April 2, 2025 • 17 mins
These seventeen minutes about inflammation are not to be missed. Inflammation is a natural defense mechanism, but chronic inflammation can contribute to heart disease, diabetes, autoimmune conditions, and more. In this episode, Dr. Falquier breaks down the science of inflammation, exploring why it’s essential for healing, how it can be harmful, and what you can do to keep it in check.
In this episode you’ll hear:
1:25 - Chronic inflammation statistics
2:30 - What is acute inflammation?
3:10 - Healing acute inflammation
4:30 - Chronic inflammation causes
6:10 - Daily cell damage that needs repair
7:40 - Examples of health problems resulting from cell damage and inflammation
8:20 - Signs of chronic inflammation
9:20 - Can you test for chronic inflammation?
12:30 - Anti-inflammatory foods
14:50 - How to reduce inflammation in the body recap: a holistic approach
As referenced in the episode:
Audio - Healthy Eating Plate: Your Guide to Balanced Meals
Video - What's On Your Plate
Credits:
Host - Dr. Sabrina Falquier, MD, CCMS, DipABLM
Sound and Editing - Will Crann
Executive Producer - Esther Garfin
©2025 Alternative Food Network Inc.
In this episode you’ll hear:
1:25 - Chronic inflammation statistics
2:30 - What is acute inflammation?
3:10 - Healing acute inflammation
4:30 - Chronic inflammation causes
6:10 - Daily cell damage that needs repair
7:40 - Examples of health problems resulting from cell damage and inflammation
8:20 - Signs of chronic inflammation
9:20 - Can you test for chronic inflammation?
12:30 - Anti-inflammatory foods
14:50 - How to reduce inflammation in the body recap: a holistic approach
As referenced in the episode:
Audio - Healthy Eating Plate: Your Guide to Balanced Meals
Video - What's On Your Plate
Credits:
Host - Dr. Sabrina Falquier, MD, CCMS, DipABLM
Sound and Editing - Will Crann
Executive Producer - Esther Garfin
©2025 Alternative Food Network Inc.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I need to be able to repair the regular daily
damage without causing more damage, to have cells that are
regenerating regularly, that are as healthy as they can be.
To give you kind of a scary statistic, we all
have this natural cell damage on a day to day
and in our bodies and humans, there's about ten thousand
DNA damages that occur every day per cell, and this
(00:21):
is per the NIH. That's a lot of damage that
needs to be repaired. Welcome to Culinary Medicine Recipe. I'm
so happy you're here. I'm your host, doctor Saprina Falke.
I was a primary care doctor for sixteen years and
went to school for four years to specialize in culinary medicine.
In this work, I get to combine my passionate expertise
(00:42):
in both medicine and food to teach people about food
is medicine and to empower them to understand what ingredients
optimize health and also how to cook those ingredients to
make delicious meals. On the show, I interview top chefs, doctors,
healthcare visionaries, and food service professionals who are making great
rides in the field of culinary medicine. Join me as
(01:02):
we continue to explore the amazing world of culinary medicine,
or I will empower you to make changes to your
health and wellness with great food right away. Hello, welcome back.
