One would have to be disconnected from modern society not to know the world population is in an obesity crisis. We, in the UK, are not exempt. Jeremy Hunt once described our nation's childhood obesity as a national emergency. Our National Health Service (NHS) is creaking under the weight of obesity-related illness.
The global population is currently dealing with a mental health crisis on a parallel track. Our worsening mental health is due only in part to post-COVID trauma. Other reasons are current international situations - a war, inflation and climate anxiety. Would you be surprised to know that what you eat also affects your mental health?
Your doctor may have discussed proper nutrition and what foods you should eat, especially if you're an at-risk patient. They know your medical history, activity level and standard diet. They're more qualified to give you personal nutrition advice. We'll leave that with them and talk with you about the following:
- what lifestyle diseases are and how to prevent them
- how sound nutrition helps prevent disease
- the link between nutrition and mental health
- ways you can improve your health with good nutrition
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What Are Lifestyle Diseases?
Every type of disease has a cause - pathogenesis. Some, like cancer and sickle cell anaemia, are genetic. Some metabolic disorders are genetic, often resulting in obesity. So being obese isn't always a matter of overeating and doing too little.
Other diseases are introduced. Those include everything from acquired immunity deficiency syndrome (Aids) to the varicella-zoster virus. That bug causes chickenpox, shingles and that fever blister you may occasionally get on your lip.
Humans are helpless to fight their genes and are only marginally better at fighting viral infections. By contrast, lifestyle diseases are sicknesses we cause to ourselves. We're not active enough, and we have poor eating habits. Also, we take in harmful substances.
People living in industrialised countries are more likely to get lifestyle diseases. Sitting all day, driving everywhere and eating highly processed foods are typical in well-developed nations. But they're the conditions leading to heart disease (cardiovascular disease), Type 2 diabetes and abdominal obesity. The combination of high blood pressure, high glucose and high triglycerides are now so common that doctors routinely diagnose metabolic syndrome.
Humans in developed countries are living longer, too. That sounds great until we realise that the longer we make poor lifestyle choices, the more crippling the diseases get. Alzheimer's, arthritis and osteoporosis are on the rise. So are late-onset asthma, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and irritable bowel syndrome.
Now, for the actual good news: these conditions and others result from how we live. So changing how we live means we're less likely to fall victim to poor health. The changes don't have to be radical to be beneficial. Medical research has shown that a daily walk and minor dietary changes can help prevent illness.
Prevent Disease with Sound Nutrition
Let's sound off with all the standard 'sound nutrition' advice: eat the rainbow - eat different-coloured foods. Eat from all the food groups: meat/fish, dairy, grains/pulses, healthy fats, and fruits/veg. Meat and two veg except less meat and more veg, and make sure the meat is lean, not processed. Lay off junk food, sweets and fizzy drinks, and cut down on salt.
Lots of people accept this advice as gospel, but it's flawed. Some people are vegetarian/vegan, and others are lactose intolerant. Some people are allergic to certain fruits, others to some vegetables and still others to grains. Are they all lacking nutrition because their bodies reject what is supposedly sound?
What should we consider sound nutrition, then? We must exclude junk foods, sweets and fizzy drinks because they provide little nutritional value. In fact, with all of their sugar and chemicals, they actively harm your body and mind. With them out of the way, we can define sound nutrition as minimally-processed foods that work with your body.
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Dr Robert Lustig, an American paediatric endocrinologist and specialist in childhood obesity, offers a simple remedy. If the food comes in a tin, box, bottle or bag, it's somehow degraded; it's no longer real food. Avoiding such products puts us on the path to better nutrition.
Choosing minimally processed foods that work with your body is only half the equation. They must also be prepared. How you do that will impact your food's nutritional value, too.
Cooking foods at high temperatures and cooking them for a long time impacts their nutritional value. Cooking also changes foods' chemical structures. When subjected to heat, many foods undergo a Maillard reaction; baked bread is an excellent example. So are grilled and fried meats and deep-fried chips. Speaking of chips...
The potato is a mainstay of the Western diet, and it passes the 'no box/bag/tin' test. But potatoes are hard to eat unless cooked, so they must be subjected to heat. How we cook our potatoes makes all the difference to their nutritional value. The rule of thumb is: if no Maillard reaction occurs - if the potato doesn't turn brown, it's more nutritious.
So jacket and boiled potatoes are in, and any frying is out. On the same note, steamed veggies are more nutritious than burned ones because they retain more nutrients. Knowing what to eat and how to cook is challenging because of all these variables. Looking to the future of personalized medicine, we might anticipate a digital nutrition guide to advise us.
Mental Health and Nutrition
It's no accident that the global depression statistics parallel those for lifestyle diseases. Granted, we live in nail-biting times and have plenty to feel wrong about. But depression isn't the only mental health concern manifesting. Rage incidents are on the rise, too.
But most of the literature focuses on the diet-depression connection, so we'll examine it, too. Regarding mental health, 'you are what you eat' has a new meaning. Our minds are chemical soups that constantly react to what we put in our bodies.
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Starving our brains of the nutrition they need causes our biochemistry to go haywire. We feel unfocused and out of sorts, unable to define why we can't shake ourselves back into living. A doctor's visit might yield an antidepressant prescription. But what's the sense of introducing more chemicals when we could just as quickly change our current chemical intake?
That's why the mental health community is focusing on food as medicine. Science has determined that pharmacology may not be the best or most ethical way to treat mental health. This controversy is like the honest debate about gene editing. We're learning that working with nature is better and safer than imposing our will.
Nutrition and Disease: Tips for Reducing Risk
Keeping a food diary is the best way to know how your food choices affect you. Start writing down what you eat/drink, what time you consume and how you feel when and after you eat/drink. Don't change your eating and drinking habits yet; record your findings for three weeks. That gives you a baseline of your current health status.
You might note you feel bloated and blah after a meal from the chippy. That's a sign that that food doesn't suit your body well. You might notice being in a lousy mood shortly after eating a chocolate bar. That's another indicator that what you ate isn't working for you.
As you improve your nutrition intake, change only one thing at a time. Maybe have the fish and peas but not the chips. Give each change a few days to manifest, and always record how you feel. Eventually, you'll know what to eat to keep your body and mind at peak performance.
None of this means you should never open another bag of crisps or enjoy a sweet. As long as you know how those products affect you, you can manage their negative impacts. They'll clear out of your system in a few days, and you can enjoy another treat if you want.
On a personal note: I've been a gourmand for most of my life. Dinner was the reason for dessert, in my mind, and chocolate was my flavour of choice. But any cake, biscuit or frozen delight would do. And then, I got COVID.
It was only a two-day affair, but I found no desire for anything sweet when I recovered. Now sugar-free for 18 months, all of my markers, including glucose and weight, are within normal range. And my food diary looks much more cheerful and balanced than pre-COVID.
Worldwide, poor eating habits are the leading cause of preventable diseases and death. But this condition has less to do with how much one eats than what one puts in their body. You, too, can make a medical discovery by optimising your intake for a healthier, happier you.
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