Q&A: How a Little Exercise Brings Big Benefits

Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2012/05/17/qa-how-a-little-exercise-brings-big-benefits/#ixzz1zBvP7CtZ

TIM ROBBERTS / RISER / GETTY IMAGES

Gretchen Reynolds writes the New York Times’ “Phys Ed” column and has been a devotee of physical exercise — particularly running — for decades. In her work, she’s discovered that while inactivity can drastically shorten the healthy lifespan, most of the benefits of working out don’t require hours of effort or marathon-type training.

Healthland spoke with the author of The First 20 Minutes: Surprising Science Reveals How We Can Exercise Better, Train Smarter, Live Longer about how to get the most out of the physical activity that you can actually fit into your busy schedule.

Healthland: What surprised you most when you looked into the science of exercise?
Reynolds: In all honesty, [it] was how little physical activity can make a very profound difference physiologically.  That did surprise me. I used to run marathons and like a lot of people, I really did think you had to run [and] your exercise had be fairly strenuous for a long period of time to get meaningful benefits. The science is very clear that that is just not true.

So, what’s the least you can get away with?

The very least you can do is probably just standing up, which I am doing as we talk. I now stand during almost every telephone conversation because it’s an easy time to do it.  The science is very persuasive that just not sitting for a long time makes some difference.

But, certainly at least 20 minutes a day makes a truly profound difference in your health and dramatically reduces the risk of a whole host of diseases, particularly diabetes, heart disease and dementia, as well as cancer.

(MORE: Exercise Keeps Muscles Young, Even in Elderly Heart Patients)

Do you have one of those standing desks and can you actually work standing up?

I bought a music stand. It’s very cheap. I can read papers I need to read.  I  didn’t invest in [anything] expensive.  It’s very easy actually to coordinate your office so you can stand up occasionally.

I can’t sit still for that long anyway.

There is very good science suggesting that fidgeting improves your overall  health. It has been shown to raise  V02max, which is a measure of aerobic fitness.   You can burn several hundred calories a day if you fidget.

And yet we tell kids to sit still all the time.

I spoke with a physiologist and he wishes teachers would stop saying that. Kids who are moving are ultimately better able to pay attention and they appear to do better on tests. The human body at any age does want to be in motion.  Fidgeting may be the body’s response to being told to sit still.

So, are ab exercises like crunches and sit-ups actually bad for you?

Crunches are okay if you do just a do modified crunch.  A full sit-up has been shown to be hard on the back and  even a crunch if you pull up very far is more likely to be damaging to your back than good for your abdomen.

The way to do it is to lie on back with your knees up, put your hands palm down underneath the lower back and lift your head and shoulders a little way off the ground. Imagine that your head and shoulders are on a bathroom scale and lift up just enough to make the weight go to zero. You don’t need to go higher and you are more likely to hurt your back if you do.

Doing things to make your core stable is very good for your back and waistline, but what you do not need is six-pack abs. There’s no functional  reason to work for that. If you want to look good, that may have its place, but if you want a healthy back and healthy core, you try and work the muscles all around the spine and that does not require a lot of effort.

Side planks are really good, but a full sit-up is not good.

What are the benefits of strength training?

That has a lot of really important effects, especially as you leave your 20s behind. You  start losing muscle mass by your 30s and early 40s, and the only way to maintain that muscle mass is strength training. Endurance training does not do that.

Strength training will ensure that you maintain as much muscle as you can and that has all sorts of important physiological implications.  One is that muscles are the biggest users of blood sugar, so you are less likely to get diabetes and other diseases like heart disease. You will maintain your  independence through middle age and longer.

What effects does exercise have on the brain overall?

They are so wide-ranging. That impact is probably what keeps me exercising every day. Many of us were taught that we were born with a certain number of brain cells and will never have any more. That is absolutely untrue. We all will continue to create brain cells throughout our  lifespan. But if you exercise, you’ll create twice as many. Even really quite mild exercise— like going for a walk for 30 to 40 minutes four times a week— means that you will have a larger hippocampus, which is related to memory and learning. You will have more volume there because you are creating more brain cells, and people who exercise do perform better at every age.

(MORE: Is Exercise the Best Drug for Depression?)

And yet the stereotype of the intellectual has typically not been of a fit person..

