to work according to its usual procedure when it encounters inflammation, which involves, among other things, producing certain substances that are going to help repair the tissue. It’s just that the tissue being repaired this time is an enemy – the tumour itself. The immune defence is literally fooled by the tumour. Instead of protecting the body against the tumour, it begins to fuel its further growth out into the body. New blood vessels are built to bring new nourishment to the tumour, and little supporting structures help to anchor the tumour even further.
To sum up, the tumour creates an inflammation that in turn feeds the tumour, which in turn creates even more inflammation in its surroundings, spreading the disease further. The effect of the inflammation is like pouring petrol on the cancer fire. That’s why cancer is such a diabolical disease and so hard to fight.
Professor Björck has also explained that inflammation is linked to coronary artery disease, obesity, diabetes 2 and joint problems. Is it true then that inflammation is either the basic cause, or least the promoter, of our main public health diseases – the diseases that cause so much human suffering – as well as ageing and human breakdown?
And how does inflammation work, generally? Is it like a wildfire that burns down the healthy parts of a human being? Or more like a flood wave that beats and beats against a barricade until it finally falls apart? Or is it more like a low-level conflict between two people that distracts and weakens them so they are no longer able to defend themselves against an external threat?
Which one is the most reasonable scenario? I must keep searching.
But right now, I can state one thing that seems obvious: low-grade systemic inflammation is harmful and either triggers or speeds up disease. At this stage it’s also apparent that there are foods that counteract the broad negative effects of inflammation and that these foods to some extent are similar to the Rita Diet, which is like the Inger Björck Diet – and also like the David Servan-Schreiber Diet, which kept him alive for almost twenty years after his brain tumour diagnosis, even though he was supposed to survive for only a few months.
I have found a lot to think about, and I’m encouraged about my new lifestyle. In general, I’ve started to like the ‘Rita programme,’ as I still call it. And I’ve begun to feel results. They are modest results, but noticeable. My body is stronger, my belly flatter and I’m sturdier both in my psyche and across my shoulders.
‘You seem stronger, Mum,’ says my older daughter, unexpectedly.
That’s good. I want to feel strong, and my new lifestyle grounds me with a new feeling of security. I’m slowly gaining more insights into this lifestyle, about what it is and what it’s like to live it and not just talk about it. It’s both surprisingly simple and complex, since it demands a new kind of awareness.
To have an anti-inflammatory lifestyle was never a goal in itself for me. I hadn’t even heard of this as a lifestyle until that fresh spring evening in Lund, when I was already a few months into my new lifestyle. I just thought I would get a training programme via the internet.
The fact is that I don’t have time to spend dealing with food and exercise, I don’t feel like losing weight and I can’t spend all my energy on it since I have a life to live too. You have to live your life in the human village, as Mowgli says in The Jungle Book. You can’t live a life that’s too different, because that’s like settling down on a dry little patch of grass by yourself outside the village, surrounded by your pills, protein powders and strange food. As a mother of four, I neither can nor want to live like that. After all, I live in a very loud and lively human village that consists of family, job and friends, a context that’s much bigger than just me.
But still I’m driven onwards by this new feelgood sensation. The biggest change is that I have to start planning for eating well, to go from a lifestyle where I eat whatever I happen to find, or what tastes good, to strategically planning my food intake for health.
People say that if you fail at planning, you plan to fail. Everyone who has children learns to plan food at home to some degree. It doesn’t work to come home from work tired and have hungry kids digging through the fridge. (Those evenings always end with fries, fish sticks and ice cream . . .) You just have to learn to be a few steps ahead. It’s easy when it’s about the children, but to think like that about my own nutritional needs is something I’ve never done.
The first thing I need to learn is how to eat in a more conscious and planned way, and that also includes thinking about my specific needs. It sounds pretentious and, above all, time-consuming. Let me explain.
We humans have a limited window from the time a feeling arises to when we want to act on it. The more we’re aware of that window, the more impulse control we have and the smarter we get. But when it comes to food, hunger and eating, this control is being disabled by the miraculous innovations of the modern food industry.
Today we can get hungry one minute and theoretically find food within the hour, as long as we don’t find ourselves in a kayak on an expedition along the northeastern coast of Greenland, or looking for hidden treasure in inner Amazonia. There are little biscuits in the pantry and fig marmalade in the fridge. At work, there are some leftover biscuits by the coffeemaker. At the counter at the 7-Eleven are ready-made sandwiches. Our ability to plan food and think strategically about food doesn’t bother trying anymore. It simply isn’t needed.
I begin to think about how I in particular, and human beings in general, have ended up here.
Just imagine if we were as spontaneous about getting ourselves to work. We would get up and get ready, and just as we were leaving the house, we would begin to think about how to get there and what address we’re going to. But of course we don’t do that.
Most people check the calendar in advance to see what time the meeting is, Google addresses, check that the car has petrol, look up the tube lines, and see how far we have to go between the station and the meeting place. Not many of us would get to our jobs or our meetings on time if we didn’t do all this. We need an inner map. A road plan.
We need this for food as well.
This is what I have to learn – that in the pause between feeling and action, there’s a rainbow leading to a pot of gold, and it’s easier to find that pot if I’m well prepared.
My basic plan becomes this: I plan how I’m going to eat as soon as I wake up in the morning. I plan for a good day. Many people do that anyway when it comes to work, family and leisure activities. Why not do it for your own health as well?
In Rita’s plan I wasn’t given calories, quantities or forbidden foods. Instead, I have a number of guidelines. The most important thing is to eat food that is as unprocessed as possible – food that you could pick, fish or hunt. ‘Made by nature, not by man,’ as someone I met said.
Rita doesn’t just want me to reduce sugar – something that I’ve known I should be doing for a long time – but also to avoid bread and pasta, which get broken down into glucose, or sugar. She wants me to replace these with sweet potato, quinoa and brown rice. She wants me to eat protein-rich foods, often and in large quantities. Four or five times every day, I’m supposed to eat eggs, turkey, mussels, prawns, fish, meat or vegetarian protein. Can I even eat that much protein? I’m supposed to eat lots of leafy greens and vegetables, preferably four times a day. And good fats like olive oil, coconut oil and nuts. All this advice goes into planning four or five meals per day.
Now
