The standard American diet (SAD) has contributed to millions of deaths and disease processes and is getting worse. Cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer cause about 70% of all deaths in the United States and are all thought to be related to chronic inflammation. As most of you know, the SAD is largely filled with highly processed foods, red meats, animal proteins, fats, and sugar, and is exceedingly low on fruits and vegetables and anti-inflammation foods.

What is Inflammation? Is it Bad?

It’s not bad…unless it persists. Inflammation is an essential response of our immune system helping us fight infection and to heal an injury. The redness you get from a burn or an infected cut is all due to inflammation, however, it’s typically limited and goes away shortly. Inflammation is bad for you when it goes into overdrive such as in a cytokine storm due to COVID-19 or influenza, or when it becomes low-grade and chronic.

In this low-grade and chronic state of inflammation, we oftentimes don’t notice it. Sometimes we may have vague symptoms such as fatigue, brain fog, body aches, poor sleep, etc. We only see the results of it years to decades later when we have a or stroke, develop blindness due to uncontrolled diabetes, develop cancer or go into kidney failure or lose a leg because of peripheral arterial disease, or even develop degenerative neurologic diseases like Alzheimer’s, MS or Parkinson’s. Many auto-immune diseases are impacted as well. These include Lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, celiac disease, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, psoriasis, autoimmune hepatitis, and others.

Inflammation is your friend and if you didn’t have it we wouldn’t last very long. It’s a sign that your immune system is working at peak efficiency protecting us from injury and infections and toxins.

What Causes Inflammation?

Food Causes Inflammation

The cells in your body do best with natural whole foods. But it doesn’t always know what to do with highly processed foods like sugars, snacks, fried foods, cured meats, and even red meat which is not highly processed. Your body may see these as foreign agents and then begin mounting an immune response. The sugar or fat high from a single snack is not going to kill you, but repeated onslaughts contribute to major activation of the immune system which leads to chronic inflammation.

Every body responds differently to triggers. That’s why some people can live unhealthy lifestyles yet seemingly have no medical problems. Whereas others may seem to live a healthy lifestyle but have chronic diseases. The more fat you carry and the higher your BMI the more likely you are to have an exaggerated response to dietary inflammation. This attack from your diet causes chronic inflammation. You may have heard of oxidative stress…

Oxidative Stress Causes Inflammation

Oxidative stress is an imbalance between free radicals and antioxidants in the body. Free radicals are oxygen-containing agents that are short one electron which makes them easily reactive to other chemicals in the body. Those reactions are called oxidation and they can hurt you or help you. When oxidation becomes excessive it becomes harmful. Antioxidants are agents that have an extra electron to donate to those free radicals and stabilize them. At the same time, the antioxidants do not become unstable themselves. It’s a win-win situation for your body.

Excessive weight leads to oxidative stress. Exercise can help maintain antioxidant levels which then reduces oxidative stress damage from free radical excess

Excessive Free Radicals

Free radicals are not evil, they help you fight infection. When they are out of balance they can damage your tissues, including fatty tissue, proteins, and DNA. This is what leads to aging, and all sorts of chronic inflammatory diseases, including neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

Risk factors for high levels of free radicals:

• Pesticides
• Cleaners
• Cigarette smoke
• Radiation (including excessive sun exposure)
• Pollution
• Stress & depression
• High sugar, high fat, high alcohol intake

Stress Causes Inflammation

Emotional stress and depression contribute to inflammation using the same chemical pathways as high sugar, high-fat, high alcohol, and processed foods cause stress. There is increasing evidence of the neuro-immunological connection. The autonomic nervous system plays a big role in all this. Autonomic refers to the so-called automatic functions like swallowing breathing etc. It also has to do with the flight or fright phenomenon. It may seem odd that the nervous system plays a role in your immune system but think of it as the command and control center for your body’s defenses.

Animal Proteins Cause Inflammation

Animal proteins promote the bacterial product TMAO, trimethylamine N-oxide. TMAO is associated with an increased risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, chronic kidney disease, heart failure, atrial fibrillation, and peripheral artery disease. Unhealthy food feeds unhealthy bacteria that produce unhealthy toxins. It’s a vicious cycle. Paleo diets were strongly associated with toxin-producing bacteria. The one factor most strongly associated was the elimination of whole grains or fiber. Even worse was the so-called Carnivore Diet. The shift of bacteria in the gut to the toxin-producing kind occurred as soon as 24 hours

Effects of Diet on Inflammation

Chronic inflammation can result in reduced NAD+

Dying cells stop reproducing themselves during senescence, or the deterioration phase of their life. When that happens cells release all kinds of pro-inflammatory proteins which increases inflammation as well as decreases NAD +, which is short for “Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide“. NAD+ has anti-oxidant actions in cells. The proteins that dying cells release drive low-grade chronic inflammation. That is why as you get older you get more diseases including cancer. Chronic inflammation reduces NAD +, as does natural aging, obesity, and a diet provoking oxidative stress. NAD+/NADH, the oxidized and reduced forms, occurs in every cell and is a key way cells donate and accept electrons. Without this, many important cellular reactions essential for life couldn’t take place.

What About Your Intestinal Microbiome?

By that, I mean the bacteria that inhabit your GI tract. Let’s see what gastroenterologist Will Bulsiewicz, MD has to say. In his book, Fiber Fueled he noted the following thoughts from pg. 44-46… Proteins are very important to our diet, but the kind of protein makes all the difference in the world. Animal proteins are associated with toxin-producing bacteria like Bilophila, Alistipes, and Bacteroides. They produce toxins like amines, sulfides, and secondary bile salts. Amines cause food sensitivities, and when you char meat it turns them into carcinogens. Hydrogen sulfide is associated with ulcerative colitis, and secondary bile acid salts are associated with cancer of the colon, stomach, small intestine, pancreas, liver, esophagus, and biliary tract. All this is from animal proteins.

Treatment for Inflammation

Plant Proteins and Inflammation

Plant proteins, increase anti-inflammatory bacteria like Bifidobacterium and lactobacillus. You might notice those are two main ingredients of many OTC probiotics. Many diets can help you lose weight, but some do so while sabotaging you from the inside out. If you find Dr. Bulsiewicz’s thoughts interesting, I strongly suggest you buy his book, Fiber Fueled.

Many new medications target inflammatory cytokines to help these chronic inflammatory diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, psoriasis, etc. They work well, but often have significant and potentially severe side effects, and are often very expensive. 

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Borrowed from Kevin McCurry, MD