Diabetes Increases Risk of Cancer Death…

That was the title of an April 4 article (link to complete article at the end of this post) in the New York Times. The article begins with…

“Diabetes has long been associated with a host of serious health problems, including increased risk of vision loss, kidney problems, heart attack and stroke. Now a growing body of research shows that diabetes also increases risk for deadly cancers.”

Did the researchers ever stop to consider that it’s not diabetes that’s causing cancer and all these other maladies? Why do they never ask the question about what causes diabetes? For the same thing that causes diabetes is the very same thing that causes heart disease, cancer, and up to 80% of all of our health issues — and resulting cost of health care. The article continues…

Having diabetes not only increased risk for dying from cancer, but people with diabetes were, over all, more likely to be given a cancer diagnosis as well.

“It’s well known that there are a lot of benefits from avoiding diabetes,’’ said Dr. Neal D. Freedman, investigator in the division of cancer epidemiology and genetics at the National Cancer Institute. “Our study, along with others, suggests that there may be additional benefit in terms of reduced morbidity and mortality from cancer.”

The five trail-blazing MD’s featured in my book will all tell you the same thing. Type 2 diabetes, like heart disease, need never exist. It is a natural result of the toxic western diet with meat and dairy three meals a day — 365 days a year. As Dr. Fuhrman says, “Don’t manage your diabetes — get rid of it.”

Clearly if chronic diseases are easily reversible with a plant-based diet, they are totally preventable as well. We have all these names for diseases — named after the area of the body in which they occur. Being a “big picture” guy, I like the simplicity that Raymond Francis expresses in his book, Never be Sick Again. He says there’s only one disease and that there are only two causes.

  • That one disease is called malfunctioning cells. (Each of us has about 100 trillion of them.)
  • The two causes? Not enough of what all of your cells need (nutrients) and too much of what your cells don’t need (toxins).

Sounds like a “blinding flash of the obvious to me. In our typical western diet — totally unnatural for our species, we probably can explain about 90% of the two “causes” of disease that Raymond talks about. It sounds so simple — why is the word not spreading like wildfire? Because of a huge problem in the western world…

The problem, despite overwhelming scientific and clinical evidence to the contrary, is that 95% of our population still truly believes that we humans “need” to eat animal protein in order to be healthy. That 95% includes most of our scientists, MD’s, journalists, researchers and philosophers. Why is that?

That’s the question that we try to answer in our new book and the question that Dr. Campbell tried to answer in his best-selling book, The China Study. The short answer is money. The long answer is a bit more complicated — as it involves a huge, interconnected “system” of food producers, the USDA, health care, pharmaceuticals, insurance companies, the media and academia — a huge “system” with all parts working together to maintain the status quo. We don’t really have a “health care” system — we have a “disease management” system. That’s where the money is. Click here for an example involving the insurance companies.

You see, there are some 35 million jobs in this vast “system” and none of those people have a financial incentive for us to be healthy. If we all got healthy, 80% of our health care dollars would go away — along with 25 million of those jobs.

J. Morris Hicks, trying my best to help you and your family take charge of your health

The bottom line is that you can no longer trust that “system” to take care of you. You must take charge of your own health and the health of your family. While most people in that system are well intentioned, the fact is that they are simply not yet informed. Want to get started taking care of your family’s health, you might want to visit our 4-Leaf page...and then subscribe to this blog. That will ensure that you receive relentless daily follow-up from our 4-Leaf team.

As for our health care “system,” when enough people take charge of their own health, the “system” will eventually change. Someday our health care system will truly promote health; not next year, but perhaps within a few decades. The grassroots movement, of which we are members, is going to gradually change the world — simply by choosing to eat the optimal and natural diet for our species — whole plant foods in nature’s package.

And that’s the way it should be, for a major overnight shift in the way our entire nation eats is simply not feasible. For the complete New York Times article, click here. Diabetes Increases Risk of Cancer Death – NYTimes.com.

If you like what you see here, you may wish to join our periodic mailing list. Also, for help in your own quest to take charge of your health, you might find some useful information at our 4-Leaf page. From the seaside village of Stonington, Connecticut – Be well and have a great day.

If you’d like to order our book on Amazon,  visit our BookStore now.

—J. Morris Hicks…blogging daily at HealthyEatingHealthyWorld.com

PS: Occasionally an unauthorized ad may appear beneath a blog post. It is controlled by WordPress (a totally free hosting service). I do not approve or personally benefit whatsoever from any ad that might ever appear on this site. I apologize and urge you to please disregard. 

Posted in Cancer, Diabetes, Medical Experts | 1 Comment

Videos…Clinton, Oprah, Dr. Campbell and more

J. Morris Hicks, trying to make it easy for you to share this powerful information with everyone you know. With influential people like Clinton and Oprah on board, the future is looking brighter for this crucial grassroots movement.

