A fascinating article in Mother Jones magazine starts with a story about Dr. Paresh Dandoma, an endocrinologist in Buffalo, New York, who measured the body's response to a McDonald's breakfast meal (which is high-carb, high-fat). What did he find?
That the level of CRP, which indicates inflammation throughout the body, shot up within minutes of eating the high-carb, high-fat meal. The increased inflammation lasted for hours. Then an interesting twist happened in Dr. Dandona's research:
"Over the next decade he tested the effects of various foods on the immune system. A fast-food breakfast inflamed, he found, but a high-fiber breakfast with lots of fruit did not. A breakthrough came in 2007 when he discovered that while sugar water, a stand-in for soda, caused inflammation, orange juice—even though it contains plenty of sugar—didn't."
It appears orange juice, rich in antioxidants and containing some fiber, lowered the body's inflammation. So "O.J." is anti-inflammatory, while that McDonald's meal, like much of modern food today, is pro-inflammatory.
What was also interesting about Dr. Dandona's research is that there was increased amounts of endotoxin -- a molecule from bacteria that alarms the immune system, causing increased systemic inflammation. He reasoned that somehow a high-carb, high-fat meal takes endotoxin from the bacteria in our gut to our bloodstream, while an antioxidant-rich food with fiber like OJ does not.
Read on (click 'read more' below) to learn more about research in this field and to learn how to help your gut's bacteria help you be healthier.
That the level of CRP, which indicates inflammation throughout the body, shot up within minutes of eating the high-carb, high-fat meal. The increased inflammation lasted for hours. Then an interesting twist happened in Dr. Dandona's research:
"Over the next decade he tested the effects of various foods on the immune system. A fast-food breakfast inflamed, he found, but a high-fiber breakfast with lots of fruit did not. A breakthrough came in 2007 when he discovered that while sugar water, a stand-in for soda, caused inflammation, orange juice—even though it contains plenty of sugar—didn't."
It appears orange juice, rich in antioxidants and containing some fiber, lowered the body's inflammation. So "O.J." is anti-inflammatory, while that McDonald's meal, like much of modern food today, is pro-inflammatory.
What was also interesting about Dr. Dandona's research is that there was increased amounts of endotoxin -- a molecule from bacteria that alarms the immune system, causing increased systemic inflammation. He reasoned that somehow a high-carb, high-fat meal takes endotoxin from the bacteria in our gut to our bloodstream, while an antioxidant-rich food with fiber like OJ does not.
Read on (click 'read more' below) to learn more about research in this field and to learn how to help your gut's bacteria help you be healthier.
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