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The Best Diet for Cancer Patients
"The Best Diet for Cancer Patients" Our lifetime risk of
developing an invasive cancer, not like some superficial skin
cancer or like ductal carcinoma of the breast, but serious
cancer is about 40%. Two in five of us are going to get a
cancer diagnosis in our lifetimes. What can we do to reduce our risk? Only about 5% of cancers are caused by problem genes we
inherited from our parents. The other 95% are
caused by mutations in our DNA we acquire
in our lifetimes. For example, based on a genetic
analysis of lung cancer, smokers may acquire an
average of one DNA mutation for every 15 cigarettes smoked.
Smoking is bad, but the number one
cause of these mutations is our diet, and that’s not even including
the cancers attributed to obesity. I’ve got tons of videos on dietary
approaches to prevent cancer, but what if you
already have it? Well-meaning professionals
sometimes counsel cancer patients to “Eat whatever you want.“ Given the time constraints that doctors
face, it may be understandable that the treating oncologist,
the treating cancer doctor, may be reluctant to engage in
a conversation about nutrition, but given the critical
role that diet may play, perhaps it should be a critical
part of their job to be able to answer patients’ questions
about nutrition before and after cancer treatment
and not default to the unhelpful “it doesn’t really matter,
eat whatever you want” which may not be in the
best interest of the patient.
The official recommendation of the American Institute
for Cancer Research, a leading authority
on diet and cancer, is that those with cancer
should follow the same diet that helps prevent cancer from
taking root in the first place. That means more whole grains,
vegetables, fruits, and beans, while limiting fast food, processed
food, meat, soda and alcohol. Similar recommendations have been put forth by other cancer authorities: more fruit, vegetables,
whole grains, and beans, and less salt, sugar,
meat, and alcohol. Cancer survivors adhering to
these guidelines do seem to live significantly longer, or at
least older female cancer survivors, the only group in which
it’s been looked at so far. They add that there are certain
foods that may be beneficial in cancer care including: beans,
berries, cruciferous vegetables, flaxseed, garlic, green tea,
tomatoes, and others, but emphasizes it’s not about a single
magic bullet food or component, but the combination of foods in
a predominantly plant-based diet. Here’s how some popular diets
used by cancer patients stack up. The so-called alkaline diet
gets high marks for being vegetable-focused and encouraging
people to cut down on animal foods.
The keto diet does the worst,
though they get points for keeping people away from refined grains,
alcohol and soft drinks. Macrobiotic diets win the day,
being closest to a whole food, plant-based diet, centered
around whole grains, vegetables, and beans though may not
be advising enough fruit. Paleo diets are a mixed bag with
insufficient whole grains and beans and too much meat, and the
vegan diet starts out strong, but doesn’t necessarily preclude
all manner of vegan junk food. Have any of these diets
been put to the test? I’ve done a video on the
abject failure of the keto diet.
The alkaline diet was tried
on eleven lung cancer patients. They lived an average of
28 and a half months, which is about 40% longer
than most patients have historically lived, but there
was no direct control group. The only diet proven in a
randomized controlled trial to reverse the progression of cancer
was Dr. Dean Ornish’s whole food plant-based lifestyle program,
which I’ve covered before. Most randomized controlled trials
to date on diet and cancer are like this, feasibility
studies just to see if we can get cancer patients to
eat healthier.
Period. Otherwise what’s the point
of even running the study? Here they did find they could get
patients with head and neck cancer to ramp up green leafy and
cruciferous vegetable intake up to 9 cups a week, so it’s at
least something you could test, but we don't yet have outcomes
data, but why wait? What’s the downside of
trying to eat healthier? It may even save your
life, another way. Cardiovascular disease competes with
breast cancer as the leading cause of death for older women
diagnosed with breast cancer. Researchers followed more
than 60,000 women diagnosed with breast cancer
over the age of 65 for an average of nine years,
by which time half had died. And the number one cause of death
was actually cardiovascular disease, edging out the breast cancer,
and so choosing a healthy diet centered around whole plant foods,
the only diet ever proven to reverse heart disease
in the majority of patients, may save your life, whether
you have cancer or not.
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
Diabetes and Erectile Dysfunction Reversed with Diet | Marc Ramirez Part 1 | Plant Power Stories
I grew up believing
that diabetes was in my genetics. There's nothing I can do about this. I just have to brace for impact. All of my brothers and sisters with the exception
of one sister has battled with diabetes, but … I look back now to the foods we ate. When you look at this
whole slew of devastation that has … crippled my family
in so many different ways, it really boils down
to the food, it's the food. When I was growing up, I was always a little
bigger than most of the other … males my age. And I loved football, so I had
the fortunate opportunity to play football … and ultimately earned a football scholarship
at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. I was a big guy.
