Quotes About Research

of Lipids and Metabolism at Mount Sinai's cardiovascular institute put

advice and inquire about fish oil supplements

people who had had pets for twenty years or longer. The researchers suspect the reason is connected to the fact that having pets may have beneficial effects on the immune system.58

treatments aimed not just at reducing tumor bulk but at targeting what has been called the "beating heart of the tumor":112 cancer stem cells. That's where broccoli may come in. Sulforaphane, a dietary component of cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, has been shown to suppress the ability of breast cancer stem cells to form tumors.113 This means that if you're currently in remission, eating lots of broccoli could theoretically help keep your cancer from returning.

Note that none of these recommendations to cut down on added sugars applies to fruit. As you'll read in the Rich in Fruits and Vegetables section, fruit can actually facilitate weight loss. If you randomize people to a diet low in all sugars, even the naturally occurring sugars in fruit, they do worse than those randomized to just cut down added sugars. Those who retained fruit in their diets lost nearly 50 percent more weight.

The additional consumption of fourteen grams of fiber a day led to an average weight loss of 1.9 kilograms over 3.8 months.

teamed up with Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn, who was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine for her discovery of telomerase. In a study funded in part by the U.S. Department of Defense, they found that three months of whole-food, plant-based nutrition and other healthy changes could significantly boost telomerase activity, the only intervention ever shown to do so.69 The study was published in one of the most prestigious medical

In the control group (the group of participants who did not change their lifestyles), their telomeres predictably shrank with age. But for the healthy-living group, not only did their telomeres shrink less, they grew. Five years later, their telomeres were even longer on average than when they started, suggesting a healthy lifestyle can boost telomerase enzyme activity and reverse cellular aging.71

reimbursement is a much more powerful determinant of medical practice than research."97

Cold exposure is the most powerful known stimulus for BAT activation.3469 Just twenty minutes at cool temperatures can boost metabolism for hours.3470 The colder the better, but putting people in a room chilled down into the 50s Fahrenheit is "often not appreciated by [research] subjects."3471 It's not called a "thermal comfort zone" for nothing. Exposure

One of the diseases antioxidant-rich foods may help prevent is stroke. Swedish researchers followed more than thirty 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.

In a remarkable study published recently, hundreds of children were followed for a period of twenty-four years, from junior high school to adulthood. Researchers found that low fiber intake early on was associated with stiffening of the arteries leading up to the brain—a key risk factor for stroke.

In a study refreshingly not funded by a vinegar company, two daily tablespoons of apple cider vinegar mixed into a drink reduced fasting blood sugars in prediabetics an average of sixteen points within one week, which is better than what you'd tend to see with antidiabetic drugs like Glucophage or Avandia.2650 The vinegar was found to be safer, cheaper, and more effective. No wonder vinegar has been used medicinally since antiquity.

Obese individuals randomized to just about four teaspoons of yacon syrup a day for 120 days lost nearly four inches off their waists and more than thirty pounds, whereas those on the placebo syrup gained weight.2674

Interventional studies putting around three to six cups' worth of daily green or oolong tea to the test showed an average metabolic boost of about one hundred calories a day, shaving off three butter pats' worth of extra fat every day.

One such study tried giving people with metabolic syndrome placebo or actual garlic tablets adding up to a half teaspoon of garlic powder a day. And it worked, resulting in a drop in both weight and waistlines within six weeks.2285 A half teaspoon of garlic powder costs less than four cents. What about trying garlic supplements, like the fancy aged garlic extract ones you may have seen advertised. No weight-loss benefits were found.2286

appear to help turn BRCA protection back on, removing the methyl straitjacket the tumor tried to place on it.144 The dose breast cancer researchers used to achieve this result in vitro was pretty hefty, though—the equivalent to eating about a cup of soybeans. Soy may also help women with variations of other breast cancer susceptibility genes known as MDM2 and CYP1B1.

Asian populations also eat more mushrooms.149 As noted in the box on red wine here, white mushrooms have also been shown to block the estrogen synthase enzyme, at least in a petri dish. So researchers decided to investigate if there was a link between mushroom intake and breast cancer. They compared the mushroom consumption of one thousand breast cancer patients to one thousand healthy subjects of similar age, weight, and smoking and exercise status.

The women whose mushroom consumption averaged just about one-half a mushroom or more per day had 64 percent lower odds of breast cancer compared with women who didn't eat mushrooms at all. Eating mushrooms and sipping at least half a tea bag's worth of green tea each day was associated with nearly 90 percent lower breast cancer odds.150

Of all the nuts studied in PREDIMED, the researchers found the greatest benefits associated with walnuts, particularly for preventing cancer deaths.15 People who ate more than three servings of walnuts per week appeared to cut their risk of dying from cancer in half.

Of all the nuts studied in PREDIMED, the researchers found the greatest benefits associated with walnuts, particularly for preventing cancer deaths.15 People who ate more than three servings of walnuts per week appeared to cut their risk of dying from cancer in half. A review of the scientific literature concluded that "the far-reaching positive effects of a plant-based diet that includes walnuts may be the most critical message for the public."16

Within eight weeks, those in the green tea group were down an average of ten pounds compared to about four pounds in the placebo group. Given the identical diets and no significant change in exercise, this suggests the primary green tea benefit is from burning more calories, which was confirmed by calorimetry. The green tea resulted in a significantly higher resting metabolic rate.

A meal eaten at 7:00 a.m. can cause 37 percent lower blood sugars than an identical meal taken at 1:00 p.m.

Large-scale population studies have found that the consumption of artificial sweeteners, particularly in diet sodas, is associated with increased weight gain and abdominal fat over time.1538