Joel Fuhrman on "Educational Question of the Year"
"We graduate from high school, college, even graduate and professional schools and we never learn about the most important knowledge we need to be in control of our health destiny."
-Joel Fuhrman, M.D.
In an earlier response to our "Educational Question of the Year," Roger Shank cited knowledge of "basic medicine and health issues" as important information that should be provided to students as a part of their education. Joel Fuhrman takes this suggestion further in his response to our question by detailing the health crisis we face in this country fueled by the lack of sound nutritional knowledge and practice. He challenges parents as well as our educational system to provide students with the nutritional knowledge necessary to live healthy, productive lives.
Disease-Proof Your Family
While genetics play a role in the expression of many diseases, and we all have genetic weaknesses and predispositions, for the vast majority of diseases that occur in the modern world, nutrition, exercise and environment play a much larger role than genetics. For example, those living in rural China prior to 1980, have less than two percent heart disease risk and less than two percent risk of developing *** cancer, but when they move to America their children have the same dismal risks as other Americans. About fifty percent of Americans die of heart attacks and strokes and about 18 percent of women die of *** cancer. When we abuse our bodies many different problems arise and what happens to you then may be influenced by your genetics.
Heart disease is a recent phenomenon in the history of mankind. By 1916 it was already hypothesized by the well-known French scientist, C.D. de Langen that overeating and a diet rich in animal-fats appeared to be a factor in the populations of those European countries experiencing a rise in heart attacks. We cannot consider heart disease to be primarily genetic, because it did not occur much before the last hundred years and pockets of populations inhabiting the world today have no heart disease. By the 1950’s scientific investigations were able to explain population differences in heart disease rates by differences in the consumption of saturated fat (the most important determinant of serum cholesterol) and the inverse association with consumption of fresh produce. The less saturated fat and the more fresh produce consumed the less heart disease that occurs.
Over the last 50 years, this causal relationship between diet and heart disease has been observed and documented by thousands of scientific studies. The reality is that heart disease, the leading cause of death in the modern world, as well as the other leading causes of death, (various cancers and strokes) are created by our modern diet. Very few people have genetics so favorable that they can eat anything without concern.
You cannot escape from the biological law of cause and effect. Food choices, especially food choices early in life are the primary cause of disease and premature death. Health predictably results from healthy living. Inferior childhood nutrition has led to a nation with high levels of chronic illnesses, and out of control health care costs.
Americans eat about 40 percent of calories from animal products, such as meat, eggs and dairy.
Animal products contain no antioxidants, bioflavonoids, carotenoids, folate, vitamin C, vitamin K or those thousands of phytochemicals that are essential for cellular normalcy and prevent DNA damage.
Americans eat about 50 percent of calories from processed foods such as oil, sugar, and white flour products.
Processed foods contain almost no antioxidants, bioflavonoids, carotenoids, folate, vitamin C, vitamin K or those thousands of phytochemicals that are essential for cellular normalcy and prevent DNA damage.
To make matters worse, most of the animal products eaten by children such as butter, cheese and milk are exceptionally high in saturated fat. Saturated fat consumption correlates with cancer incidence worldwide. It also raises cholesterol and causes heart disease.
Keep in mind that it is the type of fat, not the amount of fat, that is linked to higher heart attack rates and cancer. Both epidemiologic studies and clinical trials have implicated saturated fats and trans fats as the villains for humans. They promote both heart attack and cancer.
The nutrition committee of the American Heart Association has declared, there is overwhelming evidence that reduction in saturated fat, dietary cholesterol and weight offer the most effective dietary strategies for reducing total cholesterol, LDL levels and cardiovascular risk. There is no biological requirement for saturated fat.
In fact, populations with diets with little or no saturated fat have little or no heart disease. The development of heart disease begins in childhood. Not only do unhealthy childhood diets high in saturated fat and low in the protective micronutrients found in unprocessed plant foods accelerate heart disease, but they promote the aging process, and create a cellular environment favorable for the development of cancer.
To add insult to injury, much of the processed foods children eat are rich in trans fat, a man-made fat that is also linked to cancer and heart disease. We could not have designed a cancer-causing environment more effectively if we scientifically planned it. We feed our children a diet high in saturated fat, add lots of processed foods with those dangerous (man-made) trans fats, and combine it with an insufficient intake of unrefined plant foods to guarantee sufficient phytochemical deprivation and presto, we have created a nation rich in autoimmune illnesses, allergies, obesity, diabetes and finally heart disease and cancer.
As I reported extensively at diseaseproof.com and in my book Disease-Proof Your Child (St. Martin’s 2005), there is much confusion about the role diet plays in preventing cancer. The reason why some studies performed on adults were not conclusive is that the changes made are not substantial enough and the populations investigated are past the age where dietary improvements can cause dramatic benefits. Childhood diets are the chief cause of adult cancers, not adult diets. When we are growing the cells are more sensitive to the damaging effects of poor nutrition.
We graduate from high school, college, even graduate and professional schools and we never learn about the most important knowledge we need to be in control of our health destiny. We live in a society that believes that we protect our health with access to medical care and drugs; it doesn’t work. We can win the war on cancer and heart disease, not with more money put into medical interventions and drugs, but by unleashing the big artillery found in our kitchens; berries, green vegetables, beans and seeds to name a few. The science is important and motivating because we are eating ourselves into a tremendous amount of needless and tragic diseases in this country and our cancer rates have increased unrelentingly each year for the last seventy years. But aside from all the convincing scientific data, It is just as important to show people how they can deal with their picky eaters, get their family to like the healthful foods at the family table and make healthy eating great tasting and fun. My experience has been that after gaining the knowledge, people can transition their family over to a disease-preventive lifestyle and enjoy the change.
Joel Fuhrman, M.D. is a family physician and author of Eat To Live and the newly released, Disease-Proof Your Child. (St Martin’s Press 2005). Further information is available at drfuhrman.com