Here's What Helps With Inflammation
/The coronavirus pandemic is causing an array of health effects for thousands upon thousands of people. While some have no symptoms, others suffer from massive hyperinflammation called a "cytokine storm." There may even be long-term consequences in those who recover due to the inflammatory response caused by the viral infection. One question I can answer for you is: "What helps with inflammation?"
Before we dive into the answer, protecting yourself and others from getting the virus is crucial at this time. Please follow all public health guidelines to stay at home, wash your hands often, and if you do need to go out, avoid close contact and cover your mouth and nose when around others.
The next best thing you can do to protect your health during this pandemic is to be mindful of healthy eating habits. Why? Because food influences the most fundamental and critical building blocks of our health—our genes. How genes interact with the food we eat and the lifestyle we lead is crucial to optimizing gene expression in order to help with inflammation.
What is Inflammation?
Inflammation can make things in your body go haywire
Inflammation is the body’s natural response to infection and injury as an aid to healing. A certain amount of inflammation is required to protect the body and guide it towards restoring health. This is the reason why our bodies naturally produce inflammation. Things go haywire when we can’t turn off the inflammatory response and are left with inflammation that has a noxious effect on the body. This causes many symptoms and can deteriorate the health of those with infections or other sources of inflammation.
Inflammation works in a vicious cycle with oxidative stress. Both inflammation and oxidative stress are enemies of health. They both play a role in the symptoms and outcomes of infections, such as with the coronavirus. If we can determine what helps with inflammation and work toward that, we'll all be healthier.
How Does Food Help With Inflammation?
The ability to calm the fires of inflammation (from infections or otherwise) lies in choosing the right foods. The study of nutrigenomics has revealed which nutrients influence specific genes to produce more—or fewer—inflammatory molecules. This works because certain foods activate or suppress gene expression. In order to influence the health-stabilizing biological makeup of our cells, we can simply eat differently.
“Thus, now more than ever, wider access to healthy foods should be a top priority and individuals should be mindful of healthy eating habits to reduce susceptibility to and long-term complications from COVID-19.”
Butler and Barrientos, 2020
There are components in food called bioactives that can directly influence how genes work. They are not the same as vitamins or minerals and have no caloric value, but they have a huge influence on our health.
Bioactives act like a switch
Bioactives function like a switch that, when activated, sets in motion a series of biochemical steps. This is akin to knocking over a series of dominos. The bioactives’ effects cascade into the activation (or deactivation) of those key genes that regulate our inflammation.
We have a handful of genes that I call the "Master Genes" that are more influential than others. These Master Genes have far-reaching impacts on our health. They exert influence on the pathways and systems that control oxidative stress and inflammation and direct a number of other genes, as well. Two of these are instrumental in turning on the inflammatory response: Nf-kB and TNF-alpha. (While both of these act like Master Genes, Nf-kB is actually something called a transcription factor, a sort of “gene helper” that activates the first step in gene expression.) Whereas other genes, such as Nrf2, reduce inflammation by promoting the expression of genes whose protein products act as powerful antioxidants.
The key to managing inflammation is to eat a diet rich in bioactives that turns on our important Nrf2 to help extinguish inflammation and free radicals. This also blocks the TNF-alpha and Nf-kB switches which ignite inflammatory fires.
The Diet That Helps With Inflammation?
The Mediterranean Diet is touted as one of the healthiest diets (and lifestyles) on the planet—and for good reason. This style of eating can help calm the fires of inflammation through the impact it has on these specific genes. If we can keep inflammation and oxidative stress in check, then we have a stronger foundation for health in the short- and long-term.
A November 2016 paper in Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolic Care sums it up beautifully.
“In the era of evidence-based medicine, the Mediterranean diet represents the gold standard in preventive medicine, probably due to the harmonic combination of many elements with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, which overwhelm any single nutrient or food item. The whole seems more important than the sum of its parts.”
Martinez-Gonzalez and Martín-Calvo, 2016
When we think about the Mediterranean diet and lifestyle through the lens of nutrigenomics, we start to have a different understanding of how food may be playing a role in the health outcomes we see in this region.
A 2018 study in Nutrition and Diabetes linked the intake of the polyphenol-rich (in other words, bioactive rich) Mediterranean diet with lower levels of inflammation. Two of the inflammation markers measured in this study are related to the Nf-kB gene.
The traditional Mediterranean foods that are common to this region and its traditional cuisine and diet contain the very bioactives that can block (or “down-regulate,” as we say in nutrigenomics) the Nf-kB transcription factor to help with inflammation. It’s as if the people of these islands are taking a natural anti-inflammatory through the food they eat.
What Helps with Inflammation?
The body has unique, yet complex biochemical management systems replete with checks and balances. We just need to enable and support those pathways and processes to help the body do its work with the right foods to help with inflammation.
Food influences the most fundamental and critical building blocks of our health—our genes
While food is not a cure for the "hyperinflammation" of the coronavirus cytokine storm, there are proven ways to eat to maximize health and reduce inflammation. Nutrigenomics has helped us understand why certain components of the Mediterranean diet are beneficial. We now understand how specific nutrients and other compounds influence how genes create proteins and determine our health—including helping with inflammation. We are talking about optimizing the body as a whole from the ground up, from the deep inner workings of our cells. You can do this by eating more foods such as fruits and vegetables (high in bioactives), whole grains, and fish or free-range animal protein.
The bottom line is food influences the most fundamental and critical building blocks of our health—our genes. In order to influence the health-stabilizing biological makeup—including reducing inflammation—we have to look at eating differently.
To find out more about what your genes tell you about you, sign up for the free course: You. Your Genes. Your Health.
References
Billingsley, H. E., & Carbone, S. (2018). The antioxidant potential of the Mediterranean diet in patients at high cardiovascular risk: an in-depth review of the PREDIMED. Nutrition & diabetes, 8(1), 13. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41387-018-0025-1
Butler, M. J., & Barrientos, R. M. (2020). The impact of nutrition on COVID-19 susceptibility and long-term consequences. Brain, behavior, and immunity, S0889-1591(20)30537-7. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbi.2020.04.040
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2020). Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/prevention.html
Henderson, L. A., Canna, S. W., Schulert, G. S., Volpi, S., Lee, P. Y., Kernan, K. F., Caricchio, R., Mahmud, S., Hazen, M. M., Halyabar, O., Hoyt, K. J., Han, J., Grom, A. A., Gattorno, M., Ravelli, A., de Benedetti, F., Behrens, E. M., Cron, R. Q., & Nigrovic, P. A. (2020). On the alert for cytokine storm: Immunopathology in COVID-19. Arthritis & rheumatology (Hoboken, N.J.), 10.1002/art.41285. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1002/art.41285
Martinez-Gonzalez, M. A., & Martin-Calvo, N. (2016). Mediterranean diet and life expectancy; beyond olive oil, fruits, and vegetables. Current opinion in clinical nutrition and metabolic care, 19(6), 401–407. https://doi.org/10.1097/MCO.0000000000000316
