September 01, 2023

The Anti-inflammatory Diet & Lifestyle

Chronic Inflammation Affects Us All

Not many people understand chronic inflammation. This is why the anti-inflammatory diet and lifestyle Eat Burn Sleep platform exists. Our members understand it now because they can see and feel the difference. They have put their inflammatory condition and autoimmune disease into remission. 

It is only through my health journey that I understand chronic inflammation.

How I Healed My Autoimmune Disease Naturally

Anti-inflammatory Medicine

What Is Chronic Inflammation?

Is Reducing Inflammation Important?

Why Should We Care About Inflammation?

Why Do I Get Worse Colds and Viruses Than Others?

How Can You Prevent Genetic Diseases?

What Is the Point of an Anti-inflammatory Diet?

How I Healed My Autoimmune Disease Naturally

Around 14 years ago, during pregnancy, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease: ulcerative colitis. The symptoms were relatively mild to begin with. They became more acute after my son was born. I got better for a while and then had my second son.

Two years later, I was diagnosed with another condition: a rare autoimmune disease called hemolytic anemia. I nearly died several times.

In my quest to get better, I saw medical professionals, specialists, naturopaths, nutritionists, and dieticians worldwide. 

Anti-inflammatory Medicine

The anti-inflammatory medication and steroids for the autoimmune disease I was taking would only work for a while. Then they would stop working. 

I researched everywhere, trying to find out what was going on and how I could help myself. 

Along the way, I was trying every diet under the sun. Some were extremely restrictive; nothing was working. I felt sick, malnourished, depressed, and determined not to live that way. I spent time in and out of hospitals, being unable to absorb nutrients, and passed from specialist to specialist. So, I researched everywhere I could, trying to determine what was happening.

One day, the penny dropped! It was chronic inflammation! 

(Read about nutrient malabsorption and how to treat it in this article: How Do You Get Nutrients With Celiac Disease?).

What Is Chronic Inflammation?

To give its correct title, chronic inflammation is Chronic Systemic Inflammation – CSI.

Inflammation is a healthy bodily response to a foreign pathogen, to a cut, trauma, virus, bug, bacteria – any injury or organism that is capable of causing disease. Inflammation is your body’s immune response to defend yourself.

For example:

    • If you catch a virus or you have a fever.
    • If you have a wound, the tissue around it inflames, and collagen and fibers are sent to the cut to repair it.
    • If you ingest bad bacteria, you expel the foreign pathogen in other ways.

This is acute inflammation. It is the immune response to protect you, the body’s weapon of protection.

Female with a red nose sneezing - an acute inflammatory reaction.

Is Reducing Inflammation Important?

Inflammation becomes an issue when it becomes chronic when there are low levels of inflammation in the body for a long time—caused by food, stress, inflammatory movement, and substances around us like pollution. How and what we eat, how we move, what we are exposed to, and how we deal with stress raises inflammation.

If what we eat and are exposed to, how we move, and stress levels never change, then this is how the inflammation stays running and turns into chronic systemic inflammation.

Why Should We Care About Inflammation?

Chronic inflammation is linked to 78% of the causes of death – cancer, obesity, Alzheimer’s disease, autoimmune diseases, heart attacks, depression, and so on.

Girl curled up in bed with pain and depression.

Chronic inflammation is the trigger for non-communicable diseases. These are diseases that you cannot transmit, like cancer, Parkinson’s, autoimmune diseases, joint issues, skin inflammation, PCOS, endometriosis – anything that you cannot catch (see more here). All will be triggered or worsened by high levels of chronic inflammation.

Chronic inflammation is linked to male and female fertility issues, peri-menopause, menopause, periods, allergies, and asthma – it is astounding what targeting chronic inflammation achieves! This is the reason why I had to create the best anti-inflammatory lifestyle. It affects all of us!

Why Do I Get Worse Colds and Viruses Than Others?

If you catch any transmittable diseases, your health will deteriorate faster if you have chronic inflammation because it dysregulates your immune system.

People have been awakened during the Covid 19 to chronic inflammation issues. 

Chronic inflammation is a dysregulation of the immune system, and I discovered that once the established inflammatory pathway is open, you can develop more than one autoimmune disease.

Read Long COVID Migraines, How To Recover From Virus Infections & Boost Your Immunity To Fight Viruses.

Long COVID Protection & Recovery is in the Personalized Advice section, Members.

How Can You Prevent Genetic Diseases?