I decided to take the time to develop this entire
episode for deep Dive into inflammation because there's so many
questions that come up about it, and there's a lot
of misunderstanding as well as misinformation related to it. Did
(01:26):
you know that diseases caused by chronic inflammation are responsible
for more than fifty percent of all deaths worldwide and
in the United States alone, six and ten adults live
with at least one chronic condition related to chronic inflammation,
and four and ten have at least two. With that
in mind, today's episode, I'm going to cover the difference
between healthy or acute inflammation, which is protective and harmful,
(01:48):
or chronic inflammation, why this is important, and of course
I'm going to talk about the role of nutrition and
foods to help manage both acute and chronic inflammation, and
specifically in chronic inflammation. What foods can improve, prevent, or
even reverse chronic diseases. I would really love to know
and better understand. What are you interested in, whether it's
(02:09):
an online class on this topic of either question and
answer or an online cooking class. Let me know what
sounds interesting to you by sending a quick email to
info at alternativefoodnetwork dot com. I really want to hear
your opinion of what sounds like something you'd like to
engage in. So to give us a run of the show,
I'm going to start the episode talking briefly about acute inflammation,
(02:29):
and the rest of the episode we're going to focus
on chronic inflammation. Acute inflammation is a short term response
to injury, infection, or an environmental exposure. Symptoms can include
things like having redness, swelling, heat, or pain. So think
of this if you sprain your ankle, or you get
a sunburn or burn yourself while cooking, and also symptoms
that you can get from a common cold as an example,
(02:51):
like sneezing, congestion, or coughing. These symptoms that we get
are examples of an essential process that's really important for
our body to heal, and it's also protective. So the
goal is not to mask the inflammation, but to give
our body the ability to heal as quickly as possible. So,
for example, for the sprained ankle, that could include resting,
(03:12):
icing the area, or for the common cold, it could
include resting or hydration. For all these kinds of acute inflammation,
foods definitely can play a role. Going now into foods,
the teas can be something like ginger or turmeric, which
have potent anti inflammatory components. And remember that if you
are using turmeric in either tea or cooking or in
(03:34):
a smoothie, make sure that you put a crank of
pepper anytime you're using tumeric, because it helps increase absorption
of the curcumen, which is the active ingredient, by forty times.
Moving on to things like citrus fruit, we often hear
about vitamin C helping with tissue repair. That helps with
acute like if we sprained our ankle or if we
burned ourselves. It also helps rev up our immune system
(03:55):
if we do have something like a common cold. Also
things like dark leafy greens which are rich envitamin A,
C and K. And these are things like any the
darker the better, but spinach, kale, collar greens and Swiss
charts are good ones on that list. Then we have
high antioxidant foods like berries, and then fatty fish like salmon,
sardines or mackerel because they have the omega three. So again,
(04:18):
those are the foods that can really help aid and
assist your body with acute inflammation. Now we're going to
move on to the rest of the episode whre we're
going to be talking about chronic inflammation. Now, chronic inflammation,
compared to cute is a persistent, low grade inflormation that
contributes to disease. We don't feel it. We don't feel
the pain like we do if a sprain or burn
(04:41):
or the common cold symptoms, So it's happening in the
background without us being aware of it. It can be
triggered by nutrient poor diet, specifically pro inflammatory foods or
foods that increase inflammation. The most common ones are things
like processed food like fast food or packaged snacks, refined
sugars that we find in sugar sweetened beverages like sodas, pastries,
(05:03):
and candy. Also in transfats that are not as much
used in the US, but they're still used worldwide over
processed fats that are used especially in commercially fried foods,
and processed vegetable oils, also used in pre made salad
dressings or pastries, excessive alcohol intake, red and processed meats,
over consumption of salt or sodium which is especially found
(05:26):
in packaged foods or restaurant foods, and a lack of
whole foods like vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, whole grains and
plant based proteins, as well as adequate hydration also important
to go beyond the food, so it's not just food
that causes chronic inflammation. It's stress environmental exposures which happen naturally,
(05:46):
but there's also some that we have control over. So
these are things like cigarettes, living in large cities, also
environmental pollutants like buses, subways, trains, airplanes, and also lack
of sleep. So all of these are food, food and
these other environmental exposures can lead to long term tissue
damage and development of disease. So to put the dots together,
(06:08):
every single day our body has natural cell damage that
occurs and that needs to be repaired. So we need
to have number one, the building blocks to be able
to repair that damage. And ideally we're also not adding
pieces that are datting additional damage. So the body needs
nutrients to repair and replace damage cells and if the
(06:28):
repair mechanisms are overwhelmed. That's when chronic inflammation occurs. So
to put in a different way, think of it as
if you're building Legos. I was a big Lego fan
when I was a kid. So if I'm building a house,
I'm going to need pieces of different size. But if
for some reason I no longer have a piece of
a certain size, I may still be able to build
my house, but it may not be a structurally sound
(06:51):
So that may give you a visual of saying, Okay,
I need to be able to repair the regular daily
damage without causing more damage, to have some that are
regenerating regularly that are as healthy as they can be.
