Seems the “natural health” sites are chock full of “inflammation” talk. It’s interesting that I feel good these days, am fit and even recently had bloodwork done for inflammatory markers. My bloods were perfectly normal. That being said I regularly consume 80% of foods on the “inflammation” list (avoid these 10 inflammatory foods!) etc. According to these sites I should be swollen, sore, rashy and have all manner of health problems. The way these sites use “inflammation” so liberally gives me the woo vibe. I suppose if someone does eat potato chips and other crap high in omega6 they might create an inflammatory state. But for people who eat whole foods, exercise daily and avoid most crap why would a bit of sourdough or 100% peanut butter cause “inflammation”? Reminds me of people always harping on about “adrenal fatigue” or needing to “detox”.
An illustrative link/cite/site would be nice.
They’re everwhere: foods tha cause inflammation - Google Search
It certainly looks like woo to me.
Of course, if you google for woo, you are going to find it.
Aren’t you the guy who thinks your mattress is trying to kill you?
I never said that. It was a curiosity and after a lot of research I do believe VOCs exist and have been confirmed to cause issues. Now… dose makes the poison so I don’t think it’s much of an issue. However it can be pretty significant when it comes to “new car smell”. But overall I went with latex in the end, not for VOC reasons but for the way it supported my spine. It just felt better for me. Tempur also felt good but it has a lot of lag, as when you move you must wait for your body to resettle again and since I fidgit in bed a lot it wasn’t an option.
It’s woo. A good takedown of some of the logic used to “prove” inflammation is bad is at Science Based Medicine – Magic diet? Not so much | ScienceBlogs
The celebrity doctors talking about diet and inflammation all seem to have extensive entries on Quackwatch.com.
BTW, the need to “detox” is also woo. Your liver and kidneys should handle that just fine.
Not a doctor; thus I’m not MedicalMonkey or something like that. But so far as I know: Inflammation’s definitely a thing in medicine right now. It’s correlated w/ all sorts of different diseases/conditions, which possibly means new ways to treat or prevent such conditions. There’s a fair bit of research underway to better understand the relationship between inflammation and the various conditions; corollary, we don’t really understand the relationship all that well just yet.
Which brings us to the foods that “cause” inflammation. First, I guess it’s possible that certain foods are associated with a rise in certain inflammatory markers, probably quite temporary. If we want to be generous, we can go ahead and assume that much; at any rate, I’m not going to go digging around for studies to the contrary. It doesn’t follow from that, though, that there are any particular health benefits to be had from avoiding (or favoring) these foods on this particular basis. Other sources of inflammation could be more important; the inflammation could be the symptom or indicator of whatever disease state rather than any sort of contributing factor, etc. Eventually, someone will do a long-term study and figure this stuff out, maybe. Until then, it’s prime territory for woo that sells books and gets clicks.
Personally, any ‘gimmick’ dietary advice will tend to get little time or interest from me; I’m a fan of “eat good food in moderation”. But I’m no dietician either. Hopefully someone with some credentials will be along presently.
FWIW, I will mention that my doctor thinks inflammation is important. He never mentioned any connection with foods, though. But he suspects that the real positive effect of statins is reducing inflammation rather then the small percentage of cholesterol reduction they provide.
Any idea what evidence and standards are used by the different woo-meisters for determining that one food triggers or prevents more relevant inflammation than another? Or is it essentailly just made up? I think the latter.
The concept that low grade chronic inflammation is part of the pathogenesis of a host of disease states is pretty reasonable and well accepted. The pretension that we understand what exactly triggers the dysregulation and how to modify it other than the basic healthy diet plans and avoidance of obesity in the first place, not so reasonable. Yes, statins appear to regulate it beneficially. Certain NSAIDs were tried based on that model and caused substantial harms. I am more intrigued by research figuring out how our microbiomes are involved in regulating inflammation than this made up rating system. But hey, the foods advsed on these plans are the ones that most everyone would agree are pretty healthy choices, so if someone wants to eat more fatty fish and kale for a woo reason, well I can roll my eyes after I turn my head. It’s still doing good stuff.
Sorry to doublepost but I have tried to answer my own question and figure I’d share what I could find.
First the stupid. Sites that just make stuff up whole cloth - gluten bad so no rye or barley or seiten or wheat - people are allergic to dairy and peanuts so avoid them - this sort of inflammation (the sort of markers associated with obesity and heart disease risk) is related to the inflammation of arthritis and asthma - you can add together some arbitrary measures and creat an “Inflammation Factor” (IF) score - Loads of unsubstantiated crap.
Then there is the more reasoned claims, like in this article.
TLDNR: Certain markers of chronic inflammation are indeed associated with certain disease states and they might be more than markers; they might play a contributory role. It is possible that diet could modify these factors.
More whole grain was associated with lower levels of inflammatory markers possibly related to the fact that it was also associated with better insulin sensitivity (SI) i.e. less insulin resistance, and less central obesity. Which is the chicken and which is the egg? unclear. More refined grain was associated with higher levels on one of the inflammatory markers and was not as associated with insulin resistance and central obesity.
Again whole grains, like whole wheat, barley, rye, are protective from inflammation and asociated with better insulin sensitivity, the latter already well described. Despite the idiocy of some of these woo sites.
So at least there is some basis for claiming that whole grains are anti-inflammatory and some plausibility for believing that such may be part of why they are beneficial.
