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

by Michael Greger

Researchers concluded: “This argues strongly for the need to include high antioxidant foods in each and every meal in order to prevent this redox [free-radical versus antioxidant] imbalance.”

I still encourage Ceylon cinnamon consumption, given that it is one of the cheapest common food sources of antioxidants, second only to purple cabbage.

I am sufficiently convinced by the available body of evidence to single turmeric out as something everyone should add to his or her daily diet.

profession has a history of dismissing diseases as existing “just in your head.” Examples of these include post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), ulcerative colitis, migraines,

The reason people may feel better on a gluten-free diet—and therefore conclude they have a problem with gluten—is because they’ve suddenly stopped eating so much fast food and other processed junk.

As with vegetables, use color to make decisions at the grocery store. If you have a choice, pick red quinoa over white quinoa, blue corn over yellow, and yellow corn over white.

Beyond just comparing antioxidant content, there’s experimental evidence to suggest that pigmented rice—red, purple, or black—has benefits over brown.

Improved production technologies have created a new generation of whole-grain pastas that no longer have the rough and mealy texture of yesteryear. My favorite brand is Bionaturae because of its deliciously nutty taste—try

If you buy packaged grain products, anything labeled on the front with words like “multigrain,” “stone-ground,” “100% wheat,” “cracked wheat,” “seven-grain,” or “bran” is usually not a whole-grain product. They’re trying to distract you from the fact that they’re using refined grains. Here, color may not help. Ingredients like “raisin juice concentrate” are used to darken white bread to make it look healthier. Even if the first word in the ingredients list is “whole,” the rest of the ingredients could be junk.

suggest using the Five-to-One Rule. When buying healthier, whole-grain products, look at the Nutrition Facts label on the package and see if the ratio of grams of carbohydrates to grams of dietary fiber is five or less

Ezekiel bread, a sprouted-grain bread based on a biblical verse. It has 15 grams of carbohydrates and 3 grams of fiber, and, just like that, passes the test. So do Ezekiel english muffins, which taste great with fruit-only jam and nut butter.

Apply the same Five-to-One Rule to breakfast cereals, another grocery category that can lull you into believing nearly everything is healthy.

Compare that with Uncle Sam cereal, sliding in with a ratio under 4. Others that make the cut include some no-added-sugar puffed-grain cereals like puffed barley, but the healthiest whole grains are the least processed, the so-called intact grains.

Even though wheat berries, shredded wheat, whole-wheat flour, and puffed-wheat cereal may all be 100 percent whole wheat, they are handled by the body very differently. When grains are ground into flour or puffed, they are digested more rapidly and more completely. This increases their glycemic index and leaves fewer leftovers for the friendly flora down in your colon.

There is so much more left over for your gut flora to eat when you eat your grains intact. Few people realize that the bulk of stool is not undigested food but pure bacteria—trillions and trillions of bacteria.

to fight chronic disease risk all day long. Beverages Dr. Greger’s Favorite Beverages Black tea, chai tea, vanilla chamomile tea, coffee, earl grey tea, green tea, hibiscus tea, hot chocolate, jasmine tea, lemon balm tea, matcha tea, almond blossom oolong tea, peppermint tea, rooibos tea, water, and white tea Serving Size: One glass (12 ounces) Daily Recommendation: 5 servings per day There are plenty of dietary guidelines for eating, but what about for drinking? The Beverage Guidance Panel was assembled to provide “recommendations on the relative health and nutritional benefits and risks of various beverage categories.” The panel included such heavyweights as Dr. Walter Willett, chair of the nutrition department

13.) Tea and coffee—preferably without creamer or sweetener—tied as the number-two healthiest beverages, second only to water, the top-ranked drink.1 Water More than two thousand years ago, Hippocrates said, “If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health.”2 Water is the healthiest beverage to drink—but how much is too little, and how much is too much? Water has been described as a “neglected, unappreciated and under researched”

Coffee,16 tea,17 and beer can leave you with more water than you started with, but wine actively dehydrates you.

