Inflammation is pain its as simple as that.
Whether its a sprained ankle, a sacro-iliac joint, a lumbar disc or your digestive tract.
We usually have a idea of how to deal with inflammation when its our ankle, put ice on it! But what if our knees, shoulders, back and neck are all sore? Should we be icing them all? Well you could, hope you have a lot of ice packs, an ice machine in your kitchen or a plunge pool to submerege yourself in. Maybe you should be thinking about something ‘systemic’.
‘Systemic’? Involving multiple systems of the body, like Rheumatoid Arthritis, Lupus, and lots of other nasties that can attack us at multiple locations at the same time.
Blood work, x-rays and a proper diagnosis are all important components of dealing with these conditions.
Another thing we could be doing is promoting inflammation by how we’re eating!
What! My food could mess me up?
You bet it can. We Historically we ate diet that was very balance Omega 3 to Omega 6, a 1 to 1 or 1 to 2 ratio. But, something happened about 10 to 25, 000 years ago, agriculture. We went from mostly Hunter-Gatherer to Farmer. Our ancestors learned to grow grains which provided easier means of a steady food supply. The cost of this big influx of grains was a shift in the 1:1 or 1:2 ratio to becoming a 1:10 or even 1:20 ratio.
So! What’s the big deal with that?
Well, Omega 6 promotes inflammation where as Omega 3 is more anti-inflammatory. Many of us need to shift that ratio back to historic ratios and the good thing is that it can be as easy as limiting the amount of grain products and adding Fish Oil high in Omega 3 to our diet. Eating foods rich in Omega 3 can also be helpful.
Why would I want to do that? Its tastes awful.
Because inflammation is involved at least at the cellular level at almost every degenerative condition from Diabetes, to Cancer to the Systemic Arthritic ones I mentioned earlier. So if we can reduce the tendency to promote inflammation we may be able to positively impact the expression of these conditions. As a minimum you can aid your recovery from exercise.
All you need to do is start to shift the ratio. And the great thing is that you can do it yourself and see what the impact is on you.
