For a couple of years now, I’ve been checking the Harvard blog on health and wellness from time to time. It’s always good to know what’s going on in the upper echelons of academia and I often come across updates on health research, as well as interesting news and nutrition tips that I tend to put into practice in my daily life.
This morning, while having my first cup of coffee, I logged on to see what was new. That’s how I ended up clicking on an article titled “Eat these fruits for their anti-inflammatory benefits.” “Eating at least one and a half to two cups of a variety of fruits daily can boost antioxidant activity. Fruits are particularly rich in anti-inflammatory compounds, which are important for protecting our bodies from heart disease, diabetes and certain forms of cancer and intestinal diseases,” read the introduction to the article in question, reviewed by Howard E. LeWine, chief medical editor at Harvard Health Publishing. I asked Laura Parada, a nutritionist and author of What Drives Us to Eat This Way, what she thought about it.
“What Harvard proposes is very well supported by current scientific evidence and I also think it’s a valuable recommendation, precisely because it’s accessible to everyone,” the nutritionist told me, adding some key concepts to enrich the message: “Establishing general guidelines is of enormous value from a public health perspective (it would be practically impossible to issue recommendations that account for the biological, cultural and clinical diversity of the entire population), but science allows us to make two clarifications: first , many of the proposed biological mechanisms were initially studied in cellular and animal models, although some of their effects have also been observed in clinical and epidemiological studies in humans. Secondly (and perhaps most revealingly), is that a significant portion of these effects appears to depend on interaction with the gut microbiota, although there are also direct mechanisms attributable to their nutrients and bioactive compounds.”
Thus, the conclusion would be that there is no such thing as a universal superfood; rather, there is a dynamic relationship between what we eat and the ecosystem that inhabits our gut. And above all, what the evidence consistently points to is not the power of a single serving of fruit in isolation, but that of the overall dietary pattern. “What you eat every day–the complete picture–that’s what really modulates inflammation in the long term. This doesn’t diminish the value of including anti-inflammatory fruits in your daily routine, but it does remind us that no single fruit acts as a one-off remedy against inflammation. The key to noticing an improvement always lies in what you consistently put on your plate,” the nutritionist notes. That said, provided they’re consumed regularly, these anti-inflammatory fruits come with the strongest evidence for their antioxidant benefits:
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: vogue.in
