Cross-posted with OtherWords
There are a thousand ways to die and every one of them has a lobbyist working for it in Washington. You are the only lobbyist working for No. 1.
Republicans have hatched a health care plan that will bring down costs dramatically. It's called "Die Young." It mainly targets the poor.
Democrats have a plan, too. It's called "Appoint a Commission of Experts; They'll Know What to Do." Though less effective than the GOP model at lowering costs, it has the great advantage of sparing politicians difficult votes.
Both are very disappointing.
Never fear. I too have a plan. It's modest, universal, and foolproof. If the nation were to embrace it, we'd not only cut health care costs in half, our budget deficit would shrink to the equivalent of spare change.
This is my plan: Stay healthy.
That's it. The whole plan. Just imagine if people started to take long walks instead of downing handfuls of pills each day. Suppose they ate real food instead of the toxic waste dished up by fast food restaurants and marketed by processed food conglomerates. Think what would happen if we began teaching our children that foods other than sugar taste pretty good, once you get used to them.
What if we started spending as much money and effort on being well as we do now on getting sick?
Pretty soon you'd have cardiologists wandering the streets with portable blood-pressure machines, offering to give you a reading for a quarter.
You'd have treatment centers full of dialysis machines with nobody to dialysize.
You'd have giant cancer clinics with their terrifying machines looking as abandoned as a Detroit auto plant.
All that and more is within our grasp. It wouldn't involve government at any level or the socialization of medicine. Neither would it interfere with the sacred doctor-patient relationship nor pay tribute to an insurance company.
It's voluntary, constitutional, and smart. You're probably skeptical. I don't blame you. I was too, until I read a book called The China Study. It's written by T. Colin Campbell, a giant in the field of nutritional research, and his son Thomas Campbell II.
The book lays out the results of a lifetime of research on diet as it relates to disease, especially cancer. At the center of The China Study is a joint Chinese-Western effort that is the largest and most comprehensive such study ever attempted.
The results were nothing short of startling.
They found that animal fats and protein -- milk included -- tend to make you sick. Vegetables make you well.
Laboratory studies confirmed that even if massive amounts of carcinogens were fed to rats and mice, they didn't produce much cancer -- until animal protein was added to the diet.
Think on that. Our air, water, and food supplies are being corrupted with cancer-causing materials every day. Yet the study indicates that unless you combine those materials with protein from meat and dairy products, you probably won't get cancer.
Dr. Campbell also describes studies indicating that a plant-based diet has a preventative effect on diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, and autoimmune diseases like MS and rheumatoid arthritis. In some cases, a rigid plant-based diet was found to roll back those diseases.
The answer to health, then, seems to lie in becoming a vegan -- someone who eats only food derived from plants.
I've just lost you, haven't I? A plant-only diet sounds like the latest fad taken up by Hollywood celebrities.
It isn't. There's strong scientific evidence that it provides a way to a long and healthy life that doesn't end prematurely in a hospital bed with a dozen tubes attached to your wasted body.
Don't misunderstand me. I'm not advising you become a vegan. It's a hard life, particularly if you're not an inventive cook. A vegetarian meal can sometimes taste good, but eating out is often a challenge.
But remember this. There are a thousand ways to die and every one of them has a lobbyist working for it in Washington.
You are the only lobbyist working for No. 1.
Read The China Study. It could change your life.
Susan Blumenthal, M.D.: How to Live a Long and Healthy Life: The 10 Things Every Woman Needs to Know
Joanna Dolgoff, M.D.: 6 Ways To Start -- And Keep -- A Healthy Diet
Glenn D. Braunstein, M.D.: A Plate From the USDA With a Tastier Way to See More Nutritious Eating
Dr. Joseph Mercola: Vegetable Diet: The Best and Worst Vegetables ...
A Fruit and Vegetable Diet - The Key to Weight Loss Success
If I am lucky , I may l get another 30 years.
If I'm real lucky, I will get a few more.
I eat 3 well balanced meals a day. No snacks. I am in good shape at 102 pounds.
I eat meat, vegetables, fruit, eggs, bread, legums and dairy products.
I also drink a few diet sodas now and then.
I also exercise.
I see no reason to change my diet.
Common sense goes a long way!
Frequent small meal option reduces levels of your satiety hormone, Leptin, which actually lowers your metabolic rate!
In addition, the persistent secretion of insulin this type of diet causes will actually increase the risk of insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome as well as block the body’s ability to burn fat
stores.
Finally, and perhaps the biggest problem with the whole concept of frequent small meals is that in our food-accessible environment, they rapidly become frequent large meals, particularly as research shows that having a snack between meals does not reduce the size of the next meal.
Unless training for the Olympics or competing in Mr. Universe, we only need three meals a day and our metabolism works best with this arrangement.
http://www.chili-everyway.com/meatless-monday.html
First, ask yourself, why did Campbell write this book with his son (undergrad degree) and not one of the many excellent colleagues he knows from Cornell or through the China project (where he took his data for his book)?
Second, ask yourself, why did he have to publish this book with a "boutique" vanity publisher, http://www.benbellabooks.com/, not a recognized medical science publisher?
Third, review the conflicting evidence coming out these days that shows Campbell's conclusions are sloppy at best:
Here is a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition study finding essentially no difference in the mortality of vegetarians and non vegetarians from cerebrovascular disease, stomach cancer, colorectal cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, or all other causes combined. http://www.ajcn.org/content/70/3/516S.abstract
Health Effects of Vegetarian and Vegan Diets. This shows no real difference on health between those eating these diets or a well balanced diet that includes meat and dairy. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16441942
Red and Processed Meat Consumption and Risk of Incident Coronary Heart Disease, Stroke, and Diabetes Mellitus: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. This is a large meta-analysis, that shows no relationship between red meat consumption and CAD, stroke and diabetes. There is an association with processed meat. http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/121/21/2271
I lived in Des Moines when the T Colin Cambell's research came out. Possibly the only vegan in the state of Iowa at that time, I was handing out "Diet for a New America" and talking about the China Study to anyone who would listen - and no one would listen. I could have been talking about nudist Marxism and had a greater impact.
As for the vegan diet being difficult, on the contrary, these days it is easy! Please read "Breaking the Food Seduction" by Dr Neal Barnard, and you will see how easy.
You know what's hard? Cancer. Heart disease. Animal abuse. Destruction of the planet.
So if you're one of those people who block inconvenient truths - now might be a good time to unblock.