The Anti-Inflammatory Diet, Simplified

From avoiding nightshades to cursing all forms of dairy, the wacky world of Anti-Inflammatory Diets has gotten... well... wacky.

The back-and-forth debates on which foods to eat, which to avoid, and exactly how to brew your coffee for maximum anti-inflammation benefits have muddied the water. 

In this article, we aim to simplify anti-inflammatory eating. We'll go through the best foods to add and avoid. But more importantly — we'll lay out a framework that makes low inflammation eating much easier. And more effective.

What is an anti-inflammatory diet?

An anti-inflammatory diet is a meal plan that focuses on:

(a) consuming foods that help reduce inflammation, and

(b) avoiding foods that increase inflammation.

Because there are dozens of variations, I wouldn't say there is one specific protocol we can point to and say "that is THE Anti-Inflammatory Diet."

Even so, most anti-inflammatory diets have a few things in common:

1. The goal of reducing low grade, chronic inflammation.
2. Avoidance of foods that are known to cause inflammatory responses.
3. A focus on including foods that actively fight unhealthy inflammatory responses.

Before showing you a simplified (and more effective) approach, you need to understand the basics of inflammation — including why it's a problem in the first place.

There are a lot of misconceptions about anti-inflammatory diets.

And about inflammation in general.

These core concepts will allow you to cut through the diet industry hype, focus on what matters, and build your own customized anti-inflammatory plan.

In the sections below, we've summarized the following for you:

• The Three Phases of Inflammation
• Good vs. Bad Inflammation
• Symptoms & Risk Factors of Chronic Inflammation
• Benefits & Goals of Low Inflammation Eating
• Critical Problems with Popular Anti-Inflammatory Diets
• A Simplified Anti-Inflammatory Diet

Three Phases of Inflammation

There are three main types (or phases) of inflammation: acute, subacute, and chronic.

1. Acute Inflammation

Acute inflammation refers to the immediate immune response your body initiates after encountering an injury, pathogen, or anything that threatens that meat-suit of a body you walk around in all day.

Think about the last time you smacked your head on something.

Within seconds, you noticed redness and swelling. 

While some of that can be explained simply as tissue damage, most of the physical changes you see are caused by the rush of blood and nutrients your body is pumping to the injury site.

The purpose of all this commotion is to deliver oxygen and nutrients to repair and remove damaged tissue. 

Generally, it's a good thing.

This process is short-lived. Lasting anywhere from a few hours to a few days.

Protocols like ice therapy and compression are often used to reduce pain and limit swelling — but your body needs a certain amount of acute inflammation to heal itself.

2. Subacute Inflammation

Subacute inflammation describes the transition period between acute and chronic inflammation. This phase lasts roughly two to six weeks.

This is not generally considered one of the main categories of inflammation, but it's worth mentioning here because it is a pivotal time period.

Successful intervention during this phase can send the injury recovery process on a shorter path. While failing to do so, or doing things that make the injury worse, will send the body toward chronic inflammation.

3. Chronic Inflammation

Chronic inflammation is low-grade inflammation that lasts for periods of several months or longer (for years, or the rest of a lifetime, in many cases).

Though chronic inflammation can be an extension of an acute injury, it generally arises in environments where one or more variables (like disease states or poor nutrition) is present — causing systemic, total-body inflammation.

Inflammation: The Good, The Bad, and The Deadly

Inflammation isn't necessarily good or evil.

In the acute phase, inflammation is necessary to deliver fresh oxygen and nutrients to injured tissues and organs. Even in the subacute phase, some inflammation is necessary to stimulate and continue the healing process.

But when inflammation lasts for several weeks, or months, it becomes a big problem — increasing risk of multiple deadly diseases.

In fact, the "Inflammation Theory of Disease" states that chronic inflammation is the underlying cause of or main expediting factor in most common diseases: including heart disease, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, and Alzheimer's disease.

Over the past few decades, evidence supporting this theory has piled up. This has aided our understanding of the biggest scourges of humanity and opened up new treatment options.

Whether or not inflammation is the cause of most diseases or not, it's clearly a factor.

And, the negative effect on quality of life doesn't get enough attention.

It doesn't just damage your health over the long term.

It makes you miserable in the short term. Severely handicapping your quality of life.

Because so much of the media and documentation on inflammation focuses on deadly diseases, this point gets lost. So it's worth mentioning again.

If you have low-grade chronic inflammation, it's damaging your quality of life in every way — the way you look, how you feel, and even how effectively you think. The list of common symptoms below makes this point abundantly clear.

Symptoms of Chronic Inflammation

Symptoms of chronic inflammation are far ranging, including everything from general fatigue to weight gain. While most people have or will experience one or two of these symptoms, pay close attention if several of these describe you:

1. Weight gain (especially around the midsection)
2. Fatigue, brain fog, general lethargy, insomnia
3. Joint and muscle pain, spasms, or cramps
4. Depressed mood and anxiety
5. Digestive discomfort (gas, diarrhea, constipation, stomach cramps & pains)
6. Skin disorders including easily irritated skin, persistent redness or puffiness, eczema and psoriasis
7. Frequent infections, colds, and illnesses
8. Frequent allergic reactions and allergy symptoms

Causes & Risk Factors for Chronic Inflammation

While some of these are out of your control — like genetics and age — you can influence most of the factors that lead to chronic inflammation.