I'm 6'2", and in college I played at about 305 pounds. And I grew up believing that … I needed protein. I need protein and I need steak
and I need chicken, and I believed that,
and of course I was big and strong. I was eating a lot, I was eating like an ox. But the bottom line was, after my college playing days were over, twelve years later … I was diagnosed with diabetes. I saw what … his family members went through
because of diabetes. It was like there was a big storm coming. Our future looked dark, honestly. Like we have hope. I thought that it was just in his genes
and it was our destiny and … that I just had to make the best of it. So I'm taking insulin shots twice a day, I'm taking multiple medications for all
these conditions and on top of that, as time went on, I developed psoriasis all over my scalp,
I was overweight, I developed erectile dysfunction.
And again being a big macho football player, I thought that I was invincible, big and strong
and everything was going to be great. Once you develop erectile dysfunction, it is deflating as a man to not be able to go
and make love to… I have a beautiful wife. I know a lot of people, guys that I talk to,
they'll come to me and they'll say, "Hey, you know, I got that issue too." And really what's happening is
your arteries are clogging, your artery to your private
parts is clogging. And the issue with that is
that your other arteries are clogging as well. Your heart, your coronary arteries,
your carotid arteries, those are clogging as well. It's only a matter of time before that
stroke and that heart attack happen, and so that's the bigger issue,
that's the big train wreck that we need to avoid. And I say that and I share it openly
because a lot of guys don't want to talk about this.
They are embarrassed,
and I get it because I was embarrassed too. I didn't want to go tell people my business.
Who does? There's an estimate that 40-50 % of males
over the age of 40 … struggle with ED. Many guys think they're going to pop a pill,
they can go have sex, and life is great. But they're masking that bigger problem,
the train wreck that's around the corner: that's the heart attack and the stroke. And so, something had to change, I did not want to be caught in the position … where I wasn't going to be able
to see my daughter get married. I want to see my grandkids
and I want to see my great-grandkids. And I don't want to be, God forbid,
in a nursing home … or not able to get up and go and enjoy
those times with my family and my loved ones.
I knew at that point
that I needed to make a change and … that's when my wife and I adopted
a whole-food, plant-based lifestyle. I was on medications for a decade,
for ten years, and only getting worse every single year
as time went on. We adopt this lifestyle. And in two months
I was off all five of my medications. In three months I had shed 50 pounds,
which took me down to 210 pounds. And oh, by the way,
that was what I weighed in seventh grade. 13 years old was the last time
I weighed what I weigh today, and I'm 51. I feel like I'm in the best shape of my life,
and I'm the oldest I've ever been. How is that happening?
It's the food. And what we did was we actually adopted
a whole-food, plant-based lifestyle.
So, we eliminated all the animal products, we eliminated the oils out of our diet, and we're sticking now to really four
main food groups: And that's all the fruits, all the vegetables, all the grains, and all the legumes in any shape or form. Instead of cooking with oil, we will steam them,
we'll use veggie broth, we'll bake foods.
Anything we can, but you don't need the oils.
Oils are 100 % fat. And all these foods, when you look at them, they're just loaded and jam-packed with vitamins, with fiber, with minerals,
with phytonutrients, all of the greatness that will help your bodies thrive,
these amazing machines that we all own.
And they are devoid
and don't have any of the cholesterol … and for the most part no saturated fat. They don't have any growth hormones,
no antibiotics, a lot of this that you find in the animal foods. When I look at the changes that I went through, I was able to reverse my type 2 diabetes, reverse my high blood pressure,
reverse my high cholesterol. My erectile dysfunction is gone, my psoriasis is gone, my obesity is gone, and I feel full of life. I'm 51 years old and I feel like I am
literally in the best shape of my life at this point. And what's amazing is when you look
at my lifestyle, my transformation, here I am seven years into
this lifestyle now, and … I know they say never say never, but I'm never
going back to eating the way I used to eat … which was a lot of animal foods
and a lot of oils. I'm eliminating those foods I have for seven years now,
and I never see myself going back because … I feel too damn good now. So if you want to be a real man,
if you want to take care of your family, take care of yourself.
Because … your family doesn't need you to go have a stroke
or a heart attack and then have to take care of you. Be a real man, take care of yourself
and take care of your family. And it's not coming through a pill,
it's going to come through the foods you eat..
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
Treating Asthma and Eczema With Plant-Based Diets
"Treating Asthma and Eczema With Plant-Based Diets" Twenty patients with allergic eczema were placed
on a vegetarian diet for two months, and their disease scores, covering both
subjective and objective signs and symptoms were cut in half, similar to what you see
using one of our most powerful drugs. The drug worked quicker, within about two weeks, but since side effects may include kidney failure
and cancer the drug is considered a class 1 carcinogen,
the dietary option may be preferable.
But this was no ordinary vegetarian diet. This was an in-patient study using
an extremely calorically restricted diet. They were practically half fasting, so we don't know
which component was responsible for the therapeutic effect. What about using a more conventional plant-based
diet against a different allergic disease, asthma? In Sweden, there was an active health movement that
claimed that a vegan diet could improve or cure asthma. Bold claim. So in order to test this, a skeptical
group of orthopedic surgeons at the University Hospital followed a series of patients who were
treated with a vegan regimen for one year.
