The Inflammation Syndrome: The Complete Nutritional Program to Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, Arthritis, Diabetes, Allergies, and Asthma

What is the Inflammation Syndrome? It’s the cumulative effect of low-grade inflammation–including the aches and pains we all experience–that grows into chronic debilitating disease. This book, the first major book on the syndrome, reveals the powerful role that inflammation plays in a wide variety of common health conditions–from simple aches and pains to heart disease, obesity, diabetes, Syndrome X, arthritis, asthma, and athletic injuries. Drawing on cutting-edge research conducted around the world, Jack Challem provides a revolutionary approach to healing inflammation-related problems through an easy-to-follow nutrition and supplement program. He also shares the latest information on C-reactive protein, one of the marker s o f serio us inflammation. This book, quite simply, shows you how to feel better for life.

"Many of our most debilitating diseases can be traced to an inflammatory cause. The program Jack Challem outlines in The Inflammation Syndrome is a great first step in ridding your body of this deadly problem."
–Fred Pescatore, M.D., author of Thin for Good, The Allergy and Asthma Cure, and The Hamptons Diet

"In a scientifically accurate and easy-to-understand manner, Jack Challem lays out the basic nutrition plan for good health and weight loss."
–Loren Cordain, Ph.D., author of The Paleo Diet

But I'm not a friend of his, just a real person, so I thought I'd tell you what I think of his book.

I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes about 2 weeks ago. I've known it was coming for many years because there's a lot of it in my family. So anyway, I immediately went to my local bookstore and started looking for books to inform me about diabetes, and as I was browsing, I ran across this book.

I bought it and read it, and I believe what he says. Since I read his book I've been thinking, "If only I'd had his book 15 years ago, or ten years ago, or even one year ago." The book says that it can help prevent or reverse(among others):
heart disease - my brother is taking drugs for high cholesterol.
arthritis - I've got that. I had to start walking with crutches in the past year.
Diabetes - I've got that.
Allergies - everybody in my family has plenty of these, including food allergies of various types.
Crohn's disease - my other brother and niece have that.
Gastritis and ulcers - my mother, myself, and my son all have problems with this.
Inflammatory bowel syndrome - yep, I've got that too and so does my son.
Obesity - I weigh 365 pounds in spite of (??because of??) 30 years of dieting. And both my brothers are pretty big too.

So it was interesting to find out that there is a single underlying cause to all these seemingly disparate problems. He explains (and backs up his explanations with plenty of scientific studies) that our modern diet is so extremely different from what our ancestors were eating even 100 years ago, that we are in effect poisoning ourselves. The answer is to eat differently - more like our ancestors ate.

This means cutting out the doughnuts and the french fries. His diet plan probably isn't going to be easy in the long run. I've only been doing it for about a week, and I'm okay with it so far. But I know from experience that in a few weeks someone is going to offer me a brownie or a doughnut and I'm going to want it a lot. However, I really don't want to spend the rest of my life as physically miserable as I am right now, and I certainly don't want to go blind and lose my legs like some of my relatives have done, so I'm determined to follow his advice. Everything he says in his book makes sense to me.

I've read plenty of reviews of diet books of one flavor or another where some person writes in and says "!!!This book has changed my life. I've been on it 3 days and I know this is the diet I'll be one for the rest of my life!!!" Well, I find that a little ridiculous. But I can say that once I got past the withdrawal symptoms from not eating sugar, I've felt much better. The last 2 days I've even been able to walk short distances without my crutch for the first time in 9 months. I'm going to give his plan the old college try! 8-) More than that, I'm sending copies of his book to both my brothers.

If you've got health problems of the type described above or a family history of such problems, I think you should read this book.

The Inflammation Syndrome is divided into four parts: an explanation of the connection between inflammation and disease, including causes of inflammation; a 15-step diet plan to prevent and heal inflammation; supplements recommended to combat inflammation; and inflammation and specific diseases. There are multiple quizzes throughout the book on different causes of inflammation to allow you to see all the various ways your lifestyle may be currently promoting, or preventing, inflammation in your body. The book is written in a lively, easy-to-understand style, and the author helpfully provides a detailed table of contents, an index, extensive references, and appendices listing medical tests for inflammation and sources for anti-inflammatory products.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about inflammation. Its straightforward, practical suggestions are not horrendously difficult to implement, and the author includes menu plans and recipes to get you started on his eating plan. I find his quizzes especially useful as a kind of lifestyle self-diagnosis.

If you'd like to do additional reading on this subject, another excellent book is The Inflammation Cure: How to Combat the Hidden Factor Behind Heart Disease, Arthritis, Asthma, Diabetes, & Other Diseases, by William Joel Meggs. An outstanding related work is The Body Restoration Plan: Eliminate Chemical Calories and Restore Your Body's Natural Slimming System, by Dr. Paula Baillie-Hamilton. Dr. Baillie-Hamilton doesn't specifically write about inflammation, but provides very valuable insights on the damage done by environmental toxins to the body, which both Meggs and Challem indicate are strongly implicated in causing inflammation.

Jonathan M. Berkowitz, M.D.