The China Study (34 page)

WID E- RAN GIN G EFFECT S: BON E,K I DNEY EYE       BRA IN DIS EASES 221
I      I
1/4 cup tomato sauce, 112 cup broccoli or one potato.73 Half a cup is not
much food. In fact, the men in this study who consumed the most fruits
and vegetables consumed as many as nineteen servings a day. If every
three servings lower the risk by 22%, the benefits can add up fast (risk
reduction approaches but cannot exceed 100%) .
This study provides evidence that the health of the arteries and ves-
sels that transport blood to and from your brain is dependent on how
well you eat. By extension, it is logical to assume that eating fruits and
vegetables will protect against dementia caused by poor vascular health.
Research again seems to prove the point. Scientists conducted mental
health exams and assessed food intake for over 5,000 older people and
monitored their health for over two years. They found that the people
who consumed the most total fat and saturated fat had the highest risk
of dementia due to vascular problems. 74
Alzheimer's disease is also related to diet and is often found in con-
j u n c t i o n with heart disease,53 which suggests that they share the same
causes. We know what causes heart disease, and we know what offers
the best hope of reversing heart disease: diet. Experimental animal stud-
ies have convincingly shown that a high-cholesterol diet will promote
the production of the beta-amyloid common to Alzheimer's.53 In con-
firming these experimental animal results, a study of more than 5,000
people found that greater dietary fat and cholesterol intake tended to
increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease specifically,15 and all dementia
in general. 74
In another study on Alzheimer's,16 the risk of getting the disease was
3.3 times greater among people whose blood folic acid levels were in
the lowest one-third range and 4.5 times greater when blood homo-
cysteine levels were in the highest one-third. What are folic acid and
homocysteine? Folic acid is a compound derived exclusively from
plant-based foods such as green and leafy vegetables. Homocysteine
is an amino acid that is derived primarily from animal protein. 77 This
study found that it was desirable to maintain low blood homocysteine
and high blood folic acid. In other words, the combination of a diet high
in animal-based foods and low in plant-based foods raises the risk of
Alzheimer's disease. 7     8
Mild cognitive impairment, the stuff jokes are made of, still permits
the afflicted person to maintain an independent, functional life, but
dementia and Alzheimer's are tragic, imposing almost impossibly heavy
burdens on victims and their loved ones. Across this spectrum, from

222                          THE CHINA STUDY
minor difficulties in keeping your thoughts in order to serious degen-
eration, the food you eat can drastically affect the likelihood of mental
decline.
The diseases I've covered in this chapter take a heavy toll on most of
us in our later years, even though they may not be fatal. Because they
are not usually fatal, many people afflicted with these illnesses still live
a long life. Their quality of life, however, deteriorates steadily, until the
illness renders them largely dependent on others and unable to function
in most capacities.
I've talked to so many people who say, "I may not live as long as
you health nuts, but I sure am going to enjoy the time I have by eating
steaks whenever I want, smoking if I so choose and doing anything else
that I want." I grew up with these people, went to school with these
people and made great friends with these people. Not long ago, one of
my best friends suffered a difficult surgery for cancer and spent his last
years paralyzed in a nursing home. During the many visits I made to the
nursing home, I never failed to come away with a deep appreciation for
the health I still possess in myoId age. It was not uncommon for me to
go to the nursing home to visit my friend and hear that one of the new
patients in the home was someone whom my friend and I knew from
our earlier days. Too often, they had Alzheimer's and were housed in a
special section of the facility.
The enjoyment of life, especially the second half of life, is greatly
compromised if we can't see, if we can't think, if our kidneys don't work
or if our bones are broken or fragile. I, for one, hope that I am able to
fully enjoy not only the time in the present, but also the time in the fu-
ture, with good health and independence.