Patients, participants had to be
willing to go completely plant-based and they had to have physician-verified asthma of
at least a year's duration that wasn't getting better, or even getting worse despite
the best medical therapies available. They found quite a sick group to follow. Thirty-five patients with long-established hospital-verified
bronchial asthma for an average duration of a dozen years. Of the 35 patients, 20 had been admitted to the hospital
for acute asthmatic attacks during the last two years. Of these, one patient had received acute infusion therapy a total
of 23 times during the period, which is like an emergency intravenous.
And another patient claimed he had been brought
to the hospital 100 times during his disease and
on every occasion had evidently required such treatments. One patient even had a cardiac arrest during an asthma
attack and had been brought back to life on a ventilator,
so we're talking some pretty serious cases. They were on up to eight different
asthma medications when they started. They were each on an average of 4.5 drugs
and still not getting better.
Twenty of the 35 were constantly using cortisone, which
is one of our most powerful steroids used in severe cases. So basically fairly advanced cases of the disease,
more severe than the vegan practitioners were used to. Still, how'd they do? Eleven could not stick to the diet for a year. But of the 24 that did, 71% reported improvement
at four months and 92% at one year, and these were folks that had not improved at all
over the previous year before changing their diet. Concurrently with this improvement, the patients
greatly reduced their consumption of medicine. Four had completely given up their medication altogether,
and only two weren't able to at least drop their dose.
They went from 4.5 drugs down to 1.2,
and some were able to get off cortisone. Some said that their improvement was so considerable
that they felt like ”they had a new life.” One nurse had difficulty at work because
most of her co-workers were smokers, but after the year she could withstand the secondhand smoke
without getting an attack, as well as tolerating other asthma triggers. Others reported the same thing. Whereas previously they could only live in a clean environment
and felt more or less isolated in their homes, they could now stay out without getting asthma attacks. And it wasn't just subjective improvements. There was a significant improvement in a number of clinical variables, including most importantly, measures of lung function, vital capacity,
forced expiratory volume, as well as physical working capacity, as well as a significant drop in sed rate,
and IgE, which are allergy associated antibodies.
Bottom line, they started out with 35 patients who had
suffered from severe asthma for an average of 12 years, all receiving long-term medication, 20 including cortisone, were subjected to vegan food for a year, and in almost all cases medication was withdrawn or drastically reduced,
and there was a significant decrease in asthma symptoms. Despite the improved lung function tests and lab values, the placebo effect obviously can't be discounted
since there is no blinded control group, but the nice thing about a healthy diet
is that there are only good side effects.
Their cholesterol significantly improved, their
blood pressures got better, they lost 18 pounds, so from a medical standpoint, I figure why not give it a try?.
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
Update on Vegetarian Stroke Risk
"Update on Vegetarian Stroke Risk" Healthy plant-based diets
have been associated with lower all-cause mortality,
up to a 34 percent lower risk of death from any cause over an average
of an eight-year period, just being in the top
versus bottom quarter of healthy plant-based consumption. If sustained, that could translate
into more than four extra years of life. A meta-analysis of a dozen studies
prospectively following more than a half a million people
for up to 25 years similarly found significantly lower
heart disease and overall death rates among those eating more plant-based.
No surprise,
a systematic review concluded since plant-based diets
may arrest or even reverse our number one killer—
cardiovascular disease. Those eating wholly plant-based
tend to be significantly slimmer with lower LDL cholesterol, triglycerides,
blood sugars, blood pressures, significantly less inflammation,
and less carotid artery wall thickening (a sign of atherosclerosis measured
via ultrasound in the neck), as good as what you see
in endurance athletes who’ve run an average of 50,000 miles,
which is like twice around the globe. And changes in risk factors
can happen fast, as evidenced by results
from one to three-week ad libitum (eat-all-you-want)
plant-based “kickstart” programs. For example, the results from the first
few hundred participants of the at-home
15-day Jumpstart program created by the nonprofit Rochester
Lifestyle Medicine Institute were recently published.
On a whole food plant-based diet,
obese patients lost an average of 7 pounds without controlling portions
or counting calories or carbs. Diabetics saw their fasting blood sugars
drop 28 points. Those with LDL cholesterol
over 100 experienced a 33-point drop (comparable to some statin drugs), and hypertensive individuals
experienced a 17-point drop in systolic blood pressure,
which is better than drugs, and all within just two weeks! Studies dating back nearly 40 years
show those eating meat-free diets also have improved blood “rheology,”
meaning fluidity or flowability, which may play a role
in cardiovascular protection.
