We generally think of food as a way to get energy; a means to provide our bodies with the fuel they need to function. However, new science has shown that food literally speaks to your genes. The information your body receives from the foods you eat turn your genes on and off.
This provides your body with instructions about how to control your metabolism from moment to moment and day to day, every time you take a bite of food. This is the science of nutrigenomics, or how food talks to your genes, and it is the nutritional approach that underlies our therapeutic lifestyle program.
By feeding your body the right information, you can turn off the genes that lead to diabesity and turn on the genes that lead to health. The key lies in the quality and type of food you eat, not necessarily the calories you consume or the ratio of protein, fat, and carbohydrate in your diet.
Dr. Dean Ornish proved that you could reverse blockages in clogged arteries and increase blood flow in the heart by simply changing the quality of the food you put in your body and engaging in some simple lifestyle changes. He also showed that you could beneficially affect over 500 genes turning off the disease-causing genes and turning on the health promoting genes by changing diet and lifestyle in just three months. This is more powerful than any medication ever invented.
So what should you eat? The optimal diet to prevent and treat diabesity includes:
• Fruits
• Vegetables
• Nuts
• Seeds
• Beans
• Whole grains
• Healthy fats such as olive oil, nuts, avocados, and omega-3 fats
• Modest amounts of lean animal protein including small wild fish such as salmon or sardines.
This is commonly known as a Mediterranean diet. It is a diet of whole, real, fresh food. It is a diet of food you have to prepare and cook from the raw materials of nature. And it has broad-ranging benefits for your health.
Our common ideas about food as only a source of energy are very limited. Nutrigenomics and its role in diabesity is the future of medicine. It will help us both understand and successfully treat this burdensome condition that affects over 1 billion people worldwide.(1)
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