To give you kind of a scary statistic, we all
have this natural cell damage on a day to day
and in our bodies and humans, there's about ten thousand
(07:14):
DNA damages that occur every day per cell and this
is per the NIH. That's a lot of damage that
needs to be repaired. And as a reminder, we have
additional cell damage with the triggers as follows. So a
nutrient poor diet. So if we're adding this ultra processed foods,
the lack of whole foods, daily stress, daily environmental exposures
(07:37):
as well as lack of sleep. And so what are
some of the chronic conditions that can occur if we
have this constant cell damage without the ability to repair fully.
These include things like heart disease, high blood pressure, plaque
build up that can lead to heart attacks. There's also
type two diabetes, obesity, autoimmune diseases like rhematured arthritis, lupus,
(07:58):
multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, which causes inflammation in the brain
which is accelerated by the cell damage and can lead
to cognitive decline, cancers because of that, chronic inflammation that
contributes to DNA damage and tumor growth, and digestive disorders
like Chrome's disease and ul sort of colitis. So by
(08:20):
now you may be wondering, how do you know if
you have chronic inflammation? So there are many signs and
symptoms of chronic inflammation, and some of them are ongoing
fatigue or low energy, joint pain, stiffness or muscle aches,
digestive issues like bloating, diarrhea, constipation, unexpained waking or difficulty
losing weight, frequent infections or slow healing, skin issues like ezema, acne,
(08:45):
or psoriasis are also brain frog depression or anxiety. Granted,
there are so many diagnoses that lead to those symptoms
that it can be a little foggy. So first I
encourage you to event valuate yourself with grace, so really
thinking about it as taking inventory of the foods you
(09:05):
choose to ingest, what you choose to drink, and also
behaviors without judgment, So thinking about food choices, sleep patterns,
alcohol intake, cigarettes or vap use. Next, you may be wondering,
is there a test that can help me say if
I have inflammation or not. Yes, there are blood tests,
(09:26):
but they're not as fail proof to give us a
specific diagnosis or a specific level inflammation. If you went
in for a baseline test, for example, but you've just
flown back from Europe, so just from that flight, there
might have been some people coughing or sneezing on the plane.
There's regular radiation that you get just from being on
(09:46):
an airplane, and so if you go in for your baseline,
it might not actually be your baseline because you already
had some exposure that your body's fighting off in the background.
There's just so many variables that it just doesn't give
us enough pointed information to say, oh, this is a
good baseline, or this one was affected by X y Z.
(10:07):
And that's what makes it so tricky, because our body
is this ebb and flow of fighting off essentially the
cell damage on a regular basis, and that affects the
test so much that there's not this kind of like,
oh you essentially got out of you got a jail
free cards, so to speak, or it's completely normal. There's
just too many variables to be able to comfortably use
(10:27):
the information from the test. There are tests that are
used if somebody has already been diagnosed with something. If
somebody has rheumatoid arthritis, for example, you can use a
specific blood test to give an idea if that person's
disease has improved inflammation or worsened inflammation, but that's on
an individual basis. Overall, the blood tests that can be done,
(10:51):
but again are not full proof. So my goal is
not that you leave here today and run to get
these tests, because there just don't point us in such
a specific direction. So as far as blood tests that
you can get, one marker is called C reactive protein
or CRP. This measures general inflammation of the body. Yet again,
it does not point in any specific direction. Another one
(11:14):
is high sensitivity CRP, which is more specific for heart
attack risk and really is only used in specific cases
and it's usually only used by cardiologists. Another one is
ESR or erythrocyte sedimentation rate, and that indicates ongoing inflammation.
