When I read this August 26, 2019 opinion piece in The New York Times, I was flabbergasted to say the least. I knew Americans were sick but I had no idea just how sick.
I’m reprinting the article below in bold. In italics I’m adding my commentary. Please visit the article on The New York Times website to peruse all the embedded links that I will not be transferring here. I also did not transfer the images from the article. All the images in this blog post I have selected and inserted myself.
Our Food Is Killing Too Many of Us – Aug. 26, 2019
Improving American nutrition would make the biggest impact on our health care.
By Dariush Mozaffarian and Dan Glickman
Mr. Mozaffarian is dean of the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. Mr. Glickman was the secretary of agriculture from 1995 to 2001.
The Democratic debate on health care has to date centered around who should be covered and who should pay the bill. That debate, which has been going on for decades, has no clear answers and cannot be easily resolved because of two fundamental realities: Health care is expensive, and Americans are sick.
Americans benefit from highly trained personnel, remarkable facilities and access to the newest drugs and technologies. Unless we eliminate some of these benefits, our health care will remain costly. We can trim around the edges — for example, with changes in drug pricing, lower administrative costs, reductions in payments to hospitals and providers, and fewer defensive and unnecessary procedures. These actions may slow the rise in health care spending, but costs will keep rising as the population ages and technology advances.
And Americans are sick — much sicker than many realize. More than 100 million adults — almost half the entire adult population — have pre-diabetes or diabetes. Cardiovascular disease afflicts about 122 million people and causes roughly 840,000 deaths each year, or about 2,300 deaths each day. Three in four adults are overweight or obese. More Americans are sick, in other words, than are healthy.
Did you read that? More American adults are sick rather than healthy? And sick with what? Largely preventable and avoidable chronic lifestyle diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.
A chronic disease is a disease that persists for 3 months or more. Chronic diseases generally cannot be prevented by vaccines or cured by medication, nor do they just disappear. Health damaging behaviors – particularly poor eating habits, lack of physical activity, and tobacco use – are the major contributors to the leading chronic diseases of arthritis, cardiovascular disease such as heart attacks and stroke, cancer such as breast and colon cancer, diabetes, epilepsy and seizures, obesity, and oral health problems.
Instead of debating who should pay for all this, no one is asking the far more simple and imperative question: What is making us so sick, and how can we reverse this so we need less health care? The answer is staring us in the face, on average three times a day: our food.
Poor diet is the leading cause of mortality in the United States, causing more than half a million deaths per year. Just 10 dietary factors are estimated to cause nearly 1,000 deaths every day from heart disease, stroke and diabetes alone. These conditions are dizzyingly expensive. Cardiovascular disease costs $351 billion annually in health care spending and lost productivity, while diabetes costs $327 billion annually. The total economic cost of obesity is estimated at $1.72 trillion per year, or 9.3 percent of gross domestic product.
I’ll spare you the click path. Here are those 10 dietary factors:
1. excess sodium intake most notably in processed & packaged foods (how to reduce)
2. insufficient intake of nuts/seeds (preferably raw & organic)
3. high intake of processed meats
4. low intake of seafood omega-3 fats
5. low intake of vegetables
6. low intake of fruits
7. high intake of sugar sweetened beverages (artificially sweetened drinks are dangerous too)
8. low intake of whole grains
9. low intake of polyunsaturated fats
10. high intake of unprocessed meats
These human and economic costs are leading drivers of ever-rising health care spending, strangled government budgets, diminished competitiveness of American business and reduced military readiness.
Fortunately, advances in nutrition science and policy now provide a road map for addressing this national nutrition crisis. The “Food Is Medicine” solutions are win-win, promoting better well-being, lower health care costs, greater sustainability, reduced disparities among population groups, improved economic competitiveness and greater national security.
A healthful diet is important to national security. A sick nation is one that can not defend itself. It’s amazing that food choices can – and do – impact these major national and global issues. If you are an American sick with a preventable and reversible disease, it is your national duty to get healthy because the disease and its costs, its environmental destruction, and its social strain puts not only yourself but others at risk.
