Inflammation is the body’s attempt at self-protection; an attempt to remove harmful stimuli, including damaged cells, irritants, or pathogens and begin the healing process.
To understand inflammation, you must first understand that there are two types: Acute and Chronic Inflammation.
Acute inflammation starts rapidly and quickly becomes severe. Signs and symptoms are only present for a few days, but in some cases may persist for a few weeks.
Examples of diseases, conditions, and situations which can result in acute inflammation include: acute bronchitis, an infected ingrown toenail, a sore throat from a cold or flu, a scratch or cut on the skin, exercise, acute appendicitis, acute dermatitis, acute tonsillitis, acute infective meningitis, acute sinusitis and the list goes on and on with the word “acute” being the primary distinction.
Chronic inflammation is long-term inflammation, which can last for several months or even years. It can result from a failure to eliminate whatever was causing the acute inflammation, an autoimmune response to a self-antigen where the immune system attacks healthy tissue, mistaking it for harmful pathogens or a chronic irritant of low intensity that persists.
Studies have shown that chronic inflammation can eventually cause several diseases and conditions, including some cancers, rheumatoid arthritis, atherosclerosis, periodontitis, and hay fever. Inflammation needs to be well regulated.
We have all seen charts and examples as the one below which advises us on ways to help eliminate chronic inflammation naturally and that is all fine and well. However, what few people know is that some of these so-called anti-inflammatory foods may actually cause inflammation in certain people that are subject to lectin (carbohydrate-binding proteins) damage as a result of their blood type reacting to the proteins in certain foods.
Those of you who have been following my blog for some time now have read several articles I have posted about the blood-type diet and the tremendous healing affect that it has had on me.
The blood type diet is based on lectin damage. Located on the surface of cells of all living things lay many thousands of different complex sugar molecules (glycoconjugates) projecting outward from their loose anchors like moving antennae. Genetically unique, these molecules comprise a protective coating for the cell and perform many functions including cell recognition and signaling. Lectins are a class of protein molecules capable of using these sugar molecules to bind to the surface of cells. Lectins provide the way for one molecule to stick to another molecule without any immunity involved. As a result, lectins play a wide role in our health, and as Dr. DJ Freed once declared, “Lectins are causes in search of diseases.”
On the left, normal blood cells. On the right, agglutinated blood cells.
Further, lectins, can commonly be found in foods such as fruits, vegetables, and seafood, but especially grains, beans and seeds. They are present in about 30 percent of the American diet and are not degraded by stomach acid or proteolytic enzymes, making them virtually resistant to digestion.
The important point is that some of the lectins consumed in everyday foods act as chemical messengers that can in fact bind to the sugars of cells in the gut and the blood cells, initiating an inflammatory response.
Bottom line, know your blood type and use the blood type diet guidelines to determine which foods will cause agglutination of your blood cells and tissues. That is a better way to help regulate chronic inflammation and save yourself from disease.
Filed under: Articles/ Information, Gluten Free Tools / Aids Tagged: acute, allergy, Anti-inflammatory, Blood Type Diet, Celiac, celiac disease, chronic, Dr. Peter D'Adamo, fresh fruit, Gluten, Gluten Free, Gluten Free Diet, gluten intolerance, Gluten sensitivity, Inflammation, Leaky Gut, symptoms, Tools
