I can get completely swept away by the mention of a health condition. If I am at a dinner or a party and someone, somewhere starts talking health issues, my ears perk up and I am on full alert.
Crazy, I know, but I guess this is what happens when you are passionate about something.
The danger lies in assuming that everyone else is equally passionate about the same thing. Or knows as much as you do. So I have learned to check myself and make sure I don’t take off and venture into health, nutrition, and root cause conversations to the point where eyes are glazing over and I am having a conversation with myself rather than the person who brought up the topic.
And similarly, I have to step back and ask myself, as I write these blog posts: how do I make sure that YOU, my lovely loyal reader can actually relate to this topic.
Take the word inflammation as an example. The way most people understand this term is in relation to a wound or cut or injury that is red, hot, throbbing, and swollen. The visible signs of a process that has the body in combat mode with blood rushing in to protect the area of attack.
What most people don’t understand is that inflammation can occur internally in the exact same manner as what I described earlier. That is the type of inflammation that lies at the root of many chronic health issues and often we’re not even aware that it is taking place because it is not visible to the eye.
The only way we know is through symptoms: aches, pains, digestive issues, low energy, allergies, blood pressure problems, blood sugar imbalances, heart conditions, skin problems and many others. In most cases, when there are such signals in the form of symptoms: suspect some level of internal inflammation. There are blood tests available as well: CRP and ESR are the most common markers for inflammation.
Ignore these symptoms and it can lead to worse conditions such as the ones that end with the letters ITIS (gastritis, arthritis, colitis, bronchitis, appendicitis, etc.) or others such as heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s.
Suppress these symptoms with medications and you might feel better but you are not addressing the underlying reasons that these symptoms appeared in the first place.
Instead, it is important to take action and adopt an anti inflammatory diet and lifestyle so that you can stop the disease process in its tracks, reverse your health issues and feel good, look great and live long and happy lives.
Who wouldn’t want that?!
Here are three steps to get started:
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Understand that there is a direct connection between inflammation and the health of your digestive system.
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Learn how your food and lifestyle choices are impacting your digestion and therefore the inflammatory processes.
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Find out what you can do to heal your digestion and reduce internal inflammation
Step 1: Understand that there is a direct connection between inflammation and the health of your digestive system.
Your gut houses approximately 70% of your immune system. Not a surprise if you think about how the wall of your digestive tract is a barrier between the outside world and the inside of your body. Your digestive system has to make sure that everything harmful is kept out and if something does find its way into the blood stream there is an army of immune cells waiting to launch an attack.
The health of your gut depends on two main factors: the integrity of the intestinal mucosal barrier and the health of the beneficial gut flora (aka microbiome) that are housed in your gut and that play a critical role in keeping you healthy and managing your immune system.
Any issues with these two factors will compromise your health at the very root and contribute to chronic internal inflammation. Both of these factors are often connected: imbalances in the gastrointestinal microbial ecosystem can lead to changes in the integrity of the gut barrier as well as higher levels of potentially problematic bacteria and other micro organisms that release lipopolysaccharides. Lipopolysaccharides are an endotoxin that contributes to inflammation locally in the digestive tract as well as systemically when a disrupted gut barrier allows these endotoxins to migrate into the blood stream.
Step 2: Learn how your food and lifestyle choices are impacting your digestion and therefore the inflammatory processes.
There are certain foods that negatively affect the integrity of our intestinal barrier as well the health of our microbiome. * These foods trigger intestinal permeability, the growth of bad bacteria and other micro organisms, causing unwanted protein molecules to cross the intestinal barrier into the bloodstream where the body will launch it’s immune response in the form of an inflammatory process.
The main culprits include gluten, sugar, processed foods, refined carbohydrates and bad fats such as refined vegetable seed oils.
Similarly, there are lifestyle and environmental factors that have a negative effect on the health of your gut: antibiotics, stress, medicines such as NSAIDS or birth control pills, antibiotics, environmental toxins, etc.
Step 3: Find out what you can do to heal your digestion and reduce internal inflammation
Certain foods help heal and repair the intestinal barrier and help rebuild the beneficial flora in your gut all so that you are protected from the invasion of potentially harmful substances and the resulting inflammation.
These foods include fresh, whole, real, high quality, home cooked food, rainbow colored vegetables, fermentable fibers that feed the good bacteria, healthy fats, and fermented foods.
Eliminating the “bad” foods and introducing more of the beneficial ones are step 1 and 2 of my digestive healing program. While I recognize that it can seem daunting to have to give up certain staple comfort foods, once you break through these barriers and start feeling the difference that it can make in your life you will be inspired to keep on going.
It is this very experience of transformation that I went through and that I see my clients go through all the time that has made me so passionate about health and nutrition.
Consider the ripple effect that these changes can have on your health and your life and then take action!
I’m here if you need my help!
Be Well,
Monique
* https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2898551/