In fact, kids who are more aerobically fit perform better academically. Even if you just go for a walk before a math test, you generally perform better. The differences are most profound in people after 40 because you do start to lose volume in the hippocampus beginning in the 40s and pretty dramatically after that. If you can be building brain cells there, it has a really demonstrable effect on your ability to think well into your 80s. And it costs almost nothing and it’s really easy.

What about stretching?

That’s the topic people are most passionate about. I get more angry letters from people who love stretching than about anything else.  The science suggests very strongly that static stretching, which is what most people think of as stretching, like reaching over and touching your toes and getting into some position and holding it, [isn't helpful].

Most people were taught to do that before starting their actual workout. The science suggests that it is, in fact, counterproductive. The brains senses that you are about to overstretch that muscle and sends out a message that in fact tells the muscle to stop contracting so hard and then you cannot perform as well in your next exercise bout. You can’t jump as high or run as fast.

So static stretching before exercise appears unwise. The evidence suggests that it doesn’t do a whole lot afterwards, but it probably won’t hurt.

Is warming up equally problematic?

It does appear to be important for reducing the chances of injury, but that means literally warming up the tissue. The best way to do it appropriately is to do a truncated version of what you’re about what about do. So if you’re running, start with a walk or easy jog. That raises the temperature and gets the range of motion improved in the knees and hips.

And, um, what is a fartlek?

My teenage sons love to go out and say they’re [doing that]. [The word comes from the Swedish for “speed play”]. It’s a way to occasionally increase the intensity of your workout. If your goal is to improve athletic performance, you do need to increase intensity and the best way to do that is through some form of intervals, which I hate but you do need to do occasionally if you want to get faster and fitter.

So, fartlek is an easy informal way to incorporate intervals into regular training.  If you are a runner, you look for a tree maybe 100 yards away and speed up, sprint to the tree and then slow down. It’s a very informal approach to interval training: you don’t set your watch for one minute on, and it’s fun, and you can tell someone you were fartleking and can say that in polite company.

Why are there so many exercise fads?

I think it’s in part because until fairly recently, exercise was not put to the test scientifically. A lot of exercise advice came from PE teachers or someone who tried something and it worked for them and then it would become an entrenched myth.

A couple of really interesting overarching truths are that every single person is different in how they respond and genes play a much bigger role than has been acknowledged, even in terms of whether you respond well to exercise at all. Some respond enormously to endurance training, they get much fitter and lose weight. Some respond to weight training. Some do not.

If you’re not getting the response you want, it’s not just your fault. Everyone’s body will respond to some kind of activity.

So how should someone who hasn’t been exercising start?

Put on whatever shoes you find comfortable and walk around the block. If you can do that comfortably and that feels okay, you will have generated so many physiological benefits already. It’s really good for the human mood to get out and move around.

Do that a couple of days in a row, and then do it twice.  Call it going for a walk, it doesn’t have to be quote-unquote exercise, or training. It’s almost certain that you will feel better and you will have reduced your risk about 20% for diabetes, heart disease, dementia, cancer and premature death of all types. That requires no training, equipment or monetary investment. It could make an enormous difference in American public health if we can convince people that very small amounts of activity can change your life.

(MORE: Study: A 20% ‘Fat Tax’ Would Improve Public Health)
Maia Szalavitz is a health writer at TIME.com. Find her on Twitter at @maiasz. You can also continue the discussion on TIME Healthland’s Facebook page and on Twitter at

Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2012/05/17/qa-how-a-little-exercise-brings-big-benefits/#ixzz1zBuGRRsw

Slow Down to Slim Down!

A recent article in the Washington Post shared 7 secrets of highly obese people. What they revealed is that obese people start eating sooner, consume greater amounts of food and eat faster than their slim counterparts (oh yeah, and they skip breakfast too!). In our world of supersizing this is not good news.

When we consume our meals too quickly, the feeling of fullness and satiety are delayed, causing us to overeat. Inhaling food makes it tough for our digestive systems to function properly, resulting in heartburn and indigestion. Frenzied feeding causes the gut to contract, sends us running to the bathroom and prevents necessary nutrients from being absorbed by your body. Consequently, weak digestion leads to a weak immune system… leaving you susceptible to illness. The interplay of proper nutrient ingestion, digestion and absorption to your overall health is quite spectacular!

