Quick quiz to evaluate your level for inflammation risk

The following Quiz was published by Jack Challem in his book, The Inflammation

Syndrome: The Complete Nutritional Program to Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease –

Arthritis – Diabetes – Allergies – Asthma.

What Are Your Current Eating Habits?

Rationale: Highly processed foods—those most commonly eaten—contain many pro-inflammatory substances. If you are not very careful about what you eat, you likely consume large amounts of pro-inflammatory foods.

Eating Habits at Home

Do you or your significant other cooks with corn, peanut, sunflower, safflower or soy oil

(As opposed to olive or grape seed oil)?

Add 2 points

Do you eat a prepackaged microwave meal that provides a full meal (as opposed to only

frozen vegetables) more than once a week?

Add 1 point

Do you eat any foods packaged in boxes, such as ready-to-eat cereals, flavored rices,

meat extenders, and other boxed foods, more than once a week?

Add 1 point

When you eat at home, do you use bottled salad dressings that contain soy or safflower

oil or partially hydrogenated fats (as opposed to olive oil)?

Add 2 points

Do you eat pasta, bread, or pizza (one, some, or all three) daily?

Add 2 points

Do you eat baked goods, such as cookies, coffee cakes, other cakes, doughnuts, packaged

brownies, cakes, or similar food products at least once a week?

Add 2 points

Do you use margarine instead of butter?

Add 2 points

Do you eat a lot of hamburgers?

Add 1 point

Do you dislike eating fish?

Add 1 point

Do you drink regular (sweetened) soft drinks or add sugar to your coffee or tea?

Add 1 point

Eating Habits in Restaurants

Do you eat at fast-food restaurants such as McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC, Taco Bell, or

others at least once a week?

Add 2 points

Do you eat at a Chinese restaurant more than once a week?

Add 2 points

Do you eat pasta or pizza in a restaurant at least once a week?

Add 2 points

Do you eat breaded and fried fish or deep-fried shrimp more than once every week or

two?

Add 2 points

Do you eat French fries?

Add 2 points

Do you eat mostly beef?

Add 1 point

If you eat beef, is hamburger your favorite type?

Add 1 point

Do you order soft drinks when you eat out?

Add 1 point

Your score on quiz:

Interpretation and ranking:

0-2 Low. You are eating a low-inflammation diet, which is the best way to protect

yourself from chronic inflammation.

3-5 Moderate. You are eating a moderate-inflammation diet, which may set the stage

for chronic inflammation.

6-19 High. You are eating a high-inflammation diet, which substantially increases your

risk of inflammatory diseases.

20+ Very High. You are eating a very high inflammation diet, which greatly increases

your risk of disease.

T2-Fat-P4

Topic 2 - Fat - Part 4

Moving on from the last part of this topic on Fat, this release is talking about inflammation, which we spoke about in the last Topic on Cholesterol and Om-3 &-6.

What is inflammation?

The inflammation that we’re talking about it “Silent Inflammation”

"Silent inflammation is simply inflammation that falls below the threshold of perceived pain."
Barry Sears Ph.D.
The Anti-Inflammation Zone

One way to look at health and disease is to look at the level of inflammation in the body and to recognize that as inflammation increases so does state of chronic illness and disease.

When you think of inflammation you probably think of a sprained ankle or when you hit your thumb with a hammer. This is acute inflammation, and it’s normal and healthy. Chronic (silent) inflammation, on the other hand, is when your body is always producing low levels of pro-inflammatory chemicals.

For example, obesity is part of the “inflammatory syndrome” because fat cells secrete chemicals which contribute to cellular inflammation all over the body.

When we talk about, “cellular inflammation” we are talking about every cell that makes up the human body, skin cells, nerve cells, muscle cells, bone cells, blood vessel lining cells, endocrine cells etc…

•Virtually all pain in the body is due to inflammation
•It’s particularly dangerous when that inflammation in the human body is stealth enough not cause pain.
•Because silent inflammation in the human body mostly means silent damage.
•When your body is being damaged cell by cell and you don't even know it.

Reducing this level is the absolute key to determining whether your body is healthy and has vitality or whether it is heading towards chronic illness and pain.
The scientific link between silent inflammation in the human body and life-threatening chronic disease, such as heart disease, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, autoimmune disorders, and cancer is strong.

