Health Made Easy

Inflammation is a natural response of the body to infection and injuries to stay healthy. But when this inflammation becomes chronic is when it continues for a prolonged period and cause unwanted damage to the cells in your body.

Unfortunately, some foods can increase the inflammatory reactions in your body. Foods that are loaded with unhealthier fats like trans fat and saturated fat, and foods that are filled with sugars are promoters of inflammation.

The good news, however, is that some foods help to reduce inflammatory markers in the body. Whole foods like vegetables, fruits, seafood, nuts, whole grains, and seeds have a matrix of beneficial nutrients, including vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, healthy fats, and phytonutrients which helps to reduce inflammation.

Here are some inflammatory foods and good swap options to keep your body in a healthier state:

Swap sugars with natural sweeteners

Did you know that a can of coke contains 39 grams of sugar? Most times, food products add sugar in disguise using names like fructose, corn syrup, golden syrup, dextrose, maltose, and sucrose.

Unfortunately, excessive consumption of sugar has been linked to tooth decay, metabolic syndrome, increased risk of obesity, and chronic inflammation.

Hence, you should avoid beverages like punches and soft drinks. More so, avoid sweet snacks, deserts, and pastries. Instead, you can take foods containing natural sweeteners like honey, Stevia, or blackstrap molasses.

Swap common cooking oils with extra virgin olive oil

Common cooking oils used in many restaurants and homes have a high amount of omega-6 fatty acids and low omega-3 fats. A diet containing these kind of oils promotes inflammation and puts you at risk of inflammatory diseases like cancer and heart disease.

So, avoid polyunsaturated oils like such as grape seed oil, cottonseed oil, canola and sunflower oils. You can swap with healthy options like extra virgin olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil and macadamia oil.

Swap dairy products with coconut or almond milk

Milk is naturally an allergen that triggers inflammatory responses like IBS, acne, hives, skin rashes, and breathing difficulties.

So instead of using dairy products like cheese and butter, you can use coconut or almond milk or unsweetened yogurt, especially if you’re not allergic to milk.

Swap red meat and processed meat with poultry, fish, and organic vegetables

Several studies have shown that red meat contains molecules that may trigger chronic inflammatory response. Several reports of cancer have already been linked with consumption of processed meat.

Hence, swap those common red meats like beef, pork, lamb, and sausage with organic vegetables, fish and poultry. However, you don’t have to avoid red meat totally, but no amount of processed meat is safe.

Other inflammatory foods you can swap for healthy options include:

• Swap sugary drinks for mineral water with a squeeze of orange juice or lemon
• Swap alcohol for Kombucha
• Swap artificial food additives with anti-inflammatory spices, herbs, or natural sweeteners
• Swap trans-fats with natural peanut butter

You can try avoiding the inflammatory foods listed above for one or two weeks and notice the difference in your health. You can swap with the healthy options given.

Note that you may not be able to control every aspects that support inflammation, but you can take full charge of your food choices to reduce your risk of diseases associated with chronic inflammation.

You can consult Dr. Jason Jones at our Chiropractic office at Elizabeth City, NC, to learn more about foods that triggers inflammation and healthy options to swap it to reduce your risk of inflammation.

Inflammation is known to help fight illness or heal injury, but it goes beyond that sometimes. A chronic inflammation state may slowly be damaging your body it won’t even show. This form of inflammation goes into action without an infection or injury. This way, the immune system cells that are meant to protect you will start to destroy your healthy organs, arteries, joints, and other body parts.

Several kinds of research have shown that when you don’t eat healthy, rest adequately, or get enough exercise, your body responds by triggering inflammation.

The bad part is that chronic inflammation has a long-term damage on the body. If left unchecked, it can contribute to chronic disease conditions, such as blood vessel disease, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease and more.

How is chronic inflammation measured?

Doctors measure inflammation using several measures including

• conducting a blood test for C-reactive protein (hs-CRP)
• Measuring homocysteine levels
• Testing for HbA1C – a measurement of blood sugar

However, it is important to learn simple and effective ways to reduce the risk of chronic inflammation.

Ways to reduce chronic inflammation

The interesting thing is that you can prevent chronic inflammation through a change in lifestyle and diet. The following are simple but effective ways to reduce inflammation in your body:

Manage stress

Stress contributes largely to inflammation. You may not be able to change routines that cause stress, but you can change your response to it by learning how to manage stress better.

Some good measures include meditation, yoga, guided imagery, biofeedback, Chiropractic care or other stress-relieving practices.

