Inflammation Disintegration

Anyone remember the much ballyhooed Grapefruit Diet? I do. It lasted about as long as the Jell-O diet or the equally “shaky” cabbage soup diet.

While dalliances with these and other dieting disasters come and go, certain foods stand the test of time due to their natural health benefits, including those above and beyond of the nutritional health realm. One such food is the nut.

Almonds, cashews, peanuts, macadamias – you name it, your local grocer, baseball park or indoor stadium carries them. And for good reason. For one, they’re dang tasty, and secondly, they’re satisfying; just one serving of the crunchy snack has anywhere from 12 to 20 grams of fat (the monounsaturated kind, for the most part)!

But as I mentioned, while the nutritional benefits of nuts are well-documented, they’re not quite as well-known for their benefits medically, particularly when it comes to tamping down inflammation.

Inflammation is the body’s natural response to the invasion of foreign substances, as the body’s white blood cells release chemicals that rid the body of said foreign substances. On occasion, however, the body’s immune system releases too many of these chemicals and the body’s immune system ends up fighting itself (as strange as that sounds). Redness, swelling and painful irritation then occur in the joints, usually (but not always) made manifest in the form of arthritis. It can also occur due to fever, muscle stiffness or the chills. However it makes itself apparent, excessive inflammation can wreak havoc on the body by causing damage to the body’s internal organs (like the heart) or wearing away the body’s joints due to the excess buildup of cellular material.

But according to a study done by researchers from the Columbia University Medical Center of about 6,000 men and women, the more nuts consumed, the greater the reduction of inflammation.

They discovered this after splitting the 6,000 participants (all 62 years or older) into several groups, some never eating nuts or seeds, others eating them up to five times per week. The lion’s share of the group ate them sparingly, about 38 percent of them having about one serving or less per week, and 36 percent about 1 to 4 servings per week.

Now, more often than not, it’s those that eat things like nuts sparingly that get the best results, the theory being that “everything in moderation” is the best way to maintain overall health. But believe it or not, it was those that consumed up to five servings of nuts and seeds a week that had the least amount of excessive inflammation over the study period!

So, what does this say about consuming nuts and seeds? Should we start eating them in copious amounts? Not even the researchers advise this (in short, the rule of “everything in moderation” still applies) but it does go to show that problems with inflammation can be treated without prescription medications, which are often the first option doctors look toward to deal with such issues. This study puts such prescription based treatments on the back burner, in favor of cheaper, natural, healthier ways to deal with inflammation.

Call me crazy, but to do otherwise is “nuts.”