Chronic inflammation may be a "disease of affluence"

https://bigthink.com/health/inflammation-is-malfunctioning/

by PaulHoule • 2 years ago

51 49 2 years ago

It seems like the hygiene hypothesis is true... I wonder how long before patches that replace allergy shots exist to fix us :)

markstos7• 2 years ago

The other thing correlates with Western affluence is our diet that’s much heavier in animal products. The Standard American Diet: SAD.

The diet of the Blue Zones where people live longest are mostly plant-based.

extasia• 2 years ago

Do you believe that meat consumption is the prime causal factor?

markstos7• 2 years ago

The link between animal protein was investigated in some detail in the China Study. Also in the documentary Forks Over Knives. Evidence found that there were “diseases of the west” that correlated with the western diet. Since then, the Cleveland Clinic has used plant-based diets to reverse heart disease successfully. Other programs use it reverse heart disease.

The book How Not to Die covers many of the top killer diseases in the US and what food are best and worst to eat to avoid those fates based on reviews of scientific literature. The trend thoughtout is that plant-based diets fare best. Not surprising that this correlates with Blue Zone diets.

The book Fiber Fueled looks the science of gut health and what foods are best for gut health. The answer: a variety of plant foods.

As a study size of one, I’ve personally been able to recover quickly enough to do 6 26.2+ mile runs in six months in my forties. I think that would difficult and injury prone on a high-inflammation diet.

firecall• 2 years ago

Wasn’t there something linked on HN the other day that pointed out what nonsense the Blue Zones are?

No validate scientific evidence, blue zones are areas with bad record keeping and no birth certificates etc…

markstos7• 2 years ago

One of the places with higher longevity has good record keeping and birth certificates: Loma Linda, California. What’s different about this city? A lot Seventh Day Adventists who adhere to vegetarianism live there… and live about 10 years longer than average.

livueta• 2 years ago

Yes: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2023/09/28/places-c...

https://web.archive.org/web/20230928151239/https://www.econo...

xhkkffbf• 2 years ago

Mostly plant-based? This is kind of wishful thinking. Okinawa, for instance, eats plenty of fish. The Greeks and the Italians eat plenty of fish, meat and cheese.

The poorest countries have the greatest percentage of plant-based food and, no surprise, they also have the shortest lifespans. The reality is that the phrase "plant-based" is now a buzzword replacement for "vegetarian" and it has more political meaning than any real connection to health or nutrition. Hostess Twinkees, Hohos, Ring Dings, etc. are all very good examples of plant-based food.

pmlamotte• 2 years ago

The Okinawa diet commonly touted for longevity was primarily sweet potato, and only 1% fish.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okinawa_diet

hombre_fatal2• 2 years ago

The poorest countries have the greatest percentage of plant-based food and, no surprise, they also have the shortest lifespans.

Are you suggesting it's because of plants and not because they're poor?

Instead of making ecological comparisons, you should ask the question of what the science shows within one population, like in prospective cohort studies. Does increased vegetable consumption correlate with better or worse health outcomes?

Hostess Twinkees, Hohos, Ring Dings, etc. are all very good examples of plant-based food.

Sure, but that's not what people are talking about when they refer to plants in the context of health and nutrition.

kderbyma2• 2 years ago

Seed oils, Fillers, Leaviners, texturisers, emulsifiers.....poison.

NotGMan2• 2 years ago

Blue zones are a myth. Once you take in account their shitty birth certificiates (faked and/or missing) it collapses like a house of cards.

4gotunameagain• 2 years ago

Where can one find a source for this claim ? I only read that article about Okinawa.

I find it hard to believe that so many people have an uncertainty of 5-10 years on their birth date (or lie about it) that it skews the statistics.

teslabox• 2 years ago

research [] conducted in the Philippines and Ecuador

These are tropical countries where coconuts are an evolutionary-appropriate part of the food supply. Coconut oil is mostly saturated, and is stable at human temperature. Western countries switched to polyunsaturated "vegetable oil" as a dietary staple.

Sometime in the 1940's the paint industry figured out how to make their paints and stains from petroleum distillates. Originally the paint industry used linseed oil and soybean oil for most of their products. The unsaturated components of polyunsaturated seed oils combine spontaneously with the oxygen in the air to form a hard film [0].

The paint industry essentially said, "farmers, thanks for your products all these years, best of luck in your future endeavors." The seed oil conglomerates [1] (ADM, et al) were screwed. Then they realized they could just rebrand their products as "vegetable oil". Ancel Keys was hired to convince people of the hazard of saturated fats...

Omega-6 degrades to prosteglandins [2], which are molecules of stress and inflammation [3]. Omega-3's are more unstable than Omega-6 oils. IMHO, the ω-3 / ω-6 ratio doesn't really matter - the most important thing to get inflammation under control is to limit "vegetable oil" intake.

Olive Oil's okay, if it's genuine. Unfiltered olive oil is even better. But wikipedia says the American Heart Association still recommends getting your daily dose of inflammation precursors [4]. Not impressed.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drying_oil

[1] https://www.imarcgroup.com/vegetable-oil-manufacturers

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostaglandin

[3] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0334211100

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega-6_fatty_acid#Health_effe...

hombre_fatal2• 2 years ago

"Evolutionarily appropriate food" doesn't mean anything because it doesn't answer the question of whether something is correlated with better or worse health outcomes when put to the test. Just surviving into reproductive age isn't the standard we have for ourselves. We want to live into old age.

