Anti-Inflammatory Diet

Radio Show Caller Question: I’m 40 years old, I recently gained some weight. If I sit down or lay down for any length of time I have a difficult time getting up and have stiffness and pain all over. I’m I just getting old?

Dr. Darrow: If someone says that they have stiffness and pain all over, one of the things we want to raise the pH in the body and alkalize it. Acidity in the body causes inflammation and pain, some people naturally have a very acidic milieu in their system, so what we do is put them on a lot of green foods that alkalize or get rid of the acid.

I am on this diet myself, the things that I eat, and eat many times a day is spirulina, vegetables and a lot of salads. I don’t eat any grains because they have high glycemic index (foods high in carbohydrates that the body burn’s quickly and turns into sugar). I stay away from grains for several reasons, it turns to sugar, it immobilizes the immune cells that we need for healing and increases inflammation.

I don’t eat any diary products, anything with “ose” at the end like lactose, because of the sugar in them. I am also not into fruits, I am into keeping the sugar out of the body.

Really this is a very simple diet and it will do you a lot of good. Remember, drink a lot of water, get your body flushed out and your inflammation will go down, your weight will go down, and when your weight goes down the pressure on the joints especially the hips, knees, ankles, feet will be reduced.

New Caller: I have been hearing that if you have arthritis you should stay away from “Night Shade” foods like tomatoes, (and potatoes, eggplant, sweet peppers) because they are acidic and can cause inflammation.

Dr. Darrow: It’s very important that if someone has a lot of pain in their body, especially in multiple areas, that they try to go on an anti-inflammatory diet.

What we do to check a patient’s pH to determine if they are acidic is to have the patient take urine samples so they can record their pH and we check to see what the patient’s natural milieu is-if it is acidic or neutral or alkaline.

If it is on the acidic side we know the patient is going towards inflammation and chronic disease. So we check that using alkalizing materials and have them stick to a protein, vegetable, water diet for a while to help get their inflammation down. We tend to find that carbohydrates makes the body acidic and then people hurt.

My own experience was that I use to love orange juice and I would have it a couple of times a day. I started having really bad shoulder pain, I was playing a lot of tennis then and could not play. I stopped drinking the orange juice and within a day the pain went away because I was not acidifying my body. Orange juice is very acidic unless you buy the non-acidic kind.

Staying off red meat is important because it has a lot of inflammatory agents.

For people who have a lot of pain and have pain all over their body it can takes months to clean out the toxins and help their pain.

Green vegetables are very good to eat because they are alkaline. Me personally? I like avocados they have good proteins and the good fats, and I drink water.