Food as Medicine: Preventing and Reversing Chronic Disease

According to the Global Burden of Disease study, a large, collaborative study that assessed risk factors for death and disability for 187 countries from 1990 to 2010, the number one cause of death and disability in the United States, is our diet, followed by tobacco use. Smoking is responsible for approximately 450,000 deaths per year while diet, the Standard American Diet, is responsible for close to 700,000 deaths annually. Because chronic conditions like obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, and many types of cancer are the result of inappropriate foods in the diet, by eliminating those inappropriate foods and replacing them with health-promoting foods, we are actually treating the cause of disease rather than just treating the symptoms. Not only can we prevent diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, oftentimes we can actually reverse the disease with a whole-food, plant-based diet. People can actually eradicate their diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure without pills or procedures but simply by changing what they’re putting in their mouths three times a day.