Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - #369 BITESIZE | 5 Dietary Tips to Reduce Inflammation | Dr Andrew Weil

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today's Bite Size episode is brought to you by AG1, a science-driven daily health drink with over 70 essential nutrients to support your overall health. It includes vitamin C and zinc, which helps support a healthy immune system, something that is really important at this time of year. It also contains prebiotics and digestive enzymes that help support your gut health. It's really tasty and has been in my own life for over five years. Until the end of January, AG1 are giving a limited time offer. Usually they offer my listeners a one-year supply of vitamin D and K2 and five free travel packs with their first order. But until the end of January, they are doubling the five free travel packs to

Starting point is 00:00:51 10. And these packs are perfect for keeping in your backpack, office, or car. If you want to take advantage of this limited time offer, all you have to do is go to drinkag1.com forward slash live more. Welcome to Feel Better Live More Bite Size, your weekly dose of positivity and optimism to get you ready for the weekend. Today's clip is from episode 200 of the podcast with a pioneer in the field of integrative health, Dr. Andrew Weil. Chronic unresolved inflammation is now a widely accepted cause of many serious health conditions. In this short clip, Andrew shares five dietary tips that can help reduce inflammation to help our short-term and our long-term health. There's a term at the moment that's a buzzword everywhere, which is inflammation, right? A lot of people now are talking about chronic inflammation as being the root cause of

Starting point is 00:02:00 many of these chronic lifestyle diseases that are afflicting so many of us. When did you first become aware of, I guess, chronic inflammation as a root cause of disease? Did you know about it before it came into the sort of common vernacular? I think I started writing and talking about that in the early, earlier mid-1980s. And what first caught my attention were articles in the scientific literature that made it look as if there were commonalities in the origin of diseases, disease entities that I had been taught had nothing to do with each other. And that in fact, that coronary artery disease and cancer and neurodegenerative diseases, that there might be a common root there in chronic inappropriate inflammation. That is a completely new idea and hypothesis. And I just saw that out there.

Starting point is 00:03:01 And it's, I have a good sense of knowing when things are right and that there's going to be evidence to support that. So I got onto that idea very early and it excited me because if these broad categories of disease that we had previously thought had nothing in common, if in fact they have a common root, then there's a common strategy for dealing with them and reducing the risk of them. And that is by doing everything you can to contain inappropriate inflammation. There's a lot of influences on one's inflammatory status, some that you can do things about and some that you can't. What particularly caught my attention was the possibility that dietary changes could reduce

Starting point is 00:03:41 inappropriate inflammation. How do you describe inflammation or chronic inflammation to your patients or your students? Well, I usually say, you know, we all know inflammation on the surface of the body. It's local redness, heat, swelling, and pain at an area that's injured or under attack. And that although it can be uncomfortable, inflammation is the cornerstone of the body's healing response. It's how the body gets more nourishment and more immune activity to an area that needs it. But inflammation is so powerful and it's so potentially destructive that if it persists, if it escapes its limits in time and space, then it becomes destructive. And in the short term, it can lead to allergy and autoimmunity. But long term, it looks as if it increases the risk of a whole diverse range of very

Starting point is 00:04:30 serious chronic diseases. You know, I think that coronary artery disease begins as inflammation in the lining of arteries. Alzheimer's disease clearly begins as inflammation in the brain. And that's why anti-inflammatory agents like ibuprofen and turmeric have a preventive effect and cancer is linked here too because anything that increases inflammation also increases cell proliferation the two are totally linked and and when cells proliferate more the risk of malignant transformation is increased. In terms of foods and this anti-inflammatory diet that you put together many years ago, I wonder if we could sort of talk about what this kind of

Starting point is 00:05:14 dietary pattern looks like. Is it more about the sort of general types of foods you're eating or can we see within that some specific... Both. And I developed this by using the Mediterranean diet as a template because we have so much scientific evidence for that way of eating being associated with optimum health and longevity. And it's a way of eating that in no way restricts the pleasure of food, which I think is extremely important. And I tweaked that by adding Asian influences to it because I've spent a lot of time in Asian countries and there are food, specific foods and beverages that I,

Starting point is 00:05:53 particularly in Japan, China, India, that I think are, you know, very healthful. So first of all, it's not a diet, you know, it's because diets are things that we go off of. So it's an eating plan for life. And the first rule is to stop eating or greatly reduce consumption of refined, processed and manufactured foods. I mean, that's simple. somebody else that is really at the root of a lot of these chronic illnesses in our societies of obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and so forth. So the first step is simply to try to eliminate and refine processed and manufactured food. And then, you know, next is eating a variety of high quality fresh produce, especially vegetables. You know, fruits, yes, but fruits are often concentrated sugar sources.

