Anti-inflammatory Diet

Nutrition is an essential element in maintaining good health. Making the best choices while at work, at home or when shopping and preparing meals can be challenging. Experimenting with changes in your own nutrition can be good training for helping your family and your patients learn to implement these similar changes in their busy lives.

We encourage you to prioritize healthy nutrition, as part of your self-care.

The reality is that food is the best medicine. Through healthy foods we can modify the course of certain diseases and prevent long term complications.

There are several healthy dietary patterns that can be adopted by the patients however the Anti-inflammatory diet has been the most popular dietary pattern.

The anti-inflammatory diet is an eating pattern that combines healthy components of traditional Mediterranean and Asian dietary patterns to maximize the healing potential of the foods included (Willcox, 2014). This diet offers foods associated with good health and longevity. The philosophical basis for the anti-inflammatory diet is the increase of beneficial anti-inflammatory foods and reduction of pro-inflammatory foods. This idea supports the growing evidence base that some of the dietary components found in foods, such as fruits, berries, vegetables, nuts, whole grain, and foods of marine origin – among others, can play an important role in attenuating and mitigating physiologic processes associated with chronic diseases (Wu, 2012; Si, 2014). Compelling research has demonstrated that a healthy anti-inflammatory diet is protective against pro-inflammatory illnesses such as heart disease, arthritis, obesity, and depression. Creating healthy eating habits in the pediatric population is a strong focus in pediatrics and offers an important opportunity to introduce the anti-inflammatory diet pattern, a critical foundation for prevention of long-term disease (Funtikova, 2015). Evidence suggests that early exposure to a healthy diet leads to a healthier diet throughout life.

( Source: University of Arizona center for Integrative Medicine)

https://integrativemedicine.arizona.edu/online_courses/anti_inflammatory.html