How do you know when you are eating too fast? Well, if you don’t fully swallow each bite before taking the next one, that’s a red flag! Believe it or not, the whole digestion process starts in your mouth in the chewing phase. Chewing well grinds food into small bits, allowing it to be more easily swallowed. Well-chewed bits of food are more easily coated with digestive juices once in the stomach. Chewing well also allows the molecules of nutrients from the chewed food to be more quickly released and assimilated. Keeping a food in the mouth longer allows the food’s flavors to be recognized by the tongue. When the tongue recognizes the flavor it sends a message to the brain, which in turn sends messages to the digestive system resulting in the release of the digestive juices needed for that food.

Bottom line: We should be chewing at least 20-25 times per forkful!

Follow these 9 strategies to shift gears from chowing down to slowing down during mealtimes:

• Never “dashboard” dine. Like laws to prevent folks from using cell phones while driving, the nation should enact new regulations to prevent us from eating in our cars!
• Eat meals at a regularly appointed time at your designated eating area-i.e., the dining room or kitchen table. Last time I checked, beds and sofas were developed for other purposes.
• Focus on your food - be mindful not mindless, and tasteful vs. being tasteless!
• Use chopsticks – I dare you to eat quickly with these suckers.
• Shrink your plate to shrink your belly – Remember that the average person’s stomach holds about 1 quart of food. Look at your plate, and make sure the food quantity matches up.
• Load up on non-starchy veggies for volume – Your body and your health will thank you for getting in 5-10 servings a day!
• Put your fork (or chopsticks) DOWN between bites – perhaps spend those seconds chewing per the above guidelines?
• Shrink your bites and increase your chewing.
• Remove the food triggers – do you have a candy dish on your coffee table? Get rid of it! Don’t leave candy or sweets in view, in fact get all the enemies out of the house

• ©2011 JJ Virgin & Associates, Inc. Nutrition and Fitness Expert JJ Virgin is a the author of Six Weeks to Sleeveless and Sexy and the co-star of TLC’s Freaky Eaters reality series. Visit her at http://www.jjvirgin.com to grab her free audio: Top Ten Hottest Tips to Get Slim and Sexy Fast

Yet Another Reason to Skip the Soda

MARCH 14, 2011 BY JJ VIRGIN

I’ve long urged clients to stop drinking soda, and a new study offers even more reason to make this switch.

Research published in the American Heart Association’s Hypertension publication found that for every extra sugar-sweetened beverage drunk per day, study participants had significantly higher systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure. That’s not just because of the extra sugar and calories from soda, but because these people had less healthy eating habits overall.

See, you might shrug off the 140 calories from a can of Coke, but by drinking that Coke, you’re more likely to over-indulge throughout the day because you’re used to that sticky sweet artificial taste.

Frankly, diet sodas aren’t any better, because they trick your taste buds into craving sweet things instead of feeling satisfied with the natural sweetness of raspberries or other fruit. And diet sodas don’t really fill you up anyway.

That’s why I urge people to skip the soda and drink water (or sparkling water) instead. Even if you’re one of those people who thinks they can’t get through the day without a diet Coke (or three), believe me, you can. And you will, if you commit yourself to this goal.

Instead of reaching for a Coke or Mountain Dew, wean yourself off that unhealthy habit by drinking sparkling water instead. Add a packet of Emergen-C (the Pink Lemonade flavor is my personal favorite) to create a cool, thirst-quenching drink without the extra sugar and empty calories.

Heart Health: A Woman's Guide

Heart Health: A Woman's Guide -- Dean Ornish, MD -- 2/5/2004

Heart Disease (Coronary Artery Disease) Slideshow 15 Tips for Avoiding Heart Disease Slideshow Heart-Healthy Foods Slideshow

By Dean Ornish
WebMD Live Events Transcript

Heart disease doesn't get the media attention that many other conditions get, but it's the No. 1 health threat to women, by far. But the good news is, heart disease can be prevented, and even reversed. We discussed women's heart health, including diet, stress, love, and the effects of menopause, with Dean Ornish, MD, on Feb. 5.

Ornish: Many women don't realize that heart disease is as common in women as in men. In fact, heart and blood vessel diseases kill more women than all other diseases COMBINED. That's the bad news.

