5 Most Effective Ways To Reduce Your Inflammation (Inflammation Series: Part Three)

Graham Ryan

18 Jun 2014

(This is part three of a three-part series on inflammation. You can find part one here and part two here)

In the two previous articles in this series, I explained what inflammation is and why it is so damaging to our health when not managed properly.

For those of you who read the previous articles in the series, I’ll be brief in my rehashing. Inflammation is a defense mechanism our immune system uses in response to real or perceived threats. This is extremely useful when the threats are real (such as bacteria in a cut), but can be quite dangerous to our health when the perceived threat is not actually a threat.

Food allergens, toxins and stress are among the list of things that can trigger the immune system to initiate an inflammatory response. Because exposure to these immune triggers is often continuous, the inflammation response never gets turned off. This is what we refer to as chronic systemic inflammation.

The reality is, everyone is exposed to these triggers to some degree every day. For this reason,everyone deals with some degree of systemic inflammation every day.

How well or poorly you manage your inflammation will have a huge impact on the way your body and brain feel and perform. Inflammation down-regulates energy metabolism, increases fat storage, impairs cognitive function and contributes to clinical depression.

You can understand why reducing inflammation is always near the top of my list of priorities to focus on when helping someone improve the way they look, feel or perform.

Here are my top inflammation-reducing strategies, in order of importance:

1. Identify And Remove Food Allergens

In the past decade-or-so we've realized that a huge percentage of the population has some type of food allergy, and most are unaware of it. Food allergy diagnoses have skyrocketed - not because of an increased prevalence of food allergies - but because doctors have finally caught on and are testing for them more frequently.

Because many food allergies are relatively mild and the allergens are often found in foods we eat every day, food allergies often go unnoticed for years and years.

The big culprits are wheat, milk and soy. I highly recommend removing each of these from your diet for at least a month, and observing to see if you notice an improvement in your energy levels, body composition or cognitive function/mood. (Actually, I recommend removing all three of these from your diet, regardless of allergy, as they all have issues with various toxin contaminations).

Milk, in particular, has become an issue for more and more people as the commercial dairy industry continues to use more "A1-type" cows. “A1” cows (vs. the traditional “A2” cows) have become the dominant cow breed used in dairy production over the past few decades. This presents a problem as the proteins (specifically casein) produced by A1 cows are pro-inflammatory for a huge number of people relative to milk from A2 cows. [1]

2. Identify And Avoid Dietary Toxins

The list of chemicals found in our foods that can be classified as toxins is alarmingly long and complex. Toxins can be from organic sources (mold toxins), chemicals added during growing (pesticides, herbicides), chemicals from processing (solvents, preservatives, etc.) and improperly cooked food (oxidized cooking oils).

Toxins can even come from the foods themselves, as is the case with “antinutrients” in quinoa, beans and other grains.

Toxins can also come from our environment, including chemical cleaning products, chemicals leeching out of plastics and radiation.

The links in this section are a good place to start in identifying sources of toxin exposure in your life, but this is really a subject that requires some further research on your part. (fortunately for you, any significant source of toxins I’m aware of is discussed somewhere on this website).

Our immune system recognizes all of these toxins as threats and triggers an inflammatory response when they’re detected in the body. While these toxins are indeed threats to cellular function, the inflammatory response does little to combat these toxins. The toxins will continue to wreak havoc in the body and on top of that, we also have to deal with the negative effects of the inflammatory response.

3. Eat Loads Of Detoxifying Foods

Regardless of how diligent you are in avoiding sources of toxin exposure, disruptive chemicals are still going to make it into your body to some degree. It’s an inevitable consequence of living in our polluted modern world and eating from our contaminated food system.

Fortunately, we also have tools at our disposal to combat the toxins that do make it into our bodies. Eating large amounts of detoxifying foods will neutralize toxins in the gut and bloodstream before they are able to disrupt cellular function or trigger an inflammatory response.

TWO TYPES OF DETOXIFYERS

I divide detoxifiers into two main types, and having both in your diet in significant levels is critical to minimizing your systemic inflammation.

Antioxidants: These are organic compounds produced by nearly all foods in varying levels. In the digestive system and bloodstream, antioxidants will seek out and neutralize pro-oxidative toxins. There are a lot of different types of antioxidants in foods, and many specialize in neutralizing specific types of toxins. For this reason, it’s important to have both variety and quantity of antioxidants in your diet.
Chelators: Dietary chlorophyll is the standout here, as it is far-and-away the most common and most effective chelating detoxifier. Chlorophyll works primarily in the gut, binding to toxins such that they are neutralized and can be safely excreted. Chelators are a great complement to antioxidants as they will neutralize toxins (like heavy metals and mold toxins) that antioxidants are sometimes ineffective against.

When we formulated Synchro Genesis, our flagship nutrition product, the intention was to pull together some of the most powerfully detoxifying “superfoods” of each of the two types discussed above - and formulate them in such a way that they would complement each other and amplify the overall functionality.

We chose two of the world’s most antioxidant rich foods - our wild-harvested organic raw cacao and organic acai - to give Synchro Genesis a truly exceptional antioxidant content and variety that will neutralize a wide spectrum of oxidative toxins. On top of that, Synchro Genesis utilizes the three most chlorophyll-rich foods on the planet (chlorella, spirulina and alfalfa) to supply a big dose of dietary chlorophyll.

This unique combination of natural detoxifiers makes Synchro Genesis one of the most potent toxin-neutralizing, inflammation-fighting products on the market today. That this is accomplished with exclusively organic and natural ingredients is all the more impressive.

4. Stop Eating Wheat

Wheat gets the unique distinction of being mentioned twice on this list, and deservingly so. Even if you don’t have a wheat allergy, eating it can still cause an immune response to be triggered. How is this possible, you ask?

Wheat contains two proteins - gliadin and zonulin (which together form the infamous gluten). These two proteins have been shown to break down the thin layer of cells (epithelium) that lines our digestive tract. When the epithelium breaks down, it allows undigested particles from food to slip into the bloodstream. The immune system recognizes these particles as invaders and triggers an inflammatory response to deal with the perceived “threat”. [2]

If you are totally certain you don’t have an allergy to wheat, you can probably get away to eating it once a week without putting your epithelium at risk (provided you don't have other food allergies and have a healthy epithelium). But really, with the other issues wheat has, (including mycotoxin contamination) is it really worth it?

5. Turmeric Root

Turmeric (and it’s primary anti-inflammatory compound, curcumin) are somewhat of a natural miracle in fighting inflammation and the symptoms of chronic inflammation I covered in the previous articles.

Turmeric has been shown to reduce inflammation better than over-the-counter anti-inflammatories like ibuprofen and aspirin. [3] Turmeric has also been shown to be highly effective in treating some of the diseases associated with chronic inflammation, including aging-related cognitive decline [4] and cardiovascular disease [5].

Impressively, turmeric has even been shown to compare favorably to prescription anti-depressant medications in treating clinical depression, further reinforcing the “inflammation model” of depression. [6]

Because absorption of the active alkaloids is quite poor, consuming raw or powdered turmeric is unfortunately not an effective way to treat inflammation.

Turmeric extracts concentrate the active alkaloids, but will still be only minimally effective unless formulated with a mechanism to overcome the absorption issues.

To solve this puzzle, we developed the world's only turmeric product that uses both liposomal delivery and black pepper extract to enhance absorption. The result is a turmeric supplement of unmatched potency and anti-inflammatory power. Click here to learn more about Synchro Gold: Liposomal Turmeric Capsules.