Western diet and your immune system
Every time you eat high fat, high sugar, high calorie and low fibre meal your immune system is stimulated to fight infection. Your immune system reacts to these foods as if you have a bacterial infection. There is a very strong inflammatory response to this type of diet.
This diet may sound vaguely familiar.
High fat, high sugar, high calorie, low fibre foods are the Standard American Diet (SAD). Regularly eating these types of foods makes the body’s defences more aggressive. Fast food recruits an army in your immune system, one that has a memory and may contribute to type 2 diabetes and arteriosclerosis.
Your immune system has a memory
We know that our immune system has a memory and now we know it remembers our food too. Our immune system has “fast food sensors!”
Researcher and Professor Dr. Eicke Latz, Director of the Institute for Innate Immunity of the University of Bonn and scientist at the DZNE says,
“After an infection, the body’s defenses remain in a kind of alarm state, so that they can respond more quickly to a new attack.”
This is what is called “innate immune training.” Dr. Latz and his colleagues have proven that this can be triggered by an unhealthy diet.
Diet changes your DNA
Eating this type of diet causes your DNA to unravel. This unravelling means that it can react to even small dietary lapses with an intense inflammatory response.
Dr. Latz is a leader in immune function. He puts this research into perspective by showing how children will now have a shorter life expectancy because of this immune system response.
“These findings therefore have important societal relevance. The foundations of a healthy diet need to become a much more prominent part of education than they are at present. Only in this way can we immunize children at an early stage against the temptations of the food industry. Children have a choice of what they eat every day. We should enable them to make conscious decisions regarding their dietary habits.”
Fight back with food.
Regardless of your age you can improve your gut bacteria and counteract some of the effects of a highly-processed diet. A diet that is high in fat, sugar and calories. By eating a diet high in fibre, low in sugar, fat and calories you can turn off the acute inflammation. The DNA changes last, however, making eating a healthy diet even more important to reduce inflammation long term.
Eating a plant-based diet is an anti-inflammatory diet. It is naturally low in calories, processed sugar and fat. A whole-food, plant-based diet is high in fibre. This diet is also a proven treatment and prevention of type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
Nutritionfacts.org has a short video about How Not to Die, from the Standard American Diet.
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Shayla
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