I also discovered that many genetic conditions have chronic inflammation at their source because it dysregulates the immune system and switches on weak genes (epigenetics). My mother and grandmother had autoimmune diseases; I have those autoimmune genes.

Group of Genetics scientists working in science laboratory.

I have now lowered those responses by living an anti-inflammatory lifestyle.

You cannot change your DNA, but you can change your lifestyle.

You can have an inflammatory lifestyle or an anti-inflammatory lifestyle.

I can switch on those autoimmune genes if I start living an inflammatory life again.

What also transpired through my research is that the anti-inflammatory medication saved me, but it was temporary.

It was like putting a plaster on massive cracks.

I needed the source of my autoimmune conditions to be treated, not plastered over.

I also discovered that the anti-inflammatory tablets and steroids were exponentially worsening my symptoms and causing inflammation and a dysregulated immune system.

Pretty, young woman goiing through a Computerized Axial Tomography CAT Scan medical test examination in a modern hospital

So, yes, the anti-inflammatory drugs and steroids saved me, but they increased inflammation in my system on a perpetual cycle.

How Do You Reduce Inflammation Naturally?

I also discovered that by manipulating gut bacteria, systemic chronic inflammation can be reduced at the source, and the immune system can be regulated again.

When I say manipulate, I mean eating to encourage good diversity.

60% of Gut-associated lymphoid tissues (GALT) reside in the gut, an essential component of the body’s immune defense.

It switches off genetic expression by manipulating gut bacteria and increasing good diversity.

Torso seen only of female cupping her gut area.

People talk about gut health a lot but not really about inflammation because they don’t fully understand it. It is relevant, though. Poor gut health leads to chronic inflammation.

So, my research was extensive and extended to thousands of hours over a decade. I used myself first as a guinea pig and then extended it to family and friends, developing this anti-inflammatory lifestyle called Eat Burn Sleep. Born in 2017.

I qualified as a naturopathic nutritionist so that I could help others with a foundation in biochemistry (CNM) from the College of Naturopathic Medicine in London with a DipCNM in 2021, and am accredited with mBANT (British Association for Nutrition and Lifestyle Medicine) and mANP (Member of Association of Naturopathic Practitioners), all of which set the standard of excellence in science-based nutrition and naturopathic practice. 

My research into gut health and chronic inflammation remains continuous.

What Is The Fastest Way to Reduce Inflammation?

The EBS lifestyle is about lowering chronic inflammation with the variables we have control over. We can modify how we eat and sleep better for the tissues to repair and the immune system to reset by eating anti-inflammatory foods. An anti-inflammatory diet will aid sleep, and this method resets the circadian rhythm.

Good quality sleep is anti-inflammatory. This is why weight gain is linked to low-quality sleep.

When you eat nourishing, nutritional food, it promotes a healthy gut and ‘feel-good’ neurotransmitter synthesis.

Nourishing gut-healthy food reduces inflammation in the brain and supports healthy brain function. This is why depression is treated well on this anti-inflammatory platform. Chronic inflammation that comes from bad gut health increases neuroinflammation in the brain.

We can focus on anti-inflammation movement and strengthen our core to support our digestive system.

We can lower our stress levels by focusing on mental wellness and doing daily meditations, which lower cortisol levels and help lower chronic inflammation.

This inflammation-lowering lifestyle is all about focusing on the things we can change.

We can’t change a lot, like pollution and chemicals on surfaces and in just about every food and drink you come across. But we can focus on the areas we can change.

Yalda Alaoui performing one of her movements with weights and an exercise ball, wearing a salmon pink exercise outfit.

What Is the Point of an Anti-inflammatory Diet?

By lowering chronic inflammation, you lessen the chances of these issues developing. If they have developed already, you have more chance of putting these diseases into remission –  if you follow an anti-inflammatory lifestyle.

The mechanisms of the effects of inflammation in the body and how the body becomes inflammatory are really involved and are unique to the individual’s make-up, surroundings, and lifestyle.

An anti-inflammatory lifestyle is the most important contributor to health, given its impact on non-communicable and infectious diseases.

We delve deeper into this on the platform and invite you to join us to eat, breathe, move, de-stress, sleep, and enjoy life the anti-inflammatory way.

All the tools you need to live this revolutionary anti-inflammatory lifestyle are here.

Sign up today, and you will be protecting yourself from disease and be on your way to the best version of yourself!

Click to see Faqs & Signs of Inflammation that May Surprise You!

I wish you all the very best health!

Yalda Alaoui

Author

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