Unsurprisingly, the same study concluded that processed meats including bacon, bologna, ham, and hot dogs - which are classified as a Group 1 carcinogen by the World Health Organization (21) - did not make the list of life-saving foods, and were found to be responsible for 800,000 deaths annually, four times more than those who die from illicit drug use (20). (Unfortunately the researchers didn’t look at legume intake (10), which may be the most important dietary predictor of survival in older people from around the globe (19).)Īll told, the GBDS calculated that roughly 1 in every 5 deaths worldwide could be potentially saved if human beings simply ate more of these unrefined plant foods (20). And then, when the deadly consequences of smoking started becoming known to the public, funding their own studies to “prove” smoking didn’t really cause cancer (13-15).ĭespite recent diet trends that promote eating more animal products while avoiding grains and numerous types of fruits and vegetables, the Global Burden of Disease Study mentioned above - which involved nearly 500 researchers from more than 300 institutions in 50 countries and examined nearly 100,000 data sources (18)- concluded that the top four foods we need to consume more of in order to reduce our overall risk of death are fruits, nuts/seeds, vegetables, and whole grains. More than half a century ago, Big Tobacco laid the foundation for this strategy, using athletes, soldiers, and even doctors as spokespeople ( “More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette”). Backed by billions of dollars in profits and taxpayer subsidies, the industries that create many of the world’s most harmful products churn out slick advertising campaigns, fund misleading studies, and grease the hands of compliant politicians, doing everything in their power to confuse the masses. For example, far more people aim to eat a “low-carb” diet than simply eat less of the foods that lie at the root of many of the most common chronic diseases (12).Īs explored in The Game Changers, this confusion is no coincidence. “The major causes of chronic diseases are known, and if these risk factors were eliminated, at least 80% of all heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes would be prevented over 40% of cancer would be prevented” (8).ĭespite the fact that poor diet is known to be the leading cause of death worldwide (10), most people are confused about what foods promote good health and which foods can destroy it. If these diseases were primarily genetic, adopting a new lifestyle would have little impact (7). While rates of heart disease and major cancers can vary up to 100-fold across populations around the globe, when people move to countries with different lifestyle habits, their rates of disease almost always begin to match those of their new country. The best proof we have of this comes from looking at the health outcomes of people who move to countries where people have very different genetic backgrounds. But for most of the leading causes of death, genes are only responsible for about 10 to 20% of our risk. Part of the reason we spend so much money on pharmaceuticals is because many people have been conditioned to believe that the diseases we get and die from can largely be blamed on our genes. Meanwhile, global spending for prescription drugs is surpassing $1 trillion annually, with the US accounting for about one-third of this market (6). In the United States, about half have cardiovascular disease (3), a third will get cancer (4), and more than a third will get diabetes (5), with nearly 60% of all Americans dying from one of these three diseases (3-5). Globally, cardiovascular disease kills roughly one in every three people (1), with cancer killing one in every six (2).
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