Most replayed moment: Three Foods to Fight Inflammation | Dr Federica Amati & Prof Tim Spector

Hello and welcome to Zoe Reekha, where each week we find the best bits from one of our podcast episodes to help you improve your health. Fatigue, disease, gut problems, weight gain. Many of the issues that we discuss on this podcast can be linked back to one thing, chronic inflammation. However, you don't need drugs or detoxes to quell this fire. One of the most powerful tools that we have to control inflammation is right in front of us. Food. I'm joined by Dr. Federico Amati and Tim Specter to spotlight three inflammation-fighting foods. And explain why these small changes to your plate can make a big difference to your body. Long-term inflammation is really bad. Like this is really important in terms of affecting your long-term health. The food that we sort of central to whether or not that inflammation is always on or it's switched off. Yes, or degrees in between. So it's not necessarily on off switch. You can dial it down or dial it. So it perhaps more like a thermostat that are on off switch. So everyone has some level and the question is is it on like super high, medium or really quite low, which is a good place to be in this modern world. Correct. And there are a lot of people with autoimmune diseases where the disease itself is causing the body to fight itself and they have raised inflammation levels. And anyone listening with an autoimmune disease know the consequence of that. They're getting the tiredness, the fatigue, you know, that often have depression as well. They're stiff in the mornings. All these things that you get with these classic levels of inflammation, you're getting to a much more reduced extent when you get to minor levels. But in a way, everyone is suffering to some extent. So everyone can improve whatever state of inflammation they have, even if they don't feel they're unwell. So let's start talking about some real actionable advice and talk about foods that can fight inflammation. I know you've brought seven foods that can fight inflammation, but I'd like to start with one that I asked her out right at the beginning, which is what about a detox juice class? Right. We see them advertised everywhere. I know quite a few people who do this as a way to clean themselves after what they feel is poor living. Yeah. Thumbs up. So in some ways it can help people feel better because they're just like giving their body a break. So typically after you've had maybe a holiday and you've drunk loads of alcohol and you've eaten loads of foods you wouldn't normally eat that aren't necessarily helpful. The issue here is that with juicing, you're not actually feeding the gut microbes what they need to do this important role of maintaining a healthy, happy immune system and maintaining this dynamic switch of inflammation down. So you're not going to be able to do that. Do a very good job. If you feed them well, if you drink your water, giving your immune system and giving your body overall what it needs to function optimally so that it can dampen down unnecessary chronic inflammation, but it can remain dynamic in case inflammation is needed because you cut yourself or because you get a viral infection. So I need to feed it the right things. There's not just about like flushing out the bad thing. I need to give it the right things to support me and be healthy. And then trust your liver and your kidneys to do their job in removing the toxins. So inflammation, as Tim said, is very active. So it does cause a lot of waste and your liver and your kidneys will get rid of that waste product. If you're just eating a good diet, sleeping well and drinking a full tear. Brilliant. So the juice cleanses out. Yes, it's out. Let's talk about foods and Tim, let's start with a classic that even my daughter will eat broccoli. Why is it a standout for fighting inflammation? Well, it's a great example and I'm it's you know, it's one of the brassica family, which includes all kinds of things like cabbages and leaks and onions and garlic and cauliflower. It's because it has anti-inflammatory properties that have been shown and one of the main chemicals and it's just an example of one of many, but there's a really cool chemical there that gets released when you eat broccoli called sulforaphane. And this has all these effects on the body, these anti-inflammatory effects on the body and it's been shown to reduce obesity related inflammation when you give it to adolescents. It can reduce insulin levels as well. And you get even more effects when you look at broccoli sprouts. And this is a general rule because the sprout comes out of the seed and those first shoots have really concentration amounts of all these nutrients, particularly sulforaphanes. And that gives them even more potential. So the younger that shoot is the more you're getting of this really cool chemical. Now there are some problems with sulforaphane because if you just throw your broccoli into a pan, you'll actually inhibit the sulforaphane from being released because the heat does this. There's a little chemistry that needs to be going on here. So I've got a tip to overcome this. You something called chop and stop. This is the same for broccoli and it's the same for garlic and onions. You just chop it up which releases the sulforaphane as you break down the cell walls, all leaks out. And rather than being instantly deactivated by the heat, you leave it for 10 minutes, have a cup of coffee or a sneaky glass of wine. And you can then put it in the pan and you're getting all the sulforaphane. The other tip is to maximize the sulforaphane is to actually microwave your broccoli. You get three or four times more sulforaphane when you microwave it, then when you heat it. Most people think microwavings are really unhealthy, but actually in some cases it can be a real boon because it works differently. And this is a little bit of trickery. So what I've said for broccoli also goes for cauliflower, cabbage, onions, garlic and all those foods contain not just the sulforaphane, but many other good things that are really good for a gut and therefore immune system. So that's a great example of an anti-inflammatory food. I love it, Timmy, you're making me feel much better about my poor parenting, which is