Ironically, though "silent inflammation" is a damaging force, "acute inflammation" in your body is actually a life saving process.
When inflammation occurs in response to an infection or an injury, we call that "acute inflammation" or what Dr. Sears calls "screaming inflammation."
Unlike silent inflammation that is painless, you feel the pain of "screaming inflammation."

However, this kind of acute ("screaming") inflammation in necessary because your body could not defend itself against foreign invaders like bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites and the like without using inflammation to kill off these destructive microbes.

Likewise, your body uses acute inflammation to help repair damaged tissues, so that new tissues can be built and cells revitalized.

However, when inflammation runs rampant and fails to turn itself off, even after cells have been repaired or invading microbes destroyed, then it becomes chronic and silent, taking on a disturbing dark side.

Silent inflammation can damage your arteries, destroy your nerve cells, depress your immune system and promote cancer.

It's critical for you to remember that high levels of silent inflammation in your body means that you are no longer well and you are on your way to illness and/or chronic disease.

It’s a little known fact, but foods play a crucial contribution to cellular inflammation. Most of us think of medications when we think of inflammation. “Take a pill,” is the modern mantra of Western civilization, partly because we want a, “quick fix” and partly because many of us don’t want to take responsibility for our own contribution to our own health circumstances and problems.

But with the ever increasing costs of health care, lack of health care for all, and the lack of success with many health care strategies, people are looking ever more into holistic approaches for the prevention of health problems, rather than the treatment, preventing the cause as apposed to treating the effects, “closing the stable door before the horse bolts” so to speak.

There are a number of causes for inflammation in the human body, some more controllable than others. These include:

•Environment pollution
•Psychological stress
•Physical stress
•Lack of recovery/circadian rhythm changes
•Allergies and intolerances
•Food and Drink

Some of these are easier for us to alter than others, and just because we possibly can’t alter our environment doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try and improve other aspects of the inflammation triggers.

The biggest one that we, every single one of us, can positively affect and change, that we have the power to choose ourselves and alter is food and drink consumption.

Every single one of us has the power within us to choose what we eat and drink what we choose to fuel our bodies with, how we choose to charge our body’s cells. This is not up to someone else; this is up to us, really no excuses, do you choose potato chips or a whole apple? Do you choose soda or whole water?

(Whole water is water with minerals, over 200mol per liter.
This prevents the removal of vital minerals in the body through
osmosis. The transfer from high concentration to low concentration.
The removal of vital mineral from the body through the consumption
of empty water/drinks leads to physical stress.)

The reality is that what we eat contributes significantly to our state of inflammation or lack thereof, even if we are not overweight.

Acidic and Alkali foods.

We need to attempt to increase the amount of alkali foods in our daily nutritional intake for optimal health and bodily functioning.

T2 - Fat - P3

Topic 2 - Fat - Part 3
Cholesterol – the good the bad and the ugly! (sorry this is a lengthy one!)

As was mentioned in the last fat installment, Part 2, we as humans, that we are now, have evolved at least over the past 400, 000 years, through survival of the fittest and natural selection, so its a little unbelievable to me that our body’s have come to the point where they naturally produce a substance that’s bad for us and basically sets some of us on a course of self destruction. That is the pharmaceutical industry labeled “bad” cholesterol, also known as LDL Cholesterol, (Low Density Lipoprotein).

So what is cholesterol?

Well it’s an organic substance that is essential for the structural component of mammal (that includes us humans) cell membranes, and is required to establish proper cell membrane permeability (that’s how easy and “fluid” the cell walls are to allow nutrients in and waste products out). Cholesterol is also an important substance for the production of bile acids (vital in digestion and actually helps move waste cholesterol out of the body), steroid hormones (vital for metabolism and the immune system), and Vitamin D (vital for bone health and re-growth).

So as we can see, pretty vital to human health and mammalian life.

So what about the “good and the “bad”, and maybe the “ugly”?

Well, HDL (High Density Lipoprotein) is what has been labeled as “good” cholesterol, the LDL or even now the newly labeled VLDL (Very Low Density Lipoprotein) is what has been named the “bad” cholesterol. The “ugly” is what we are being told by the pharmaceutical companies and what might be becoming general knowledge might not be the whole truth in terms of our optimal health and what the cholesterol is doing to us.

So let’s look into this….

The actual cholesterol on HDL, LDL or VLDL is all the same, the HDL is actually the smallest of the particles and has the ability to pick-up cholesterol from the cells, (muscle cells, nerve cells, blood vessel cells, etc.). Almost like dump-trucks taking waste old cholesterol away from the building sites of cells. This is why they have been labeled “good”.

