If you want to live longer -- avoid heart disease, Alzheimer's disease and cancer -- then pick and choose your foods with care to quiet down parts of your immune system.
That's the principle promoted by the founders and followers of anti-inflammatory diets, designed to reduce chronic inflammation in the body.
Dozens of books filled with diets and recipes have flooded the market in the last few years, including popular ones by dermatologist Dr. Nicholas Perricone and Zone Diet creator Barry Sears.
Those who frequent message boards that discuss arthritis or acne trade tips on which pro- or anti-inflammatory foods may help or trigger their symptoms -- urging co-sufferers to try cherries for their rheumatoid arthritis or avoid gluten for their psoriasis.
But proponents claim the benefits go far beyond that, fighting not just pain from inflamed joints or skin flare-ups but also life-threatening diseases.
"If your future currently looks bleak because of high levels of silent inflammation, don't worry, because you can change it within thirty days," Barry Sears promises in his book, "The Anti-Inflammation Zone."
There's still a lot of science to be done. And should you try such a diet, you probably shouldn't expect any 30-day miracles. But there may be something to eating in an anti-inflammatory way.
"[Chronic inflammation] is an emerging field," says Dr. David Heber, a UCLA professor of medicine and director of the university's Center for Human Nutrition. "It's a new concept for medicine."
The point of an anti-inflammation diet is not to lose weight, although it is not uncommon for its followers to shed pounds. The goal: to combat what proponents call "chronic silent inflammation" in the body, the result of an immune system that doesn't know when to shut off.
The theory goes that long after the invading bacteria or viruses from some infection are gone, the body's defenses remain active. The activated immune cells and hormones then turn on the body itself, damaging tissues. The process continues indefinitely, occurring at low enough levels that a person doesn't feel pain or realize anything is wrong. Years later, proponents say, the damage contributes to illnesses such as heart disease, neurological disorders like Alzheimer's disease or cancer.
