The Plant-Based paper from Kaiser Permanente is a HUGE breakthrough.
Yesterday’s blogpost about Kaiser Permanente’s breakthrough paper on plant-based nutrition is likely to put the fear of God in the leadership teams at the Big Pharma and Big Food industries. It appears to be the first chink in the armor of our vast, interconnected “system” of healthcare, pharmaceuticals, food producers, health-insurors, media, nutritional science, medical schools and government.
The only “green” thing about Cargill is the leaf in their logo.
Up until now, all of the pieces of this deadly “system” appeared to be in lockstep with the lame and ineffective dietary advice as created by our USDA. You’re very familiar with the phrase about the “lean cuts of meat, wild fish and low fat dairy.”
That phrase is ubiquitous. It’s on every major “disease specific” website like the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association and the American Diabetes Association.
Up until now, that vast “system” has thrived by keeping the American public sick and fat. Trillions of dollars have been made as we became the sickest nation on Earth while paying far more than any other nation for our healthcare. But things are now about to start changing. How about this closing statement in the article?
The future of health care will involve an evolution toward a paradigm where the prevention and treatment of disease is centered, not on a pill or surgical procedure, but on another serving of fruits and vegetables.
The dominoes begin to fall. Now that the nation’s largest managed care and hospital company has publicly recognized the disease prevention and reversal power of plant-based nutrition, others will follow suit—eventually.
Things will start moving much more quickly if KP gets serious in terms of measuring and acting on the following metrics mentioned in the article’s Conclusion:
Finally, we should encourage performance-driven measurable outcomes, which may include:
- the percentage of physicians who have completed a course on nutrition that includes a discussion of the benefits of a plant-based diet and exercise;
- the percentage of our hospitals, cafeterias, and physicians’ meeting facilities that serve meals that are consistent with a plant-based diet;
- the percentage of patients on a physician panel who are obese and who have completed a course on weight management and nutrition that emphasizes a plant-based diet; and
- the percentage of patients in a physician panel with high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, or cardio- vascular disease who completed a course on nutrition that emphasizes a plant-based diet.
Maybe someday they can trade the iconic stethoscope for a recipe book of delicious, health-promoting meals.
What gets measured, get’s done. I know this from my training and career as an industrial engineer and process improvement consultant. Now if KP starts measuring all of these things AND starts tying physicians’ compensation to health-promotion, then we’re about to enter a whole new ballgame in the world of healthcare.
To be sure, the future of healthcare will ultimately mean a much smaller overall system. But it’s going to take a long time. With our food choices driving up to 80% of our cost of healthcare, we’re talking about a dramatic reduction in the overall size of our total “system” over the next fifty years.
Just as we went from 5% of our GDP for healthcare to the 18% that we have today in the past fifty years, we should start trending back in the other direction before long—but only after the population starts demanding the kind of health-promotion that KP is talking about. From the paper’s “Conclusion:”
The major benefits for patients who decide to start a plant-based diet are the possibility of reducing the number of medications they take to treat a variety of chronic conditions, lower body weight, decreased risk of cancer, and a reduction in their risk of death from ischemic heart disease.
Now let’s see if our mainstream media provides any help in spreading this Earth-shattering information. So far, I have heard absolutely NOTHING from them. Just imagine what would happen if this news just captured one percent of the combined time devoted to the Boston Bombers, the IRS scandal, storm disasters and the Benghazi talking points.
Do you think the CEO will be happy to learn that men will soon be learning how to manage their E.D. with broccoli instead of his little blue pills.
Morality vs. Profits. What if you were the CEO of one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies? What goes through your mind when you read the above statement about plant-based diet reducing the number of prescriptions people take? A few things to ponder:
- What is going to happen to all those $100,000-a-year-per-patient cancer drugs that you have in development?
- What if people stop getting cancer and the news media starts talking about finding the plant-based cure that has eluded the entire army “fighting” cancer since 1971?
- What will happen to your business if cancer, heart disease, diabetes and E.D. start trending sharply downward?
