Let’s say you really need to find reliable information
about the best diet for high blood pressure,
or heart disease, or diabetes.
Where do you go?
Do you go to a website sponsored by Big Pharma
that wants to sell you pills to fix your problem?
Or, do you want to treat the cause?
Welcome to the Nutrition Facts Podcast
with the latest peer- reviewed research
on the best ways to eat healthy and live longer.
It’s time for the Nutrition Facts Grab Bag,
where we look at the latest science
on a whole variety of topics.
In our first story, we find out if the health benefits
of peanut better include longevity.
According to the largest study of risk factors for death
in human history, a poor diet causes more deaths than anything.
Cigarettes only kill about eight million people a year,
whereas humanity’s diet kills millions more.
What are the worst aspects of our diet?
Processed meat? Twinkies? Soda?
No, the five deadliest things about our diet are:
inadequate fruit intake— not enough fruit;
not enough whole grains; not enough vegetables;
too much salt; and not enough nuts and seeds.
Nuts should come as no surprise since interventional trials
have shown that eating nuts improves artery function,
and arterial diseases like heart disease are among
our leading killers. But that’s not all nuts can do.
They may also improve blood sugar control,
lower cholesterol, suppress inflammation,
reduce oxidative stress, and feed our friendly gut flora.
All nuts or just tree nuts?
What about peanuts? What about peanut butter?
About 50 percent of peanut consumption in the U.S.
is through peanut butter, but the association between
peanut butter and mortality has not been
thoroughly evaluated. To get that granular, though, we can call on
the NIH-AARP study, the largest prospective health
and diet study in history that followed more than
a half million people since the 1990s.
And…nut consumption in general appeared to protect
against all-cause mortality, meaning nut-eaters live,
on average, longer lives, and specifically, are less likely
to die from cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease,
infectious causes (so, maybe they help immunity as well),
liver disease, and kidney disease.
However, no such associations were found for peanut butter.
So, when it comes to living longer,
peanut butter doesn’t seem to count. Why?
Well, we know peanut butter consumers tend to eat
more meat, smoke cigarettes, and were less likely to exercise,
but the researchers controlled for all that:
red meat, white meat, tobacco use, exercise, and vegetables,
fruits, and whole grains; so, it’s not like
the peanut butter eaters were just eating more
white bread sandwiches or something.
The researchers didn’t control for sugar though,
so it’s possible they could have been eating more sugary jelly.
It could also be the processing that goes into making
peanut butter—the added transfat, oil, salt, and sugar—
but regular nuts are also often eaten
with added oil, sugar, and salt.
Could it just be the peanuts themselves?
Technically, they aren’t nuts, so maybe they just
don’t have the same benefits.
But no, a meta-analysis of all such studies found
the same nut-like benefits for whole peanuts,
but just not peanut butter.
Well, one thing missing from even no salt, oil-free,
sugar-free nut and seed butters is intact cellular structure.
As I noted in How Not to Diet, no matter how well we chew
whole or chopped nuts, some of the nutrients remain trapped
in tiny particles that deliver a bounty of
prebiotic goodness to our friendly flora.
That makes me wonder if there would have been any difference
between chunky and smooth peanut butter.
In the meanwhile there is compelling evidence to recommend
the use of nuts (preferably raw nuts over salted or toasted)
and whole or chopped nuts rather than nut butters,
at least three times a week in order to maximize
your chances of living longer and healthier lives.
In our next story, we look at what physicians can do
to promote healthy, life-extending,
lifestyle changes.
A pivotal paper published in Europe more than a decade ago
entitled “Healthy Living Is the Best Revenge” found that
adhering to just four simple healthy lifestyle factors
compared to none could potentially have a strong impact
on the prevention of chronic diseases;
we’re talking nearly 80 percent less chronic disease risk,
slashing diabetes risk by 93 percent,
dropping heart attack risk by 81 percent,
and cutting stroke risk in half, and cancer by 36 percent.
Think about what that means.
The potential for preventing disease and death is enormous.
