Anti-Inflammatory Diet

This Is Where It All Begins.

I hate to be the one to tell you but…you probably have gout because your gout diet isn’t exactly and anti-inflammatory diet.

But what are you gonna do? Just run right out there and get yourself one? Change your whole life? Give up all the stuff you love?

It’s going to be easier than you think, I promise, and you’re going to love it. There are some great solutions and you’re gonna be damn happy you found them.

Other Than an Anti-inflammatory Diet, What Are the Alternatives?

Think back to the last time you had an attack. How long ago was it? Do you remember how it started? How long did it last? How did you finally get rid of it? What does it feel like when it starts to come on? Do you recognize it when it first starts to creep in? Do you panic? What DO you do?

The question is: How does “inflammation” happen in the body?  What actually happens?

Here’s a brief explanation:

• “Inflammation is the body’s to response to injury or disease. Typically the heat, swelling and redness are due to increased fluids and white blood cells moving into the affected area to fight infection or protect the damage.”
• “The anti-inflammatory response happens on a chemical, cellular and molecular level, either biologically or with the assistance of different drugs and food sources and/or icing.”

(that is about as technical as you are going to see me get)

To get this conversation about an anti-inflammatory diet started, let’s make a note about one thing: Antioxidants.

If you Google “anti-inflammatory diet”, you will get endless search results for antioxidants, polyphenols, and flavonoids.

For the second part of your homework, get back to Google and go down the list of all the diseases and illnesses that are linked to free radical damage on my flavonoids page and combine them on your search like this: Heart Disease + Inflammation

Go one by one and try them all. What did you find? Did they all have some sort of connection with systemic inflammation? As in when chronic inflammation moves beyond the immediate tissues and on into the lining of the blood vessels and organs.

Here’s the Scary Thing…

…if you have gout you are also at risk for at least one or more of those diseases on that list.

Are you wondering which food has the most antioxidants in it? And how do you measure how much antioxidants are in a particular food? Keep reading. We briefly touched on what foods and food groups are high in antioxidant content on both my antioxidants page and my flavonoids page.

The Anti-inflammatory Diet Rundown:

• Many fruits have the antioxidant power to help bring down inflammation. A few are blueberries, peaches, oranges, cherries, and apples. Usually the darker the skin the better.
• Vegetables like spinach, broccoli, beets, onions, and squashes are a start. Dark leafy greens are always a good choice.  (Update – 05/15/20 – due to new information about the potential connection between oxalates and uric acid crystallization, I’ve become more aware that high oxalate foods like spinach might best be avoided to help in the management of gout attacks)
• You have to be careful with beans and legumes. They are typically big sources of protein and their is an important balance that needs to be maintained when it comes to gout. In moderation red, black, pinto, and kidney beans are known to be a good source of antioxidant potency.
• A few different grains offer some free radical protection but they are not at the forefront of the better choices. Rice, wheat, rye, soybean seeds and wheat bran have a component called Inositol that show some evidence for protection from the ultra-violet radiation from the sun.
• Healthy fats, oils and nuts can be very good for keeping with the anti-inflammatory diet but not always because of their antioxidant content. Salmon and other fatty fishes are good for omega-3 fatty acids and are known for their anti-inflammatory assistance. Pine nuts and pecans are well-known antioxidants and olive oil is often referred to for it’s polyphenols.
• Soy products have a wide range of antioxidant producing activity that should be noted for it’s Isoflavones.
• Various mushrooms like shiitake and oyster mushrooms are not antioxidants but are a good choice for their anti-inflammatory abilities.
• Clean sources of protein like organically grown chicken and grass-fed beef help keep inflammation down as well as omega-3 enriched eggs and raw-milk dairy products. (remember: pesticides, antibiotics and growth-hormones are potential instigators of free radical damage)
• A variety of spices like tumeric, curry, ginger, garlic, cinnamon, basil and others have many anti-inflammatory qualities and some are strong antioxidants.
• Green Tea is always in the news for it’s antioxidant power.
• Supplements are essential but it gets into some fairly technical speak about how vitamins and minerals get absorbed in to your system compared to regular food. The term “functional food” is now commonplace. They can be absorbed and used by the body more easily but still have high value in vitamins, minerals and nutrients. Supplements in general promote a fair amount of antioxidant activity.

But now we are getting to the good ones: red wine and dark chocolate! This is good since you and I have the “Disease of Kings”. Can we cure gout with red wine and chocolate? We would certainly have the most popular “anti-inflammatory diet” out there if we could.

Red wine has been in the news because it contains the antioxidant resveratrol. I’ve experimented heavily with this one to try to understand the proper dosage for ample anti-inflammatory response but I’ve not been able to come to any conclusions.

Dark chocolate or more specifically, raw cacao has also been in the news heavily for it’s high antioxidant content. Raw cacao has one of the highest, if not the highest ORAC scores of all known food sources.

   ☆  “Let Thy Food…Anti-inflammatory Diet…Be Thy medicine” ~ Hippocrates