6 Ways How Processed Food Effect Your Body
In today’s world most of the food we consume has been processed, which can lead to serious health effects. We are going to look at 6 ways processed foods effect our bodies.
- Lack of nourishment
Processed foods have no nourishment to them. It has been literally processed out of them.
Using the following techniques: High Heat
Removing the fiber
Powder
Liquification
These techniques then allow the food we are eating to be denatured and degraded.
Processed foods are absorbed to quickly in our intestines to extract the nutrition from the food.
- Triggers an Adrenaline response
Processed foods trigger the release of Corticotropin Releasing Factor (CRF) to be released from the brain. CRF triggers your adrenal glands to release Adrenaline. Activating the ‘Fight or Flight’ system in our bodies. (Fight or Flight system is our bodies defense mechanism to either fight a threat or flee from a threat). Increase in adrenaline leads to increased anxiety. With activation of the ‘Fight or Flight’ more of our bodies blood is sent to the arms and legs (to help us fight or flee). This leads to a decrease immune response due to the perceived immediate threat from the activation of the ‘Fight or Flight System’. The immune system is deprived of blood and nourishment. If this happens every once in a while, not a big deal. If this activation becomes chronic then it leads to the immune system breaking down and unable to protect you from common pathogens (viruses/bacteria).
- Processed foods are inflammatory
Processed foods lead to inflammation on a cellular level. Which causes your cells to fill up with blood and impedes its function. Chronic inflammation changes the DNA of the cell, which will cause further degradation of the cell function. For example, many forms of cancer are caused by chronic exposure to a source, like cigarette smoking. Over many years of smoking causes the DNA to change in our cells to cause lung cancer later in life.
Inflammation can inhibit drainage and promote infection. Another example is sinus congestion. The sinuses can’t drain, increasing congestion, and increases risk of sinus infections.
- Leaky Gut
Eating Processed foods causes inflammation. This inflammation also affects the cells in our intestines to swell. The flat cells lose the tight junctions between them and become swollen rounded cells. This allows for partially digested foods to ‘leak’ out into the blood stream. The immune system recognizes the partially digested food as invaders. The immune system wears itself out going after these partially digested foods. Partially digested foods can lodge in our joint spaces as well, which causes more inflammation. As a result, this leads the body to be more susceptible to infections and have a harder time fighting these infections.
- Infections
Long term inflammation can cause DNA in cells to change. Causes the cell to become more vulnerable to cancer. Processed foods feed the wrong organisms in the gut. Yeast infections can result. Infections are more likely to occur anywhere in the body. With the immune system continually fighting all these infections; leads your body immune system sapped. Which allows for more opportunistic infections to occur.
- Food Additives
Food processors add ingredients to processed foods. The FDA does not have the capacity to test to see if all the ingredients on the food label are there or if there any additional undisclosed ingredients. Food Additives can cause inflammation or be perceived as a foreign invader which further reduces the strength of your immune system.
As you can see eating processed food can have detrimental effects on your health. My recommendation to all my patients is to eat the best food you can afford. It will help you out in the end.
“Let thy food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food” – Hippocrates
Best in Health,
Adam Weldzius, NP
