“THE POWER OF PLANT FOODS in ANTI-AGING & LIFESTYLE MEDICINE” By Dr. John Westerdahl
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John Wester doll he is currently the director of the brag help foundation and the director of health science for Bragg live food products he’s an internationally recognized authority in the field of nutrition and wellness he’s a nutritionist a registered dietician a certified nutrition specialist a master herbalist he’s a board-certified anti-aging practitioner and health educator a graduate of Loma Linda University School of Public Health his Bachelor of Science Master of Public Health and doctorate degrees are in the fields of food nutrition and health education previously he served as director of wellness and lifestyle medicine at Castle Medical Center in Kailua tonight he will discuss the power of plant foods in anti-aging and lifestyle medicine please welcome dr.
John Wester dal thing about but my thing up thank you well thank you and aloha boy it’s been almost three years since I was last here in Hawaii many of you know that I served as director of wellness and lifestyle medicine at Castle Medical Center doing many vegetarian health programs and it’s wonderful to be back today I work for dr.
Patricia Bragg by the way Patricia just called me a couple hours ago and she wanted to say aloha to all of you and send you send her Aloha and peace and love and greetings to you too that tonight she’s in Chicago speaking this week while I’m over here in Hawaii so anyway it’s a privilege to be here tonight and tonight I’m going to be talking about the power of plant foods in anti-aging and lifestyle medicine and there’s two key points in this lecture I want you to remember actually this summarizes the whole thing the first one is food from plants prevent the diseases that are killing us fruits vegetables grains and beans the second important principle of tonight’s talk is that foods from plants promote health longevity beauty and vitality those are the key two principles I’d like to talk about this evening and really plant foods I believe are the most important thing in helping to prevent diseases treat diseases and even reverse diseases and eating a vegetarian and ideally a vegan diet you are what you eat you’ve heard that what you eat today this is a Paul Bragg statement what you eat today is walking and talking tomorrow think about that it becomes a part of you you know live foods produce what live bodies healthy bodies dead food which unfortunately most Americans eat a diet primary what I call dead food you know the devitalized the refined foods of course you’ve eat meat you’re eating a dead animal right dead foods produce what illness sickness disease leading to death we want to focus on what we call a live food diet based on plant foods focus on fruits and vegetables and grains and legumes and these types of things well the health care in the 21st century what is the future of that there’s a lot of questions Obama this past week has been to working on you know that trying to figure out ways and reducing health care costs and insurance and we are in a major crisis today in the health care system not just from a financial standpoint but also from a health standpoint you know we wake ranked about number 18 in as far as health is concerned in the whole world and today we have seven-year-old children who have adult onset diabetes we have young kids who have adult types of diseases not too long ago a nurse in fact at Castle Medical Center told me that her son who’s 13 years old his arteries are all blocked up according to his doctor 13 years of age and why is that because most of his life he ate at McDonald’s breakfast lunch and dinner most of his meals are made up of the foods from McDonald’s the fast foods so it’s really child abuse I believe in the way many parents feed their kids today they’re putting them on a diet program that’s going to lead to premature disease illness disease and death and the other thing is I want to mention is that I remember not too long ago just a few years ago at the American Dietetic Association convention the Surgeon General of the United States said if we continue in the way we’re going today as far as the way kids are eating that in this generation parents will outlive their own children if we continue in the current way we’re headed well you know a castle medical center part of my job was to keep people out of the hospital show them a better way of life and this is a picture of castle and they still have a wonderful wellness and lifestyle medicine program going I was there today visiting with the staff and it’s amazing some of the great things that they’re doing and I encourage you to look on the website find out some about the health classes and vegetarian cooking classes that they have a castle all the time but at Castle Medical Center and this is typical of hospitals all over the country is that seventy percent of the patients are there because of diet and lifestyle related reasons thank you that diet and lifestyle related reasons if people ate right they didn’t smoke they did exercise they follow the healthy lifestyle chances are seventy percent of those patients would not be in the hospital here we have the ultimate causes of death this is the world report this is a few years ago but it shows that tobacco blood pressure alcohol cholesterol overweight low fruit and vegetable intake these are amongst the leading ultimate causes of death and it breaks it down as far as what types of disease as you can see on the chart with the different color schemes there as well as far as which is cardiovascular disease and cancers and and so forth and nutritional deficiencies here we have the causes of death in the United States heart disease of course is the number one killer yet most of heart disease can be prevented then we have cancer stroke lung disease and accidents and diabetes but most of the diseases that you see here are things that we can do something about tobacco smoking is the ones marked in black is related to that disease poor diet and inactivity which we’re going to be talking a little bit about tonight and then alcohol all our factors in these different causes of death in our country well a number of years ago Senator Tom Harkin senator from Iowa wrote a very important article that appeared in the American Journal of health he was talking about healthcare not sick care you know we don’t really have health care we had health care we want to be healthy right we really have sick care and he pointed out in this article that few would argue with the statement that if we if you get sick the best place in the world to get care that you need is here in America we have the best trained highest skilled health professionals in the world we have cutting-edge state-of-the-art equipment and technology we have world-class health care facilities and research institutions no question about that but when it comes to helping people stay healthy and stay out of the hospital we fall woefully short in the United States we spend approximately 1.