So this is where I mentioned with someone has rheumatoid
(11:35):
arthritis for example, it can be used in that specific
patient or individual to see the change in their disease.
There are other markers like fasting, blood sugar, insulin levels,
and liver tests like alt or AST that can also
indicate chronic inflammation. Now, I want to make it clear
that I don't emphasize doing these tests to get just
(11:58):
this general without doing inventory of how we're doing with
our own choices on a day to day And a
good example is, for example, if I go to the
dentist and I have no plaque, and in my head,
I know I have not been flossing as much as
I'm supposed to. If I have no plaque, I feel like, well,
I don't really have to floss because I had a
good outcome at the dentist's office. To remember, flossing is
(12:20):
very good for dental health. Just like having these foods
that decrease inflammation and behaviors that help our body reduce
cell damage are also really important no matter what the
blood test shows. So why do we want to turn
to certain foods no matter what. Antioxidants, for example, again
help decrease that cell damage. These are found in fruits, vegetables, nuts,
(12:42):
and whole foods. They help neutralize that cell damage and
they help prevent that chronic inflammation. So we want to
stop that process of chronic inflammation. Forming it can also
help reverse chronic inflammation that may already be there. I
want to emphasize that sometimes when people already have diagnosis
like diabetes, they feel like they've already gone to that space.
(13:05):
There's no point in making changes there always is. It
can help reduce the amount of medications one needs, the
amount of chronic inflammation, which can lead to even more
problems with diabetes. Sometimes we can even reverse diabetes with
lifestyle changes, which is absolutely fabulous. So when we're talking
(13:25):
about antioxidant rich foods, we are specifically talking about things
like berries, blackberries, blueberries, strawberries again, those dark, leafy green vegetables.
And I say again because You'll notice that this is
similar to what I was saying for acute inflammation. So
we have those berries with antioxidants, we have the dark
leafy greens, we have chrysifer vegetables like brussels sprouts, cabbage, broccoli,
(13:48):
dark chocolate over sixty percent has a lot of flavonoids
which are also antioxidants. And then red and orange vegetables
like carrots, spell peppers, sweet peppers. The goal of all
this is to have foods that help reduce chronic inflammation.
Really thinking about the broad broad strokes of this, what
can you do? After listening to this, you say, okay,
(14:08):
I took inventory and there are some changes I can do.
Where do you begin? Try to fill up that plate
with half fruits and vegetables, half whole grains, and half
well thought out proteins. Adding nuts, seeds and proteins like beans,
and also fatty fish can really help reduce inflammation, things
like Omega three, fatty acids again in those fatty fish,
which we also find in nuts and seeds. Antioxidant rich
(14:31):
foods like those berries, leafy greens and nuts, whole foods
that have fiber and spices, Fermented foods like keffer kimchi,
sour kraut. Hydrating foods like most vegetables and fruits are
really water logged, which helps hydrate our body and it
helps self function. Be it its optimal And those are
the broad strokes. Now to finish up, I want to
(14:52):
emphasize that chronic inflammation is preventable with proper food choices, sleep,
stress reduction, and regular hydration. Blood tests like CRP or
ESR are not necessarily helpful as a general blood test.
Small consistent dietary changes can reduce disease risk as well
as managing our sleep, our stress levels, and other aspects
(15:15):
that we do have control over. Can't emphasize enough the
importance of a whole food, nutrient dense diet for lifelong health.
And what do you do with this information? How do
you start? Number one, really think of low hanging fruits.
We could perhaps say pun intended on that one, but
picturing again that plate and you can go back to
the episode where we talked about what to put on
(15:36):
your plate, but really thinking about half that plate being
fruits and vegetables, a quarter being whole grains, a quarter
being well thought out protein. So whether that's plant based
protein like beans or fatty fish, thinking about lots of
colors on that plate, lots of variety, having those nuts
and seeds in there too as part of your healthy fats.