Some simple, measurable improvements can be made in several health and related areas. For example, Medicare, Medicaid, private insurers and hospitals should include nutrition in any electronic health record; update medical training, licensing and continuing education guidelines to put an emphasis on nutrition; offer patient prescription programs for healthy produce; and, for the sickest patients, cover home-delivered, medically tailored meals. Just the last action, for example, can save a net $9,000 in health care costs per patient per year.
Taxes on sugary beverages and junk food can be paired with subsidies on protective foods like fruits, nuts, vegetables, beans, plant oils, whole grains, yogurt and fish. Emphasizing protective foods represents an important positive message for the public and food industry that celebrates and rewards good nutrition. Levels of harmful additives like sodium, added sugar and trans fat can be lowered through voluntary industry targets or regulatory safety standards.
Not all plant oils are equal in quality. I think that if oil is used at all, extra virgin organic first cold pressed olive oil is preferable for cold applications (do not heat) like salad dressing. For heating, coconut oil or avocado oil are high-heat tolerant. When seeking to reverse heart disease, obesity, or diabetes, it may be wise to avoid all oil intake. (See Dr. Esselstyn)
I’m not sure how yogurt got in here however I suspect it is because the probiotics in fermented foods are beneficial to a healthy gut microbiome, however dairy is associated with so many health problems like prostate, breast, and uterine cancer, allergies, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, osteoporosis, and asthma. Luckily there are other more healthful fermented foods like sauerkraut, pickles, kimchi, miso paste, tempeh, kombucha, and non-dairy yogurts with no/low added sugar.
Fish and seafood are not recommended for consumption when there are other more healthful and safer omega-3 rich foods like chia seeds, flax seeds, hemp seeds, and walnuts. Water animals are often contaminated with toxins such as mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and pesticides and other chemicals from runoff which are especially dangerous to brain health.
There is no need to consume any animal product – meat, dairy, eggs – to live a healthy life. In fact, avoiding these may contribute to more optimal health outcomes.
Nutrition standards in schools, which have improved the quality of school meals by 41 percent, should be strengthened; the national Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program should be extended beyond elementary schools to middle and high schools; and school garden programs should be expanded. And the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which supports grocery purchases for nearly one in eight Americans, should be leveraged to help improve diet quality and health.
The private sector can also play a key role. Changes in shareholder criteria (e.g., B-Corps, in which a corporation can balance profit versus purpose with high social and environmental standards) and new investor coalitions should financially reward companies for tackling obesity, diabetes and other diet-related illness. Public-private partnerships should emphasize research and development on best agricultural and food-processing practices. All work sites should demand healthy food when negotiating with cafeteria vendors and include incentives for healthy eating in their wellness benefits.
Coordinated federal leadership and funding for research is also essential. This could include, for example, a new National Institute of Nutrition at the National Institutes of Health. Without such an effort, it could take many decades to understand and utilize exciting new areas, including related to food processing, the gut microbiome, allergies and autoimmune disorders, cancer, brain health, treatment of battlefield injuries and effects of nonnutritive sweeteners and personalized nutrition.
Government plays a crucial role. The significant impacts of the food system on well-being, health care spending, the economy and the environment — together with mounting public and industry awareness of these issues — have created an opportunity for government leaders to champion real solutions.
Yet with rare exceptions, the current presidential candidates are not being asked about these critical national issues. Every candidate should have a food platform, and every debate should explore these positions. A new emphasis on the problems and promise of nutrition to improve health and lower health care costs is long overdue for the presidential primary debates and should be prominent in the 2020 general election and the next administration.
Are you ready to get started on a healthful, disease-prevention lifestyle diet? Here are some resources to get you started:
How to Get Started on a Whole Food, Plant-Based Diet
Fiber First for Weight Loss
The Protein Report
You can do this! You must do this!
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