Translator: Hélène Vernet Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
Thank you.
I love nutritional science.
I've had a passion about nutrition since I was young.
I remember
that my father suffered with medical problems and pains,
conditions the medical profession couldn't help him with,
and he searched for answers.
Finally, he changed his diet, lost 50 pounds and got well.
In the process of seeing him suffering and searching,
I found excitement and developed interest in the subject.
He'd brought 50 nutritional books into the home, and I read them all.
Then, in the early 1970s,
I was on the United States world figure skating team,
and I got hurt, and I couldn't walk for over a year.
I spent some time in a natural health,
in a kind of natural health retreat
watching people get well who changed their diet styles,
and I got excited about what I saw.
I remember at my sister's graduation party from college,
I met an attractive young woman
who told me she applied to go to medical school.
And I debated with her.
I said, "What do you want go to medical school for?
Doctors mostly prescribe medications for conditions
that are a result of the toxic diet Americans are eating."
It's like hitting yourself with a hammer every day
and giving your hand a big smash; then it gets swollen and full of pain.
Then you go to a doctor and get pain medications for it,
and the next day you take a big hammer and smack it again!
It's the toxic American lifestyle
that's resulting in all these diseases driving people into the doctors' offices.
The toxic foods we're eating are the hammer.
You don't want to go to a doctor
if you've breathing problems from smoking cigarettes,
and he gives you a drug to help you breathe better
and you still continue to smoke; that's what Americans are doing.
So this young woman said to me,
"If you're so passionate about this subject,
why don't you go to medical school?
Why don't you change things? Why don't you help people?"
I obviously thought about that and said, "You know, I've got to do that."
I quit my job as an executive in my family's chain of shoe stores.
I went back to the postgraduate premedical program
at Columbia after college.
I went to medical school, and I'm here to tell you
about the excitement, the rewarding experience,
and to give you a taste of the things I've seen and the fun I've had.
I want to show you
six representative cases of people who changed their life,
to show you the power of a "nutriterian diet."
But before I do, let me give you
maybe a two-minute overview of what a nutriterian diet is,
because a nutriterian diet is a diet style that's designed
to be rich in nutrients and full of antioxidants and phytochemicals.
It's a diet style with a high nutrient-per-calorie density.
Your healthy life expectancy
is determined on the foods you choose to eat.
You have to get sufficient nutrient bang for each caloric buck.
But you know, when you do so,
when you flood your body with the nutrients it needs,
it doesn't just make you healthy and live long or prevent disease,
it stops food addictions and food cravings,
normalizes your appetite,
and makes your body gravitate towards your ideal weight, effortlessly.
It's the secret for most of what ails us.
A nutriterian diet, sure, it's rich in nutrients,
with an adequate amount of what we need nutrient-wise,
but it is also very different
from the style Americans are eating right now.
Americans are eating a diet
that's dramatically nutritionally deficient.
Americans are eating a diet
with 55% of calories from processed and refined foods
that don't contain vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals,
and 30% of animal products.
A diet with less than 5% of calories from fruits and vegetables
and natural, nutrient-rich produce aside from white potato -
we're only eating about 5% of vegetation and produce -
couldn't be better designed to create a nation full of diseases
like heart attacks, strokes, dementia and cancer,
had it be designed by Al-Qaeda.
(Laughter)
Besides the fact of what it's lacking,
a "nutritarian" diet is also designed
to be low in those hormones that promote cancer and aging,
hormones like excessive amounts of insulin and excessive amounts of IGF-1,
that's Insulin-like Growth factor-1, the primary hormone that promotes cancers
like breast cancer and prostate cancer.
I say, "The whiter the bread, the sooner you're dead,"
(Laughter)
because the more you eat sooths like sugar and white flour,
the more it promotes weight gain and cancer.
And I say, "The more you eat green, the more you get lean,"
because if you eat more greens and beans and less meat,
it lowers IGF-1, which stops cancer in its tracks
and doesn't promote the progression of fat on your body
and cancer-cell proliferation.
We have a unique opportunity in human History, today,
with the exponential advances in nutritional science
that have given us the power, the power of G-bombs -
G-B-O-M-B-S -
these foods I call our "Immune System Special Forces" -
greens, beans, onions, mushrooms, berries and seeds -
these foods that inhibit fat storage on the body,
foods that prevent cancer, foods that prolong our lifespan.
The details of that is not my message or the purpose of this presentation.
