How to Make Disease Disappear by Rangan Chatterjee

Author:Rangan Chatterjee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-03-30T04:00:00+00:00

ANTI-INFLAMMATORY CARBS

As I have said, I don’t like to demonize any one macronutrient, be it fat, carbs, sugar or whatever. Food is much more complex than its isolated parts. Very few foods in nature actually comprise just one macronutrient—the majority are made up of various combinations. Eggs contain fats, protein and carbs. Even vegetables like kale and broccoli contain carbs as well as protein. So how can you possibly remove one isolated micronutrient from your diet? You can’t.

I prefer to concentrate instead on the overall value of food. And that includes carbohydrates. In his seminal 2012 paper Dr. Ian Spreadbury differentiated carbs into two broad types: cellular, which are low-density carbohydrates, and acellular, which are high. High-density acellular carbs are the kind we find most often in modern processed food. They tend to be refined, highly processed and often derived from grains. Their structure has been altered. Examples include French fries, rice cakes, bagels and chips. Dr. Spreadbury argues that, because they are high in density, they cause inflammation by damaging the gut and its microbiome while the cellular carbs we’ve been eating for millennia, such as sweet potatoes, carrots and parsnips, are low density and therefore have a beneficial impact on our gut. They’re also unprocessed, which means their inherent structure is intact. The carbohydrate content within them is neatly wrapped up, packaged and stored within its natural fiber coating. This means that the energy within them will be released much more slowly.

Carbohydrate density seems to be a remarkably good differentiator between ancestral “real food” carbs and modern, highly processed acellular carbs. Spreadbury hypothesizes that the ancestral, cellular carbs we find in natural foods don’t tend to drive gut microbiome disturbances and leaky gut and, therefore, don’t trigger chronic inflammation.

I have many patients who do well eating moderate amounts of carbs. They lose weight and enjoy all the health benefits of any other successful health-food regimen. However, they are consuming mainly healthy, cellular carbs like the Okinawans I mentioned earlier do.

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