Eat to Beat Inflammation | The Science of the Inflammatory Index | Be Well Moments

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0:10So let's go to anti-inflammatory foods. Okay, yeah. Because I think this is, let's take it up a level, if we can. Anti-inflammatory foods. So it's interesting. I actually got a text yesterday from a really good friend saying, hi babe how are you my my husband's mother-in-law has just been also i don't want this to also all feel like this is for people that are sure 60 plus but this is why i want me to think about it now yeah my mother-in-law's just been diagnosed with arthritis and she's got it in her hands what anti-inflammatory foods are good and i was literally had your book on the anti-inflammatory index and i was like well this is obviously something that people want to know about um i'm sure you are that person on speed dial for any of your friends when something happens in the family and your people are going well can i ask your advice so you know inflammation it's the you know it's it's such a big topic that's spoken about is like it's the lead of any chronic disease um and there's so many factors that can influence our inflammation from stress exercise also influences our inflammation um but also food and also environment and you know products that we're using things around the home but people might not have heard of the anti-inflammatory kind of index so I want to talk about anti-inflammatory foods and the dietary inflammatory index and so there's a really interesting study where I just want to touch upon before we get into what that is which was an analysis of 128 ,612 people from the UK Biobank participants aged 60 plus now it basically shows something very interesting which looked at higher plant protein and fiber intakes which were associated with significantly lower CRP levels which are your inflammatory markers whereas higher animal protein was linked to higher CPR levels which is very interesting because I always find that a really interesting marker for people and obviously people with inflammatory bowel disease can have very high levels of this when they're going into attack so can you start first of all explaining what this is and why it's important and what foods are contained in it because from that it's more plant-based foods yeah yeah and you'd you'd imagine that wouldn't you like the results of that to me and you are probably not that surprising increasing plant protein uh increasing fiber oh lo and behold reduces inflammation across the majority of people um but i think this whole idea of inflammation is i want to reframe it slightly for folks because i think people think of inflammation as universally a bad thing and And actually, inflammation is so, so important for our body.

2:51It's the reason why me and you can have this conversation in the middle of London, surrounded by environmental pollutants from the exhaust fumes, surrounded by viruses, surrounded by all these different unfortunate pathogens, and still thrive and not come down to a florid sepsis or like a generalized infection. so the way i like to get people to conceptualize inflammation is it's kind of like your internal campfire and your internal campfire if you imagine like we we go away to the british countryside or something and we set up camp and we do what every good sort of like camping holiday does get it get a sticks and you know put campfire and get some marshmallows going a campfire is a wonderful thing it provides beautiful light it provides warmth it could keep predators out we can cook our food on it it's it's great but if our campfire was to go unwieldy it was to get out of control we might overcook our pasta if we're eating pasta we might like we might burn ourselves it could become so unruly that it burns the entire campsite down.

4:09This is sort of like the language of your immune system. It's getting this balance correctly. On the one side, we need inflammation. On the other side, too much inflammation can be a bad thing. And so whilst it has a role in fighting pathogens and signaling as part of your immune system, when that becomes completely out of whack, this is where issues arise. And we know that people with excess inflammation, and there are multiple ways in which we can measure inflammation in the body. Although I think the way we measure it currently today is quite crude. So we use things like CRP or high sensitivity CRP.

4:46In research, we use things like interleukins, like IL-6. You might see this in papers if you read them online. We know that people with raised inflammation have higher risks of metabolic disease. We know it's associated with obesity. We know that it's even associated with mental health issues as well, high inflammation that can come from diet or sedentary behaviour. Autoimmune. Autoimmune conditions as well. All these different things. So we know that as a foundation, we want to be bringing our inflammation levels in balance. And the reason why our inflammation levels are high is A, because of diet, so lack of fibre, feeding our gut microbes, ensuring that or not having enough of the polyphenols in our diet.

5:27Can you explain what they are very quickly? So polyphenols are colourful pigments that you find in different fruits and vegetables, but also beige ones as well. I think we forget about mushrooms and onions. You know, those have like novel plant chemicals that are great. There are literally something around seven or 8 ,000 phytochemicals that have been identified, many of which are not studied. Some of which you might have come across like resveratrol, because everyone loves to talk about resveratrol because it's in red wine. But it's also in like dry grapes and peanuts and all that kind of stuff, or quercetin that you find in allium vegetables, onions.

