Top 10 Foods That Cause Inflammation

Hello Health Champions. Today i'm going to talk  about inflammation and the foods that may or may  

not cause inflammation. And the reason i say  may or may not is that people will react very  

very differently to different foods so it makes no  sense to talk about foods causing reactions unless  

we first understand a little bit about what those  inflammatory reactions are inflammation is exactly  

what it sounds like it's a flame it's something  that hot red swollen and painful and we need to  

understand it's an immune response that it's your  immune system getting into action for some reason  

and this is something that's not happening to the  body it's not the food causing the inflammation  

but it's something that's done by the body  it's the body responding it's interpreting  

and reacting to that food and this could be a  local inflammation or it could be systemic and  

we'll talk about both of those kinds and number  10 on the list is dairy a lot of people love dairy  

it's a very popular food especially if you're  going low carb you're reducing carbs to reduce  

inflammation from insulin resistance but if  you are sensitive to dairy now you're just  

trading one type of inflammation for another so  it could backfire that way so it all depends on  

if you are sensitive to that same thing with  lectins and oxalates there's a lot of talk about  

that people ask me all the time are lectins  bad for you should i eat spinach because of  

all the oxalate well it depends on if you have  a sensitivity and it's not that easy to figure  

this out you can run some blood tests but a lot  of it is going to have to be trial and error  

if everything is working if you're getting  healthier then you're probably doing fine  

but if you're still having some inflammation if  you have some aches and pains if you hit plateaus  

and your weight loss if you're having some issue  then you want to start thinking about these things  

so what are lectins and oxalates well they're  plant defenses lectins are compounds produced by  

plants so they can defend themselves from getting  eaten and dairy again has a lectin called casein  

we have a very popular group of plants of  vegetables called nightshades and while these  

foods are fantastic for most people like tomato  potato eggplant bell pepper and if you notice  

the dots that means the list goes on and on and  on these are just examples these foods could be  

fantastic for most people but if you are sensitive  to lectins then the lectins create inflammation  

then they're not good for you same thing  with legumes there's probably even more  

people that have trouble with them legumes  have lectins in lentils beans peanuts etc  

and most grains especially the popular  ones wheat rice and oats also have lectins  

so part of the reason that people get healthier  when they cut this stuff out especially the grains  

is that they're reducing their carbohydrate load  they're reducing the insulin but another part  

can be that they're also cutting out some lectins  causing inflammation oxalates are another thing  

that can cause inflammation they're mostly  associated with the formation of stones especially  

in the kidneys so kidney stones can be some  of the most excruciating back pain you've ever  

experienced and spinach tops the list but we have  rhubarb soy beets buckwheat almonds potatoes and  

navy beans and there's lots of other foods that  have oxalates as well again a lot of people will  

do just fine but if you have a tendency to make  stone or if you are susceptible to these causing  

irritation then they will cause inflammation as  well in that person and when i go over the foods  

i'm going to talk about two basic categories of  food on the one hand it's foods that are bad for  

certain individuals like in a crowd there might  be one person reacting very severely to peanuts  

or shrimp or something like that and these are of  course known as food allergies and it could range  

anywhere from an anaphylactic shock like some  people could just smell peanuts and they could die  

if they didn't get treatment other people might  have symptoms that could be acute or delayed  

some people eat a food and within five minutes  they have a reaction they feel bad other people  

would have a delayed reaction of three four  five days a delayed hypersensitivity reaction  

and now it's very difficult to relate the symptom  to the food that they ate and there are tests that  

you can have but they're kind of expensive and  there's just way too many things that they find  

so it's always better just to kind of try to  improve your overall digestion i think and the  

healthier you get the better you'll be able to  tolerate a lot of these things it could also be  

that it's creating a little bit of inflammation  but that you're asymptomatic and then  

you would never know but it still sort of adds  up over time the bottom line though is that this  

