Diet's Worth Considering
If you've been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease these days, chances are your doctor told you it's genetic. Admittedly, this is one of my favorite lines and one of the biggest copouts in medicine today. While our genes may cock the gun, it takes our everyday diet and lifestyle to pull the trigger. A lifestyle that doesn't get outside much, that affords little rigorous activity, one that involves daily consumption (probably even at least one of these at every single meal) of pro-inflammatory foods such as non-organic meats, dairy, breads, and sugar, as well as a stressful or toxic occupation. If you have the George Burns genetic predisposition, this sort of lifestyle doesn't bother you. If you don't, you've likely been wrangling any number of chronic diseases varying in intensity from gout to rheumatoid arthritis, hypertension to fibromyalgia, for seemingly no apparent reason other than your pesky "genes."
An article in 2002 entitled, "The Diet-Induced Proinflammatory Sate: A Cause of Chronic Pain and Other Degenerative Diseases?" in the Journal of Manipulative Physiological Therapeutics reported a 47% reduction in CRP with a low-carb diet. CRP, otherwise known as C-reactive peptide, is a measurable blood marker for generalized inflammation in the body and is used routinely to measure success of treatment in the management of patients with chronic diseases of inflammation. 47% reduction with diet ALONE! That's not even considering removing food allergies, exercising, taking anti-inflammatory supplements or a multivitamin/mineral, or essential fatty acids. Can you imagine the cumulative effect on a chronic inflammatory disease when you combine therapies to target your particular chronic process? Along that same line, it has been studied and shown over and over again that a junk food diet propagates inflammation, ultimately raising harmful oxygen species and CRP for at least 2 hours after a meal. My favorite source was presented in a recent lecture I attended and I'll cite from Dr. Alex Vasquez' notes. In 2004 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, "a single meal of egg and sausage muffin sandwiches with 2 hash browns caused an increase of 150% for NF-kappaB (from ~190 to ~510 AUC) which lasted for approximately 2 hours and was associated with increases in oxidative stress and the inflammatory marker CRP." ("Increase in intranuclear NFkappaB and decrease in inhibitor kappaB in mononuclear cells after a mixed meal: evidence for a proinflammatory effect.") FYI: NFkappaB is the substance that travels to the nucleus and turns on genes to promote/create inflammatory products. Genes, schmenes. Direct cause and effect.
Certainly, diet is just one piece of the "lifestyle" puzzle but it can make a huge difference in one's level of everyday pain and suffering. Worth talking to your doctor about. Worth doctors knowing a little more about. When I graduate and get licensed, I'm going to be all over this information. Be well, everybody! There's hope (and common sense) out there!
An article in 2002 entitled, "The Diet-Induced Proinflammatory Sate: A Cause of Chronic Pain and Other Degenerative Diseases?" in the Journal of Manipulative Physiological Therapeutics reported a 47% reduction in CRP with a low-carb diet. CRP, otherwise known as C-reactive peptide, is a measurable blood marker for generalized inflammation in the body and is used routinely to measure success of treatment in the management of patients with chronic diseases of inflammation. 47% reduction with diet ALONE! That's not even considering removing food allergies, exercising, taking anti-inflammatory supplements or a multivitamin/mineral, or essential fatty acids. Can you imagine the cumulative effect on a chronic inflammatory disease when you combine therapies to target your particular chronic process? Along that same line, it has been studied and shown over and over again that a junk food diet propagates inflammation, ultimately raising harmful oxygen species and CRP for at least 2 hours after a meal. My favorite source was presented in a recent lecture I attended and I'll cite from Dr. Alex Vasquez' notes. In 2004 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, "a single meal of egg and sausage muffin sandwiches with 2 hash browns caused an increase of 150% for NF-kappaB (from ~190 to ~510 AUC) which lasted for approximately 2 hours and was associated with increases in oxidative stress and the inflammatory marker CRP." ("Increase in intranuclear NFkappaB and decrease in inhibitor kappaB in mononuclear cells after a mixed meal: evidence for a proinflammatory effect.") FYI: NFkappaB is the substance that travels to the nucleus and turns on genes to promote/create inflammatory products. Genes, schmenes. Direct cause and effect.
Certainly, diet is just one piece of the "lifestyle" puzzle but it can make a huge difference in one's level of everyday pain and suffering. Worth talking to your doctor about. Worth doctors knowing a little more about. When I graduate and get licensed, I'm going to be all over this information. Be well, everybody! There's hope (and common sense) out there!
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