Anti-inflammatory Diet

An anti-inflammatory diet is a dietary pattern characterized by high intake of foods and nutrients that attenuate systemic and low-grade chronic inflammation — including vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, extra-virgin olive oil, fatty fish, herbs, spices, and polyphenol-rich beverages — and correspondingly low intake of pro-inflammatory items such as ultra-processed foods, refined carbohydrates, added sugars, industrial seed oils, processed and red meats, and excessive alcohol. Its anti-inflammatory potential is typically quantified using indices such as the Dietary Inflammatory Index (DII) and Empirical Dietary Inflammatory Pattern (EDIP), with Mediterranean, DASH, MIND, and traditional plant-forward patterns consistently scoring as anti-inflammatory.

Within nutritional psychology, anti-inflammatory diets are of interest for their bidirectional relevance to mental health: chronic low-grade inflammation is implicated in the pathophysiology of depression, anxiety, cognitive decline, fatigue, and neurodegenerative disease, and adherence to anti-inflammatory eating patterns has been associated with lower risk of depressive symptoms, improved mood and cognition, and reduced fatigue and disability in inflammation-linked conditions such as multiple sclerosis. Proposed mechanisms include modulation of the microbiota–gut–brain axis, reduced neuroinflammation and oxidative stress, enhanced production of short-chain fatty acids and omega-3–derived specialized pro-resolving mediators, and downstream effects on HPA-axis regulation, neuroplasticity, and mood-relevant neurotransmission.