Written by David Roberts, MPH, Co-founder, Mara Labs
Movement, eating a Mediterranean-style diet, protecting your sleep, caring for your gums, and not smoking all contribute to reduced inflammation. Exercise and diet carry the strongest trial evidence. Several popular practices carry much less.
Key Takeaways
- ✓Exercise has the strongest trial evidence
- ✓Mediterranean-style eating reduced CRP in trials
- ✓Poor sleep is associated with higher inflammation markers
- ✓Fiber showed no CRP effect
- ✓Pick one or two, wait three months, then decide if it helped
Inflammation is not one thing you can feel, and it is not one number.
What researchers measure are markers in your blood, most often C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and TNF-alpha. Those markers respond to how you live, and some practices move them more reliably than others.
Everything in the table below is free or nearly free, but they are not equally supported, so pick the habits that have the most weight behind them.
How do I reduce inflammation through food and lifestyle?
Start with the five practices that have real trial support behind them, and treat the rest as optional.
| Practice | What to do | What the research found | Evidence |
| Move your body | Any regular aerobic or resistance training | CRP fell across 83 trials in 3,769 people [1] | Strongest |
| Eat Mediterranean-style | Vegetables, legumes, fish, olive oil as the main fat | CRP fell across 15 trials in 2,477 adults [2] | Strong, mixed quality |
| Protect your sleep | Consistent timing, treat insomnia as a real problem | Poor sleep is associated with higher CRP and IL-6 [3] | Observational |
| Care for your gums | Daily brushing and flossing, keep dental visits | Treating gum infection reduced CRP by 0.37 mg/L [4] | Strong, modest size |
| Stop smoking | Any quit attempt, including partial reduction | CRP declines after quitting but stays elevated for years [5] | Observational |
| Stress practices | Meditation, breathing, time outdoors | Inconsistent across trials, mostly not replicated [6] | Weak |
| Add more fiber | More beans, oats, vegetables | No CRP effect in the strongest review [7] | Null for CRP |
Four of those seven are free. Dental visits cost money, though brushing and flossing do not.
Which practices have the strongest evidence?
Exercise, by a clear margin, carries the strongest evidence for reduced inflammation, and the detail that matters is what happens when you do not lose weight.
A review of 83 controlled trials covering 3,769 people found CRP fell after exercise training, with a mean effect size of 0.26. [1]
The effect was larger in people whose BMI dropped, at 0.38. In people whose BMI did not drop it was still there, at 0.19. [1]
That is the useful finding. The training appears to do something to inflammatory markers that is not simply a consequence of losing weight.
Diet comes next. A 2025 review of 15 randomized trials in 2,477 adults found that a Mediterranean pattern supplemented with olive oil reduced CRP. [2]
Two honest caveats on that one. The trials disagreed with each other a great deal, and the interleukin-6 result was too unstable to rely on. [2]
Gum care is the quiet entry on the list. Across 20 randomized trials in 2,561 patients, treating gum infection reduced CRP by 0.37 mg/L against untreated controls. [4]
The authors call that a modest, short-term reduction, and the trials tested professional treatment rather than brushing. Daily care is the free version of the same idea.
Where is the evidence weaker than you would expect?
Surprisingly, some interventions show less impact than we'd expect, and knowing where can help you spend your effort on something that really works.
Sleep: Across 31 samples and nearly 35,000 people, poor sleep quality tracks with higher CRP, and across 29 samples it tracked with higher IL-6. [3]
TNF-alpha showed no association, and experimental sleep deprivation studies produced no significant change in any of the three markers. [3]
So this is a consistent association rather than a demonstrated cause. Sleep is still worth protecting. The inflammation case for it is weaker than the headlines suggest.
Stress practices are weaker again. A systematic review of 20 randomized trials in 1,602 people found only one of six CRP studies reported a significant reduction. [6]
The IL-6 and TNF-alpha findings were not replicated, and the authors explicitly caution against exaggerating the immune effects of meditation. [6]
Fiber is the surprise. An umbrella review covering 52 meta-analyses and 47,197 subjects found no significant effect of fiber on CRP. [7]
TNF-alpha did fall in that analysis. Fiber has plenty of other things going for it. A reliable reduction in CRP is not one of them.
How do you start, and when should you judge it?
Pick one or two items off the table each week, and give the whole thing three months before you decide whether it did anything.
Both halves of that matter. One or two at a time is how a change survives past February, and trying all seven in one week is how none of them stick.
Three months is the fairer test. The trials behind these findings ran for weeks and months, and not one of these practices produces a next-day result you could notice.
You also will not feel your CRP change. What you may notice is sleep, energy, joint comfort and recovery, which is a reasonable proxy and the only one available without bloodwork.
If you do have labs drawn, ask for a baseline before you start rather than after. A single reading tells you very little without something to compare it against.
Where do cruciferous vegetables fit?