Women had been told to take HRT (hormone replacement therapy) to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease even though it was known that it increased the risk of breast cancer and uterine cancer. The rationale was that heart disease was more common, so the net effect would be worth it. Yet most women would be unwilling to trade heart disease for cancer.

Our research and that of others indicates that women can reverse heart disease easier than men, whether through diet and lifestyle or lipid-lowering drugs, or both. Women who undergo revascularization with bypass surgery or angioplasty generally don't do as well as men, so this is yet another reason why women may benefit from diet and lifestyle changes.

And these changes in diet and lifestyle can also help prevent breast cancer, osteoporosis, diabetes, hypertension, arthritis, colon cancer, and obesity, and the only side effects are good ones.

For the complete transcript of Dr Ornish's interview click here.

Anti-Inflammatory Diet Tips

Anti-Inflammatory Diet Tips

Courtesy of Dr. Weil on Healthy Aging

It is becoming increasingly clear that chronic inflammation is the root cause of many serious illnesses - including heart disease, many cancers, and Alzheimer's disease. We all know inflammation on the surface of the body as local redness, heat, swelling and pain. It is the cornerstone of the body's healing response, bringing more nourishment and more immune activity to a site of injury or infection. But when inflammation persists or serves no purpose, it damages the body and causes illness. Stress, lack of exercise, genetic predisposition, and exposure to toxins (like secondhand tobacco smoke) can all contribute to such chronic inflammation, but dietary choices play a big role as well. Learning how specific foods influence the inflammatory process is the best strategy for containing it and reducing long-term disease risks. (Find more details on the mechanics of the inflammation process and the Anti-Inflammatory Food Pyramid.)

The Anti-Inflammatory Diet is not a diet in the popular sense - it is not intended as a weight-loss program (although people can and do lose weight on it), nor is it an eating plan to stay on for a limited period of time. Rather, it is way of selecting and preparing foods based on scientific knowledge of how they can help your body maintain optimum health. Along with influencing inflammation, this diet will provide steady energy and ample vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids dietary fiber, and protective phytonutrients.

You can also adapt your existing recipes according to these anti-inflammatory diet principles:

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General Diet Tips:

• Aim for variety.
• Include as much fresh food as possible.
• Minimize your consumption of processed foods and fast food.
• Eat an abundance of fruits and vegetables.

Caloric Intake

• Most adults need to consume between 2,000 and 3,000 calories a day.
• Women and smaller and less active people need fewer calories.
• Men and bigger and more active people need more calories.
• If you are eating the appropriate number of calories for your level of activity, your weight should not fluctuate greatly.
• The distribution of calories you take in should be as follows: 40 to 50 percent from carbohydrates, 30 percent from fat, and 20 to 30 percent from protein.
• Try to include carbohydrates, fat, and protein at each meal.

Carbohydrates

• On a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet, adult women should consume between 160 to 200 grams of carbohydrates a day.
• Adult men should consume between 240 to 300 grams of carbohydrates a day.
• The majority of this should be in the form of less-refined, less-processed foods with a low glycemic load.
• Reduce your consumption of foods made with wheat flour and sugar, especially bread and most packaged snack foods (including chips and pretzels).
• Eat more whole grains such as brown rice and bulgur wheat, in which the grain is intact or in a few large pieces. These are preferable to whole wheat flour products, which have roughly the same glycemic index as white flour products.
• Eat more beans, winter squashes, and sweet potatoes.
• Cook pasta al dente and eat it in moderation.
• Avoid products made with high fructose corn syrup.

Fat

• On a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet, 600 calories can come from fat - that is, about 67 grams. This should be in a ratio of 1:2:1 of saturated to monounsaturated to polyunsaturated fat.
• Reduce your intake of saturated fat by eating less butter, cream, high-fat cheese, unskinned chicken and fatty meats, and products made with palm kernel oil.
• Use extra-virgin olive oil as a main cooking oil. If you want a neutral tasting oil, use expeller-pressed, organic canola oil. Organic, high-oleic, expeller pressed versions of sunflower and safflower oil are also acceptable.
• Avoid regular safflower and sunflower oils, corn oil, cottonseed oil, and mixed vegetable oils.
• Strictly avoid margarine, vegetable shortening, and all products listing them as ingredients. Strictly avoid all products made with partially hydrogenated oils of any kind. Include in your diet avocados and nuts, especially walnuts, cashews, almonds, and nut butters made from these nuts.
• For omega-3 fatty acids, eat salmon (preferably fresh or frozen wild or canned sockeye), sardines packed in water or olive oil, herring, and black cod (sablefish, butterfish); omega-3 fortified eggs; hemp seeds and flaxseeds (preferably freshly ground); or take a fish oil supplement (look for products that provide both EPA and DHA, in a convenient daily dosage of two to three grams).

