Brain Health Checklist – Anti-inflammatory Diet

Eliminate all sugar and processed food from your otherwise varied diet. There, I’ve told you everything you need to know. Oh, yeah, and you should drink red wine in moderation instead of beer or liquor. If you must know what else you should eat instead of shouldn’t, my next piece of advice is to eat an anti-inflammatory diet.

As I was researching what to eat for brain health I thought I would tag on a few other concerns. I need to be careful about high blood pressure. I need to be careful about my joints; related to that, I need to be careful about a lingering foot injury that resembles gout. I thought I would have my work cut out for me integrating those multiple goals into one diet but I needn’t have worried. The best diet for all of them, indeed, for the majority of health issues, consists of anti-inflammatory foods.

You probably have heard about the value of anti-oxidants more than anti-inflammatory foods. They are related. Here’s a way to think about it. To inflame is to heat up, as in a fire. A fire needs heat, fuel and oxygen. Oxygen likes to steal electrons. In your body molecules called free radicals act like oxygen ready to grab electrons from the fuel of cell membranes, proteins and even DNA. That breaks them down, turns them to “ashes,” metaphorically speaking. Anti-oxidants step in and offer themselves as sacrificial lambs, substituting their electrons instead and preventing the oxidation of functioning cell parts.

The damage done by inflammation goes beyond turning cell parts to ashes, um, once again metaphorically speaking, just as the heat of a fire can cause damage beyond the oxidation of fuel. The shape of proteins are all important to their function, held together by bonds that break down when inflamed, much like plastic will lose its shape when heated (I’m stretching the metaphor a bit here, but it’s not too far off). In the brain this causes two problems of creating useless plaques of protein bits that then get in the way of nerve tissue function.

Best vitamins for an anti-inflammatory are A, C and E, along with the mineral selenium. In terms of food this generally means colorful fruits and vegetables, including dark green color but red and blue berries in particular. The best spices are turmeric and ginger. The best herb is sage. The best juice is tart cherry. The best meat is small-size fish like sardines or mackerel. The best nuts are almonds and walnuts. The best beans are probably lentils. These are my discovered bests. I may be in error about some of them and I encourage lots of feedback on any of these checklist items. Also, these “bests” are not to discourage other foods. For example, you won’t go wrong with virtually any beans or nuts.

For a good overall resource on this I suggest Dr. Weil’s Anti-inflammatory diet.