Not all fatness indicates disease risk. Not all leanness indicates lack of disease risk. So what is the one factor that is a potent indicator of disease risk? It is an inflammatory process called metaflammation, para-flammation or smouldering inflammation. This condition appears to be inextricably linked with individual lifestyle behaviours like:

1. poor diet
2. inactivity
3. excessive exercise (modern endurance events)
4. inadequate sleep (due to deprivation, insomnia or sleep disorders like sleep apnoea)
5. mental states like anxiety or depression
6. environmental stressors
7. excessive alcohol
8. smoking

Markers of inflammation are expressed through a range of immune mediators such as cytokines, chemokines, adipokines, myokines and transcription factors. Recently, C-reactive protein has gained more attention than NFkB, TNF alpha and Il-6 but overall, these are common markers used to identify unhealthy inducers of metaflammation. It seems, the lifestyle-related inducers listed above are associated with oxidative stress, insulin resistance and eventual development of disease states.
Regularly consuming high glycaemic foods or large quantities of highly processed carbohydrate foods leads to inflammation and aging of cells. As Professor Jennie Brand Miller, world leading authority on the glycaemic index puts it very simply, “High GI foods lead to high inflammatory markers due to oxidative stress. What happens is that the high glucose load overwhelms the power-house (mitochondria) in the cell causing lots of free radicals to be generated. This leads to death of the mitochondria and eventual cell death.” In essence, aspire to eat like traditional natives and regularly choose low GI foods.
Regular moderate level physical activity, approximately ½ to 1 hour per day most days of the week is anti-inflammatory. Getting 8 hours of good quality sleep daily is also vital. It appears that the “stress-like’’ effects of sleep deprivation and the accompanying hormonal changes are associated with obesity.
In an advanced society like ours, mental states associated with stress, anxiety and depression seem to generate acute inflammatory responses accompanied by elevated levels of cytokines. Smoking also elicits a parallel reaction. Both of which are linked to degenerative diseases.
In a nutshell, the maintenance of a disease-free state lies squarely in our hands. Health is about consistently choosing pro-life behaviours through good nutrition, exercise, good quality sleep, relaxation and powerfully choosing joy-filled states. What are your views? Please post you comments below.

In third world countries, eating in moderation is the only way to go as there is literally not a lot of food to go around. In places like Indonesia, Thailand or the Philippines, the staple food is rice.  When you examine their meals, you will realize that more than ¾ of what they eat will consist mainly of various types of organic vegetables and rice put together, mostly harvested from the land.  If they are lucky they might get a small amount of fish (perhaps 60-80g each at most) and a little egg to accompany the rest of the rice and vegetables. Egg is generally regarded as a cheap source of good quality protein so it is frequently served. This is the foundation of what people eat 3 times a day. Meat tends to be only served on special occasions. In some poorer areas of  Thailand, only two meals are served a day due to scarcity of food in certain regions. In Australia, we are fortunate; we do not have a problem with food scarcity, instead we get the privilege of dying from diseases caused by excessive food intake!

Studies have shown, without any shadow of doubt, that calorie restricted diets are associated with longer life expectancy. Now we know the reason why. This is because calorie restricted diets are anti-inflammatory and hence synonymous with good health.

This led some people to think that if calorie restriction is associated with longevity, then surely starvation or fasting occasionally must be better! Unfortunately (or fortunately), this was not found to be so.  Starvation is associated with inflammation.  Quite remarkably this is an adaptation that has evolved through human history to ensure survival during times of famine. Inflammation causes insulin resistance which is a state where the body is not sensitive to the hormone insulin.  Consequently, more and more insulin gets produced by the pancreas setting up a vicious cycle causing insulin resistance.  High circulating insulin helps conserve the body’s reserves sparing the breakdown of fat and protein!  This inbuilt metabolic miracle is hugely responsible for our survival in times of food scarcity.  And this is also precisely the reason why, punishing low calorie diets do not serve you!  They could make you more and more insulin resistant such that you are no longer able to break down fat at all!  In other words, when you ‘yo-yo’ diet you are destined to get fatter and fatter making each endeavour less and less effective.

Listed below are common behaviours and dietary practices that either promote or reduce inflammation:

Which camp do you belong to?  Make changes to get into the anti-inflammation camp right away.  Studies have shown you could be saving yourself 7-10 very good years.

Australians are among the fattest people in the world. This has caused a host of chronic diseases to develop. A cluster of some of the above-mentioned conditions is commonly called metabolic syndrome. It is often said that obesity is harder to cure than cancer! For over 10 years, it has been known that obesity is directly associated with inflammation.