Protein

• On a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet, your daily intake of protein should be between 80 and 120 grams. Eat less protein if you have liver or kidney problems, allergies, or autoimmune disease.
• Decrease your consumption of animal protein except for fish and high quality natural cheese and yogurt.
• Eat more vegetable protein, especially from beans in general and soybeans in particular. Become familiar with the range of whole-soy foods available and find ones you like.

Fiber

• Try to eat 40 grams of fiber a day. You can achieve this by increasing your consumption of fruit, especially berries, vegetables (especially beans), and whole grains.
• Ready-made cereals can be good fiber sources, but read labels to make sure they give you at least 4 and preferably 5 grams of bran per one-ounce serving.

Phytonutrients

• To get maximum natural protection against age-related diseases (including cardiovascular disease, cancer, and neurodegenerative disease) as well as against environmental toxicity, eat a variety of fruits, vegetables and mushrooms.
• Choose fruits and vegetables from all parts of the color spectrum, especially berries, tomatoes, orange and yellow fruits, and dark leafy greens.
• Choose organic produce whenever possible. Learn which conventionally grown crops are most likely to carry pesticide residues and avoid them.
• Eat cruciferous (cabbage-family) vegetables regularly.
• Include soy foods in your diet.
• Drink tea instead of coffee, especially good quality white, green or oolong tea.
• If you drink alcohol, use red wine preferentially.
• Enjoy plain dark chocolate in moderation (with a minimum cocoa content of 70 percent).

Vitamins and Minerals
The best way to obtain all of your daily vitamins, minerals, and micronutrients is by eating a diet high in fresh foods with an abundance of fruits and vegetables. In addition, supplement your diet with the following antioxidant cocktail:

• Vitamin C, 200 milligrams a day.
• Vitamin E, 400 IU of natural mixed tocopherols (d-alpha-tocopherol with other tocopherols, or, better, a minimum of 80 milligrams of natural mixed tocopherols and tocotrienols).
• Selenium, 200 micrograms of an organic (yeast-bound) form.
• Mixed carotenoids, 10,000-15,000 IU daily.
• The antioxidants can be most conveniently taken as part of a daily multivitamin/multimineral supplement that also provides at least 400 micrograms of folic acid and 2,000 IU of vitamin D. It should contain no iron (unless you are a female and having regular menstrual periods) and no preformed vitamin A (retinol). Take these supplements with your largest meal.
• Women should take supplemental calcium, preferably as calcium citrate, 500-700 milligrams a day, depending on their dietary intake of this mineral. Men should avoid supplemental calcium.

Other Dietary Supplements

• If you are not eating oily fish at least twice a week, take supplemental fish oil, in capsule or liquid form (two to three grams a day of a product containing both EPA and DHA). Look for molecularly distilled products certified to be free of heavy metals and other contaminants.
• Talk to your doctor about going on low-dose aspirin therapy, one or two baby aspirins a day (81 or 162 milligrams).
• If you are not regularly eating ginger and turmeric, consider taking these in supplemental form.
• Add coQ10 to your daily regimen: 60-100 milligrams of a softgel form taken with your largest meal.
• If you are prone to metabolic syndrome, take alpha-lipoic acid, 100 to 400 milligrams a day.

Water

• Drink pure water, or drinks that are mostly water (tea, very diluted fruit juice, sparkling water with lemon) throughout the day.
• Use bottled water or get a home water purifier if your tap water tastes of chlorine or other contaminants, or if you live in an area where the water is known or suspected to be contaminated.