6:05But there are literally thousands. And we haven't actually fully crossed how important all of them are. They are together. My perspective is you want to hedge bets and just try and get as many different polyphenols in your diet as possible. The other things that can raise inflammation, apart from the absence of some of those elements in the diet, are things like sedentary behaviour, like what we're doing right now. Do we have to do star jumps in between every 10 minutes? Yeah, I mean, I'm very twitchy, so I do like shift around. But yeah, like the way I like people to think of sedentary behavior, particularly if you work in an obvious-based environment, is like your inflammation level creeps up the longer you are in this position.

6:44So it just like goes up every hour, just like... And what you want to do is discharge, and it's very uncertific, but you want to discharge some of this inflammation by getting up, going outside, maybe doing some lunges, star jumps, if you like. This sort of brings it back down into level because exercise as a net effect is actually anti-inflammatory. In the short term, it's pro, but in the long term, it's anti-inflammatory. The other things that probably doesn't get enough airtime, stress, poor sleep, loneliness. These are all things that - They're all massive factors. Yeah, big, big factors. One billion people worldwide are deficient in this nutrient that so many of you guys might not be aware of.

7:27And women, if you're listening, you are more at risk of being deficient in this nutrient. So I'm going to first of all explain what the physical symptoms are. If you have cold hands and feet, pale skin, extreme lack of energy or fatigue, then you might be suffering with iron deficiency or anemia. Now, first off, please go to your GP to get your iron levels checked. Secondly, please explore a good iron supplement. many people that come to me are worried about taking iron supplementation because it can cause constipation or GI distress that's why I'm so incredibly proud to be partnering for this episode with Spartone the number one iron rich water supplement now I've personally been using these for years the reason why is because they are naturally sourced highly absorbable iron that means it's much more gentle on your stomach there's no harsh tablets it's just one naturally sourced ingredient that works very well you can pick it up in boots or buy online at amazon but please do not ignore this it is really critical to make sure your iron levels are in check but going back to the index of the anti-inflammatory foods so you mentioned some polyphenols so basically most plant-based foods yeah right that would be like some of the highest because i bet people listeners going, oh, what about turmeric?

8:48I thought that was an anti-inflammatory food. And so there's been a few buzzwords on what anti-inflammatory foods is. But for anyone maybe struggling with high amounts of inflammation, maybe that's an autoimmune condition, maybe that is, it could be a mixture of things. And as you said, it's also very linked to mental health. What should they be looking in this index of foods that's going to lower the inflammation or support it so aside from like you know trying to address the pro-inflammatory factors diet is one of those big levers i would say probably secondary to exercise again but diet is a really big exercise i know i know i just i'd have to do a lot more research so the way to think about anti-inflammatory foods is group them into categories and this is largely based on the dii so the dietary inflammation index something that we actually used when we created our anti-inflammatory category on the doctor's kitchen app as well.

9:39So every recipe broadly is anti-inflammatory. And we did the math on that as well, which is a lot of math. So herbs and spices, really easy ways to get strong anti-inflammatory foods into your diet. So if you look at the OREX scores, the antioxidant scores, the DII scores, these all score the highest, i.e. they are the most anti-inflammatory. So things like turmeric, clove, cinnamon, kitchen counter herbs, oregano, basil, marjoram, these are just as impressive in terms of the anti-inflammatory effects. A lot of them are down to their unique polyphenols. But because we don't consume them in significant quantities, whilst they are the most powerful, they overall will contribute some, but not the majority, I would say, of the anti-inflammatory benefit of your entire diet.

10:28fats really really important so extra virgin olive oil as an example is again very anti-inflammatory you also have things like nuts and seeds that's why like a handful of nuts and seeds i think is great for everyone every single day it's been shown in the pretty med studies been shown in multiple different studies to be net beneficial for your heart as well and it's polyunsaturated fats just mentioned that rather than like trans fats yeah yeah i mean trans fats generally we luckily we don't have too much of that in our diet if any at all but yeah mostly poly and monounsaturated fatty acids also they contain things like vitamin e which we know can contribute to healthy heart healthy brain anti-inflammatory again and then also the um the types of nuts all have their different sort of varying ratios of fats as well so again like i just take a uh a spread-bretting approach.