Subsequent interventional studies putting
the cross-sectional findings to the test, show that switching people
to a plant-based diet can improve rheology measurements
within three to six weeks. But might the blood of vegetarians flow
a bit too well, though? In 2019, a study of thousands
of British vegetarians called EPIC-Oxford found that they were at higher risk
of hemorrhagic (bleeding) stroke. They had such a lower risk
of heart disease that they still had less
cardiovascular disease overall (and a half dozen studies show no overall
increased risk of stroke mortality), but why the greater stroke incidence? I suggested it might be vitamin B12
deficiency, which can lead to excessive levels
of a stroke- associated metabolite called homocysteine
which is normally detoxified by B12. This is thought to be the reason
why vitamin B12 supplementation can improve artery function
of vegetarians. Vitamin B12 supplements
or fortified foods are critical for anyone eating plant-based,
but my 12-part video series on vegetarians and stroke risk
triggered by the 2019 publication was all in vain.
It turns out vegetarians don’t appear
to have higher stroke risk after all. In response to the EPIC-Oxford results,
researchers around the world scrambled to see if the findings
were merely a fluke. In 2020, UK Biobank, a massive study
following more than 400,000 volunteers, confirmed that vegetarians
had lower cardiovascular disease rates and importantly,
no increased incidence of stroke. And two studies from Taiwan
found vegetarians had significantly
lower risk of stroke. Following tens of thousands
of vegetarians for up to ten years, they only had about half the stroke risk
compared to nonvegetarians (including a 64 percent lower risk
specifically of hemorrhagic stroke). By 2021, Harvard researchers
had finished and published their analyses of the 200,000+ participants
of the Nurses’ Health Study, the Nurses’ Health Study II, and the Health Professionals
Follow-Up Study. They too found no increased stroke risk
for vegetarians and indeed a decreased risk of stroke among those eating
healthy plant-based diets.
A meta-analysis putting all the studies
together found that indeed the EPIC-Oxford data appeared
to be a fluke after all, finding, if anything, a lower risk
of stroke in a subgroup analysis. A 2022 systematic review
concluded that vegetarian and low-animal product diets are associated with a significantly
lower risk of bleeding strokes, a significantly lower risk
of clotting strokes, and a significantly lower risk
of total strokes across the board..
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
Preventing Asthma with Fruits and Vegetables
"Preventing Asthma With Fruits and Vegetables" Asthma is the most common
chronic disease in children, and the prevalence is
increasing around the world. Despite this, most research dollars
are spent on adult chronic diseases. One might ask whether this is because
our politicians and senior administrators feel themselves to be more
likely to suffer from the latter, and ignore allergic diseases
because they have their major impact on children and young
adults who don't vote. Imagine how much more effort
would be put into elucidating causes of a disorder
that increased at the same escalated rate in
the middle aged and elderly. Well, finally, an international study
of asthma and allergies in childhood, studying more than a million children
in nearly a hundred countries, making it the most comprehensive survey
of these diseases ever undertaken. What did they find? They found a wide variability
in the prevalence and severity of asthma, allergies,
and eczema. We're talking 20-fold
to 60-fold difference in prevalence of symptoms of
asthma, allergic runny nose, and atopic eczema
around the world. Striking worldwide variations in
the prevalence of allergic symptoms.
What does it
all mean? Well, the large variability
suggests a crucial role of some kind of local characteristics
determining the differences in prevalence between
one place and another. What kind of environmental factors? Like, why does the prevalence
of itchy eyes and runny nose range anywhere from 1% in India, for
example, up to 45% of kids elsewhere? There were some associations with
regional air pollution and smoking rates, but the most significant
associations were with diet. Adolescents showed a
consistent pattern of decreases in symptoms of wheeze
(current and severe), allergic rhinoconjunctivitis
and atopic eczema, associated with increased
consumption of plants. The more their calories and
protein came from plant sources, the less allergies
they seemed to have. In general, there seems
to be an association between an increase
in asthma prevalence and decreased consumption of
fresh fruits, green vegetables, and other dietary
sources of antioxidants, helping to explain why the prevalence
of asthma and respiratory symptoms is lower in populations with high
intake of foods of plant origin. Intakes of high fat and sodium,
and low fiber and carbohydrates are linked with asthma, while traditional and vegetarian diets
are associated with lower rates.
For example, if you
look closer within India, in a study of more
than 100,000 people, those who consumed meat, for example,
daily or even occasionally, were more likely to report asthma than
those who were strictly vegetarian, which meant also
avoiding eggs. Eggs have been associated,
along with soda, with an increased risk of respiratory
symptoms and asthma in schoolchildren, whereas consumptions
of soy foods and fruits were associated with reduced
risk of respiratory symptoms. In fact, removing eggs from
the diet, along with dairy, may improve lung function
in asthmatic children in as little
as eight weeks. So maybe it's a combination of eating
less animal foods and more plants.
High vegetable intake, for example,
has been found protective in children, cutting the odds of
allergic asthma in half. And fruit showed a consistent
protective association for current and severe wheeze and
runny nose in adolescents, and for current and severe asthma,
allergies, and eczema for children. But why? I've talk about the endocrine-
disrupting industrial pollutants building up in the meat supply that may
increase the risk of allergic diseases, but the increase in asthma
may be a combination of both a more toxic environment
and a more susceptible population. "The dietary changes which have
occurred over recent years may have led to a reduction in
these natural antioxidant defenses, resulting in a shift of the antioxidant
status of the whole population and leading to increased susceptibility
to oxidant attack and airway inflammation." In adults, for example, the risk
of airway hyper-reactivity may increase seven-fold
among those with the lowest intake of
vitamin C from plants foods, while the lowest intake of saturated
fats gave a 10-fold protection, presumably because of saturated fats
have a role in triggering inflammation.
