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May 9 - May 12, 2023
In general, the dividing line between health-promoting and disease-promoting foods may be less plant- versus animal-sourced foods and more whole plant foods versus most everything else.
“realized reimbursement is a much more powerful determinant of medical practice than research.”
For example, dripping green tea on colon, esophageal, or prostate cancer cells has been shown to reactivate genes silenced by the cancer.
Amazingly, compared to the control group who ate no nuts at all, just a single serving of four Brazil nuts almost immediately improved cholesterol levels. LDL—the “bad”—cholesterol levels were a staggering twenty points lower just nine hours after eating the Brazil nuts.51 Even drugs don’t work nearly that fast.52 Here’s
Brazil nuts are so high in the mineral selenium that eating four every day may actually bump you up against the tolerable daily limit for selenium.
Researchers rounded up a group of longtime smokers and asked them to consume twenty-five times more broccoli than the average American—in other words, a single stalk a day. Compared to broccoli-avoiding smokers, the broccoli-eating smokers suffered 41 percent fewer DNA mutations in their bloodstream over ten days.
What the kale did do was substantially lower their bad (LDL) cholesterol and boost their good (HDL) cholesterol10 as much as running three hundred miles.
It apparently doesn’t take much fiber to cut stroke risk. Increasing fiber intake by just seven grams a day may be associated with a 7 percent risk reduction.
The healthiest common whole-food sources are probably greens, beans, and sweet potatoes.28
recent study of 150,000 Americans was able to examine the issue more thoroughly. Higher stroke rates were found among individuals sleeping six hours or less, or nine hours or more.
suggests that free radical damage to your cells’ power source, known as mitochondria, leads to a loss of cellular energy and function over time.
The food category that averages the most antioxidants is herbs and spices.
How about a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast? By adding just a half-teaspoon of cinnamon, you could bring the antioxidant power of your meal from 20 units to 120 units.
This dietary concept may be surprising, because most of the popular press today treats Alzheimer’s as a genetic disease. They say it’s your genes, rather than your lifestyle choices, that determine whether or not you’ll succumb.
The balance of evidence suggests that the answer lies in the American diet.
Research shows that although you might have been dealt some poor genetic cards, you may be able to reshuffle the deck with diet.
Harvard Women’s Health Study, which found that higher saturated fat intake (sourced predominantly from dairy, meat, and processed foods) was associated with a significantly worse trajectory of cognition and memory. Women
Whole plant foods contain thousands of compounds with antioxidant properties,114 some of which can traverse the blood-brain barrier and may provide neuroprotective effects115 by defending against free radicals (see here)—that is, protecting against the “rusting” of the brain.
Beyond their antioxidant activity, polyphenols have been shown to protect nerve cells in vitro by inhibiting the formation of the plaques125and tangles126 that characterize Alzheimer’s brain pathology.
Yes, cooking methods matter. A baked apple has three times more AGEs than a raw apple,
India’s gross domestic product (GDP) is about eight times less than that of the United States,11 and about 20 percent of its population lives below the poverty line,12 yet cancer rates in India are much lower than in the United States.
The regular use of the spice turmeric in Indian cooking has been proposed as one possible explanation.
Six months of curcumin, along with another phytonutrient called quercetin, which is found naturally in such fruits and vegetables as red onions and grapes, were found to decrease the number and size of polyps by more than half in patients with a hereditary form of colorectal cancer.
The bigger and more frequent your bowel movements are, the healthier you may be.
People don’t realize you can have daily bowel movements and still effectively be constipated; what you’re flushing today you may have eaten last week.
other words, in all whole grains, beans, nuts, and seeds. Phytates have been shown to detoxify excess iron in the body, which otherwise can generate a particularly harmful kind of free radical called hydroxyl radicals.36
so your colon cancer risk may be determined by your meat-to-vegetable ratio.
found that those who increased their bean consumption by even less than one-quarter cup a day appeared to cut their odds of precancerous colorectal polyp recurrence by up to 65 percent.47 Of
Because iron can generate cancer-causing free radicals by acting as a pro-oxidant,67 iron can be considered a double-edged sword—too little of it and you risk anemia, too much and you may increase risk of cancer and heart disease.
Studies have found that people randomized to give regular blood donations to reduce their iron stores appear to cut their risk of getting and dying from new gut cancers by about half over a five-year period.73
Only 3 percent of Americans may even reach the recommended minimum daily intake of fiber, making it one of the most widespread nutrient deficiencies in the United States.131
For your whole life up until that point, the B cell in your body that produces antibodies against duck-billed platypus venom was just hanging around, twiddling its thumbs, until that very moment.
For instance, the researchers found that having phytonutrient levels in the bloodstream achieved by eating three apples a day or a tablespoon of red onion appeared to cut dioxin toxicity in half.
The only catch was that these phytonutrient effects lasted only a few hours, meaning you may have to keep eating healthy foods, meal after meal, if you want to maintain your defenses against pathogens as well as pollutants.35
Even if you just had a garlic enema, you’d still get garlic breath.
In one study, researchers asked athletes to eat about a cup and a half of blueberries every day for six weeks to see if the berries could reduce the oxidative stress caused by long-distance running.42 The blueberries succeeded, unsurprisingly,
But the athletes consuming blueberries actually doubled their killer cell counts, to more than four billion.
But after researchers effectively sprinkled on some cardamom, the natural killer cells became supercharged and eradicated even more cancer cells—up to about ten times more than without cardamom.
Babies delivered via cesarean section appear to be at increased risk for various allergic diseases, including allergic runny nose, asthma, and perhaps even food allergies.
The study showed that people who take probiotic supplements may indeed have significantly fewer colds, fewer sick days, and fewer overall symptoms.
What do your friendly flora eat? Fiber and a certain type of starch concentrated in beans. These substances are called prebiotics. Probiotics
When you make sauerkraut, for example, you don’t need to add a starter culture, because the bacteria are already naturally present on cabbage leaves.
While regular physical activity improves immune function and lowers respiratory infection risk, sustained and intense exertion may have the opposite effect. As you go from inactive to active, infection risk declines, but at a certain point, overtraining and excessive stress can increase the risk of infection by impairing immune function.
Thankfully, a number of foods may help maintain your immunity to keep the germs at bay. First up is chlorella, a single-celled, freshwater, green algae typically sold as a powder or compressed into tablets.
Another option for athletes who want to sustain their immune function is nutritional yeast.
this study revealed that a little nutritional yeast may improve a wide range of emotional states,
a result, we now have direct proof that bladder infections can be a zoonosis—an animal-to-human disease.
Many population studies have shown that people who eat significant amounts of legumes (e.g., beans, split peas, chickpeas, and lentils) tend to weigh less. They also have slimmer waists, less obesity, and lower blood pressure compared to people who don’t eat many legumes.47 But couldn’t these benefits be due not to the legumes themselves but to the fact that people who eat more legumes may eat a healthier diet in general?
The first group was asked to eat five cups a week of lentils, chickpeas, split peas, or navy beans—but not to change their diets in any other way. The second group was asked to simply cut out five hundred calories a day from their diets. Guess who got healthier? The group directed to eat more food.
Of course, just as everyone who smokes doesn’t develop lung cancer, everyone who eats excessive saturated fat doesn’t develop diabetes. There is a genetic component. But for those who already have a genetic predisposition, a diet with too many calories and rich in saturated fat is considered a cause of type 2 diabetes.56
