Professor Emeritus of Nutritional
Biochemistry, Cornell
The Health Care Doctors
Forgot: Why Ordinary Food Will Be the New Medicine of the Future
Posted: 02/03/2014 6:01 pm EST Updated: 02/03/2014 6:59 pm EST
Few if any topics get more press than the effect of food on our
health. It's constantly present, even if buried in our subconscious mind. Sex,
politics and religion are intensely personal topics, but food and health is in
that same rank.
Intense interest, however, does not translate into a consensus
on which diet best nourishes us. I've been a professional in nutritional
science for more than five decades. But I must confess my disappointment in the
inability of my field to help the public to understand and use the underlying
science of nutrition.
Medical schools almost completely ignore the topic. Biomedical
funding agencies mostly give it a pass, at best dedicating only a small
percentage of their funding for nutrition research. The public therefore must
fend for itself when trying to understand which nutrition information is
correct and which is not.
Yet, if we assess the public's interest in this topic, it is
massive, but also it is massively disconnected. Information on this topic is
served up by food companies, who cook it for their own tastes. Coalitions of
industry join hands and minds to "help" government authorities develop
the right kind of food and health policy -- I've been there, seen that. Rather
like monopolies controlling the marketplace by controlling the information.
I hesitate to call this mess a conspiracy, because they are
doing nothing more than pleasing their shareholders and selling products to
customers what they want to buy. I'm a free market guy, and I must say,
"It is what it is." But, I strongly object to those who claim they
have supporting health evidence when it is nothing more than a stretch! Been
there, seen that, too.
We live within a system loaded with an unfathomable number of
details that invite abuse. Some might call this an invitation for conspiracy
(an evil thing, I think). But I prefer the explanation that we are living
within a paradigm that encourages the production of details that invite abuse.
We think of nutrition as the summation, more or less, of the independent
functions of individual nutrients and related food chemicals. Think nutrient
supplements -- out of context bits of whole food. But we now have exceptionally
strong evidence that they do not serve our long-term health. Think integrative
nutrition or integrative medicine, strategies that promote combinations of even
more individual nutrients or medicines that compound the problem. Think recommended
daily intakes of individual nutrients and specific quantities of nutrients in
foods and on food labels as if they infer better science. Think also of
targeted drug therapy that is generally unmindful of side effects virtually
guaranteed to happen.
It's all the same. It's unacceptable to assume that we can
understand all we need to know about overall health by identifying the
properties of individual nutrients acting in isolation. It is not because
nutrients don't have these properties. But when provided by whole food, they
work in symphony (the topic of my book, Whole), harmoniously
when provided by plant-based foods, discordantly when provided by animal based
foods or in concocted processed foods (even if made from plant parts).
An impressive body of
evidence now shows that a whole food, plant-based (WFPB) diet produces profound
effects like reversing and treating heart disease, diabetes and many other
ailments and chronic pains. Other evidence suggests similar effects on cancers. These outcomes are
much more than I once thought, especially concerning my having come from a
family farm and milking cows then doing graduate work to "prove" that
the high-protein, high-fat animal-based foods diet was best for our health. I succeeded
only in proving myself wrong.
Unfortunately, this WFPB
strategy has long been a secret, perhaps the best-kept secret in medical
history. Remarkably, it can treat and reverse existing ailments (quickly) as
well as to prevent future ailments. No other diet plan comes close, especially
those of the low carb ilk.
It is time to reject frivolous arguments to the contrary. If
there is merit to alternative hypotheses, it is time to use them to prove wrong
those of us in the profession who have studied and used this approach to solve
illness. It's time for the naysayers to show that they can do better if they
wish to be heard.
The stakes are now too high to allow for self-serving interests
paving our way to health. We have imposing problems, many tracing their origins
to food choice. Health care costs, environmental degradation and unnecessary
ethical behavior head a list of impending crises that must be resolved for the
sake of our humanity and our planet. More of this commentary may be found here.
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