11:22I don't just focus on one nut, like pistachios. I focus on sunflower seeds and hemp seeds and tahini, nut butters, all that kind of stuff. So you want to try and get a good, healthy collection of fats. Also from things like fatty fish. So salmon, sardines, herring, the smaller, the better. Anchovies I absolutely love. I know that's a bit... I put them on my omelette. Oh, I put them everywhere. Yeah. I put them into like curries and stews. Yeah. I put them on my bath. Sometimes I eat them straight from the can, to be honest, or the glass jar. But yeah, so these are really, really good quality fats.

11:55These fatty acids that contribute to resolvins and anti-inflammatory action. So you want to be getting like oily fish. And then berries. So the colorful fruits. I have a penchant for berries because they tend to be high in some of these powerful anti-inflammatory chemicals and the cyanins and the like. I get them fresh where I can, but also frozen is also a good... strategy particularly for things like blackcurrants bilberries these are all like really high in in fact blackcurrants i believe the highest in anthocyanins maybe secondary to haska yeah so they're a type of um uh phytochemical or plant chemical that are responsible for the the deep purple blue color that you get in in berries so blueberries and blackcurrants and the have you heard of something called the husk barberry yeah i have yeah many years ago yeah a company that started in yes yeah yeah yeah so they they have a product i don't know the company personally but like they have a product where they've they've freeze-dried and powdered these berries that are hard to get in the uk i think they're grown in canada yeah um but those i think are the highest in anthocyanins so i mean it's not like a top trump's game here like you're not just trying to always go for the top ones again it's about diversity it's even things like aubergines yeah exactly they're high in it exactly yeah so you know you want to try and get it from as many different sources as possible because what uh one like an onion might be lacking in terms of and the cyanids or other pigments a white onion will certainly make it up in other ways maybe that's quercetin or alicea whatever it might be so the best approach is just trying to get from multiple different sources and the other thing is fiber and the reason why fiber is anti-inflammatory is because you are supporting these microbes, many of whom are working to reduce inflammation in your body as well, nourishing the gut cells with their metabolites.

13:52So they work away, they digest the food, they create these fatty acids, and they nourish the colonocytes, the lining of your cells. They reduce the permeability of your gut. That in turn reduces the overactivation of your immune system that reduces inflammation as a net effect so if you're doing these things across the board you're getting herbs and spices you're getting oily fish you're getting extra virgin olive oil you're getting berries you're getting good quality fats you're getting enough fiber like getting a really good dose of this anti-inflammatory medicine and i have this thing called bbgs i don't know if you've come across it before but beans berries greens seeds and nuts every single day you want to try and get one of each of these every single day it doesn't need to be all the same meal but like handful of berries handful of beans or legumes lentils whatever you like greens i try and get greens every meal even breakfast but you know a couple of portions cooked and seeds and nuts a handful every day if you hit your bbgs every single day it's one of the most potent anti-inflammatory medicines i think you can you can take i'm going to put this in a context and you can tell me if i'm wrong but i feel like i'm not it sounds like the Mediterranean diet I'm just trying to keep it as simple simplified as possible for people right where you know the Mediterranean diet is probably one of the the most well-studied diets out there right when it comes to nutrition and health whether that even be for things like mental health and look at the spiles trial by Philly Stracker all the way kind across the board Mediterranean diet seems to be kind of one of the most supported and studied areas for your health overall.

15:35And so what I'm hearing is a lot of the Mediterranean diet foods are in this anti-inflammatory index, the DI. Totally, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you look at the Mediterranean diet as a whole through the lens of the DI, it is anti-inflammatory. If you look at like even the most, I know food pyramids and plates are like out of fashion at the moment. If you remove some of the refined products that they have on the plate, I would say that's net anti-inflammatory. you know, the modified Mediterranean diet, like the MIND diet for dementia and brain health, again, anti-inflammatory. So there are common themes throughout different diets that have been studied that are like, you know, generally healthy, plant-focused, whole, removing refined products and using good quality fats.

16:28Thanks so much for listening. To hear the full episode, there's a link in the description.