8 trillion a year on health care and that’s gone up since this article is written fully 75% of the total of that total is accounted for by chronic diseases things like heart disease cancer and diabetes all of which in a large measure are preventable meanwhile only 2% of all healthcare spending is on prevention what is wrong with this picture the two key points here 75% of the total is accounted for by chronic diseases only 2% of all health care spending is on prevention and we want to go beyond just prevention I’m going to be talking about lifestyle medicine which is a key I think for the future of medicine in our country now when we look at the nature of disease it can be viewed from a variety of dimensions and let us consider the disease severity here we have zero as you can see on the left there that’s optimal health and we have maximum and you have severity goes up maximum severity of course leading to death we can look at disease severity over a long our lifetime the ideal would be of course to have perfect health and function until we die that doesn’t always happen that’s not always realistic but it but in many cases people can have really almost perfect health most of their life and the picture kind of looks like this we can look at disease severity over a lifetime here we’re born we have good health as time goes on we have different clinical symptoms that initiate different types of medical care till death now the ideal would be something like this where we have perfect health and function until we die right at the end I mean he had this is what we would would be really the ideal if we could have really good health and then at the end of our lives something you know die very quickly and very suddenly not dragged out and like we see in most cases because life is quite uh Nigeria stillness –is until one causes the death and we have different types of illnesses throughout that lifetime some never enjoy good health and unfortunately of course with birth defects and other problems they have illnesses and all their lives until they die well a number of years ago a very profound statement was published in the Journal of American Medical Association which says in the coming decades the most important determinants of health and longevity will be the personal choices made by each individual and dr.
Dennis Burkett who is a wonderful man he’s the one that really showed the importance of eating a high-fiber diet and he’s also the discoverer of Berk Burkett’s lymphoma he said the concept that Western diseases the concept that Western diseases are lifestyle related and therefore potentially preventable and reversible is the most important medical discovery of the 20th century and now we’re into the 21st century and I feel that goes for that today too there is a new form of medicine being established in the United States called lifestyle medicine it’s nothing really new it’s been around for a long time but a group of physicians now are coming together to develop a specialty in the field of lifestyle medicine others treating diseases and illnesses with lifestyle and dr.
James rippy really pioneered a lot of this work and he put out and this is a picture actual picture of the first medical textbook in lifestyle medicine that came out in 1999 and we’ve also established an organization called the American College of lifestyle medicine this is a new specialty that started in 1994 they these doctors hope that they can get it to where they can have board certification specialties in the field of lifestyle medicine I happen to be on the board of directors of that organization and it’s a great group of physicians about 200 physicians nationwide and lifestyle medicine is what we call evidence-based healthcare in the 21st century and it integrates prevention as well as using lifestyle to treat now as a nutritionist my favorite areas in the area of medical nutrition therapy and you know it’s way back Hippocrates the father of modern medicine said let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food he used lifestyle medicine he used medical nutrition therapy and treating disease so really before there was medicine what did he hit what did we have we had food before there was medicine food was used as the treatment for many diseases so what is the best type of diet you’re going to hear about it a little bit next month I know from dr.