“The protective effect of plant-based
food may also be mediated through effects on
intestinal microflora." It turns out the differences in
the indigenous intestinal flora might affect the development and priming
of the immune system in early childhood. Kids with allergies,
for example, tend to be less likely to
harbor lactobacilli, the good bacteria that's
found in fermented foods and also just naturally
on fruits and vegetables. And lactobacillus probiotics may
actually help with childhood asthma, which may all help
explain why children raised on largely
organic vegetarian diets may have lower prevalence
of allergic reactions. Infants raised in this way tend
to have more good lactobacilli in their guts compared
to controls, though they were also more likely
to have been born naturally, breastfed longer, and not
given as many antibiotics, so you really can't tell if it's the
diet until you put it to the test… which we'll
explore next..
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
Flashback Friday: The Best Diet for Diabetes
"The Best Diet for Diabetes" There are all sorts of different scoring
systems to rate diet quality. My favorite, for its simplicity, is the
dietary phytochemical index: a fancy name for a simple concept. It's just the percentage of your calories
from whole plant foods, so 0 to 100. The average American diet
has a score of 12. Twelve out of a hundred; so, like on a
scale of one to ten, our diet is a one. You can split people up based on how they
score, and show how the higher you score the better your metabolic markers
when it comes to diabetes risk. There appears to be like this stepwise
drop in insulin resistance and insulin-producing beta-cell dysfunction
as you eat more and more plant-based. And that highest group was
only scoring about 30, less than a third of their diet
was whole plant foods, but better than the lowest, which was
down around the standard American diet.
No wonder diets centered around
plants, emphasizing legumes— beans, split peas,
chickpeas and lentils— whole grains, vegetables,
fruits, nuts and seeds, and discouraging most or all animal
products are especially potent in preventing type 2 diabetes, and as a little bonus has been associated
with much lower rates of obesity, hypertension, hyperlipidemia,
cardiovascular mortality, and cancer. And not just preventing type 2 diabetes
but treating it as well. A systematic review and meta-analysis
found that the consumption of vegetarian diets is associated
with improved blood sugar control, but how much improved?
Here's one of the latest trials.
The effect of a strictly plant-based diet
centered around brown rice—it was done in Asia—versus the conventional
diabetic diet on blood sugar control of patients with type 2 diabetes:
a 12-week randomized clinical trial. For the diabetic control diet, they set
up food exchanges and calculated specific calorie and portion controls,
whereas on the plant-based diet people could eat much as they want;
that's one of the benefits.
The emphasis is on food
quality rather than quantity, and they still actually
lost more weight. But even after controlling for
the greater abdominal fat loss in the plant-based group,
they still won out. Of course, it only works
if you actually do it, but those that pretty much stuck
to the healthier diet dropped their A1c levels 0.9%, which is what you
get taking the leading diabetes drug, but of course only
with good side effects. Yeah, but would it work in
an underserved population? The impact of a plant-based diet support
program on mitigating type 2 diabetes in San Bernadino, the poorest
city of its size in California. A randomized controlled trial,
but not of a plant-based diet itself as the title suggests,
but of just an education program telling people about the benefits
of a plant-based diet for diabetes, and then it was up to them. And still got a significant improvement
in blood sugar control.
Here are the numbers. Got a little better
in the control group, but way better in the plant-based
instruction and support group. And more plant-based diets
are not just effective in the prevention and management of
diabetes, but also its complications. Check this out. One of the most devastating complications
of diabetes is kidney failure. This shows the decline in kidney
function in eight diabetics in the one or two years
before switching their diets.
They all showed this steady,
inexorable decline on a fast track to complete
kidney failure and dialysis. But then they switched to a
special supplemented vegan diet, and their kidney decline
was stopped in its tracks. Imagine if they had switched
a year or two earlier! Most diabetics don't actually end up on
dialysis though because they die first. Cardiovascular disease is the major cause
of premature mortality among diabetics; that's why plant-based diets are perfect.
There is a general scientific consensus that the elements of a whole-foods
plant-based diet— legumes, whole grains, fruits,
vegetables, and nuts, with limited or no intake of processed
foods and animal products— are highly beneficial for preventing
and treating type 2 diabetes.
Equally important, plant-based
diets address the bigger picture by simultaneously treating cardiovascular
disease, our #1 killer, along with obesity, high blood
pressure, lowering inflammation, and we can throw cancer
into the mix too, our #2 killer. The bottom line is that the case
for using a plant-based diet to reduce the burden of diabetes
and improve overall health has never been stronger..