Exercise regularly

Making time to exercise is a good way to prevent inflammation. You can engage in 30 to 40 minutes of aerobic exercise four to five times per week. You can also try 10 to 25 minutes of resistance training.

Eat more anti-inflammatory foods

Your choice of food matters a lot in preventing inflammation. When you add more anti-inflammatory foods - including fruits and vegetables - in your diet, it helps to reduce inflammatory markers and improve your overall health and wellbeing.

Also, you need to cut back or eliminate inflammatory foods, such as commercially grown red meat, bad oils,  margarine, and most processed foods.

Lose weight

Being overweight increases your risk of inflammation. Hence, make moves to lose weight. You can speak with Dr. Jason Jones at our chiropractic office for effective natural ways to lose weight.

 

 

Control blood sugar

Eating too many simple carbohydrates at a sitting such as white rice, white flour, or refined sugar put you at risk of developing chronic inflammation. So, one easy rule is to avoid white foods, and products made with white flour and sugar.

You should build your meals around whole foods high in fiber, such as fruits, vegetables, and whole grains such as whole wheat bread and brown rice.

Get enough sleep

Lack of adequate sleep may trigger chronic inflammation. This is because inadequate rest makes you more sensitive to stress, which in turn encourages inflammation.

So aim for at least 7-8 hours of sleep at night for optimal rejuvenation.

You can consult Dr. Jason Jones at our chiropractic office at Elizabeth City, NC, to learn about other simple measures to reduce chronic inflammation.

Inflammation is simply our immune system’s natural response to illnesses and injury. This involves the release of inflammatory chemicals in the bloodstream to protect the body from foreign invaders like bacteria and viruses. In the case of an injury, a localized inflammatory response helps in the healing process. There are two types of inflammation: The acute and chronic form. Acute inflammation helps us heal, so you can think of it as the “good” kind of inflammation. But the chronic inflammation is associated with chronic conditions or diseases, so you can describe it as the “bad” kind of inflammation. What makes chronic inflammation harmful to health?

Unlike the acute form of inflammation that is typically caused by injuries or illnesses, chronic inflammation often happens without any injury or illness present.

And the bad part is that it lasts far longer than it should. In fact, this condition is a major contributing factor in many diseases associated with getting older.

Over time, chronic inflammation can cause major changes to the body’s cells, tissues, and organs. Over time, this progresses to DNA damage and tissue death.

Although scientists do not know why all chronic inflammation happens, this condition is one of the several contributing factors in diseases onset and progression.

So far, chronic inflammation has a strong link with heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Other conditions associated with this form of inflammation include

• High blood pressure
• Kidney disease
• High cholesterol
• Depression
• Various types of cancer
• Osteoporosis
• Autoimmune disorders
• Fatty liver disease
• Neurodegenerative disorders

Chronic inflammation is quite dangerous because it often progresses quietly with only a few independent symptoms. And despite the subtle nature of this condition, it represents a major threat to the health and longevity of a large population of people.

Now, you may be wondering, what are the sources of chronic inflammation? Let’s dive quickly into it.

What causes chronic inflammation?

Several kinds of scientific studied have identified different causes of chronic systemic inflammation, many of which are associated with our lifestyle and aging.

The causes of chronic inflammation include:

Diet

Foods that are high in refined sugar, trans fat, and saturated fat are largely linked with increased inflammation, especially in overweight people.

 

 

Physical inactivity

When your muscles are in constant motion, it supports an anti-inflammatory chemical process in your bloodstream. But unfortunately, many people do not meet the minimum activity recommendations for optimal health, and this cause an increased risk of age-related diseases.

Obesity

When you have too much visceral fat (a deep layer of fat) around your abdominal organs, it triggers the production of pro-inflammatory chemicals.

Low sex hormones

When you have lower levels of sex hormones like testosterone and estrogen, especially in older age, it increases your risk of suffering inflammatory diseases.

Sleep disorders

Chronic inflammation can be triggered when you have irregular sleep schedules. On the other hand, a regular eight hours sleep helps to lower markers of inflammation.

Age

As you grow older, you stand more risk of suffering chronic inflammation.

Smoking

Smoking cigarettes have been studied to lower the level of anti-inflammatory markers and increase the risk of chronic inflammation.

There you have it, the 7 most common sources of chronic inflammation. You can visit Dr. Jason Jones to learn more about more sources of chronic inflammation, including toxins, environmental factors, and others. We’ll also show you simple lifestyle changes you can make to reduce your risk of suffering diseases associated with chronic inflammation.