So what about the other “bad” stuff, LDL and VLDL, what do these actually do?
Well, LDL is more of a cholesterol transporter to the cell. When a cell needs cholesterol for its health, it sets up receptors (like a port for a ship) and the LDL “pulls or parks up” and unloads cholesterol for the cell to use for its structural health. Not so “bad” right?

So what’s the problem?
Well the problem with LDL is that if the cell keeps asking for more of it, more of it keeps being made by the body and more keeps “parking” up at the cell. This is apparent in blood vessels, as the cells lining the blood vessels become damaged or deteriorated they ask for more cholesterol to re-build their structure to be healthy. Well as they keep asking for more cholesterol more and more LDL builds up forming a plaque on the inner wall of the vessels. Not “good”, “BAD”, as this causes narrowing of the arteries and vessels which can obviously lead to cardiovascular disease and the risk of heart attacks and/or strokes.

But is this the fault of the LDL cholesterol that’s just doing what the cell is asking it to do, or is it the fault of the cell that keeps asking for more cholesterol to try and fix its own health.

The reason why this is such a big question is because if we just lower LDL cholesterol, say through drugs like statins, but don’t actually do anything to improve the cells health or change what is damaging the cells to begin with, then the cells are continually just going to keep asking for more LDL cholesterol.

So rather than blaming the VLDL or LDL “bad” cholesterol, maybe we should stop doing or prevent what ever it is damaging the cells, then these, for example blood vessel cells will stop asking for cholesterol, so maybe the body will stop sending it. Just a thought….

Going off the topic of “fat” a little, but an important area that’s related none-the-less, and pretty interesting in the realm of Human Health.

So what damages cells, specifically blood vessel cells, in the first place?
- The cells of the inner lining of the blood vessels are called the, ‘endothelium’.
- When cells become damaged the term often used is ‘inflamed’.
- The inflammation of a cell is a vital response, a protective response by our cells to an injury, pathogen or infection.
- The problem occurs when we have chronic inflammation, such as we talked about in the last fat topic, Part 2.
- There we discovered that one of the essential fats, Omega-6 which many of us consume too much of and out of balance with Omega-3, causes inflammation. Again remember inflammation is a crucial response of the body to injury, illness and disease, but chronic inflammation is the problem we find.
- Omega-6 fatty acids, in general, lead to the production of more inflammatory chemicals in the body, so more chemicals that cause the cells to inflame.
- Another major inflammatory agent for the body comes from Arachidonic acid which is found in foods from animal products. We can reduce this by reducing meat and dairy intake, except cold water fish where we can get our Omega-3.
- If we remember from Part 2, Omega-6 also increases blood clotting, constricts blood vessels, so enabling an environment for cholesterol to easier bind to the vessel walls and also increase blood pressure which itself could damage the blood vessel cells. Where as Omega-3 is an anti-blood coagulate enabling the blood to move more fluid, reducing the ability of cholesterol to build up as easily, but also reducing blood pressure and so reducing possible vessel damage.

Here is some more information about Om-3 and -6’s effects on the body:
http://inflammation911.com/omega-6-starts-inflammation-omega-3-stops-it/

Ok, all this said, if vessels do become damaged, what can we do to help them heel as fast as possible to reduce chronic inflammation and reduce the build up of vessel plaque?
- Flavonoids – these are a group of about 6000 substances found in fruits and vegetables, part of a group of nutrients collectively called ‘pytochemicals’ (plant chemicals).
- They have been found to help heal blood vessel cells, protecting them from rupture and leakage and ultimately inflammation.
- Virtually all plant foods contain flavonoids, the more variety of whole, unprocessed, organic plant based foods the better.
- Plants also contain what are named plant sterols, which have been shown in reduce cholesterol digestion and help with maintaining cell health, which in-turn reduces the response of the body to produce LDL cholesterol to fix damaged inflamed cells.
- Its great to take foods out or reduce foods that cause inflammation in our body, or foods that can increase cholesterol like processed foods, foods with additives and animal processed foods. But, if we don’t include in our nutrition intake foods that will help heal our cells, well they won’t heal well even if we take out inflammation foods.
- Include in our diet an intake rich in plant based foods, fruits, vegetables nuts and seeds, optimal is whole, unprocessed, raw, and organic sources.
- Probiotic’s have a possible beneficial affect on our body’s inflammation, and so possibly an effect of cholesterol production levels. We have Probiotic’s in our digestive tracts already, so eating foods that support these ‘friendly bacteria’ are vital, especially if you have a history of anti-biotic medication taking as these kill off the good bacteria as well as the bad bacteria. Foods that help support our Probiotic’s are foods that are high in indigestible fiber; these foods are often called ‘prebioltic’s’. Fiber found in many plant based foods can be fermented into what are called, ‘short chain fatty acids’ that help to feed the beneficial bacteria in our digestive tract, (intestines).
- Actual direct probiotic sources are:
http://www.globalhealingcenter.com/natural-health/probiotic-foods/