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
The Best Diet for Hypothyroidism and Hyperthyroidism
"The Best Diet for Hypothyroidism
and Hyperthyroidism" There are several autoimmune diseases
that affect the thyroid gland, the most common being Graves' disease
and Hashimoto's thyroiditis. Graves' disease results in hyperthyroidism,
an overactive thyroid gland. Though slaughterhouses are
supposed to remove thyroid glands, should some neck meat slip in,
you can suffer a similar syndrome called hamburger thyrotoxicosis. But that's not from your body making
too much thyroid hormone; that's from your body eating
too much thyroid hormone.
Graves' disease is much more common,
and meat-free diets may be able to help with both, as plant-based diets
may be associated with a low prevalence
of autoimmune disease in general, as observed, for example,
in rural sub-Saharan Africa. Maybe it's because plants
are packed with antioxidants, which are possible protective factors
against autoimmune diseases. Maybe it's because plants are packed
with anti-inflammatory compounds. After all, a whole food plant-based diet
is basically synonymous with an anti-inflammatory diet.
But you
don't know until you put it to the test. It turns out the exclusion of all
animal foods was associated with half the prevalence of hyperthyroidism
compared with omnivorous diets. Lacto-ovo vegetarian and
fish-only diets were associated with intermediate protection, but
a 52% lower odds of hyperthyroidism among those eating strictly
plant-based diets. This apparent protection may be due
to the exclusion of animal foods, the benefits of plant foods, or both. Animal foods, like meat, eggs,
and dairy products, may contain high estrogen concentrations,
for example, which have been linked to
autoimmunity in preclinical studies.
Or the decrease in animal protein
may downregulate IGF-1, which is not just a cancer-
promoting growth hormone, but may play a role in
autoimmune diseases as well. Or it could be the good stuff in
plants that may protect cells, like the polyphenol phytochemicals,
such as flavonoids found in plant foods. Maybe it's the environmental toxins
that build up in the food chain. For example, fish contaminated with
industrial pollutants, like PCBs, are associated with increased
frequency of thyroid disorders. Okay, what about the other autoimmune
thyroid disease, Hashimoto's thyroiditis, which, assuming you're getting
enough iodine, is the primary cause of hypothyroidism, an underactive
thyroid gland. Graves' disease wasn't the only autoimmune disorder
that was rare or virtually unknown among those living in rural sub-Saharan
Africa, eating near-vegan diets.
They also appeared to have less
Hashimoto's. There's evidence that those with Hashimoto's have
compromised antioxidant status, but we don't know if
it's cause or effect. But if you look at the dietary factors
associated with blood levels of autoimmune anti-thyroid antibodies,
animal fats seem to be associated with higher levels, whereas vegetables and other plant
foods are associated with lower levels. So again, anti-inflammatory
diets may be useful. No surprise, as Hashimoto's
is an inflammatory disease. That's what thyroiditis means:
inflammation of the thyroid gland. Another possibility is the reduction
in methionine intake, an amino acid concentrated in animal protein, thought
to be one reason why the consumption of whole plant foods is likely to have
a favorable influence on longevity, through decreasing the risk of cancer,
heart disease, and diabetes. And methionine restriction improves
thyroid function in mice, but it has yet to be put to the test
for Hashimoto's in humans.
If you compare the poop of patients
with Hashimoto's to controls, the condition appears to be
related to a clear reduction in the concentration of Prevotella
species. Prevotella are good fiber-eating bugs known to enhance
anti-inflammatory activities. Decreased Prevotella levels
are also something you see in other autoimmune conditions, such as
multiple sclerosis and type 1 diabetes. How do you get more Prevotella?
Eat more plants. But put a vegetarian on a diet
of meat, eggs, and dairy, and within as few as four days
you can drive down levels. So one would expect those eating plant-
based diets to have less Hashimoto's, but in a previous video I expressed
concern about insufficient iodine intake, which could also lead to hypothyroidism. So, which is it?
Let's find out. Vegan diets tended to be
associated with lower, not higher, risk of hypothyroid disease.
Why the word "tended"? Because the associated protection against
hypothyroidism incidence and prevalence studies did not reach
statistical significance.
It wasn't just because they were slimmer. The lower risk existed even after controlling for body weight, so
they think maybe it's because animal products may induce inflammation. The question I have, though, is: if
someone who already has Hashimoto's, I mean, what happens
if you change their diet? That's exactly what I'll explore next..
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
Plant-Based Diets for Diabetes
"Plant-Based Diets for Diabetes" I’ve talked about the role meat may
play in increasing the risk of diabetes, and the potential protective
role of healthy plant foods. But plant-based diets
not only appear to guard against getting diabetes
in the first place, they may successfully treat the disease
better than the diabetic diets patients are typically placed on, controlling
weight and cholesterol. Diets based on whole plant foods can
result in significant weight loss without any limits on portion
size or calorie counting, because plant foods tend
to be so calorically dilute. Here's a 100 calories of broccoli,
tomatoes, strawberries, compare that to a 100 calories
of chicken, cheese, or fish.
