CNN is about to air a fantastic documentary called "The Last Heart Attack," featuring Drs. Ornish and Esselstyn talking about successfully preventing, stopping and even reversing our number one killer -- heart disease -- with a plant-based diet.
Though billed as the latest cutting-edge treatment, Dean Ornish M.D. and Caldwell Esselstyn Jr. M.D. have both been publishing on reversing the heart disease epidemic through diet and lifestyle changes for more than 20 years. The food-disease correlation is only recently becoming more widely understood because multibillion dollar industries have made it their business to keep the emphasis on the latest cholesterol-lowering drugs and surgeries, leaving the average lay person to find out for themselves about the latest advances in nutrition. I meet so many people these days who want to get healthy, but just don't know where to find easy-to-understand information that will help them make decisions on how or what to eat.
This was the impetus behind NutritionFacts.org, the brainchild of Dr. Michael Greger, M.D. When he's not out trying to save the world from bird flu or foodborne illness, he scours the world's scholarly literature on nutrition for the most interesting, groundbreaking and practical new research.
Check out some of this fascinating information:
• Adding vinegar to meals can help you lose weight.
• Drinking kombucha tea may be harmful.
• There's a way to get goji berries cheaper than raisins.
• Peanut butter may significantly decrease heart disease risk in women.
• Vegans have been found to be "significantly less polluted" than omnivores.
• Even distilled fish oil is contaminated with pollutants.
• Second only to fish, eggs are the most contaminated source of industrial pollutants in the food supply.
• A quarter of fast-food burgers are contaminated with parasites.
• The estrogen in cow's milk may be contributing to premature sexual maturation in girls.
• The meat most likely to be contaminated with fecal matter is ground turkey.
• There's a 1 to 7 scale used by doctors to classify bowel movements.
• Even people who don't experience pain or weakness on cholesterol-lowering statin drugs may be suffering muscle damage.
• There's a poultry virus that may be contributing to our obesity epidemic.
• Cold-steeped green tea is healthier than hot-brewed.
• Breast cancer survivors may reduce their risk of recurrence by eating soy foods.
• Researchers have raised concerns about "mad fish disease" in farmed fish.
• The U.S. Inspector General finds the USDA is failing to safeguard the meat supply from drug residues.
• Women may be getting urinary tract infections from eating chicken.
• Cooking vegetables can boost the absorption of certain nutrients.
• Raw alfalfa sprouts present a significant food safety risk.
• In meat-eating households more fecal bacteria can be found in the kitchen sink than the toilet.
• Diet can affect body odor.
• The best superfood bargain (most antioxidants per dollar) is red cabbage.
• White tea is healthier than green tea, but only if you add lemon.
• Sharing your home with a cat or dog may decrease one's risk of cancer.
• Coconut oil may be as harmful as butter.
• There are two classes of vegetables particularly adept at stopping cancer cell growth.
• There's a toxin in certain fish that can be sexually transmitted.
• Eating tuna is the equivalent mercury exposure to living with dozens of amalgam tooth fillings.
• Mushrooms should be eaten cooked -- not raw.
• The #1 source of arsenic in the diet is chicken.
• The #1 source of aluminum in the diet is chicken.
• There are more hormones in skim milk than in whole milk.
NutritionFacts.org features hundreds of short captivating clips on the latest nutrition research and Greger is promising to upload a new video every day, seven days a week, for the first year. The first of his 365 new videos was posted today with the official launch of the site.
Non-commercial (not funded by interested parties who have products to sell) science-based sources of good nutrition information are hard to find. Check out NutritionFacts.org today and every day for the next year. I think you'll find it hugely interesting and educational.