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 All Thumbs Book Reviews
Inflammation Nation: The First Clinically Proven Eating Plan to End
Our Nation's Secret Epidemic
by Floyd H. Chilton, Ph.D.
Fireside, 2005
Review by Katherine Czapp
Asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and allergies are just a few of
the debilitating conditions that have excessive inflammatory response
as a marker of their condition. Many other chronic diseases of our age,
such as diabetes, cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's and obesity may
also have their roots in deranged inflammatory response, suggests author
Floyd H. Chilton. Considered as related diseases, they together create
a vast net that includes half of the American population. Although Dr.
Chilton, professor of physiology and pharmacology at Wake Forest University
School of Medicine, has spent much of his career as a researcher and
consultant for several major pharmaceutical companies, which included
work on Pfizer's controversial arthritis pain drug Celebrex, in this
book Dr. Chilton turns from drugs to diet in order to address the inflammation
puzzle.
Dr. Chilton outlines the mechanics of inflammatory response in the
body in both healthy and unhealthy situations. While noting that a healthy
inflammatory reaction serves purposes of tissue isolation and protection
from further injury so that the body can then heal, an inflammatory
response that does not turn itself off clearly creates havoc in the
body, with no opportunity for complete healing to occur. The book features
schemata of battle scenes with what look like regiments of the Golden
Horde, complete with charioteers and smoking encampments, to illustrate
damage done to the body when inflammation cannot be regulated; and section
headings such as "Shock and Awe" and numerous bristling military
metaphors keep us properly frightened of the whole process.
The inflammatory messengers responsible for initiating a response
and controlling its intensity are the prostaglandins and leukotrienes.
These messengers are pictorially represented as hysterical figures with
megaphones, and so the reader is conditioned to wince whenever they
are mentioned. Here Dr. Chilton leaves out the part of the discussion
that explains the several classes of prostaglandins and their cooperative,
regulatory feedback responses. An elegant description of this fascinating
and complexly detailed aspect of biology can be found in "Tripping
Lightly Down the Prostaglandin Pathways," by Dr. Mary Enig
and Sally Fallon, but in short, for the inflammatory response to work
in a healthy fashion the three classes of prostaglandins must have their
pathways "clear" for their normal production. This means access
to healthy traditional fats supplied by a balanced diet and an avoidance
of rancid, processed vegetable oils that disrupt the pathways, such
as corn, canola and soy.
Dr. Chilton's take on the inflammatory messengers, however, is to
note that since they are derived from the fatty acid arachidonic acid
(AA), and the aim is to block their overproduction in cases of inflammatory
disease, his route is to limit consumption of preformed AA in the diet--which
means limiting the consumption of nutritious foods like butter, egg
yolks and liver. He does not seem to understand that the body also makes
anti-inflammatory prostaglandins from AA.
While noting that humans are not very efficient at converting other
fatty acids into AA, numerous other species are, including fish, and
Dr. Chilton gives a good explanation of how farmed fish, which are fed
soy pellets high in omega-6 fatty acids have tissue fatty acid compositions
much different from, and much less healthy than, their wild equivalents
who eat foods high in omega-3 fatty acids. In fact, farmed salmon cannot
be recommended at all, and especially not for those suffering from inflammatory
disease; doctors who do not emphasize the difference when recommending
fish to their patients are failing miserably in their service. Dr. Chilton
goes on to rightly condemn factory-produced eggs for their terrible
ratio of fatty acids, although he believes that it is impossible to
produce an egg that would be "safe" to eat with supplementation
of flax meal or other foodstuffs high in omega-3s.
This leads to the next two points of Dr. Chilton's anti-inflammatory
strategy. Because AA requires the action of an enzyme to be converted
into prostaglandins and leukotrienes, Dr. Chilton prescribes another
fatty acid, gamma-linolenic acid (GLA), in the form of borage seed oil
capsules. Inflammatory cells take up GLA, convert it to DGLA, which
in turn is a potent inhibitor of AA conversion into inflammatory messengers.
Because a high GLA intake can also cause production of AA in the liver,
however, Dr. Chilton's diet prescribes frequent meals of wild fish high
in eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) which blocks that potentially counter-productive
action of GLA. Finally, carbohydrates are limited on Dr. Chilton's diet
to those considered low to moderate on the glycemic index, since blood
sugar and insulin levels are intimately connected to fatty acid metabolism
and need to be kept stable in order for healing to occur.
The modern American food supply gets much of the criticism it deserves
as Dr. Chilton decries the products of factory farming and feedlot livestock
management, including farmed fish, of course. Further, with our food
cheap, plentiful, and routinely shipped coast to coast, Americans no
longer eat locally or seasonally. "We are all feeding from a poisoned
trough," declares Dr. Chilton, but unfortunately he wastes this
apt and excellent metaphor when we finally arrive at the details of
his "Solution" and "Prevention" diets.