These people are.
Let me show you the power of what a nutritarian diet can do.
Here's Robert. I never met Robert; he just read one of my books.
Robert was in a wheelchair.
Today, not only is he not in a wheelchair, he can work all day on his feet.
Robert had rheumatoid arthritis and was on four highly toxic drugs
to reduce his pain from rheumatoid arthritis.
Today, he has no rheumatoid arthritis. He's off all his toxic medications.
He no longer has diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure.
He's off those medications too.
The main story here is not merely that he lost 200 pounds,
the story is that Robert no longer has medical conditions.
He no longer has rheumatoid arthritis like millions of Americans do.
The point here is you don't have to be sick and be suffering
and be tied to medications for the rest of your life.
Take Heather.
Heather is another person who suffered most of her life.
She suffered with terrible, horrible headaches and migraines most of her life.
She even took pills that cost $100 for each single individual pill,
and she still had headaches all day long.
She suffered of course with allergies and insomnia and anxiety
and was also on multiple medications.
Heather lost 75 pounds.
She wrote me a letter, an email, and she said,
"You know, I'm all better.
It's the greatest feeling in the world, never to suffer of headaches anymore.
I don't have insomnia; I don't need pills for depression and anxiety anymore.
I'm well. I don't have menstrual pain."
She said, "The wonderful thing is when you fix the whole body,
everything gets taken care of simultaneously."
It makes you think of all the people that are suffering and have been told
they have to be on medication for the rest of their life with no way out.
Then, there's Donna from Kentucky.
Stories like this, I hear a hundred times a month.
She was in so much pain, she couldn't get out of bed or off the couch.
When she was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, her rheumatologist told her
that she'd have to take these medications for pain for the rest of her life.
Of course, Donna Depp got well. She lost 62 pounds in the process.
She is feeling well, and she made the effort
to take the drive from Kentucky up to New Jersey
where I was having one of my weekend immersion programs,
she came up specifically to meet me and to talk to me and thank me.
It is so rewarding, wonderful and warm
to meet these people who have recovered their health.
She said to me, "I was a food addict.
You know, for 20 years I tried one diet after another,
and I knew I was in a downward spiral I couldn't get out of."
Her life was unhappy and she felt completely hopeless with it.
She said she felt like she was a failure, and I said,
"Donna, you're not a failure.
It's the information you were given that has failed you.
With the right information, you have the ability to be set free,
to take control of your life, to get rid of your food addictions."
It's wonderful to meet these people.
You see their happiness and their gratitude.
Sometimes, you can almost feel like your tears come to the eyes
when you hear some of these stories.
Here is Ronnie from Texas, a perfect example.
Ronnie had a heart disease
and had a bypass surgery about six years ago.
Within four years after his bypass surgery,
his vessels clogged up again and got fully occluded with plaque.
Then he proceeded to have angioplasty.
Within a few months after angioplasty, he could develop restenosis
and now he all couldn't walk, had tremendous chest pain,
was on multiple medications; he was literally sent home to die.
I'd never met Ronnie either.
He read my books and he communicated with me through the website.
Ronnie lost 140 pounds in one year, which isn't the story.
The story is that his chest pains went away,
he's now fit, healthy, has no heart disease.
He doesn't have high cholesterol but great cholesterol and no drugs.
He has normal blood pressure.
He's not on three medications like he used to be,
but on no blood pressure medications.
His weight is normal. He is feeling well.
He achieved these numbers to protect himself
without the use of medications, that's how we know now he's protected.
He truly reversed his condition and knows he's protected for his future.
The message here is that scientific studies show
that angioplasty and bypass surgery don't enable people to live longer.
Those who go through those procedures don't live longer than those who don't,
with the same degree of disease.
They don't prevent future heart attacks, they're just a temporary band-aid
to make people feel better for a temporary period of time.
Why aren't people told this? Why don't people know?
Why doesn't everyone know they don't have to have heart attacks,
they don't have to have strokes,
that these diseases are reversible relatively easily?
Ronnie was set free.
Jodie from nearby here, right in North Carolina.
Jodie suffered with psoriasis for many years.
Actually, she suffered from psoriatic arthritis,
which is like a mixture of psoriasis and rheumatoid arthritis
that could involve itchy rash over your whole body plus joint pains.
By the time Jodie was 50 years old, she had the rash over her whole body,
including an itchy rash inside her ears, from head to toe.