When you hear the word inflammation, what comes to your mind? Most people probably think inflammation is all about redness and swelling that follows an infection, wound, or injury. But this is only “acute inflammation” – a beneficial response by the immune system that encourages healing, and usually goes off once the injury improves.

Chronic inflammation is another form of inflammation that is less obvious. While your immune system becomes activated, the inflammatory response stays on all the time at a low level. This is unlike the acute inflammatory response that is intermittent during an acute injury or infection.

In other words, chronic inflammation may begin even when you have no injury. Worst still, it does not end when it should.

Several factors could trigger chronic inflammation, from lifestyle factors such as poor sleep, obesity, or exposure to environmental toxins.

Common symptoms of chronic inflammation

Symptoms like pain, redness, or swelling are common with acute inflammation. But the symptoms of chronic inflammation are more subtle. Little wonder you tend to overlook them. These symptoms include:

• Body pain
• Fatigue
• Weight gain
• Gastrointestinal complications (constipation or diarrhea)
• Persistent infections
• Depression or anxiety

These symptoms can be mild or severe and they tend to last for many months or even years.

How does chronic inflammation damage the body?

Chronic inflammation can cause damage to the body over time. This condition can damage your DNA and trigger heart disease, cancer, and aging.

Unlike acute inflammation that that promotes healing and recovery for a better health, chronic inflammation causes a persistent increase in inflammatory proteins all throughout the body, and this can damage healthy cells, tissues, and organs, and trigger several major diseases

Unfortunately, most people don’t know they are suffering from chronic inflammation until it becomes late. Many individuals got to know they have chronic inflammation after they develop an autoimmune disease, such as Type 1 diabetes, lupus, and Crohn’s disease.

Chronic inflammation and aging

Chronic inflammation has been shown to cause oxidative stress in the body. This has to do with an imbalance in the production of:

• Dangerous free radicals, molecules that cause damage to healthy tissues in the body, and antioxidants
• Antioxidants, substances that neutralize and clean up waste products

This imbalance causes damage to your DNA as well as fatty tissues and proteins, which in turn speeds up biological aging.

Chronic inflammation contributes largely to cognitive decline and mental health disorders as it boosts age-related immune system deterioration, a condition called immunosenescence.

Chronic inflammation and other disease conditions

Chronic inflammation is involved in a wide variety of serious physical and mental health conditions. Experts believe chronic inflammation plays a role in developing kidney disease, heart disease, cancer, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, cognitive decline, neurological disorders, and mental health illnesses, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and schizophrenia.

However, you can reduce the risk of suffering chronic inflammation by making certain behavioral changes. And treatment option is based on the underlying cause.

You can consult Dr. Jason Jones at our chiropractic office in Elizabeth City, NC, to learn about natural measures to prevent chronic inflammation.

 

Covered in this podcast episode:

• How to properly acknowledge these relationships
• Techniques for beginning the conversation
• Practicing the Body Peace Method
• How Modeling in Community amplifies results
• And so much more...

Nina has been helping women feel truly
at home in their own bodies for 30 years.
She is known for her deeply feminist,
anti-diet, body-peace approach.
Her courses, coaching, and poetry
positively change the conversation
that women are having with their bodies.

According to Nina, too much time and energy is wasted feeling
bad about our bodies and food. Now’s the
time to create a body relationship based in
compassion, listening, respect, and deep
nourishment. This is the path to Body-Peace!

Our Guest:

Nina Manolson MA, NBC-HWC

Body-Peace™ Coach

Nationally Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach

Psychology of Eating CoachCertified Body-Trust® Guide

NinaManolson.com free ebook: How To Be A Woman At Ease in Your Body

https://ninamanolson.com/

Today's Guest: Michael Hughes

Michael Hughes is the founder of Gymnazo, a 7-figure functional training facility on the Central Coast of California that focuses on integrating restoration with performance. With a churn rate of under 3%, Gymnazo’s business model and training style have created security in a volatile market. After becoming a Fellow of Applied Functional Science, Michael integrated physical therapy directly into his programming for group coaching - something that had never been done before in the fitness industry. He realized the power of using fitness as a vehicle for recovery, which led him to implement a blend of performance and restoration training that dramatically increased his lifetime client value. Michael is passionate about functional training and is building his facility to revolutionize how we train all ages to promote vitality and to heal movement dysfunctions that hold us back from living the lives we desire.  Michael founded Gymnazo Edu to share his formula for success with the training community and offer his Multi-Dimensional Movement Coach (MDMC) certification.