Foods that Cause Inflammation: Causes, Symptoms and More

Foods that Cause Inflammation

Inflammation is quite a common phenomenon that occurs in your body. It can either be bad or good. But you must know the causes and address them right away to avoid any severe health hazard. With the fast-moving world, improper lifestyles, and unhealthy food habits, inflammation is increasing drastically. So, it would be best if you address the foods that cause inflammation and avoid consuming them. Here we are going to focus on inflammatory foods to avoid and symptoms to detect inflammation. Please scroll down to know everything about inflammation.

What is inflammation?

Are you eager to know what the foods that cause inflammation? So, this blog will tell you everything you possibly need to know about inflammation.

Inflammation is a process in which your body begins to react and causes illnesses, infection, and injury. It can happen to anyone, irrespective of you being aware of its process or not.

Excessive inflammation is not right for your body, and you need to address it immediately. But some physical problems cannot cure if inflammation does not take place.

You classify inflammation into two kinds. Such as:

Acute inflammation

When you get an acute inflammation, it takes place for a shorter period but is often severe. You might see yourself cured of acute inflammation in a matter of two weeks or even lesser. The symptoms start to show quickly and send back your body to its normal state as illness or injury cures.

Chronic inflammation

Chronic inflammation is a process in which you can consider it a slower and not acute type of inflammation. But you will find this kind of inflammation to last for more than 6-weeks. It would be best if you keep in mind that chronic inflammation might occur irrespective of any external injury happening in your body or not. Usually, chronic inflammation starts when you have an untreated underlying illness or an unhealthy lifestyle. You may have chronic inflammation when you have stress for a long time or have autoimmune diseases. Chronic inflammation must be treated, or it might lead to severe health problems in the future.

Inflammation Symptoms

Some of the common symptoms of inflammation are:

  • Swelling
  • Pain
  • Heat
  • Redness
  • Loss of Functionality

These are some common symptoms of inflammation. But often, an inflammation symptom depends on the type of inflammation you have and the underlying causes.

When you get a long-term inflammation, your body starts to react differently to different people. Some of the commonly seen symptoms of chronic inflammation are:

  • Mood disorder, depression, and anxiety
  • Weight gain
  • Body pain
  • Continuous insomnia and fatigue
  • Gastrointestinal problems like acid reflux, constipation, and diarrhea
  • Repeated infection problems.

What Causes Inflammation?

Numerous factors can lead to inflammation. Some of the commonly seen factors are:

  • Acute and chronic health conditions
  • Irritants that the body cannot eliminate easily
  • Medications
  • Unhealthy lifestyle
  • Certain Foods

When you get regular episodes of acute inflammation in your body, it might cause chronic inflammation. So, it would help if you addressed your habits to avoid chronic inflammation. Hang in there, and let us now check out what are the foods that cause inflammation!

Foods That Cause Inflammation

You already know that everyone, at some point, gets inflammation. But it depends on the situation, whether it is a good inflammation or a bad one.

When you fall sick or your body gets an injury, your body naturally protects itself through inflammation. That helps you heal your wounds by stimulating healing and cure yourself of an injury.

But if you get a chronic inflammation that lasts for a long time, you might have obesity, diabetes, and other heart problems.

Strangely enough, certain foods cause inflammation and which might lead to serious health issues. So, aren’t you eager to know what the inflammatory foods chart is? Below we have curated the foods that you must avoid to keep away from chronic inflammation.

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Here are six foods that cause inflammation:

High-Fructose corn syrup and sugar

The Western diet has two foods that affect inflammation immensely. One is high- fructose corn syrup, and the other is sucrose or commonly known as table sugar.

The table sugar that you consume contains 50% fructose and 50% glucose. On the other hand, the high-fructose sugar you consume contains 55% fructose and 45% glucose in them.

Added sugars are very harmful to your body, and you must avoid it as much as possible to instigate any illnesses.

A study was done on mice, where they were given high sucrose diets that started developing breast cancer. This cancer also extended to the lungs of the mice, which was because of the inflammation caused by sugar.

There was one more trial done on human beings. Here, people consumed water, diet soda, milk, and regular soda. The results showed people drinking regular soda have high uric acid levels caused by insulin resistance and inflammation.

Sugar causes harm to your body due to high amounts of fructose supply to the blood. When you consume veggies and fruits, both supply minimal fructose amounts to the body that doesn’t harm you.

But consuming high amounts of table sugar can lead to diabetes, cancer, chronic kidney diseases, obesity, fatty liver disease, and insulin resistance.

Some researchers also claim that supplying your body with excess fructose can lead to the inflammation of endothelial cells in the blood vessels, increasing the chances of heart problems.

Consuming vast amounts of fructose can lead to many health problems for both humans and animals.

Apart from table sugar, there are foods like cakes, chocolate, candies, cookies, sweet pastries, few bowls of cereal, and candies that cause inflammation. So, when you’re making the inflammatory foods chart keep away from these foods.

Foods that Cause Inflammation

Artificial unsaturated fats

When you consume trans fats, you’re getting the most harmful kinds of fat. They are usually made by mixing unsaturated fats and hydrogen in the liquid to form the solidified form of fat.