(15:58):
So also if you are using fats for cooking or
making your own dressing, thinking carefully about what fats you're using.
So things like olive oil avocado oil are really great choices.
Being mindful of when we choose to have ultra processed
foods or added sugars, and remember to stay hydrated and
prioritize good sleep and stress management. I hope you found
(16:21):
this episode helpful to truly understand inflammation, when it's good,
when it's damaging, and what you can do about it.
Until next time, Saluth and Bonapeti, I hope you feel
motivated by this episode. Please leave us a rating and
a review and mention our show to others who you
think could use this information. That could be your doctor,
(16:41):
It could be somebody who works in the food service
industry who's interested in the health components. It could be
a friend that is working on their health journey. If
you want to hear more, please remember to follow Culinary
Medicine Recipe on your favorite podcast listening platform. Until next time,
Saluth and bone Petty. All content provided or opinions expressed
(17:04):
in this episode are for informational purposes only and are
not a substitute for professional medical advice. Please take advice
from your doctor or other qualified healthcare professional.
I need to be able to repair the regular daily
damage without causing more damage, to have cells that are
regenerating regularly, that are as healthy as they can be.
To give you kind of a scary statistic, we all
have this natural cell damage on a day to day
and in our bodies and humans, there's about ten thousand
DNA damages that occur every day per cell, and this
(00:21):
is per the NIH. That's a lot of damage that
needs to be repaired. Welcome to Culinary Medicine Recipe. I'm
so happy you're here. I'm your host, doctor Saprina Falke.
I was a primary care doctor for sixteen years and
went to school for four years to specialize in culinary medicine.
In this work, I get to combine my passionate expertise
(00:42):
in both medicine and food to teach people about food
is medicine and to empower them to understand what ingredients
optimize health and also how to cook those ingredients to
make delicious meals. On the show, I interview top chefs, doctors,
healthcare visionaries, and food service professionals who are making great
rides in the field of culinary medicine. Join me as
(01:02):
we continue to explore the amazing world of culinary medicine,
or I will empower you to make changes to your
health and wellness with great food right away. Hello, welcome back.
I decided to take the time to develop this entire
episode for deep Dive into inflammation because there's so many
questions that come up about it, and there's a lot
of misunderstanding as well as misinformation related to it. Did
(01:26):
you know that diseases caused by chronic inflammation are responsible
for more than fifty percent of all deaths worldwide and
in the United States alone, six and ten adults live
with at least one chronic condition related to chronic inflammation,
and four and ten have at least two. With that
in mind, today's episode, I'm going to cover the difference
between healthy or acute inflammation, which is protective and harmful,
(01:48):
or chronic inflammation, why this is important, and of course
I'm going to talk about the role of nutrition and
foods to help manage both acute and chronic inflammation, and
specifically in chronic inflammation. What foods can improve, prevent, or
even reverse chronic diseases. I would really love to know
and better understand. What are you interested in, whether it's
(02:09):
an online class on this topic of either question and
answer or an online cooking class. Let me know what
sounds interesting to you by sending a quick email to
info at alternativefoodnetwork dot com. I really want to hear
your opinion of what sounds like something you'd like to
engage in. So to give us a run of the show,
I'm going to start the episode talking briefly about acute inflammation,
(02:29):
and the rest of the episode we're going to focus
on chronic inflammation. Acute inflammation is a short term response
to injury, infection, or an environmental exposure. Symptoms can include
things like having redness, swelling, heat, or pain. So think
of this if you sprain your ankle, or you get
a sunburn or burn yourself while cooking, and also symptoms
that you can get from a common cold as an example,
(02:51):
like sneezing, congestion, or coughing. These symptoms that we get
are examples of an essential process that's really important for
our body to heal, and it's also protective. So the
goal is not to mask the inflammation, but to give
our body the ability to heal as quickly as possible. So,
for example, for the sprained ankle, that could include resting,
(03:12):
icing the area, or for the common cold, it could
include resting or hydration. For all these kinds of acute inflammation,
foods definitely can play a role. Going now into foods,
the teas can be something like ginger or turmeric, which
have potent anti inflammatory components. And remember that if you
are using turmeric in either tea or cooking or in
(03:34):
a smoothie, make sure that you put a crank of
pepper anytime you're using tumeric, because it helps increase absorption
of the curcumen, which is the active ingredient, by forty times.
