☀️Increasing research links inflammation with many health issues, including heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, mental health, dementia, autoimmune disease and more ☀️But how do we know whether foods actually cause inflammation, and if so which ones? ☀️Some interesting studies have used blood markers of inflammation (CRP, IL-4,IL-6,IL-8, IL-10,TNF-alpha) to measure inflammation in relation to food consumption, ☀️The empirical diet inflammatory index (DII) looked mostly at micro and macronutrients in foods, and used data from almost 2000 studies to rank 45 different food parameters ☀️Saturated fat, trans fat, protein, iron, cholesterol and b12 were all rated as pro-inflammatory, these are all high in animal based foods ☀️ Nutrients mostly found in whole plant foods (isoflavones, other b vitamins, magnesium, vitamins a/d/c/e, zinc, and selenium) were all anti-inflammatory ☀️Green tea, and spices such as tumeric, saffron, ginger, onion, garlic, pepper, thyme, rosemary and omega 3 werealso anti-inflammatory ☀️People who ate the most inflammatory foods had 23% higher mortality than those who ate the least ☀️Another study of over 30,000 people, looked at inflammatory markers in relation to 19 different whole foods, as well as 4 lifestyle factors (smoking, exercise, body mass, alcohol intake) ☀️The foods scoring highest on the anti-inflammatory scale were tomatoes (-0.78), apples and berries(-0.65), deep yellow or orange vegetables( -0.57), and surprisingly, poultry (-0.45). (foods below 0 were anti-inflammatory, with the lower number the better, while foods above 0 were inflammatory, with a higher number being worse ) ☀️Leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables: and high-fat dairy had the same score at -0.14, fish: -0.08, red and organ meat: 0.02 ☀️The most inflammatory foods were added sugars: 0.56, processed meats: 0.68, and refined grains and starchy vegetables: 0.72 ☀️People who ate the most inflammatory food and had other risk factors (little exercise, heavy alcohol intake, smoking, and obesity) had up to 7x higher inflammation ☀️The message - eat whole food, mostly plants!! And live a healthy lifestyle 😉
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31373368/ https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/11/8/1873/htm