Scientists devise ranking of foods that cause or prevent inflammation. See list

Inflammation is an integral part of your immune system’s response to heal injuries or fight infection. But when this process needlessly goes on for a long-time, called chronic inflammation, it may be bad news for your body. Experts say inflammation may even lead to heart attacks, type-2 diabetes and obesity.

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There are many foods that are known to cause inflammation and luckily, there are others that help prevent it. Offering an easy guide to these foods, nutritional epidemiologist Dr Suzzane Judd and her team have published an inflammation index of foods in the Journal of Nutrition. A negative score means the food prevents inflammation, while the opposite is true for negative scores.

INFLAMMATION INDEX OF FOODS

• Tomatoes: -0.78
• Apples and berries: -0.65
• Deep yellow or orange vegetables: -0.57
• Poultry: -0.45
• Tea and coffee: -0.25
• Leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables: -0.14
• High-fat dairy: -0.14
• Low-fat dairy: -0.12
• Legumes: -0.4
• Fish: -0.08
• Red and organ meat: 0.02
• Added sugars: 0.56
• Processed meats: 0.68
• Refined grains and starchy vegetables: 0.72

The research assessed existing data on the eating habits of over 30,000 people and the team hopes that their ranking system will help people make healthy eating decisions that reduce their risk for developing inflammation.

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