Moving on to things like citrus fruit, we often hear
about vitamin C helping with tissue repair. That helps with
acute like if we sprained our ankle or if we
burned ourselves. It also helps rev up our immune system
(03:55):
if we do have something like a common cold. Also
things like dark leafy greens which are rich envitamin A,
C and K. And these are things like any the
darker the better, but spinach, kale, collar greens and Swiss
charts are good ones on that list. Then we have
high antioxidant foods like berries, and then fatty fish like salmon,
sardines or mackerel because they have the omega three. So again,
(04:18):
those are the foods that can really help aid and
assist your body with acute inflammation. Now we're going to
move on to the rest of the episode whre we're
going to be talking about chronic inflammation. Now, chronic inflammation,
compared to cute is a persistent, low grade inflormation that
contributes to disease. We don't feel it. We don't feel
the pain like we do if a sprain or burn
(04:41):
or the common cold symptoms, So it's happening in the
background without us being aware of it. It can be
triggered by nutrient poor diet, specifically pro inflammatory foods or
foods that increase inflammation. The most common ones are things
like processed food like fast food or packaged snacks, refined
sugars that we find in sugar sweetened beverages like sodas, pastries,
(05:03):
and candy. Also in transfats that are not as much
used in the US, but they're still used worldwide over
processed fats that are used especially in commercially fried foods,
and processed vegetable oils, also used in pre made salad
dressings or pastries, excessive alcohol intake, red and processed meats,
over consumption of salt or sodium which is especially found
(05:26):
in packaged foods or restaurant foods, and a lack of
whole foods like vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, whole grains and
plant based proteins, as well as adequate hydration also important
to go beyond the food, so it's not just food
that causes chronic inflammation. It's stress environmental exposures which happen naturally,
(05:46):
but there's also some that we have control over. So
these are things like cigarettes, living in large cities, also
environmental pollutants like buses, subways, trains, airplanes, and also lack
of sleep. So all of these are food, food and
these other environmental exposures can lead to long term tissue
damage and development of disease. So to put the dots together,
(06:08):
every single day our body has natural cell damage that
occurs and that needs to be repaired. So we need
to have number one, the building blocks to be able
to repair that damage. And ideally we're also not adding
pieces that are datting additional damage. So the body needs
nutrients to repair and replace damage cells and if the
(06:28):
repair mechanisms are overwhelmed. That's when chronic inflammation occurs. So
to put in a different way, think of it as
if you're building Legos. I was a big Lego fan
when I was a kid. So if I'm building a house,
I'm going to need pieces of different size. But if
for some reason I no longer have a piece of
a certain size, I may still be able to build
my house, but it may not be a structurally sound
(06:51):
So that may give you a visual of saying, Okay,
I need to be able to repair the regular daily
damage without causing more damage, to have some that are
regenerating regularly that are as healthy as they can be.
To give you kind of a scary statistic, we all
have this natural cell damage on a day to day
and in our bodies and humans, there's about ten thousand
(07:14):
DNA damages that occur every day per cell and this
is per the NIH. That's a lot of damage that
needs to be repaired. And as a reminder, we have
additional cell damage with the triggers as follows. So a
nutrient poor diet. So if we're adding this ultra processed foods,
the lack of whole foods, daily stress, daily environmental exposures
(07:37):
as well as lack of sleep. And so what are
some of the chronic conditions that can occur if we
have this constant cell damage without the ability to repair fully.
