A vegan diet offers relief from inflammatory disease and reduces heart disease risk

Tuesday, May 08, 2012 by: Raw Michelle
Tags: vegan diet, inflammation, heart disease

(NaturalNews) The claims of the anti-inflammatory properties of various berries and dark leafy greens have been purported for decades, but the main cause of an ever-increasing list of chronic illnesses continues to be inflammation. While at first glance the shared territory between diseases may not be apparent, the correlation is so strong that the physicians can use a diagnosis of arthritis as a risk factor predicting cardiovascular disease. Minimizing inflammation is a matter of defensive maneuvering.

Having a healed cut isn't the same as never having been cut

While these dietary novelties have demonstrated ability to mediate the overall immune response, many physicians feel that it doesn't make sense to keep healing a recurrent injury instead of avoiding its infliction. Researchers tested a gluten-free vegan diet and found it to lower a selection of inflammatory compounds in the bloodstream, as well as the expected behavior of reinforcing the immune system.

Inflammation is the cause and main symptom of many diseases, but is a healthy response to a bad stimuli

Inflammation is a biological response that fills an area with blood in order deliver aid to the area as well as scrap and remove damaged tissue for recycling. The body has a security system in place that creates chemical profiles in the same way that police collect data on dangerous criminal offenders. These cells carry a field guide to recognizing threatening chemicals it has encountered before. This may include molecular irritants, bacteria, viruses, or physical trauma. Trauma is communicated chemically even though a new chemical has not been detected. Since cells communicate with each other chemically, a failure of that system will indicate a problem in the same manner. The cells put in a relay call for reinforcements from the immune system.

Inflammation forces cells to work an overtime emergency shift. When the inflammation is chronic, the increased stain can manifest in subtle ways, like increased blood flow. In surface tissue, this increase will often generate a noticeable heat flush. It causes blood cells to dilate, which increases blood pressure and the workload of the heart, making the most common signs of immune response elevated body temperature and heart rate.

The immune system's appraisal of the vegan diet

The study followed two groups of study participants for a year, measuring their cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels, and amount of oxidized LDL. LDLs are commonly referred to as "the bad cholesterol". They are used to transport excess dietary fat into adipose tissue for storage, and can be used as a guide to the degree to which cutbacks in dietary fats need to be made.

One group maintained a gluten-free and vegan diet, while the other followed a balanced but inclusive diet. Levels were tested at regular intervals. The results indicated that the gluten-free and vegan diet successfully resulted in lower levels of these bad cholesterols, where the individuals in the other control group experienced no significant change. Those on the vegan diets also experienced a surge in the production of anti-phosphocholin antibodies, which may be useful in defending against the microbes that lead to heart disease.

Sources for this article include:

http://arthritis-research.com/content/10/2/R34

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1810472/?tool=pmcentrez

http://www.jimmunol.org/content/170/12/5807.full

About the author:
Raw Michelle is a natural health blogger and researcher, sharing her passions with others, using the Internet as her medium. She discusses topics in a straight forward way in hopes to help people from all walks of life achieve optimal health and well-being. She has authored and published hundreds of articles on topics such as the raw food diet and green living in general. >>> Click here to see more by Michelle