Heart Disease, Cancer, and Diabetes — What’s (Sustainable) Food Got to do with It?

As a research scientist who speaks frequently on chronic disease prevention, I find that I am often asked two questions by many in the audience, especially with respect to conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, or certain cancers.  These questions, which predictably recur, are as follows:

1.  In your considered opinion, does food have anything to do with how or why so many people develop heart disease/ high blood pressure/cancer/diabetes/ (fill in the blank)?

2.  Does food have anything to do with the prospects of preventing these conditions?

Now, it seems ironic to me, that even in our present time in which solid epidemiological research has indisputably established the link between diet and health, there are still millions of people out there who are uncertain and tenuous about whether this link is truly real.  Due to the fact that this topic is very broad, I am deliberately going to restrict this discussion to a few simple truths for the purpose of this post.  Let us momentarily consider some of the facts.

It is no secret that today, the West (especially the United States, most of Europe, and Australia) is mired in an epidemic of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and several (predominant) cancers.  Interestingly, this was not always the case.  A careful study of the progression of disease rates in the West reveals that chronic disease rates skyrocketed in the West in close correspondence with the transition from largely agrarian to largely industrialized methods of food production.  The mass inundation of the supermarket shelves with processed and packaged foods, especially post World War II (and especially in the U.S.), marked a phenomenal change in people’s eating habits, and with that, a literally phenomenal change in the state of their health as well.  Whereas at one time, food was produced by one’s own physical labor and was a source first of sustenance, and then of pleasure; this principle became fully reversed with the advent of commercial and industrialized foods.  Now, it became more about pleasure first, and then sustenance (if at all).  Refined, over-processed, over-salted, over-sweetened and trans-fat laden foods came to rule the supermarket shelves, and then our taste buds.  Even the quality of eggs, meats and dairy suffered, as the goals and objectives of “efficient” corporate mass production took precedence over that of maintaining the purity and nutritive ability of food.   This has gone on now for several decades, up to our present time.   And now, to all this, we have (albeit unwillingly) added new health destroying variables.  Ask most anyone, and they will tell you — Stress and fatigue seem to rule the day; a daily 8 hour shift on the computer occurs with alarming regularity, whereas daily exercise is irregular at best; sleep is elusive and usually averages less than 6 hours a night; the sit-down farm fresh meal, either for lunch or dinner, is a distant pipe-dream of  the past, whereas the “techno-protein bar” on-the-go  is the dominant reality of the lunch hour, and the home-cooked dinner is a rare treat, hardly the daily norm.

Thus far we have talked about the “West” in general and about nations generally perceived to be Western.  Now, let’s take a look at the state of health in nations that have relatively recently undergone Westernization in terms of their socio-economic structure.  Two particular and especially salient examples in this category are China and India, and each of these two nations has in recent years seen a truly astronomic rise in rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease.   Interestingly, the rise in chronic disease rates in both China and India (especially in the metropolitan areas) corresponds exactly with their large-scale abandonment of traditional, sustainably produced whole foods, and their adoption of Western-style mass produced processed foods.  For example, it  is no longer “trendy” in India to make lentils and brown rice with a side of fresh, local vegetables and home-made fresh yogurt for dinner; It is now infinitely more exciting to order “Western” foods for the lunch or dinner meal — hot dogs, burgers, pizza and the like.  How do I know?  I have been there.  These are the new foods there; these are the new items of excitement.  

But, the excitement won’t last…and neither should it.  The World Health Organization recently estimated that by 2010, 60% – or more than half – of the world’s cardiac patients will be from the Indian subcontinent alone, giving India the dubious distinction of being the country with the highest rate of heart disease in the world.  It is interesting, isn’t it, to note that this was once a nation with some of the longest-lived people on the planet?  The same was also true for China, for Okinawa…and the list goes on.

It is said that those who refuse to learn the bitter lessons of history are doomed to endure repeating them.  And, the lessons of history in this case are simply these:  Locally produced, traditional whole foods (whole grains, freshly picked vegetables, fresh fruits, fresh eggs and meats, pure pressed nut and seed oils and other similar foods) both nourish and sustain people, and have done so for centuries.  In addition, sustainable agriculture preserves the health of the soil, which in turn literally gives life to the food and thus to people, and often a sense of community as well.  But, wherever and whenever people turn their backs on the soil, and chase after the latest and greatest “fast-” or “techno-food” of the day, they chase after a dangerous illusion — one that costs them their vitality and, all too often, even their very lives.   And these are the facts, not mere opinion — neither mine nor someone else’s.  The numbers establish the truth.

So, does food have anything to do with being sick or staying well?  Well, the numbers tell us that the West is sick, and the newly “Westernizing” nations (especially with respect to food and lifestyle) are already sick, and rapidly getting sicker.  The food experiments of the U.S., Europe, Australia, China, India, Okinawa, and other nations as well, all testify that those who have no clue where their breakfast, lunch or dinner come from are the sickest of all.  Conversely, those who either produce their own food or, at the very least, prepare their own meals from fresh, local foods seem to be beneficiaries of uncommonly long lives and a true joie-de-vivre.  Add to this, the fact that substantial research convincingly tells us that with careful attention to the foods we eat and with regular exercise, nearly 70% of certain cancers and 80% of heart attacks are preventable, and the question arises: how much more proof do we really need to believe that what we eat matters?

Let’s sum this up.   For those still haunted by whether food really matters, here are the formal answers to the two questions posed at the beginning of this post:

1.  Yes, modern denatured, over-processed, commercially prepared, and mass-produced industrialized foods have a lot to do with both how and why so many people develop one or more chronic diseases.

2.  Yes, locally and sustainably produced, un-tampered, whole foods have a lot to do with our prospects of preventing these conditions.

While food is not the only factor in the genesis of disease and other factors such as genetic or environmental exposures may play a role in both the genesis of disease or the prevention of it, nonetheless both time-tested and epidemiological evidence bear out that what we eat and how we produce what we eat are fundamental to our well-being and to our very existence.

You see, in any land where nearly every meal is processed, preserved, pre-packaged, frozen, or microwavable; where a myriad of foods are specifically designed to be eaten on-the-go; and where the average adult has neither seen nor can even recognize a kernel of real wheat, rye or barley — health seldom reigns.