People just can't seem to eat to enough
to compensate for the calorie deficit so lose weight eating whole plant foods.
And most importantly, it works. Better. A plant-based diet beat out the conventional
American Diabetes Association diet in a head-to-head randomized
controlled clinical trial, without restricting portions,
no calorie or carb counting. A review of all such studies found that
individuals following plant-based diets experience improved reductions in blood
sugars, body weight, and cardiovascular risk, compared with those following
diets that included animal products.
And cardiovascular risk is
what kills diabetics the most. They're more likely to get strokes,
more likely heart failure. In fact, diabetes has been proposed as
a coronary heart disease risk equivalent, meaning diabetic patients without
a history of coronary disease have an equivalent risk to those
non-diabetic individuals with confirmed heart disease. A newer study used a technique to
actually measure insulin sensitivity. Improved on both diets
in the first three months, but then the veg diet pulled ahead.
And look at their LDL cholesterol. That's what we see when people
are put on plant-based diets; cholesterol comes down so much it can
actually reverse the atherosclerosis progression, reverse the
progression of heart disease.
We know about the beneficial
effect of vegetarian diets on controlling weight, blood sugars,
cholesterol, insulin sensitivity, and oxidative stress compared
to conventional diabetic diets, but what about quality
of life, mood? How did people feel after making
such a dramatic change in their diets? In this randomized controlled trial,
study subjects were assigned either to a plant-based diet
group or control group. Vegetables, grains, beans, fruits, and
nuts, with animal products limited to a maximum of one daily
portion of low-fat yogurt, and the control group got
the official diabetes diet. Quality of life improved on both
diets in the first few months, but within six months, the plant-
based group clearly pulled ahead. Same thing with
depression scores. Dropped in both groups
in the first three months, but started to rebound
in the control group. Bottom line, the more plant-based
diet led to a greater improvement in quality of life
and mood. Patients consuming a vegetarian diet
also felt less constrained than those consuming the conventional diet.
People actually felt the conventional diabetic diet was more restrictive
than the plant-based diet.
Disinhibition decreased
with a vegetarian diet, meaning those eating vegetarian
were less likely to binge. And the veg group folks
tended to feel less hungry, all of which helps with
sustainability in the long term, which is, of course, critical
for changing diet. So not only do plant-based diets
appear to work better, but they may be easier to stick to.
And with the improvement in mood, patients may exhibit desired
improvements not only in physical, but also in mental health..
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
Should Vegetarians Take Creatine to Normalize Homocysteine?
"Should Vegetarians Take Creatine
to Normalize Homocysteine?" Almost universally, research findings
show a poor vitamin B12 status among vegetarians because they're
not taking vitamin B12 supplements like they should. And this results in
an elevation of homocysteine levels that may explain why vegetarians
were recently found to have higher rates of stroke. Of course, plant-based eating is just
one of many ways to get B12 deficient. I mean, even laughing gas can
do it, in as short as two days, thanks to the recreational use
of whipped cream canister gas. That's something new I learned today.
Anyways, if you do eat plant-based, giving vegetarians and vegans
even as little as 50 micrograms once a day of cyanocobalamin, the
recommended, most stable form of vitamin B12 supplement,
and their homocysteine levels start up in the elevated
zone, and within 1 to 2 months their homocysteines normalize right
down into the safe zone under 10.
Or just 2000 micrograms of
cyanocobalamin once a week, and you get the same beautiful
result, but not always. In this study even 500 micrograms
a day, either as a sublingual chewable or swallowable regular B12 supplement, didn't normalize homocysteine
within a month. Now, presumably if they had kept it up, their levels
would have continued to fall like in the other study. But if you're
plant-based and have been taking your B12 and your homocysteine levels
are still too high, meaning above 10, is there anything else you can do? Now, inadequate folate intake
can also increase homocysteine, but folate comes from
the same root as foliage. It's found in leaves, concentrated
in greens, as well as beans. But if you're eating beans and
greens, taking your B12, and your homocysteine level is still
too high, then I'd suggest trying, as an experiment, taking
one gram of creatine a day and getting your homocysteine levels
retested in a month to see if it helped.
Creatine is a compound formed
naturally in the human body that is primarily involved in energy
production in our muscles and brain. It's also naturally formed in the
bodies of many animals we eat. And so when we eat their
muscles, we also can take in some creatine through our diet. We need about two grams a day,
so those who eat meat may get like one gram from their diet, and
their body makes the rest from scratch. There are rare birth defects where
you're born without the ability to make it, in which case you have to get it
from your diet, but otherwise our bodies make as
much as we need to maintain normal
concentrations in our muscles.
When you cut out meat, the
amount of creatine floating around in your bloodstream goes down, but the
amount in your brain remains the same, showing dietary creatine doesn't
influence the levels of brain creatine, because your brain just makes
all the creatine you need. The level in vegetarian muscles is
lower, but that doesn't seem to affect performance, as both vegetarians
and meat-eaters respond to creatine supplementation with similar
increases in muscle power output. And if vegetarian muscle
creatine was insufficient, then presumably they would
have seen an even bigger boost. So basically, all that happens
when you eat meat is that your body just doesn't
have to make as much. What does this all have
to do with homocysteine? Okay, in the process of making creatine,
your body produces homocysteine as a waste product. Now
normally this isn't a problem because your body
has two ways to detoxify it using vitamin B6 or using a
combination of vitamins B12 and folate.