In the U.S. alone every year, there are half a million
heart attacks, half a million strokes, a million new cases
of diabetes, and a million new cancer diagnoses.
The message is clear: adopting a few healthy behaviors
can have a major impact.
What are those four fabled factors?
Never smoking, not being obese, averaging about a half hour of
exercise a day, and adhering to healthy dietary principles,
like lots of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and less meat.
Follow those four simple rules and boom!
Enjoy nearly 80 percent reduced risk of major chronic diseases.
What does that mean for mortality risk?
A similar batch of four healthy
behaviors combined predicted
a four-fold difference in total mortality,
with an estimated impact equivalent to 14 years
in chronological age, meaning the individuals were dying at
such a reduced rate that it was as if they were 14 years younger.
“Finally, a Regimen to Extend Human Life Expectancy.”
This commentary was in reference to this study,
where a similar analysis of the impact of healthy
lifestyle behaviors on life expectancies was made,
but this time it looked directly at the U.S. population,
which is particularly important, since Americans have a
shorter life expectancy compared with residents
of nearly all other high-income countries.
The researchers concluded that adopting a healthy lifestyle
could substantially reduce premature mortality
and prolong life expectancy in U.S. adults.
Okay, but by how much?
They estimated that adherence to a low-risk lifestyle
could prolong life expectancy at age 50 by 14 years
in women and 12.2 years in men.
So, if you’re 50 right now, instead of only living to 79
if you’re a woman, and 75½ if you’re a man,
taking even just basic care of yourself could propel you
to an average life expectancy of 93 if you’re a woman
and 87½ if you’re a man.
The bottom line is it’s never too late to turn back the clock.
A midlife switch just to the basics, like at least
five servings fruits and vegetables a day,
walking even like 20 minutes a day,
maintaining a healthy weight, and not smoking
results in a substantial reduction in mortality
even in the following few years.
We’re talking a 40 percent lower risk of dying
in the subsequent four years.
So, making the necessary changes to adhere to a healthy
lifestyle could be considered extremely worthwhile,
and middle age is certainly not too late to act.
As an aside, realizing the 12 to 14 years of added life
study was based on data from health professionals,
that got me excited about all the potential knock-on effects.
If health professionals start getting healthier,
they could become role models for more healthful living
and potentially save more lives than just their own.
But that may have just been wishful thinking.
Practicing what you preach can sometimes backfire.
Evidently, “displays of excellence can paradoxically turn off
the very people they are trying to inspire.”
You’d assume that not being a hypocrite and trying
to walk the walk would just lead to positive consequences,
inspiring confidence in others, right?
Don’t you want a dance instructor who can dance, a music teacher
who can play, a health professional who’s healthy?
But this simple intuition fails to take into account
concerns about making other people feel inadequate.
Like you know how vegetarians are the targets of a
surprising amount of hostility and ridicule.
That’s because they may come off as morally superior
and make people feel like they’re being looked down upon.
There was an elegant demonstration of this phenomenon
in this study where “Principled deviants who take
the high road threaten others’ moral self-worth.”
This is what they did. Research subjects were asked
to complete a racist task by an experimenter,
and those moral rebels who refused to obey were cheered
by observers but were disparaged by participants
who had themselves gone through with it,
and for whom the rebel’s stance thus implied an indictment
of their spinelessness. Isn’t that interesting?
So, when doctors portray themselves as “the picture of health,”
patients might think they’re being holier-than-thou and
unintentionally alienate people, potentially turning off
the very patients who most need their help.
You can see how someone with a weight issue might feel
threatened and judged by a physician triathlete.
But what are we supposed to do?
We want healthy practitioners.
Physicians who smoke are less likely
to tell their patients to quit smoking,
physicians who are overweight
are less likely to counsel their patients about weight,
and physicians who don’t work out
are less likely to talk about exercise.
What we can do to make patients more comfortable
is emphasize that our role is to help people
meet their own personal health goals, whatever they may be.
Studies show that when doctors do this, take this approach,
it increases the appeal of fitness-focused physicians
to overweight patients.
