Changing your patients’ diets can be difficult. Instead, suggest moderate amounts of dark chocolate, red wine, and stout beer
People often ask why things that are good for you taste bad. These statements amuse me because properly prepared vegetables, fish, and meat are delicious and good for us. Fresh fruit is also delicious. Children actually love properly prepared foods.
In my experience, it is sloppy food preparation that corrupts our taste buds and drives us to indulge in sweets, desserts, excessively salty fast foods, and the like. In short, most have no idea how to season foods in a fashion that, for example, converts boring scrambled eggs into a mouthwatering, anti-inflammatory vegetable omelet.
A great cook, which really means a great food spicer or seasoner, can take a boring chicken breast and make it taste delicious. Go to the spice section at your local grocer and start spicing up your life.
I use ginger and turmeric in nearly every nonfruit dish I make. Both are potent, natural anti-inflammatory herbs and act as natural COX-2 inhibitors and contain antioxidants.1,2 Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, have been studying turmeric and found that it has numerous anti-inflammatory benefits that help fight Alzheimer’s disease.3
Green tea is another natural product that is significantly anti-inflammatory. It contains bioflavonoids called catechins that act as antioxidants by blocking proinflammatory hepatic detoxification enzymes and by trapping activated metabolites of carcinogens. Drinking green tea can help protect against cancer, heart disease, stroke, osteoporosis, liver disease, and bacterial and viral infections.4
A Spoonful of Dark Chocolate
Like green tea, dark chocolate and cocoa are excellent sources of catechins. Researchers tell us that incorporating dark chocolate and cocoa powder into the diet is one means of effectively increasing antioxidant intake. An antioxidant-rich diet consists of fruit, vegetables, tea, red wine, dark chocolate, and cocoa powder.5 Surprisingly, chocolates have a higher flavonoid antioxidant quantity-quality index than fruit, vegetables, red wine, and black tea.5
About 3 millennia ago, the Olmec peoples living in eastern Mexico used cocoa. Later, cocoa was significant to the Mayan and Aztec cultures in rituals, as a status symbol, and as currency. Long before the Spanish arrived in Mexico, the Mayan and Aztec peoples recognized the therapeutic potential of cocoa. Subsequently, the dietary and healing roles of cocoa were praised in early European botanical and medical texts.6
A recent study7 looked at how chocolate consumption might influence plasma antioxidant activity and lipid peroxidation. Free radicals damage cell membrane phospholipids and create lipid peroxides, which are associated with inflammation. Prior to chocolate consumption, 82% of the human volunteers had no detectable plasma epicatechin. Two hours after consumption, the plasma epicatechin levels jumped to 133, 258, and 355 nmol/L for the subjects who consumed 27, 53, and 80 g of chocolate, which reflect small, medium, and large bars of chocolate, respectively. At 2 and 6 hours after chocolate consumption, there was an increase in plasma antioxidant capacity and a reduction in plasma lipid peroxidation.
In another study,6 researchers examined how cocoa consumption would influence platelet activity. The purpose of recommending daily aspirin consumption to prevent heart attacks is to reduce platelet activity, and thereby prevent platelet aggregation that leads to arterial blockage. Normal, healthy subjects drank what amounted to about 12 oz of cocoa, and platelet activity was monitored for the following 6 hours, during which time platelet activation and reactivity were significantly reduced. The authors concluded that regular consumption of cocoa may contribute to a lower thrombotic risk.
Cocoa and dark chocolate consumption have also been studied in the context of cholesterol. The more important issue involves LDL and HDL levels. When it comes to the atherogenic potential of cholesterol, it is not total cholesterol that is the important fact; instead the concern involves oxidation of the LDL fraction, such that oxidized LDL is what drives atherosclerosis. Oxidized LDL should be viewed as a free radical that disrupts normal endothelial function.
Normal subjects consumed either 22 g of cocoa powder and 16 g of dark chocolate (equivalent to a medium-size chocolate bar) in addition to their prescribed diets that consisted of about 2,000 kcal. The subjects were followed for 4 weeks on the diet with chocolate and 4 weeks without chocolate. During chocolate supplementation, there was a modest reduction in LDL oxidation and an increase in HDL cholesterol.5
My suggestion is to eat modest amounts of dark chocolate—the darker the better and with the least amount of sugar possible.