In the food column, with a mechanism that works differently from the rest of the list.
Broccoli, cabbage, kale and Brussels sprouts contain compounds that are converted into sulforaphane.
In a Japanese cohort of 88,184 adults followed for a median of 16.9 years, higher cruciferous vegetable intake was associated with reduced all-cause mortality. [8]
Sulforaphane does not neutralize anything directly. It activates Nrf2, the transcription factor that switches on your cells' own defensive and antioxidant genes. [9]
That makes it an indirect route rather than a direct one, which is a real distinction and its own subject.
For the purposes of this list, cruciferous vegetables are a cheap addition to the Mediterranean-style row rather than a separate practice.
Frequently asked questions
What is the single best free way to reduce inflammation?
Regular physical activity has the strongest trial evidence. A review of 83 controlled trials found CRP fell after exercise training, and the effect persisted in people who did not lose weight. No specific type or duration has been shown to be the best one, so the version you will keep doing is the right version.
How long does it take to reduce inflammation through diet and lifestyle?
Plan on three months before judging. The trials that found effects ran for weeks to months rather than days. You will not perceive a change in your inflammatory markers directly, so judge by sleep, energy, joint comfort and recovery instead, and get a baseline lab reading first if you intend to track it.
Does fiber reduce inflammation?
Not by the CRP measure. An umbrella review of 52 meta-analyses covering 47,197 subjects found no significant effect of dietary fiber on CRP, though TNF-alpha did fall. Fiber remains worth eating for other reasons. It is not a dependable lever for this particular marker.
Does meditation reduce inflammation?
The evidence is thin. In a systematic review of 20 randomized trials, only one of six studies measuring CRP found a significant reduction, and the IL-6 and TNF-alpha results were not replicated. The review authors caution directly against overstating meditation's effects on immune function. It may help you in other ways.
Can gum health affect inflammation elsewhere in the body?
There is randomized evidence that it can. Across 20 trials in 2,561 patients, treating gum infection produced a modest reduction in systemic CRP compared with no treatment. The trials tested professional care rather than home brushing, so the free version is not what was measured, but daily cleaning addresses the same underlying problem.
Sources
[1] Fedewa, M.V., Hathaway, E.D., Ward-Ritacco, C.L. "Effect of Exercise Training on C Reactive Protein: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomised and Non-Randomised Controlled Trials." British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2017;51(8):670-676.
https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2016-095999
[2] Dadkhah Tehrani, S., Ramezani Ahmadi, A., Sadeghi, N., Keshani, M. "The Effects of the Mediterranean Diet Supplemented with Olive Oils on Pro-Inflammatory Biomarkers and Soluble Adhesion Molecules: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials." Nutrition & Metabolism, 2025;22:52. The authors declare no competing interests and no funding.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12986-025-00947-8
[3] Irwin, M.R., Olmstead, R., Carroll, J.E. "Sleep Disturbance, Sleep Duration, and Inflammation: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Cohort Studies and Experimental Sleep Deprivation." Biological Psychiatry, 2016;80(1):40-52. The authors report no conflicts of interest.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2015.05.014
[4] Demmer, R.T., Trinquart, L., Zuk, A., Fu, B.C., Blomkvist, J., Michalowicz, B.S., Ravaud, P., Desvarieux, M. "The Influence of Anti-Infective Periodontal Treatment on C-Reactive Protein: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials." PLoS ONE, 2013;8(10):e77441.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0077441
[5] Hastie, C.E., Haw, S., Pell, J.P. "Impact of Smoking Cessation and Lifetime Exposure on C-Reactive Protein." Nicotine & Tobacco Research, 2008;10(4):637-642. Cross-sectional analysis of 4,072 adults.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14622200801978722
[6] Black, D.S., Slavich, G.M. "Mindfulness Meditation and the Immune System: A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials." Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2016;1373(1):13-24. A narrative systematic review without pooled effect estimates. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.12998
[7] Fu, L., Zhang, G., Qian, S., Zhang, Q., Tan, M. "Associations Between Dietary Fiber Intake and Cardiovascular Risk Factors: An Umbrella Review of Meta-Analyses of Randomized Controlled Trials." Frontiers in Nutrition, 2022;9.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2022.972399
[8] Mori, N., Shimazu, T., Charvat, H., et al. "Cruciferous Vegetable Intake and Mortality in Middle-Aged Adults: A Prospective Cohort Study." Clinical Nutrition, 2019;38(2):631-643.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clnu.2018.04.012
[9] Alves, I., Araújo, E.M.Q., Dalgaard, L.T., Singh, S., Børsheim, E., Carvalho, E. "Protective Effects of Sulforaphane Preventing Inflammation and Oxidative Stress to Enhance Metabolic Health: A Narrative Review." Nutrients, 2025;17(3):428. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
https://doi.org/10.3390/nu17030428
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