6 Anti Inflammatory Powerhouse Foods

CLEAN EATING CAN PUT OUT THE FIRE THAT’S MAKING YOU SICK

Photograph by Shutterstock

Adapted from Eat Clean, Stay Lean

Chronic inflammation has been associated with an increased risk of arthritis, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, and cancer. Sure, some inflammation is good—like the acute kind is a form of self-protection, your body’s immune response to a cut or pathogens entering the body. Chronic inflammation, however, means that your body is constantly producing immune cells, which can damage the body. This harmful inflammation is a result of never-ending stress, being overweight, or a diet high in things like sugar, trans fats, and various toxins.

But while the wrong diet promotes excessive inflammation, a diet rich in clean foods can help reduce it and its harmful effects on your body. The following foods in particular are anti-inflammatory powerhouses:

COLD WATER FISH

Salmon, black cod, sardines, and anchovies are full of anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acids. Salmon is a particularly good choice—its rosy pink color comes from carotenoids, which also have anti-inflammatory properties.

SPICES AND HERBS

 Herbs and spices like basil, rosemary, thyme, oregano, turmeric, peppercorns, ginger, and cinnamon are loaded with all sorts of antioxidants that have even been found to reduce pro-inflammatory compounds that build up on meat during grilling. And ginger and turmeric, in particular, have been linked to joint pain relief. Add them to marinades, dressings, spice rubs, and teas for a dose of health and flavor.

SWEET POTATOES

Sweet potatoes are high in vitamins C and E and the carotenoids alpha- and beta-carotene, all of which reduce inflammation and promote healthy, vibrant skin.

More: Top 10 Anti-Aging Superfoods Your Skin Needs

TEA

Green, black, and white teas contain free radical-fighting catechins, which have recently been associated with reduced muscle inflammation and a speedier recovery after exercise.

WALNUTS

 Walnuts contain alpha-linolenic acid—an omega-3 fatty acid that reduces inflammation and is associated with a reduced risk of heart disease and

AND- the mother of all anti-inflammatories- TURMERIC. Better yet, for amazing pain and inflammation use Curcumin- the extract in turmeric that is so powerful. I use this one   Turmeric Curcumin with BioPerine Black Pepper Extract – 750mg per Capsule, 120 Veg. Capsules

Case Study Chronicles First Brain Bleed Tied to Energy Drinks

Investigators at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have presented the first case study of a patient experiencing a hemorrhagic stroke — a brain bleed — following consumption of an energy drink.

In an article in press in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine, the UAB physicians detail the case of a 57-year-old man who developed an intracranial hemorrhage within 15 minutes of drinking a popular energy drink.

The patient presented at a local emergency department and was transferred to the stroke unit at UAB with symptoms of sensory changes (tingling and numbness) in the right arm and leg, along with ataxia (shaky gait and movement). A CT scan revealed a small hemorrhage near the left thalamus.

“The man reported that his symptoms began about 15 minutes after drinking an energy drink, the first time he had consumed this particular product, as he was about to do yard work,” said Anand Venkatraman, M.D., a fourth-year resident in the Department of Neurology at UAB and the lead author of the study.

Venkatraman says the drink contains a high level of caffeine, along with a variety of other ingredients, many of which are associated with increases in blood pressure.

“This particular drink contains several supplements for which we have little understanding of their potential interactions with each other or with caffeine,” Venkatraman said. “One is structurally similar to amphetamines, and several are known to stimulate the sympathetic nervous system.”

The sympathetic nervous system regulates what is known as the “flight or fight” response. When faced with an urgent, potentially dangerous situation, the body gears up to either take extraordinary action (fight) or run away (flight).

“The body begins to marshal all of its resources to respond to the situation at hand — boosting strength and alertness, for example — in part by raising blood pressure to increase blood flow,” Venkatraman said. “For a patient who may be at risk for vascular disease, this increase in blood pressure could be potentially dangerous, as a rise in blood pressure can affect an already weakened blood vessel to the point that it ruptures.”

Ingredients in the drinks that are suspected to influence the sympathetic nervous system include β-phenylethylamine hydrochloride, yohimbine and green tea extract.

“These ingredients are supplements and, as such, are not regulated by the government to the same degree that medications are,” Venkatraman said. “We don’t have good information on dosing for some of these supplements. We don’t know how much is too much, for example, especially in populations with varying degrees of risk.”

Another issue is serving size. The manufacturer’s label says the bottle contains two servings, but the patient reported that he drank the full 8 oz. bottle at one time, a behavior that Venkatraman believes is common.

“The warning here is that we do not fully understand how some of these ingredients interact with other compounds,” Venkatraman said. “Nor do we have enough information on maximum dosages, especially for individuals with underlying health issues. Consumers need to be aware of the ingredients in the drinks if they choose to use them, and check with their physician if they have questions. They should also follow the manufacturer’s recommendations.”

