
Slimming the Gecko
A workplace dietary intervention study at GEICO corporate headquarters demonstrates the power of plant-based eating.
A workplace dietary intervention study at GEICO corporate headquarters demonstrates the power of plant-based eating.
Within a matter of weeks, participants placed on the vegan diet outlined by the prophet Daniel experienced improvements in blood pressure, cholesterol and insulin levels, insulin resistance, and C-reactive protein levels, a marker of inflammation within the body.
Researchers set out to replicate the “Daniel Fast”—the biblical nutrition trial outlined in Daniel 1:8-16.
Meat consumption is not only associated with weight gain, but specifically abdominal obesity, which is the most metabolically concerning.
The water content of plant foods may help explain why those eating plant-based diets are, on average, so slim. Can ice be thought of as having even “fewer” calories than water, since the body has to warm it up?
Tryptophan is the precursor to the “happiness hormone” serotonin, so why not take tryptophan supplements to improve mood and relieve symptoms of depression?
The whole grain phytonutrient phytic acid (phytate) partially inhibits mineral absorption, but has a wide range of health-promoting properties, such as anticancer activity. By concurrently eating mineral absorption enhancers, such as garlic and onions, one can get the best of both worlds by improving the bioavailability of iron and zinc in plant foods.
Measuring the effects of a plant-based diet on the expression of hundreds of different genes at a time, a research group found that an antioxidant-rich portfolio of plant foods such as berries, pomegranates, purple grapes, red cabbage, oregano, and walnuts was able to significantly modify the regulation of genes in the blood of volunteers.
Plant-based diets help prevent cancer not only by blocking DNA damage, but by increasing our DNA repair enzymes’ ability to repair any damage that gets by our first line of antioxidant defense.
Antioxidant, anti-inflammatory properties of white compared to yellow and purple potatoes. Purple potatoes may also help lower high blood pressure.
Inadequate fruit and vegetable intake may help explain the loss of immune function associated with aging that is linked to an increased risk of dying from pneumonia and influenza.
The antioxidant, phytonutrient, and vitamin content of basil grown in water (hydroponic) is compared to basil grown in soil.
The Standard American Diet is worsening, and falls far from the CDC goals for minimal fruit and vegetable intake, with some states doing worse than others.
The risk of glaucoma, the second leading cause of blindness, appears to be dramatically reduced by kale or collard greens consumption, thanks to the phytonutrient pigments lutein and zeaxanthin.
A healthy diet may not only prevent the complications of diabetes, but also reduce the risk of age-related macular degeneration—another common cause of blindness.
The variety of fruit and vegetable consumption may decrease disease risk, independent of quantity.
In addition to quantity and quality, the variety of fruits and vegetables consumed matters, as many phytonutrients are not evenly distributed among the various families and parts of plants.
Dietary interventions, including increasing fruit and vegetable intake and decreasing meat intake, may not only help slow the progression of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, but may actually improve lung function.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is now the third leading cause of death. The good news is that. in addition to smoking cessation, there are dietary interventions that can help prevent COPD.
Fruit and vegetable consumption is associated with a lower risk of heart disease. But which is more protective—raw or cooked?
Even after controlling for a variety of dietary and nondietary factors, those eating plant-based diets appear to have lower overall cancer rates.
One teaspoon of flax seeds may double one’s daily production of lignans—phytonutrients that appear to play a role in both breast cancer prevention and survival.
The effect of raw and cooked broccoli consumption on survival rates of bladder cancer patients.
A case report of a woman after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery trying to eat right.
Growing your own broccoli sprouts is one of the most cost-effective ways to improve your diet.
The anti-proliferative effects of cruciferous vegetable phytonutrients may decrease the metastatic potential of lung cancer, the number one cancer killer of women.
There are a few examples of plant enzymes having physiologically relevant impacts on the human diet, and the formation of sulforaphane in broccoli is one of them.
The most powerful natural inducer of our liver’s detoxifying enzyme system is sulforaphane, a phytonutrient produced by broccoli.
Four cups of broccoli sprouts a day may exceed the safe dose of the cruciferous phytonutrient sulforaphane.
6,000 cups of broccoli a year is probably too much.
In a test tube, the broccoli phytonutrient sulforaphane appears to target breast cancer stem cells. But how do we know it’s even absorbed into the body? Have women undergoing breast reduction surgery eat some an hour before their operation, and directly measure the level in their tissues.
A new theory of cancer biology—cancer stem cells—and the role played by sulforaphane, a phytonutrient produced by cruciferous vegetables.
Eating broccoli appears to make DNA more resistant to damage.
The effect of kale juice on LDL and HDL cholesterol, and the antioxidant capacity of the blood.
Comparing the immune system-boosting effect of cooked versus raw kale.
In the context of a healthy, plant-based diet, the nitrates in vegetables can safely be converted into nitric oxide, which can boost athletic performance, and may help prevent heart disease.
The addition of vitamin C to processed (cured) meats such as bacon may actually make them more carcinogenic.
Phytonutrients, such as vitamin C, prevent the formation of nitrosamines from nitrites—which explains why adding nitrite preservatives to processed meat can be harmful, but adding more vegetables, with their nitrite-forming nitrates, to our diet can be helpful.
If the nitrates in vegetables such as greens are health-promoting because they can be turned into nitrites, and then nitric oxide, inside our bodies, what about the nitrites added to cured meats—such as bacon, ham, and hot dogs?
If nitrates can boost athletic performance and protect against heart disease, which vegetables have the most—beans, bulb vegetables (like garlic and onions), fruiting vegetables (like eggplant and squash), greens (such as arugula), mushrooms, root vegetables (such as carrots and beets), or stem vegetables (such as celery and rhubarb)?