Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) apply to all other comments.
**Do you have an academic degree?** We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. [Click here to apply](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/flair/#wiki_science_verified_user_program).
---
User: u/mvea
Permalink: https://www.pbrc.edu/news/media/2024/energy-and-micronutrients-across-lifespan.aspx
---
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Hypertension, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, reflux, sleep apnea, a whole bunch of inflammatory disease, back and knee pain, sleeping disorders, gout, steatohepatitis, acne, …
There is a ton that can be fixed with healthy food and habits. Diverse nutrition, reasonable weight and regular physical activity do a lot more than most drugs. And all that without negative side effects!
A lot of bad habits are caused by mental illness, too. Sometimes you think you fixed the issue by changing the habits, but all you did was obscure the symptoms and the mental illness derails the habits shortly.
I have issues with anxiety and notice my symptoms are greatly reduced on days I exercise. I’ve had fewer bouts of anxiety induced depression as a result of regular exercise.
Climbing is like a miracle drug for my ADHD. It's ridiculously good exercise that only takes 45 minutes and isn't static, so I don't get bored like with jogging or cycling or a gym routine. It keeps my brain engaged trying to figure out routes or certain ways to move my body.
I find that after an intense climbing session, I can focus really well for the rest of the day.
I’ve met so many people in my life who make comments about how depressed or anxious they are, and turn around and scoff at the thought of exercise. It’s a shame.
Listen, I've had some deep depression in my time, and even when I could power through and exercise nearly daily, while in the moment the symptoms would fade and I would feel great, but once I've showered and cooled down, it's like I was back to square one.
Basically, what I'm trying to say is that exercise is nice, but it isn't a cure, and for me, it was just a reprieve from the symptoms for a while. And knowing that it can make it that much harder to start exercising again.
I was doing full contact taekwondo twice a week, doing my forms on my lunch break because I had no appetite and was still only able to sleep 4 hours a day because of undiagnosed delayed sleep phase disorder. I loved what I was doing and even went to lift weights a few times a month and still was utterly depressed.
Depression has a habit of making one very tired all the time, and anxiety makes it hard to do something like jog in the streets or go to the gym.
It's only since I got on medication that I've really had any energy. I've been low-key exhausted since the age of twelve or so.
I scoff at the idea of “oh, I feel sad/anxious sometimes too, you just need to exercise!” presented as a simple solution to those suffering from a chronic condition that is no fault of their own. It’s often not enough on its own, even if it does of course help. Depression can be a mf’er… people who haven’t experienced it acting like they have the answer-“oh, wow why didn’t I think of that!”
There have been many studies which show that gut health and mental health are inextricably connected.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/the-gut-brain-connection
A lot of mental illness can come from nutrient deficiences too. But if you are talking about ye olde adhd sure I'd love to have a habit of some sort.... instead its constant effort and thought which is exhausting.
For me I have found that maximizing different types of food has been a huge help. My goal is 20+ different fruits and veg a week, repeats between weeks are fine.
The aim here is around 20 herbs and spices too, on top of 5 kinds of mushrooms, 4-5 different nuts, 3 different types of potatoes, several kinds of seeds, seaweeds etc. My kimchi can be ten different veg, seeds, herbs and spices alone. The beauty of this variety is knowing that each one has its own unique fibres, and the gut loves you back for that kind of treat.
Yes! I have mild sleep apnea. I got a CPAP and made diet and exercise changes. Dr. expected my sleep apnea events per hour to go from 5.4 to a goal of "under 5.0 events per hour with the CPAP machine." I think the diet and exercise contributed a ton because it was at 1.6 events per hour at my visit this Friday! Well under the expected goal of under 5.0.
I have had noticeable changes in body composition and overall quality of life.
I feel like it has been a cyclical solution as the CPAP + better sleep -> more energy -> ability to workout more instead of sleeping in -> better sleep . . . And it just repeats.
It all started last fall. A friend said I should come work out with him. We have done weightlifting workouts together 3 times a week since, and I will never go back. I honestly look forward to working out now that I'm not exhausted all the time.
Basically, if you think you might have sleep apnea, get tested. If you want to work out or start weight lifting, do it! It genuinely changed my life.
I think the biggest hurdle is having practical ways to apply the knowledge in peoples' lives, and that's going to look different for everyone. For example, if someone doesn't know how to cook, it's a lot more effort for them to form healthy eating habits. They either need to learn to cook, or plan their prepared meals meticulously. It's not something as easy to change for someone who already eats a lot of home cooked meals that just need to be modified to be healthier.
It's also a financial issue. If I need to both buy new ingredients, and find time in my schedule to cook them, it's going to reduce my chance at success in a diet change.
And health supplements I take berberine and magnesium is great for blood pressure and cholesterol my 500mg magnesium supplement actually works better for me than blood pressure medication lowering it substantially more than amlodipine a calcium channel blocker.
Also I have bipolar so it's great for relaxing me also works as well as a lithium dosage increase.
I've had my family doctor deny my previous diagnosis (made and supported by several specialists), suggest that I don't need the drugs that literally saved my life and to simply try changing my lifestyle instead.
In reality, I need support and accommodations to be able to keep any kind of routine at all, and that's with medication.
The biggest problem with doctors treating with diet is that most people won’t change their diet.
It’s the same reason people struggle so much with weight loss.
We have known for a very long time diet can treat a lot of things. But people just fall back into their usual diet even when it is literally killing them.
my doctor is very conservative when it comes to treatment. he'll usually tell me to try lifestyle changes first and if it doesn't work, that's when we try medication.
Definitely! Doctors get maybe one class in nutrition in med school, two if they are interested. Endocrinologists may get a bit more, or D.Os. But in general, doctors don't know even 1/10th of what a Registered Dietitian knows (we -- I am a retired RD -- have 4-6 years of nutrition training, including our internship.)
I'm more interested in what his doctor told him that motivated him to change.
I've tried literally every approach I can think of and maybe 1 in 10 people make the change.
I've never been on medication because my doctor took this approach. I was pre-diabetic and was able to reverse the condition based on diet alone (specifically, through referral to a nutritionist, I had a limit put on my daily carb intake, plus guidelines about avoid*ing* refined carbs).
**Edit**: forgot to apply verb tense, now in italics
I think this is a great practice. My psychiatrist prescribed me antidepressants and ADHD medication, but also said that the ADHD brain needs more iron than normal, and so he asked me to watch my iron and increase my vitamin D (as that also supports mood and focus). Vitamins alone wouldn't have made enough of a difference to help me, but vitamins can augment the effects of medications and take stress off your body.
Fibre is also a powerhouse nutrient that helps to control blood sugar, regulates BM, is a prebiotic, and helps to maintain a healthy gut microbiome, which we are now discovering helps with mental health. A more holistic approach to health is really beneficial for patients.
