If you have ever suffered a sports injury, I’m sure you have experienced swelling or inflammation around the joint or muscle that you hurt. This is the body’s self-defence system that protects the damaged area. Inflammation occurs when the body’s immune system dispatches white blood cells (plus a few other substances) not only to protect the injured part of the body, but also to create barriers against viruses and bacteria and other stuff it just doesn’t understand. Although the science is only just beginning to emerge, it appears that the bacteria in our microbiome play a large role in the creation and control of inflammation. Our good bacteria is acting as the fire brigade and putting out the flames, while our bad bacteria act like Guy Fawkes on a mission to set alight the entire internal infrastructure of our body.
Sometimes Guy Fawkes wins and tricks the immune system into an inflammatory response when there was no need for one. This misinformed inflammatory response is known as autoimmune disease. It is a disease of the protective immune system, causing it to damage its own tissues rather than protect them. For example, arthritis – which affects a staggering 350 million people worldwide is a form of autoimmune disease. But inflammation isn’t just restricted to autoimmune conditions. Inflammation can be a silent killer and can progress over years and years without you even realising it. Inflammation is associated with many different modern world diseases. From Alzheimer’s to cancer, from heart disease to strokes, from multiple sclerosis to ADHD, inflammation is a root cause of the vast majority of diseases of the Western world.
Think about it logically – if we are living a lifestyle very different to the one we were designed to live, it is going to put a huge amount of stress on our immune system.
The immune system is a complex network of cells, tissues and organs that work as a team to protect our body. But like a modern car with electrical sensors for literally everything, when they go wrong, they can go really wrong. Our body was designed to hunt and gather, to eat healthy foods and to move around more. The immune system was developed to protect against viruses and bacteria. It wasn’t created to deal with a daily overdose of sugar, an onslaught of toxins, repetitive over frequent eating patterns and all while sitting on our backsides for 14 hours a day. The immune system has tried to do its best, but it’s fighting a battle on multiple fronts that it neither understands or is equipped to deal with!
Award Winning Chef & Author Giancarlo Caldesi
I had really bad arthritis in my knuckles, and peripheral neuropathy in my feet and my feet are now a good 90 to 95% recovered. To have peripheral neuropathy is really sad because your mobility changes and you become immobile. I made a mistake with my food, but now I have put it right.
One of the biggest regrets I could ever have was to not know that the food I was eating was poisoning me. But the most wonderful thing is the food is now making me feel better. I believe in three things; quality, quantity and movement. Good quality food, in the right quantity and then move more. The current lifestyle we have doesn’t currently present itself for us to cure ourselves. You have to shut down the manufactured food for yourself and concentrate on the food of nutritional value. And then you will see people get much better, very fast.