Summary
The take away from this is:

-Both HDL and LDL cholesterol is vital to the health of the human body.
-HDL removes ‘waste’ cholesterol away from the cell
-LDL supplies ‘new’ cholesterol for the cell
-Chronic inflammation, cell damage, can cause the body to need more LDL         cholesterol to ‘fix’ the damaged cells.
-Chronic elevated LDL cholesterol trying to fixed the inflamed cells of the blood vessels does cause a build up of plaque on the inner wall of the vessels, leading to heart disease.
-This will continue as long as cell inflammation and cell damage remain.
-So the key is to reduce chronic inflammation.
-Rebalance Omega-3 and Omega-6 nutrition intake, 1:1 ratio is ideal.
-Reduce processed animal products, reducing Arachidonic acid which causes inflammation.
-Increase intake of plant foods, fruit, vegetable, nuts and seeds, whole, raw, unprocessed and organic that contains pytochemicals, flavonoids and plant sterols that reduce cell inflammation.
-Eat foods rich in fiber to support intestinal bacteria and eat probiotic’s to top up the good bacteria in our digestive tracts, helping to reduce inflammation.
-Remember, free range brown eggs do not raise cholesterol levels; the yolks actually contain Lecithin which has been shown to reduce cholesterol levels in the blood. It also helps to dissolve the plaque that has already been laid down in the blood vessels.
Remember good healthy chickens provide good healthy eggs.
I hope this was understandable as it is a contentious topic which is a major health concern in modern health and medicine.
This information is intended as being informative and in no way intended as a prescription as to how to handle high cholesterol levels and heart disease risk. It is intended as information to educate on healthy nutritious food intake from whole, unprocessed, non-additive, non-preservative, grass fed, free range, organic food sources to aid in the support of Human Health.

Thank you,
Until next time – Be Active, Eat Healthy.

T2 - Fat - P2

Topic 2 – Fat – Part 2

As stated in Part 1 of this topic, nutritious dietary fat is vital for optimal human health. Optimal for the functioning of the energy systems, hormonal balance in every one of the body’s physiological systems, membrane structure of the cells of the human body, forms our brains and nervous systems, transport vital to health vitamins.

So what happens when we get too much? Don’t get them at all? Don’t get enough of them? Or the wrong balance of them?

Saturated fat is the big evil one we’ve all heard about, mainly it’s supposed well correlated link to cardiovascular disease. What being discovered now is balanced levels of saturated fat in the diet might not be the main culprit in this case, it might just be in the wrong place at the wrong time so to speak.

It’s been found that the problems associated with saturated fat might not necessarily because of the intake of the fat on its own, they are shown to be seen only when other poor dietary choices are there as well such as a high sugar and processed/refined carbohydrate and also if the intake of saturates is out of balance with unsaturated fats.

So don’t combine a diet high in saturated fat with one low in unsaturated fat, sugar and refined carbohydrates, which unfortunately matches most of our North American diets.

This is another reason why processed food is such a negative element in our diets for human health. Processed foods are mostly consisting of nutrients out of the natural balance that you’d normally find in unprocessed, whole organic foods that our bodies have evolved to function, survive, be healthy and thrive on for at least the past 400,000 years. So the modern, especially Western diet of refined, processed, fast, chemically grown and produced food is a little way ahead of our cell evolution for optimal human health, we need to slow down on this food revolution and go back to the old basics again, whole, unprocessed, organically not chemically grown.

Anyway, back to fat!

Unsaturated, (poly and monounsaturated), fats are termed healthy fats due to their beneficial effects on blood triglycerides and cholesterols, blood vessel health, cell inflammation and metabolism.

The balance of the fats is important between saturated and unsaturated, but also between the different unsaturated fats.

