#19: Eat for Inflammation with Dr Jenna Macciochi

12th Mar 2019

Today we have Dr Jenna back with us - this time to talk about Eating for Inflammation - you might wonder why I have an immunologist here to talk about inflammation - that will become very clear throughout our conversation.

In today’s podcast we talk about inflammation as a concept - why it’s becoming so popular in the medical literature and why it’s so relevant to a host of different medical specialties.

Today we cover the following:

  • What do we mean by inflammation?
  • The benefits of inflammation
  • Symptoms of inflammation imbalance
  • How we measure inflammation
  • Stopping the inflammation triggers
  • The microbiome and inflammation
  • Obesity and inflammation imbalance
  • Sugar and inflammation

If I was to summarise our conversation in a dietary way of life - it would be the Mediterranean diet.   As we alluded to in our conversation, the Mediterranean diet is known to be anti-inflammatory, and now you have an understanding of what we mean by anti-inflammation.

Inflammation isn’t something that we need to radically remove entirely, its use in human biology needs to be understood.  But in the context of our modern lifestyles we are usually out of balance.

Episode guests

Dr Jenna Macciochi

Jenna is an immunologist with a passion for understanding the impact of nutrition and lifestyle on our immune system. She holds a PhD from the Faculty of Inflammation, Repair & Development at Imperial College London specialising chronic inflammation. Jenna has since held positions at The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine & worked in Biotech specialising allergy and oral immunotherapy.

In 2009 Jenna was awarded a Fellowship to combine her personal interests in nutrition with study of the immune system in Switzerland, working on metabolic endotoxemia, post-prandial gut permeability, diet regimens & use of pre/probiotics. Life in Switzerland combined with her research shaped how she lives her life to give her the most energy to live life to the full. Currently a lecturer at the University of Sussex, Jenna teaches undergraduate & postgraduate immunology to medical, pharmacy & biomedical sciences students. Her research focus remains on understanding the role of nutrition & lifestyle on immunity. A Brighton-based & mother of twins, Jenna is a perpetual culinary experimenter who loves to cook from scratch using sustainable, local & seasonal ingredients. Growing up farm-to-table in rural Scotland, cooking has always been a big part of her life & nurtured her appreciation of food as the foundation of health. With a passion for movement, she is also a trained fitness instructor focusing on pre & post-natal womens fitness. nDr Jenna is currently working on a huge passion project and is writing a book all about the immune system: sorting fact from fiction, dispelling myths and with recipes and rituals to improve your immunity and help you adapt & self-manage, cultivating long term health & wellbeing.

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