Join Dr. Weil on Healthy Aging for more in-depth information on the anti-inflammatory diet, plus over 200 anti-inflammatory recipes, dozens of diet tips designed to help prevent age-related disease, and an exclusive version of Dr. Weil's Anti-Inflammatory Food Pyramid!

Parents: Weight Won’t Budge? Get Your Zzz’s

Feature Article

Parents: Weight Won’t Budge? Get Your Zzz’s
By JJ Virgin

You seem to be doing everything right: exercising regularly, eating three lean, clean meals per day, drinking water instead of soda or coffee. How come you still haven’t shed those extra pounds?

Sleep may be the culprit. More specifically, lack of sleep.

Many people are chronically sleep-deprived and don’t even realize it because they’ve been living that way for so long! However, numerous studies confirm the importance of quality sleep as part of a healthy lifestyle. In fact, people who get five hours of sleep per night are 50% more like to be obese. Those who get six hours are 23% more likely to be obese.

Sleep is especially important when you’re exercising because that’s when your body repairs and rebuilds muscle. Just one night of poor sleep can make you hungrier, more stressed, better at storing fat, and worse at burning it off.

This is why I urge you to get a solid seven to nine hours of sleep per night if at all possible. Yes, I’m a mother myself, and I get that sleepless nights or intermittent sleep is sometimes part of being a parent.

But quality sleep will improve your mood, your mental acuity, and your overall health, which can make you a better, more patient parent. If you can fit in a catnap in the afternoon after lunch between 1 and 3 pm, studies show that you wake up and have the same mental acuity that you did first thing in the morning. Ideally, your nap would last at least 20 minutes, but no longer than 2 hours, so rest up while your little one does.

Another sleep strategy is to trade off with your partner. One night you get up when baby cries, and the next night it’s his responsibility. Then on weekends, you get one day to sleep in and he gets the other day.

Other sleep saboteurs include caffeine, alcohol, and cigarettes. Nicotine mimics the effects of adrenaline, keeping you from falling asleep. There are plenty of other health hazards of smoking, so make quitting a priority if you smoke.

It’s sometimes challenging as a parent to get enough sleep, but it’s necessary for health and weight loss.

©2010 JJ Virgin & Associates, Inc. Celebrity nutrition and wellness expert JJ Virgin is a media personality, in-demand public speaker and best-selling author of Six Weeks to Sleeveless and Sexy, The 5-Step Plan to Sleek, Strong and Sculpted Arms. Get her biweekly LEANzine chock full of tips to get you slim and sexy fast at www.jjvirgin.com.

The Anti-Inflammatory Diet, Part 2:

The Anti-Inflammatory Diet, Part 2: Foods That Affect the Inflammation Response

By G. Douglas Andersen, DC, DACBSP, CCN

As promised in part 1 of this article (Sept. 23 issue), this installment includes lists of foods that tend to up-regulate and down-regulate the degree of inflammatory response during the metabolic processes that follow ingestion. They are not inclusive. It is important to note that small amounts foods which up-regulate inflammatory reactions will not nullify the effect of a mainly anti-inflammatory meal.

An example would be a packet of sugar and pat of butter on a large bowl of oatmeal. On the other hand, foods that down-regulate inflammation may lose some or all of their benefit if they are prepared incorrectly, such as battered, deep-fried vegetables.

In part one, we identified the five major dietary causes that promote an imbalance favoring an excessive inflammatory response. Four of them - too much saturated fat (and the related partially hydrogenated family),¹ too many refined carbohydrates (including sugars)¹ and the dietary ratio imbalances of omega-6/omega-3 oils² and sodium/potassium³ - are well-known. However, energy imbalances that cause body-fat accrual are often overlooked as a cause of systemic inflammation.