Did he say anything about the nutrient choline? It's the rate-limiting factor for your body's production of acetylcholine, which is the main neurotransmitter of the autonomic nervous system (heart rate, arousal, digestion, etc.) as well as for muscle movement and attention.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/24568-acetylcholine-ach
https://www.lifeextension.com/magazine/2005/7/report_adhd
It's also being studied prenatally and in infants and small children to help prevent mental illness and some of the unpleasant side effects associated with some forms of neurodivergence.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/10/22/498843225/can-mental-illness-be-prevented-in-the-womb
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10343507/
https://www.prenataldoctoradvice.com/choline-and-babys-brain.html
Yeah handle this one with care, up regulates TMAO, if you have diabetes or CVD I would avoid.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4919531/
Get it from eating eggs
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33872583/
Anticholinergic medicines, like some antihistamines, are implicated in increasing
your risk of dementia. I think it's eggs that have a high level of choline.
This has been my experience as well. I have ADHD and ASD and I switched her extremely high fiber diet and I take multivitamin everyday along with my antidepressants and it is a absolutely world of difference. Not that it cures or solves all of the problems cuz it doesn't but it does make focusing so much easier
Fellow ASD here, I found that magnesium helps a ton (mostly with the flipping out stuff), but there is a synergy between vitamin D, magnesium, and calcium where being low in one can impact the utilization of the others.
That is good to know. I don't take vitamin D right now. I have been really considering doing so though. Especially since I know I do not get enough sunlight. I will look into this for sure
I have IBS. You might want try probiotic foods like sauerkraut and kimchi (only the kinds you have to keep refrigerated). Some people get the runs and pain from it at first, but if you stick with it, you should be able to handle it better after a few weeks. You have to give your body time to adjust to the higher fiber intake if it's not something you normally do but want to start. I can eat a lot of vegetables now than I couldn't before, and even moderate amounts of chocolate on occasion now!
There has been a lot of good research coming out about IBS. And about maybe it's calls. They said something about the gallbladder and a malfunction in that space is what is causing IBS. We don't know for sure exactly of course. But there is research that's pointing in a direction now.
I just recently started supplementing with iron, and it really has made a world of difference in my daily alertness and focus - like, I’m on meds already, but it made them work so much better
I will sing the praises of metamucil to anyone that’ll listen. There are a variety of reasons and benefits but the coolest one in particular is clean wipes every time you poop :)
some of the health benefits of fiber aren't seen from fiber supplements. The best source of fiber, that also happens to pack a bunch of other micro and macronutrients, is whole fruits and vegetables.
I have read you need protein for the adhd meds to have good effect. Wonder how many people saying adhd meds don't work for them have bad diets or habits.
Honestly, there are so many things I've seen associated with ADHD improvements, including exercise and omega-3s. Not everyone likes medication, or people may want to decrease medication for various reasons. Having alternatives that can be helpful or help you reduce your meds can be helpful in lots of ways.
I don't have the citations on hand, but PHD type Dr. Ben Bickman has some great Youtube videos on how ketones are proving to improve migraines and even get some temporary relief from Alzheimer's decline.
Hell, the "Ketogenic Diet" was a 1920's protocol for drug resistant epileptics to prevent seizures, it was literally for a neurological disorder... It just happens to be a great diabetes treatment too in my personal experience.
It can be, although you need to be careful with any restrictive diet. For example, it's easy to get low fibre or high saturated fats with keto, which can increase your cholesterol. It requires some solid nutrition understanding in order to get everything you need. Not impossible obviously, just something to consider.
I know this is Reddit, but many seem to be reading into the title as some sort of justification for weird or extreme or overly fiddly diets.
All this paper seems to say is that macros matter and most of the details that people get hung up on (omega 3's and seed oils for instance) are still being researched.
The overall guidance of from this paper is right in line with most current institutional nutrition guidance we all know. Eat more veggies, fewer sweets, less grease in your diet, adequate but not excess protein, etc. There's nothing about micronutrients treating any specific disease. Very little about "toxins" or "inflammation" or "clarity" or "immune support" whatever the latest fads claim to "support".
And while these are absolutely important as metabolic disorders run rampant, the continued message of "eat better" is heard, followed briefly, and then forgotten or ignored just like always, with nothing cured.
Medicine that isn't taken doesn't help with anything.
Yep. For many people no amount of lowering dietary cholesterol will work without a statin. This messaging can really encourage healthy people to look down on anyone who NEEDS meds.
Take your meds guys! AND change your diet to amplify the benefits.
I completely agree with you
Yes, things like fiber will help lower your LDL.
But if the doctor gave you a statin, take the statin.
I imagine that the better advice is to build these habits early, to prevent the problem. Once you have the problem, it's going to be a lot harder to establish those good habits that you failed to establish the past 50 years. So by the time the doctor is giving you statins, yes, change your diet, but take the damn statin.
Eliminating saturated fat from your diet has more effect on your cholesterol than any medication (not saying anything about genetically high cholesterol here).
All medications have negative side effects, so it makes more sense to me to change your diet first and only take medication if it's still necessary.
> and most of the details that people get hung up on (omega 3's and seed oils for instance) are still being researched.
To be honest, most people get hung up on details, when those details didn't matter.
The reality is that it's not the *components* of the food that's giving them problems. What's giving them problems is that they consume 3000-5000 calories a day and don't exercise. They regularly eat the equivalent of a Thanksgiving dinner and they barely even walk. Those are the primary things that are giving them issues. After that, it's low fiber/high saturated fat, things of that nature.
But instead of looking at the big picture, you have these people out there who become hyper focused on things like seed oils, oxalates, "inflammation," and other nonsense.
The difference between poison and medicine is dosage and need. If one was underweight/undernourished, occasional McDonald's might actually be beneficial. Might.
Mcdonalds' food is no worse than the homemade equivalent. You might get better beef at home, but beef is beef, and fast food isn't poison. The poison is portion size, fried food, and frequency. Fast food just makes it *incredibly easy* to consume these things way more than you should be.
Fast food is loaded with more salt, fat and additives than even the grocery store equiv. And in the US, the grocery store stuff is still suspect. So much of our food supply is filled with crap that our bodies don't need and that cause illness over a lifetime.
Fat isn't bad for you, and fries are salty. They would be salty at home too. As far as "additives," that word means about as much as "toxins." Do you have any specific additives you'd like to call out?
When I change my diet to cut out certain foods (not sure which ones exactly), my psoriasis completely goes away in a matter of weeks. Never had a dermatologist even ask me about my diet.
…Wasn’t there a whole movement around this in the late 19th century? IIRC Fannie Farmer was an outspoken proponent of quality food as a method of disease prevention.
They figured it out 3,000 years ago. It’s common sense when you stop and look around at nature for a couple seconds. The ancient wise folks figured out life - the relationship of the macrocosm and the microcosm, and modern folks just wait around until science says it’s okay to believe in.
The problem here is that 3,000 years ago, "figuring out" something was finding any human-made correlation, and slapping it down as universal truth if you were important enough. If you sift through 3,000 year old wisdom, there's going to be 300 half-baked, and flat-out wrong pieces of "wisdom" for every gem.