Instead of using the narratives in your post to reach a conclusion, your question should be: what does the science show on unsaturated fats and vegetable oils? What is the direction of effect on our health?

So far it seems that vegetable oils like canola oil are neutral at worst and health-promoting at best. Here's a review of the metaanalyses on the topic: https://www.the-nutrivore.com/post/a-comprehensive-rebuttal-...

nullserver• 2 years ago

Look up autoimmune protocol diet if you want to cut inflammation.

Me along with the number of people I’ve since met, played around with what was OK to eat and not OK to eat to get inflammation under control only to eventually realize I was reinventing the same diet as AIP.

mgh2• 2 years ago

I don’t buy it, this author is cherry picking from superficial observations.

Google has many articles, but this one lays out the different hypotheses in a nonbiased way https://www.vox.com/unexplainable/23404983/food-allergy-alle...

nusl6• 2 years ago

Coincidentally I recently started changing my diet to combat inflammation from my bad habits and covid recently. I've found that a combo of 16-8 intermittent fasting, no or very low sugar/processed food/high GI food intake, higher amounts of "clean" proteins, low red meat, and moderate exercise has massively improved my life. The weight loss is also surprisingly good despite being a side goal. I take and eat foods containing magnesium and potassium too but am unsure if that has helped.

arde2• 2 years ago

Same here, but I opted for the carnivore diet.

kylebenzle• 2 years ago

Interesting but you're going in the exact wrong direction. "There's evidence that diets high in red meat and processed meats may contribute to inflammation."

nusl6• 2 years ago

I wanted to avoid that much red meat since it also caused problems for me, but not as obviously, so I didn't go with this. I still eat vegetables and other things, and avoid red meats about 90% of my meals, so probably not the same.

Different things work for different people though, so this thing that I came up with may only work well enough for me but not for others, and carnivore for others.

GuardianCaveman• 2 years ago

what kind of improvements?

nusl6• 2 years ago

Hey. Reposting my other comment here since the reply is similar:

I can feel connective tissues and other pains that have been attributed to it by medical folk. It got pretty bad. Stress, anxiety, and other things also contribute. I noticed that it would be worse shortly after consuming high raw sugar foods or fatty/carby things like pizza, so I changed the diet over time to see what helped and didn't and ended up with this. The changes I made caused these issues to slowly decrease and now pretty much entirely gone away.

So, very minimal or no body pains in general where it used to be a lot worse. Sleep is improved, and my energy levels are more stable. I've also noticed that I don't get hungry as often, and when I do it doesn't cause mood issues like it used to. I used to be quite grumpy if I hadn't eaten in a while.

nradov2• 2 years ago

The weight loss may be the primary cause of reduced chronic inflammation, more so than any particular food choice.

kderbyma2• 2 years ago

Diet and lifestyle ( 'brand' name is probably not good when it's your food.....)

nusl6• 2 years ago

That's possible yeah. I worked this out over a longer period of time, testing adding/removing things and intentionally eating "trigger" foods to see if it actually causes issues or was just a temp problem or some sort of mental trick.

refurb• 2 years ago

How are you measuring inflammation levels?

nusl6• 2 years ago

I can feel connective tissues and other pains that have been attributed to it by medical folk. It got pretty bad. Stress, anxiety, and other things also contribute. I noticed that it would be worse shortly after consuming high raw sugar foods or fatty/carby things like pizza, so I changed the diet over time to see what helped and didn't and ended up with this. Red meat also contributed but not as obviously/responsively. The changes I made caused these issues to slowly decrease and now pretty much entirely gone away.

markstos7• 2 years ago

What are examples of clean proteins?

trillic• 2 years ago

Boneless-skinless chicken breast, 97/3 ground turkey, white fish, low fat/low sugar greek yogurt and other similar dairy products like Skyr.

k8svet• 2 years ago

Can't +1 enough. The single best thing I've done in my entire life, for my emotional and physical health was cutting sugar and moving to IF. The pain and inflammation in my lower back serves as a stark reminder of why cheat days are not worth it. Cutting gluten also removed a huge, huge amount of inflammation for me.

Falling asleep, staying asleep, are improved. Chronic pain from inflammation is reduced, mobility increased. I've throw in some regular exercise and my body feels better at 30-something than it did ten years prior.

And my god, my skin. Nowadays if I cheat and have something sugar bomby, I can feel my face and nose get greasy an hour later. My skin and oil type are not compatible with, at the very least, processed sugar.

nusl6• 2 years ago

You mention cheat days. I cheated a bit on the weekend with a few not-terrible but also not-great things and it's had a disproportionately negative impact. Also, I forgot to mention sleep playing a big role too. I stayed up way too late and paid for it today. Also had half of a no-sugar no-alcohol drink but the gas for whatever reason really hung around for a while. Back to straight water it is. It's surprising how quickly sugar takes effect.

Seems like there is a bit of a buffer but I blew through it

The older I get, the more sidecars tack onto my pods and I'm now having to prune them with more effort

kazinator• 2 years ago

Gout was historically known as "the disease of kings" or "rich man's disease".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gout

devaiops9001• 2 years ago

What causes inflammation? https://wiki.cosmicdeathfungus.com/wiki/Main_Page

Chronic inflammation may be a "disease of affluence"

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