Is poorly managed pain and chronic inflammation slowing you down and impairing your quality of life? The feeling of pain is your body’s way of telling you that there is inflammation present. Inflammation is associated with the classic symptoms of pain, redness, heat and swelling. It frequently accompanies injury and tissue trauma, such as sprains, strains, cuts, bites and stings. However, what you may not realise, is that inflammation can be a contributing factor to many health conditions and is a key component in the joint pain of arthritis, headaches, migraine, back pain and muscular aches, digestive disorders such inflammatory bowel disease, period pain, autoimmune disorders such as Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis and Graves disease and cancers.
The Fire Within
The term inflammation comes from the Latin word, ‘Inflammatio’ which means to set on fire. Inflammation is like a small biological fire designed to ‘burn away’ harmful stimuli such as pathogens, allergens, injury or other irritants. It is a protective mechanism designed to remove these causative factors and initiate the healing response. Unfortunately modern lifestyle factors such as poor diet, stress, lack of exercise, toxin exposure and electromagnetic radiation can ignite, and keep this fire burning.
Inflammation Inside and Out
Inflammation can be easily identified when there are external signs of pain from headaches, arthritis, or joint and muscle injuries. However, inflammation can be occurring inside the body even when the warning signs are less obvious. For example, did you realise that obesity is an inflammatory state? Many digestive disorders such as food intolerances, irritable bowel disease, and coeliac disease are inflammatory conditions.
Food Can Produce or Reduce Inflammation
The typical Western diet may actually promote inflammation; high amounts of sugar and refined carbohydrates break down quickly into glucose and have been shown to induce inflammatory changes that are linked with many chronic diseases. In some susceptible people, foods such as cow’s milk and gluten-containing grains like wheat, oats, rye can trigger an inflammatory response within the digestive tract and throughout the body.
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Anti-Inflammatory Foods |
Inflammatory Foods |
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Good fats from fish, chia seeds, nuts, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, flaxseeds, coconut oil |
Sugar particularly lollies, cakes, biscuits, pastries, processed breakfast cereals |
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Fruit and vegetables, e.g. berries, pineapple, garlic, green leafy vegetables, red, orange and yellow vegetables |
Processed foods, particularly grains such as wheat, white rice, cows milk, cheese and flavoured yoghurt. |
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Real fresh unprocessed foods (organic where possible) |
Inflammatory fats such margarine, deep fried foods, grain fed meat, farmed fish |
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Healing herbs and spices e.g turmeric, ginger, cloves, cumin, coriander, rosemary |
Chemicals in foods: pesticides, artificial additives in foods, GMO foods |
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Fermented foods such as kefir, sauerkraut, yoghurt, miso, tempeh |
Excess black tea, coffee and alcohol intake |
If you need help to manage your inflammation, contact Terrie, for a personalised health/wellness plan to reduce your inflammation.
