Healthy Living 101

[Vegas69]

The China Study

I promised to condense some thoughts once I dug into "The China Study". I'm now 230 pages deep and it's been a very enjoyable and enlightening read. Let me say that the more I study nutrition, the more I realize that it's similar to religion and politics. Everybody has an opinion and the dust will never settle. Much like other aspects of life, you have to determine what voices hold the most value.

They claim that this is the most comprehensive study on nutrition ever performed in the history of man kind. The basis of this book is that most Western diseases (Heart Disease, Cancers, Diabetes, Alzheimers, etc) are preventable with the right nutrition. That is a whole food, largely plant based diet.

Astonishing statistics in America:

A male has a 47% chance of cancer in his lifetime.
Over 30% of our population is obese.
Heart disease kills 1 in 3 Americans.
Diabetes has increased by 70% for the 30 something age group in the last 10 years.
Medical care is the 3rd leading cause of death.
America has almost double the health care cost per person of any other major country in the world.
It's estimated that only 2-3% of cancers are caused by GENETICS
And the list goes on and on....

They started out by testing their theory on Rats. They found that a diet of 20% dairy protein (Casein) would help cancer cells originate and grow. At only 5% of the diet, cancer didn't take hold. By switching to a plant based protein diet of 20%, the cancer cells would turn off and quit multiplying. Then switching back to a dairy protein (Casein) it would turn back on. The Western diet is extremely high in protein. They claim we only need about 10% of our diets to come from protein to sustain energy level and normal function. Magically, in the 10-12% range was where they determined an animal based protein diet to be relatively safe.

Once they had proved it in rats, they then went to mice and found the same results. To prove there theory, they studied 65 counties, 6500 people per county with blood tests, urine samples, and questionnaires. From poverty level to the wealthiest of the Chinese. What they found was astonishing. The poorest suffered from the least Western diseases because they were forced to eat a whole food, plant based diet. As they Chinese became wealthier, they adopted a more Western diet of animal proteins and they suffered the same fate of Western disease.

To be continued.....

[glassman]

Todd, What does it mean "Medical care is the third leading cause of death"?

Also, went on a 132 mile dual sport ride around Tahoe on Monday, my first ride since my shoulder surgery. It was a 9 hour event with most the riding being off road dirt bike. My stamina was good thanks to my cycling efforts. My back/shoulders/lats i tried strenghining by the Concept 1 rowing maching but i wasnt consitant enough, but still, hardly any lactic acid. My one problem, my goggles very very lightly pinching my nose and i couldnt breath through it at all!

As much as i am going to hate it, i'm gonna have to do the septum surgery , and yes in that order....

[Vegas69]

Wow Mike, that's some serious stamina. Good for you!

To answer your question about medical care being the 3rd leading cause, here's the break down:

Adverse drug effects: 106,000 deaths
Hospital bone infections: 80,000 deaths
Other preventable errors in hospital: 20,000
Unnecessary surgery: 12,000
Medication errors: 7,400

Moral of the story, the less medical attention you require throughout your life, the less chance you have to die from the 3rd biggest killer, MEDICAL CARE.

A good friend of mine told me a story of a very wealthy client of his recently. He had a minor rotator cuff tear and was told it was minimally invasive and he would come out of the surgery with no side effects. After the surgery, he's had intense pain in his forearm and hand. So bad that he has to take more pain meds than he'd like to ingest. He told my buddy that he would give every single dime away to get rid of the pain.

Kelli's dad had back surgery about 6 weeks ago. Shortly after his memory got fuzzy and eventually all he knew was his last name. His spinal fluid wasn't reabsorbing and he had major brain swelling. It almost killed him. They have installed a permanent shunt to drain it for the rest of his life. We are hoping he gets out of the hospital this week.

Surgery ONLY in mandatory situations.

[glassman]

I was curious about that. Strange huh?, we save for needing this for retirement yet if we just eat right, exercise moderately, and live stress free (stay outa debt y'all), we will need alot less medical attention.
I grew up in an Italian household, man were my relatives unhealthy. Obese, smokers, drinkers, most of them died off in their 50's. They didn't need healthcare, weird huh? But I dont wanna die in my 50's, i want to see my daughter walk down the aisle, see my grandchildre, know who they are....the things in life that are important....
But modern medicine just saved my 7 year old nephew's life.....

[Vegas69]

Absolutely, they work some serious miracles.

[Vegas69]

This may surprise you, it did me.

[glassman]

So, here in the tri-valley, we had a couple of restraunts called "Stacey's", they were owned by the wife of the Dilbert comic creator and he wrote the menu. So there were comments next to each entree, on the spinach salad he commented, "yes, this is the same one Popeye ordered, and dont ever ask him why his forearms were so large"