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

by Michael Greger

Pritikin’s biography Pritikin: The Man Who Healed America’s Heart.

Preventive Medicine Research Institute,

diet and lifestyle—can undeniably reverse heart disease, our leading killer.

Only a quarter of medical schools appear to offer a single dedicated course on

Latest in Clinical Nutrition. It’s

NutritionFacts.org

Our diet is the number-one cause of premature death and the number-one cause of disability.

Back in 1903, Thomas Edison predicted that the “doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will instruct his patient in the care of [the] human frame in diet and in the cause and prevention of diseases.”

the science shows that our genes often account for only 10–20 percent of risk at most.15

New diet, new diseases.

we’re living longer, but we’re living sicker.

three levels of preventive medicine. The first is primary prevention, as in trying to prevent people at risk for heart disease from suffering their first heart attack. An example of this level of preventive medicine would be your doctor prescribing you a statin drug for high cholesterol. Secondary prevention takes place when you already have the disease and are trying to prevent it from becoming worse, like having a second heart attack. To do this, your doctor may add an aspirin or other drugs to your regimen. At the third level of preventive medicine, the focus is on helping people manage long-term health problems, so your doctor, for example, might prescribe a cardiac rehabilitation program that aims to prevent further physical deterioration

and pain.23

In 2000, a fourth level wa...

Reduce the complications from all the drugs and surgery from the first three levels.24 But people seem to forget about a fifth concept, termed primordial prevention, that was first introd...

not just preventing chronic disease but preventing the risk factors that lead to chronic disease.

“The Simple 7” factors that can lead to a healthier life: not smoking, not being overweight, being “very active” (defined as the equivalent of walking at least twenty-two minutes a day), eating healthier (for example, lots of fruits and vegetables), having below-average cholesterol, having normal blood pressure, and having normal blood sugar levels.

90 percent of heart attacks may be avoided with lifestyle changes,

Medical anthropologists have identified several major eras of human disease, starting with the Age of Pestilence and Famine, which largely ended with the Industrial Revolution, or the stage we’re in now, the Age of Degenerative and Man-Made Diseases.33

In 1900 in the United States, the top-three killers were infectious diseases: pneumonia, tuberculosis, and diarrheal disease.34 Now, the killers are largely lifestyle diseases: heart disease, cancer, and chronic lung disease.

The emergence of these epidemics of chronic disease was accompanied by dramatic shifts in dietary patterns.

The pandemic of chronic disease has been ascribed in part to the near-universal shift toward a diet dominated by animal-sourced and processed foods—in other words, more meat, dairy, eggs, oils, soda, sugar, and refined grains.37

People who once ate vegetarian diets but then started to eat meat at least once a week experienced a 146 percent increase in odds of heart disease, a 152 percent increase in stroke, a 166 percent increase in diabetes, and a 231 percent increase in odds for weight gain.

meat-eating was associated with a 3.6 year decrease in life expectancy.

Even vegetarians can suffer high rates of chronic disease, though, if they eat a lot of processed foods.

lentils, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and seeds.

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.

a dietary quality index was developed that simply reflects the percentage of calories people derive from nutrient-rich, unprocessed plant foods41 on a scale of zero to one hundred. The higher people score, the more body fat they may lose over time42 and

the lower their risk may be of abdominal obesity,43 high blood pressure,44 high cholesterol...

scoring higher on the whole plant food diet index (greater than about thirty compared to less than about eighteen) may reduce the odds of breast cancer more than 90 percent.46

adhering to just four simple healthy

lifestyle factors can have a strong impact on the prevention of chronic diseases: not smoking, not being obese, getting a half hour of exercise a day, and eating healthier—defined as consuming more fruits, veggies, and whole grains and less meat. Those four factors alone were found to account for 78 percent of chronic disease risk. If you start from scratch and manage to tick

off all four, you may be able to wipe out more than 90 percent of your risk of developing diabetes, more than 80 percent of your risk of having a heart attack, cut by half your risk of having a stroke, and r...

For some cancers, like our number-two cancer killer, colon cancer, up to 71 percent of cases appear to be preventable through a similar portfolio...

The drop in mortality risk among those with healthier habits was equivalent to being fourteen years younger.55

The thought is that if you can slow down this ticking cellular clock, you may be able to slow down the aging process and live longer.59

smoking cigarettes is associated with triple the rate of telomere loss,60 so the first step is simple: Stop smoking.

The consumption of fruits,61 vegetables,62 and other antioxidant-rich foods63 has been associated with longer protective telomeres. In contrast, the consumption of refined grains,64 soda,65 meat (including fish),66 and dairy67 has been linked to shortened telomeres.

telomerase.

how can we boost the activity of this age-defying enzyme?

three months of whole-food, plant-based nutrition and other healthy changes could significantly boost telomerase activity,

a

healthy lifestyle can boost telomerase enzyme activity and reverse cellular aging.71

Weight loss through calorie restriction and an even more vigorous exercise program failed to improve telomere length, so it appears that the active ingredient is the quality, not quantity, of the food eaten.

A heart-healthy diet is a brain-healthy diet is a lung-healthy diet. The same diet that helps prevent cancer just so happens to be the same diet that may help prevent type 2 diabetes and every other cause of death on the top-fifteen list.

healthy diet can benefit all organ systems at once, has good side effects, and may treat the underlying cause of illness.

The primary reason diseases tend to run in families may be that diets tend to run in families.

That’s the power of epigenetics. Same DNA, but different results.

Cancer cells can use epigenetics against us by silencing tumor-suppressor genes that could otherwise stop the cancer in its tracks. So even if you’re born with good genes, cancer can sometimes find a way to turn them off.

A number of chemotherapy drugs have been developed to restore our bodies’ natural defenses, but their use has been limited due to their high toxicity.107 There are, however, a number of compounds distributed widely throughout the plant kingdom—including beans, greens, and berries