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Food As Medicine: It's Not Just A Fringe Idea Anymore

:eek: :rolleyes:

Is NPR kidding? A Novel idea ? Quoting an Ancient Greek physician?
And would someone please define a "plant-based diet"?

http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt...ge-idea-anymore

Quote:

Several times a month, you can find a doctor in the aisles of Ralph's market in Huntington Beach, Calif., wearing a white coat and helping people learn about food. On one recent day, this doctor was Daniel Nadeau, wandering the cereal aisle with Allison Scott, giving her some ideas on how to feed kids who studiously avoid anything that tastes healthy. "Have you thought about trying smoothies in the morning?" he asks her. "The frozen blueberries and raspberries are a little cheaper, and berries are really good for the brain."

Scott is delighted to get food advice from a physician who is program director of the nearby Mary and Dick Allen Diabetes Center, part of the St. Joseph Hoag Health alliance. The center's "Shop with Your Doc" program sends doctors to the grocery store to meet with any patients who sign up for the service, plus any other shoppers who happen by with questions. Nadeau notices the macaroni-and-cheese boxes in Scott's shopping cart and suggests she switch to whole grain pasta and real cheese. "So I'd have to make it?" she asks, her enthusiasm waning at the thought of how long that might take, just to have her kids reject it. "I'm not sure they'd eat it. They just won't eat it."

Nadeau says sugar and processed foods are big contributors to the rising diabetes rates among children. "In America, over 50 percent of our food is processed food," Nadeau tells her. "And only 5 percent of our food is plant-based food. I think we should try to reverse that." Scott agrees to try more smoothies for the kids and to make real macaroni and cheese. Rack up one point for the doctor, zero for diabetes.

A small revolution brewing Nadeau is part of a small revolution brewing across California. The food-as-medicine movement has been around for decades, but it's making inroads as physicians and medical institutions make food a formal part of treatment, rather than relying solely on medications. By prescribing nutritional changes or launching programs such as "Shop with Your Doc," they're trying to prevent, limit or even reverse disease by changing what patients eat. "There's no question people can take things a long way toward reversing diabetes, reversing hypertension, even preventing cancer by food choices," Nadeau says.

In the big picture, says Dr. Richard Afable, CEO and president of St. Joseph Hoag Health, medical institutions across the state are starting to make a philosophical switch to becoming a health organization, not just a health care organization. That sentiment echoes the tenets of the Therapeutic Food Pantry program at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, which completed its pilot phase and is about to expand on an ongoing basis to five clinic sites throughout the city. The program will offer patients several bags of food prescribed for their condition, along with intensive training in how to cook it.

"We really want to link food and medicine, and not just give away food," says Dr. Rita Nguyen, the hospital's medical director of Healthy Food Initiatives. "We want people to understand what they're eating, how to prepare it, the role food plays in their lives."

In Southern California, Loma Linda University School of Medicine is offering specialized training for its resident physicians in Lifestyle Medicine — that's a formal subspecialty in using food to treat disease. Research on the power of food to treat or reverse disease is beginning to accumulate, but that doesn't mean diet alone is always the solution, or that every illness can benefit substantially from dietary changes. Nonetheless, physicians say they look at the cumulative data and a clear picture emerges: that the salt, sugar, fat and processed foods in the American diet contribute to the nation's high rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

According to the World Health Organization, 80 percent of deaths from heart disease and stroke are caused by high blood pressure, tobacco use, elevated cholesterol and low consumption of fruits and vegetables. "It's a different paradigm of how to treat disease," says Dr. Brenda Rea, who helps run the family and preventive medicine residency program at Loma Linda University School of Medicine. Choosing which foods to prescribe The lifestyle medicine subspecialty is designed to train doctors in how to prevent and treat disease, in part, by changing patients' nutritional habits. The medical center and school at Loma Linda also has a food pantry and kitchen for patients.

Many people don't know how to cook, Rea says; they only know how to heat things up. That means depending on packaged food with high salt and sugar content. So teaching people about which foods are nutritious and how to prepare them, she says, can actually transform a patient's life. And beyond that, it might transform the health and lives of that patient's family. "What people eat can be medicine or poison," Rea says. "As a physician, nutrition is one of the most powerful things you can change to reverse the effects of chronic disease." Studies have explored evidence that dietary changes can slow inflammation, for example, or make the body inhospitable to cancer cells.

