The End of Dieting: How to Live for Life (17 page)

Mushrooms have other anti-obesity effects. Their chemical properties oppose insulin, which helps lower blood sugar levels and interferes with fat deposition on the body. Mushrooms are the true weight-loss miracle food.
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It’s fascinating how mushrooms work to induce weight loss and reverse diabetes and lower blood sugar. Since they are so low in calories and satisfying to eat, you would expect that eating them in place of meat, oil, and bread would help you lose weight; but that isn’t the only way they help. They also block enzymes that break down carbohydrates into simple sugars, which allows the body to maintain lower sugar surges in the blood when it’s breaking down foods that contain carbohydrates.
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Mushrooms are even better than probiotics at increasing the diversity of healthy bacteria inside the gut. Mushrooms also foster resistance against pathogenic bacteria such as salmonella and
Clostridium difficile
.
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Furthermore, they increase salivary and mucosal immunoglobulin A, which further increases resistance to bowel infection and inflammation.
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Keep in mind that you should cook most mushrooms before you eat them: The simple white, cremini, and portobello mushrooms contain
a potentially carcinogenic substance called agaritine. Cooking them significantly reduces their agaritine content.
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B: Berries (and Pomegranates)

Blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, and blackberries are vibrantly colored with antioxidant phytochemicals, and they are some of the highest antioxidant foods in existence. The deep red, blue, and purple pigments of berries are produced by anthocyanins, which are concentrated in the skins of the fruits. Flavonoids are not merely antioxidants; they are thought to have a number of additional beneficial effects in the body that are unrelated to their antioxidant capacity. Several studies have shown that high flavonoid intake is associated with considerable risk reductions (up to 45 percent) for coronary heart disease.
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The plentiful antioxidant content of berries helps to reduce blood pressure and inflammation, to prevent DNA damage that leads to cancer, to protect the brain against oxidative damage, and to stimulate the body’s own antioxidant enzymes.
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Ellagic acid, another antioxidant abundant in both berries and pomegranates, was found in the 1980s to block the formation of tumors, providing the initial evidence that these fruits were anticancer foods.
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Antioxidant activity contributes to protection against cancers, since oxidative damage of DNA can cause cancerous changes in cells. The antioxidant phytochemicals in berries and pomegranates also prevent carcinogens from binding DNA and promote DNA repair, which leads to a reduced likelihood of the initiation of cancer.
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Berry and pomegranate extracts have slowed cell growth or caused cell death in cells from several different human cancer types.
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Like mushrooms, pomegranates and many berries also have antiangiogenic properties, inhibiting the blood supply to tumors and thus preventing them from receiving the nutrients they need to grow.
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Remember: Angiogenic inhibitors also inhibit fat storage in the body.

Like mushrooms, pomegranates are also one of the few foods that contain natural aromatase inhibitors—those substances that inhibit the production of estrogen, which can reduce breast cancer risk.
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Furthermore, one recent exciting study demonstrated the powerful anticancer effects of berries in patients with precancerous esophageal lesions. Each patient ate strawberries every day for six months. The results were amazing: Twenty-nine of the thirty-six study patients experienced a decrease in the histological grade of their lesions. In other words, the progression toward cancer began to reverse, and the risk of the lesions becoming cancerous decreased.
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Can eating more fruit help you lose weight? Apparently so. Evidence is accumulating that the anthocyanins and polyphenols in berries and other fruits actually suppress the generation of new fatty acids by the liver and promote the degradation or breakdown of fat stores.
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Polyphenols, a complex mixture of many plant pigments, oppose and reduce hormones that facilitate fat storage while restoring the body’s normal fat-burning metabolism by altering the balance and presence of bacteria in the gut. They decrease the bacteria that promote fat storage and increase the bacteria that encourage a slim body.
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A high consumption of polyphenols leads to an increase in beneficial bacteria that interfere with the breakdown of complex carbohydrates into simple sugars, which also facilitates weight reduction.

A 2011 study investigated berry consumption in relation to the risk of elevated blood pressure. Just one serving per week decreased the risk of hypertension by 10 percent.
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New findings published in 2013 from the Nurses’ Health Study support these results with data in younger women (age twenty-five to forty-two at the beginning of the study) who were followed for eighteen years. Having three or more weekly
servings of blueberries or strawberries was linked to a 34 percent reduction in the risk of heart attack.
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Berry flavonoids seem to act in several different ways to maintain heart health. In human subjects, for instance, researchers found that berries mitigated oxidative stress and decreased the oxidation of LDL, or “bad cholesterol,” which helps prevent the production of atherosclerotic plaque. Berry flavonoids were also found to increase the body’s blood antioxidant capacity and in some cases even improved lipid levels, blood pressure, and blood glucose levels.

Similarly, higher anthocyanin and berry intake is associated with reduced C-reactive protein, suggesting that berries may curb inflammation. Additional studies have confirmed that berries have anti-inflammatory properties. Berry phytochemicals also may enhance nitric oxide production in the blood vessels, which helps to properly regulate blood pressure.
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And berries are the only food documented in studies to prevent dementia in later life.
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Even during winter, we can get our daily dose of anthocyanins from frozen berries. Fill your freezer with berries in the summer when you can buy them inexpensively right from the farm. Better yet, put some berry bushes in your yard. Include fresh and frozen berries in your diet as often as possible to enjoy these numerous health benefits. Berries and pomegranates have the highest nutrient-to-calorie ratio of all fruits, and they protect against cancer, heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, and dementia.