- As the CEO of your giant pill-making corporation, how do you plan to spin this news for your workforce?
- Finally, as a human being, would you be happy if cancer, heart disease, E.D. and diabetes all completely disappeared tomorrow?
This has been the driver of our healthcare “system” for the past fifty years. It’s about time morality begins to trump profits when it comes to the health of our citizens.
The Bottom Line. Since writing yesterday’s blog, I have been thinking a great deal about the KP paper and the ripple of beneficial effects that it will have all over the world. The health effects, the economic effects and the environmental effects will all be tremendous once the human species begins moving steadily in the direction of a whole foods, plant-based diet.
Just this morning, I told a friend that this is the best news I have heard since President Clinton announced that he had chosen a plant-based diet to reverse his heart disease. Both of these events add tons of legitimacy and credibility to the most important process in the history of the world—beginning to choose the food that nature intended for us to eat. By doing so, we promote our own health while helping to ensure Mother Nature’s longterm ability to sustain our species.
Once again I have provided a link below to the entire KP Paper but have decided to provide the entire powerful “Conclusion” for your convenience. Please send this blog to everyone you know that is employed in the healthcare, food production or pharmaceutical industry. Change is coming—and it will be the best change we have ever seen.
The KP Plant-Based Paper Conclusion
A healthy, plant-based diet requires planning, reading labels, and discipline. The recommendations for patients who want to follow a plant-based diet may include eating a variety of fruits and vegetables that may include beans, legumes, seeds, nuts, and whole grains and avoiding or limiting animal products, added fats, oils, and refined, processed carbohydrates. The major benefits for patients who decide to start a plant-based diet are the possibility of reducing the number of medications they take to treat a variety of chronic conditions, lower body weight, decreased risk of cancer, and a reduction in their risk of death from ischemic heart disease.
A plant-based diet is not an all-or-nothing program, but a way of life that is tailored to each individual. It may be especially beneficial for those with obesity, Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, lipid disorders, or cardiovascular disease. The benefits realized will be relative to the level of adherence and the amount of animal products consumed. Strict forms of plant-based diets with little or no animal products may be needed for individuals with inoperable or severe coronary artery disease. Low-sodium, plant-based diets may be prescribed for individuals with high blood pressure or a family history of coronary artery disease or stroke. A patient with obesity and diabetes will benefit from a plant-based diet that includes a moderate amount of fruits and vegetables and minimal low-fat animal products. Severe obesity may require counseling and initial management with a low-calorie diet or very-low-calorie diet and the supervision of a physician’s team. Patients with kidney disease may need a plant-based diet with special restrictions, for example fruits and vegetables that are high in potassium and phosphorus. Finally, patients with thyroid disease will need to be careful when consuming plants that are mild goitrogens, like soy, raw cruciferous vegetables, sweet potatoes, and corn. These patients should be informed that cooking these vegetables inactivates the goitrogens.
Physicians should advocate that it is time to get away from terms like vegan and vegetarian and start talking about eating healthy, whole, plant-based foods (primarily fruits and vegetables) and minimizing consumption of meat, eggs, and dairy products. Physicians should be informed about these concepts so they can teach them to staff and patients.
A registered dietitian should be part of the health care team that designs a plant-based diet for patients with chronic disease, especially if multiple medications are involved. Depending on the underlying conditions, patients with chronic disease who take multiple medications need close monitoring of low blood sugar levels, low blood pressure, or rapid weight loss. If these occur, the physician may need to adjust medications. In some cases, such as the one presented here, the need for certain medications can be eliminated altogether. Although the risk of deficiencies may be low, health care teams need to be aware that a motivated patient on a strict plant-based diet may need monitoring for deficiencies of certain nutrients, as outlined above.
The purpose of this article is to help physicians understand the potential benefits of a plant-based diet, to the end of working together to create a societal shift toward plant-based nutrition. There is at least moderate-quality evidence from the literature that plant-based diets are associated with significant weight loss and a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality compared with diets that are not plant based. These data suggest that plant-based diets may be a practical solution to prevent and treat chronic diseases.
