Several studies suggest that inflammation associated with a faulty diet, lack of exercise, overweight and lack of vitamin D increases risk for autoimmune diseases, but there is no strong evidence yet to show that any diet will cure auto-immune disease.
Examples of auto-immune diseases include rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, lupus, many nerve damaging disease and many others, often with fancy names that suggest their inflammatory symptoms.
Inflammation
When germs get into your body, your immunity is supposed to produce cells and chemicals that attack and kill the germs to keep them from spreading through your body. The same thing happens when you are injured. Your immunity releases exactly the same cells and proteins that it releases when you have an infection, to help heal the injured tissue. As soon as the germs are gone, or your tissue heals, your immunity is supposed to dampen down. However, if your immunity stays active, it can use the same cells and chemicals to attack you and:
• punch holes in your arteries to form plaques and clots that can eventually cause a heart attack
• damage cartilage in your joints to cause arthritis
• attack the genetic material in your DNA to cause cancers
• prevent your cells from responding to insulin to cause diabetes, and so forth.
Rheumatoid Arthritis
Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune illness in which your own immune system attacks different parts of the body, mostly your joints and especially your hands and fingers. At present doctors treat rheumatoid arthritis with drugs that suppress your immunity, but these drugs also increase risk for viral and bacterial infections and even certain cancers. Although there is no evidence that an anti-inflammatory diet will cure rheumatoid arthritis, there is accumulating evidence that it can help to reduce risk for developing the disease.
The latest data from the Nurses’ Health Study, on almost 150,000 women who were under 55 years old when they started in the study and were followed for more than 20 years, showed that healthier eating patterns reduced risk for developing rheumatoid arthritis
How Anti-Inflammatoy Foods Help to Prevent Diabetes
Diabetes is a disease in which an overactive immunity prevents your cells from responding to insulin so your blood sugar levels keep on rising higher and higher to damage every cell in your body. Soluble fiber in fruits, vegetables, nuts and other plant foods cannot be absorbed in your upper intestinal tract, so it passes to your colon where specific bacteria break down the soluble fiber into short-chain fatty acids such as acetates and butyrates. Researchers in Australia have shown that soluble fiber dampens down your immunity to reduce inflammation, lower cholesterol and high blood sugar and help to control diabetes
My Recommendations
Everyone, whether healthy or sick, should try to eat as close to an anti-inflammatory diet as possible:
• Eat lots of fruits and vegetables, particularly those that are deep green, orange, yellow, and purple
• Eat lots of healthful monounsaturated fats in olives, avocados and peanuts
• Eat lots of polyunsaturated fats in nuts and seeds such as beans, sunflower seeds and flax seeds
• Replace some of the animal protein in your diet with plant proteins from beans, lentils, chickpeas, soy beans and so forth
• Eat un-ground whole grains such as wheat berries, rye berries, quinoa, amaranth, buckwheat, brown rice, oats, corn and barley
• Restrict processed meats and meat from mammals
• Restrict ground-up grains in bakery products, pasta and other foods made with flour
• Avoid added sugars in drinks and foods
Other components of an anti-inflammatory lifestyle:
• try to exercise every day (with your doctor’s consent)
• avoid being overweight, particularly in your belly
• keep hydroxy vitamin D levels above 20 ng/ml