So, we can then display exemplary behavior
while at the same time not inadvertently alienate
the very people who could benefit most from our guidance.
Finally today, we look at cancer-causing contaminants
in medication and meat.
In 2018, one of the bestselling blood pressure drugs,
valsartan—sold as Diovan—was found to be contaminated
by the “probably carcinogenic” nitrosamine known as
N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA).
It’s believed that approximately 20 million people worldwide
were prescribed the drug tainted with this contaminant
whose cancer risk has been shown to exceed that of many known
potent carcinogens, including asbestos, benzo[a]pyrene, and PCBs.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) estimated that
taking the drug for a few years could cause cancer in as many as
1 in 8,000 people, whereas the European equivalent of the FDA
estimated the cancer risk could be as high as 1 in 5,000.
It is unlikely, researchers wrote in this Spring 2019 paper,
that drugs like valsartan are a unique case.
And indeed, a few months later, the FDA announced
it had found NDMA in ranitidine.
Ranitidine, the acid reflux drug sold as Zantac,
is one of the most prescribed drugs on the planet,
in addition to being sold over the counter.
Give people a single tablet and the amount of NDMA flowing
through their bodies jumps up
more than a hundred-fold.
Then in 2020, some formulations of metformin, a popular diabetes drug
sold as Glucophage, were found to be contaminated.
The finding of NDMA in common medicines led the FDA to call for
the immediate withdrawal of all Zantac from store shelves,
yanking the drug from the market because their testing
showed NDMA levels could in some circumstances exceed
the acceptable daily intake limit of 96 nanograms per day.
It was so bad that the FDA found levels of this carcinogenic
contaminant NDMA in Zantac similar to the levels you would expect
to be exposed to if you ate grilled or smoked meats! Wait, what?
NDMA has not only been found in contaminating drugs.
It is a known byproduct of pesticide manufacturing,
leather tanning, and tire plants, and is found in multiple
foods and beverages, including processed meat and beer.
Now that we know NDMA can transfer through the placenta,
this may explain the relationship between maternal cured meat
consumption during pregnancy and the risk of childhood brain tumors.
For example, hot dog consumption during pregnancy may increase
childhood brain tumor risk by 33 percent
or sausage consumption by 44 percent.
Bacon consumption may increase childhood brain tumor odds
by 60 or 70 percent. But it’s not just processed meat.
Researchers have found it in poultry products as well.
A single serving of chicken contains more than 100 nanograms of NDMA.
Remember how the FDA said the acceptable daily intake limit
is 96 nanograms per day?
Half of a chicken breast contains
110.
Now, raw poultry doesn’t have any; it’s the cooking process.
In fact, the dry-heat cooking of meat, like broiling or grilling,
even creates airborne NDMA, releasing this very potent
carcinogenic compound into the air.
So, even if you’re only getting a salad or something in a
charcoal grill restaurant, just being indoors where meat
is being cooked could pose a signiﬁcant cancer risk.
These nitrosamines are also found in cigarette smoke,
and pressure was put on the tobacco industry to try to remove them,
arguing that there is simply no logical reason why a removable
carcinogen should be allowed to remain in a consumer product.
That’s the same reason Zantac was yanked from store shelves.
Okay, so let me get this straight.
One of the best-selling drugs in history was pulled from the market—
a drug that brought in billions of dollars—
because it contained a probable carcinogen that exceeded
the acceptable daily limit, but there may be more
of the contaminant in a single serving of chicken!
So, my question is:
why aren’t they pulling the poultry off the shelves as well?
We would love it if you could share with us your stories
about reinventing your health through evidence-based nutrition.
Go to nutritionfacts.org/testimonials.
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To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, or studies mentioned here,
please go to the Nutrition Facts Podcast landing page.
There you’ll find all the detailed information you need –
plus, links to all of the sources we cite to each of these topics.
For a timely text on the pathogens that cause pandemics,
order the e-book, audiobook, or hard copy
of my last book, “How to Survive a Pandemic”.
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It’s beautifully designed with more than 100 recipes
for delicious and nutritious meals.
And all the proceeds I receive from the sales
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