In this case, the patient had a history of elevated blood pressure and was at increased risk for vascular disease. Several months after the incident, the patient reported that he still had some residual effects from the incident.

“I am not anti-energy drink,” Venkatraman said. “In fact, I use them myself on occasion. But I strongly urge consumers to read the label and be informed. Don’t take unnecessary risks with your health. There is potential for a serious outcome.”

Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Alabama at Birmingham. Original written by Bob Shepard. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference:

1. A. Venkatraman, A. Khawaja, A.H. Shapshak. Hemorrhagic stroke after consumption of an energy drink. The American Journal of Emergency Medicine, 2016; DOI: 10.1016/j.ajem.2016.10.022

High-fiber Diet Keeps Gut Microbes from Eating the Colon’s lining, Protects Against Infection

This DOES NOT mean a diet high in barn muffins o9r cereals. You need fiber from fruits and vegetables!

November 17, 2016

University of Michigan Health System

When microbes inside the digestive system don’t get the natural fiber that they rely on for food, they begin to munch on the natural layer of mucus that lines the gut, eroding it to the point where dangerous invading bacteria can infect the colon wall, new research in mice shows.

When mice were raised germ-free, then given a transplant of human gut microbes, the impact of fiber on their colons could be seen. Mice fed a high-fiber diet maintained a thick mucus layer along the lining of their colons, while those that received a fiber-free diet saw the mucus layer grow thinner as bacteria capable of digesting mucus proliferated. The thin layer allowed a pathogen bacteria access to the cells of the colon wall.

It sounds like the plot of a 1950s science fiction movie: normal, helpful bacteria that begin to eat their host from within, because they don’t get what they want.

But new research shows that’s exactly what happens when microbes inside the digestive system don’t get the natural fiber that they rely on for food.

Starved, they begin to munch on the natural layer of mucus that lines the gut, eroding it to the point where dangerous invading bacteria can infect the colon wall.

In a new paper in Cell, an international team of researchers show the impact of fiber deprivation on the guts of specially raised mice. The mice were born and raised with no gut microbes of their own, then received a transplant of 14 bacteria that normally grow in the human gut. Scientists know the full genetic signature of each one, making it possible to track their activity over time.

The findings have implications for understanding not only the role of fiber in a normal diet, but also the potential of using fiber to counter the effects of digestive tract disorders.

“The lesson we’re learning from studying the interaction of fiber, gut microbes and the intestinal barrier system is that if you don’t feed them, they can eat you,” says Eric Martens, Ph.D., an associate professor of microbiology at the University of Michigan Medical School who led the research along with his former postdoctoral fellow Mahesh Desai, Ph.D., now at the Luxembourg Institute of Health.

Using U-M’s special gnotobiotic, or germ-free, mouse facility, and advanced genetic techniques that allowed them to determine which bacteria were present and active under different conditions, they studied the impact of diets with different fiber content — and those with no fiber. They also infected some of the mice with a bacterial strain that does to mice what certain strains of Escherichia coli can do to humans — cause gut infections that lead to irritation, inflammation, diarrhea and more.

The result: the mucus layer stayed thick, and the infection didn’t take full hold, in mice that received a diet that was about 15 percent fiber from minimally processed grains and plants. But when the researchers substituted a diet with no fiber in it, even for a few days, some of the microbes in their guts began to munch on the mucus.

They also tried a diet that was rich in prebiotic fiber — purified forms of soluble fiber similar to what some processed foods and supplements currently contain. This diet resulted in the same erosion of the mucus layer as observed in the lack of fiber.

The researchers also saw that the mix of bacteria changed depending on what the mice were being fed, even day by day. Some species of bacteria in the transplanted microbiome were more common — meaning they had reproduced more — in low-fiber conditions, others in high-fiber conditions.

And the four bacteria strains that flourished most in low-fiber and no-fiber conditions were the only ones that make enzymes that are capable of breaking down the long molecules called glycoproteins that make up the mucus layer.

In addition to looking at the of bacteria based on genetic information, the researchers could see which fiber-digesting enzymes the bacteria were making. They detected more than 1,600 different enzymes capable of degrading carbohydrates — similar to the complexity in the normal human gut.

Just like the mix of bacteria, the mix of enzymes changed depending on what the mice were being fed, with even occasional fiber deprivation leading to more production of mucus-degrading enzymes.

Images of the mucus layer, and the “goblet” cells of the colon wall that produce the mucus constantly, showed the layer was thinner the less fiber the mice received. While mucus is constantly being produced and degraded in a normal gut, the change in bacteria activity under the lowest-fiber conditions meant that the pace of eating was faster than the pace of production — almost like an overzealous harvesting of trees outpacing the planting of new ones.

