“The suffix itis, derived from Greek and Latin, means inflammation.” So arthritis is inflammation of a joint; colitis is inflammation of the colon; bronchitis is inflammation of the bronchial tubes; hepatitis is inflammation of the liver. When you see any word ending in itis, it’s describing inflammation. We tend to think of inflammation as swelling, a blister, or redness. However, it can also occur internally without symptoms and, over time, lead to painful diseases. And guess which is one of the common causes? Right, grain consumption.” from the book “No Grain No Pain” by Dr. Peter Osborne
When I get inflammation I know because I feel a number of symptoms at the same time including…
- joint pain – joints in fingers first, then elbows, knees, and neck; my fingers feel stuck after having them on the arms of the chair flat for some time they’re hard to close and they crackle
- stiff muscles – I feel like if I bend over I’m going to hurt something and my legs and neck are stiff and my movement is restricted
- indigestion – I feel full or have some minor pains in my stomach area
- brain fog – I have more trouble understanding things; my clarity is suffering
Now I have learned that certain foods will cause this to flare up including…
- sugar of almost any kind
- bread or most any kind of grains
- refined carbohydrates of any kind like breads, etc.
- pasta, gluten of any kind; some pasta is made from beans and that doesn’t seem to bother me
- caffeine whether coffee or soda
- trans fats – any kind of processes food, bakery goods, or the like will have trans fat as a component
- foods cooked in regular oils – high in Omega-6 fats such as corn oil, safflower oil, cottonseed oil, and all of the others that are sold as bulk cooking oils
- MSG – this one seems to affect everyone in my family but me for sure big time
- Aspartame
- Too much alcohol – any more than a glass of wine seems to result in delayed inflammation
Now I think there are two key things to take away from this short and sweat post..
- You need to stop calling inflammation and other ailments “old age” and “heredity” (your genes) – none of this was designed into either. Your body was built to function for longer periods than you think and if you label things incorrectly like this, then you don’t take steps to do something about it.
- You need to start realizing that food is medicine and is the most highly influential substance that we can put into our body. Wrong foods create wrong results and right foods create much better results.
Long term inflammation deteriorates our organs and body systems until whatever the weakest link is gives out. We go to the doctor and he or she treated the symptoms but not the root cause of the problem. And after years of living with inflammation, the damage is done because we didn’t recognize at the time that this inflammation was not something we could allow to continue.
A doctor of functional medicine treats the cause, not the symptoms. I’ve provided some links and some self-tests for food tolerance elsewhere in this website. To find out more about Dr. Peter Osborne, click here.