_ _ f? a[t _111 _____._____.__
__
THE GOOD NUTRITION GUIDE
I WAS IN A RESTAURANT RECENTLY, looking at the menu, when I noticed a very
peculiar "low-carb" meal option: a massive plate of pasta topped with veg-
etables, otherwise known as pasta primavera. The vast majority of calories
in the meal clearly came from carbohydrates. How could it be "low-carb"?
Was it a misprint? I didn't think so. At various other times I've noted
that salads, breads and even cinnamon buns are labeled "low-carb," even
though their ingredient lists demonstrate that, in fact, the bulk of calories
are prOvided by carbohydrates. What's going on?
This "carb" mania is largely the result of the late Dr. Atkins and his
dietary message. But recently Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution has been
toppled and replaced by The South Beach Diet as the king of the diet
books. The South Beach Diet is pitched as being more moderate, easier
to follow and safer than Atkins, but from what I can tell, the weight-loss
"wolr' has just put on a different set of sheep's clothing. Both of the di-
ets are divided into three stages, both diets severely limit carbohydrate
intake during the first phase, and both diets are heavily based on meat,
dairy and eggs. The South Beach Diet, for example, prohibits bread,
rice, potatoes, pasta, baked goods, sugar and even fruit during the first
two weeks. After that, you can be weaned back onto carbohydrates until
you are eating what appears to me to be a fairly typical American diet.
Perhaps this is why The South Beach Diet is such a hot seller. According
to The South Beach Diet Web site, Newsweek wrote, "the real value of
the book is its sound nutritional advice. It retains the best part of the
Atkins regime-meat-while losing the tenet that all carbs should be
avoided."l
223

224                          THE CHINA STUDY
Who at Newsweek reviewed the literature to know whether this is
sound nutritional advice or not? And if you have the Atkins Diet plus
some "carbs," how different is this diet from the standard American
diet, the toxic diet that has been shown to make us fat, give us heart
disease, destroy our kidneys, make us blind and lead us to Alzheimer's,
cancer and a host of other medical problems?
These are merely examples of the current state of nutrition aware-
ness in the United States. Every day I am reminded that Americans are
drowning in a flood of horrible nutrition information. I remember the
adage told several decades ago: Americans love hogwash. Another one:
Americans love to hear good things about their bad habits. It would ap-
p ear from a quick glance that these two sayings are true. Or are they?
I have more faith in the average American. It's not true that Ameri-
cans love hogwash-it's that hogwash inundates Americans, whether
they want it or not! I know that some Americans want the truth, and
just haven't been able to find it because it is drowned out by the hog-
wash. Very little of the nutrition information that makes it to the public
consciousness is soundly based in science, and we pay a grave price.
One day olive oil is terrible, the next it is heart healthy. One day eggs
will clog your arteries, the next they are a good source of protein. One
day potatoes and rice are great, the next they are the gravest threats to
your weight you will ever face.
At the beginning of the book I said my goal was to redefine how we
think of nutrition information-eliminate confusion, make health sim-
ple and base my claims on the evidence generated by peer-reviewed nu-
t r i t i o n research published in peer-reviewed, professional publications.
So far, you have seen a broad sample-and it's only a sample-of that
evidence. You have seen that there is overwhelming scientific support
for one, simple optimal diet-a whole foods, plant-based diet.
I want to condense the nutritional lessons learned from this broad
range of evidence and from my experiences over the past forty-plus
years into a simple guide to good nutrition. I have whittled my knowl-
edge down to several core principles, principles that will illuminate how
nutrition and health truly operate. Furthermore, I have translated the
science into dietary recommendations that you can begin to incorporate
into your own life. Not only will you gain a new understanding of nutri-
t i o n and health, but you will also see exactly which foods you should
eat and which foods you should avoid. What you decide to do with this
information is up to you, but you can at least know that you, as a reader
and a person, have finally been told something other than hogwash.

_....__ _ ._._ ..._...._ .....1
.......__ __. ... ______ __ .. 1
.
Eating Right: Eight Principles
of Food and Health      --- - .- --- - - -- - --
-
THE BENEFITS OF A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE are enormous. I want you to know
that you can:
•   live longer
•   look and feel younger
•   have more energy
•   lose weight
•   lower your blood cholesterol
prevent and even reverse heart disease
•
•   lower your risk of prostate, breast and other cancers
•   preserve your eyesight in your later years
•   prevent and treat diabetes
•   avoid surgery in many instances
•   vastly decrease the need for pharmaceutical drugs
•   keep your bones strong
•   avoid impotence
•   avoid stroke
•   prevent kidney stones
•   keep your baby from getting Type 1 diabetes
•   alleviate constipation
•   lower your blood pressure
•   avoid Alzheimer's
225