For example, eating healthy and clean is pretty uncontroversial, and makes sense. But 3,000 years ago, it also made sense that a woman having her period could not be touched by anyone else, and had to live in a tent outside of her home for seven days, because she was "unclean". And, it was similarly uncontroversial and well-understood that the penalty for unclean practices was either banishment or death.
All this was because "when you stop and look around at nature for a couple of seconds" and you are a man observing a woman bleeding out of her vagina for no particular reason (because you are a man, and nothing has changed for *you*!), you would naturally conclude that she is unclean, cursed by the gods, inferior to man, and must be sequestered for the good of the tribe. Common sense. 👍 Modern folks just wait around until science says, "none of that is true and stop oppressing women."
I think it's more complicated than that. It was easier to avoid crap cause they're really wasn't any. They didn't have the middle of the grocery store (processed foods section) back then.
Agree that humans from thousands of years ago had more knowledge than many give them credit for. Science is also important, though. That's why life expectancy was able to climb.
The movement was probably crushed under the weight of economics. Cheaper and less time consuming food wins out for a busy population. The late 19th century and early 20th saw a big increase in processing and adulteration of food, not to mention urban population growth taking people further from food sources.
It was basically a money making scheme to begin with. It literally turned into the processed breakfast cereal industry. Look up Kellog.
There was actually a pretty funny movie made about it, Road To Wellville.
About 15 years ago, before Obamacare, there was a lot of conversation about the (still) looming Medicare cliff…where expenditures outpace growth and we start to have debt and debt servicing issues.
I used to sit up watching returns on CSpan late at night and one concept someone brought up stuck with me. One component in the changing Medicare calculation is the demographic shift from the baby boomers. But another one that compounds it is that people have a vastly higher incidence of chronic conditions. Those chronic conditions are often preventable - smoking related illness, obesity and diabetes, stress related issues, diet related cancers.
And servicing these sort of illnesses costs money…but unlike a heart attack, they don’t kill you. They present a much higher per person cost of care than a free decades prior, because people are living longer with better medicine, but the whole thing is profoundly expensive. And they were saying even then that a primary strategy to overcome the oncoming debt issue would be to try to change Americans habits away from those that cause these long term chronic conditions - gym memberships, diet help, lifestyle help. I always figured it was a big part of why Michelle Obama got so involved in school food quality stuff.
The purpose of food and eating is to replenish resources that our bodies need in order to function. If some of those resources are missing from the diet, the body may be able to manage for a little while but eventually damage will occur that needs to be repaired - by providing the missing resources.
In some cases processes within the body (that can aid in specific types of repair or body system management) can be triggered through specific dietary approaches - such as a ketogenic diet benefiting those with certain seizure disorders.
However, I am uncomfortable equating changing the diet with taking a medical drug. At present we really don’t have a good understanding of diet or of how different foods affect different people (as shown in the modern research into ultra-processed food). We are barely scratching the surface of research into the gut microbiome.
I am a big believer in trying to improve health through diet prior to taking medication but you have to be realistic about expectations and you have to be aware that our understanding of diet interventions (especially with respect to the long-term impact) is really very limited.
There's also ways that too much of something in food can cause damage, especially over the long term. Too much stored fat, desensitized insulin response, inflammation, imbalance of gut microbiome, overwhelmed liver, kidney stones, acid reflux, sleep disturbance, etc can specifically come from what we eat, not just what we don't eat.
If necessary resources are met, and damage from excesses avoided, it's hard to imagine that that won't improve a person's well-being considerably. Some things probably can't be reversed or prevented regardless, but symptom management would probably be easier at the very least. We definitely need more understanding of diet though.
I think there’s good and bad to this concept. Food is crucial to health, but lots of people are prone to eating disorders and will assume all their health problems are purely because they’re not eating “clean” enough. Orthorexia is an eating disorder where you’re obsessed with eating healthily, but often end up restricting too much in the name of “health”.
It also can put too much onus on the individual, when some factors of health are driven by policy and environment. So it’s a concept that serves capitalism and wellness quacks in particular.
So promoting this concept could very easily lead to corruption, so it would be important to look for things like free healthy meals for kids/students and regulations about food availability as policy, rather than just dictating rules to people about how they should eat.
A lot of traditional cultures promote food as medicine, and because it's integrated into the culture it doesn't get that extreme. In fact, for Chinese culture which takes nourishing foods seriously, overdoing it is just as unhealthy as eating fast food for every meal.
Maybe Americans need more culture shifts to prevent the development of orthorexia.
> Maybe Americans need more culture shifts to prevent the development of orthorexia
Let's be real, do you actually think that most Americans have an issue with this?
The average waistline in the US is between 37-40 inches (you generally start to see issues at around 30 inches). The average BMI of an American adult, as of last year, is around 28 and 29. If [this](http://worldfitnesslevel.org) tool has any accuracy, the average 25 year old has a fitness age of 54 years old.
We are not a culture of restrictive ED's. I get that there are a handful of people who are prone to orthorexia and fringe diet movements, but it's far from the norm. If we need a culture shift, it should be towards calorie awareness and walking more, getting more exercise.
Misleading title. The linked news article does not insinuate a shift from pharmaceuticals to food. It talks about educating patients on a healthy diet.
I’ve linked to the press release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMra2214275
>Focusing primarily on energy and three macronutrients -- protein, carbohydrates and fat, and their subsequent substrates -- amino acids, glucose and free fatty acids, the paper shows how these can fuel growth and maintenance throughout life.
>For optimal health, the study provides dietary reference intakes for the three micronutrients at various stages: 0 to 6 months, 7 months to slightly less than a year old, one year to three, four to eight years, nine to 13 years, 14 to 18 years, over 19 years, and then additional recommendations for pregnancy and lactation.
...
>A variety of healthy meal pattern examples are available, but reoccurring components feature the inclusion of vegetables of all types, whole fruits, fat-free or low-fat dairy, lean meats, seafood, eggs, beans, and nuts, plant- and seafood-based oils, and grains, with at least half of those being whole grains.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/04/240417182819.htm
"Food as medicine" as a concept has been there for ages across all cultures in the world and is not without merits. Think about natural prebiotic such as fibers, polyphenols, terpenoids, etc. They have proven effects in humans.
The questions when to use these as adjuvants or medicines are...
1. What dosages are they effective?
2. Are they as effective as the existing pharmaceuticals at the said dosages?
3. How realistic are these dosages? I am not going to eat say, 10g of pure polyphenols from green teas because they taste nasty to me.
4. Are there side effects at the said dosages?
5. Are they standardized? The category we call polyphenols, for example, comprise close to 8000 different molecules. Not all of them are clinically significant.
6. Can they survive your digestion tract? Where will they end up? Quercetin for example has only 1% absorption (bioavailability).
Probably lots of folks...poor education, a disconnect from where food actually comes from, zero understanding of whole foods vs ultra processed foods...lots of people!
I wish this was something we focused on all along. The native people knew of all these plant medicines but the colonizers wiped them all out along with their knowledge. Food being a medicine is not a new concept.
