Food DOES make a huge difference when it comes to healing inflammation. What you eat can be a game changer for your autoimmune disease. Put it this way, I wouldn’t bank my entire career on anti-inflammatory eating for autoimmune diseases if it didn’t work. It seems crazy that food can cause inflammation, but it does. Here is how food affects your body and what you can start doing to help lower your inflammation.
Food Can Be Inflammatory
Yes, food can actually trigger inflammation. The standard American diet is filled to the brim with inflammatory foods. It’s no wonder the health of Americans is trending in a downward spiral. And what you eat can really impact your health. There are many common foods or ingredients we eat on a daily basis that may be triggering inflammation in our bodies, so it’s important to know what those are and how to start limiting them.
Many people ask me what the top inflammatory foods are. Here’s my short list:
- Processed and refined sugar
- Gluten
- Corn
- Soy
- Artificial colors, flavors, additives, chemicals, stabilizers
- High salt
- Dairy, for some
And then there are more individual nuances like nightshades, nuts, spices, refined oils, beans and gluten free grains. I separate these from the main ones because some people are sensitive to these but only certain types, like tomatoes but not potatoes.
What do these inflammatory foods do to our bodies?
There are a few ways that inflammatory foods affect our bodies. For one, many foods can trigger leaky gut. This means that your intestinal lining is not as strong as it should be. Foreign objects like undigested food particles, bacteria, and other harmful things can sneak through the gut lining and get into our circulatory system. When this happens, our bodies launch an attack on them, and this can trigger inflammation. Foods that do this include gluten, food additives and sugar.
Another way these foods harm us is by disrupting our gut microbiome balance. Our gut microbiome balance is incredibly important to our entire body ecosystem. It helps keep us in balance, helps our immune system function properly, and also balances out our mood and emotions. Sugar and food additives can disrupt this balance by suppressing the good bacteria and helping the bad bacteria grow. The shift in the microbiome encourages the production of lipopolysaccharides, or LPS. These are endotoxins that can also trigger an inflammatory response.
Lastly, food can be inflammatory if we are sensitive to them. Food sensitivities are not permanent, but they can trigger inflammation if we are not aware of them.
The SAD Example
Let’s take a closer look at the standard American diet. This diet is high in sugar, low in nutrients and low in fiber. Eating foods like this does a few things to your body:
First, it causes blood sugar to constantly fluctuate. This can trigger an overproduction of insulin to manage the erratic blood sugar. Over time this does 2 things. One, it causes cells to become insulin resistant, so blood sugar remains high and two, it forces your body to store unused calories and fatty acids as fat in adipose tissue. High blood sugar in and of itself is inflammatory. And an increase in fat acids in cells triggers your immune cells to produce inflammation all over your body.
Second, low fiber diets change the balance of the gut microbiome. Considering that 70% of your immune cells live in your gut, any dysbiosis or imbalance in your gut bacteria can cause a whole host of issues throughout your entire body, including more inflammation.
Lastly, diets high in processed foods increases oxidative stress in the body. Oxidative stress damages your cells and is also linked to the development of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease. Now, it wouldn’t be the end of the world if your diet was rich in antioxidants to sequester the free radicals caused by oxidative stress. But because the SAD is so devoid of any plants, your body has no defense mechanism to protect itself.
What should you eat?
If you are just starting out on a healing journey for your autoimmune disease, it’s best to start the low hanging fruit. That starts with processed foods. By simply shifting away from processed foods ( and by processed I mean most packaged foods with lots of ingredients you can’t pronounce) and incorporating more fruits and vegetables, it’s going to automatically increase nutrients and phytochemicals going into your body which can start the fight against inflammation.
If that doesn’t help as much as you would like, consider doing an elimination diet. Gluten tends to be a big culprit for people, so removing all gluten can make a huge difference. Dairy, corn and soy also tend to be common triggers. If you aren’t comfortable eliminating a lot of foods, start with one and see how it goes.
Adding healing foods is just as important as removing inflammatory ones. Make sure your diet has a lot of color from different fruits and vegetables. Choose lean proteins like chicken, turkey, organ meats and grass fed beef. Fatty fish like salmon and mackerel have lots of anti-inflammatory compounds. Bone broth really helps if your digestion is off, as do fermented foods.
If you have been struggling with your autoimmune disease, it might be time to look at your diet. Contact me if this seems overwhelming, because I love helping people break through the nutrition noise to find the right foods for themselves. Additionally, you can follow me on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube for more helpful tips.
