Does Your Food Give You Fuel or Inflammation?

Every single bite of food we consume becomes part of a biological conversation happening inside our cells. The question isn't simply whether we're meeting our caloric needs, but rather: are we fuelling our bodies for optimal performance, or are we inadvertently feeding chronic inflammation?

This distinction matters far more than most people realise. Your skin, energy levels, weight management, and long-term health all hinge on this fundamental choice we make multiple times each day.

The Hidden Battle: Food as Medicine or Poison

Think of your relationship with food like a banking system. Every calorie is either spent immediately for energy, invested in muscle growth and repair, or stored as fat for future use. But there's a crucial player in this metabolic orchestra that often goes unnoticed: your body's inflammatory response.

As I explore in my book Busting the Code to Ageing: How to Win the Inflammation Game, when we continually bombard our system with high-glycaemic foods and excess calories, what should be a finely tuned process turns into chaos. Your pancreas works overtime to produce insulin, managing floods of glucose. Over time, this constant demand makes your cells resistant to insulin's effects—rather like doormen at an overcrowded club refusing entry, no matter how many times they're called.

The Inflammation Factory

Here's where things become particularly concerning. When insulin resistance develops, your body becomes extraordinarily efficient at storing fat, particularly around your organs. This visceral fat isn't just passive storage—it's metabolically active tissue that functions like an inflammation-producing factory.

These fat cells (adipocytes) produce their own inflammatory compounds: tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and various other pro-inflammatory cytokines. As I detail in Chapter 5, they create a state of chronic, low-grade inflammation throughout your body—essentially a small fire constantly making smoke that damages everything.

High insulin levels don't just manage blood sugar; they act like a switch for inflammation, flipping on multiple harmful pathways:

• Direct inflammatory signalling that promotes chronic inflammation

• Formation of advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) that damage proteins and tissues

• Oxidative stress that depletes your body's antioxidant reserves

The Ripple Effect Throughout Your Body

The problem with this level of inflammation is that it doesn't stay confined to one area. It spreads its influence, affecting multiple systems:

Skin Health: Chronic inflammation weakens your skin's barrier, accelerates ageing, and contributes to inflammatory conditions like acne, eczema, and psoriasis.

Cardiovascular Health: Inflammatory cytokines can damage blood vessels, increase plaque buildup, and heighten the risk of heart disease.

Metabolic Dysfunction: Insulin resistance and chronic inflammation are central players in Type 2 diabetes, making weight loss, energy regulation, and metabolic balance even harder to achieve.

Gut-Skin Axis Disruption: Inflammation damages the gut lining, allowing harmful substances to leak into the bloodstream, which not only worsens systemic inflammation but also affects the microbiome—your skin's frontline defence.

The Science Behind Individual Responses: Lessons from ZOE Research

This is where cutting-edge research becomes particularly revealing. Recent groundbreaking studies from ZOE, led by Professor Tim Spector and published in Nature Medicine, have revolutionised our understanding of how individually we respond to foods.

In ZOE's PREDICT study, researchers discovered that people who consumed diets high in sugars and saturated fats experienced inflammation that stayed elevated for six hours after the meal. They found that people with more visceral fat mass and lower gut microbiome scores tended to have more sustained inflammation following meals compared to those with better metabolic health.

What's particularly striking is that levels of inflammation in the blood were twice as important as cholesterol levels in predicting long-term health outcomes over 30 years. This research validates what I've observed clinically and written about extensively—that inflammation is perhaps the most critical factor in determining our health trajectory.

The Foods That Fan the Flames

High-glycaemic foods are the primary culprits. These foods cause rapid spikes in blood sugar levels, triggering that inflammatory cascade we want to avoid:

• Refined carbohydrates: White bread, pastries, and most breakfast cereals

• Sugary snacks and drinks: Sweets, soft drinks, and energy drinks

• Starchy foods: White rice, white pasta, potatoes (especially mashed or fried)

• Processed foods: Fast foods, crackers, and prepackaged snacks

My Personal Journey with ZOE

I've experienced this personalised approach firsthand. As I share in Chapter 10, I recently signed up for ZOE, a personalised nutrition programme delivered through an app. ZOE provided tailored insights into how my body responded to food by monitoring factors like blood sugar, blood fat, and gut health.

The programme sent me a kit with a blood sugar monitor, a blood fat test, a stool sample kit, and specific foods to help test gut transit time. Based on this data, ZOE tracked how different foods impacted my body and offered guidance on dietary adjustments to reduce inflammation and support overall health. Now, I regularly scan what I eat (within reason) to keep an eye on my weight and better understand how my body responds to certain foods—particularly what might trigger blood sugar spikes or lead to fat storage.

Through continuous glucose monitoring and other testing, many of my patients have made eye-opening discoveries: foods traditionally recommended as nutritious were secretly triggering dramatic blood sugar fluctuations, causing insulin surges and igniting inflammatory responses. Many found that their morning bowl of wholegrain cereal created more metabolic chaos than a simple protein-rich breakfast of avocado and eggs.

The Silver Lining: Food as Fuel

There's genuinely good news here. This cycle doesn't have to spiral out of control. The secret lies in addressing the root causes of insulin resistance and chronic inflammation through strategic nutrition choices.

Start with balanced nutrition. Think of this as giving your body the fuel it truly deserves. Focus on whole, unprocessed foods, plenty of fibre, and low-glycaemic options that help avoid the rollercoaster of sugar spikes and crashes.

You don't have to eliminate carbohydrates entirely—it's about choosing lower-GI options that release glucose more gradually:

• Whole grains: Quinoa, oats, and brown rice

• Legumes: Lentils, chickpeas, and black beans

• Non-starchy vegetables: Leafy greens, broccoli, and courgette

• Lower-GI fruits: Berries, apples, and pears

• Healthy fats: Avocados, olive oil, and salmon

• Quality proteins: Chicken, turkey, fish, and eggs

The Power Players: Antioxidants and Omega-3s

Don't forget about the power of antioxidants. Picture them as tiny bodyguards, neutralising the damage caused by free radicals. Foods like berries, green tea, and dark leafy greens are rich in these protective compounds, helping your cells recover and thrive.

Finally, give your body the healthy fats it craves. Omega-3 fatty acids—found in fish, walnuts, and flaxseed—are like peacekeepers for your cells, working to counteract the inflammatory pathways stirred up by insulin resistance.

Beyond the Plate: The Complete Picture

Chronic stress doesn't just mess with your mood—it's a major driver of insulin resistance and inflammation. Stress hormones can raise blood sugar even when you haven't eaten. Incorporating techniques like mindfulness, yoga, or even a brisk daily walk can work wonders to lower cortisol levels and improve insulin sensitivity.

The beauty of this approach? By catching the cycle early and making informed choices, you can stop inflammation in its tracks, preventing it from snowballing into more serious, long-term health problems.

The Bottom Line

Your food choices are either feeding inflammation or fighting it. Every meal is an opportunity to choose foods that fuel your body's optimal function rather than triggering inflammatory pathways that accelerate ageing and compromise your health.

The remarkable thing is that your body is constantly working to restore balance. When you provide it with the right fuel—nutrient-dense, anti-inflammatory foods—it responds remarkably quickly. Your skin begins to clear, your energy stabilises, and you start to feel genuinely well from the inside out.

The choice is yours, three times a day: fuel or inflammation?

For more insights on managing inflammation and optimising health, see Chapter 5 of "Busting the Code to Ageing: How to Win the Inflammation Game." For information about personalised nutrition testing, visit ZOE's research page to learn about their groundbreaking PREDICT studies published in Nature Medicine.