Humans evolved to consume diets abundant in Omega-6 and Omega-3 which results in a dietary intake of these essential fats of 1:1. 1 Omega-6 to 1 Omega-3, but in the general modern North American diet this ratio has shifted to 16/20:1, that’s 16-20 Omega-6’s to 1 Omega-3, completely out of balance for optimal human health. Westerners, especially American’s, have a high tissue concentration of Omega-6, estimated to be 8-12X optimal concentration, too much of a good thing! Due to the big switch of the last 40-50 years from animal fats to margarines and corn/soy oil making up the majority of the American fat intake, and on top of this corn/grain fed chicken and beef has risen sharply, in the fast food industry all of which have high Omega-6 contents over their grass fed naturally roaming cousins. Place on top of this the oil in which these meats are cooked in the US fast food industry and we can see why we have so much Omega-6.

What do these Omega’s 3 & 6 do?

OMEGA-6

Omega 6, the one that the typical Western diet consumes too much of, due to its high concentration in a lot of our food staples.

Omega-6 has a number of critical roles in the healthy human body. They promote blood vessel constriction, cell inflammation, pain, airway constriction, blood clotting, etc. all vital mechanisms in the human body for survival. But when too much is in the diet these mechanisms predominate or operate unchecked.

-Blood vessel constriction – increased blood pressure.

-Cell inflammation – long term linked to chronic disease and illness, Autoimmunity, autism, allergies, food allergies asthma, arthritis etc.

-Pain – chronic long term pain, fibromyalgia

-Airway constriction – asthma

-Blood clotting – slowed blood flow through the vessels possibly leading to increased plaque deposits on the inflamed cell, (above cell inflammation), walls of the blood vessels. These blocked or reduced blood flow due to excessive blood clotting can damage vital organs in the body. Heart attack risk, stroke risk, DVT risk.

So too much of a good thing isn’t a good thing, even though this is an essential fatty acid Omega-6, we get far to much of it on average for us to be optimally healthy humans.

OMEGA-3

Omega 3, this is the essential fat we tend not to get enough of in our diet, or if we do, it still tends to be out of the optimal 1-to-1 balance with Omega-6. The most beneficial sources for human health of Omega-3 are the EPA or DHA types, found in fish oils and algae (the original Omega-3 sources for fish). Omega-3 ALA is found in flax seed and walnuts. The human body converts ALA to EPA then DHA at about 15% efficiency.

Benefits of Omega-3 are that they help to keep our cells more “fluid” and permeable. This improves cell communication with hormones such as insulin and testosterone/estrogen, and nervous system chemicals such as serotonin and dopamine. They improve cardiovascular function, nervous system function and immune health.

Research is also showing a huge correlation between low DHA levels/intake and memory loss, concentration difficulties (ADHD?), Alzheimer’s and depression and mood instabilities.

Omega-3 also promotes blood vessel dilation (blood pressure reduction), anti-inflammatory effects on the cells, (reduced chronic disease and illness), blood anti-coagulant effects (reduced blood vessel blocking and slowing of blood flow), decreased pain (probably linked to less nervous system stress and less inflammation), and improved airway dilation.

So what do we take away from this?

Saturated fat is needed in the diet for optimal human health, but only saturated fat from whole, unprocessed, organically and grass fed grown and raised are optimal. It is essential that these saturated fats are ingested in balance with unsaturated fats (polyunsaturated and monounsaturated) and with a low/zero intake of refined sugars and refined processed foods.

If the intake of sugars and processed refined food is high, unsaturated fat intake is low, then, along with the saturated fat intake, this will have a detrimental impact on your health and quality of life.

Omega-6 and Omega-3 are both essential to optimal human health, but the typical American Western diet and nutritional intake is well over-saturated with the Omega-6 Fat leading to a possible pleathora health, fitness and wellness issues.

The Omega-6 to Omega-3 balance we need to be striving towards is closer to a 1-to-1 ratio, as apposed to the current average ratio of (OM-6) 16/20-to-1 (OM-3).

We can get Omega-3 from:

http://nutritiondata.self.com/foods-000140000000000000000.html

Next, part 3, we are going to go into that other mythical realm of cholesterol!!

The Good the Bad and the Ugly!

Until then, Be Active, Eat Whole & Unprocessed (what we evolved to eat over 400,000 years!), Choose Health!

Paul Chek talking about protein needs, genetic variance and water.

Paul Chek - 15 minute interview about health, protein needs, genetic variance and water.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EYWOCSHH1I&feature=youtube_gdata_player