Your hydration status may also affect your mood. Restriction of fluid intake has been shown to increase sleepiness and fatigue, lower levels of vigor and alertness, and increase feelings of confusion.

Interestingly enough, cold water gets sucked in about 20 percent faster than body-temperature water.

In addition to making water more interesting, carbonation may also help relieve gastrointestinal symptoms. A randomized trial of the effects of sparkling versus still water found that drinking carbonated water may improve symptoms of constipation and dyspepsia, including bloating and nausea.

However, when a study looked at people under the age of fifty-five, the opposite effect was found: Drinking more than six cups of coffee daily was found to increase the risk of death. “Hence,” the researchers concluded, “it may be appropriate to recommend that younger people, in particular, avoid heavy coffee consumption (less than 28 cups per week or less than 4 cups in a typical day).”

Coffee is not for everyone. For example, be careful if you have gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). While a population study found no link between coffee consumption and subjective symptoms of GERD, such as heartburn and regurgitation,33 scientists who actually stuck tubes down people’s throats to measure their pH found that coffee does seem to induce significant acid reflux, whereas tea does not. Caffeine does not appear to be the culprit, since caffeinated water doesn’t cause a problem. However, the coffee decaffeination process seems to reduce the level of whichever compounds are responsible, since decaf coffee appeared to cause less reflux. The researchers advised that people who suffer from GERD should consider switching to decaf or—even better—drink tea instead.34

If you don’t have optimal cholesterol levels, you should consider sticking to filtered coffee or using instant coffee, which also lacks these compounds.

I cannot recommend drinking coffee, though. Why? Because every cup of coffee is a lost opportunity to drink a potentially even healthier beverage—a cup of green tea.

Black, green, and white teas are all made from the leaves of the same evergreen shrub. Herbal tea, on the other hand, involves pouring hot water over any plant in the world other than the tea plant.

Both white and green teas are less processed than black tea and are probably preferable.

Cold-steeping is a popular way to prepare tea in Taiwan, especially during the summer months. Cold-steeped tea is not like conventional iced tea, in which you brew your tea hot and then cool it down. Rather, cold-steeping involves tossing the tea in cold water and letting it sit at room temperature or in the fridge for at least two hours. This method has been found to reduce the caffeine content and is said to reduce bitterness and improve the aroma.

You don’t have to care how much nutrition is extracted from tea leaves, though, if you simply eat them. Matcha is powdered green tea, produced by milling whole tea leaves into a fine powder that can be added straight to water. Why waste nutrition by dumping a tea bag when you’re done, when you can drink the leaves instead?

There is one tea beverage I’d stay away from, though. Based on a few cases of serious, life-threatening outcomes linked to kombucha tea, a type of fermented tea, the consumption of kombucha “should be discouraged,” according to one case report of a person who ended up in a coma after drinking the stuff.

The only two concentrated, green-light sweeteners may be blackstrap molasses and date sugar.

Drink five glasses of water a day, be they plain tap water or flavored with fruit, tea leaves, or herbs. Keeping hydrated may elevate your mood (and vigor!), improve your thinking, and even help cut your risk for heart disease, bladder cancer, and other diseases.

of sleep, among many other benefits. If the U.S. population collectively exercised enough to shave just 1 percent off the national body mass index (BMI), 2 million cases of diabetes, 1.5 million cases of heart disease,

Based on a study of about nine thousand adults followed for seven years, researchers calculated that every additional hour spent watching TV per day may be associated with an 11 percent increased risk of death.

In other words, people who religiously hit the gym after work may still have shortened life spans if they are otherwise sitting throughout the day. Sitting for six or more hours a day appears to increase mortality rates even among people who run or swim for an hour a day, every day, seven days a week.

Whether you’re at the office, reading the newspaper at home, or, yes, even watching TV, why not find a way to stand while doing it? In fact, most of this book was written while I was walking fifteen miles a day on a treadmill underneath my standing desk. Prebuilt treadmill desks are expensive, but thrift stores are often awash with old exercise equipment. My treadmill “desk” is just a treadmill stuck under some cheap plastic shelving.