I think we’re a long way from being able to assume that foods which may be associated with elevated levels of certain serum markers in specified populations are Bad, and that healthy people who avoid them can lower their risk of chronic ailments.
This strikes me as the woo counterpart to “superfoods”. Eat this, don’t eat that and you’ve got the ticket to great health. Things tend to be a lot more complicated, and our genes have a way of having the final say in the matter.
Agreed to some degree. In this case it is more that we already know about the health impact of whole grains, especially in comparison to refined carbs, and the open question is the mechanism. Is low grade inflammation a partial cause or an effect or to some degree both?
Genes sometimes have final say, but predispositions are not destiny. Magic bullets though are not too likely to be found.
Let’s explore our potential disagreement some more.
Hard to have studies powered adequately looking at healthy people’s outcomes … will you accept this one looking at a population with Metabolic Syndrome as at least suggestive?
Compared to a control standard prudent diet (carbohydrates, 50%-60%; proteins, 15%-20%; total fat, <30%), a Mediterranean-style diet (which overlaps mightily with the foods on some of these woo anti-inflammatory lists) resulted in significantly reduced markers of inflammation (e.g. hs-CRP), better insulin sensitivity, and improved endothelial function score. I think that you’d accept that the latter two correlate well with lowered risk of some chronic ailments. So in at least a higher risk population choosing some foods over other ones can lower markers of inflammation and lower risk for certain chronic diseases.
In T2 diabetics a low glycemic index diet did not change HgbA1c levels but did impact hs-CRP significantly. Of course the assumption that such significant reduction in hs-CRP translates to clinical outcomes may be wrong …
And for kicks, the 2006 AHA guidance on the subject!
So again, lots of woo and crap and pseudoscience gets promoted with these lists of foods to eat and foods to avoid and the bottom line remains that a Mediterranean-style diet, high in low GI foods, regular exercise, and not becoming obese and losing weight if obese, is a good approach. The inflammation is the key promotes go beyond what is solidly supported by the science and throw in a solid heap of nonsense on top. But there is some real science behind the basic idea.
Food allergies are real, and lot of the reactions are inflammation. I’m allergic to raw wheat flour, a little dust in my sinuses and you’ll see the worst “hay fever” attack you can imagine. Also allergic to the holy trinity of tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes, sweet Solanaceae, if I overindulge I get a day of nausea and joint pain (just made a gallon of hot sauce from the garden, tomorrow might be rough).
Just about all nutrition info is woo, seems to be a science particularly driven by economics and ideology. Dr Oz ain’t the biggest quack out there, it’s all that crap from the FedGov you have to watch out for.
Reducing calories and eating a less fatty diet with greater plant intake has significant evidentiary backing as a means of lowering risk of disease (for example, cardiovascular ailments).
What remains guesswork is the idea that an intervention producing “better” scores on lab measures like CRP and endothelial function will translate into less disease in the real world.
I’ve been following debate over the usefulness of resveratrol, which in recent years has been a heavily hyped supplement. Supporters can quote you reams of data (much of it in animals) showing that the stuff improves X laboratory measures that are supposed to correlate with fantastic health and longevity. What remains lacking is any solid evidence that significant benefit actually occurs in humans (or that undesirable effects can be excluded).
You want to try a “Mediterranean diet”, fine. But expecting fabulous results from eating eliminating a host of foods that are supposed to promote/reduce “inflammation”, “alkalnize your body”, give you the healthy arteries of remote Pacific islanders etc. is bound to disappoint.
Food allergies are real - I know ppl with celiac disease and rheumatoid arthritis respectively who genuinely have gluten and solenoid sensitivities. They consistently complain within 12 hours or less from accidental ingestion and are laid up for days dealing with the reactions, it’s not at all fun.
The woo comes in when it becomes a dietary trend along the lines of “hey, if gluten/solenoid foods are bad for them, it must be a continuum and I should avoid them too to stave off getting the symptoms”. “I heard that people with gluten sensitivity get fuzzy-headed from it, well I eliminated gluten from my diet too and I feel so much more alert!” Um, no.
No one is claiming that there are no food allergies. Indeed the woo is claiming that something fairly uncommon, such as milk allergy (not lactose intolerance) and celiac disease (not an allergy) or true wheat allergy, is rampant. And in conflating the immunologic responses of those conditions with the sorts of inflammation that are associated with diabetes, obesity, heart disease, etc.
Jackmanni is of course correct in that we do not know for sure that markers which correlate with improved outcomes are etiologic in those outcomes. We get that wrong sometimes. The most recent bit is apparently the HDL part btw. High HDL is, in general, highly correlated with good outcomes but recent research involving some genetic conditions that cause high HDL show that it may not be the HDL that causes those good outcomes. So in general it is likely that complete diets and lifestyles that reduce these sorts of inflammatory markers will be result in reduced risks of ill health but it may not be the inflammation that is etiologic … it may be a result of what is.
A nutritionist told me that I should try to avoid foods that cause inflammation, and suggested a specific book that would give me good advice about this. Unfortunately, nothing in that book explained which part of my body would be inflamed by these foods. Even when I asked her afterward, “What’s bad about inflammation? What part of my body would get inflamed?”, the only response I got was a blank stare.
I’d be willing to look into it further, if someone could clue me in on that point. Until then, woo woo!
Is this the same thing as an allergic reaction from eating strawberries or some kinds of seafood, or whatever?
And where did you get this weird term “woo” anyway? Sounds like a label expressing prejudice (cf. Ambrose Bierce).