The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) says that a diet high in fat can increase risk of Breast Cancer. Women concerned about breast cancer need to look at this article. Reduce your fat to good fats and stop intake of all saturated fats. This was study of 337,327 women by the National Cancer Institute. Cancer is a concern among all of us. Women in particular are concerned about breast cancer. The more we research cancers of all types, we see that they are highly related to our diet. Americans have the worst diet in the world and we have some of the highest cancer rates as well. You can change your diet to a healthier one. Once you do, you will find you enjoy healthier foods more than you ever thought. We have only one body, take care of it and fuel it correctly!
Junk food is one of the most profitable businesses around! Dr Greger, in his video below, says Coca Cola is as profitable as tobacco. Unhealthy food is profitable. First you pay when you buy this food so a company can turn over insane profit margins and then you pay again as you get sick for your health care. We are all paying too much for healthy care because many of our Americans are eating way too much junk food. These companies know how to use sugar and other chemicals to addict you to their products. I believe in the American system of making money but when companies make excessive profits at the cost of American health, it is not OK! Our government looks the other way because of lobbies. Only you can change this situation. Just stop buying unhealthy foods! Watch your family get healthier and watch your savings go up.
As if this is not enough, we are subsidizing these industries with our tax dollars. Our government subsidizes companies in the production of animal products and sugar production. Both of these have changed our diets since World War II. Both sugar and animal protein are linked to many diseases including cancer and heart disease. Why do we do it? Getting sick fuels the other hugh money making industry, the drug industry.
We went to the Jersey shore yesterday and walked the boards. The options to eat are cheesy pizza, burgers and fries with fried Oreos thrown in. We even saw a sign for chocolate covered bacon. Come on! Are we really that into greasy fried foods? As you walk near these places your heart is trying to jump out of your body. It will kill you faster than a bullet! I don’t want to limit anyone’s food. If you really want to eat this junk … do it but there should be options for people trying to live.
The other interesting thing we noticed was most older people were walking with carts to support them. This goes hand in hand. If you abuse your body all your life, it will fail you in the end!
We talk about epigenetics on this site a lot but what is it? It’s a programming language within our cells that control our genes and DNA. It switches genes ON or OFF causing things to happen at the cellular level. Like a computer where the software turns instructions ON that form the various programs ewe run, epigenetics is the software and genes are the hardware.
Epigenetics are a chemical reaction that can enable or activate a gene or block it from being activated. These chemicals are methyl groups which comes from the environment we live in. It can be the food we eat, how we think (positive or negative), what we believe (placebo/nocebo), stress and exercise. Our body uses these chemical reactions to activate and deactivate genes or to send messages from one cell to another to do something.
There are no good/bad associated with these reactions but they can [positively or negatively affect our health and mental outlook. Early man & woman didn’t have the choices we have today. They were nomadic (got exercise), thought positive (were seekers and explorers), had low stress (except when chased by a saber-toothed tiger) and ate nutritious foods. They ate organic (it was all there was). They didn’t eat much meat (they probably got eaten more than they ate other animals). Their bodies evolved around this kind of simple life.
We have changed all this in the last 100 years. We don’t exercise, we are over stressed all the time, we eat junk food, and we all believe we will grow old and sick. And then we are shocked when it actually happens. Take control of your life and be well.
Regions of the brain affected by PTSD and stress. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Start today! Change your diet, stress levels, exercise, thinking and beliefs. Start eating better. Eat less animal protein (eggs, milk, meat, cheese, etc.) eat more vegetables, grains and fruits. Eat organic (yes it costs a little more but if your healthy you won’t be paying the doctor co-pays). Relax more, learn to meditate and get rid of some stress. Our way of life is stressful but you can relax and rid yourself of stress. Exercise more (even if it’s just walks around your office or home). Simple walking will lower stress and make you feel better. Start off today being positive about everything! Don’t allow yourself to go to the negative side (it’s evil). If you feel negative look for something positive and dwell on that. e all have a lot to be thankful for. Think about those things and not what is negative in our lives. If TV news and the newspapers are making you feel negative (most news is negative … it sells) stop watching or reading it. Read something positive. Hang out with positive people and avoid negative ones. Soon you will be much more positive and feel better. Believe in yourself and the fact that you can change your life and your health. Getting old is not something to fear. Getting sick is!
I had a colonoscopy yesterday and the prep has horrible for a vegetarian. No fruit or vegetables for 4 days before. Eat meat, eggs and diary. They obviously haven’t read the CDC, AMA or numerous universities reports on animal protein causes cancer. So I have to eat the very food that causes cancer for a cancer screening test. Who’s thinking here?
Michael Greger is back with an interesting story on why we retain body fat. My good friend David sent me this one. It seems some 15 million years ago two meteorites hit in Germany and caused a mass extinction event. Most species were wiped out. Food was hard to find. Our ancestors that became apes and humans developed an ability to keep uric acid which helps retain body fat. This is a good thing when food is scarce. Unfortunately it’s a bad thing when salt, fatty foods abound. It actually causes us to easily get fat.
This is a great example of epigenetics at work. It changes our genetics to help us survive but later hurts our health. Sometimes life extinction events can easily turn on or off an epigenetic switch. It is a lot harder to later reset those switches when life is easy.
Week 54: The Nocebo Effect (Photo credit: WilliamsProjects)
We have discussed this idea on this BLOG before. Your thoughts shape who you are, how healthy you are, how you feel, etc. Think carefully, you may get what you think about. Negative people tend to find other negative people. Positive people tend to find other positive people. We know the placebo and nocebo effect is very real. The placebo effect works as good if not better than drugs. Another BLOG that I watch listed three important things to consider in our thoughts:
You cannot change the past, but the future Is up to you
Where you spend your time defines your life
Be Grateful
Love is a powerful force. I believe we have love and we have lack of love. Lack of love shows up as hatred, anger and evil. The more you love the more you will associate with people who also love. Worrying about illness causes illness. Be positive and be loving. Watch what happens to your life!
‘In Sickness and Health’ Oil on canvas (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The sickness business is booming. Gross revenues look like annual budgets of medium size countries. Profits are up. Just stop and think about the drug companies. Their products have horrible side effects yet they still spend millions to advertise them. Why? because if people die, it doesn’t matter. There are always new kids growing up to buy the drugs. Hospitals are cropping up everywhere. Medical centers are like McDonald’s on each street corner. Our health care system is costing way too much and it will break at some point.
It is sad when we look at the research I have BLOGged about and understand that health can be improved cheaply and safely by changing our diet, exercising, meditating and thinking positive. You will never see anyone advertise this on national TV. Why? because there is no money in being healthy only in being sick. Imagine a large percentage of our great country suddenly got healthy. The trillion-dollar medical & drug system would lose all that. Do you really think they want that to happen?
That is the question! Do we diet properly and eat healthy foods or do we allow disease into our lives and premature death? Humans are funny. Even when they know something can kill them, they continue to do it. Smoking is a good example. There is no doubt that smoking is dangerous to our health, yet so many people continue to do it. Is it because they feel it’s cool? It is NOT cool to get sick and die before your time. Diet affects all of us. A good healthy diet can prolong life and make it more enjoyable. A poor diet can make you sick, sad and miserable in life. We all have a choice. Make yours wisely!
Buy The Book – Food For Thought – An Epigenetic Guide to Wellness, online at Amazon.com.
georgefebish
The Epigenetics Project Blog 