again is not something that the food does to your  body it's an interpretation that your body makes  

about the food and then there are foods that  are basically universally bad they're bad for  

everybody and these would be foods that  cause insulin resistance because insulin  

resistance will increase inflammation in the body  a chronic low-grade inflammation foods that cause  

oxidative stress that create reactive oxygen  species and free radicals they create inflammation  

and it could be either that the food provokes that  response in the body or it could be that the food  

itself has been oxidized so you're introducing a  lot of oxidative material in the body it could be  

that the oils have a very high omega 6 to 3 ratio  ideally historically this should be about a one to  

one or maybe we can push it to about a three or a  four to one but most diets today if you're eating  

modern standard food you're gonna get about  a 20 to one ratio which is highly promoting  

inflammation so these are things that  these are foods that affect everyone  

to a degree but again their differences so one  person could be extremely sensitive just one  

little bit will totally overwhelm their system and  someone else will still be affected but it takes  

50 60 years before they get sick and then they're  still not as as sick as the other person the  

problem with these are also that they're not  going to cause as strong a reaction it's not  

like a food that you eat and five minutes later  you know that something happened these are more  

silent it's a very low grade chronic inflammation  and you're not really aware that it's going on  

and that's why so many people have it and so  many people are affected because it's part of  

our lifestyle it becomes chronic and it goes on  year after year but if inflammation is so bad  

why does the body create it because it is a  natural necessary part of healing and anytime you  

have a trauma or infection the body goes through  certain phases in response so the acute phase  

is right when something happens when you  have some tissue damage or an acute infection  

then the body goes to seal off that area so  it's just like the police at a crime scene they  

fence off the area to protect that area and that's  exactly what the body does first it reduces the  

blood flow so you'll stop the bleeding and then  as it stabilizes it increases the swelling and you  

have migration of white blood cells and increased  circulation and metabolism so you can bring more  

activity to that area so it gets all red and hot  and this should only last for hours two days maybe  

three to four days at the most then the body  should shift it should be done with that part  

and it should start healing proliferation means  making new cells so you break down the old cells  

you make new cells and that's how healing takes  place and this can go on depending on the size  

and the extent of the injury could go on for days  or weeks or even months like if you break a bone  

it could take two three months to heal that but  then everything is kind of intact and together  

and then the body goes into remodeling and now  it kind of smooths off the edges and cleans it up  

and tries to get it as close to 100 as it can  and this could go for weeks or even up to a year  

and then we hope that after all that the issue  has been resolved that we're back exactly  

like we were before the injury and for the  most part if we have a small cut on the skin  

then it will go back to a hundred percent but  larger injuries they rarely go all the way back  

so they don't quite get resolved or if it's a  systemic inflammation and it's because we keep  

reintroducing it's part of our lifestyle we keep  putting in the things causing the inflammation now  

the body also can't resolve it so non-resolved  inflammation is basically the cause of all our  

problems today chronic low-grade inflammation is  associated with cardiovascular disease with cancer  

with dementia and the list goes on and on we can  also have latent infections causing inflammation  

when you get an infection you fight it off but you  don't get rid of it a hundred percent just like 99  

and you still have some pathogens that go  high in the corners they're just waiting for  

an opportunity when you get a little bit stressed  and your immune system goes down now they pop up  

and now you have infections that come and go come  and go and it seems like you just never quite  

get rid of them like Lyme's disease  and Epstein-Barr and things like that  

and also old chronic injuries where you  injure something and there's a little residual  

inflammation you don't quite get the full range  of motion and the strength back in that body part  

and of course you could have a combination of all  of these so you could have an old chronic injury  

that's made worse by a low-grade inflammation from  food habits but basically all disease that we're  

talking about is a result of inflammation that  is not resolved and when i say disease i'm not  

talking about a cut on the finger your body heals  that that's just part of what the body can do  

if you get a cold or you get a covet infection  or the flu when you recover your body has just  