These include things like heart disease, high blood pressure, plaque
build up that can lead to heart attacks. There's also
type two diabetes, obesity, autoimmune diseases like rhematured arthritis, lupus,
(07:58):
multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, which causes inflammation in the brain
which is accelerated by the cell damage and can lead
to cognitive decline, cancers because of that, chronic inflammation that
contributes to DNA damage and tumor growth, and digestive disorders
like Chrome's disease and ul sort of colitis. So by
(08:20):
now you may be wondering, how do you know if
you have chronic inflammation? So there are many signs and
symptoms of chronic inflammation, and some of them are ongoing
fatigue or low energy, joint pain, stiffness or muscle aches,
digestive issues like bloating, diarrhea, constipation, unexpained waking or difficulty
losing weight, frequent infections or slow healing, skin issues like ezema, acne,
(08:45):
or psoriasis are also brain frog depression or anxiety. Granted,
there are so many diagnoses that lead to those symptoms
that it can be a little foggy. So first I
encourage you to event valuate yourself with grace, so really
thinking about it as taking inventory of the foods you
(09:05):
choose to ingest, what you choose to drink, and also
behaviors without judgment, So thinking about food choices, sleep patterns,
alcohol intake, cigarettes or vap use. Next, you may be wondering,
is there a test that can help me say if
I have inflammation or not. Yes, there are blood tests,
(09:26):
but they're not as fail proof to give us a
specific diagnosis or a specific level inflammation. If you went
in for a baseline test, for example, but you've just
flown back from Europe, so just from that flight, there
might have been some people coughing or sneezing on the plane.
There's regular radiation that you get just from being on
(09:46):
an airplane, and so if you go in for your baseline,
it might not actually be your baseline because you already
had some exposure that your body's fighting off in the background.
There's just so many variables that it just doesn't give
us enough pointed information to say, oh, this is a
good baseline, or this one was affected by X y Z.
(10:07):
And that's what makes it so tricky, because our body
is this ebb and flow of fighting off essentially the
cell damage on a regular basis, and that affects the
test so much that there's not this kind of like,
oh you essentially got out of you got a jail
free cards, so to speak, or it's completely normal. There's
just too many variables to be able to comfortably use
(10:27):
the information from the test. There are tests that are
used if somebody has already been diagnosed with something. If
somebody has rheumatoid arthritis, for example, you can use a
specific blood test to give an idea if that person's
disease has improved inflammation or worsened inflammation, but that's on
an individual basis. Overall, the blood tests that can be done,
(10:51):
but again are not full proof. So my goal is
not that you leave here today and run to get
these tests, because there just don't point us in such
a specific direction. So as far as blood tests that
you can get, one marker is called C reactive protein
or CRP. This measures general inflammation of the body. Yet again,
it does not point in any specific direction. Another one
(11:14):
is high sensitivity CRP, which is more specific for heart
attack risk and really is only used in specific cases
and it's usually only used by cardiologists. Another one is
ESR or erythrocyte sedimentation rate, and that indicates ongoing inflammation.
So this is where I mentioned with someone has rheumatoid
(11:35):
arthritis for example, it can be used in that specific
patient or individual to see the change in their disease.
There are other markers like fasting, blood sugar, insulin levels,
and liver tests like alt or AST that can also
indicate chronic inflammation. Now, I want to make it clear
that I don't emphasize doing these tests to get just
(11:58):
this general without doing inventory of how we're doing with
our own choices on a day to day And a
good example is, for example, if I go to the
dentist and I have no plaque, and in my head,
I know I have not been flossing as much as
I'm supposed to. If I have no plaque, I feel like, well,
I don't really have to floss because I had a
good outcome at the dentist's office. To remember, flossing is
(12:20):
very good for dental health. Just like having these foods
that decrease inflammation and behaviors that help our body reduce
cell damage are also really important no matter what the
blood test shows. So why do we want to turn
to certain foods no matter what. Antioxidants, for example, again
help decrease that cell damage. These are found in fruits, vegetables, nuts,
(12:42):
and whole foods. They help neutralize that cell damage and
they help prevent that chronic inflammation. So we want to
stop that process of chronic inflammation. Forming it can also
help reverse chronic inflammation that may already be there. I
want to emphasize that sometimes when people already have diagnosis
like diabetes, they feel like they've already gone to that space.
