How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease QUOTES

181 " It’s easy to avoid added phosphorus in processed foods—just don’t buy anything containing ingredients with the word “phosphate” in their names, including pyrophosphate and sodium triphosphate.87 With meat, it’s more difficult to determine the phosphate content, as producers aren’t required to disclose injected additives. "

― Michael Greger , How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease

182 " Regardless, why accept any risk at all when you can choose organic soy products, which by law exclude GMOs? "

― Michael Greger , How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease

183 " About twenty sprigs of cilantro daily for two months reduced inflammation levels in arthritis sufferers and cut uric-acid levels in half, suggesting that lots of cilantro may be useful for people suffering from gout. "

― Michael Greger , How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease

184 " disease76 375,000 2. Lung diseases (lung cancer,77 COPD, and asthma78) 296,000 3. You’ll be surprised! (see chapter 15) 225,000 4. Brain diseases (stroke79 and Alzheimer’s80) 214,000 5. Digestive cancers (colorectal, pancreatic, and esophageal)81 106,000 6. Infections (respiratory and blood)82 95,000 7. Diabetes83 76,000 8. High blood pressure84 65,000 9. Liver disease (cirrhosis and cancer)85 60,000 10. Blood cancers (leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma)86 56,000 11. Kidney disease87 47,000 12. Breast cancer88 41,000 13. Suicide89 41,000 14. Prostate cancer90 28,000 15. Parkinson’s disease91 25,000 "

― Michael Greger , How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease

185 " This finding suggests that the placebo effect explains the apparent clinical effectiveness of antidepressants. In other words, improvements in mood may be a result of the patient’s belief in the power of the drug—not the drug itself.74 "

― Michael Greger , How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease

186 " Added phosphate may be labeled as “flavorings” or “broth” or not labeled at all.88 Meat already contains highly absorbable phosphates; adding more may just add insult to kidney injury. Chicken appears to be the worst offender: A supermarket survey found more than 90 percent of chicken products contained phosphate additives.89 "

― Michael Greger , How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease

187 " The good news is that no matter what your mom ate or how you lived as a child, by eating and living healthfully, you may be able to slow the growth rate of any hidden cancers. In short, you can die with your tumors rather than from them. This is how dietary cancer prevention and treatment can end up being the same thing. "

― Michael Greger , How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease

188 " Miso is another fermented whole soy food. This thick paste is commonly mixed with hot water to make a delicious soup that’s a staple in Japanese cuisine. If you want to give it a try, I suggest white miso, which has a mellower flavor than red miso. "

― Michael Greger , How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease

189 " They found that the enteric-coated capsules of red pepper powder were able to significantly decrease the intensity of abdominal pain and bloating, suggesting “a way of dealing with this frequent and distressing functional disease…”52 "

― Michael Greger , How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease

190 " A few thousand years later, scientists finally put saffron to the test in a head-to-head trial against the antidepressant drug Prozac for the treatment of clinical depression. Both the spice and the drug worked equally well in reducing depression symptoms.44 As you can see in the box here, this may not be saying much, but at the very least, the saffron was safer in terms of side effects. For example, 20 percent of people in the Prozac group suffered sexual dysfunction, a common occurrence with many antidepressant medications, whereas no one in the saffron group did. However, saffron may be one of those rare cases in which the natural remedy is more expensive than the drug. Saffron is the world’s most expensive spice. It is harvested from crocus flowers, specifically the dried stigmas (the threadlike tips inside the flower), which are ground up to make the spice. You need more than fifty thousand crocuses—enough to cover a football field—to produce just a single pound of saffron.45 A Prozac-equivalent dose of saffron may cost more than twice as much as the drug, but a subsequent study found that even just smelling saffron appeared to have psychological benefits. Though researchers diluted the spice so much that the study subjects couldn’t detect its odor, they still noted a significant drop in stress hormones measured in women who sniffed the saffron for twenty minutes compared with those who spent twenty minutes smelling a placebo, along with significant improvement in the women’s symptoms of anxiety. "

― Michael Greger , How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease

191 " green, leafy vegetables. The following is a top-ten list of nitrate-rich foods, in ascending order. As you’ll see, eight out of the top ten are greens. TOP-TEN FOOD SOURCES OF NITRATES 10. Beets 9. Swiss chard 8. Oak leaf lettuce 7. Beet greens 6. Basil 5. Mesclun greens 4. Butter leaf lettuce 3. Cilantro 2. Rhubarb 1. Arugula "

