Veganist: Lose Weight, Get Healthy, Change the World by Kathy Freston Page B
Authors: Kathy Freston
Tags: food.cookbooks
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an animal-based one to a plant-based one. We can eat all those colorful fruits and vegetables and reap the rewards of the vitamins and antioxidants therein. Very exciting!
In addition to what Dr. Campbell has shared, many studies show that women who are overweight are at greater risk for succumbing to breast cancer. Trimming away extra weight helps them survive. And as discussed earlier, plant-based diets make weight control much easier.
But the promise of a healthy diet goes even further. The Women’s Intervention Nutrition Study, which included 2,437 postmenopausal women who had previously been treated for breast cancer, tested whether a low-fat diet could reduce the risk that cancer might recur. And it did. In this study, most of the participants simply cut down on meat and other fatty foods, and it remains to be seen whether going further—eliminating these products completely—would be even more effective.
Adding physical exercise helps too. In the Women’s Healthy Eating and Living Study, which included approximately 3,000 women, all of whom had been treated for breast cancer, those who had at least five daily servings of fruits and vegetables and averaged thirty minutes of walking each day had roughly half the mortality risk, compared with women who ate fewer vegetables and fruits or who were less active.
Diet also makes a huge difference for men. Dr. Dean Ornish, who had already shown the ability of a low-fat vegetarian diet, along with other lifestyle measures, to reverse heart disease, tested a similar diet for men with prostate cancer. To track their progress, he used a blood test for prostate-specific antigen (a rapidly rising PSA is a sign of advancing cancer). Dr. Ornish showed that, on average, men who avoided animal products actually had a drop in their PSA levels, meaning their cancer was not advancing and might actually be retreating. Meanwhile, the cancers of men in a control group who made no diet changes continued to worsen.
Putting these studies together, the healthiest combination appears to be to cut out fatty foods—especially animal products—boost vegetables and fruits, and lace up your sneakers.
The scientific community is still trying to verify the straight line between a vegan diet and cancer cures (once someone has cancer, there are a million variables that can’t be easily accounted for, and diet is difficult both to isolate and to enforce). That said, there is a growing body of anecdotal evidence of people staving off cancer by turning to a plant-based diet (along with other healthy practices, of course).
Next you’ll meet Meg Wolff, whose cancer has been halted, largely, she believes, because she eliminated animal foods from her diet and chooses whole, fresh, plant-based foods instead.
Meg Wolff’s Story: Surviving Cancer with a Plant-Based Diet
I think it’s fair to say that for about the first half of my life, I didn’t think much about the effects of any foods I put into my body. Most people don’t. Growing up in Westbrook, Maine, in the 1960s, I of course ate whatever my mother served—meat as the main course, frozen or fresh veggies, home-baked desserts, lots of milk. This was what was considered healthy at that time.
As a teen, I ditched the vegetables and got addicted to fast-food cheeseburgers, fries, and milk-shakes. I’d often use my lunch money for a bag of salty chips, a candy bar, a pastry, and a diet soda! Like kids today, once I got a taste for processed sweets and foods, nothing healthy satisfied me.
Over the next few years, I had intense menstrual cramps, a racing heartbeat that required medication, psoriasis for which I took cortisone and tar baths, and bouts of diarrhea. I bounced back easily from each of these things, though, and lived a very active, otherwise healthy life. I always considered myself the strong, fit one in my family. So I never paused to consider what might have caused these illnesses.
I was introduced to the concept of food as
In addition to what Dr. Campbell has shared, many studies show that women who are overweight are at greater risk for succumbing to breast cancer. Trimming away extra weight helps them survive. And as discussed earlier, plant-based diets make weight control much easier.
But the promise of a healthy diet goes even further. The Women’s Intervention Nutrition Study, which included 2,437 postmenopausal women who had previously been treated for breast cancer, tested whether a low-fat diet could reduce the risk that cancer might recur. And it did. In this study, most of the participants simply cut down on meat and other fatty foods, and it remains to be seen whether going further—eliminating these products completely—would be even more effective.
Adding physical exercise helps too. In the Women’s Healthy Eating and Living Study, which included approximately 3,000 women, all of whom had been treated for breast cancer, those who had at least five daily servings of fruits and vegetables and averaged thirty minutes of walking each day had roughly half the mortality risk, compared with women who ate fewer vegetables and fruits or who were less active.
Diet also makes a huge difference for men. Dr. Dean Ornish, who had already shown the ability of a low-fat vegetarian diet, along with other lifestyle measures, to reverse heart disease, tested a similar diet for men with prostate cancer. To track their progress, he used a blood test for prostate-specific antigen (a rapidly rising PSA is a sign of advancing cancer). Dr. Ornish showed that, on average, men who avoided animal products actually had a drop in their PSA levels, meaning their cancer was not advancing and might actually be retreating. Meanwhile, the cancers of men in a control group who made no diet changes continued to worsen.
Putting these studies together, the healthiest combination appears to be to cut out fatty foods—especially animal products—boost vegetables and fruits, and lace up your sneakers.
The scientific community is still trying to verify the straight line between a vegan diet and cancer cures (once someone has cancer, there are a million variables that can’t be easily accounted for, and diet is difficult both to isolate and to enforce). That said, there is a growing body of anecdotal evidence of people staving off cancer by turning to a plant-based diet (along with other healthy practices, of course).
Next you’ll meet Meg Wolff, whose cancer has been halted, largely, she believes, because she eliminated animal foods from her diet and chooses whole, fresh, plant-based foods instead.
Meg Wolff’s Story: Surviving Cancer with a Plant-Based Diet
I think it’s fair to say that for about the first half of my life, I didn’t think much about the effects of any foods I put into my body. Most people don’t. Growing up in Westbrook, Maine, in the 1960s, I of course ate whatever my mother served—meat as the main course, frozen or fresh veggies, home-baked desserts, lots of milk. This was what was considered healthy at that time.
As a teen, I ditched the vegetables and got addicted to fast-food cheeseburgers, fries, and milk-shakes. I’d often use my lunch money for a bag of salty chips, a candy bar, a pastry, and a diet soda! Like kids today, once I got a taste for processed sweets and foods, nothing healthy satisfied me.
Over the next few years, I had intense menstrual cramps, a racing heartbeat that required medication, psoriasis for which I took cortisone and tar baths, and bouts of diarrhea. I bounced back easily from each of these things, though, and lived a very active, otherwise healthy life. I always considered myself the strong, fit one in my family. So I never paused to consider what might have caused these illnesses.
I was introduced to the concept of food as
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