After sixty-four consecutive days of blogging, I decided that it was time to remind you of the powerful videos that are available to view for no charge on this site. The Video page (see link below) contains a few selected shorts that you might enjoy….in the following order:

  • Bill Clinton on CNN talking with Wolf Blitzer about his new way of eating.
  • A “movie trailer” of the powerful 2009 movie HOME…all about the fragile harmony of our environment and the unprecedented human disruption in just the past fifty years.
  • Oprah Winfrey, Kathy Freston and Michael Pollan talking about Oprah’s Vegan Challenge in early 2011.
  • Dr. Colin Campbell and his China Study co-writer son Tom on the TV show EXTRA with Kathy Freston.
  • The 2-minute “movie trailer” for the new movie (May 2011) Forks over Knives…a powerful movie exploring the overwhelming evidence supporting a plant-based diet — starring Dr. Campbell and Dr. Esselstyn of The Cleveland Clinic.
  • A “big picture” look at the “peak oil” phenomenon that I mention in our book from the standpoint that our meat-laden diet is perhaps our single biggest waste of the finite supply of fossil fuels remaining on this planet.
  • A link to the entire 93-minute movie HOME, mentioned above.
  • A link to a new (2010) 7-part video series featuring Dr. Campbell in a relaxed setting…talking about the findings of The China Study.

Click here to visit the Video page

If you like what you see here, you may wish to join our periodic mailing list. Also, for help in your own quest to take charge of your health, you might find some useful information at our 4-Leaf page. From the seaside village of Stonington, Connecticut – Be well and have a great day.

If you’d like to order our book on Amazon,  visit our BookStore now.

—J. Morris Hicks…blogging daily at HealthyEatingHealthyWorld.com

PS: Occasionally an unauthorized ad may appear beneath a blog post. It is controlled by WordPress (a totally free hosting service). I do not approve or personally benefit whatsoever from any ad that might ever appear on this site. I apologize and urge you to please disregard. 

Posted in Big Picture, Celebrities | Leave a comment

Tofu…Beware the fat content!

One aspect of 4Leaf eating is keeping your percent from fat below 20% of your daily calories. The average American averages nearly 40%.

If you’ve read about our 4Leaf Program, you already know of my conviction that the primary emphasis must be on maximizing the healthiest of foods versus concentrating on what you’re avoiding. It is my observation that most vegetarians do the latter and many of them never achieve the results they are seeking.

Tofu is a good example. Since it is not meat or dairy, most vegetarians think that it must be a healthy product that they “can” eat. So when they first start out with their meatless diet (for any number of reasons), many of them turn to tofu, which is used extensively in many dishes — as a substitute for all kinds of meat, cheeses and eggs.

Last week, I noticed an online recipe for a “tofu scramble” from a noted health MD and felt that I should use that recipe as an example to help educate my readers.  While I am an admirer of this particular MD, I think this is a good example of  how the medical experts sometime lose sight of the big picture.

Looks like eggs, tastes like eggs, has almost as much fat % as the eggs — but it’s not eggs; it’s also not a health promoting 4-Leaf meal.

Like most vegetarians, sometimes they focus too much on what they’re avoiding and not so much on what they are actually eating. For this recipe to be highlighted as a “healthy meal,” he may unintentionally be leading some people down the wrong path. While the meal was 100% plant-based with a long list of fresh vegetables like spinach, tomato, scallions, garlic, and bell pepper; the primary source of calories was by far the fat in the tofu.

I knew immediately that this meal would never come close to being in the 4-Leaf range — with over 80% of calories from whole plants — but I wanted to make sure.  So I went to nutritiondata.com and analyzed this meal. Here is what I found:

  • Only 10.8% of the 205 calories per serving were from whole plants – in nature’s package. Scoring at the “No-Leaf” level on our 4-Leaf Program.
  • Even worse, the meal derived 45.9% of its calories from fat (98% of which was from the tofu.)
  • The tofu itself was 50.3% fat.

I am not saying that tofu is a bad or harmful product; I am just saying that it is not a whole plant and that it is heavy in fat. If you want to keep your overall fat intake under 20% of your calories, meals like these should not be a part of your normal routine. In order to make this a 4Leaf meal, you would need to cut the quantity of tofu by 75% and add in lots of veggies like broccoli, carrots, eggplant, mushroom, potato, etc.

Confession time. Occasionally, I have ordered the Crispy Tofu Salad at a local restaurant, but only very rarely. Without analyzing it, I knew that it derived most of it’s calories from the tofu (fried) and that it was nowhere near a 4Leaf meal. Now that I know that it is most definitely in the “No Leaf” range, I may never have it again. So, I too have benefited from this exercise.

To the uninformed person wanting to lose weight, dishes like these are simply not going to get the job done. FYI, other soy products like soy milk are also very high in fat.

Handy 5-piece take-charge-of-your-health kit—from Amazon.com

Why should we be eating mostly plants? The “big picture” in 4 minutes.

Want to find out how healthy your family is eating? Take our free 4Leaf Survey. It takes 2 or 3 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.

To order more of my favorite books—visit our online BookStore now

For help in your own quest to take charge of your health, visit our 4Leaf page and also enjoy some great recipes from Lisa’s 4Leaf Kitchen.

Got a question? Let me hear from you at jmorrishicks@me.com. Or give me a call on my cell at 917-399-9700.

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—J. Morris Hicks, board member since 2012; click banner for more info:

Nutrition Certificate

Posted in 4Leaf for Life, Healthy Eating 101 | 11 Comments