Now B6 is found in both plant and
animal foods; it's rare to be deficient. But B12 is mainly in animal
foods, and so can be too low in those eating plant-based who don't
supplement or eat B12 fortified foods. And folate is concentrated in plant
foods, so can be low in those who don't regularly eat greens or
beans or folic-acid fortified grains, and without that escape valve
homocysteine levels can get too high. If, however, you're eating a healthy
plant-based diet and taking your B12 supplement, your homocysteine levels
should be fine, but what if they're not? One might predict that if you started
taking creatine supplements, the level of homocysteine might go
down since you're not going to have to be making so much of it from scratch,
producing homocysteine as a by-product. But you don't know until you put it
to the test, which we'll cover next..
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
Friday Favorites: Is Vegan Food Always Healthy?
"Is Vegan Food Always Healthy?" In my video on flexitarians,
I talk about how the benefits of eating a plant-based diet
are not all-or-nothing. Simple advice to increase
the consumption of plant-derived foods with
parallel reductions in the consumption of foods from
animal sources was found to confer a survival advantage,”
a live-longer advantage. They call it a pro-vegetarian eating
pattern, just moving in that direction, as a more gradual, gentle
doable approach. If you’re dealing with a serious
disease, though, like diabetes, avoiding some problem foods
completely may be easier than attempting to moderate their intake. It’s like clinicians would never tell
alcoholics to simply cut down on alcohol. Avoiding alcohol entirely
is a more effective and, ironically, easier for a problem drinker. Paradoxically, asking patients
to make a large change may be more effective than
making a slow transition. Diet studies show that recommending
more significant changes increases the changes that
patients actually accomplish. It may help to replace the common
advice, ‘all things in moderation’ with ‘big changes beget big results.’ Success breeds success.
After a few days or weeks of
major dietary changes, patients are more likely
to see improvements in weight and blood sugar levels— improvements that
reinforce the dietary changes. Furthermore, they may enjoy other health
benefits of plant-based eating. that may give them further motivation. Those who choose to eat plant-based
for their health say it’s mostly for general wellness and disease
prevention, or to improve their energy levels or immune function. They felt it gave them a sense
of control over their health, helps you feel better emotionally,
improves your overall health, and makes you feel better.
Most felt it was very important for
maintaining their health and well-being. For the minority that used it
for a specific health problem, it was mostly for high cholesterol
or weight loss, followed by high blood pressure
and diabetes, with most reporting they felt it helped a great deal. But others choose plant-based diets
for other reasons like animal welfare or global warming, and it looks
like they’re more likely to be eating things like vegan doughnuts,
sugary and fatty foods, compared to those eating
plant-based because of religious or health reasons. I mean the veganist vegan could bake
a cake using soda instead of eggs, with frosting, covered in marshmallow
fluff and chocolate syrup, topped with Oreos, with a side of Doritos
dipped in, vegan bacon grease.
But fruit for dessert… in the form of
Pop Tarts and Krispy Kreme pies. This, is a vegan meal. Yes, plant-based diets have
been recommended to reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes. However, not all plant foods
are necessarily beneficial. Like in that pro-vegetarian scoring
system you got points for eating potato chips and French fries,
just because they were technically plant-based, but Harvard researchers
wanted to examine the association of not only an overall plant-based diet,
but both healthy and unhealthy versions. So, they created the same kind
of pro-vegetarian scoring system weighted towards any sort
of plant-based foods, and against animal foods and then also
created a healthful plant-based diet index, where at least some whole
plant foods took precedence and Coca-Cola was no longer
considered a plant. Then lastly, they created an
unhealthful plant-based diet index by assigning positive scores
to processed plant-based junk, and negative scoring healthier
foods and animal foods.
And then they found that a more
plant-based diet in general was good for reducing diabetes risk, but eating
especially healthy plant-based foods did better, nearly cutting risk in half, while those eating more
unhealthy plant foods did worse. Now, but is that because they
were also eating more animal foods? People often eat burgers with their fries; so, they separated out the
effects of healthy plant foods, less healthy plant foods,
and animal foods.
And healthy plant foods were
protectively associated, animal foods were
detrimentally associated, and less healthy plant foods were more
neutral when it came to diabetes risk. Here’s what the graph looks like:
higher diabetes risk with more and more animal foods, no protection
whatsoever with junky plant foods, and lower and lower diabetes risk
associated with more and more healthy whole plant foods in the diet. So, they conclude that yes, plant-
based diets are associated with substantially lower risk of
developing type 2 diabetes, but it may not be enough to just
lower the intake of animal foods, but also less healthy plant foods as well..
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
