Foods That Fight Inflammation | Hacker News Reader

Foods That Fight Inflammation

health.harvard.edu

45 pointsrawgabbit40 comments

Circumin, extract of tumeric is a very strong anti-inflammatory, but has to be mixed with a pepper extract ( piperine ) for maximum bio availability.

It is over the counter and seems to have no known risks, but works better than any other anti-inflammatory I have tried, including prescription ones, and I know many people who agree from experience.

I raised this on HN once before and had know it alls quoting assorted studies as it being marginally effective and placebo effect etc etc (despite them never having tried it), but is very effective and relatively fast acting.

> but is very effective and relatively fast acting

How much did it decrease your hsCRP test levels? And how long did you take it before you saw a change in labwork?

The impact is so noticeable no tests were required. Who cares about the numbers when it is the effect that is desired? How do we know those tests are conclusive on their own? I am big on science, but bigger on results.

If you need an anti-immflammatory then try it, if it doesn't work then don't use it. There seems to be almost zero possible downside, so why not.

It seems really only effective for soft tissue swelling and inflammation.

I had an American guy in Bali who owned the chalets in Ulawatu where we stayed who had an ongoing back injury and was needing sometimes to be on some strong medication that put him out of it. I gave him our stash of circumin to try and it was so effective that when we left his Balinese wife was in tears thanking us for introducing him to it because it was more effective and no cognitive impacts.

Guy at work was on twice daily voltaren for his shoulder and hadn't played golf for three years. Started the circumin and three days later played a round.

Not conclusive, but just two of about twenty stories I could tell you after I found out about it from my sister in law and told others.

> Who cares about the numbers when it is the effect that is desired?

People who know about the placebo effect.

Or maybe just people that can't even run a basic personal risk analysis and simple experiment.

To trial it personally has potentially many orders of magnitude greater upside than downside, so endless pondering and postulating is totally pointless vs just trying it out and see if it works for you.

Tests and studies are not the most reliable way of indicating personal benefits or side effects, in numerous cases have been contrary, incomplete, poorly applied or calculated and represent a population (which may or may not be representative of your individual case).

Regardless, NIH seems to be on board, but feel free not to take it, or take it with a negative opinion and stimulate the nocebo effect - to a certain extent you get what you wish for and that works both ways.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5664031/#:~:tex....

You might find this video interesting, highlights studies showing the difference in effectiveness for turmeric vs curcumin in combatting inflammation, turns out turmeric does a better job:

https://youtu.be/4vcl2rnyb-o

What form do you take curcumin in and how much? And what specific protocol did you recommend to the various people who improved? Thanks!

https://www.bioglan.com.au/products/aged-health/curcumin-dou...

It's definitely helping my arthritic knee. When I forget to take it, I notice. Costco's house brand is a good deal, and it does go on sale from time to time.

Curcumin

>know it alls quoting assorted studies as it being marginally effective and placebo effect etc etc (despite them never having tried it)

This is a terrible attitude

Personal experience is no substitute for controlled studies. It's irresponsible to say that something is medically effective just because you tried it and it "works for you." You don't know that. You can't know that.

Homeopathy- selling biochemically inert placebos as medicine- is an $18 billion dollar industry. This is completely driven by word-of-mouth anecdotal experiences and personal claims. You can sell people tap water and sugar pills to cure depression and insomnia, and they will swear it's a miracle cure and tell everyone they know. Don't be that guy.

I was tempted for a second to buy the pamphlet, but then I remembered that they don't say anything new; they just dispense generic diet advice as a GP doctor would.

Does anybody know of a science-based anti-inflammatory diet? A diet that has been tested to decrease hsCRP levels?

I'm tempted to go to a dietician, but I can't shake the feeling that it's all voodoo.

If you're open to it check out the zerocarb / carnivore community. It's extreme but it does work.

"Many major diseases that plague us—including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, depression, and Alzheimer's—have been linked to chronic inflammation."

This is completely true (even if it’s more complicated than it sounds), maybe you are getting downvoted because it’s obvious? I’m not sure. (biochemist)

...and chronic inflammation has been linked to lack of physical exercise and poor diet.