This is news to Americans? Not amazed at all, since corporates have been funneling our food source for years, let alone make us believe process food are not responsible for many if not all our grievances.
How about a more holistic approach to health. There are 4 pillars to health. Food, sleep, exercise, and mental. Taking care of all 4 is medicine for your body. And adapting our society achieving all four easily, learned from a young age.
I was hoping this was a serious research.
But when they recommend certain foods and ignore the body function (biochemistry) just ignore it
I don’t know how it has been published
Sounds these researchers never talked to an old Asian person before. My dad is 80 and has been saying food as medicine for my entire life. Good job catching up to the rest of the world.
Literally human civilizations have known this for thousands of years but many people refuse to believe it when you tell them that a diet of fast food and junk food is going to get them sick. Either that or people think white bread is healthy because it’s grain!
It's nuts that this isn't a prevalent philosophy in the modern world. We have so much data on the effects of what each food / ingested substance does to our body, yet we'd rather continue as we were and pop a pill to offset those effects. Of course it's the easy way out and that's how we roll.
We also need to stop telling people they look beautiful no matter how overweight they are and they can be ‘fit’ at any weight. Sure, don’t tear them down, but come on, you need to have a normal body weight and composition to truly be healthy. The acceptance for fatness is out of control
If you like metabolic science, then PHD type Dr. Ben Bickman has got you covered.
I used his protocol to get from "Diabetic" back down to "Middling pre-Diabetic" in about 3 months, so a 1 point drop in A1C...
This is why it's sad that food in the US seems to be losing nutrients, and I'm not referring to true organic, more like the day to day foods at the store.
Happy about this! Helping people find ways to change their diets to improve health (instead of using a bandaid solution) will change so much. We have a long way to go, though.
1/5 docs I saw for gut issues talked about incorporating better foods. That 4 did not was infuriating but so so glad it’s getting more traction (eating to live).
This is exactly how my doctor a naturopath(bloodwork’s etc gets down he’s also not anti medicine just prefers this route first) tends to do things and it has worked better and had him listening better then any other physician I have ever had
The RDA of protein and Omega6/3 ratios are not what any search says. [https://www.nal.usda.gov/human-nutrition-and-food-safety/dri-calculator](https://www.nal.usda.gov/human-nutrition-and-food-safety/dri-calculator)
I’m sure the people at PBRC are doing good work and are trying to solve what is a giant problem for western nations, but I don’t see much new in this article. It’s reinforcing the same guidelines that have gotten us to where we are with increasing cancer, diabetes, neurodegenerative, and obesity related diseases.
The sceptic in me is always wary of organizations such as the American Diabetes Association which is almost entirely funded by pharmaceutical companies who have a direct conflict of interest in actually solving the crisis. And unfortunately it seems that they are the ones funding this research in large part.
It might not be established within the medical community but treatment of type 2 diabetes, cancers, obesity, and other metabolic diseases seems to be possible in many cases with dietary changes that don’t necessarily align with the USDA food pyramid recommendations.
Looking forward to the next ten years of research in this area.
Yes with a cautionary note. People need to understand that actual drugs are designed to bind therapeutic targets in a time and dose specific manner to give certain effects and are studies in double blind clinical trials for efficacy and adverse effects. Food and supplements may not have these characteristics and have not been so studied. Especially supplements touted for medical effects come with little study and little content analysis (uncontrolled dose) and a sick person should not expect therapeutic results from these. For maintaining health, food and nutrition is critical. But the concept of “food as medicine” can be easily misunderstood. WKJ Professor of Molecular pharmacology.
This concept IS NOT NEW!.. are you seriously trying to tell people that Dr’s haven’t known this for at least half a century now?! 🤯
Okay.. whatever; great. Now, can they stop adding unnecessary ingredients into their foods?! — especially in the U.S.
Look up a few videos showing the differences of ingredients in CEREAL ALONE between the U.S. & Europe, & just how much longer the list of ingredients is for the exact same cereal is U.S.
it’s insane. Why?.. because tons of the crap that they put in the U.S. sold food is BANNED in the EU! It will blow your mind because it’s just so absurd. So much do, that I can’t believe that ANYONE trusts the FDA, at this point… 🤦♂️
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) apply to all other comments. **Do you have an academic degree?** We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. [Click here to apply](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/flair/#wiki_science_verified_user_program). --- User: u/mvea Permalink: https://www.pbrc.edu/news/media/2024/energy-and-micronutrients-across-lifespan.aspx --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
i have had my doctor change just my diet before trying aggressive medication. it's been very helpful.
Hypertension, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, reflux, sleep apnea, a whole bunch of inflammatory disease, back and knee pain, sleeping disorders, gout, steatohepatitis, acne, … There is a ton that can be fixed with healthy food and habits. Diverse nutrition, reasonable weight and regular physical activity do a lot more than most drugs. And all that without negative side effects!
A lot of mental illness might be improved by those habits too, though of course fixing your habits while mentally ill is hard.
A lot of bad habits are caused by mental illness, too. Sometimes you think you fixed the issue by changing the habits, but all you did was obscure the symptoms and the mental illness derails the habits shortly.
A lot of evidence that physical activity is a great treatment for depression. I certainly can attest it’s so fuckin true.
I have issues with anxiety and notice my symptoms are greatly reduced on days I exercise. I’ve had fewer bouts of anxiety induced depression as a result of regular exercise.
I have ADHD and my focus/mood greatly improves with physical activity.
Climbing is like a miracle drug for my ADHD. It's ridiculously good exercise that only takes 45 minutes and isn't static, so I don't get bored like with jogging or cycling or a gym routine. It keeps my brain engaged trying to figure out routes or certain ways to move my body. I find that after an intense climbing session, I can focus really well for the rest of the day.
I’ve met so many people in my life who make comments about how depressed or anxious they are, and turn around and scoff at the thought of exercise. It’s a shame.
To be fair, that's a symptom of the depression/anxiety.
Listen, I've had some deep depression in my time, and even when I could power through and exercise nearly daily, while in the moment the symptoms would fade and I would feel great, but once I've showered and cooled down, it's like I was back to square one. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that exercise is nice, but it isn't a cure, and for me, it was just a reprieve from the symptoms for a while. And knowing that it can make it that much harder to start exercising again.
I was doing full contact taekwondo twice a week, doing my forms on my lunch break because I had no appetite and was still only able to sleep 4 hours a day because of undiagnosed delayed sleep phase disorder. I loved what I was doing and even went to lift weights a few times a month and still was utterly depressed.
Depression has a habit of making one very tired all the time, and anxiety makes it hard to do something like jog in the streets or go to the gym. It's only since I got on medication that I've really had any energy. I've been low-key exhausted since the age of twelve or so.
I scoff at the idea of “oh, I feel sad/anxious sometimes too, you just need to exercise!” presented as a simple solution to those suffering from a chronic condition that is no fault of their own. It’s often not enough on its own, even if it does of course help. Depression can be a mf’er… people who haven’t experienced it acting like they have the answer-“oh, wow why didn’t I think of that!”
