6 Foods for Lowering Inflammation

The science is highly compelling and clearly demonstrates that excess inflammation in our bodies is detrimental. The thing to understand is that inflammation isn’t inherently a problem or even something we want to eliminate.

In small amounts, inflammation helps the body heal, but chronic inflammation can lead to health problems.

You need some inflammation. For example, when you exercise, you create inflammation inside your muscles. Then, through good nutrition and sleep, you cue recovery and regeneration so your body can heal itself and get stronger, fitter, and faster. But if you don’t allow time for recovery and jump right into the next workout, you’ll end up sick and injured.

Nutrition plays a key role in helping your body and brain to heal, repair, recover and regenerate via the inflammatory process. To help with that process, here are some ideas to help you spark your recovery and regeneration through food.

1. Raise the nutrient content of your food

I learned a simple formula for assessing the quality of food from Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s book Eat to Live: Health = Nutrients over Calories. If you want to dramatically up-level your health, crank up the nutrient level in your food while optimizing your caloric intake. Then you can experiment and figure out how many nutrients and calories you need to feel great and get healthier. Look at your body composition and energy levels and keep focused on getting as many nutrients as possible.

2. Consume the right fats

The science is clear that omega-3 fatty acids are amazing for your brain. My personal experience also supports this finding. In 2017 I spent a chunk of time on retreat in Portugal, on an olive oil farm. We drank olive oil shots every night before dinner. I think I drank a gallon of olive oil that week. We would hike for hours each day and swim in the ocean. Then I would come back and spend 5 or 6 hours in their library, deconstructing everything I was doing with my career. I can’t remember a time when I was so mentally alert and creative. It was amazing. Keep levels of saturated fat (fast foods, processed foods) on the low side. Instead, eat foods that contain omega-3 fatty acids (cold-water fish, oysters, wild salmon, shrimp, beans, nuts, seeds) and mono- unsaturated fat (olive oil, avocados, almonds, cashews).

3. Shift from sauces to spices

Move toward seasoning your food with spices like turmeric, ginger, and cinnamon whenever you can. They taste incredible and have enormous health benefits. Many spices have anti- inflammatory properties and loads of other benefits we’re just learning about.

4. Lower simple sugars in your diet

Sugar not only causes inflammation, it also decreases the size of the hippocampus, the structure in your brain responsible for learning and memory. Seriously scary. Just think about all those kids who are being fed high-sugar, highly processed foods every day. They’re damaging the part of the brain associated with learning. I cannot believe we allow chocolate milk and pop in schools. High-sugar diets also decrease brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which stimulates neurogenesis in the brain, decrease cyclic AMP (the energy currency inside the neurons of your brain), and lower synaptic mRNA (the genetic code for neuron connections inside your brain).

5. Avoid processed foods

There are interesting studies on the link between an unhealthy diet and chronic inflammation in the body and brain. The most common dietary contributors to inflammation are refined carbohydrates (like white bread or pastries), fried foods (like French fries), sugar-sweetened beverages, red meat and pro- cessed meat (like hot dogs and sausages), and vegetable oils (like margarine). As Michael Pollan, author of Food Rules, says, “Eat [real] food, mostly plants, not too much.”

6. Eat anti-anxiety foods

In an article for Harvard Health, Dr. Uma Naidoo makes a case for the important role diet plays in managing anxiety. She recommends foods rich in magnesium (spinach, Swiss chard, legumes, nuts, seeds), zinc (oysters, cashews, liver, beef, eggs), omega-3s (see pages 76–77), probiotics (sauerkraut, kefir, kombu- cha, kimchi), and B vitamins (avocados, almonds). All these foods encourage the release of neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine, which improve mood. Foods high in antioxidants may also help: beans, fruits, berries, nuts, and vegetables like kale, spinach, and broccoli.  

Try any combination of these techniques to decrease inflammation in your system, perform at your best, and improve your health at the same time.

That’s it for this week! Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Yours for health, wellbeing & peak performance - Dr. Greg