Harris but the optimal diet really is a plant-based diet and fruits and vegetables in plant foods are the most powerful tools in medicine for the prevention treatment and even reversal of diseases as I said eating live foods live foods what live bodies dead foods that refine the process the food I call them foodless foods they lead to illness disease sickness and eventually death and the diseases that we have today unlike other countries are really diseases of affluence and these are the rich eating types of diseases if you eat a diet of rich foods which most Americans eat on a daily basis it leads to atherosclerosis and heart attack hypertension diabetes you can look on the whole list these are all the types of diseases that are so prevalent in our country and there’s a direct relationship to the foods that we eat every day this is what I call the standard American diet sad for short si D sad promotes lifestyle-related disease and premature aging here again foods from plants prevent the diseases that are killing us let’s look at nuts a lot of research has come up recently in in nut consumption we know that frequent consumption of nuts actually protects against heart attacks people who ate nuts frequently five times a week at least five times a week or more at a 51 percent reduction in heart attacks in a forty eight percent reduction in death from heart attacks compared to those who seldom ate nuts eat nuts and seeds daily at least five servings per week now they are high in fat but they have the healthy types of fats almonds walnuts walnuts of course are high in the mega threes cashews Brazil nuts which are high in selenium hazelnuts pecans and then this different types of seeds particularly flax seeds which are high in omega-3 fatty acids almonds instead of using butter use nut butter almond butter or our peanut butter whole wheat bread and heart disease relative risk of heart attack here on the left you see the relative risks just white bread then you have a mixed diet with blend of whole wheat and and refined bread and you see that heart disease risk factors are reduced by going towards the whole wheat bread remember the same the whiter the bread the sooner you’re dead well now now we have scientific proof to show that that’s really true choose a wide variety of grains just don’t focus on wheat but try oat bread and try a rye and many of the different types of grains out there oatmeal breads whole rive high-fiber cereals brown rice instead of white rice I wish we can still you know we’re still trying to get people in Hawaii to eat brown rice and so that white rice all that refined rice and you know the deficiency diseases the B vitamins back in Asia were first discovered when people were eating white rice instead of brown rice fruit and vegetable consumption this study is women probability of dying in middle life ages 35 to 69 and you can see at the high intake that is it’s much lower or lower in traits of fruit consumption you have higher risk of premature death same thing with men almost the same pattern here again research showing eating more fruits and vegetables can help us live longer healthier lives fruit and vegetable intake and risk of stroke 20-year follow-up of 832 men for each increment of 3 servings of fruits and vegetables per day there was a 45 percent decrease in the risk of stroke why is that there’s some wonderful phytochemicals that are in fruits and vegetables that could actually prevent stroke there’s more and more research being done on power fruits and vegetables for preventing various types of stroke now what are the protective elements in fruits and vegetables that may help with this potassium protects against high blood pressure folate or folic acid helps prevent high blood homocysteine levels which can lead to heart disease and stroke fiber helps to lower blood pressure cholesterol particularly your soluble fiber helps lined up that cholesterol gets it like a sponge and helps get rid of it through the digestive tract and also helps to keep the blood sugar levels normal and the antioxidants have powerful anti-cancer properties and these antioxidants also can help protect against Alzheimer’s disease more and more research is showing this and of course vitamin c linus pauling always promoted vitamin c is a powerful antioxidant and fruits and vegetables are where you’re going to get that vitamin c there are many ways to get more fruits and vegetables in the diet these are just some suggestions but the idea is just eat them you know Nike says just do it just eat them just get them in your diet as much as you possibly can why our food from plants preventing the diseases that killing kill us there’s a number of reasons for certain fat and they have the right types of fat they’re high in fiber they’re low in calories when you fill up on plant foods that causes you to avoid the harmful foods and they’re full of antioxidants and many other wonderful protective phytonutrients here we have some of those what I call dead foods the foods that really do not promote health at all they promote illness sickness disease they’re loaded with saturated fat they’re loaded with cholesterol and this is what we need to get away from as far as heart disease and many other health problems saturated fat raises blood cholesterol increasing your risk of heart disease luckily you see that shortening there that’s trans fat that’s the worst you could eat and now they’re labeling that many companies are shifting away from the trans fats now number of years ago the two gentlemen that received the Nobel Prize for their research in cholesterol metabolism particularly LDL cholesterol metabolism I remember this back in the 80s when they receive this award because the research was so profound and it really showed how cholesterol was metabolized and so forth and how function in the body and how they did research to help to develop a medicines to lower blood cholesterol but in their findings they made a very profound statement they said that humans are not designed to eat animal fat and cholesterol based on all their research says our body just cannot handle eating the cholesterol in saturated fat and based on the research it they said that if people were to have a heart-healthy diet