Quotes About Lifestyle

There's no magnesium aisle in the supermarket.

Take cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, for example. The best they may be able to offer in terms of absolute risk reduction for a subsequent heart attack or death is about 3 percent over six years.54 Meanwhile, a whole-food, plant-based diet may work twenty times better, potentially offering an absolute risk reduction of 60 percent after fewer than four years.55

The primary reason diseases tend to run in families may be that diets tend to run in families. For

From a nutrition standpoint, the reason I don't like the terms vegetarian and vegan is that they are only defined by what you don't eat. When I used to speak on college campuses, I would meet vegans who appeared to be living off french fries and beer. Vegan, technically, but not exactly health promoting. That's why I prefer the term whole-food, plant-based nutrition.

diagnosis is considered a "teachable moment" when we can motivate a patient to improve his or her lifestyle.152 By then, though, it may already be too late.

Heart attacks are considered 96 percent avoidable in women who eat a wholesome diet and engage in other healthy lifestyle behaviors.113 The number-one killer of women need almost never happen.

not smoking, not being obese, getting half an hour of exercise a day, and eating healthier—defined as consuming more fruits, veggies, and whole grains and less meat. Those four factors alone were found to account for 78 percent of chronic disease risk.

Most deaths in the United States are preventable, and they are related to what we eat. 4

Are Americans living longer now compared to about a generation ago? Yes, technically. But are those extra years necessarily healthy ones? No. And it's worse than that: We're actually living fewer healthy years now than we once did. 20

In other words, we're living longer, but we're living sicker.

People who once ate vegetarian diets but then started to eat meat at least once a week experienced a 146 percent increase in odds of heart disease, a 152 percent increase in stroke, a 166 percent increase in diabetes, and a 231 percent increase in odds for weight gain.

Even though our eating habits are now killing more Americans than our smoking habits,32 I often hear the refrain in public health circles that we have to work with, rather than against, these companies, because unlike with tobacco, we don't have to smoke, but we do have to eat.33 Well, yes, we need to breathe—but we don't need to breathe smoke. And yes, we need to eat, but we don't need to eat junk.

Every year, Americans lose more than five million years of life from cancers that may have been prevented.1 Only a small percentage of all human cancers are attributable to purely genetic factors. The rest involve external factors, particularly our diet.2

In general, 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.

Obesity may simply be a normal response to an abnormal environment.

The two most prominent dietary risks for death and disability in the world may be not eating enough fruit and eating too much salt.

as effectively as first-line statin drugs, but without the risks.39 In fact, the "side effects" of healthy eating tend to be good—less cancer and diabetes risk and protection of the liver and brain, as we'll explore throughout the rest of this book.

My grandma was given her medical death sentence at age sixty-five. Thanks to a healthy diet and lifestyle, she was able to enjoy another thirty-one years on this earth with her six grandchildren. The woman who was once told by doctors she only had weeks to live didn't die until she was ninety-six years old.

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.

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

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.

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.

Just because you're born with bad genes doesn't mean you can't effectively turn them off.