Muscle biopsies of athletes have confirmed that eating blueberries, for example, can significantly reduce exercise-induced inflammation.

The muscle-soothing effects of berries don’t only work for weight lifters; follow-up studies have shown that cherries can also help reduce muscle pain in long-distance runners36 and aid in recovery from marathons.37 Eating two cups of watermelon prior to intense physical activity was also found to significantly reduce muscle soreness. The researchers concluded that functional compounds in fruits and vegetables can “play

oxidative stress.”44 Whether it’s about training longer or living longer, the science seems clear. Your quality and quantity of life improves when you choose green-light foods. How Much Should You Exercise? The current official physical activity guidelines recommend adults get at least 150 minutes a week of moderate aerobic exercise, which comes out to a little more than 20 minutes a day.45 That’s actually down from previous recommendations from the surgeon general,46 the CDC, and the American College of Sports Medicine,47 which recommended at least 30 minutes each day. The exercise authorities seem to have fallen into the same trap as the nutrition authorities, recommending what they think may be achievable, rather than simply informing you what the science says and letting you make up your own mind. They already emphasize that any physical

for 150 minutes appears to reduce your overall mortality rate by 7 percent compared to being sedentary. Walking for only 60 minutes a week only drops your mortality rate about 3 percent. But walking 300 minutes a week drops overall mortality by 14 percent.49 So

than 90 minutes? Unfortunately, so few people exercise that much every day that there weren’t enough studies to compile a higher category. If we know 90 minutes of exercise a day is better than 60 minutes is better than 30 minutes, why is the recommendation only 20 minutes? I understand that only about half of Americans even make the recommended 20 minutes a day,53 so the authorities are just hoping

to nudge people in the right direction. It’s like the dietary guidelines advising us to “eat less candy.”

That’s what I’ve tried to do in this book. Conclusion My friend Art was one of those guys you just wanted to be around. Successful, generou...

the run. An avid snowboarder and mountain biker, Art ate a whole-food, plant-based diet for more than

may be the reason you’re more likely to supersize soda than sweet potatoes or why you’re unlikely to eat too much corn on the cob but can’t seem to get enough

disease?” (You know, the most likely cause of death for you and everyone you love?) If it hasn’t, why would you even consider it? If that’s all a whole-food, plant-based diet could do—reverse our number-one killer—then shouldn’t that be the default diet until proven otherwise? And the fact that it can also be effective in preventing, treating, and arresting other leading killers would seem to make the case for eating this way overwhelming. Please give it a try. It could save your life. * * * How Not to Die may seem to you a strange title for a book. After all, everyone is going to die eventually. It’s about how not to die prematurely. If there is one takeaway message, it’s that you have tremendous power over your health destiny. The vast majority of premature deaths can be prevented with simple changes in what you eat and how you live. In other words, a long and healthy life is largely a matter of choice. In 2015, Dr. Kim Williams

There are many thanks I’d like to express: to my cowriters and editors, Gene, Jennifer, Miranda, Miyun, Nick, and Whitney, who helped turn my bite-sized chunks of science into a coherent, four-course narrative meal; to my fact-checkers, Alissa, Allison, Frances, Helena, Martin, Michelle, Seth, Stephanie, and Valerie; and to all the NutritionFacts.org volunteers who helped with the book: Brad, Cassie, Emily, Giang, Jerold, Kari, Kimberley, Laura, Lauren, Luis, Tracy, and especially Jennifer—no

2,000 mcg (µg) Vitamin B12 (Cyanocobalamin) at Least Once a Week

For adults under age sixty-five, the easiest way to get B12 is to take at least one 2,000 mcg supplement each week. If you take too much, you merely get expensive pee. Well, not all that expensive: A five-year supply of vitamin B12 can cost less than twenty dollars.

I recommend that people unable to get sufficient sun take one 2,000 IU vitamin D3 supplement each day,18 ideally with the largest meal of the day.