In general, many lifestyle medicine physicians recommend a plant-based diet — particularly for people with diabetes or other inflammatory conditions. "As what happened with tobacco, this will require a cultural shift, but that can happen," says Nguyen. "In the same way physicians used to smoke, and then stopped smoking and were able to talk to patients about it, I think physicians can have a bigger voice in it."

This story originally appeared on the website of member station KQED in California.

Quote:

Many people don't know how to cook, Rea says; they only know how to heat things up.

Gee whiz. That's sorta what I call cooking, low-carb wise. :lol: It takes less time and trouble to steam frozen veggies in the microwave than it does to nuke frozen entrees. A whole spaghetti squash takes about twelve minutes--if you poke it REAL GOOD so the steam escapes and it doesn't explode. :o I think kids would love spaghetti squash--especially if it explodes once in a while. :lol:

You moms know better than I do what it means to say, "The kids won't eat it." I mean, how many meals will they pass up before they realize that's ALL THERE IS? 'Course, you have precious little control over what they can cadge with their allowance money at the nearest convenience store. Or even at school. Too bad about that.

I guess Michael Pollan came the closest to defining a "plant based diet:" Eat real food. Mostly plants. Not too much.

Unfortunately, corn chips, potato chips, raisins, orange juice, pasta, and Wheat Thins (to name a few) are all plant based.

I eat a plant-based diet: that pig, that cow, that chicken ate a lotta plants and plant products, no?

As long as the doc brings accurate information, having him/her at the grocery store is downright friendly. For most people, any dietary guidance would be an improvement, especially if it starts with, "Cook stuff."

Thanks for the article.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bkloots

You moms know better than I do what it means to say, "The kids won't eat it." I mean, how many meals will they pass up before they realize that's ALL THERE IS?

I've been a mom and I think it means, "I can't take the whining." That is not a put-down either. Moms can be SO tired nowadays, what with sinking into working poverty of time and dollars and energy. If you can reduce stressors, you take advantage. I say ugh too on whole-grain pasta.

Scary to think of doctors hijacking food to "link food and medicine". Medicine today is drugs and procedures. Medicalizing food? Please, no. I picture them making excess profits off sick people using prescriptions for food based on faulty guidelines. Is that cynical?

NPR journalists are as clueless as other journalists when it comes to health reporting. drinking the plant-based kool-aid. Oh wait, is kool-aid from plants? or maybe petroleum products? sorry, I digress.

Glad to see plans to get doctors involved. Doctors need training as much as patients. Where are they getting this training, and is this article the product of assuming that plant-based diets are epitome of a healthy way of eating? For some, that may be true. For most, it's not quite that simple when ignoring animal proteins.

Quote:

According to the World Health Organization, 80 percent of deaths from heart disease and stroke are caused by high blood pressure, tobacco use, elevated cholesterol and low consumption of fruits and vegetables.

The WHO considers heart disease and stroke to be caused by high blood pressure, tobacco use, elevated cholesterol and low consumption of fruits and vegetables. Interesting way of describing this, as high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol are symptoms of another root cause and among several markers for Metabolic Syndrome. I start to get a hollow feeling anytime the WHO is referenced, as they don't really understand how to eat to control vascular disease and spend time trying to rid people of symptoms rather than spending time identifying root causes. Any related nutrition training a doctor receives should be considered suspect and incomplete, only part of the story. But hey, WHO knows their stuff!

"In America, over 50 percent of our food is processed food," Nadeau tells her. "And only 5 percent of our food is plant-based food. I think we should try to reverse that."

Isn't processed food more plant-based than real food? For instance, the cheese in a "real" mac & cheese is 0% plants, but in a processed version it can be in essence margarine.

Although I certainly agree that food should be the foundation of our health I would not seek out a doctor to provide nutritional advice. "Eat a plant based diet" is the new mantra. Everyone seems to be jumping on the bandwagon. For most people "eat a low carb real food diet" would be a better way to go. How many doctors give out that advice? We are familiar with some of them here but they are still few and far between.

Jean

Dr. Nadeau... googling around, there are articles from 2012 where he describes himself as a vegan. But there's this from 2015.

Quote:

Dr. Nadeau points to large studies at the Harvard School of Public Health: Type 2 diabetes used to be called adult onset diabetes, and is striking people at younger and younger ages with rates skyrocketing globally. The good news is that it’s highly preventable.

