Dear Dad,
Injuries are the worst. After surviving a college football career fairly unscathed the thought of rolling an ankle, twisting a knee, or breaking a bone while reminiscing of the glory days is a fear that I will go to great lengths to avoid. However, with contact sports in my rearview mirror there are other, more common, injury risks that capture my attention. Like the physical damage done by a poor diet.
Inflammation is the body’s immune response to harm and while painful it is a symptom of the body attempting to heal itself. Inflammation is triggered by various unwanted stimuli such physical injuries, bacteria, viruses, or other toxic chemicals entering the body. Similar to EMS services, after your body detects an unwanted stimuli it sends first responder cells called “cytokines” to initiate the inflammatory response and begin the healing process. Inflammation can be marked by pain, swelling, bruising, stiffness, or redness, as well as effects that cannot be seen or felt.
There are two types of inflammation in your body; acute and chronic. Acute inflammation is a sudden and short term immune response to an identifiable cause such as contracting a virus, cutting your finger, or spraining your ankle. Acute inflammation is necessary to heal the body from wounds and unwanted invaders. Chronic inflammation is a sustained immune response even when there is no damage to repair. Chronic inflammation leads to cellular breakdown and damage. In keeping with the EMS analogy, acute inflammation is like sending an ambulance to the scene of an accident, while chronic inflammation is like the ambulance arriving only to realize it was a prank.
Substantial research shows that sustained low-grade chronic inflammation is an underlying factor in several high-mortality chronic diseases as well as joint pain; and that diet can contribute to, or attenuate, that inflammation. That’s right, the food that you eat can induce an inflammatory response.
How diet affects inflammation is quite scientific but it’s helpful to know at a basic level. Billions of chemical reactions are happening in our bodies, simultaneously, and constantly. A prominent input to these chemical reactions is the food that we eat and the nutrients contained therein. The nutrients absorbed and pumped through your blood have dramatic positive or negative effects on our bodies’ chemistry.
When we eat junk our body chemistry is derailed by unstable molecules entering the equation. These unstable molecules are known as “free radicals.” A free radical is a molecule introduced to our body that contains an unpaired electron. Free radicals are extremely reactive because in chemistry atoms desire paired electrons, so molecules with an unpaired electron ravage through your body and seek to bind with any cell that has an electron to be stolen. Most of the time these free radicals bind where they shouldn’t, and once detected, your body reacts by initiating an inflammatory response. When this happens over and over and over and over by a eating a poor diet, you put yourself in a chronic state of inflammation.
The good news is that food that you eat can also aid in the healing effort and protect you.
One way to balance the equation and limit the damage is to eat foods high in antioxidants. Antioxidants are molecules with extra electrons to give away and sweep through your body handing them out generously to free radicals. A free radical that receives an electron from an antioxidant is stabilized and ceases its ravenous escapade for a binding companion. Another way to balance the equation is to stop eating chemically laden junk foods that introduce free radicals into the body.
The sad reality is that many proclaimed “health foods” are highly processed and therefore stuffed with various ingredients to imitate taste, mouth feel, and maximize shelf life. Ultra-processed foods are nearly unrecognizable from their original food sources and can be identified by reading the ingredient labels and looking for industrial food substances and cosmetic additives. Analyze any packaged food suspiciously.
So what should you eat to limit chronic inflammation? A diet of unpackaged, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and legumes in their natural forms. Do your best to buy foods as close to their natural state and eat them with any processing done by you in the kitchen.
Foods High in Antioxidants:
o Berries: Blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries
o Dark Leafy Greens: Spinach & Kale
o Beans: Garbanzo, Kidney, Black & Pinto
o Herbal teas
Anti-Inflammatory Spices:
o Turmeric
o Ginger
Inflammatory foods To Stay Away From:
o Artificial sweeteners and/or added sugar
o Fried foods
o Processed meat (lunch meats)
o Refined carbohydrates (white/ultra-processed)
A diet full of inflammatory foods and low in antioxidants is self-injurious—Your better off joining the pick-up basketball game and risking a broken ankle.
With Love,
JSR
