How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease

by Michael Greger

Uric acid may slow the progression of Huntington’s81 and Parkinson’s,82 and, most importantly, may lower the risk of getting Parkinson’s in the first place.83 Too much uric acid, however, can crystallize in your joints and cause a painful disease called gout, so uric acid can be thought of as a double-edged sword.84 Too much uric acid is also associated with heart disease and kidney disease; too little, with Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s, Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, and stroke.

Maybe Parkinson’s—even decades before it was diagnosed—led to constipation. This idea was supported by anecdotal evidence suggesting that throughout their lives, many who would go on to develop Parkinson’s reported never feeling very thirsty and, perhaps, decreased water intake contributed to their constipation.

the longer feces stay in the bowel, the more neurotoxic chemicals in the diet may be absorbed.

How exactly do pesticides increase your risk for Parkinson’s? Scientists think they may cause DNA mutations that increase your susceptibility109 or affect the way certain proteins fold in your brain.

certain phytonutrients called flavonoids—which are found in fruits and vegetables—may have protective effects.

not only did a variety of flavonoids inhibit these proteins from accumulating but they could also break up existing deposits.

If you want to drop your PLOP, eat as low as possible on the food chain.

Doctors excel at treating acute conditions, such as mending broken bones and curing infections, but for chronic diseases, which are the leading causes of death and disability, conventional medicine doesn’t have much to offer and, in fact, can sometimes do more harm than good.

Even using more conservative estimates of deaths due to medical errors, health care comes in as the real third-leading cause of death in America.

Only people on medications are killed by medication errors or the drugs’ side effects, though.

The airplane itself, however, is a different story. Because you’re exposed to more cosmic rays from outer space at higher altitudes, just one round-trip, cross-country flight may subject you to about the same level of radiation as a chest x-ray.31

When people dramatically overestimate how much their prescription pills protect them, they may be less likely to make the dietary changes necessary to dramatically lower their risk.

So, for the general population, by eating plants instead of taking aspirin, individuals may not only get aspirin’s benefits without its risks but also get the benefits—with benefits. People who have had a heart attack should follow their physician’s advice, which probably includes taking aspirin every day. But what about everyone else? I think everyone should take aspirin—but in the form of produce, not a pill.

Chili powder, paprika, and turmeric are rich in the compound, but cumin has the most per serving. Indeed, just one teaspoon of ground cumin may be about the equivalent of a baby aspirin.

Peppermint doesn’t just make your breath smell better; it also helps to reduce the gastrocolic reflex—the urge to defecate following a meal.

For the purposes of this book, I’ve created two simple tools to help you integrate everything I’ve learned into your own daily life: 1. a Traffic Light system to quickly identify the healthiest options, and 2. a Daily Dozen checklist that will help you incorporate the foods that I consider essential to the optimal diet.

At the same time, there are nine so-called shortfall nutrients, of which at least a quarter of the American population isn’t reaching an adequate intake. These are fiber; the minerals calcium, magnesium, and potassium; and vitamins A, C, D, E, and K.

In general, though, choose plant foods over animal foods, and unprocessed over processed. Michael Pollan, bestselling author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, has said, “If it came from a plant, eat it. If it was made in a plant, don’t.”

I like to think of “unprocessed” as nothing bad added, nothing good taken away.

There’s a concept in psychology called “decision fatigue” that marketers use to exploit consumers. It appears humans have a limited capacity to make many decisions in one short stretch of time, and the quality of our decisions will deteriorate to the extent that we eventually begin making downright irrational choices.

So making rules for yourself and sticking to them may help you make more sensible choices over the long run.

ForksOverKnives.com: This site of the wildly popular documentary and book of the same name offers hundreds of recipes. • StraightUpFood.com: Cooking instructor Cathy Fisher shares more than one hundred recipes on this site. • HappyHealthyLongLife.com: This site’s tagline reads: “A [Cleveland Clinic] medical librarian’s adventures in evidence-based living.” She used the e word—I think I’m in love!

If you hate to cook and just want the cheapest, easiest way to make healthy meals, I highly recommend dietitian Jeff Novick’s Fast Food DVD series.

Check out his cooking series at JeffNovick.com/RD/DVDs

21DayKickstart.org.

What a person chooses to do with information is highly personalized and often depends on such factors as his or her current life situation and how risk averse he or she is.

One of their summary cancer-prevention recommendations is to eat whole grains and/or legumes (beans, split peas, chickpeas, or lentils) with every meal.1 Not every week or every day. Every meal!

The bottom line is that there is no direct human data suggesting any harm from eating GMO crops, though such studies haven’t been done (which critics say is exactly the point).

The elevated stomach cancer risk associated with salt intake appears on par with that of smoking or heavy alcohol use but may only be half as bad as opium use22 or a daily serving of meat. A study of nearly a half-million people found that a daily portion of meat (about the size of a deck of cards) was associated with up to five times the odds of stomach cancer.