they would have to eat so low levels of these that most people would not do it they’d have to go all vegetarian they even admitted that however they had the wrong colic conclusion I think and they their conclusion was well one day we’re going to develop drugs and medicines that allow you to eat all the steak you want and that look and I actually wrote a letter in protest to what they said in Scientific American magazine ever got published I thought that was the wrong situation he also said if Americans were to eat the way to really prevent all these heart attacks and not eat the animal fats and cholesterol they said another problem would be that it would cost severe economic problems so brilliant scientists with non brilliant conclusions I thought fruits and plant foods vegetables nuts they have zero cholesterol there is no cholesterol in plant foods here we have cross section of an artery and as you can see as we build up the cholesterol plaque and the lumen and the artery we increase our risk of heart disease many of you aware of this to the point where it almost blocks it up totally and when you’re on the typical sad diet with all those fats floating around your bloodstream those blood cells come together to form blood clots forming a heart attack now the good news is that we can reverse this process we know it can be reversed and by the way anyone have an idea what age we start seeing this process to begin what would you say late teens most people think but actually starting at age 3 we start seeing the beginnings of streaks along the arteries now do you think it’s because the three-year-olds smoke too much do you think they they’re under a lot of stoom uh ch stressed they give a lot of stress but no there’s not too much stress why do you think McDonald’s dairy products all those high fat and cholesterol foods that these kids are eating well Dean Ornish he was a good friend a number of years ago in San Francisco showed that you can reverse atherosclerosis in his studies that was published in The Lancet in New England Journal Medicine showed that heart disease is reversible putting patients on a very low-fat vegetarian diet combined with some exercise and relaxation stress management a whole lifestyle approach that 80 over 80% of the patients actually had reversal of atherosclerosis their arteries were actually clearer than they wore before a year before and when they did it after five years they actually had more improvement now this is the interesting point he also put another group of patients on the American Heart Association diet to see what happens with them that type of diet the most doctors recommend to their patients right he showed in his studies that those patients got worse or didn’t improve at all so the conclusion was to get big results you need to make big changes in the lifestyle if it comes to reversal of atherosclerosis here we have illustrations this is what we call a PET scan on the left was when the patient started a year ago and this is kind of an average PET scan of all the different patients that were in this study and the right is one year later just one year later that red color and more yellow color indicates more circulation to the heart in other words the vessels are opening up more blood circulation to the heart as a result of the reversal of the atherosclerosis couch potatoes it’s not a vegetable it’s a type of person pre-diabetes metabolic syndrome syndrome X have you heard of that that’s the thing everyone’s talking about and it’s related to high levels of abdominal fat in combination of all these things high blood pressure low blood levels of HDL the good type of cholesterol insulin resistance and hypertension we know today just like heart disease you can reverse heart disease on a vegetarian diet but vegan diets have been proven to actually reverse type 2 diabetes the weimar Institute in Northern California has done a lot of work with diabetic patients putting them on vegan diets and steen reversal within days they start seeing significant improvements same thing with dr.
Neal Barnard with the Physicians Committee for Responsible medicine he’s done research and the same thing with vegan diet vegan diets are powerful medicine for reversing diabetes causes of cancer you see here 35% related to diet and many scientists think it’s actually even more in fact poor diet and use of tobacco may cause as much as 65% of all cancers let’s talk about some of the cancer prevention guidelines the first one is choose most of the foods you eat from plant foods obvious those phytochemicals in the and the fruits and vegetables eating fruits and vegetables lowers cancer risk and you can see the number of studies the type of cancer and the numbers showing reduce risk by eating an increased a fruit and vegetable diet here in Hawaii we have a great program called eater rainbow you’re familiar with that in other words eat the Hawaiian rainbow color of fruits and vegetables every day try to get all those colors in your diet because you’re protecting yourself against a lot of diseases and here we have the color wheel of food the white and greens and the Reds and the Purple’s and the oranges and yellow and oranges and greens this is the food color wheel that was developed at UCLA and all these colors provide antioxidant that helped with DNA protection prevention of blindness heart disease cancer dementia and premature AIDS aging so eat that rainbow of food try to get all the colors you can now what is the color but you want the whites from garlic and from cauliflower you don’t want it from the white or the bread soon you’re the dead white rice and all that and all those refined foods recommended number of servings by the USDA Center for nutrition policy and promotion showing how many fruits and vegetables is recommended and really the ideal is to try to get nine servings of fruits and vegetables in a diet a day is optimal for cancer prevention you need nine five is minimal for just general health but nine for cancer prevention particularly for prostate cancer prevention for men now what’s a serving this is probably the biggest confusion people don’t know a medium sized fruit 3/4 cup of 100% fruit or fruit vegetable juice 1/2 a cup fresh serving of frozen or canned I