Foods Generally Considered Pro-Inflammatory American cheese, bacon, bologna, bratwurst, brownies, (white) breads - including buns, rolls and bagels, butter, cake, candy, cereals,* cheese (American, cheddar, creamed, gouda, jack, mozzarella, provolone, Swiss) cookies, corn chips, corn syrup, crackers*, cream, croissants, corn chips, Danish, doughnuts, egg rolls, French fries, French toast, (deep) fried foods, fruit juices, granola,* hamburgers, hash browns, honey, hot dogs, ice cream, jam/jelly, margarine, molasses, muffins, noodles,* onion rings, pancakes, pastrami, pepperoni, pie, pickles, pita bread,* pizza, pasta,* popcorn, potato chips, pretzels, puddings, relish, ribs (beef or pork), rice (white), salami, sausage, sherbet, shortening, sodas/soft drinks, syrup, tortillas (flour), tortilla chips, waffles, whipped cream, whole dairy. *Unless 100% whole grain and high fiber. Foods Generally Considered Anti-Inflammatory Acai, amaranth, anchovies, apples, apricots, arugula, artichokes, asparagus, avocado, bananas, beans (green beans, black beans, kidney beans, garbanzo beans, pinto beans, lima beans, soy beans), bean sprouts, beets, berries (blackberries, blueberries, boysenberries, goji berries gooseberries, raspberries, strawberries) bok choy, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, canola oil, cantaloupe, carrots, cauliflower, celery, cherries, cranberries, cucumbers, dairy (nonfat), eggplant, endive, gooseberries, grapes, grapefruit, herring, honeydew, kale, lemons, lentils, mackerel, mango, mangosteen, millet, mushrooms, mustard greens, nectarines, noni, nuts - raw (almonds, Brazil nuts, cashews, chestnuts, filberts, hazelnuts, macadamia, pecans, peanuts, walnuts), oats, okra, olive oil, onions, oranges, papaya, parsnips, pears, peas, peaches, peppers (bell and hot), persimmons, pineapple, pomegranate, plums, poultry (no skin), prunes, pumpkin, quinoa, rhubarb, rutabaga, salmon, sardines, scallions, seeds (flax, poppy, pumpkin, sesame, sunflower), spices (cinnamon, cayenne, garlic, ginger, green tea, parsley, pepper, nutmeg, oregano, rosemary, turmeric), spinach, squash (butternut, crook neck, summer, winter, zucchini), sweet potatoes, tomatoes, trout, tuna (water-packed), turnips, water chestnuts, watermelon, wild game, yams.

It appears that simply eating too much, too often may be the most powerful factor in the promotion of an exaggerated inflammatory response.⁴ For example, 444 teenagers (249 boys and 195 girls) were studied for the purpose of evaluating how fitness can prevent cardiovascular disease.⁵ They were divided into four groups: normal body-weight and physically fit; normal weight/unfit; overweight and fit; and overweight/unfit. Testing revealed serum levels of C-reactive protein were not associated with fitness level. Rather, CRP corresponded to the subjects who were overweight:

• Twenty-three percent of the normal-weight, fit teens had CRP elevations.
• Twenty-four percent of the normal-weight, unfit teens had CRP elevations.
• Fifty percent of the overweight, fit teens had CRP elevations.
• Fifty-six percent of the overweight, unfit teens had CRP elevations.

Body weight had a much greater effect on systemic inflammation than the degree of fitness did. The dietary imbalances we discussed in part 1 yield a food pattern (fatty, starchy, sweet and salty) that promotes overeating by triggering neurochemical responses that hyperstimulate our appetites. We prefer to eat these foods together; therefore, they drive inflammation by both their individual biochemical properties and the overlooked effect of hunger amplification during consumption.

For example, consider how a plate of celery and carrot sticks affects your appetite compared to the same plate filled with fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies. When you start eating the celery and carrot sticks, after a few you've had enough. But with cookies (each of which has 10-20 times more calories than the celery/carrot sticks), the more you eat, the more you want until you're really full. And what do we get when we eat chocolate chip cookies? Refined starch, sugars and saturated fat.

Although there is not a significant amount of sodium in chocolate chip cookies, my analysis of five brands/recipes revealed sodium/potassium ratios from 7:1 to 3:1, with an average of 5:1. The recommended daily allowance for sodium and potassium (2,400 mg and 3,500 mg, respectively) works out to a 1:1.5 ratio.

Finally, chocolate chip cookies are not a significant source of polyunsaturated fats. However, the small amounts they do have yield a 10:1 omega-6/omega-3 ratio. That is not as bad as the 15:1 ratio the average American consumes, but is still high enough to promote inflammatory marker increases and symptoms in some conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis and asthma.⁶

References

1. Esmaillzaded A, Azadbakht L. Home use of vegetable oils, markers of systemic inflammation, and endothelial dysfunction. AJCN, 2008;88(4):913-21.
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