As most of us know, inflammation is part of the response in animal bodies to injury, and it's usually a really good thing:
Here’s how the immune system is supposed to work. Let’s say you slam a car door on your finger. That causes tissue damage and possibly infection—stuff that doesn’t belong there and looks foreign to the body. White blood cells and other molecules swarm in, wall off the damaged area, and attack the invaders and the damaged tissue. The area gets hot, red, swollen, and painful. Clean-up cells like macrophages—which means “big eaters” in Greek—gobble up the garbage. Once the damage has been contained, other immune molecules begin the repair process and the inflammation subsides.
But inflammation also causes collateral damage, a sort of friendly fire. The same processes that get rid of foreign agents can damage good cells as well. The death of those cells can in turn trigger further inflammation. For reasons that remain unclear, sometimes this creates a vicious cycle that becomes self-sustaining.
That's a fairly succinct explanation of the underlying biology; the how and why of inflammation, and what can happen when things go wrong. Inflammation, as is becoming increasingly clear, is linked to a surprising array of issues when it spins out of control. Chronic inflammation has been implicated in cardiovascular disease, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's, and events associated with traumatic head injury, among other health issues.
Moreover - and the anti-GMO crowd may want to shut up for a moment or two here - for half a century, we've been fed products that promote chronic inflammation:
(Reuters) - Common additives in ice cream, margarine, packaged bread and many processed foods may promote the inflammatory bowel diseases ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease as well as a group of obesity-related conditions, scientists said on Wednesday.
The researchers focused on emulsifiers, chemicals added to many food products to improve texture and extend shelf life.
Aren't you glad that the government's been telling you for years to give up butter and eat more bread? Yes, they really know what's best.
Not. But hey - at least they don't have the dreaded GMOs in them!
Emulsifiers are used in margarine, mayonnaise, creamy sauces, candy, ice cream, packaged processed foods and baked goods. They can make products like mayonnaise smooth and creamy instead of an unappetizing amalgam of water and oily globules.
A key feature of inflammatory bowel diseases and metabolic syndrome is a change in the gut microbiota - the roughly 100 trillion bacteria that inhabit the intestinal tract - in ways that promote inflammation. In mice given emulsifiers, the bacteria were more apt to digest and infiltrate the dense mucus layer that lines and protects the intestines.
Incidence of inflammatory bowel disease and metabolic syndrome started rising in the mid-20th century at roughly the same time that food manufacturers began widespread emulsifier use, the researchers said.
I've not trusted government guidelines in years, because they rarely get anything right - especially when it comes to food. So when they told us not to eat butter, eggs, or whole milk (and to avoid red meat), I kept right on with the butter, eggs, and steaks.
For a while, there, I was on a bread-baking binge as well - something that I may have to take up again, although it's arguably less expensive to just pick up a loaf or two from the in-store bakery at the local grocery.
In any event, things that alter the microbial balance in your body aren't, in most cases, likely to do so in a good way.
