Quotes from Michael Greger

The Mediterranean diet, for example, which is higher in vegetables, beans, fruits, and nuts, and lower in meats and dairy products, has been associated with slower cognitive decline and lower risk of Alzheimer's.

I'm not interested in offering dueling anecdotes, nor am I interested in dietary dogma, beliefs, or opinions. What I am interested in is the science. When it comes to making life-and-death decisions that concern something as important as your own health and that of your family, as far as I'm concerned, there's only one question: What does the best available balance of evidence say right now? That's what I've tried to encapsulate in this book.

of liver disease in countries where pork is more popular? It appears so. The relationship between national per capita pork consumption and deaths from liver disease correlates as tightly as per capita alcohol consumption and liver fatalities. Each pork chop consumed per capita

What's more, not only may eating healthier to prevent cancer help to prevent heart disease but eating to prevent heart disease may also help to prevent cancer. One of the reasons? Cholesterol may play a role in the development and progression of breast cancer.75 Cancer appears to feed on cholesterol.

When your smoking habit erases the antioxidant-boosting effects of eight hundred cups of kale, you know it's time to quit.

LDL cholesterol stimulates the growth of breast cancer cells in a petri dish—they just gobble up the so-called bad cholesterol. Tumors may suck up so much cholesterol that cancer patients' cholesterol levels tend to plummet as their cancer grows.76

Indeed, while the vast majority of drug-induced liver injuries are caused by conventional medications, liver damage caused by certain classes of dietary supplements can be even more serious and may lead to higher rates of liver transplants

7 sencillos», o 7 factores que pueden promover una vida más saludable: no fumar, evitar el sobrepeso, ser «muy activo» (definido como el equivalente de caminar al menos veintidós minutos al día), seguir una dieta saludable (por ejemplo, abundantes frutas y verduras), tener un nivel de colesterol por debajo de la media, una tensión arterial normal y unos niveles de glucosa en sangre normales.[27

So, for best results, first grind up the seeds with a blender or coffee or spice grinder, or buy them preground or "milled.

Anyone can lose weight eating less food. Anyone can be starved thin. Starvation diets are rarely sustainable, though, since hunger pangs drive us to eat. We feel unsatisfied on low-calorie diets. Unsatiated. We do have some level of voluntary control, but our deep-seated instinctual drives may win out in the end. For

Hydroxycut was withdrawn after dozens of verified cases of organ damage were brought to light—including massive liver failure requiring transplantation and even death.58 Until the multibillion-dollar herbal supplement industry is better regulated, you're better off saving your money—and your health—by sticking to real food.

thousand older women over a period of a dozen years and found that those who ate the most antioxidant-rich foods had the lowest stroke risk.42 Similar findings were reported in a younger cohort of men and women in Italy.43 As with lung disease,44 antioxidant supplements don't appear to help.45 Mother Nature's powers cannot be stuffed into a pill. Knowing this, scientists set out to find the most

Ground flax is a light, nutty powder that can be sprinkled on oatmeal, salads, soups—frankly, just about anything you're eating.

The Mayo Clinic estimates that nearly 70 percent of Americans take at least one prescription drug.

been found to be protective of the liver. For instance, starting out the day with a bowl of oatmeal and (surprisingly) coffee may help safeguard our liver function.

Calculating your BMI is relatively easy: You can visit one of the scores of online BMI calculators, or you can grab a calculator and calculate it on your own. To do so, multiply your weight in pounds by 703. Then divide that twice by your height in inches. For example, if you weigh 200 pounds and are 71 inches tall (five foot eleven), that would be (200 × 703) ÷ 71 ÷ 71 = 27.9, a BMI indicating that you would be, unfortunately, significantly overweight.

Excess cholesterol in the blood can lead to excess cholesterol in the brain, which may then help trigger the clumping of amyloid seen in Alzheimer's brains. Under an electron microscope, we can see the clustering of amyloid fibers on and around tiny crystals of cholesterol.85 And indeed, advanced brain imaging techniques, such as PET scans, have shown a direct correlation between the amount of LDL ("bad") cholesterol in the blood and amyloid buildup in the brain.

Three hours after eating 50 grams of broccoli sprouts, the enzyme that cancers use to help silence our defenses is suppressed in your bloodstream110 to an extent equal to or greater than the chemotherapy agent specifically designed for that purpose,111 without the toxic side effects.112

Dried fruits and nuts appear to be so satiating that people feel full and unintentionally offset the calories elsewhere throughout the day. Studies on apple rings,5 figs,6 prunes,7 and raisins8 have found similar results. In the apple study, postmenopausal women who added two apples' worth of apple rings to their daily diet for six months not only didn't gain weight but experienced a whopping 24 percent drop in their LDL ("bad") cholesterol.

Whatever genes we may have inherited from our parents, what we eat can affect how those genes affect our health. The power is mainly in our hands and on our plates.

the dividing line between health-promoting and disease-promoting foods may be less plant- versus animal-sourced foods and more whole plant foods versus most everything else.

Toss a tablespoon of ground flax into a blender with some frozen berries, unsweetened soy milk, and half a ripe banana or mango or a few dates for sweetness, and you have a delicious drink containing both classes of protective phytoestrogens—lignans in flax and isoflavones in soy.

I'm such a stickler for veracity that I hired nine fact-checkers to go through every citation of the How Not to Die manuscript, and I committed to the same rigor with this book.

That one unifying diet found to best prevent and treat many of these chronic diseases is a whole-food, plant-based diet, defined as an eating pattern that encourages the consumption of unrefined plant foods and discourages meats, dairy products, eggs, and processed foods.