like my daughter never gets broccoli anyway other than thrown in the microwave. And now I'm going to claim it's all in order to give her like way more of the what was it called again sulforaphane sulforaphane. So brilliant. All right. Feday next up, I think is olive oil. Oh, yes. But I understand not just any type of olive oil. Yes, so you want extra virgin olive oil. Extra virgin olive oil contains lots of polyphenol. So these really powerful chemicals that we know have a big impact both on our microbiome. So I got microbes, love these, they break them down and make more chemicals. And they have a direct effect in our bodies, especially on our vascular health, so inside our blood vessels. Extra virgin olive oil has comparable effects on inflammation, including pain to ibuprofen. And the way it does this is because it inhibits something called cox2, which is one of the main pathways that causes inflammation. Drinking olive oil could have the same effect on reducing inflammation as taking ibuprofen. Exactly that. Yeah. So if you have it every day, you might have some arthritis or you might have an inflammatory condition or you might just be wanting to look after your immune system and your inflammation after this episode. Having extra virgin olive oil in your daily diet actually actively helps to dampen down that inflammation. That is slightly mad. So it's amazing. It's amazing. It's like pop an advelle or you could just pour olive oil over your feed and I know that Tim pours a lot of olive oil over his feed. Yeah, I think we could probably compete on that. And I never take advelle, so there you go. But the great thing about it is that there's the actual chemical that's involved in this cox2 inhibition. So this pathway is the same one that gives that peppery, slightly scratchy feeling to extra virgin olive oil. So if you have a really fresh extra virgin olive oil, you take a sip or you smell it. You know, you can almost feel it scratching the back of your throat. That's the polyphenol that you're looking for. So the sharper the extra virgin olive oil, the more it's anti-inflammatory potential. And I think it's just so worth pointing out in your extra virgin olive oil can be expensive now that it is done with nothing. But it's about the same price as a bottle of fairly cheap wine. If you're looking after your health, the best investment you can make is to include it in your diet and to just buy some. Even if you're only dressing food with it, it's honestly such an amazing food. Brilliant. Tim, the next one might surprise people who aren't listening to this show all the time because it's dark chocolate. It's a treat. How can it possibly be reducing my inflammation? Well, again, it's not dissimilar to fairly extra virgin olive oil in that chocolate contains polyphenols, very high levels. If it's good quality chocolate, so we're not talking about the average Hershey's or Cadbury's that has really low levels. We're talking ones that have over 70% of pure cocoa in there. And the rest is just made up of a little bit of sugar or very few other ingredients. So for chocolate that has a few additives, just really cocoa mass, cocoa butter, a bit of sugar, then a couple of studies in real humans have shown that in people with kidney disease who have a lot of inflammation going on, they can really reduce their inflammation levels by taking these dark chocolate supplements for a couple of months, and they reduce TNF levels. And another study did the same in, I think, a obese adolescence who has very explained, you know, obesity itself causes inflammation. And they were able to give these chocolate for a couple of weeks, plus an exercise plan, and those that took the chocolate and the exercise got this double whammy of the real big drop in in their CRP, which is the main marker of inflammation. So I think there's good evidence that chocolate, as well as being super tasty and good for your gut, has these direct anti-inflammatory effects, which is really cool. So can I now eat limitless amounts of dark chocolate because Tim tells me I'm fighting inflammation? I don't know the upper level, Jonathan. I would suspect not. There must be a maximum level. We're talking people having, you know, two or three segments a day. And generally, the stronger the chocolate, the harder it is to eat too much of it. The more concentrated it is, the less sugar it is, the safer it is. So it's really the sugar that you're saying I can't. So if it was just the chocolate, I could not myself out. Correct. It's very hard to overdo it on the 90% chocolate. 70% you're still getting a reasonable amount of sugar in there that you don't necessarily want to be eating bars and bars off. Yeah, and I think to Tim's point, it's really hard to eat two bars of 90% dark chocolate. But it's exciting to hear how it can reduce inflammation, especially in people who have obesity, because introducing that inflammation is key to being able to lose fat. Because when those fat cells are in an inflammatory state, it's much harder for lipolises for the fat to come out. So this mechanism is super exciting as a potential to help people who have access for actually lose some of that. And the old studies used to link eating chocolate with reduced heart disease. But it happened. And it could be that this is because it's actually reducing inflammation in the blood vessels rather than direct effect on the heart. I'll end this episode with something I think you'll like. A free, Zoe gut health guide. If you're a regular listener, you know just how important it is to take care of your gut. Your gut microbiome is gateway to better health, better sleep, energy and mood. The list just goes on. But many of us aren't sure how to best support our gut. I wasn't sure before doing so, which is why we've developed an easy to follow gut health guide. It's completely free and offers five simple steps to improve your gut health. You'll get tips from Professor Tim's Spectre, Zoe's scientific co-founder and one of the world's most cited scientists. Plus recipes and shopping lists straight to your inbox. We'll also send you ongoing gut health and nutrition insights, including how Zoe can help. To get your free Zoe gut health guide, head on over to Zoe.com/gutguide. Thanks for tuning in and see you next time. (upbeat music)