vegetarian to be healthy, but minimizing the intake of animal protein, especially red meat and full-fat dairy products, is certainly good for you. Red meat and full-fat dairy, besides being significant sources of saturated fat, are typically high in arachidonic acid, a compound that increases inflammation in the body. Foods high in saturated fat can be enjoyed on occasion if eaten in the context of an overall anti-inflammatory diet, but I recommend exploring non-animal sources of protein such as fermented whole soy products, beans and nuts.

Q: Are all fats inflammatory?
No. Monounsaturated fat, as found in extra virgin olive and canola oil, is anti-inflammatory in nature. Regarding canola oil, I recommend using only organic, cold-expeller pressed varieties to limit possible exposure to contaminants.

Most people have by now heard about omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids, but they may not know that the compounds produced from them generally have opposite effects — those derived from omega-6 fatty acids tend to increase inflammation, while the substances our bodies produce from omega-3 fatty acids counteract inflammation. Our bodies need both omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids to function properly, but eating the typical American diet, extremely high in omega-6 fatty acids and low in omega-3s, adds fuel to the fires of inflammation. Adding more high omega-3 foods to the diet helps cool those fires.

Omega-3 fatty acids are found most abundantly in cold-water fish, such as wild Alaskan salmon, herring, sardines and black cod. Eating a handful of walnuts every other day and sprinkling a tablespoon of ground flax seed on your cereal also contributes omega-3s, but not as efficiently as eating fish.

Q: What about the carbs we all love?
Carbohydrates are not inherently “bad,” as many generally portray them to be, but all carbohydrates are not the same, people don’t all respond to them in the same way, and some can contribute to inflammatory changes within the body.

A helpful concept in this regard is the glycemic index, which ranks carbohydrate foods on the basis of how rapidly they affect blood sugar (glucose). A related tool, glycemic load, puts the glycemic index in context based on how many grams of carbohydrate a particular food contains.

Most of the highly processed food products people crave are high in both glycemic index and glycemic load — high-calorie foods that are digested quickly, resulting in a rapid rise in blood sugar and an attendant surge in insulin. This is followed by a drop in blood sugar, with resultant fatigue and hunger, often for more of the same highly refined foods.

Repetition of this vicious cycle over time can lead to decreased insulin sensitivity, inflammatory changes and weight gain. The focus should instead be on non-processed, high quality carbohydrates, especially vegetables and fruits, which provide a wealth of healthy nutrients and antioxidant activity.

Q: What do antioxidants really do?
Antioxidants protect your body from the harmful effects of certain chemical reactions. The vivid colors of different fruits and vegetables act as a marker for the unique antioxidants and other phytonutrients found within them, each of which may act to modulate inflammation in the body. It is important to eat an ample amount and variety of brightly colored produce each day, and to select those fruits and vegetables least likely to be contaminated with pesticides, to obtain the full range of protective phytonutrients.

Q: What vegetables are most anti-inflammatory?
Regular eating of cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, turnips, kale, cauliflower and watercress, appears to confer protection against a wide variety of illnesses, including some forms of cancer. Research shows that the isothiocyanates and indoles found within cruciferous vegetables decrease the production of inflammatory cytokines, which likely contributes to their preventive health benefits.

Flavonoids are naturally occurring compounds present in fruits and vegetables, and it has been shown that flavonoids can help inhibit the activity of substances that promote inflammation. Happily for me, the flavonoids in dark chocolate have also been shown to help decrease specific factors that drive the inflammatory process.

The take-away message from talking with our experts: Inflammation is clearly not a good thing and is worth our efforts to control. And the best place to start is with diet and exercise ... but you knew that, didn’t you?

Inflammation is the root cause of almost every disease we face today.

Inflammation & Disease

Further reading from the US National Library of Medicine.