The chapter "Getting Started" lays out the foundations of
how we'll be eating on the Chilton Diets. Here we are prepped to understand
that all margarines used are 70 percent vegetable oil, but with no trans
fats. The only fats sanctioned besides margarine are "lite"
mayonnaise, canola, cooking spray or "butter-flavored granules."
Occasionally olive oil is allowed. Egg substitutes or egg whites, 2
percent milk cheeses and 1 percent milk are the typical dairy products
allowed. All juices are unsweetened, or may be artificially sweetened.
Artificially sweetened coffee, tea and diet sodas may be used as desired.
Welcome back to the poisoned trough! Or as Dr. Chilton now calls it,
"your anti-inflammatory arsenal." These are "ordinary
American table foods. You don't have to learn to love some grain you've
never heard of before…[or] mail order any bizarre ingredients."
No, but you will be turning again and again to new-fangled factory concoctions
that somehow have escaped Dr. Chilton's scrutiny as possible culprits
in the cause of epidemic poor health in modern America.
Let's just take a brief look at some of the ingredients that regularly
appear on the weekly menus. Trans-fat free margarine is hardly
any better than the old variety; with oxidized vegetable oils (usually
canola or soy) and the usual brew of chemical constituents. According
to Joseph Mercola, these products may legally declare themselves "trans
fat free" as long as each serving size contains less than 500 milligrams
of trans fat, and since servings are purposely sized small, it's
easy to end up consuming many servings per day. Water, high-fructose
corn syrup, soy oil and more chemicals make up "no-cholesterol"
mayonnaise. (By the way, don't be taken in by Spectrum's organic extra
virgin olive oil mayonnaise--the first ingredient is soy oil.) In Dr.
Chilton's book, there is no discussion about the effects of oxidized,
rancid polyunsaturated vegetable fats and the cell damage they create,
or the disruption they cause in healthy prostaglandin production and
therefore their role in inflammatory disease.
Breakfasts on the weekly menus are all lowfat, except for the borage
oil capsule that is always prescribed. Typical fare is a whole wheat
waffle (packaged) with blueberries, margarine and non-fat yogurt; another
morning one sits down to a cup of multi-grain Cheerios with a cup of
1 percent milk, 4 dried apricots halves and a half grapefruit, or a
half-cup of liquid egg substitute is served with one ounce of Canadian
bacon, two slices of whole wheat bread, margarine and tomato juice.
Lunches usually involve a fat-reduced meat (skinless chicken or 95
percent lean ground beef) cooked with no fat and salads dressed with
"lowfat Ranch or Italian dressing"--more packaged oxidized
oils.
Dinner often highlights the wild fish that is a cornerstone to the
dietary strategy, but it is prepared with canola oil or cooking spray,
and sometimes olive oil. Whole wheat pasta or dinner rolls usually appear,
with margarine, of course.
Desserts are infrequent, but include horrors such as Sugar-Free Waldorf
Gelatin Salad featuring aspartame-loaded, chemically flavored and colored
gelatin.
Ignoring his earlier comments on locally available seasonal produce,
one often finds asparagus and corn, peas and tomatoes, or blueberries
and strawberries in the same meal, but by this point, it hardly matters.
Dr. Chilton claims that sufferers have seen positive results in as
little as a week on his diet. I can only imagine this possible because
of the frequent borage oil supplementation and the regular inclusion
of wild fish, and especially fish roe, which he recommends but for which
there are no recipes or menu selections. Otherwise, the diets seem to
be a recipe for chronic nutrient deficiencies with their absolute exclusion
of animal fats such as butter or cream, and downright dangerous because
of the fake, fabricated fats and heavy chemical load, perhaps especially
of aspartame. Dr. Chilton makes no mention of alternatives to the factory
farmed animal products he condemns, even though the availability of
grassfed animal products is growing steadily. This is likely because
saturated fats remain the enemy, and especially as found in nutritious
foods such as organ meats. For those whose inflammatory disease may
be unknowingly accompanied or instigated by gluten sensitivity, these
diets will only worsen their conditions with their heavy reliance on
the new, "whole" grain (and therefore high-phytate) versions
of everything from bagels to macaroni.
While diet can indeed often be the answer for many health problems,
one that "prescribes" certain nutrients as though they were
drugs without examining the context of the complete diet in relation
to the individual is doomed to fail. "I'm not the healthiest eater
in the world," admits Dr. Chilton, "and I don't think you
have to be, either." Thanks, doc.
About the Reviewer
 Katherine Czapp was raised on a three-generation,
self-sufficient mixed family farm in rural Michigan. After studying Russian language
and literature at the University of Michigan, she is gratified to discover that the
skills and experiences of her anachronistic upbringing are useful tools in the 21st
century. She works independently as a three-season organic gardener and WAPF staff
editor. She and her husband Garrick live the slow life in Ann Arbor, Michigan. To
learn more about authentic sourdough bread recipes and to obtain a live culture
starter, visit www.realsourdoughbreadrecipe.com.
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