done what it's supposed to do that wasn't really  a disease disease is when a trauma happens when a  

challenge happens and it lingers and your body  can't quite get rid of it that's disease and  

virtually all of that is non-resolved inflammation  so the first foods mentioned here are bad for you  

if you're sensitive to them people ask me are  is dairy bad are lectins bad not for everybody  

they're bad for you if you react to them because  then they cause inflammation some more foods that  

affect a lot of people they're very very common  allergens are soy corn wheat gluten and grains so  

we're not just talking the wheat with the gluten  we're talking rice and barley and rye and oats and  

so forth because they affect people in different  ways wheat is probably the worst especially modern  

wheat but a lot of people are sensitive to grains  and they cause immune reactions but just like corn  

they're also a grain they're high in starch and  sugar so they will also affect insulin resistance  

number five on the list is alcohol and alcohol you  don't really have an immune reaction to it per se  

but it does absolutely affect insulin resistance  both because in many ways alcohol acts as a sugar  

but also because alcohol is a tremendous burden  on the liver so together with fructose alcohol is  

the factor that mostly creates a fatty liver and  promotes insulin resistance and then of course  

alcohol is also a form of toxin it will create  oxidative stress and reactive oxygen species  

number four is sugar sugar of course is 50  fructose so that's almost as bad as alcohol  

on the liver then the glucose triggers insulin  that promotes insulin resistance and of course  

we also have a tremendous amount of toxic effects  and reactive oxygen species the glucose can  

destroy blood vessels it leaks out into tissues  and causing swelling so we can get a lot of tissue  

trauma also from sugar number three on the list  is seed oil and now we're getting into the really  

really bad stuff when it comes to inflammation  because first of all you can't have an allergic  

reaction to it because they're made from things  that are very common allergens like corn and soy  

but then we get into the things that are  universally bad that these seed oils they promote  

insulin resistance even though they don't trigger  insulin per se they fit into insulin receptors and  

kind of change the balance of that whole system  but maybe the worst part about the seed oils is  

that they are so harshly processed they are super  heated they are produced under high pressure  

and in order to get almost 100 of the fat  out of those seeds and beans and grains  

like corn is a grain then they use solvents  because you can't just squeeze and get oil  

out of corn you have to use solvents and then  with all this harsh processing these oils get  

very very toxic and very very highly oxidized they  taste terrible so now they have to bleach them  

and deodorize them and de-gum them and clean them  up in all sorts of ways so that you could even  

tolerate the stuff but all of these damaged  molecules all that oxidative stress is still  

in the oil and you're introducing that into your  body and this is probably the biggest reason  

why seed oils are so bad for you but as if all  that wasn't bad enough sea dogs are even going to  

check that last box because it's extremely high in  omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids and that shifts the  

metabolic pathways the inflammatory pathways in  the body so we're promoting the pro-inflammatory  

from that perspective as well and number two on  the list is trans fats so what they do now that's  

how they made margarine that's how they make  frying oils that will be more tolerant to heat  

is they start off with the seed oil but then  they mess with it even more now they change the  

molecule further on purpose they hydrogenate it  they saturate it so again all of the factors that  

relate to seed oil are now true for trans fats  as well but in addition to that we've changed the  

molecule further so now it does additional damage  to your cell membranes and to the communication in  

the body and now you're wondering what's going  to top the list how can you get any worse than  

checking all the boxes and then messing further  with it as trans fats well the answer is by  

combining virtually everything on the board and  it's called fast food because fast food is high in  

grains it's high in corn and soy it's very often  has lectins often dairy and then to top it off  

virtually all of that food even if it's not fried  they still use these seed oils and if it's fried  

that makes it even worse and of course they're  very high in sugar alcohol is basically the only  

thing that you don't routinely find in fast food  so we're checking all the boxes combining most of  

the worst of the entire board here. If you enjoyed  this video you're going to love that one, and if  

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