THE (HINA STUDY
226
• beat arthritis
• and more ...
These are only some of the benefits, and all of them can be yours. The
price? Simply changing your diet. I don't know that it has ever been so
easy or so relatively effortless to achieve such profound benefits.
I have given you a sampling of the evidence and told you the journey
that I have taken to come to my conclusions. Now I want to summarize
the lessons about food, health and disease that I have learned along the
way in the following eight principles. These principles should inform the
way we do science, the way we treat the sick, the way we feed ourselves,
the way we think about health and the way we perceive the world.
PRINCIPLE # 1
Nutrition represents the combined activities of
countless food substances. The whole is
greater than the sum of its parts.
To illustrate this principle I only need to take you through the biochem-
ical perspective of a meal. Let's say you prepare sauteed spinach with
ginger and whole grain ravioli shells stuffed with butternut squash and
spices, topped with a walnut tomato sauce.
The spinach alone is a cornucopia of various chemical components.
Chart Il.l is only a partial list of what you might find in your mouth
after a bite of spinach.
As you can see, you've just introduced a bundle of nutrients into your
body. In addition to this extremely complex mix, when you take a bite
of that ravioli with its tomato sauce and squash filling, you get thou-
s a n d s and thousands of additional chemicals, all connected in different
ways in each different food-truly a biochemical bonanza.
As soon as this food hits your saliva, your body begins working its
magic, and the process of digestion starts. Each of these food chemicals
interacts with the other food chemicals and your body's chemicals in
very specific ways. It is an infinitely complex process, and it is literally
impossible to understand precisely how each chemical interacts with
every other chemical. We will never discover exactly how it all fits to-
gether.

EATING RIGHT: EIGHT PRINCIPLES OF FOOD AND HEAlTH                     227
CHART 11.1: NUTRIENTS IN SPINACH
Macronutrients
Water                                  Fat (many kinds)
Calories                                 Carbohydrate
Protein (many kinds)                                Fiber
Minerals
Calcium                                     Sodium
Iron                                       Zinc
Magnesium                                     Copper
Phosphorus                                 Manganese
Potassium                                    Selenium
Vitamins
C (Ascorbic Acid)                            B-6 (Pyridoxine)
B-1 (Thiamin)                                  Folate
B-2 (Riboflavin)                           A (as carotenoids)
B-3 (Niacin)                               E (tocopherols)
Pantothenic acid
FaHy Acids
14:0 (Myristic acid)                         18: 1 (Oleic acid)
16:0 (Palmitic acid)                       20: 1 (Eicosenoic acid)
18:0 (Stearic acid)                        18:2 (linoleic acid)
16: 1 (Palmitoleic acid)                     18:3 (linolenic acid)
Amino acids
Valine
Tryptophan
Threonine                                    Arginine
Isoleucine                                   Histidine
Leucine                                     Alanine
Lysine                                  Aspartic acid
Methionine                                 Glutamic acid
Cystine                                     Glycine
Phenylalanine                                   Proline
Tyrosine                                     Serine
Phytosterols (many kinds)

228                          THE CHINA STUDY
The main message I'm trying to get across is this: the chemicals
we get from the foods we eat are engaged in a series of reactions that
work in concert to produce good health. These chemicals are carefully
orchestrated by intricate controls within our cells and all through our
bodies, and these controls decide what nutrient goes where, how much
of each nutrient is needed and when each reaction takes place.
Our bodies have evolved with this infinitely complex network of
reactions in order to derive maximal benefit from whole foods , as they
appear in nature. The misguided may trumpet the virtues of one specific
nutrient or chemical, but this thinking is too simplistic. Our bodies
have learned how to benefit from the chemicals in food as they are pack-
aged together, discarding some and using others as they see fit. I cannot
stress this enough, as it is the foundation of understanding what good
nutrition means.
PRINCIPLE #2
Vitamin supplements are not
a panacea for good health.
Because nutrition operates as an infinitely complex biochemical system
involving thousands of chemicals and thousands of effects on your
health, it makes little or no sense that isolated nutrients taken as sup-
p l e m e n t s can substitute for whole foods. Supplements will not lead to
long-lasting health and may cause unforeseen side effects. Furthermore,
for those relying on supplements, beneficial and sustained diet change
is postponed. The dangers of a Western diet cannot be overcome by
consuming nutrient pills.
As I have watched the interest in nutrient supplements explode over
the past twenty to thirty years, it has become abundantly clear why
such a huge nutrient supplement industry has emerged. Huge profits
are an excellent incentive, and new government regulations have paved
the way for an expanded market. Furthermore, consumers want to
continue eating their customary foods , and popping a few supplements
makes people feel better about the potentially adverse health effects
caused by their diet. Embracing supplements means the media can tell
people what they want to hear and doctors have something to offer their
patients. As a result, a multibillion-dollar supplement industry is now