(13:05):
There's no point in making changes there always is. It
can help reduce the amount of medications one needs, the
amount of chronic inflammation, which can lead to even more
problems with diabetes. Sometimes we can even reverse diabetes with
lifestyle changes, which is absolutely fabulous. So when we're talking
(13:25):
about antioxidant rich foods, we are specifically talking about things
like berries, blackberries, blueberries, strawberries again, those dark, leafy green vegetables.
And I say again because You'll notice that this is
similar to what I was saying for acute inflammation. So
we have those berries with antioxidants, we have the dark
leafy greens, we have chrysifer vegetables like brussels sprouts, cabbage, broccoli,
(13:48):
dark chocolate over sixty percent has a lot of flavonoids
which are also antioxidants. And then red and orange vegetables
like carrots, spell peppers, sweet peppers. The goal of all
this is to have foods that help reduce chronic inflammation.
Really thinking about the broad broad strokes of this, what
can you do? After listening to this, you say, okay,
(14:08):
I took inventory and there are some changes I can do.
Where do you begin? Try to fill up that plate
with half fruits and vegetables, half whole grains, and half
well thought out proteins. Adding nuts, seeds and proteins like beans,
and also fatty fish can really help reduce inflammation, things
like Omega three, fatty acids again in those fatty fish,
which we also find in nuts and seeds. Antioxidant rich
(14:31):
foods like those berries, leafy greens and nuts, whole foods
that have fiber and spices, Fermented foods like keffer kimchi,
sour kraut. Hydrating foods like most vegetables and fruits are
really water logged, which helps hydrate our body and it
helps self function. Be it its optimal And those are
the broad strokes. Now to finish up, I want to
(14:52):
emphasize that chronic inflammation is preventable with proper food choices, sleep,
stress reduction, and regular hydration. Blood tests like CRP or
ESR are not necessarily helpful as a general blood test.
Small consistent dietary changes can reduce disease risk as well
as managing our sleep, our stress levels, and other aspects
(15:15):
that we do have control over. Can't emphasize enough the
importance of a whole food, nutrient dense diet for lifelong health.
And what do you do with this information? How do
you start? Number one, really think of low hanging fruits.
We could perhaps say pun intended on that one, but
picturing again that plate and you can go back to
the episode where we talked about what to put on
(15:36):
your plate, but really thinking about half that plate being
fruits and vegetables, a quarter being whole grains, a quarter
being well thought out protein. So whether that's plant based
protein like beans or fatty fish, thinking about lots of
colors on that plate, lots of variety, having those nuts
and seeds in there too as part of your healthy fats.
(15:58):
So also if you are using fats for cooking or
making your own dressing, thinking carefully about what fats you're using.
So things like olive oil avocado oil are really great choices.
Being mindful of when we choose to have ultra processed
foods or added sugars, and remember to stay hydrated and
prioritize good sleep and stress management. I hope you found
(16:21):
this episode helpful to truly understand inflammation, when it's good,
when it's damaging, and what you can do about it.
Until next time, Saluth and Bonapeti, I hope you feel
motivated by this episode. Please leave us a rating and
a review and mention our show to others who you
think could use this information. That could be your doctor,
(16:41):
It could be somebody who works in the food service
industry who's interested in the health components. It could be
a friend that is working on their health journey. If
you want to hear more, please remember to follow Culinary
Medicine Recipe on your favorite podcast listening platform. Until next time,
Saluth and bone Petty. All content provided or opinions expressed
(17:04):
in this episode are for informational purposes only and are
not a substitute for professional medical advice. Please take advice
from your doctor or other qualified healthcare professional.
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