1. Age: Human aging is characterized in part by chronic, low-grade inflammation. It appears to be a normal part of aging to some degree, even earning the term "inflammaging" to describe the correlative relationship.
   
   
2. Nutrition: Diets high in refined foods and sugar are associated with greater production of pro-inflammatory cytokines.
   
   
3. Obesity: Obesity and inflammation are inexorably linked due to several factors, including poor lifestyle choices and increased stress on organs and joint systems. 
   
   
4. Stress: Accumulating evidence suggests that chronic inflammation worsens stress-induced diseases. And because the opposite is also true — stress worsens inflammation — this suggests a common pathway for stress-related diseases that is based on chronic inflammation.
   
   
5. Sleep Disorders:  Circadian rhythms (sleep cycles) regulate both our immune system and inflammation levels. But it doesn't take a chronic condition like insomnia to cause a problem. Studies show just one single night of sleep loss increases inflammation in the body.
   
   
6. Smoking: Cigarette smoking causes chronic inflammation not just in the mucosal passages and sinuses, but in your entire body.
   
   
7. OTC Drugs, NSAIDs, Alcohol, and Prescription Medication: Alcohol and drug abuse are linked to chronic inflammation. But even over-the-counter NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) designed to lower inflammation can have detrimental effects. This is partially due to the inflammation rebound you experience after withdrawing from use.

Do anti-inflammatory drugs and NSAIDs promote chronic inflammation?

Paradoxically, long-term use of NSAIDs like naproxen and ibuprofen can actually increase levels of low-grade chronic inflammation.

A study published in the journal Medical Hypothesis concluded that use of anti-inflammatory agents could down-regulate our body's natural ability to manage inflammation.

Besides the myriad of negative side effects associated with long term use of anti-inflammatories, this is another reason why drugs and OTC products are not a viable long-term solution.

And, why we recommend natural methods of managing inflammation, pain and oxidative stress.

The Benefits of Low Inflammation Eating

Now that we've established WHY inflammation is bad, and exactly WHAT it does —it's worth addressing what the benefits of eating an anti-inflammatory diet are.

While you could easily just reverse the list of "symptoms of" we already discussed, here is what you can expect by following a true anti-inflammatory diet (that is, an eating strategy that systematically and progressively reduces levels of inflammatory markers in your body).

• Improved mood: One study spanning 7 years showed that participants who followed a low inflammation diet had a 98.6% lower chance of developing depressive symptoms.
  
  
• Weight loss: The Elimination Effect of an anti-inflammatory diet removes most of the foods that cause weight gain in the first place, including: high-sugar foods, fast food,  calorie containing beverages, and artificial fats.
  
  
• Reduced pain levels: Anti-inflammatory foods contain compounds that naturally reduce pain levels. Example: Extra-Virgin Olive Oil inhibits inflammatory enzymes in the same way that ibuprofen does.
  
  
• Reduced risk of heart disease: Low inflammation diets reduce the risk of heart disease, partially by preventing atherosclerosis (build up of plaque on artery walls).
  
  
• Improved cognitive function: Chronic inflammation is linked to neuroinflammation — inflammation of nerve tissue — a condition that causes brain damage and is linked to degenerative disorders. 
  
  
• Protection against several types of cancer: A population study of 1,784,404 people demonstrated that anti-inflammatory eating reduces risk of colorectal, breast, gastric, prostate, liver, head, neck, pancreatic, and respiratory cancer.

Inflammation Markers: Methods of Measuring Success

There are three primary methods of measuring inflammation:

• C-reactive protein levels (hs-CRP): blood levels of this protein increase along with inflammation. This is the most common marker of inflammation, and one that can be easily tested from a blood draw.
  
  
• Homocysteine levels: high blood levels of this amino acid are linked to inflammation and heart disease. While usually not used as a stand-alone measure, doctors often order this test along with C-reactive protein to see how inflammation is impacting your health.
  
  
• A1C levels (blood sugar measurement): The hemoglobin A1C test measures blood sugar levels, and is typically used to measure damage to blood cells from inflammation or in connection with diabetes.

If you want a more objective method of measuring your anti-inflammatory efforts — ask your doctor to help you set benchmarks for each measure above, and monitor them over time using a series of lab tests.

While it would be ideal to have benchmark levels of these three indicators, it's much more practical to monitor changes in weight (body fat), pain levels, energy, and cognitive function.

If you are losing excess body fat and noticing improvements in these measures, your inflammation levels are almost certainly improving as well.

Science-Backed Ways to Lower Inflammation

As more research emerges linking inflammation with obesity, chronic pain, and disease — the popularity of anti-inflammatory dieting has followed.

Tom Brady's unconventional diet, Whole30, the Paleo Diet, Vegetarianism, the Carnivore Diet (eating only meat), and various Intermittent Fasting protocols all purport to reduce inflammation levels in the body.