Starting point is 00:06:51 And I think you should be more moderate about that. But an array of vegetables with all different colors, because those are all protective compounds. I think it is good to reduce the amount of animal protein in the diet. I don't tell people to become complete vegetarians or, you know, I myself eat fish and vegetables. But I think restricting animal foods is a good idea. Increasing the consumption of plant protein in the form of legumes, soy protein, for example. protein, for example. Using olive oil as a major, as a main cooking oil and being very careful about the kinds of fats that you consume. Making sure that you're getting omega-3 fatty

Starting point is 00:07:33 acids, which are strongly anti-inflammatory by eating oily fish or supplements of, derived from algae if you don't want to eat fish. Using spices like turmeric and ginger, which are powerful anti-inflammatory agents. Tea, especially green tea, which has many healthful antioxidant properties. Forms of carbohydrate that don't raise blood sugar quickly. I'm not anti-carb, but I think it's important to distinguish between types of carbohydrates that digest quickly and especially products made from flour and pulverized grains as opposed to truly whole grains that are cracked,

Starting point is 00:08:17 either entire or cracked in big pieces. And I have an anti-inflammatory diet pyramid pyramid and at the very top is dark chocolate, which I think is a health food and I, and, uh, consumed in moderation, I think is very good for you. The first step when you were describing that was remove or eliminate these highly processed foods. And it just makes me think of something I've been sort of contemplating a lot recently, Andrew. And I guess the question itself is artificial, but it's just, I guess, you know, a thought experiment. Is it more important to exclude these problematic, modern, highly processed, I guess, not even foods, food-like substances?

Starting point is 00:09:06 Or is it more important to, I guess, we can keep those in, but add in some of these so-called, you know, superfoods or, you know, your dark chocolate, your berries, those sort of things. I mean, how would you look at that sort of conundrum? I think it is more important to reduce or eliminate the processed stuff. I think it is more important to reduce or eliminate the process stuff. I think it is really unhealthy and on all sorts of levels. It's the wrong fats, the wrong types of carbohydrates, not enough of the protective elements. So I guess you could make up for the protective elements by adding some of those other things back, but you're not going to take away the damage being done by the unhealthy fats and the unhealthy forms of carbohydrates and the additives you mentioned green tea and i know you are a particular fan

Starting point is 00:09:51 of green tea in in particular from what i understand it's matcha can you tell me about you know when you became aware of matcha what happened there and why you're so passionate about people drinking more of it uh when i was growing up, tea was something drunk by old people and sick people. And I drank iced tea, heavily sweetened. When I was 17, I had a chance to live in Japan with Japanese families. And I really came to love green tea. Very good, and I'd seen nothing like that in America. And I was also introduced at that time

Starting point is 00:10:25 to matcha in the Japanese tea ceremony. Matcha is the powdered green tea that's whisked into a froth and consumed in the tea ceremony. And I began bringing that back when I would go to Japan and turn people on to it. Nobody had ever heard of it in the States. It's been quite amazing to me to watch how fashionable matcha has become in recent years. There's a great deal of research on the health benefits of tea in general, on green tea in particular, a lot due to its antioxidant content. Matcha is different in that the leaves are grown in a way that increases the content of antioxidants. And it also has a high content of an amino acid called L-theanine that has a calming effect. And I think that modifies the effect of caffeine and makes the stimulation of tea and matcha in

Starting point is 00:11:20 particular very different from that of coffee. It does not have the jangling effect of coffee. It does not leave you with a crash when the stimulation wears off. People say it causes a state of calm alertness. There's a long association of tea in general and matcha in particular with meditation. And again, very different from from that of coffee I think matcha has been associated with contemplation with meditation and the ritual of preparing it you know when I whisk it in a bowl I find that to be very meditative and relaxing I think what you're speaking to there is something that again I think is a missing piece in modern life and even in modern day health promotion,

Starting point is 00:12:07 which is, it's not only what you're doing, it's how you're doing it. So, you know, if you're taking five or 10 minutes to prepare your green tea, it's not just a habit, it's a ritual. It's a time to dedicate to yourself, to actually be present with a certain process. And I'm interested in your view on this, but I've been thinking recently that we do science. We look at green tea or we look at the polyphenols in coffee and we go, this is a great thing. And so in our rushed lives, we make a quick coffee, we slug it down, and we go and then we say, oh yeah, it's got loads of polyphenols in it. It's really good for me. And I kind of feel,

Starting point is 00:12:50 have we lost something somewhere? Because for me, for example, I do drink coffee. I've limited it. I know what works for me, but I have it first thing in the morning. Now I know people will say, because I'm an early riser, I'm usually up by five, people will say, it's probably not with your circadian biology the perfect time to have it. However, I would argue that, you know what, that hour, hour and a half in the morning before my wife and kids get up is my sacred time for myself. And I make it in a very ritualistic way. I don't slug it down while doing something else. I'm paying attention to it. And I feel actually for me on balance,

Starting point is 00:13:30 when you take into account everything, that forms a very important part of my day. And I feel more and more we're missing this piece when we talk about health. I agree with you. And I would extend that to eating in general. And one of the things that struck me, especially when I spent time in Italy and in France, is how different the attitude is of people toward eating. it's in a hurry. There's a lot of concern about, you know, is this healthy? Is this not healthy? I think in continental Europe, especially in France and Italy, there's so much more

Starting point is 00:14:13 attention and time given to the enjoyment of food, to lingering over it, to sharing, eating in company as a social ritual. And I think that has, you know, as much to do with lowered rates of obesity, for example, as, you know, what people are eating. Hope you enjoyed that bite-sized clip. Hope you have a wonderful weekend. And I'll be back next week with my long-form conversation on Wednesday

Starting point is 00:14:43 and the latest episode of Bite Science next Friday.

Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - #369 BITESIZE | 5 Dietary Tips to Reduce Inflammation | Dr Andrew Weil

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