Calm Your Inflammation: 7 Proven Secrets to Regulate Your Immune System, Balance Gut Health, Reduce Stress, and ... more - Kindle Edition

Can anyone just summarise these secrets for us all in a couple of sentences and save us all the hassle.

I'lle hazard a guess and say Turmeric is one.

There are plenty of peer reviewed studies which highlight the importance/impact of diet on our well being. And it’s not just to do with life expectancy, but more importantly (IMO) quality of life.

I’ll give my own anecdotal experience as someone that made a drastic change a couple of years ago, im in my 40s. And thanks to genetics I’m not someone that was particularly obese or suffering from major issues.

Like many people I was quite active into my mid/late 20s, but with a poor diet. In my 30s work (desk job), kids and my peers influence meant I became sedentary and the diet got worse. I still wasn’t obese or unable to do basic activities. Then I was diagnosed with Familial hypercholesterolemia (during my 40y/o NHs checkup) and COVID came around giving me both time and a reason to change.

I dropped bread, pasta, rice, processed meals and cleaned up my diet. Lean meat/fish, oily fish, fruit, veg, whole grains, milk, nuts and lentils. Veg I found particularly unpalatable I blended (Cruciferous Veg).

After ~6 months I’d modified my palette. I could happily eat cruciferous veg, in fact I started to enjoy it. The cravings for crap food got fewer and further between, and when I did succumb a very small amount was more then enough. The odd occasion I had a burger I found it too salty and couldn’t finish it. If I had a few slices of bread I felt like throwing up.

I dropped 20kg (84kg to 62kg), dropped to 12% body fat. My skin looked better. The little aches and pains that come with age disappeared. I slept better. I had more energy, waking up like someone had switched the light on. Started to walk everywhere, doing ~15km/day. I simply got up and did things without a second thought (forgotten something upstairs, I’d just run and grab it without a grumble). My general mood and attitude improved drastically.

Essentially I felt like a teenager again. And my harfever disappeared (can’t be sure this was due to diet).

The big issue I had was getting enough calories. I got more and more active, adding callisthenics, then resistance training, then sports like tennis. But having a naturally small appetite, without the junk I found it hard to hits 3-3.5k calories. Eating more nuts, more oily fish like salmon and avocado/bananas etc helped. But ultimately the weight kept dropping and I succumbed to the influence of my peers/wife who weren’t really supportive.

I still predominantly eat clean, but have thrown a bit more junk into the mix. And whilst it means the weight has started to build and I’m adding more muscle, I don’t feel as good as I did when eating totally clean.

Id strongly recommend trying it. It only takes will power. It won’t cost you more in either money or time. (edited)

Age-related increase in the levels of pro-inflammatory markers in blood and tissues, is a strong risk factor for multiple diseases. It is a worthwhile endeavour to reduce unnecessary inflammatory response where possible, so you can remain healthy for longer.

Many people know that cholesterol is responsible for heart attacks, but what many people don't know is that cholesterol on its own is not the cause of a heart attack. Many people have plaques in their arteries, while not a good thing to have, live a normal life, never having a heart attack, because they are stable. A heart attack is caused by a rupture in one of the plaques, and the rupture is the result of an inflammatory process. So to avoid a heart attack, it is beneficial to reduce both LDL cholesterol and chronic inflammation.

As someone that has suffered a heart attack at a young age (under 50), I spent a lot of time looking into these things, keen not to have another. I recently had a blood test to measure my inflammatory markers and they are now very low. I achieved this by making some simple, yet moderate changes to my lifestyle, rather than becoming a health freak that many people believe you have to be.


1. I lost a little weight, approximately 10Kg to bring my BMI right in the middle of the 'normal' range instead of the overweight category. You'll be surprised how easy it is to build up a little extra weight without really thinking you are overweight. No magic diets or exercise regimes required, I just stopped drinking sugar filled drinks and stopped having a packet of crisps with my sandwiches for lunch. I also stopped finishing off any leftover food at the end of a meal.

2. Stopping sugary drinks was a good start and made a huge difference, but refined sugar is about the worst possible thing to have in your diet, so looking for opportunities to reduce sugar intake is valuable. I still eat the sweet things I enjoy, just not so frequently and in smaller portions.


3. Be a little more active, I detest any kind of exercise or sport, so I haven't started going to the gym or joined a football team. I can't think of anything more boring than exercise just for the sake of it. For me I just incorporated being more active in my everyday activities. Cycling or walking short journeys when the weather isn't horrible instead of driving, using the stairs at work instead of the lift, doing a bit of gardening, even parking further from the entrance at the supermarket to get a few hundred extra steps in.

4. Swapping a few of the worst foods with better ones, the more processed a food is generally the worse it is for you. Swapping out 'normal' spaghetti for wholewheat, eating a banana as a snack instead of packet of sweets or a chocolate bar.

So what I am saying is you don't have to be a gung-ho health nut, eating nothing but mung beans and organic papaya or a gym bunny. Just take a moment to make small changes to your life and the long term benifit will be enormous.

Inflammation is a major cause of a lot of ongoing health problems, inc long covid. Whether this book is any good or if you can actually do something about it is another thing but hope is sometimes all these people have.

What a load of guff