Keeping weight in check and being physically active can help prevent most cases of the disease.
Choosing a diet rich in whole grains and healthy fats adds even more protection—skip the refined grains and sugary soda.
Limiting red meat and avoiding processed meat — including bacon, hot dogs, and deli meats — can also help lower diabetes risk.
Go for healthier protein sources instead, such as nuts, beans, poultry, and fish.

Sort of interesting that he's a vegan, or at least was a few years ago--but rather than pushing not eating meat, he's pushing eating more plants, and it's the processed foods he's really going after. The only time animal based food comes up directly in the article is in saying to make real macaroni with real cheese. But some reporter did make decisions about what to leave in, what to leave out, I wonder if Dr. Nadeau thinks his message was fairly portrayed?

Quote:

Scott agrees to try more smoothies for the kids and to make real macaroni and cheese. Rack up one point for the doctor, zero for diabetes.

No, one point for diabetes. The carbs in real macaroni and cheese would spike my blood sugar just as much as the boxed stuff. And food palatability/how comfortable people feel eating it, is something I consider important regardless of the eater's age. As an adult in the culture where I live I expect the freedom/resources to select and control my own food and eating and don't expect a young child to have that. If I somehow ended up in a similar situation without freedom and was offered only foods I found disgusting (maybe a care facility or something with no relatives able to smuggle in tasty stuff?) I'd feel frustrated being told to eat it or go hungry until I did. Not suggesting anyone should give in a child's whining by feeding them junk. I just like to put myself in the other person's place and imagine how I might feel in their circumstance. So I think this mom in the article is wise to recognize her kids might be grossed out by some foods (I'd hate whole wheat macaroni and cheese myself) and maybe work in some healthier options gently.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattsson

Exactly. The SAD is almost all plant based. Only 12% of a typical fast-food burger is meat.

My guess is by plant based they must mean plants that still look like plants when you eat them, not plants that look like Froot Loops.

Quote:

Nadeau says sugar and processed foods are big contributors to the rising diabetes rates among children. "In America, over 50 percent of our food is processed food," Nadeau tells her. "And only 5 percent of our food is plant-based food. I think we should try to reverse that." Scott agrees to try more smoothies for the kids and to make real macaroni and cheese. Rack up one point for the doctor, zero for diabetes.

Well, at least he believes there's a difference.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zei

No, one point for diabetes. The carbs in real macaroni and cheese would spike my blood sugar just as much as the boxed stuff.

Zei, I was just about to post the same thing! :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dodger

Exactly. The SAD is almost all plant based. Only 12% of a typical fast-food burger is meat.

And that 12% gets blamed for all the bad things. So subbing a black bean version is supposed to fix everything!

"Only 12% of a typical fast-food burger is meat."

Okay, I am absolutely not a fast food apologist, but this is somewhat misleading. A McDonald's burger patty is 100% beef, without fillers or extenders. This is true of many fast food places.

So, throw away the bun (and order without ketchup if you're seriously avoiding sugars) and you're left with something Atkins friendly, which for me means healthier than most of the cr&p sold in the middle of the grocery store. I'm looking at you, Kashi bars!

Looking at McDonald's burgers, something like 30-50% seems to be meat in terms of weight.

Even so, I've heard that these end up as "processed meat" in the statistics. E.g. you eat three burgers a week and they are about 1½ lbs total, so your stats show you're eating 1½ lbs "processed meat", when in reality it's way below 1 lbs. In the process, the crap, i.e. the sugary dressing and the forever fresh space buns and so on, get labelled as processed meat which of course they are not by any means. Any truth in that? If so, no wonder "processed meat" looks dangerous. (Even if it isn't true it's no wonder because you eat a lot of crap, for instance I don't think that eating a burger will increase your daily dose of sugar by whatever amount it contains. In crap epi stats, that is.) But we all know the problems of confounding, right? :)

For me, processed meat isn't a frozen patty which is 100% mince. For me, processed meat is that cheap hot dog that contains about 20% meat, 31% butchery leftovers*, and all sorts of crap like soy, flour, and additives on top of that, everything processed into a pink mush.

*: I dunno about legislation in e.g. the US, but generally in Finland they want to call their sausages meat products which means you need to have >50% of "meat and comparable ingredients", so you might have 10% of actual meat and >40% of whatever you can wring off the carcass after cutting off all the stuff you're selling as proper meat.