You must check what the labels of the product you buy read. That’s because trans fats are mentioned as hydrogenated oils, which extends the shelf life of the product you’re buying.

You’ll find most margarine to possess trans-fat in them to increase the shelf life of the processed food.

You should keep in mind that the natural supplies of trans fat through meat and dairy products are not harmful. But the artificial means of supplying fats can increase the risk of diseases and inflammation too.

More so, artificial trans-fat can also lower HDL levels or good cholesterol that destroys the functioning of the endothelial cells in the lining of the arteries, which can further increase the risk of heart problems.

When you consume high levels of trans fat, the inflammatory markers like C-reactive protein or (CRP) can increase in your body. A study done on women saw a 78% high CRP level because of a high trans-fat intake.

Some of the foods that cause inflammation are fast food items such as French fries, few kinds of margarine, packaged cookies and cakes, pastries, and vegetable shortenings. These are all processed foods that have a mention of partially hydrogenated oil.

Seed and Vegetable oils

Since the beginning of the 20th century, the people in the United States have started consuming more than 130% vegetable oil.

Researchers have concluded that consuming vegetable oils like soybean oil can increase inflammation because of omega-6 fatty acids’ huge contents.

Your body requires a specific level of omega-6 fatty acids, and the Western diet usually contains enough omega-6 already than the human body needs.

Consequently, many health experts have concentrated and recommended people to consume foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids. Some of the omega-3 rich foods are fatty fishes, flaxseeds, chia seeds, and more. Consuming the omega-3 fats in the right amounts will create a balance in the omega-6 and omega-3 ratio. Only then the human body can get the maximum of anti-inflammatory omega-3 benefits.

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A clinical trial done on rats showed that when they were given diets in a ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 of 1:20, they had high inflammatory markers levels than the diets that had ratios of 1:5 or 1:1.

But it would help if you kept in mind that the study regarding higher inflammation due to omega-6 needs more research. However, it is always best to consume them in controlled amounts to avoid any side effects. All processed foods contain seed and vegetable oil that might cause harm to your body.

Vegetable oils

Some refined carbohydrates

Do you think all carbs are harmful? Well, that’s not true! All carbohydrates do not cause harm to your body. People consumed food with a high content of carbs that were naturally found from fruits, grasses, and roots in ancient times. However, with exceeding demands and numerous processed foods, refined carbs are causing inflammation in the human body in today’s time.

When you consume fiber-rich foods, you remain full for a very long time that keeps your gut healthy, controls blood sugar levels, and more. But the refined carbs mostly have their fiber taken out from them.

Experts say that the modern diet has an immense inclusion of refined carbs that cause young people to become obese and cause other digestive problems like inflammatory bowel disease.

The glycemic index in the refined carbs is much higher in comparison to the unprocessed carbs. When you supply your body with high amounts of GI, blood sugar levels increase quickly than diets with low GI.

A study done on oldies with a considerable amount of GI intake showed that they had 2.9 times the chances to die due to inflammatory ailments such as COPD or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

There was one more trial done on healthy and young men. They were given 50 grams of refined carbs in the form of white bread. The results showed that the levels of inflammatory marker increased and their blood pressure levels too.

Some of the refined forms of carbs are pastries, bread, candy, pasta, cakes, cookies, soft drinks, and processed food. All of them possess refined sugar, which is inflammatory foods to avoid.

Immoderate alcohol consumption

When you consume alcohol moderately, you will experience the health benefits of alcohol. But when you exceed your body levels, your body will start to reflect health problems that can be severe.

A study conducted on people saw that the CRP, inflammatory marker, was increased due to the excessive consumption of alcohol. When you consume high levels of alcohol, the levels of CRP increase.

You will notice that people who consume alcohol excessively start to transfer the bacterial toxins from their colon into the human body. People usually refer to this problem as a leaky gut, which is excessive inflammation that can cause irreparable organ damage in your body.

If you want to avoid problems that cannot be cured, it is best to stick to drinking once or twice a week. And if you consume alcohol regularly, one standard drink for women and two for men.

Foods that Cause Inflammation

Processed meat

Do you love eating processed meat? Well, then there is bad news for you! Consuming processed meat can lead to diabetes, heart problems, and colon and stomach cancer.

Some of the common processed meat you eat regularly are ham, sausages, beef jerky, and smoked meat. When you consume the processed meats, you’re supplying yourself with advanced glycation end products or AGEs.

Are you wondering what AGEs are? They are a process in which the other foods and meats are cooked at very high temperatures. This high-temperature cooking can lead to inflammation in your body.

Indeed, processed meat causes a lot of health problems, but colon cancer is the most common. There are several more factors responsible for the cause of colon cancer, but increasing the inflammation levels is the most important one.

Final Thoughts

You now know well enough about all the possible foods that cause inflammation. So, to keep yourself away from inflammation, consume these foods in moderate amounts and avoid the processed ones.

You can get inflammation due to other factors such as sickness, injury, or pollution. However, it is always best to keep yourself away from inflammatory foods. Have a balanced diet to keep yourself healthy and strong.