John Arts Abundant Living www.johnarts.co.nz

Last week I talked about the impact of dietary fats on the inflammatory process. Too much Omega 6 and too little Omega 3 push our bodies towards inflammation. There is, however, another group of food compounds that have a huge impact on inflammation.

One of the main reasons to target plant foods is they are loaded with antioxidant compounds. These are called phytonutrients – phyto is for plant – that promote healing and are very anti-inflammatory. They help protect plants against free radical damage and disease. When we eat the plants, they help prevent disease and reduce inflammation.

Antioxidants are a vast range of compounds found in food, or made in our body that control free radicals and prevent cell damage. These include many vitamins, some minerals and are mostly phytonutrients.

Great diet sources are dark berries, deep-coloured fruits and vegetables, green tea, real red grape and pomegranate juice. Make sure you add plenty of spices such as turmeric, ginger and chilli as these are very anti-inflammatory.

In supplements the best sources are extracts from grape seeds, acai berry, resveratrol, curcumin, bioflavonoids, carotenoids and berries. Well formulated supplements can make a real difference.

As part of a nutritional support programme I will build in maintenance supplements such as Omega 3, Vitamin D in cooler months, and a good multi-mineral/vitamin/antioxidant complex. Depending on the type of inflammation we could add joint-specific compounds. For general inflammation I like to add grape seed extract at about 400mg, resveratrol at 100mg and alpha lipoic acid at 100mg. For joints I add curcumin at 200mg plus supporting chondroitin and glucosamine.

When combined with a good diet, supplements can help shift the body away from unwanted inflammation. Just doing this one thing can make our lives much more comfortable. Give me a call or email john@abundant.co.nz if you need more information. Join my full weekly newsletter at www.abundant.co.nz

John Arts is a qualified nutritional medicine practitioner and founder of Abundant Health. Contact John on 0800 423 559. To read more go to www.sunlive.co.nz