Red, Red Wine
Much of the research into bioflavonoids was stimulated by what was referred to as the French paradox. The French ate a diet high in saturated fat, which is supposedly the death blow to the cardiovascular system, yet they remained at low risk for cardiovascular disease.
Research determined that red-wine consumption had a lot to do with it. We now know that flavonoids from red wine have the following anti-inflammatory effects:8 inhibition of LDL oxidation, inhibition of tumorigenesis, vasorelaxation, inhibition of platelet aggregation, COX-2 inhibition, and inhibition of neutrophils. The flavonoids in olive oil have the following benefits: inhibition of LDL oxidation, inhibition of platelet aggregation, reduced TXB2 and LTB4 by activated human leukocytes, scavenging of free radicals, inhibition of neutrophil respiratory burst, inhibition of bacterial growth and activity, and a hypotensive action.
If your patients like red wine, reasonable advice is drinking one glass per day.
Have Your Ale and Drink It Too
I have yet to come across any research on beer. If it is out there, the research is not nearly as accessible as that for chocolate and red wine. During my studies, I learned from a biochemistry teacher that stout beer can be viewed as the red wine of beers. Stout is rich in bioflavonoids and minerals, particularly magnesium. The Irish are quite familiar with the health benefits of stout beer, as Guinness stout is served nightly in traditional Irish hospitals.
There are many anecdotal tales about the healing power of Guinness, which I considered only marginally reasonable until I met a 60-year-old chiropractor who was on safari in Africa when he was simultaneously bitten by both a scorpion and centipede. To make a long story short, this DC was given up for dead. He was whisked back to America and set up with daily intravenous drips of a powerful antibiotic cocktail.
Ultimately, he lost about 50 lbs. As chance would have it, he ran into an old friend who told the story of a mutual friend who went to Ireland with diabetes and came home without diabetes, giving the credit to his daily consumption of Guinness stout. The DC figured he had nothing to lose, so he started drinking a couple of stouts per day. Now 5 years later, all of his weight is back, he is practicing full time, and the only change he made was adding stout to his diet.
Was the recovery due to the stout? I cannot say. However, if you are a beer drinker, then it is likely that stout is your best choice.
Changing our patients’ eating habits is very difficult. We humans can change only if a concerted effort is made to do so. When it comes to what we eat, everybody is looking for a loophole or two. While I do not suggest living on chocolate, cocoa, red wine, and beer, these represent delights for many people. Fortunately, they do not need to be eliminated from the diet; in fact, they should not be eliminated. These foods should be viewed like other supplements, such as a multivitamin, magnesium, fish oil, and coenzyme Q10, that we add to a healthy anti-inflammatory diet. CP
David R. Seaman, DC, MS, DABCN, DACBN, FACC, is currently a faculty member at Palmer College of Chiropractic Florida and speaks at state meetings and chiropractic college seminars. Seaman’s nutrition text is utilized at several chiropractic colleges. He can be reached via email: seaman_d@palmer.edu.
References
1. Bucci LR. Nutrition Applied to Injury Rehabilitation and Sports Medicine. Boca Raton, Fla: CRC Press; 1994.
2. Seaman DR. Clinical Nutrition for Pain, Inflammation, and Tissue Healing. Hendersonville, NC: NutrAnalysis; 1998.
3. Frautschy SA, Hu W, Kim P, et al. Phenolic anti-inflammatory antioxidant reversal of Abeta-induced cognitive deficits and neuropathology. Neurobiol Aging. 2001;22(6):993–1005.
4. Mukhtar H, Ahmad N. Tea polyphenols: prevention of cancer and optimizing health. Am J Clin Nutr. 2000;71(6 suppl):1698S–1702S.
5. Wan Y, Vinson JA, Etherton TD, Proch J, Lazarus SA, Kris-Etherton PM. Effects of cocoa powder and dark chocolate on LDL oxidative susceptibility and prostaglandin concentrations in humans. Am J Clin Nutr. 2001;74(5):596–602.
6. Rein D, Paglieroni TG, Wun T, et al. Cocoa inhibits platelet activation and function. Am J Clin Nutr. 2000;72(1):30–35.
7. Wang JF, Schramm DD, Holt RR, et al. A dose-response effect from chocolate consumption on plasma epicatechin and oxidative damage. J Nutr. 2000;130 (8S Suppl):2115S–2119S.
8. Visioli F, Galli C. The role of antioxidants in the Mediterranean diet. Lipids. 2001;36 Suppl:S49–S52.
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