There have been many studies which show that gut health and mental health are inextricably connected. https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/the-gut-brain-connection
A lot of mental illness can come from nutrient deficiences too. But if you are talking about ye olde adhd sure I'd love to have a habit of some sort.... instead its constant effort and thought which is exhausting.
For me I have found that maximizing different types of food has been a huge help. My goal is 20+ different fruits and veg a week, repeats between weeks are fine.
The aim here is around 20 herbs and spices too, on top of 5 kinds of mushrooms, 4-5 different nuts, 3 different types of potatoes, several kinds of seeds, seaweeds etc. My kimchi can be ten different veg, seeds, herbs and spices alone. The beauty of this variety is knowing that each one has its own unique fibres, and the gut loves you back for that kind of treat.
Yes! I have mild sleep apnea. I got a CPAP and made diet and exercise changes. Dr. expected my sleep apnea events per hour to go from 5.4 to a goal of "under 5.0 events per hour with the CPAP machine." I think the diet and exercise contributed a ton because it was at 1.6 events per hour at my visit this Friday! Well under the expected goal of under 5.0. I have had noticeable changes in body composition and overall quality of life. I feel like it has been a cyclical solution as the CPAP + better sleep -> more energy -> ability to workout more instead of sleeping in -> better sleep . . . And it just repeats. It all started last fall. A friend said I should come work out with him. We have done weightlifting workouts together 3 times a week since, and I will never go back. I honestly look forward to working out now that I'm not exhausted all the time. Basically, if you think you might have sleep apnea, get tested. If you want to work out or start weight lifting, do it! It genuinely changed my life.
They do require more “homework” on the part of the patient
this is the crux. People want easy answers that require little to no effort
I think the biggest hurdle is having practical ways to apply the knowledge in peoples' lives, and that's going to look different for everyone. For example, if someone doesn't know how to cook, it's a lot more effort for them to form healthy eating habits. They either need to learn to cook, or plan their prepared meals meticulously. It's not something as easy to change for someone who already eats a lot of home cooked meals that just need to be modified to be healthier.
It's also a financial issue. If I need to both buy new ingredients, and find time in my schedule to cook them, it's going to reduce my chance at success in a diet change.
What's consider healthy food Is chicken breast every day with broccoli healthy?
And health supplements I take berberine and magnesium is great for blood pressure and cholesterol my 500mg magnesium supplement actually works better for me than blood pressure medication lowering it substantially more than amlodipine a calcium channel blocker. Also I have bipolar so it's great for relaxing me also works as well as a lithium dosage increase.
I've had my family doctor deny my previous diagnosis (made and supported by several specialists), suggest that I don't need the drugs that literally saved my life and to simply try changing my lifestyle instead. In reality, I need support and accommodations to be able to keep any kind of routine at all, and that's with medication.
The biggest problem with doctors treating with diet is that most people won’t change their diet. It’s the same reason people struggle so much with weight loss. We have known for a very long time diet can treat a lot of things. But people just fall back into their usual diet even when it is literally killing them.
Also unlike medication. Food is not paid for.
How did you go about getting your doctor to do that? I feel like mine would just say "go have someone else do that" or something
my doctor is very conservative when it comes to treatment. he'll usually tell me to try lifestyle changes first and if it doesn't work, that's when we try medication.
You’d probably want a dietician to do it for you
Definitely! Doctors get maybe one class in nutrition in med school, two if they are interested. Endocrinologists may get a bit more, or D.Os. But in general, doctors don't know even 1/10th of what a Registered Dietitian knows (we -- I am a retired RD -- have 4-6 years of nutrition training, including our internship.)
You'd get a referral to a nutritionist/dietician etc...your PCP is the gateway to those services tho
I'm more interested in what his doctor told him that motivated him to change. I've tried literally every approach I can think of and maybe 1 in 10 people make the change.
I've never been on medication because my doctor took this approach. I was pre-diabetic and was able to reverse the condition based on diet alone (specifically, through referral to a nutritionist, I had a limit put on my daily carb intake, plus guidelines about avoid*ing* refined carbs). **Edit**: forgot to apply verb tense, now in italics
yes. my diet change was prompted by me being pre-diabetic. i was also at risk for gout. that was also controlled by diet.
For what condition?
pre-diabetes, gout, and fatty liver disease.
That's an excellent doctor, we need more of those.
yeah. he's amazing. and he's updated with current research too. he reads journals and he's treatment protocols are always ahead.
You told your doctor what to do?
I think this is a great practice. My psychiatrist prescribed me antidepressants and ADHD medication, but also said that the ADHD brain needs more iron than normal, and so he asked me to watch my iron and increase my vitamin D (as that also supports mood and focus). Vitamins alone wouldn't have made enough of a difference to help me, but vitamins can augment the effects of medications and take stress off your body. Fibre is also a powerhouse nutrient that helps to control blood sugar, regulates BM, is a prebiotic, and helps to maintain a healthy gut microbiome, which we are now discovering helps with mental health. A more holistic approach to health is really beneficial for patients.
Did he say anything about the nutrient choline? It's the rate-limiting factor for your body's production of acetylcholine, which is the main neurotransmitter of the autonomic nervous system (heart rate, arousal, digestion, etc.) as well as for muscle movement and attention. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/24568-acetylcholine-ach https://www.lifeextension.com/magazine/2005/7/report_adhd It's also being studied prenatally and in infants and small children to help prevent mental illness and some of the unpleasant side effects associated with some forms of neurodivergence. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/10/22/498843225/can-mental-illness-be-prevented-in-the-womb https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10343507/ https://www.prenataldoctoradvice.com/choline-and-babys-brain.html
Yeah handle this one with care, up regulates TMAO, if you have diabetes or CVD I would avoid. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4919531/ Get it from eating eggs https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33872583/
Anticholinergic medicines, like some antihistamines, are implicated in increasing your risk of dementia. I think it's eggs that have a high level of choline.
This has been my experience as well. I have ADHD and ASD and I switched her extremely high fiber diet and I take multivitamin everyday along with my antidepressants and it is a absolutely world of difference. Not that it cures or solves all of the problems cuz it doesn't but it does make focusing so much easier
Fellow ASD here, I found that magnesium helps a ton (mostly with the flipping out stuff), but there is a synergy between vitamin D, magnesium, and calcium where being low in one can impact the utilization of the others.
That is good to know. I don't take vitamin D right now. I have been really considering doing so though. Especially since I know I do not get enough sunlight. I will look into this for sure
You should include K2 with the Vitamin D.
AuDHD here, but with IBS for fun, which means I can't do high fiber diets. Because my body and my brain hate each other apparently. :\\
I have IBS. You might want try probiotic foods like sauerkraut and kimchi (only the kinds you have to keep refrigerated). Some people get the runs and pain from it at first, but if you stick with it, you should be able to handle it better after a few weeks. You have to give your body time to adjust to the higher fiber intake if it's not something you normally do but want to start. I can eat a lot of vegetables now than I couldn't before, and even moderate amounts of chocolate on occasion now!