Further research is needed to find ways to make plant-based diets the new normal for our patients and employees. We cannot cure chronic diseases, but we may be able to prevent and control them by changing how we eat. With education and monitoring for adherence, we can improve health outcomes. Patterns of families and other colleagues who may be reluctant to support the efforts of individuals who are trying to change are a challenge to be overcome.
We should invite our colleagues, patients, and their families to a shared decision-making process with the goal of adopting a plant-based diet and a regular exercise program. We should invite health care teams to complete a course on healthy eating and active living. We should encourage staff to be knowledgeable about plant-based nutrition. Finally, we should encourage performance-driven measurable outcomes, which may include:
- the percentage of physicians who have completed a course on nutrition that includes a discussion of the benefits of a plant-based diet and exercise;
- the percentage of our hospitals, cafete- rias, and physicians’ meeting facilities that serve meals that are consistent with a plant-based diet;
- the percentage of patients on a physi- cian panel who are obese and who have completed a course on weight management and nutrition that empha- sizes a plant-based diet; and
- the percentage of patients in a physician panel with high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, or cardio- vascular disease who completed a course on nutrition that emphasizes a plant-based diet.
Too often, physicians ignore the potential benefits of good nutrition and quickly prescribe medications instead of giving patients a chance to correct their disease through healthy eating and active living. If we are to slow down the obesity epidemic and reduce the complications of chronic disease, we must consider changing our culture’s mind-set from “live to eat” to “eat to live.” The future of health care will involve an evolution toward a paradigm where the prevention and treatment of disease is centered, not on a pill or surgical procedure, but on another serving of fruits and vegetables.
The second link below is a PDF of the entire KP Paper.
- Yesterday’s blogpost. Plant-Based for ALL Patients! Says Kaiser Permanente.
- Kaiser Permanente Spring 2013 Journal. Article on Plant-Based Diets.
- Teaching medical doctors all about whole foods, plant-based nutrition. pbnhc.com
- A blog from last week. Most M.D.s have no clue when it comes to promoting health.
- An earlier blog. HBO Special Bottom Line—Confusion over Clarity
Handy 4-piece take-charge-of-your-health kit—from Amazon.com
- The movie that’s changing the lives of millions: Forks Over Knives DVD
- Healthy Eating, Healthy World, The ”big picture” about food (our book)
- An essential scientific resource: The China Study by Dr. T. Colin Campbell
- Dr. McDougall’s new book, The Starch Solution, with lots of great recipes.
Want to find out how healthy your family is eating? Take our free 4Leaf Survey. It takes less than five minutes and you can score it yourself. After taking the survey, please give me your feedback as it will be helpful in the development of our future 4Leaf app for smartphones. Send feedback to jmorrishicks@me.com
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J. Morris Hicks, working daily to promote health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.
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—J. Morris Hicks, board member, T. Colin Campbell Foundation
What to do? We need to schedule a meeting with either Chelsea or Bill. In a perfect world, I would like to include these four men: Dr. Campbell, Dr. Esselstyn, John Robbins and Philip Wollen in that meeting. 
Not knowing what I was in for at the beginning of the article, I kept thinking that this somewhat skeptical “survivor” was going to reveal some important information. After all, the New York Times devoted quite a bit of space to her 6,000-word article. On top of that, there are now 577 comments, which probably adds another 30,000 words—in case you’ve got an extra day or two to devote to reading about our nation’s totally dysfunctional cancer situation.
As I plodded through the article which must’ve been more than 200 pages on my iPhone 5, I only found one paragraph that even hinted at the crux of the problem—the fact that we’re spending practically nothing on prevention. That paragraph was about 3/4 of the way through the 6,000 words. As you can see, they mentioned the word “prevent” but the word diet did not appear—anywhere in the 6,000 words. Here’s the prevention paragraph:
Scientists report that the human species is about 200,000 years old. And that estimate squares with the oldest exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. While visiting the museum on April 27th, I was struck by the fact that the vast majority of the exhibits were less than 3,000 years old (1,000 BC until today)