Inflammation is helpful when rebuilding muscles and recovering from work. Inflammation is harmful when there's nothing to work on. The body goes haywire and you get all manner of problems.

The kinds of food you eat can contribute, but it is largely that we have an engine designed to work that we're perhaps letting idle in the garage, that seems to be the main problem.

Crohn's, for example, is a disease that manifests with severe inflammatory problems. One of the chief ways to keep it in check (not a cure, just one of the things that help) is significant exercise (fitness) and controlling food intake and quality.

You walk your dog... you need to "walk" your own self too.

> Inflammation is helpful when rebuilding muscles and recovering from work.

So, exercise increases inflammation in the short term but reduces chronic inflammation?

Sort of, but whether it’s beneficial or pathologic is more complicated than whether it’s short or long duration.

Chronic or sustained inflammation is a sign of dysregulation, but acute inflammation can also be pathologic.

Moreover, the inflammation in physical exercise, in physiologic conditions, is actually beneficial (it’s physiologically angiogenic and anabolic). In other words, the benefits of exercise don’t just outweigh the harms of inflammation: rather, exercise can create well-regulated, physiological and beneficial inflammation.

Inflammation is as complex a topic as cancer (in fact the two are pretty much inseparable): it’s a fascinating beast!

For people who are interested in learning more about inflammation and are highly motivated self-learners, I recommend this book:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/fundamentals-of-inflamm...

https://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Inflammation-Charles-Ser...

Except for the red meat this sounds a lot like my low-carb keto-like diet.

Curious about the red meat though. Seems like a hot topic since I read a lot of conflicting 'evidence based' information on it.

Unfortunately my trust in the possibility to determine what's true or not is decreasing. This is mostly lack of time but also because interest groups spend a lot of money trying to establish their narrative through information manipulation.

To quote the article "red meat (burgers, steaks)" - one of these is not like the other. Even so, there is a word of difference between the meat of an unhealthy animal (especially the fat) and a healthy one.

It does seem that anecdotally a meat-only diet resolves chronic inflammation: reddit.com/r/zerocarb

Yes, Michaela Peterson's TEDx talk is very interesting.

Mikhaila? That is not a name that I would drop in the context of dietary advice.

Unless you think her story is entirely fabricated, it's a strong anecdote to support a meat-only diet can alleviate inflammation. I mean, she claims to have had hip and ankle replacement at age 17 because of arthritis. All of these conditions subsided on a meat-only diet and promptly returned when she attempted "cheats" (one she mentions is soy sauce).

Most studies lump red meat together with processed meat products, but when treated as separate food categories, the negative associations with red meat tend to disappear. That said, red meat clearly promotes inflammation, which is necessary for things like building muscle. Optimal health results from the right balance of inflammation, not its minimization. The authors focus no anti-inflammatory foods because most Americans are imbalanced toward inflammatory processed foods. It's very individual though - allergies, autoimmune responses and other inflammatory cascades are complex; I get debilitating inflammation from tomatoes.

What an exciting topic. In case it is helpful, I wanted to mention the company my co-founder and I are building to help measure and manage inflammation levels using at home blood based hsCRP testing and a digital platform: https://www.begolden.online/.

It gives you the flexibility to run your own "N of 1" experiments to see what works for you. I've been measuring my levels for over a year (after I found out I was at high risk of breast cancer and had a bilateral lumpectomy) - you can see the results here: https://www.begolden.online/post/our-ceo-s-hscrp-scores-over...

We would love any feedback on if you would find Be Golden helpful and if there are certain topics you would like to see on our blog

Fish is problematic because farmed fish is routinely full of dioxins and non-farmed fish is full of microplastics.

Vegetables are problematic because of widespread use of glyphosate, which also makes the veggies non-vegan.

Honestly, the quality of this is a bit disgraceful for Harvard Health!

If you want to know foods that fight inflammation just look at traditional Indian diet it’s full of such foods because this optimisation is at the centre of traditional Indian diet

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