Dean Toriumi: Anti-inflammatory Diet

Many prominent physicians –including Dr. Barry Sears, Andrew Weil, and “Dr. Oz” – and dozens of books have advocated healthier, anti-inflammatory diets for improved health and weight loss. A few have addressed the connection between diets and allergy. But Dean M. Toriumi, M.D., a noted facial plastic surgeon and Professor of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at UIC, has adapted the antiinflammatory diet trend to his facial plastic surgery patients – with significant results, results that help improve healing and quality of life for many patients post-surgery.

Many Americans consume diets high in pro-inflammatory foods – processed fats and meats, hydrogenated oils, trans fats, and refined grains and sugars. These ingredients can radically affect how we respond to food ingredients that can induce allergic reactions, often instantly. On average, the more inflammatory substances we put into our body, Dr. Toriumi noted, the greater the allergic response. Symptoms - from congestion and sneezing to watery eyes and skin irritation - can result. For Dr. Toriumi, a world-renowned facial plastic surgeon, the effects of inflammation on his patients’ nasal symptoms, especially among those recovering from surgery, were of particular concern. Nasal congestion, breathing difficulties, and related inflammation problems can be amplified in surgical patients, causing significant discomfort and slowing recovery –an important factor for patient outcomes.

So Dr. Toriumi began prescribing his anti-inflammatory diet – developed over many years and has some similarities to the Sears “Zone Diet” and the proven Mediterranean diet – to surgical patients. “Some facial plastic surgery patients have expectations about how quickly they’ll get the look they’re seeking from surgery,” he noted. “While some patients clearly have unrealistic expectations that everything will look great instantaneously, clearly diet can make a difference, expediting people’s recovery by contributing to a reduction of swelling,” he noted.

Dr. Toriumi’s clinical studies found that the diet, when adhered to in a highly disciplined way, contributed to many patients’ health and recovery. He would prescribe his diet – including a lot of leafy green and vegetables, minimal animal fat (unless it’s from grass-fed animals who don’t consume a lot of corn – corn ingested either directly through their body or through an animal that ate corn is highly inflammatory, he noted), green tea, and olive/fish oils – to patients for three months and asked them to record their symptoms. “Among those who were really disciplined and committed to the diet, the results were astounding,” Dr. Toriumi noted. “Regardless of their nasal problem before the antiinflammatory diet – congestion, swelling, breathing difficulties, etc. – the symptoms were significantly reduced and quality of life improved demonstrably with the diet,” he said.

Patients felt better, noticed speedier recovery from surgery, and were better able based on the symptoms they had to understand and gauge those foods that particularly contributed to their allergic conditions. From there, Dr. Toriumi noted, they were better able to dictate and control their own intake of the most inflammatory foods to help manage their diet and allergies going forward, he said. And there were other benefits – aside from the weight loss that typically occurs when people adopt an antiinflammatory diet: patients needed fewer or no medications to manage their allergies. “Because the body through food and nutrition is naturally preventing allergic reactions, many patients don’t need any more pharmaceuticals to do the job for them,” Dr. Toriumi said.

His focus on nasal symptoms, diet, and how it these relate to surgical patients applies to patients both pre- and post-surgery, even years after their initial surgery. In short, with the right diet, anything inflammatory gets better. This is the case for any allergy, he added, whether food-based or not. “It all has to do with the body’s response to the allergen and its connection to anti-inflammatory agents,” he noted.

As a facial plastic surgeon, Dr. Toriumi’s work is unique among the tomes of diet books and TV shows we see today. “It is a bit out of left field for a surgeon to look into these issues, but it feeds well into my practice and patients,” he noted.

“Most patients really want to take care of themselves and be in control of their health. Particularly among surgical patients, who tend to be well educated and sophisticated – not to mention very much in tune with any nasal symptom that gets in the way of their recovery and outcomes, this is right up their alley,” Dr. Toriumi noted.