The first steps to stop being obese - part 4
Stop being obese starts in the intestine.
It seems like a La Palice's truth, since it is through the intestine that food is absorbed... but its impact goes far beyond that.
In any place where there is organized immune tissue, the mediators that we want to control and decrease can be produced.
The greater the quantity of immune cells present, the greater the potential of their production, throwing more gasoline to the "inflammation fire".
If we take in consideration that 70% of all immune tissue, of all immune cells are, in normal conditions, located in the intestine, where do you think we should start?
Sounds elementary again, my dear Watson!
One of the tissues that makes up the gut is called the GALT (gut-associated lymphoid tissue) where the largest slice of all our defence cells are located.
The gut is the largest point of contact we have with our surroundings, far greater than skin: when stretched as far as possible, it is estimated that the surface area can be similar to that of a tennis court.
The role of the GALT is to ensure our safety by monitoring what is happening inside and outside the gut:
what nutrients are there and whether they are beneficial to be absorbed,
which bacteria are part of the gut microbiome community,
whether there are particles with an aggressive potential,
infections caused by parasites or yeasts, ...
It is our first line of defence.
When it encounters food, food fragments or molecules that it considers to be or to have the potential to be an aggressor, it develops a defensive reaction.
This defensive reaction is an inflammatory reaction, with all that this implies: there is a local increase in inflammatory mediators that "call" specific defence cells responsible for annihilating the aggressor, be it a bacterium, a food molecule or a toxin.
After the threat is eliminated, everything returns to normal.
The problem starts when the threat returns.
When the same particles, the same molecules, the same compounds that originated the initial reaction continue to reach the intestine, the same reactions are activated.
But, as they are repeated, there will come a time when the local production of inflammatory mediators will be so continuous and high that they enter into circulation.
Thus begins to feed, increase and perpetuate the state of systemic inflammation.
These mediators are the same that feed the immune cells that are in the fat, inducing a greater production of local inflammation that ends up increasing the size and volume of adipocytes.
This is the role that the intestine has in the initial phase of weight loss: to decrease systemic inflammation, to decrease the gasoline that is poured on inflammation and that directly feeds 40% of the cells present in the fat and, indirectly, all the others.
Itis much more important what we do not eat, than what we eat, or when or even how much.
We should eliminate from the diet the foods that have a greater potential to originate an immune reaction on the part of the GALT.
It is as "simple" as that!
(...)