S: Seeds

Seeds aren’t for the birds. They are a lifespan-promoting food for us humans as well, with dramatic anticancer effects. Seeds are nature’s way of perpetuating the plant life of planet earth, and they have a stellar scientific record of protecting our health and prolonging our lives in the process. Not only do seeds add their own spectrum of unique disease-fighting substances to the dietary landscape, but the
fat in seeds increases the absorption of protective nutrients in vegetables eaten at the same meal. They contain minerals, antioxidants, and micronutrients, including plant sterols, which help to reduce cholesterol. Several seeds and nuts—such as flaxseeds, hemp seeds, chia seeds, and walnuts—are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, which are beneficial for heart and brain health.
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Seeds and nuts act like a fat sponge in the digestive tract, preventing all their fat calories from being absorbed.
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But the real story is that these fat magnets pull out the unhealthy fats from the bloodstream, increasing the cholesterol content of the stool, carrying the bad fats out of the body, and allowing the healthy fats to stay in.

Flax, chia, and sesame seeds are rich in lignans, plant phytoestrogens that protect against cancer. In one study, women who had breast cancer ate muffins that contained flaxseeds; a control group ate muffins without the flax. Within five weeks, the group eating the flaxseed muffins showed a decreased growth of tumor cells, and their previously existing tumor cells were killed off in greater numbers.
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Even more surprising was the study of breast cancer patients who consumed a daily average of about 0.3 milligrams of lignans from seeds. The study followed these women for ten years and found a whopping 71 percent lower breast cancer deaths compared with women eating few or no lignans in their diet.
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This study was powerful for two reasons. First, the mean lignan intake in the largest quartile was so small. One teaspoon of flaxseeds results in 7 milligrams of lignans, and the top dietary lignan group averaged only about one-third of a milligram of lignan daily. This means that a higher seed intake would most likely offer even more protection. Second, the anticancer effects of foods are more powerful before you have cancer and become less effective as cancer progresses, and this study still showed about 70 percent effectiveness from this one factor in women who already had cancer. Remember, this benefit occurred just from this one variable—dietary
lignan intake—and didn’t include the other anticancer effects of the other G-BOMBS.

Furthermore, hemp seeds, chia seeds, flaxseeds, and walnuts are also rich in the omega-3 fatty acid ALA. Most nuts are richer in linoleic acid, an omega-6 fatty acid. Since omega-3 fats are harder to come by, it’s important to eat some foods that are naturally rich in ALA. Research indicates that the regular consumption of ALA reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer.
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It is also interesting that some studies indicate that a deficiency in this fatty acid can lead to increased depression and anxiety and a poor ability to cope with stress.
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Notes: USDA, Agricultural Research Service. National nutrient database for standard reference. http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search/list. Higdon J, Drake VJ. Lignans. In:
An Evidence-Based Approach to Dietary Phytochemicals.
New York: Thieme; 2006:155–161. Nemes SM, Orstat V. Evaluation of a microwave-assisted extraction method for lignan quantification in flaxseed cultivars and selected oil seeds
. Food Anal Methods.
2012;5:551–563
.

Build a strong nutritional foundation by eating G-BOMBS every day.

By eating significant portions of G-BOMBS, we consistently flood our bodies with their spectrum of phytochemicals that work synergistically to boost immune function and prevent cancer from developing. There is an additional perk too: These same foods protect against heart
disease, diabetes, and other devastating chronic illnesses that commonly plague modern Americans.

As you begin to increase your intake of high-nutrient food and reduce your exposure to unhealthful processed foods such as sugar, salt, and oils, you’ll start to enjoy, more and more, healthful foods. Over time, your taste preferences will adapt as you make healthy choices, and you’ll start to appreciate more subtle flavors. It works. Eat healthfully, and over time you’ll
prefer
eating healthfully.

Don’t Forget the Tomato Sauce

This discussion of the amazing power of modern nutritional science wouldn’t be complete without considering carotenoids and tomatoes. The levels of carotenoids in your body’s tissues are a good indicator of your overall health because those levels parallel the levels of plant-derived phytochemicals in general. In a study of more than thirteen thousand American adults, low blood levels of carotenoids were found to be an accurate predictor of earlier death. Lower levels of total carotenoids, alpha-carotene, and lycopene in the blood were linked to increased risk of death from all causes; of all the carotenoids, very low blood lycopene was the strongest predictor of mortality.
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Lycopene is the signature carotenoid in tomatoes. In fact, 85 percent of the lycopene Americans consume comes from tomatoes.
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(Other foods rich in lycopene include red peppers, beets, cherries, and papaya; see Table 8.) Lycopene is perhaps best known for its anticancer properties. It also concentrates in the male reproductive system, which makes it an effective protection against prostate cancer.
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