540: What Keeps Chronic Inflammation Turned On, and How to Turn It Off | Josh Redd, NMD

What It Covers

Dr. Josh Redd explains how chronic inflammation drives most disease in America, revealing the top dietary triggers his clinics identify through testing 350 patients daily, plus specific protocols to reduce inflammatory load within thirty days.

Key Questions Answered

• •Top inflammatory foods: Gluten ranks as the worst inflammatory trigger, followed by conventional dairy and sugar. The casein protein in dairy mimics gluten protein structurally, causing immune confusion. Testing shows most autoimmune patients react strongly to these three foods, with removal producing dramatic symptom improvements within weeks.
• •Blood sugar stabilization: Maintaining glucose between 80-130 mg/dL regardless of food intake significantly reduces inflammation and improves quality of life. Continuous glucose monitors reveal most patients experience wild swings from 50-170 mg/dL throughout the day, creating constant inflammatory stress that drives fatigue, brain fog, and chronic pain.
• •Digestive enzyme production: The brain fires signals down the vagus nerve to increase stomach acid and digestive enzymes. When food proteins break down into single amino acids, the immune system cannot react to them. Brain inflammation disrupts this signaling, causing food intolerances that resolve once vagal tone improves and digestion normalizes.
• •Vagus nerve stimulation: Gargling water aggressively for two to three minutes until tears form activates the vagal nuclei, increasing digestive enzyme production, gut motility, and blood flow to the intestinal tract. Coffee enemas stimulate nicotinic receptors in the colon, firing signals back to the frontal cortex with similar anti-inflammatory effects.
• •Inflammation measurement: Beyond C-reactive protein, clinicians track homocysteine, lactate dehydrogenase, uric acid, and ferritin levels to assess inflammatory load. Elevated ferritin specifically indicates inflammation rather than just iron status. Research shows untreated gluten intolerance leads to autoimmune conditions within five years in nearly 100% of cases.