Attacking the seven causes of inflammation

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, Feb-March, 2003 by Dr. Jordan Rubin

We seek alchemy in all aspects of our lives. We may not discover a universal cure for disease, or a way to indefinitely prolong life, or even a way to turn base metals to gold. But if we apply a more modest definition to the 14th century term, we can see where herbalists and formulators have been seeking alchemy for centuries.

As a naturopathic physician and researcher, I always try to study a problem thoroughly and then go about solving it in a comprehensive fashion. That's why after developing FYI[TM] (For Your Inflammation), a formula that I believed would attack the seven major causes of inflammation, I took what amounted to a great risk when I decided to put it through extensive clinical trials.

This formula can play a key role in alleviating inflammation -- a condition now recognized as being at the root of many diseases, including arthritis, heart and circulatory problems, autoimmune conditions, and even some types of cancer.

1. Cartilage/Collagen Degeneration

Today many of us are missing out on the gelatinous substances in soup stocks. "A lamentable outcome of our modern meat processing techniques and our fast paced, throwaway lifestyle has been a decline in the use of meat, chicken and fish stocks," say Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig, PhD, in their book Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats (1 999). (1) "In days gone by, when the butcher sold meat on the bone rather than as individual filets and whole chickens rather than boneless breasts, our thrifty ancestors made use of every part of the animal by preparing stock, broth or bouillon from the bony portions." Stock, the authors add "is also of great value because it supplies hydrophilic colloids to the diet. Certain food compounds such as those contained in soup stocks are colloidal and tend to be hydrophilic, meaning that they attract liquids."

When cartilage deteriorates, we are left with bone against bone. Soup stocks made from whole chickens, beef, lamb or fish aid in rebuilding and maintaining cartilage by supplying high-quality gelatin and collagen, which are rich sources of glycosaminoglycans like chondroitin sulfate.

Collagen draws water to joints, which in turn, helps cushion them. The uniqueness of the Type II chicken collagen found in FYI, is that it comes from the chicken's entire body, not just the sternum, as with many other types of collagen. I went to France to source our collagen specifically because I wanted to work with farmers who raise their chickens naturally, unlike the way we typically do in America. (The chicken flocks that supply our collagen receive no antibiotics or mammalian remnants in their feed.) The collagen in FYI contains high amounts of naturally occurring chondroitin sulfates and other sulfated compounds. Because this is a whole food concentrate, it will not cause adverse immune reactions, and is ideally structured for maximum absorption.

Some sea vegetables provide collagen-building substances as well. For instance laminaria and ulva are rich in collagen-building amino acids such as proline, and provide the body with infection-fighting poly-saccharides. They also possess a variety of components that have the ability to bind with toxins and escort them out of the body.

2. Over-Acidity

Many experts consider over-acidity to be one of the major causes of inflammation. The body can only tolerate a small imbalance in blood pH. If you are over-acidic, it will rob alkaline components from skin, tissue and joints, in an effort to maintain a proper pH balance. Therefore, alkalinizing the body can be extremely important for alleviating arthritis (especially gout). There was an interesting article in the October 2001 issue of the European Journal of Nutrition. (2) It suggested that sodium chloride (NaCl) has been copiously incorporated into the contemporary diet, increasing the net systemic acid load. Researchers noted that their group showed that contemporary net acid-producing diets do indeed characteristically produce a low-grade systemic metabolic acidosis in otherwise healthy adults, and that the degree of acidosis increases with age. In a Russian language journal, researchers studied changes in the joint fluid acid-base balance in 65 rheumatoid arthritis patients. (3) They found increasing acid ity to have a direct correlation with the severity of joint damage and inflammation. It was also determined that whole body potassium is significantly lower in older arthritics. In some cases, the levels in the body can sink to almost half of what is considered normal. This again signifies an overly acidic state.

FYI is designed to aid in the correction of acidosis and ameliorate the conditions that cause it. I would argue that any level of acidosis may be unacceptable, and that a louse of their disappointment from total lack of benefit.

It was also shown that individuals with abnormal immune markers showed a trend towards a modulation of the immune system after consuming FYI, as evidenced by a decrease in white blood cells, an increase in neutrophils, normalization of lymphocytes and a decrease in elevated monocytes, eosinophils and basophils.