“There is no shortage of ginger and cinnamon in my pantry”

Ginger is an indispensable part of your kitchenGetty Images

The Dr. Carla Méndez Losi She overcame breast cancer when she was only 30 years old, but she didn’t stick with conventional treatment. At that time, the doctor in molecular biology and specialist in epigenetics and microbiota had already changed his diet to a less processed one, reducing the consumption of meat, dairy products or sugars. “The toxicity of the treatment was so high that “My body could not tolerate it and it caused me a lot of chronic pain.”he acknowledges in an interview with Uppers.

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Then he began an even more radical change in his diet, basing it 100% “in plants with different strategiessuch as including vegetable juices or eating more raw fruits and vegetables, thus I managed to reduce my joint pain in the first ten days by 80%.”

Throughout the six years since this change to a 100% plant-based diet began “I have said goodbye to more than 35 chronic symptomsI have recovered my bone density and my fingerprints, I eliminated everything that had to do with intestinal dysbiosis and leaky gut and I have recovered my energy, my sleep and the insomnia has disappeared.”

After years of testing this new anti-inflammatory diet model that allows you to say goodbye to pain, he has put all his knowledge into the book ‘Say goodbye to pain’ (Zenith) in which he gives the keys to a successful combination of nutrition and medication to live with as little pain as possible.

Dr. Carla Méndez Losi, author of ‘Say goodbye to pain’Carlos Ruiz BK

Why is it important to know what type of pain you have?

Because if we do not know what type of pain we have, we do not know what strategy we have to apply. There are basically three types of pain. The nociplastic is our interpretation of reality; nociceptive is when we have damage to a tissue; and the neurological type is when we have damage to a neuron. When we know where this damage comes from, we can know what may be affecting the neuron, what may be affecting our tissues, and what may be affecting our interpretation of reality. Therefore, if we have nociplastic pain, we have to put much more emphasis on working on the emotional part. If we have nociceptive pain, for example, we have to evaluate if there are infections, burns or blows or traumas that are causing that problem.

What is your proposal for a plant-based anti-inflammatory diet based on?

It involves eliminating most of the processed products you eat and including a large amount of anti-inflammatory products of plant origin. Among them we have green leaves, fruit, mushrooms, seeds, nuts and, of course, other types of foods such as tubers, roots, whole grain cereals or legumes.

Can it be combined with pharmacological treatment?

Of course. We do not have to stop taking medication, which can always work for us to overcome the crises we have. When people make a diet change, they notice that they need fewer doses of their drug and begin to see that the treatment even begins to work better. When the body works better, these doses of anti-inflammatory medications begin to be reduced so that eventually, with the help of their doctor, they can stop taking the medication as they no longer need it.

Would it be the same for someone with cancer as it is for a person with arthritis or irritable bowel? Or are there differences?

It’s complicated, there are different variables. For people who have a lot of inflammation, whether due to arthritis, leaky gut, or because there are people with cancer who have arthritis or leaky gut, there are different levels of nutrition. In some we have to eliminate processed foods and include more plant products, while there are also levels where we have to do detoxification protocols where our body eliminates many more toxins and we can overcome inflammation, infections or toxins that we have in the body. In that sense, you can have cancer or you can have arthritis or you can have irritable bowel and apply many strategies that are similar.

What effects does it have on the body?

When we start eating more fruit and raw vegetables we hydrate ourselves much better. Therefore, our lymphatic system is activated, the brain works better and we can eliminate more toxins. When we eat more natural, unprocessed carbohydrates through fruit, root vegetables, whole grain cereals or legumes, our microbiota starts to work. And a well-nourished microbiota makes our immune system much calmer and reduces all inflammation and pain in the body. This has implications for improving sleep, energy during the day, stopping hair from falling out, or correcting it for people who have hypothyroidism.

What is the first change that should be made in your diet?

The first change I always say is to leave processed foods. Give up flour, give up sugars, oils, processed and red meats and dairy products. That is a first change. The second would be to include more vegetables and fruit to have many more anti-inflammatory components.

What product is never missing from your pantry?

My pantry is quite spacious. Always there are different types of pantry: the frozen one, the refrigerator one and the dry one. If I told you something that never fails in mine, I would always have ginger, turmeric and cinnamon because they are anti-inflammatory enhancers of all the other fruits and vegetables that we are eating. Regarding what product will never enter my pantry, neither flours, nor sugars, nor oils, nor any type of animal product. For me, those are red lines because I have identified that they generate inflammation in my body.

Does the way you cook vegetables have to do with obtaining their benefits?

The more we cook vegetables, the more we can lose their benefits both in terms of vitamins and enzymes. For example, vitamin C. Just cooking broccoli or spinach causes vitamin C to reduce between 50 and 60% with heat. If we eat few raw vegetables and little fruit, vitamin C can be very low in the diet. Something similar happens with the enzymes that help us digest the food itself and are inactivated when we exceed 45 degrees of cooking. That is why I recommend that you combine well the proportion that we make of raw foods and that they are cooked.

What would be the ideal?

In terms of cooking, I always recommend steaming, perhaps sautéing without oil, and if we make stews, they should be cooked by boiling at less than 100 degrees Celsius.

More and more people have back, bone and muscle pain. Is an anti-inflammatory diet also good in these cases?

Of course. When we have an inflamed and dehydrated body that does not move or is stressed, there will be many types of back muscle or bone pain. In these cases, it must be fed enough so that it has enough nutrients to carry out its recovery and cellular repair processes. Once we are there, we must always keep in mind that we must implement habits (of movement, connection with the earth, sunbathing, knowing how to breathe, or knowing how to connect with our emotions). It’s all part of that global strategy of people who want to say goodbye to pain.