Before I begin,
let me preface this post with the identification of a simple confounder
for everyone to consider as they read: context. Any discussion of
a concept as nebulous, multifaceted, and confusing as inflammation
must integrate the question of context. Inflammation itself is highly
contextual as I've discussed in previous
installments, there are times when inflammation is a good thing
and times when inflammation is a negative thing. There are also
times when anti-inflammatory actions, drugs, or foods are negatives,
even though "anti-inflammatory" has a positive connotation. If you
blunt the post-exercise
inflammatory response with an anti-inflammatory drug, for example,
you also run the risk
of blunting the positive effects of that workout.
We must also
pay attention to acute and systemic inflammation when discussing
the desirability of an "anti-inflammatory" food. Eating a big meal
tends to raise inflammatory
markers in the short term. If you're overeating every single
meal, this is problematic; the acute will become the norm the
chronic. If you're eating big after a massive workout session, or
because you're celebrating at an amazing restaurant with your dearest
friends, or because you're coming off a twenty-four hour IF,
it's fine. Context.
Eating high
glycemic foods, namely refined carbohydrates that digest quickly
and represent a big, instantly-available caloric load, tends to
raise inflammatory markers in the short term. Again, if you're pounding
bags of chips or white bread while sitting on the couch and the
only walking you've done all day is to the pantry, those high glycemic
foods will be inflammatory (to say nothing of the antinutrients
in the bread or the rancid vegetable oil in the chips). And
if you do the same thing on a regular basis, they will induce systemic
inflammation or at least continuous acute spikes that mimic systemic
inflammation. If you're eating a fast-digesting, high-glycemic white potato after your glycogen-depleting sprint workout, you will refill your insulin-sensitive muscles and the
subsequent inflammatory spike will be either nonexistent or nothing
to worry about. Competitive athletes probably thrive on high glycemic
foods, couch potatoes develop metabolic syndrome eating the same
things. Context.
