What is the Zone?

The Zone is not some mystical place or some clever marketing terms. It is a real physiological state in your body where the hormones that control silent inflammation are maintined in a zone that is not too high, but not too low. This requires treating food as if it were a drug to be taken at the right dose and at the right time. However, saying food is a drug is actually derogatory to food since your diet affects hormones that are hundreds of times more powerful than any drug. Im many respects, food will be the most powerful drug you will ever take because you are using this drug at least three times a day for the rest of your life. Thus your diet can be your greatest ally or worst enemy because the hormonal rules for humans haven’t changed in the past 150,000 years, and they probably won’t change tomorrow.

Three things in life are visceral religion, politics, and diet.  All are based on belief systems and are not subject to debate.  True believers say, “don’t confuse me with the facts, because in my heart I know I’m right”.  I can’t do much about religion or politics, but at least nutrition can be examined experimentally.  The question is not what is the best diet for weight loss, but what is the best diet for reversing silent inflammation?  Of course along the way a number of other important questions will be answered.  This is why in every carefully controlled research study in which the Zone Diet has been compared to other dietary programs, the Zone has been found to be superior in hormonal control, blood glucose control, blood lipid control, appetite suppression, fat loss, and most importantly the reduction of silent inflammation.

We often make medicine more complex than it really is.  That’s because the underlying cause of chronic disease is increased inflammation.  What we see as heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer’s are not different diseases, but simply different manifestations of long-term damage caused by a continued inflammatory attack on your organs.

There are two types of inflammation.  The first is classical inflammation that hurts because of organ damage.  This is what forces you go to a doctor.  The second type is far more insidious and far more dangerous. I call this silent inflammation. This type of inflammation causes no pain therefore you do nothing to stop it.  But after years, if not decades of constant inflammatory attack, there is enough organ damage that you call it chronic disease.

Silent inflammation is an indicator of the inflammatory potential at the cellular level.  It is not a disease, but high levels of silent inflammation are the first indication that you are no longer well.  There is no drug that can reverse silent inflammation, but the anti-inflammatory Zone Diet can.

How do you know if you have silent inflammation?  The ideal way is taking a blood test just as you would to determine your cholesterol levels.  But if you are like me, you probably hate giving blood.  Fortunately there are some questions you can ask yourself to give you an indication that you may have high levels of silent inflammation.  No one question is sufficient, but if you can answer yes to more than three of these questions, you probably have elevated levels of silent inflammation.  Here are the questions, simply ask yourself:

 Are you overweight?

Are you taking a cholesterol-lowering drug?

Are you taking hypertensive drugs like beta-blockers or diuretics?

Are you constantly craving carbohydrates?

Are you continually fatigued?

Are you groggy upon waking?

Do you have brittle fingernails?

You are probably thinking that the vast majority of Americans may have silent inflammation.  After doing thousands of blood tests on “healthy” Americans I have come to the same conclusion.  They are not sick enough to have a chronic disease, but they are definitely no longer well.

This explains why we spend so much on health care and have so little to show for it.  Americans are not only the fattest people on the planet, but the most inflamed.  But fortunately, it is possible to reverse silent inflammation in 30 days using an anti-inflammatory diet.

The more you understand genetics, the more impressed you become by the power of nutrients to alter the expression of genes, especially those that control inflammation.  At one point in our evolution, hundreds of millions of years ago, immunological response and nutrient storage and metabolism were all shared functions.  Today there is still extensive cross communication between these systems.  The central communication point is through the innate immune system, which has long been ignored as an integral part of the immune response.  Primitive as it may be, it is still the front line of defense against microbial invasions and initiates the generation of inflammatory responses against such invaders.  Unfortunately, many components of our current diet are activating those same inflammatory response mechanisms just as a microbial invader would.  Likewise other components of our diet that would normally inhibit these inflammatory responses are now sadly lacking.  Recently discovered components of the innate immune system such as toll-like receptors and nuclear transcription factors occupy the central focus of genetic technology yet they are significantly impacted by dietary components such as the balance of protein-to-carbohydrate, polyphenols, and omega-3 fatty acids that are key to the practice of anti-inflammatory medicine.

Currently we hear a lot of good news about omega-3 fatty acids.  They are useful for heart disease, depression, arthritis, and even weight loss.  How can these fats do so many things?  The answer is they reduce silent inflammation.

The good news about Omega 3 fatty acids is that they reduce inflammation caused by chronic disease and the diet.  The bad news is they also reduce the body’s innate anti-inflammatory ability to promote cell rejuvenation, repair and healing.  It’s like taking two steps forward and one step back.  You are still ahead of the game, but not as far along as you could be.

If wellness is your ultimate goal, then you must simultaneously control both phases of the inflammatory response in each of your 100 trillion cells.  If you can, that is the true molecular definition of anti-aging medicine.

For 25 years, I have worked on this problem, and now have the solution with a new generation of super fish oils that accomplish the desired goals of reducing pro-inflammatory responses caused by diet or chronic disese, and at the same time increase cellular rejuvenation, repair and healing.  The key lies in the isolation of new natural inhibitors of the enzyme that converts the essential fatty acid building blocks of anti-inflammatory eicosanoids into the building blocks for pro-inflammatory eicosanoids.  With the right combination of essential fatty acids and the appropriate enzyme inhibitors, it is possible to fine-tune the most appropriate EPA/DHA concentrate for individual genetics to maximize control of silent inflammation for a lifetime.