don’t really recommend can ideally fresh or frozen it would be the best 1 cup of raw leafy vegetables 1/2 a cup of peas or 1/4 cup of dried fruits you know one in 11 Americans eats at least five fruits and vegetables a day just one in 11 only 18% of Americans eat vegetables from the cabbage family only 20% eat fruits and vegetables that are rich in carotenoids only 59% eat fruit on a regular basis only 28% eat fruits and vegetables that are rich in vitamin C on a regular basis so they’re missing out on all those wonderful phytochemicals and antioxidants and of course these are powerful tools and these are some of the different antioxidants of course vitamin C and E and then the carotenoids the pigments have these antioxidants in them like alpha and beta carotene lipo pain that you find in tomatoes lutein which you find in in different compounds in different fruits and vegetables then the flavonoids the amp sian attends which have the red purple and blue and the anthem xanthine z’ which are the white colored fruits and vegetables free radicals unstable compounds promote cancer heart disease premature aging and cataracts and of course all these things fried foods tobacco alcohol also promote the production of these unstable compounds it can lead to cancer now what about taking supplements as far as you getting your antioxidants I I’m a believer in eating the healthiest diet you can and I believe it’s ten scible supplementation but supplementation doesn’t replace eating those fruits and vegetables because there are many compounds that we find in these things that probably man will never know about and we can’t put them all in supplements so make sure you get a lot of fruits and vegetables in the diet there’s at least 10,000 phytochemicals that we have identified so far now when it comes to cancer fruits and vegetables play a major role in every step of the to block the cancer process from a normal cell going to a pre cancer cell from a pre cancer cell to cancer cell to cancer cell to invasive cancer cells the compounds in these plant foods help inhibit and block these things from happening this is from the advent of tell study where they compared California men and Adventist men and then they compared Adventist men who were on vegan diets and they found significant reduction in the risk of prostate cancer of seventh-day Adventist men that do not eat dairy products here we have a sample of an anti-cancer menu and you can see a lot of wonderful plant foods from breakfast lunch and dinner and it’s important to incorporate these things throughout the day so that they can have the powerful effects in your health fruits and vegetable this is a whole list of different ones that are high in vitamin C stuck in a cancer prevention guideline is to limit the intake of high-fat foods particularly from animal sources carcinogens are produced in cooking like this charcoal broiled steak this is 2 pound child Aurel state produces a carcinogen called benzopyrene which is one of the most deadly carcinogens known to man and the amount of carcinogen or benzopyrene in this to pound steak is equivalent to what you’d find in thirty three packs of cigarettes of course you’re eating it you’re not smoking it but when they feed benzopyrene to rats they develop tumors now let’s talk about anti aging and how does this fit into beautiful skin and not getting those wrinkles in and living longer healthier lives and it is possible to live to be over a hundred years of it’s all lady the other day she’s a hundred and her husband is 103 is that right mag she was 103 yep you know blonde jaboney back in nineteen in 1796 the average lifespan was only 25 in 1896 it was 48 and in 2006 and 8 and beyond most people about 80 years we’re saying but an anti aging scientists are actually predicting average life expectancies of 120 by 2046 the goal of course is not just to have a long life but to have quality life the goal is to keep a good quality as well as quantity of life and the goal is to die is late in life it’s possible right one of my good friends dr.
Howard Murad always says aging is a fact of life but look in your age is not and what are the things to do for a long healthy life according to American and College of the Taiji medicine is eat a wide variety of plant foods maintain a healthy weight choose a diet low in fat and cholesterol choose a diet with plenty of fruits and vegetables and be moderate in the sugar salt and and so forth we know today that by eating less you can live longer cutting down the calories 50% increase in longevity in animal studies with 30 to 60 percent decrease in calorie intake how many you saw the National Geographic a few years ago when they look at the different cultures of longevity the Okinawans the sorry Indians in the seventh-day adventists population Loma Linda you know in Okinawa they have quite a bit of life expectancy compared to the United States they have more Centurions in their country compared to the United States here are some of the active seniors in Okinawa that are very active in their exercise and these gentlemen are over a hundred years of age is 103 year old individual and when you look at the net people that live to be over a hundred years of age what do they see in Okinawa they eat a low calorie diet it’s a plant-based diet unrefined carbohydrates low in protein low in sodium 9 to 17 servings of vegetables daily 7 to 13 servings of whole grains daily 2 to 4 servings of calcium rich foods and a lot of that is in the form of seaweed 2 to 4 servings of flavonoid rich foods such as green tea or soy bean based products and 2 to 4 servings a day of fruit the very little approach in fact it only makes up about 10% of their diet in the calories and very little sodium little or no alcohol and they use healthy types of oils and fats here we have a typical 280 calorie meal in America and a 280 calorie diet in Okinawa and you can see they get much more bulk more you know more quantity of food in the Okinawan diet compared to the hamburger and that’s one the reasons Americans eat too much because they’re not always hungry they get all these calories in just small pieces of food and they don’t get satisfied another area is in the area of Hunza up in the himalayas my friend dr.
