All Videos for Plant-Based Diets

Anti-Inflammatory Effects of Purple Potatoes

Antioxidant, anti-inflammatory properties of white compared to yellow and purple potatoes. Purple potatoes may also help lower high blood pressure.



Preventing Cataracts with Diet

Risk of developing cataracts was compared in meat-eaters, fish-eaters, vegetarians, and vegans.



Preventing Macular Degeneration with Diet

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.



When Meat Can Be a Lifesaver

There are rare birth defects in which the inability to produce certain compounds requires an exogenous source. Presented here is a case report of a boy with a mutation in his carnitine transport system.



Eating Healthy on the Cheap

Plant-based diets may offer the best investment for dietary health.



Vegetarians vs. Healthy Omnivores

Even after controlling for a variety of dietary and nondietary factors, those eating plant-based diets appear to have lower overall cancer rates.



Flax and Fecal Flora

The trillions of good bacteria in our gut can be thought of as an additional organ—metabolizing, detoxifying, and activating many crucial components of our diet. The formation of lignans from phytonutrient precursors found predominantly in flax seeds is one such example.



Breast Cancer Survival & Lignan Intake

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.



Harvard’s Meat & Mortality Studies

Monday, March 12, 2012: The Harvard Health Professionals Follow-up Study and the Harvard Nurses’ Health Study concluded that red meat consumption was associated with living a significantly shorter life—increased cancer mortality, increased heart disease mortality, and increased overall mortality.



So Should We Drink Beet Juice, or Not?

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.



Prevention Is Better Than Cured Meat

The levels of nitrosamines—considered the most carcinogenic agents in cigarette smoke—were recently measured in an array of processed meats including chicken, turkey, and pork.



Vegetables Rate by Nitrate

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)?



Hearts Shouldn’t Skip a Beet

The nitrate in vegetables, which the body can turn into the vasodilator nitric oxide, may help explain the role dark green leafy vegetables play in the prevention and treatment of hypertension (high blood pressure) and heart disease.



New Vitamin B12 Test

Who should get tested for vitamin B12 (cobalamin) deficiency, and which is the best test to use: serum B12, methylmalonic acid (MMA), or holotranscobalamin levels?



Daily Source of Vitamin B12

Fortified foods, such as some breakfast cereals and types of nutritional yeast, can provide another cholesterol-free source of vitamin B12.



Cheapest Source of Vitamin B12

Vitamin B12 (cobalamin) supplementation can cost as little as $2 a year.



Safest Source of B12

Since foods are effectively a package deal, what’s the best way to get vitamin B12 (cobalamin)?



Vitamin B12 Recommendation Change

Based on two biomarkers of functional vitamin B12 (cobalamin) status, B12 recommendations formulated more than a half century ago may need to be updated.



Plant-Based Atkins Diet

Harvard study found that men and women eating low carb diets live significantly shorter lives, but what about the “eco-Atkins diet,” a plant-based, low carbohydrate diet?



Atkins Diet: Trouble Keeping It Up

A case report in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (formerly Journal of the American Dietetic Association) of a man who went on the Atkins diet, lost his ability to have an erection—and nearly lost his life.



Bulking Up on Antioxidants

Even when fiber and fruit and vegetable intake are kept constant, choosing foods richer in antioxidants may increase stool size, which is associated with lower cancer risk.



The Power of NO

Antioxidants protect NO synthase—the enzyme that produces the artery-relaxing signal, nitric oxide. This may explain why those who eat especially antioxidant-rich plant foods have improved flow-mediated dilation of the brachial arteries.



Antioxidants in a Pinch

Some herbs and spices—including cinnamon, cloves, lemon balm, marjoram, oregano, and peppermint—are so rich in antioxidants that just a small pinch can go a long way.



Amla vs. Diabetes

For a dollar a month, Indian gooseberry (amla) powder may work as well as a leading diabetes drug—without the side effects.



Power Plants

Many of the most powerful drugs in modern medicine’s arsenal came from natural products, from penicillin to the chemotherapy agents Taxol® and vincristine.



Better than Goji Berries

There are some dried fruits even more antioxidant-packed than goji berries.



Dried Apples vs. Cholesterol

Which common dried fruit is the most antioxidant-packed: apple rings, dried apricots, dried cherries, dried mango, prunes, or raisins?



Best Berries

Compared to popular fruits such as apples, bananas, and mangoes, which of the hundreds of different berries tested have the most and least antioxidant power: blackberries, blueberries, cranberries, crowberries, dog rose berries, grapes, raspberries, strawberries, or Tahitian noni juice?



Say No to Drugs by Saying Yes to More Plants

A study of 15,000 American vegetarians suggests their lower chronic disease rates translate into fewer surgeries (including hysterectomies) and medications (including aspirin, sleeping pills, tranquilizers, antacids, pain-killers, blood pressure medications, laxatives, and insulin).



Preventing Allergies in Adulthood

The longest running study on vegetarians suggests that those eating plant-based diets have lower rates of chemical, drug, and environmental allergies.



Avoiding Glycotoxins in Food

500 foods were tested for advanced glycation end products (AGEs).



How to Help Prevent Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms

What dietary behaviors may cut the odds of developing of an abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) in half?



Constructing a Cognitive Portfolio

Different fruits and vegetables appear to support different cognitive domains of the brain, so both variety and quantity are important.



New Dietary Guidelines for Americans

Following the recommendations of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee to “shift food intake patterns to a more plant-based diet,” the latest USDA guidelines include a vegan adaptation.



Dietary Guidelines: Science vs. Corporate Interests

The USDA Dietary Guidelines Committee stands accused of ignoring the science to justify its recommendation to eat meat.



Plant Protein Preferable

Since foods are a package deal, Dr. Walter Willet, the Chair of Harvard’s nutrition department, recommends we emphasize plant sources of protein, rather than animal sources.



The Tomato Effect

Why does the medical establishment sometimes ignore highly efficacious therapies, such as plant-based diets, for heart disease prevention and treatment?



China Study on Sudden Cardiac Death

The China-Oxford-Cornell Diet and Health Project directed by T. Colin Campbell and colleagues showed that chronic diseases, such as heart disease, are not inevitable consequences of aging.



Our #1 Killer Can Be Stopped

Dr. Dean Ornish proved decades ago that heart disease could be reversed solely with diet and lifestyle changes.



Resuscitating Medicare

Medicare is now accepting for reimbursement the Dean Ornish Program for Reversing Heart Disease and the Pritikin Program, which, on a personal note, is what inspired me to go into medicine.