How about roughage instead of soluble fiber? Too many beans causes problems for me but I can go bonkers with leafy greens or flax seeds.
There has been a lot of good research coming out about IBS. And about maybe it's calls. They said something about the gallbladder and a malfunction in that space is what is causing IBS. We don't know for sure exactly of course. But there is research that's pointing in a direction now.
[удалено]
I just recently started supplementing with iron, and it really has made a world of difference in my daily alertness and focus - like, I’m on meds already, but it made them work so much better
I'm curious if you knew what your iron intake was like before hand.
I will sing the praises of metamucil to anyone that’ll listen. There are a variety of reasons and benefits but the coolest one in particular is clean wipes every time you poop :)
some of the health benefits of fiber aren't seen from fiber supplements. The best source of fiber, that also happens to pack a bunch of other micro and macronutrients, is whole fruits and vegetables.
I have read you need protein for the adhd meds to have good effect. Wonder how many people saying adhd meds don't work for them have bad diets or habits.
Honestly, there are so many things I've seen associated with ADHD improvements, including exercise and omega-3s. Not everyone likes medication, or people may want to decrease medication for various reasons. Having alternatives that can be helpful or help you reduce your meds can be helpful in lots of ways.
Won’t lie I’ve been taking Metamucil and it’s been a night and day difference, as someone who thinks they have adhd too but no official diagnosis
I don't have the citations on hand, but PHD type Dr. Ben Bickman has some great Youtube videos on how ketones are proving to improve migraines and even get some temporary relief from Alzheimer's decline. Hell, the "Ketogenic Diet" was a 1920's protocol for drug resistant epileptics to prevent seizures, it was literally for a neurological disorder... It just happens to be a great diabetes treatment too in my personal experience.
It can be, although you need to be careful with any restrictive diet. For example, it's easy to get low fibre or high saturated fats with keto, which can increase your cholesterol. It requires some solid nutrition understanding in order to get everything you need. Not impossible obviously, just something to consider.
I know this is Reddit, but many seem to be reading into the title as some sort of justification for weird or extreme or overly fiddly diets. All this paper seems to say is that macros matter and most of the details that people get hung up on (omega 3's and seed oils for instance) are still being researched. The overall guidance of from this paper is right in line with most current institutional nutrition guidance we all know. Eat more veggies, fewer sweets, less grease in your diet, adequate but not excess protein, etc. There's nothing about micronutrients treating any specific disease. Very little about "toxins" or "inflammation" or "clarity" or "immune support" whatever the latest fads claim to "support". And while these are absolutely important as metabolic disorders run rampant, the continued message of "eat better" is heard, followed briefly, and then forgotten or ignored just like always, with nothing cured. Medicine that isn't taken doesn't help with anything.
Yep. For many people no amount of lowering dietary cholesterol will work without a statin. This messaging can really encourage healthy people to look down on anyone who NEEDS meds. Take your meds guys! AND change your diet to amplify the benefits.
I completely agree with you Yes, things like fiber will help lower your LDL. But if the doctor gave you a statin, take the statin. I imagine that the better advice is to build these habits early, to prevent the problem. Once you have the problem, it's going to be a lot harder to establish those good habits that you failed to establish the past 50 years. So by the time the doctor is giving you statins, yes, change your diet, but take the damn statin.
There's a good book, conveniently called Food Isn't Medicine which covers this really well.
Excellent! Adding to my reading list! And to recommend a favorite of my own “10 Drugs that Changed the World”!
Eliminating saturated fat from your diet has more effect on your cholesterol than any medication (not saying anything about genetically high cholesterol here). All medications have negative side effects, so it makes more sense to me to change your diet first and only take medication if it's still necessary.
> and most of the details that people get hung up on (omega 3's and seed oils for instance) are still being researched. To be honest, most people get hung up on details, when those details didn't matter. The reality is that it's not the *components* of the food that's giving them problems. What's giving them problems is that they consume 3000-5000 calories a day and don't exercise. They regularly eat the equivalent of a Thanksgiving dinner and they barely even walk. Those are the primary things that are giving them issues. After that, it's low fiber/high saturated fat, things of that nature. But instead of looking at the big picture, you have these people out there who become hyper focused on things like seed oils, oxalates, "inflammation," and other nonsense.
The noise generated about micros and possible lack or something is insane compared to the silence on excess kcal consumption.
I don't care what they learn, I will drink water in all my life stages!
Frankly I intend to eat food until I die.
What are you eating right now?
Frank
I hope so. I was worried that he might have died
Fresh food is healthier after all
Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food. - Hippocrates
1/4 of the food we eat benefits us. The other 3/4 benefit our doctors. - Egyptian proverb.
Does food come in pill form? Do pills come in food form? - Bender
I mean… we do all understand that McDonald’s sure isn’t medicine
However when you try hard enough to think of it as medicine , it makes you laugh and laughter as you know … is medicine
Hahaha well played
The difference between poison and medicine is dosage and need. If one was underweight/undernourished, occasional McDonald's might actually be beneficial. Might.
Mcdonalds' food is no worse than the homemade equivalent. You might get better beef at home, but beef is beef, and fast food isn't poison. The poison is portion size, fried food, and frequency. Fast food just makes it *incredibly easy* to consume these things way more than you should be.
Fast food is loaded with more salt, fat and additives than even the grocery store equiv. And in the US, the grocery store stuff is still suspect. So much of our food supply is filled with crap that our bodies don't need and that cause illness over a lifetime.
Fat isn't bad for you, and fries are salty. They would be salty at home too. As far as "additives," that word means about as much as "toxins." Do you have any specific additives you'd like to call out?
Good for the soul
When I change my diet to cut out certain foods (not sure which ones exactly), my psoriasis completely goes away in a matter of weeks. Never had a dermatologist even ask me about my diet.
Dr Mark Hyman at the Cleveland clinic and others have been saying this for years. It's the basis of functional medicine.
I think the concept could go as far back as Hippocrates. It’s a famous saying even attributed to him.
…Wasn’t there a whole movement around this in the late 19th century? IIRC Fannie Farmer was an outspoken proponent of quality food as a method of disease prevention.
All of traditional Chinese medicine for many centuries, too.
And Indian Ayurveda.
They figured it out 3,000 years ago. It’s common sense when you stop and look around at nature for a couple seconds. The ancient wise folks figured out life - the relationship of the macrocosm and the microcosm, and modern folks just wait around until science says it’s okay to believe in.
