Markers of inflammation can double within six hours of eating an inflammatory food. What is the worst food?
Excessive inflammation may contribute to many leading causes of death and disability, including type 2 diabetes, obesity, and heart disease. “But what are the triggers that start the destructive explosion?” You often hear about the pro-inflammatory nature of chronic high-fat diets, but the inflammatory effect “may not be limited to a chronic diet but may be seen after eating a single meal.”
Within hours of eating an unhealthy diet, inflammatory markers such as interleukin-6 (IL-6) can rise, doubling within six hours. Most studies show an increase in IL-6 after consuming a high-fat diet. But the diet they tested was filled not only with meat, eggs, milk and fat, but with unhealthy refined carbohydrates like white flour and sugar.
When people are given straight butterfat and no carbs, they still experience a spike in inflammation within hours, proving that the added fat itself promotes inflammation. But when people are given straight sugar water without any fat, the result is the same, which proves that added sugar is pro-inflammatory, too, as you can see below and at 1:26 in my video. Foods That Cause Inflammation.
Why should we worry about inflammatory responses after eating unhealthy foods? Because many studies point to the idea that “persistent low-grade inflammation is the root cause of several deadly chronic diseases and that diet may influence, or reduce, that inflammation.”
You’ll notice in the graph below that IL-6 levels jumped to about 3 pg/mL after a meal. (You can check it again at 1:55 in mine video.)
If levels begin to rise consistently up to 3 pg/mL, that is associated with double the risk of death. That increased risk was found across the board, including eight other similar studies, probably because it’s linked to an increased risk of heart disease, the leading killer of men and women, even in terms of other major risk factors such as high cholesterol.
Now, not all high-fat foods cause inflammation. More than a dozen studies combined show that whole plant foods such as nuts do not increase inflammatory symptoms, even when you eat a few nuts a day. In fact, spread half an avocado on a beef burger, and you might be able to blunt some of the inflammation caused by meat—even lean meat—as you can see below and at 2:35 in mine. video.
There are reviews that show a reduction in inflammatory markers after eating wild game, which is about as lean a meat as you can get, but that’s only compared to store-bought meat. Give people really fatty meat and their IL-6 goes up, as does tumor-necrosis factor and C-reactive protein. Swelling, swelling, swelling – within hours of use. But what if you instead eat kangaroo meat, which is very low in fat, such as elk or moose? You will get the same strong inflammatory response a few hours after eating it, as you can see below and at 3:15 in mine. video.
Now, it’s less inflammatory than regular meat you can find at the grocery store, but it’s pro-inflammatory nonetheless, increasing the symptoms of inflammation within hours.
Doctor’s Note
stay tuned What Foods Are Anti-Inflammatory?up next.
For more on nutrition and inflammation, see the related posts below.