When the researchers infected the mice with Citrobacter rodentium — the E. coli-like bacteria — they observed that these dangerous bacteria flourished more in the guts of mice fed a fiber-free diet. Many of those mice began to show signs of illness and lost weight.

When the scientists looked at samples of their gut tissue, they saw not only a much thinner or even patchy mucus later — they also saw inflammation across a wide area. Mice that had received a fiber-rich diet before being infected also had some inflammation but across a much smaller area.

Martens notes that in addition to the gnotobiotic facility, the research was possible because of the microbe DNA and RNA sequencing capability built up through the Medical School’s Host Microbiome Initiative, as well as the computing capability to plow through all the sequence data.

“Having all the resources here was the key to making this work, and the fact that it was all across the street from our lab allowed us to pin it all together,” he says. He also notes the role of U-M colleagues led by Gabriel Nunez and Nobuhiko Kamada in providing the C. rodentium pathogen model, and of French collaborators from the Aix-Marseille Université in studying the enzymes in the mouse gut.

Going forward, Martens and Desai intend to look at the impact of different prebiotic fiber mixes, and of diets with more intermittent natural fiber content over a longer period. They also want to look for biomarkers that could tell them about the status of the mucus layer in human guts — such as the abundance of mucus-digesting bacteria strains, and the effect of low fiber on chronic disease such as inflammatory bowel disease.

“While this work was in mice, the take-home message from this work for humans amplifies everything that doctors and nutritionists have been telling us for decades: Eat a lot of fiber from diverse natural sources,” says Martens. “Your diet directly influences your microbiota, and from there it may influence the status of your gut’s mucus layer and tendency toward disease. But it’s an open question of whether we can cure our cultural lack of fiber with something more purified and easy to ingest than a lot of broccoli.”

Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Michigan Health System. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Eating a Handful of Nuts Each Day Could Help You Live Longer

From Gizmodo

A sweeping analysis of current research shows that people who eat at least 20 grams of nuts each day are less likely to develop potentially fatal conditions such as cancer and heart disease.

New research published in BMC Medicine is highlighting the impressive health benefits from the regular consumption of nuts such as pecans, hazel nuts, walnuts, and even peanuts (which are technically legumes). Eating just 20 grams of nuts each day was linked to a 30 percent reduction in coronary heart disease, a 15 percent reduction in cancer, and a 22 percent reduction in premature death. Nut consumption was also associated with a reduced risk of dying from respiratory disease and diabetes, although these correlations were weaker and involved smaller sample sizes.

Those are impressive numbers by any measure. Previous research managed to link nut consumption with a reduced risk of heart disease and “all cause mortality,” i.e. literally any cause of death, but potential associations with more unusual causes of death had not been thoroughly studied.

To address this oversight, a research team from Imperial College London and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology pooled together 29 published studies from around the world to conduct the most exhaustive analysis of current research on nut consumption and its associated health benefits to date.

Collectively, these studies involved upwards of 819,000 participants, and included more than 12,000 cases of coronary heart disease, 9,000 cases of stroke, 18,000 cases of cardiovascular disease and cancer, and more than 85,000 deaths. Differences between the populations were studied (e.g. differences between men and women, or people with different risk factors), but even accounting for these factors, researchers consistently found that nut consumption could be linked to a reduction in disease.

“It’s quite a substantial effect for such a small amount of food.”

“We found a consistent reduction in risk across many different diseases, which is a strong indication that there is a real underlying relationship between nut consumption and different health outcomes,” noted study co-author Dagfinn Aune from Imperial College London in a statement. “It’s quite a substantial effect for such a small amount of food.”

It’s important to point out that correlation is not causation; this study didn’t look into the physiological mechanisms that may account for the dramatic reduction in disease risk. It’s possible, for example, that nut consumption is tied to other types of healthy eating habits (e.g. people who consume nuts may be health-oriented types who eat lots of vegetables and fruits, too).

That said, the nutritional value of nuts is hardly a secret. Nuts contain high amounts of fiber, magnesium, and polyunsaturated fats—nutrients that play a key role in cutting cardiovascular risk and reducing cholesterol levels.

“Some nuts, particularly walnuts and pecan nuts are also high in antioxidants, which can fight oxidative stress and possibly reduce cancer risk,” added Aune. “Even though nuts are quite high in fat, they are also high in fiber and protein, and there is some evidence that suggests nuts might actually reduce your risk of obesity over time.”

Sadly, the researchers weren’t able to conclude whether peanut butter offers the same health benefits, but say it’s “possible that the added sugar or salt in peanut butter could counteract any beneficial effects of plain peanuts.” Which brings up a good point: excessive amounts of salt on your nuts may negate some of these health benefits. Also, the researchers found that eating more than 20 grams of nuts each day didn’t improve health outcomes any further, so no need to start binging on nuts.

[BMC Medicine]