More by Michael Greger
That one unifying diet that's been 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.
How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease (2025)
Higher intake of meat in general—whether red meat, white meat, processed, or unprocessed—is also associated with an increased risk of death from all causes put together. If the whole world cut out meat, we'd save an estimated seven million lives a year. If humanity cut out all animal-sourced foods, we might save eight million lives annually.
How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease (2025)
A blood pressure checkup is easy to ignore or postpone. The insidious consequences of hypertension may not be apparent until we're lifted into an ambulance or lowered into a grave. Go to your local pharmacy, or doctor's office, and get your blood pressure checked.
How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease (2025)
We can actually change the expression of genes—tumor suppressing genes, tumor activating genes—by what we eat, what we put into our bodies. So, even if you've been dealt a bad genetic deck, you can still reshuffle it with diet.
Interview in the documentary-film What the Health by Kip Andersen (2017)
A healthy diet can reduce stroke risk by reducing cholesterol and blood pressure while improving blood flow and antioxidant capacity.
High fiber intake may also help ward off stroke. High-fiber diets may also lower blood pressure, which reduces the risk of brain bleeds.
How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease (2025)
The Global Burden of Disease Study noted which foods, if added to the diet, might save lives. More nuts and seeds? 600,000 lives. How about vegetables? 860,000 lives. More whole grains. An incredible 1.6 million lives a year. Fruits. Worldwide, if humanity ate more fruits, we might save an estimated 1.7 million lives.
How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease (2025)
The pandemic of chronic disease has been ascribed in part to the near-universal shift toward a diet dominated by animal-sourced and processed foods—in other words, more meat, dairy, eggs, oils, fizzy drinks, sugar, and refined grains.
How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease (2025)
The blood of men on the standard American diet slowed down the rate of prostate cancer cell growth by 9 percent. Place men on a plant-based diet for a year, though, and the blood circulating within their bodies can suppress cancer cell growth by 70 percent—that's nearly eight times the stopping power compared to a meat-centered menu.
How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease (2025)
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