Inflammation and Longevity

When I started to connect the dots between diet, lifestyle, chronic inflammation, and disease, I felt inspired to take control of my health. Why? Because our daily choices in our diet and lifestyle create our health, and inflammation is a big part of that.

Over the past five years I have improved what goes into my grocery cart, and my mind. I have moved from a more stressful life, both physically and emotionally, to a more balanced existence with plant based nourishment, lean protein, healthy fats, and complex carbohydrates. I have also chosen inner growth and consciously living and breathing.

How to start connecting the dots in your life? We will start by clarifying our understanding of inflammation since they play separate roles in our life. Then we will cover ways to reduce inflammations effect on our health.

What is Inflammation?

Acute Inflammation Is your body’s natural and helpful response to tissues damage. When you cut yourself it swells, reddens, and feels inflamed. These are signs your body is busy sending white blood cells to the site of the injury, to repair damaged tissue. At this stage inflammation is very important to our well-being. An increasing body of evidence shows that chronic inflammation causes and advances many common diseases.

Chronic Inflammation: The body’s over compensating immune response to a plenitude of environmental, and dietary, assaults. Chronic disease is driven by inflammation, and there is more and more evidence showing the chronic inflammation causes and advances many common diseases such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s Disease. There are other causes of inflammation. Please don’t take inflammation lightly - it is a killer.

What is an anti-inflammatory diet?

To overcome chronic low - grade inflammation, have a diet rich in omega 3’s, (EPA and DHA). Always choosing to eat protein when eating other foods to combat a blood sugar rise which is a big instigator of chronic inflammation. Colorful non- starchy vegetables are full of polyphenols to also help inhibit inflammation. Calorie restriction is also advised for longevity. A diet with 40% protein, 30% complex carbohydrates and 30% healthy fats, 40:30:30 diet is recommended from the National Institute of Health as the proportions of macro and micro nutrients. This might seem overly simplistic, but it is that simple to have good health, remember inflammation is no joke.