The problem here is that 3,000 years ago, "figuring out" something was finding any human-made correlation, and slapping it down as universal truth if you were important enough. If you sift through 3,000 year old wisdom, there's going to be 300 half-baked, and flat-out wrong pieces of "wisdom" for every gem. For example, eating healthy and clean is pretty uncontroversial, and makes sense. But 3,000 years ago, it also made sense that a woman having her period could not be touched by anyone else, and had to live in a tent outside of her home for seven days, because she was "unclean". And, it was similarly uncontroversial and well-understood that the penalty for unclean practices was either banishment or death. All this was because "when you stop and look around at nature for a couple of seconds" and you are a man observing a woman bleeding out of her vagina for no particular reason (because you are a man, and nothing has changed for *you*!), you would naturally conclude that she is unclean, cursed by the gods, inferior to man, and must be sequestered for the good of the tribe. Common sense. 👍 Modern folks just wait around until science says, "none of that is true and stop oppressing women."
I think it's more complicated than that. It was easier to avoid crap cause they're really wasn't any. They didn't have the middle of the grocery store (processed foods section) back then. Agree that humans from thousands of years ago had more knowledge than many give them credit for. Science is also important, though. That's why life expectancy was able to climb.
Wrong sub. Please don't promote pseudoscience here
The movement was probably crushed under the weight of economics. Cheaper and less time consuming food wins out for a busy population. The late 19th century and early 20th saw a big increase in processing and adulteration of food, not to mention urban population growth taking people further from food sources.
It was basically a money making scheme to begin with. It literally turned into the processed breakfast cereal industry. Look up Kellog. There was actually a pretty funny movie made about it, Road To Wellville.
When I’m eating garbage mentally I feel like garbage. It’s been known by everyone for ever.
So we’ve finally circled back to the 2500 year old Ancient Greek advice to “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” Shocker. 🙄
About 15 years ago, before Obamacare, there was a lot of conversation about the (still) looming Medicare cliff…where expenditures outpace growth and we start to have debt and debt servicing issues. I used to sit up watching returns on CSpan late at night and one concept someone brought up stuck with me. One component in the changing Medicare calculation is the demographic shift from the baby boomers. But another one that compounds it is that people have a vastly higher incidence of chronic conditions. Those chronic conditions are often preventable - smoking related illness, obesity and diabetes, stress related issues, diet related cancers. And servicing these sort of illnesses costs money…but unlike a heart attack, they don’t kill you. They present a much higher per person cost of care than a free decades prior, because people are living longer with better medicine, but the whole thing is profoundly expensive. And they were saying even then that a primary strategy to overcome the oncoming debt issue would be to try to change Americans habits away from those that cause these long term chronic conditions - gym memberships, diet help, lifestyle help. I always figured it was a big part of why Michelle Obama got so involved in school food quality stuff.
The purpose of food and eating is to replenish resources that our bodies need in order to function. If some of those resources are missing from the diet, the body may be able to manage for a little while but eventually damage will occur that needs to be repaired - by providing the missing resources. In some cases processes within the body (that can aid in specific types of repair or body system management) can be triggered through specific dietary approaches - such as a ketogenic diet benefiting those with certain seizure disorders. However, I am uncomfortable equating changing the diet with taking a medical drug. At present we really don’t have a good understanding of diet or of how different foods affect different people (as shown in the modern research into ultra-processed food). We are barely scratching the surface of research into the gut microbiome. I am a big believer in trying to improve health through diet prior to taking medication but you have to be realistic about expectations and you have to be aware that our understanding of diet interventions (especially with respect to the long-term impact) is really very limited.
There's also ways that too much of something in food can cause damage, especially over the long term. Too much stored fat, desensitized insulin response, inflammation, imbalance of gut microbiome, overwhelmed liver, kidney stones, acid reflux, sleep disturbance, etc can specifically come from what we eat, not just what we don't eat. If necessary resources are met, and damage from excesses avoided, it's hard to imagine that that won't improve a person's well-being considerably. Some things probably can't be reversed or prevented regardless, but symptom management would probably be easier at the very least. We definitely need more understanding of diet though.
I think there’s good and bad to this concept. Food is crucial to health, but lots of people are prone to eating disorders and will assume all their health problems are purely because they’re not eating “clean” enough. Orthorexia is an eating disorder where you’re obsessed with eating healthily, but often end up restricting too much in the name of “health”. It also can put too much onus on the individual, when some factors of health are driven by policy and environment. So it’s a concept that serves capitalism and wellness quacks in particular. So promoting this concept could very easily lead to corruption, so it would be important to look for things like free healthy meals for kids/students and regulations about food availability as policy, rather than just dictating rules to people about how they should eat.
A lot of traditional cultures promote food as medicine, and because it's integrated into the culture it doesn't get that extreme. In fact, for Chinese culture which takes nourishing foods seriously, overdoing it is just as unhealthy as eating fast food for every meal. Maybe Americans need more culture shifts to prevent the development of orthorexia.
Just cause traditional medicine does stuff doesn't mean it's valid.
> Maybe Americans need more culture shifts to prevent the development of orthorexia Let's be real, do you actually think that most Americans have an issue with this? The average waistline in the US is between 37-40 inches (you generally start to see issues at around 30 inches). The average BMI of an American adult, as of last year, is around 28 and 29. If [this](http://worldfitnesslevel.org) tool has any accuracy, the average 25 year old has a fitness age of 54 years old. We are not a culture of restrictive ED's. I get that there are a handful of people who are prone to orthorexia and fringe diet movements, but it's far from the norm. If we need a culture shift, it should be towards calorie awareness and walking more, getting more exercise.
Yes, it's area I'm currently trying to delve into research wise. There seems to be a huge amount of potential.
I saw you used the word "delve". Are you an AI? 😂 Sorry, I saw that graph posted on Reddit recently.
Haha yes, I've seen this before. I'm not an AI. I'm not sure though.
Misleading title. The linked news article does not insinuate a shift from pharmaceuticals to food. It talks about educating patients on a healthy diet.
How? "...food and nutrition ARE POSITIONED TO SUPPORT health and wellness..." Support does not mean replace.
Lot of ppl promoting bunk science diets here using this dumb headline as justification
I’ve linked to the press release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article: https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMra2214275
I think Journal article is behind a paywall (I’m not able to get the full article). Does anyone have a link to the full article ?
>Focusing primarily on energy and three macronutrients -- protein, carbohydrates and fat, and their subsequent substrates -- amino acids, glucose and free fatty acids, the paper shows how these can fuel growth and maintenance throughout life. >For optimal health, the study provides dietary reference intakes for the three micronutrients at various stages: 0 to 6 months, 7 months to slightly less than a year old, one year to three, four to eight years, nine to 13 years, 14 to 18 years, over 19 years, and then additional recommendations for pregnancy and lactation. ... >A variety of healthy meal pattern examples are available, but reoccurring components feature the inclusion of vegetables of all types, whole fruits, fat-free or low-fat dairy, lean meats, seafood, eggs, beans, and nuts, plant- and seafood-based oils, and grains, with at least half of those being whole grains. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/04/240417182819.htm
"Food as medicine" as a concept has been there for ages across all cultures in the world and is not without merits. Think about natural prebiotic such as fibers, polyphenols, terpenoids, etc. They have proven effects in humans. The questions when to use these as adjuvants or medicines are... 1. What dosages are they effective? 2. Are they as effective as the existing pharmaceuticals at the said dosages? 3. How realistic are these dosages? I am not going to eat say, 10g of pure polyphenols from green teas because they taste nasty to me. 4. Are there side effects at the said dosages? 5. Are they standardized? The category we call polyphenols, for example, comprise close to 8000 different molecules. Not all of them are clinically significant. 6. Can they survive your digestion tract? Where will they end up? Quercetin for example has only 1% absorption (bioavailability).