Jim Hoffman studied these people number years ago the oldest recorded age is a hundred and thirty years of age a very pristine mountainous region these gentlemen are all over a hundred and six years of age the one the second one to the left is a hundred and six years old and he walks 12 miles every day and when you’re in Hunza you’re walking up a lot hils here’s a beautiful pristine they’re very physically active apricots is one of the foods they eat every day in their diet rich in antioxidants they dry it and they have it fresh and they do everything organically with their beautiful terraced ways of growing whole-grain bread the chapati is used in their diet every day when you look at their diet a lot of whole grains 80% of the vegetables that they eat is raw with the skins 20% are lightly steamed so most of the diet is raw apricot seed oil is used is their fat and very sparingly because it turns Ransom easily grains buckwheat millet rice corn fruits apricots all berries grapes you can see a very healthy diet an animal product account for only 1% of their total calories they do have a little melt butter and cheese very sparingly small amounts of meat averaging 3 ounces per month which is nothing actually they eat meat about 13 days a year and the rest of time is all a vegetarian diet because they don’t have refrigeration and in the United States we have the seventh-day Adventist population and seventh-day Adventist are a great group to study because they don’t smoke they don’t drink 50% of seventh-day Adventist uh DS show that vegetarian seventh-day Adventists live almost a decade longer in life compared to the average American this was a good friend of mine holder crooks who lived to be a hundred and two years old she was a Seventh day Adventists climbed Mount Whitney every year in her 60s and 80s and at 92 she was the oldest woman to climb to the top of Mount Fuji and she attributed a lot of that not only to a good exercise routine but her vegetarian diet Jack LaLanne was raised a Seventh day Adventist and he says exercise is king nutrition is queen and if you put them together you have a kingdom he also says and in fact the Patricia Bragg and I had the opportunity to go to Jacqueline’s house just about a few months ago before his 94th birthday a nice lunch with Tammy’s at what he’s still keeping fit still exercising regularly and you know what he says dying is easy living takes a lot of work you know dying all you have to do is sit around don’t exercise watch TV types of junk food that’s easy but living takes a lot of work and he says that exercise he says is a pain in the butt it’s hard work to do but that’s what it takes now when we define aging a lot of people think of wrinkles sun damage less hair poor memory poor digestion reduced circulation and aging begins at the cellular level that’s where it all begins all cells of a membrane that protect the walls and if those are compromised then we start to age and there’s one scientific truth that we see is that regardless of what causes disease or aging the final common pathway is that there is a reduction in water in tissue and there are many different theories of age and I’d like to talk to you about one of them that was developed by the doctor I worked with dr.
Howard Murad called the cellular water principle and water is found in the body in basically three areas entry in the intracellular level within connective tissue and then there’s wasted water like edema and that’s the goal is to increase our intracellular watering and the connective tissue water and reduce that wasted water think of a great you know how nice a grape is it’s very moist it’s got all that moisture in it and you look at a healthy cell membrane and think of that as a grape it’s got a great membrane but what happens as we are bombarded by oxidants free radicals it damages and puts holes in that cellular wall and the water is actually lost also inflammation takes place and we get damaged that cellular wall inflammation is from eating in pro-inflammatory foods like the meats and the cheese’s and the dairy products and all those things and we lose that moisture the thing is is to make sure that we promote our cellular health by eating foods that build it up with things that are rich in lecithin healthy fats the right types of protein so that we can keep that cellular wall strong and keep the moisture in cell your water principle is a key theory in anti-aging and one of the key things in this theory is that we need to eat more raw fruits and vegetables you know we say to drink six eight or eight glasses of water every day but the water that you get in fruits and vegetables is actually different than just their type of water that you get in drinking water it gets into the cells of the fruits and vegetables very easily and by eating a water based diet we can get that water from the fruits and vegetables and it can go into our stellar tissue into the into the cells and not only that is that the fruits and vegetables have antioxidants and they have anti-inflammatories in it so a vegan diet I believe is really the ultimate type of diet for anti-aging and particularly eating more raw fruits and vegetables and cooking things list now let’s go over some the key power foods for anti-aging health longevity disease prevention the first one is acai berries how many of her Tasi is really popular acai is a comes from a palm tree in the Amazon River in Brazil these are wild berries and they have actually a slight hint some people think it as a little chocolate flavor to it most of the calories are actually coming from fat in these berries by the way and they’re the Omega 9 extra fats that are the fats that promote that are actually anti-inflammatory so that’s one of the benefits of acai they’re rich in anthocyanins and by the way they have 10 times more anthocyanins compounds in red wine so they are very highly called the ORAC scale that’s a very one of the highest antioxidants fruits that we know they have anti-cancer properties anti-aging properties and according to dr.
