A Healthy Society with Limited Medical Costs Is Possible

Diseases that plague our modern society are reversible if sufficient dietary and
environmental stresses are removed from the picture. A good physician can
help people recover their health by helping them discover and eradicate all
possible impediments to healing.

Reversing disease through nutritional medicine and preventing cancer through
diet are the most powerful weapons we have to fight and win the war on cancer
and other degenerative illnesses that have taken over our country. Ninety
percent of cancers can be stopped before they even start. If just half of the
billions of dollars spent on cancer research were spent on educating the public
on how to avoid disease, we would witness a powerful reduction in the incidence
of most chronic diseases. Millions of lives would be saved from cancer.

If we look at heart disease alone, more than $150 billion a year is spent on
expensive medical procedures that attempt to remedy the effects of our rich
diets. Yet we ignore the reality that heart disease can be totally prevented by a
low-fat (less than 15 percent of total calories), plant-based diet. The American
Heart Association and the American Cancer Society still recommend a diet with
30 percent of calories from fat.

People are unaware that even 30 percent of calories from fat is an extremely
high level when we look at diets consumed throughout human history. Scientific
studies show that when this level of fat intake is consumed, there is no
improvement in heart disease. On the other hand, it has been shown that at
much lower levels of fat intake arterial blockages are easily reversible. When
patients who have coronary artery disease are placed on diets containing less
than 10 percent of calories from fat, improvement in their condition occurs in a
predictable fashion.

The ineffective dietary recommendations from most authorities are
comparable to telling a smoker with lung disease that he will be taking care of
his disease if he cuts back from three packs a day to merely two.
(Unfortunately, these American institutions are misleading the public by
recommending diets with a level of fat that has been documented in the
scientific literature to actually promote heart disease and cause cancer.)

Instead, our government spends over $20 billion on price supports that
benefit the dairy, beef, and veal industry.
These dollars are given to farmers to artificially reduce the cost of crops used to feed cows and are also used to advertise and keep the prices down on dairy foods, fowl, and meat. Fruits and
vegetables grown primarily for human consumption are specifically excluded
from USDA price supports. Out of one pocket we pay billions of our tax dollars
to support the production of expensive disease-causing foods. Out of the other
pocket we pay medical bills that are too high because our population consumes
too much of these rich, disease-causing foods.

Because of animal agriculture's powerful lobbyists, these price supports are
not even considered wasteful by our present and past administrations. Worse
than wasteful, by keeping fatty foods artificially cheaper, we actually are paying
to make our society sicker and keep our health insurance costs high.

Most Americans, though aware of the change in nutritional thinking, have not
made substantial changes in their food choices or life-styles. Why? Because
most of us are physiologically addicted to food and assume it is difficult to
change our diet. We are also confused, uncertain, and have an incomplete
picture of how to maintain our health, so we resign ourselves to the way things
are. We are unaware of what standards of health are possible for us.

If you have a chronic illness or medical problem, most likely you have been
told there are no special diets that will help. This book will put an end to that
outmoded, incorrect, and dangerous position, which denies you the chance to
regain your health and regain control of your life. Unfortunately, if you try to
improve your diet and make changes following the guidelines you have been
given from the typical dietician or physician, you will not get better. These
recommendations are almost always too liberal to achieve substantial risk
reduction or disease reversal. As you will see as we discuss most of the major
health problems in detail in later chapters, aggressive nutritional management
of specific medical conditions can mean the difference between wellness and a
life of chronic illness, multiple medications, and premature aging and death.