BALTIMORE, M.D. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- The saying, “an apple a day keeps
the doctor away,” has been ingrained in our minds since childhood, but is there
any truth to the age old adage? Experts say sometimes food actually is the best
medicine, and can even fight off deadly disease.
Virtually every disease has a proven food prevention, says Joseph E. Pissorno,
Jr., N.D., editor-in-chief of Integrative Medicine: A Clinician’s Journal and
founding president of Bastyr University in Seattle. Whole foods, he says, offer
the best protection. “Study after study show that people who eat a whole foods
diet have a dramatically reduced incidence of disease,” Dr. Pissorno told
Ivanhoe.
So what is a whole food? “A whole food is just the way God or nature made it,”
James S. Gordon, M.D., founder and director of The Center for Mind-Body Medicine
and a clinical professor at Georgetown University School of Medicine, explained
to Ivanhoe. “The idea is basically to eat as many parts of the food as you
possibly can.” People throw away many parts of fruits and vegetables, like skin,
which often contain the most nutrients, Dr. Gordon said. For example, the white
part of oranges contains bioflavonoids, which help the body process vitamin C,
and the leaves on broccoli contain concentrated amounts of nutrients, especially
vitamin A.
Whole foods offer substantial health benefits. “For every serving of fruit or
vegetable per day a person consumes, they get a four percent drop in
cardiovascular disease risk,” Dr. Pissorno said. “If a person consumes three
servings per week of salmon, they reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease by
24 percent, and one-and-a-half ounces per day of walnuts reduces cardiovascular
disease by 30 percent.” In 2005, researchers found people who eat diets with the
highest amount of folate reduce their risk of Alzheimer’s by more than 60
percent. Black-eyed peas, wheat germ, liver, beef, asparagus, kidney beans and
spinach are rich sources of folate.
Experts say whole foods are better than processed foods because they contain
more nutrients and also because “the different ingredients in the food act
synergistically to enhance each other’s function,” Dr. Gordan explained. For
example, phytochemicals in the apple peel and apple flesh may provide the most
powerful anti-cancer benefits when combined.
“The average American gets 25 percent of their calories from nutrient-poor junk
foods,” Cindy Geyer, M.D., medical director of Canyon Ranch in Lenox, Mass.,
told Ivanhoe. So before you pop that pill prescribed by your doctor, you may
want to consider what your next meal is going to be.
SOURCE: Ivanhoe interviews with Joseph E. Pissorno, Jr., N.D., James S. Gordon,
M.D., Cindy Geyer, M.D.; Food as Medicine Conference, Baltimore, M.D., June
12-15, 2008