Nicholas perricone who’s a skincare specialist there’s a lot of work with patients in having more beautiful skin and preventing the oxidation and damage of the skin the next anti-aging food and health food is almonds almonds of course are a great source of plant protein they’re excellent in fiber they are a really rich source of natural vitamin E they contain antioxidants such as flavonoids Kourt certain they have antioxidants that prevent cancer cell growth and oxidation of LDL cholesterol they help in the reduction of inflammation and the way we measure that is that when people are put on diets high in almonds we check the c-reactive protein and the numbers are within more ideal levels they are mostly monounsaturated fat so it’s the healthy monounsaturated fats apples you know they say an apple a day keeps the doctor away well there’s a lot of truth to that because apples are very rich in antioxidants particularly in the skin of course the color vitamin C high in soluble fiber soluble fiber helps you to lower cholesterol Apple fiber is one of the best types of fiber for reducing cholesterol and that’s in the form of what we call pectin it’s rich in phenolic compounds antioxidants and flavonoids including some of the ones that are shown in the research studies to be very potent anti-cancer and anti heart disease flavonoid compounds and by the way I want to mention something about apple cider vinegar because there is new research showing that by having apple cider vinegar in mixed in maybe some water prior to a meal that that can actually reduce the glycemic index of that meal in other words it can help reduce your blood glucose levels and it has some benefit for diabetics so whether you have it mixed with water prior to a meal or you have it on a salad put in the apple cider vinegar and the salad dressing on on the salad getting it prior to a meal seems to be very promising for diabetics apricots of course are the staple food of Hansa rich in antioxidants particularly beta-carotene in fact there’s sixteen thousand micrograms in just three apricots of beta carotene very rich source and good source of potassium vitamin C fiber and other phytochemicals and phytonutrients blackberries are one of the richest antioxidant berries out there today in fact they’re higher in antioxidants than blueberries blackberries a lot of people don’t realize that rich source of vitamin C and fiber tannins flavonoids and anti-cancer compounds that have been studied in recent years so get those blackberries blueberries of course is one that is one of the highest on the ORAC scale or act stands for oxygen radical absorbance II opacity and that’s a standard that’s used to see the antioxidant levels in various foods they’re high in anthocyanins and that makes these are the compounds that make blueberries blue and that’s the pigment ellagic acid they have anti-tumor properties antibacterial properties particularly for people with urinary tract infections find them helpful if they eat a lot of blueberries they have anti stroke properties and particularly if a stroke can do sprain damage and Alzheimer’s as I attend the American Dietetic Association meetings more and more we’re finding that blueberries are being thought of very promising for treatment of Alzheimer’s disease broccoli and by the way sorry I brought spelt broccoli wrong here but it is rich in vitamin C beta-carotene and it’s one of the most highly absorbed forms of calcium when eating broccoli more absorb better absorption than dairy products rich in chromium in dolls isothiocyanates which are anti-cancer compounds so fear of fame is what’s very well known for blocking the progression and development of cancerous tumors but if you get blocked broccoli sprouts your very broccoli sprouts that’s higher in sulphuricum than just eating broccoli so look for those and we know that self urethane also prevents the growth of h pylori bacteria which causes ulcers now broccoli contains those compounds which stimulates enzymes that break down cancer-causing chemicals so that’s my favorite vegetable by the way broccoli now what about cabbage not everyone likes cabbage but I encourage you to get more cabbage in your diet and get the different colors and varieties of cabbage cabbage is high in vitamin C fiber vitamin K folate potassium red cabbage is high in those anthocyanins which is compounds that you find a wine for instance and then the red grapes has anti-cancer properties because it’s a member of the cruciferous anti-cancer compounds and rich in in daal 3 carbonyl and some of these exotic anti-cancer compounds that scientists are studying today we know that many of these compounds actually activate and stabilize the body’s antioxidant and detoxification methods cauliflower by the way is has some lecithin in it which is good for building those healthy cells but contain some other compounds similar to broccoli they’d also have anti-cancer properties cinnamon has some wonderful properties that may help as an anti-inflammatory but also can help in type 2 diabetes by lowering blood sugar levels more research is showing the important of cinnamon in diabetic diets one of the things that’s interesting that some more research has come out that cinnamon actually reduces uric acid induced arthritis and this is because it inhibits the enzyme that’s responsible for producing uric acid one eat more citrus foods because of the bioflavonoids flaxseed you know flaxseed is rich in those omega-3 fatty acids you don’t have to get it from fish you can get it in flaxseed products and ground flaxseed is the best way to get it instead of the flaxseed oil it contains lignans these are plant compounds that act like weak estrogens so for women that’s very important in heart health it helps to lower LDL cholesterol reduce inflammation associated with heart disease risk so it’s a wonderful food to include