More and more experts are seeing body weight or fat as potential ‘markers’ of other health problems, like cancer, heart disease and diabetes. Low grade form of inflammation commonly called metaflammation seems to result from certain lifestyle behaviours. Some of these behaviours are responsible for making us fat.

Certain food choices and lack of activity are now known to contribute notoriously to ‘metaflammation’. According to studies, merely changing or reducing weight without adopting all aspects of lifestyle changes aimed at reducing inflammation are doomed to fail in the long run. To achieve better overall health outcomes, all aspects of lifestyle that contribute to reducing inflammation should be adopted.
Sleep is a factor that is largely neglected in our modern society. We now know that less than 7 hours sleep a day has been shown to raise inflammatory makers. This is related to psychological stress which has been known to cause pro-inflammatory responses. Chronic stress causes a chronic rise in stress-related hormones like cortisol and the concurrent reduction in the ‘feel-good’ hormones – endorphins. Chronic stress and depression are directly associated with metaflammation. Metaflammation leads to numerous disease states as a result of insulin resistance! In other words, science has shown that you can sleep yourself and relax yourself slim! Wow, how awesome is that? If you did nothing else but get good quality sleep and adopt deep relaxation, you could be a few kilograms lighter than you are now! How is that for good news?

Hence the winning formula for keeping trim involves a complete lifestyle overhaul combining:
1. Good sleep
2. Stress management (so you have little or no stress in your life)
3. Plenty of exercise – take every opportunity to move!
4. Good solid ‘anti-inflammatory’ diet filled with back-to-basics ‘earth foods’
5. No smoking

All of these health-enhancing factors have not changed since the time of Hippocrates. How remarkable is that? These 5 simple factors make up the entire prevention armoury. They say the more things change the more they stay the same, this must be one of those things!

Let’s have a look at a list of common foods that make up the anti-cancer diet:

1. green tea – contains polyphenols called “catechins” or epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), EGCG blocks receptors on a cells surface that issue command for the creation of new blood vessels.
2. red wine – “resveratrol” (this is not an endorsement to drink, quantities of >100ml per day seem to lose their protective effect, Professor Riboli of the famous EPIC study thinks this study was poorly designed and conclusions dubious) 
3. garlic – “dialyl sulphide”
4. cabbage, kale, brussels sprouts – cruciferous vegetables contain “indol-3-carbinol”
5. rosemary – “carnosol”
6. raspberries, strawberries, walnuts, hazel nuts and pecans – contain polyphenol called “ellagic acid”. Ellagic acid has been demonstrated to act against 2 most common mechanisms of stimulation of blood vessels: VEGF and PDGF.
7. mushrooms – shiitake, maitake, kawaratake, enokitake contain “lentinan” and other polysaccharides
8. broccoli – “sulphoraphane”
9. turmeric – “curcumin”, a yellow powder used in Indian curries. Also, one of the most potent naturally occurring anti-inflammatory agents. In the laboratory it has been shown to inhibit angiogenesis and promote cancer cells death or cell “apoptosis”. Indians have less than 20% of colon, breast, lung and kidney cancers compared to Westerners of the same age.  This is true despite high exposure to environmental toxins on a worse scale than in the West.  Could their diet have something to do with the favourable statistics?
10. tomatoes – “lycopene”
11. soy beans – “genistein”, “daidzein” and “glyciteine”.  Researchers wrote that “soy and green tea may be used as potentially effective dietary regimen for inhibiting progression of oestrogen-dependent breast cancer”. Soy phyto-oestrogens act along similar lines as common breast cancer drug Tamoxifen.
12. ginger – “6 -gingerol”
13. cherries – “glucaric acid” which can facilitate elimination of xenoestrogens from environmental chemicals
14. blueberries, cranberries, cinnamon, dark chocolate – “anthocyanidins” and “proanthocyanidins”
15. parsley and celery – “apigenine”
16. rosemary, thyme, oregano, basil and mint – essential oils of the terpene family
17. seaweed – “fucoidan” and “fucoxanthin”
18. salmon, tuna, trout, meckarel, cod, sardine – omega-3s
19. orange, mandarin, lemon, grapefruit – anti-inflammatory ‘flavinoids’
20. pomegranate – antioxidant
21. yoghurt – ‘probiotics’
22. vitamin D
23. selenium

In conclusion, we can make food our medicine and actively choose foods that defend our bodies against invasion of cancer by:

1. detoxifying carcinogens
2. boosting immune system and increasing natural killer (NK) cell production
3. blocking angiogenesis
4. blocking inflammation
5. promoting cancer cell “apoptosis” or cancer cell suicide

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