Unfortunately our lives are very hectic and we always eat in a hurry! A lot of Americans prefer to eat fast food: it’s easy, quick, tastes good, easy accessible and inexpensive.
The Standard American Diet usually consists of a myriad of processed carbs (cereals, breads, pasta, cookies, cakes etc.), processed meat products, high in unhealthy saturated and hydrogenated fats and few fruits and veggies.
This diet is high in trans fats, high fructose corn syrup, toxic additives, like: benzoate, acrylamide, sodium nitrate, monosodium glutamate (MSG) and lacks basic essentials such as vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, healthy fat, protein, and fiber.
What are some examples of this kind of unhealthy food?
One example is sweet and “diet” soft drinks, like Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, Sprite and others that loaded with empty calories and toxic additives.
Another is French fries: there are 14.5 grams of artery clogging trans-fat in a medium sized order of French fries. That’s a ton of fat to consume every day. Margarine and vegetable shortening contain about 30 to 40 percent trans-fat.
If you needed any more reasons of why to not eat food that is so unhealthy, it is because this diet also can make you moody, irritated, and angry and it won’t help you to live a long and healthy life.
It also contributes to an expanding epidemic of chronic diseases, such as:
- Obesity
- Diabetes
- Stroke
- Heart Disease
- High Blood Pressure
- Kidney problems
- Gallbladder disorders
- Cancer
- Osteoporosis
- Infertility
- Osteoarthritis
- ADHD/ADD
- Depression, Anxiety [1]
More bad news! The latest research showed that our immune system’s response to the Western diet is similar to how it reacts to infection by dangerous bacteria. [2]
A long-term Western diet can make the immune system become hyper-responsive to inflammation triggers. This contributes to an increased incident of type 2 diabetes, obesity, arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), and several other conditions where inflammation plays a part, like arthritis, dementia, Hashimoto thyroiditis, colitis, etc.
Even short-term exposure during childhood to the Standard American Diet triggers changes in the immune system (our main defense mechanism), which may be permanent.
The worst news is that according to these findings — even changing to a healthful diet does not seem to undo the damage completely.
After switching to a healthy anti-inflammatory diet, there were noticeable improvements in the immune response, but there was no reversal of the fundamental alterations in the innate immune system, and many of the detrimental genes that had been activated by the Western diet stayed active. The immune system consequently reacts even to small stimuli with stronger inflammatory responses. [2]
What does this mean?
We should not expose our children to a Western diet at a young age.
If you have already developed a chronic inflammatory state, staying on a healthy lifelong diet will allow you to keep it under control, but it might be too late for a cure or reversal.
For more information on a healthy lifestyle and diet, which can help to keep the toxic effects of the Standard American Diet at a bay and allow you to enjoy your life to the full extent, please schedule an appointment with Dr. Koganski for a Functional Medicine consultation
by calling: 215-750-7000, or online: www.NewtownInternalMedicine.com
References:
[1] What Are The Effects of An Unhealthy Diet? (2016, August 25). Retrieved from Livestrong.com: http://www.livestrong.com/article/200742-what-are-the-effects-of-an-unhealthy-diet/
[2] Christ, Anette et al. Western Diet Triggers NLRP3-Dependent Innate Immune Reprogramming. Cell , Volume 172 , Issue 1 , 162 – 175.e14
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standard american diet
immune system
damage
western diet
processed food
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