in your diet now garlic is one that I spent two years studying and garlic of course has been a home remedy for many years but it does studies show that does lower LDL cholesterol and total cholesterol reduces it by about 10% in when you look at all the studies that have been done there have been 30 studies to show the anti-cancer properties in garlic and of course garlic has real strong antibacterial properties as well ginger well you know the doctor used to give what when someone had upset stomachs ginger ale why because it does have compounds and has a positive effects in helping having anti-nausea properties and particularly for women with morning sickness it can be very helpful by including ginger in the diet on a regular basis it is rich in several different antioxidants that may prevent different types of cancer and has many ant natural anti-inflammatory compounds in it goji berries everyone is into goji berries today of course those berries grow in Tibet and in China and even in the Hunza region the goji berries are very high on the ORAC scale one of the richest antioxidant fruits known to man and some studies have shown that it can help reduce blood sugar and total cholesterol levels this is an interesting study that recently came out extracts a goji actually actually help stop the spread and encourage the death of liver cancer cells so some studies are now going on in the area with go G now grapes of course are in wine they have a lot of those great proanthocyanidins and they also have what’s called resveratrol resveratrol is big in the news right now it’s a key photochemical constituent found in the skins particularly of the purple grapes that have anti-inflammatory properties and anti carcinogenic compounds so it is regarded much more and more as the heart healthy ingredient is very troll as far as phytochemicals and it’s really the resveratrol that’s doing the heart health prevention heart disease prevention is compared to the alcohol you don’t have to drink wine you can get it from grape juice and drinking grape juice is very good k-tiz foods to eat on the face of the planet rich in beta-carotene rich in lutein which is good for eye health and it has anti-cancer properties and by the way is an outstanding source of calcium vegetarian source of calcium mango one of Hawaii’s favorite and I love the Hawaiian mangos rich in beta-carotene vitamin C potassium the yellow and orange colors have pigments have anti-cancer properties and strong flavonoid sources mushrooms now mushrooms are not you know people say oh and mushrooms are very nutritious they’re not really that nutritious there’s not a lot of nutrients in them but they are a good source of selenium which is an anti-cancer nutrient they have anti-cancer polyphenol compounds and we know that they have immune system enhancement properties particularly from what’s called beta glucans which helps stimulate the immune system cells to get rid of abnormal cells that cause disease so getting more mushrooms and eat all the different types of variety of mushrooms by the way white button mushrooms have our source of vitamin D and that’s an important nutrient that a lot of vegetarians don’t get enough of in their diet oats of course are high in soluble fiber for low in cholesterol papaya rich in vitamin C beta-carotene and other compounds that have anti-cancer properties pomegranate one of the richest sources of antioxidants eating pomegranates and drinking pomegranate juice produces sun protection factors that help you so you don’t sunburn as well as bad I should say and protects you against this the aging effects of Sun has anti-inflammatory properties and by the way new research shows that it can inhibit prostate cancer tumor growth soybeans a lot of controversy over soybeans I believe soybeans are very healthy to eat but you have to eat them you know in sensible amounts they do have factors in there of course that can help in protection of a number of different types of forms of cancer and we know too that soybean protein and soy can be beneficial in lowering cholesterol turmeric that herb that’s in curry strong anti-cancer properties curcumin is the compound that we find in turmeric and easy to incorporate into the diet and has a lot of anti-inflammatory properties and of course walnut they’re saying is going to be the new fish oil because it’s rich in what omega-3 fatty acids and by the way all you need is maybe five walnuts a day to get those important essential fatty acids it’s also a great source of gamma tocopheryl which is a type of vitamin E that’s very rich in antioxidants well in closing I just want to emphasize again there are I could talk about a hundred different fruits and vegetables that are important these are just giving some of them but here again number foods from plants prevent the diseases that are killing us we need to eat more of them foods from plants promote health longevity beauty and vitality and all we have to do is eat more of them unfortunately vegetarians and many vegetarians don’t eat enough fruits and vegetables and yet they’re vegetarians so incorporate try to strive for that nine fruits and vegetables every day and it will add a lot of health to your long life thank this program is brought to you by the vegetarian Society of Hawaii a nonprofit organization dedicated to sharing with the community the many benefits of a vegetarian diet free monthly meetings include vegetarian experts and locally and on the mainland quick and easy cooking demonstrations and helpful and delicious food samples members enjoy an informative quarterly newsletter social activities and discounts at many vegetarian friendly restaurants and health food stores for an application call nine four four eight three four four that’s nine four four eight three four four or visit our website at www.
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