September 2014 Volume 2 Issue 3
Plant-Based Nutrition and Lifestyle Newsletter is a newsletter devoted to improving your nutrition and your health. By making small changes in your lifestyle, you can make big improvements in your health.
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine thy food” ~ Hippocrates.
To Your Health,
Jerry Casados, NTP, Founder of Plant-Based Nutrition and Lifestyle
Jacquie Says Goodbye to Diabetes with Engine 2 Diet
Whole Foods Market provides education to get employees well, through plant-based immersion programs. This one was led by Rip Esselstyn of the Engine 2 diet program. A low-fat plant-based diet can reverse and cure many chronic diseases.
Watch this powerful and amazing story by Jacquie a woman with Type-2 diabetes and how it can be reversed. This should be the norm in treating diabetes and other chronic illnesses using lifestyle changes (like diet) first, and medications as the last option. Great work done by Rip Esselstyn and the many others like John McDougall, MD, Neal Barnard (PCRM founder), MD, Dean Ornish, MD, Caldwell Esselstyn, MD, Pam Popper, ND and many more that provide lifestyle emersion/intervention programs which get the same results with diabetes. I am truly grateful for all of these pioneers and proud that I'm able to use the same approach (using nutrition) to address health issues in my nutrition practice.
Decades of medical science and research supports that a whole foods, plant-based diet/lifestyle does prevent and reverse many chronic illnesses like diabetes and heart disease. So why is a whole food plant-based diet not mainstream--which it should be--and is viewed as on the fringes or too extreme?
To quote Dr. Dean Ornish: “I don't understand why asking people to eat a well-balanced vegetarian diet is considered drastic, while it is medically conservative to cut people open and put them on cholesterol lowering drugs for the rest of their lives.”
So, don't wait until you are diagnosed with a chronic disease, start today by making changes, even small changes like having a meatless Monday or give up the dairy for week and see what happens and notice how you feel. And it's never too late! With a whole food, plant-based diet there are only benefits no negative side effects.
Nutrition in the News
Slow, Stop, or Reverse the Progression of Early-Stage Prostate Cancer
For more than 35 years, Dean Ornish, M.D. and his colleagues at the non-profit Preventive Medicine Research Institute (PMRI) in collaboration with the University of California, San Francisco and other leading academic institutions, have conducted a series of research studies showing that changes in diet and lifestyle can make a powerful difference in our health and well-being, how quickly these changes may occur, and how dynamic these mechanisms can be.
Dr. Ornish examined the effects of intensive lifestyle changes on men with early stage Prostate Cancer after 1 year. After 1 year, none of the men in the experimental group underwent conventional treatments compared to 6 in the control group. Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) decreased 4% in the experimental group compared to a 6% increase in the control group, and prostate cancer cell growth was inhibited almost eight times as much in the experimental group compared to the control group. These results indicate that intensive lifestyle changes may effect the progression of early low grade prostate cancer.
The team of researchers from the University of California, San Francisco and the Preventive Medicine Research Institute (PMRI) split 35 men with early-stage prostate cancer into two groups and asked one of those groups to adopt several lifestyle changes, which included a plant-based diet heavy in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains; 30 minutes of moderate daily exercise like walking; stress-reducing activities like meditation, yoga, or deep breathing; and weekly group therapy.
Now, here is where it gets interesting because among those who kept up with the lifestyle changes, telomere length—an important measure of genetic health and lifespan—actually increased 10% after five years. (Remember, these were prostate cancer patients, suffering from a condition known to shorten telomeres.) The telomeres of the other study participants shortened by 3% during the same period.
Not sure what telomeres are?
They’re the bundles of DNA that cap the ends of your chromosomes and—like the felt tip on a pool cue—buffer your genetic material from damage. Your telomeres naturally shorten as you age. And the shorter they become, the more susceptible you are to illnesses like cancer, dementia, and heart disease, research shows. Illness can also shorten them.
This preliminary study published in The Lancet Oncology is the first to show it’s possible to lengthen your telomeres, explains coauthor Dean Ornish, MD, a clinical professor at UCSF and founder and president of the non-profit Preventive Medicine Research Institute. And that’s not all: The more closely people followed the lifestyle changes prescribed by the study, the more their telomeres grew, he says.
While it’s not clear exactly how each of these lifestyle changes affects your health or longevity, Ornish says the benefits are probably synergistic—meaning all of these habits are part of the solution. “You have to take a holistic approach to improving your health, because one change or adjustment won’t do it alone,” explains Dr. Ornish.
This isn’t the first time Ornish has used this approach to see dramatic results. He tackled heart disease with these same four pillars: plant-based diet, exercise, stress relief and group support and found a significant decrease in symptoms as a result.
To find out more about the specific diet and lifestyle changes practiced by the people in the research paper, visit the PMRI’s website and follow links to the Ornish Spectrum.
Read the Study:
http://ornishspectrum.com/wp-content/uploads/8369.full_.pdf
Featured Recipes - Starch-Based
Penne with Kale, Tomatoes and Olives
A simple dish that is easy to put together using staple items that probably found in most kitchens. The kale in this flavorful combination provides highly absorbable calcium and isothiocyanates which have strong anti-cancer effects.
1 medium onion, chopped
1/4 cup vegetable broth or water
1 bunch kale, cut or torn into approximately 1” pieces (about 5 cups chopped)
2 14.5-ounce cans chopped tomatoes, preferably fire-roasted, undrained, or 3 cups freshly chopped tomatoes plus 1/2 cup water or vegetable broth
1/2 cup pitted and sliced Kalamata olives
1 Tbs chopped fresh parsley
8 oz dry whole-wheat penne pasta
1/4 cup nutritional yeast (optional)
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Procedure
Sauté onion with vegetable broth or water over medium heat for 3 minutes. Add kale and tomatoes and their liquid. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes. Add olives and parsley. Cook for an additional 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, cook pasta according to package directions. Drain and transfer to a serving bowl. Add kale mixture and toss gently. Serve immediately. Sprinkle vegan parmesan substitute or nutritional yeast over top, if using.
Stored in a covered container in the refrigerator, leftover Penne with Kale, Tomatoes, and Olives will keep for up to 3 days.
Servings: 4
Per serving: 281 calories; 3.3 g fat; 0.5 g saturated fat; 10.5% calories from fat; 0 mg cholesterol; 12 g protein; 57.6 g carbohydrates; 8.3 g sugar; 8.7 g fiber; 497 mg sodium; 166 mg calcium; 5 mg iron; 53.9 mg vitamin C; 6,796 mcg beta-carotene; 2.9 mg vitamin E
Source: The Survivor’s Handbook: Eating Right for Cancer Survival by Neal D. Barnard, M.D. and Jennifer Reilly, R.D.
See more recipes and videos on Kelley's Recipe Blog: http://www.plantbasedkitchen-recipes.com/