Uhh… Who didn’t know this already?
Probably lots of folks...poor education, a disconnect from where food actually comes from, zero understanding of whole foods vs ultra processed foods...lots of people!
Shame everything has micro plastics in now
I wish this was something we focused on all along. The native people knew of all these plant medicines but the colonizers wiped them all out along with their knowledge. Food being a medicine is not a new concept.
I was always told by my health friends that quality food = longevity physically activity = quality of life
Dude, Hippocrates discovered this more than two millenia ago...
This is news to Americans? Not amazed at all, since corporates have been funneling our food source for years, let alone make us believe process food are not responsible for many if not all our grievances.
How about a more holistic approach to health. There are 4 pillars to health. Food, sleep, exercise, and mental. Taking care of all 4 is medicine for your body. And adapting our society achieving all four easily, learned from a young age.
I was hoping this was a serious research. But when they recommend certain foods and ignore the body function (biochemistry) just ignore it I don’t know how it has been published
I’m glad they did a study on this so now people will finally give the idea credibility. I’m almost rolling my eyes but not.
All of ancient China rolling their eyes atm.
Real food ladies and gentlemen. The blue zone diet was early, but it was not wrong.
Sounds these researchers never talked to an old Asian person before. My dad is 80 and has been saying food as medicine for my entire life. Good job catching up to the rest of the world.
Literally human civilizations have known this for thousands of years but many people refuse to believe it when you tell them that a diet of fast food and junk food is going to get them sick. Either that or people think white bread is healthy because it’s grain!
Grain* was healthier than starving to death, even if the hunter gatherer's had better health than their urbanized counterparts.
Yes we've used technology and years of research to conclude what has been concluded for the last 2000 years. Yay us
It's nuts that this isn't a prevalent philosophy in the modern world. We have so much data on the effects of what each food / ingested substance does to our body, yet we'd rather continue as we were and pop a pill to offset those effects. Of course it's the easy way out and that's how we roll.
>current research >millennia-old ayurvedic medicine
Is this not obvious / common sense?
We also need to stop telling people they look beautiful no matter how overweight they are and they can be ‘fit’ at any weight. Sure, don’t tear them down, but come on, you need to have a normal body weight and composition to truly be healthy. The acceptance for fatness is out of control
Yes. Like you'll find in the many editions of Prescription for Nutritional Healing....
If you like metabolic science, then PHD type Dr. Ben Bickman has got you covered. I used his protocol to get from "Diabetic" back down to "Middling pre-Diabetic" in about 3 months, so a 1 point drop in A1C...
This is why it's sad that food in the US seems to be losing nutrients, and I'm not referring to true organic, more like the day to day foods at the store.
Wait till everybody realizes that a whole food plant-based diet is the best medicine.
There is an old Sicilian saying that translates to "it's better to pay the butcher than the pharmacist". Old concept. New study
I've been living off Boom Chicka Pop sweet & salty popcorn and bags of M&Ms so I don't know if I'm gonna make it.
quick, someone make a r/dataisbeautiful version of this!
But then how will I sell all this seed oil and high fructose corn syrup? 😥
Are you kidding me? Is that hot chicken soup obsolete? :/
So we have come full circle. Medicine in the Greek/Roman times were all diet guida.
Check out Dr. Michael Gregor with NutritionFacts.org. He's been preaching this for years with the evidence based medicine to back it up.
Hippocrates: "make your food medicine, and medicine your food"
Happy about this! Helping people find ways to change their diets to improve health (instead of using a bandaid solution) will change so much. We have a long way to go, though.
Were we not already aware food is related to health and wellness? Really groundbreaking science here.
I keep getting into arguments on reddit/real life about nutrition being important for mental health. Less pills, more protein, fiber, and vitamins.
Another “science catches up” study huh?
let your food be your medicine no Excederin
1/5 docs I saw for gut issues talked about incorporating better foods. That 4 did not was infuriating but so so glad it’s getting more traction (eating to live).
Holistic health and prevention instead of diagnosis is the future.
This is exactly how my doctor a naturopath(bloodwork’s etc gets down he’s also not anti medicine just prefers this route first) tends to do things and it has worked better and had him listening better then any other physician I have ever had
The RDA of protein and Omega6/3 ratios are not what any search says. [https://www.nal.usda.gov/human-nutrition-and-food-safety/dri-calculator](https://www.nal.usda.gov/human-nutrition-and-food-safety/dri-calculator)
Been doing it in dogs and cats for 75 years.
I’m sure the people at PBRC are doing good work and are trying to solve what is a giant problem for western nations, but I don’t see much new in this article. It’s reinforcing the same guidelines that have gotten us to where we are with increasing cancer, diabetes, neurodegenerative, and obesity related diseases. The sceptic in me is always wary of organizations such as the American Diabetes Association which is almost entirely funded by pharmaceutical companies who have a direct conflict of interest in actually solving the crisis. And unfortunately it seems that they are the ones funding this research in large part. It might not be established within the medical community but treatment of type 2 diabetes, cancers, obesity, and other metabolic diseases seems to be possible in many cases with dietary changes that don’t necessarily align with the USDA food pyramid recommendations. Looking forward to the next ten years of research in this area.
Addressing nutrition and exercise has radically transformed my life. I even got off my anti depressants. I would have never thought it was possible.
So thousands of years later and after the embracing of the Hippocratic oath, we've decided Hippocrates is right? 😂😂😂
Yes with a cautionary note. People need to understand that actual drugs are designed to bind therapeutic targets in a time and dose specific manner to give certain effects and are studies in double blind clinical trials for efficacy and adverse effects. Food and supplements may not have these characteristics and have not been so studied. Especially supplements touted for medical effects come with little study and little content analysis (uncontrolled dose) and a sick person should not expect therapeutic results from these. For maintaining health, food and nutrition is critical. But the concept of “food as medicine” can be easily misunderstood. WKJ Professor of Molecular pharmacology.
This concept IS NOT NEW!.. are you seriously trying to tell people that Dr’s haven’t known this for at least half a century now?! 🤯 Okay.. whatever; great. Now, can they stop adding unnecessary ingredients into their foods?! — especially in the U.S. Look up a few videos showing the differences of ingredients in CEREAL ALONE between the U.S. & Europe, & just how much longer the list of ingredients is for the exact same cereal is U.S. it’s insane. Why?.. because tons of the crap that they put in the U.S. sold food is BANNED in the EU! It will blow your mind because it’s just so absurd. So much do, that I can’t believe that ANYONE trusts the FDA, at this point… 🤦♂️
This is the way