― Michael Greger , How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease

192 " One or two cancer cells never hurt anyone. But how about a billion cancer cells? That’s how many may be in a tumor5 by the time it’s picked up by a mammogram.6 Like most tumors, breast cancer starts with just one cell, which divides to become two, four, and then eight. Every time breast cancer cells divide, the tumor can effectively double in size.7 Let’s see how many times a tiny tumor has to double to get to a billion cells. Take out a calculator. Multiply one times two. Then multiply that number by two. Keep doing that until you reach one billion. Don’t worry. It won’t take long. It’s only thirty doublings. In just thirty doublings, a single cancer cell can turn into a billion. The key to how quickly you’d be diagnosed with cancer, then, is the doubling time. How long does "

― Michael Greger , How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease

193 " Because miso may contain probiotic bacteria,19 it’s probably best not to actually cook the miso, lest the good bugs be wiped out. When I prepare it, I boil dried mushrooms, a pinch of arame seaweed, a few sun-dried tomatoes, and greens in a pot and ladle off about a quarter cup of hot broth into a large bowl, add the miso, and mash it with a fork until only a thin paste remains. I then pour the rest of the soup into the bowl and stir to combine it with the miso. And, because I’m a bit of a hot-sauce freak, I add some Sriracha for a little kick. My new favorite addition is freshly toasted sesame seeds. I pour out a layer of raw, hulled sesame seeds, put them in the toaster oven until they just start to turn golden, and then throw them sizzling into the soup. Makes the whole kitchen smell heavenly. "

― Michael Greger , How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease

194 " Did you know that one hot dog has as many nitrosamines (and nitrosamides, which are similar tobacco carcinogens103) as four cigarettes and that these carcinogens are also found in fresh meat, including beef, chicken, and pork?104 This may help explain the rising rates of kidney cancer over the last few decades despite the falling rates of smoking. Clearing the Confusion: Nitrates, Nitrites, and Nitrosamines Although fresh meat also contains nitrosamines, processed "

― Michael Greger , How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease

195 " with “The Simple 7” factors that can lead to a healthier life: not smoking, not being overweight, being “very active” (defined as the equivalent of walking at least twenty-two minutes a day), eating healthier (for example, lots of fruits and vegetables), having below-average cholesterol, having normal blood pressure, and having normal blood sugar levels.27 The American Heart Association’s goal is to reduce heart-disease deaths by 20 percent "

― Michael Greger , How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease

196 " To isolate the effects of different dietary components, researchers can follow the diets and diseases of large groups of defined individuals over time. Take meat, for example. To see what effect an increase in meat consumption might have on disease rates, researchers studied lapsed vegetarians. People who once ate vegetarian diets but then started to eat meat at least once a week experienced a 146 percent increase in odds of heart disease, a 152 percent increase in stroke, a 166 percent increase in diabetes, and a 231 percent increase in odds for weight gain. During the twelve years after the transition from vegetarian to omnivore, meat-eating was associated with a 3.6 year decrease in life expectancy "

― Michael Greger , How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease

197 " Edamame is about as whole a soy food as you can get. After all, these are soybeans still in their pods. You can buy them frozen and just throw a handful into some boiling water anytime you want a healthy snack. They cook in about five minutes. All you need to do is strain them and, if you’re like me, crack lots of fresh pepper onto the pods and nibble the beans right out. "

― Michael Greger , How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease

198 " I like sprinkling powdered ginger on sweet potatoes or using it fresh to make lemon-ginger apple chews as an antinausea remedy. "

― Michael Greger , How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease

199 " The study also noted which foods, if added to the diet, might save lives. Eating more whole grains could potentially save 1.7 million lives a year. More vegetables? 1.8 million lives. How about nuts and seeds? 2.5 million lives. The researchers didn’t look at beans, but of the foods they considered, which does the world need most? Fruit. Worldwide, if humanity ate more fruit, we might save 4.9 million lives. That’s nearly 5 million lives hanging in the balance, and their salvation isn’t medication or a new vaccine—it may be just more fruit.5 "

― Michael Greger , How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease

200 " The egg industry itself funded research on Salmonella and the various ways to cook eggs. What did they find? Salmonella in eggs can survive scrambled, over-easy, and sunny-side-up cooking methods. Sunny side up was found to be the riskiest. The industry-funded researchers bluntly concluded: “The sunny-side-up method should be considered unsafe.”84 In other words, even the egg industry itself knows that its product, prepared in a manner that millions of Americans eat on any given day all across the country, is unsafe. Actually, we’ve known this for some time. Twenty years ago, Purdue University researchers determined that Salmonella can survive in cooked omelets and french toast.85 Salmonella may even survive in eggs boiled up to eight minutes.86 "

― Michael Greger , How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease