One of the pressing questions for the scientific community right now is the cause of the epidemic obesity and chronic lifestyle diseases like adult onset diabetes and high cholesterol.
I've just finished reading an interesting review article in the journal 'Obesity Reviews' about how certain foods could be driving an inflammatory process in your body. The article can be found here
Inflammation is a normal, healthy biological response – its what causes your body to send in the healing mechanisms when you're wounded; to mobilise your immune cells when a viral or bacterial invader is detected. But if your body doesn't switch off the inflammation response when its supposed to, your body can develop some very unhealthy coping responses, and the result is often chronic disease.
The scientists who wrote the article proposed the question: could some of the foods we eat in modern times (which weren't eaten prior to the agricultural/industrial era) be switching on an inappropriate inflammation response in our bodies? Here are some of the foods they examined, and what they deduced:
Thumbs up (found to have an anti-inflammatory effect)- Alcohol in moderation
- Cocoa and dark chocolate
- Dairy (although I find if you're dairy intolerant its going to have an inflammatory effect, regardless of the evidence)
- Monounsaturated fats (e.g olive oil)
- Seafood and oily seafood
- High fibre foods
- Fruits
- Vegetables
- Herbs and spices
- Game meat
- Nuts
- Soy protein (but I'm not a fan of this myself, its too processed and concentrated. Eat the whole food instead, like tofu)
- Tea
Thumbs down to these foods (they have a pro-inflammatory effect:- Too much alcohol
- Too many calories (but fasting is pro-inflammatory too!)
- Fast food
- Saturated fats
- Trans fats
- Too many omega-6 oils
- Fructose
- Sugar
- Industrially raised meat (e.g in feedlots)
- Soft drink
Inconclusive evidence
- Coffee
What do you think? Join the discussion and leave your comment below...
Comments
Post has no comments.