Inflammation:
3 Ways Disease is Created Through Cellular Inflammation
By: Julie Benson and Libby Darnell
Inflammation: What is it and why do you need to be concerned about it? You’ve heard this term, “inflammation”, bandied about by all of us health care practitioners.
We tell you how important to your health reducing inflammation is. We love giving you lists of foods that reduce inflammation to support your overall health and lists of foods to avoid to keep the inflammation at bay. But what exactly is inflammation and why is it so important to your overall health?
Inflammation, and particularly cellular inflammation, is the inability of your cells to function properly due to an unhealthy cell wall. The cell walls in our bodies can become inflamed due to the inability of the receptors on those cells to absorb the nutrients taken in through diet.
First, it is important to understand that your cell walls are made up of two layers of fat: cholesterol and saturated fat.
On and around each of these cell walls in your body there are receptors that have different roles. One may be an insulin receptor, another an amino acid receptor, and more for vitamins and minerals, etc.
When you eat, your cell determines what will either enter the cell to create energy or what won’t enter the cell.
When the nutrients, or lack of, don’t enter the cell to create life in you, they actually end up creating toxic sludge on your cell’s surface.
For example: sugar, like high fructose corn syrup, will stick to the insulin receptor and synthetic vitamin B12 will stick onto the vitamin receptor. Your body is so smart it doesn’t want to take those chemically-produced products in.
Once you bog down the cell and the receptors with the Standard American Diet (SAD) your cell only has two choices; mutate which causes cancer, or die which causes apoptosis, also known as premature aging.
Keep reading to discover the 3 main culprits that play the biggest factor in how inflamed your cells become, and to learn particularly what foods that cause inflammation should be avoided.
TOP 3 CAUSES OF CELLULAR INFLAMMATION
Toxins:
The first cause of cellular inflammation is toxins in food and in our environment².
-Toxins can come from anything we use:
- plastic tupperware
- makeup
- soaps
- lotions
- cleaning supplies
- furniture
- carpet
- drinking water
- hair products
- Electromagnetic frequencies (EMFs) are also a major source of cellular toxicity.
Learn more about how you can keep yourself and your family safe from
Electromagnetic Frequencies by downloading my EMF Action Steps.
-Toxins in food come from the following:
- insecticides,
- GMOs,
- preservatives,
- food dyes,
- artificial sweeteners or additives, and
- cancer causing chemicals like BHT, nitrites/nitrates and titanium dioxide.
Always remember: anything that sits on a shelf and has a shelf life longer than you will NOT create life in you.
Sugars:
The second cause of cellular inflammation is sugar. I hear a lot of people say, “Well, it’s not bad if it’s only in moderation”. However,
-According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services most people are consuming at least 19 teaspoons of sugar each day¹. This devastating number doesn’t even include fruit! This means that the average person is consuming 66 pounds of added sugar per year.
-Sugar is a delicious food for bacteria, yeast and cancer.
-Sugar in our diets isn’t just from sugar cane. You consume varying forms of sugar when you eat anything that has carbohydrates. For example, grains, vegetables, fruits and of course sweet treats are all foods that cause inflammation. You can actually read a little bit more about sneaky sweeteners from this free blog post: Sugar: 7 Secret Dangers Hiding in Food and How to Replace Them.
-If you have met your health goals, then consuming healthier forms of sugar on occasion is fine. However, if you are going through a period of healing then it is best to remove all sources of sugar from your diet.
Bad Fats:
The third source of cellular inflammation is bad fats.
We have been told so many lies over the years about what sources of fats are good for us. A complete diet must include healthy forms of cholesterol and saturated fat, regardless of what you have been told in the past.
As indicated above, in order for our cell receptors, our entire cells, and therefore our whole bodies to function optimally, healthy forms of fat must be included in our diets. To learn more about how a cellular fat diet can help you reach your health goals, visit the Fat-Free Diets Make Us Fat: 10 Ways to Burn Fat in Ketosis blog post.
So which forms of cholesterol and saturated fat are healthy and which are unhealthy?
-It is important to note that conventionally raised meat and farm raised fish are HUGE culprits of bad, unhealthy fat.
A healthy omega 6 to omega 3 ratio in your animal products (especially beef) should ideally be 4 to 1. Did you know that the fatty acid ratio of conventionally raised meats is actually upwards of 20 to 1³! Many health problems can begin when the amount of inflammatory fats in our diet continue to increase.
-Another unhealthy source of fat is partially hydrogenated and hydrogenated oils like vegetable, canola and soybean that have hydrogen forced into them to make a shelf stable product at room temperature. As a result, your body has a difficult time breaking these fats down, which creates cellular inflammation.
-Examples of good, health-building fats include grass fed and grass finished beef, wild caught fish, free range chicken, coconut oil, raw nuts and more! See the graphic below for more ideas.
Download a FREE copy of the Grocery Shopping Cheat Sheet to learn what fats to stay away from and which good ones to buy in abundance!
What are some key ways you can reduce your sources of cellular inflammation? Pick a few of the areas above and simply get started.
One action step you can take to have a huge impact on your health is to remove the sources of plastic in your home. Swap out your tupperware with glass food storage containers.
Are you using conventional beauty products? Slowly replace them with healthier, all-natural alternatives.
Every small investment of time or money into your health will yield 10X returns! Cheers to your health and happiness!
Source:
- R. Bethene Ervin, Ph.D., R.D., and Cynthia L. Ogden, Ph.D., M.R.P. Consumption of Added Sugars Among U.S. Adults, 2005-2010 NCHS Data Brief No. 122, May 2013. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db122.pdf
- Endocrine Disruptors: The Stealth Plague of Modern Society. (2013, August 06). Retrieved January 03, 2017, from http://universityhealthnews.com/daily/nutrition/endocrine-disruptors-the-stealth-plague-of-modern-society/
- Mercola, J. (n.d.). Why Grassfed Animal Products Are Better. Retrieved January 03, 2017, from http://www.mercola.com/beef/health_benefits.htm
