Anti-inflammatory diet

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Humans evolved consuming food that is completely different in composition and nutrient ratios from modern diet. Many of the foods and beverages that have become staples in our Western diets are not only missing in healthy nutrients, they irritate and damage the intestinal lining.

Among ancient humans, hunter-gatherers, there was a huge range of diets - from almost all meat to almost all plant-based. Yet most of mankind for most of human history has lived on vegetarian or near-vegetarian diets.

Among the many health problems resulting from this mismatch between our genetically determined nutritional requirements and our current diet, some might be a consequence in part of the deficiency of potassium alkali salts (K-base), which are amply present in the plant foods that our ancestors ate in abundance, and the exchange of those salts for sodium chloride (NaCl), Deficiency of K-base in the diet increases the net systemic acid load imposed by the diet. Contemporary net acid-producing diets do indeed characteristically produce a low-grade systemic metabolic acidosis in otherwise healthy adult subjects, and the degree of acidosis increases with age.

Hip fracture incidence in older women, for example, correlates with animal protein intake and acidosis is unacceptable from an evolutionarily perspective.

Today, in Western diets, the ratio of n-6 to n-3 essential fatty acids ranges from ~20-30:1 instead of the traditional range of 1-2:1. Over the past 100 to 150 years there has been an enormous increase in the consumption of n-6 fatty acids due to increased intake of vegetable oils from corn, sunflower seeds, safflower seeds, cottonseed and soybeans.

Beneficial effects of n-3 fatty acids have been shown in the secondary prevention of coronary heart disease, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and, in some patients with renal disease, rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis, Crohn disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (Simopoulos, 1999).

Not only refined but also whole grains and rice contain n-6 fatty acids and no n-3 fatty acids. They also contain sugar-binding proteins lectins that may be blocking nutrient absorption and may be responsible for “leaky gut syndrome” - the inability of the intestinal wall to keep out large, unwanted molecules, such as proteins, due to the altered permeability of intestinal wall. The body misinterprets these large molecules as a foreign invader and begins to produce antibodies to attack them. In turn, this creates a process where one’s body recognizes certain foods and its own molecules as harmful, causing an auto-immune disease when the body attacks itself. As a result bacteria and toxins get transported into bloodstream weakening the body. Among other potential causes of this syndrome are high alcohol and caffeine intake, drugs like ibuprofen and antacids, gluten, casein and other proteins.

Some grains also contain phytates that block absorption of Mg and other minerals.





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Anti-inflammatory diet

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