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July 13 - September 26, 2023
we know that if we divulged this information, few of our patients would agree to take these drugs every day for the rest of their lives,
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.
Take cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, for example. The best they may be able to offer in terms of absolute risk reduction for a subsequent heart attack or death is about 3 percent over six years.54 Meanwhile, a whole-food, plant-based diet may work twenty times better, potentially offering an absolute risk reduction of 60 percent after fewer than four years.55
heart attacks often occur when a blood clot forms in response to a ruptured atherosclerotic plaque in one of your coronary arteries. Taking aspirin may help stop this from happening. Aspirin may also lower the risk of cancer.59 It works by suppressing an enzyme within your body that creates pro-clotting factors, thereby thinning your blood.
At the same time, aspirin suppresses proinflammatory compounds called prostaglandins, which in turn reduces pain, swelling, and fever. Prostaglandins may also dilate the lymph vessels inside tumors, potentially allowing cancer cells to spread.
One of the ways scientists think aspirin helps prevent cancer deaths is by counteracting a tumor’s attempts to pry open the lymphatic bars on ...
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The same blood-thinning benefit that can prevent a heart attack can also cause a hemorrhagic stroke, in which you bleed into your brain.
The willow tree isn’t the only plant that contains salicylic acid. It’s widely found in many of the fruits and vegetables in the plant kingdom.66
The more fruits and vegetables you eat, the higher your level of salicylic acid may rise.
those following plant-based diets actually appear to have a significantly lower risk of ulcers.70 How is that possible? Because in plants, the salicylic acid may come naturally prepackaged with gut-protective nutrients. For example, nitric oxide from dietary nitrates
exerts stomach-protective effects by boosting blood flow and protective mucus production in the lining of the stomach, effects which demonstrably oppose the pro-ulcerative impact of
aspirin.71 So, for the general population, by eating plants instead of taking aspirin, individuals may not only get aspirin’s benefits without its risk...
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While salicylic acid is ubiquitously present in fruits and vegetables, herbs and spices contain the highest concentrations.74 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.
Pesticide-laden plants aren’t nibbled as much and, perhaps as a result, appear to produce less salicylic acid. For
soup made from organic vegetables was found to contain nearly six times more salicylic acid than soup prepared from conventional, nonorganically grown ingredients.78
Another way to get more salicylic acid bang for your buck is by opting for whole foods. Whole-grain breads, for example, not only offer more salicylic acid but may contain one hundred times more phytochemicals in general than white brea...
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most doctors in the rest of the world don’t get paid by procedure.98 As one U.S. gastroenterologist put it, “Colonoscopy … is the goose that has laid the golden egg.”
Peppermint doesn’t just make your breath smell better; it also helps to reduce the gastrocolic reflex—the urge to defecate following a meal.
“The American public appears to have been hoodwinked into believing that more interventions lead to better health,” she later said in an interview.110
Heart attacks are considered 96 percent avoidable in women who eat a wholesome diet and engage in other healthy lifestyle behaviors.113 The number-one killer of women need almost never happen.
people should buy more nuts, soy foods, beans, and whole grains, and less meat and dairy.
Spending just fifty cents more per day on fruits and vegetables may buy you a 10 percent drop in mortality.5 Now that’s a bargain!
“Food Components to Reduce,” which specifically lists added sugars, calories, cholesterol, saturated fat, sodium, and trans fat.6 At the same time,
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.
Unprocessed plant foods tend to have more of the protective nutrients that Americans are lacking and fewer disease-promoting factors.
calcium in green, leafy vegetables? Fiber, folate, iron, and antioxidants—some of the very nutrients lacking in milk.
When the Guidelines tell you to eat less added sugar, calories, cholesterol, saturated fat, sodium, and trans fat, that’s code for eat less junk food, less meat, less dairy, fewer eggs, and fewer processed foods. But they can’t actually say that.
tomato juice appears to be the one common juice that may actually be healthier than the whole fruit.
Similarly, the removal of fat from cacao beans to make cocoa powder improves the nutritional profile, because cocoa butter is one of the rare saturated plant fats (along with coconut and palm kernel oils) that can raise your cholesterol.
I like to think of “unprocessed” as nothing bad added, nothing good taken away.
unsweetened almond milk is a processed food, a food from which nutrition has been stolen.
Eating almonds is healthier than drinking almond milk.
The problem with all-or-nothing thinking is that it keeps people from even taking the first steps.
We cannot let the “perfect” be the enemy of the good.
Your body has a remarkable ability to recover from sporadic insults as long as you’re not habitually poking it with a fork.
Kaiser Permanente’s guide “The Plant-Based Diet: A Healthier Way to Eat,”
“If you find you cannot do a plant-based diet 100 percent of the time, then aim for 80 percent. Any movement toward more plants and fewer animal products can improve your health!”
making rules for yourself and sticking to them may help you make more sensible choices over the long run.
whole-grain pasta with some added veggies.
Google whole-food, plant-based recipes, and a million hits pop up.
ForksOverKnives.com
StraightUpFood.com
HappyHealthyLongLife.com
Jeff Novick’s Fast Food DVD series.
JeffNovick.com/RD/DVDs
21DayKickstart.org.
the more you eat healthfully, the better healthy foods taste.
sulforaphane, the amazing liver-enzyme detox-boosting compound I profiled in chapters 9 and 11, is derived nearly exclusively from cruciferous vegetables.
It’s the same with flaxseeds and the anticancer lignan compounds.
mushrooms aren’t even plants at all; they belong to an entirely different biological classification and may contain nutrients (like ergothioneine) not made anywhere in the plant kingdom.