Miso, however, was not associated with increased cancer risk.27 The carcinogenic effects of the salt may be counteracted by the anticarcinogenic effects of the soy. For example, tofu intake has been associated with about 50 percent less stomach cancer risk28 and salt with about 50 percent more risk,29 which explains how they may effectively cancel each other out. Further protection apparently offered by allium (onion) family vegetables30 may tip the cancer-fighting scale in favor of miso soup that’s garlicky or has some scallions thrown in.

The salt in miso may push up your blood pressure while the soy protein in miso may lower it back down.

Flatulence comes from two places: swallowed air and fermentation in the bowel.

Legume consumption is associated with a slimmer waist and lower blood pressure, and randomized trials have shown it can match or beat out calorie cutting for slimming tummy fat as well as improving the regulation of blood sugar, insulin levels, and cholesterol. Beans are packed with fiber, folate, and phytates, which may help reduce the risk of stroke, depression, and colon cancer. The phytoestrogens in soy in particular appear to both help prevent breast cancer and improve breast cancer survival.

Colorful foods are often healthier because they contain antioxidant pigments, whether it’s the beta-carotene that makes carrots and sweet potatoes orange, the lycopene antioxidant pigment that makes tomatoes red, or the anthocyanin pigments that make blueberries blue. The colors are the antioxidants.

If you like drinking your fruit, blending is better than juicing to preserve nutrition.

Make it count. Don’t waste precious indulgences on crappy food.

Seedless or not, watermelon contains a compound called citrulline that can boost the activity of the enzyme responsible for dilating the blood vessels in the penis that result in erections. A group of Italian researchers found that citrulline supplementation at the level of five servings of red watermelon a day improved erection hardness in men with mild erectile dysfunction, allowing for a 68 percent increase in monthly intercourse frequency.

Eating a dozen dried apple rings a day may drop LDL cholesterol levels 16 percent within three months and 24 percent within six months.17

The component responsible for these benefits is thought to be sulforaphane, which is formed almost exclusively in cruciferous vegetables. This is why they get their own spot on the Daily Dozen. Beyond being a promising anticancer agent,1 sulforaphane may also help protect your brain2 and your eyesight,3 reduce nasal allergy inflammation,4 manage type 2 diabetes,5 and was recently found to successfully help treat autism.

Biting into broccoli is like snapping that chemical flare. When raw broccoli (or any other cruciferous vegetable) is chopped or chewed, the sulforaphane precursor mixes with the myrosinase enzyme and sulforaphane is created as the vegetable sits on the cutting board or lies in your upper stomach waiting to be digested.10 Though the enzyme is destroyed by cooking, both the precursor and the final product are resistant to heat. So here’s the trick: Use what I call the “Hack and Hold” technique (maybe I should call it Whack and Wait?). If you chop the broccoli (or brussels sprouts, kale, collards, cauliflower, or any other cruciferous vegetable) and then wait forty minutes, you can cook it as much as you want.

So, if you don’t have forty minutes to spare between chopping and cooking, or if you’re using frozen greens, just sprinkle the crucifers with some mustard powder before you eat them, and you’ll be all set. Daikon radishes, regular radishes, horseradish, and wasabi are all cruciferous vegetables and may have the same effect. All it appears to take is a pinch to revitalize sulforaphane production.

Horseradish can be made into a sauce, relish, or dressing to score an extra check mark with a kick.

Roasting brings out a nutty, caramelized flavor. I slice raw cauliflower into “steaks,” roast at 400°F for about a half hour, and then smother it in a lemon-tahini sauce.

Kale Chips

Red cabbage averages about one dollar per pound,17 is found at pretty much any grocery store or market, can last weeks in the fridge (though if it does, that means you’re not using it enough!), and has more antioxidants per dollar than anything else you’ll find in the produce aisle.

It would be hard for me to say too many good things about crucifers. These vegetables do wonders for your health, from fighting cancer progression and boosting defenses against pathogens and pollutants to helping protect your brain and vision and more.

Although any energy produced by the chlorophyll would be negligible,16 it turns out that light-activated chlorophyll in your body may help regenerate a critical molecule called coenzyme Q10.17 CoQ10, also known as ubiquinol, is an antioxidant. When ubiquinol extinguishes a free radical, it is oxidized to ubiquinone. To act as an effective antioxidant again, the body must regenerate ubiquinol from ubiquinone. Think of it like an electrical fuse: Ubiquinol can only be used once before having to be reset. That’s where sunlight and chlorophyll may come in.

All along, we’ve been thinking that the main benefit of sunlight was only the formation of vitamin D and that the main benefit of greens was the antioxidants they contain. But now we suspect the combination of the two may actually help the body create and maintain its own internal stock of antioxidants.

Frozen greens are cheaper, last longer, and come prewashed and prechopped.

There’s a phenomenon called flavor-flavor conditioning in which you can change your palate by linking a less pleasant flavor (for instance, sour or bitter) with a more pleasant one (say, sweet).