She was on multiple medications, including Prednisone, Plaquenil, Methotrexate,
to try to suppress the autoimmune conditions.
Autoimmune diseases like this affect 24 million Americans.
The most prevalent one is psoriasis,
which affects more than 7.5 million Americans.
Jodie has been well for the last 12 years.
She doesn't have psoriatic arthritis nor psoriasis anymore, her skin is clear.
By the time she first got diagnosed with psoriasis when she was a teenager,
soon after, she got diagnosed with lupus, Sjogren's syndrome,
and eventually, the joint pain of psoriatic arthritis.
After being in pain for more than 25 years,
being on medications that hardly gave her any relief,
she found out how she could finally get well, and she did.
I remember we have these health getaways
where I take a lot of people on these vacations.
We eat healthy and teach them about nutrition.
Jodie came with us to Utah to climb the Red Mountains.
We took a bunch of people, and we walked up this huge mountain.
We got to the top, and it was like a thrill
to see the beautiful countryside at the top of this mountain.
Jodi got to the highest point of that peak and put her arms up in the air
like a "V" for Victory, and she said, "Look at me, I'm a medical miracle!"
I said to Jodie, "You know Jodie, I'm so proud of you,
but it's not a medical miracle.
It's the inherent self-repairing, miraculous,
protective self-healing machine the human body is already
when it is fed optimally.
Your body takes care of itself, just like when you cut yourself.
It's the health that you always had the right to
that was taken away from you."
And number six, the last person we will talk about, is John Polikowski.
And I bring him up, John from New Jersey,
because my office is in New Jersey, and again,
I saw him as a patient more than 20 years ago when he was 72 years old.
He too had triple vessel disease in his heart
and chest pain where he couldn't walk without significant pain.
He actually had worked with a cardiologist,
and the cardiologist set him up for a stress test,
a cardiac catheterization,
and he was scheduled for angioplasty and stent placement.
I pleaded with him and I convinced him.
I said, "John, give me 12 weeks of your life
to show you that you can get back in good health again,
because once you put those stents in, you're never going to be the same.
It's going to be a source of inflammation,
it's going to promote more stenosis and more plaque in your heart.
Let's get rid of it, here's our chance! Give me 12 weeks."
In 12 weeks time, his chest pains were gone;
he lost 40 pounds;
he didn't have high blood pressure and his three medications had dropped too.
He went back to see his cardiologist.
The cardiologist says to him, "Oh my goodness, John,
I've never seen anybody reverse heart disease nutritionally,
and have it melt away like this, this is amazing!"
Can you imagine a cardiologist,
who does nothing except see patients with heart conditions,
never once ever saw a patient reverse their heart disease with nutrition?
When that's all I see: every patient gets better relatively quickly.
You know ... What's the story here with John?
The story is, now, 20 years later, John is 92 years old.
Over the years, he's gotten healthier and healthier.
He doesn't have any heart disease now.
He chops wood. He climbs up and fixes his roof.
He enjoys his life.
He doesn't take medications in his 90's that he needed in his 60's and 70's.
You follow that? He has normal blood pressure now, normal cholesterol.
He's earned these things. He hasn't been well for 90 years.
My point is that water runs off the waterfall and hits a rock.
Then after 20,000 years, the rock breaks in two.
But the rock didn't age.
It got hit by water day after day for 20,000 years.
When you develop the problems that most Americans get,
you get those problems because day after day,
you've put stresses on your tissues
from eating the wrong foods that we shouldn't be eating,
from living a diet style and a lifestyle of stresses
that impact you negatively day after day, year after year.
This is not the natural consequence of ageing.
Heart attacks, strokes and dementia doesn't have to happen.
We don't have to have heart disease.
All of us could be free of that if we so choose.
As a matter of fact, most cardiologists can then become
lawyers, electricians and plumbers!
(Laughter)
Nevertheless, here's the point.
My message to you today is that, sure,
nutritional science has made exponential advances in recent years -
I love nutritional science -
but the point is it's not just preventive.
Sure, we don't have to have heart attacks,
we don't have to have strokes or get demented.
And yes, we can win the war on cancer: we have the information right now
in the studies that show the body is protective against cancer.
We can make these choices and have better health
than ever before possible in human History.
And my point for today
is that nutritional excellence, a "nutriterian" diet,
is therapeutically more effective than medications
for almost every medical condition,
and the results can literally touch your heart.
And that's my message for today.
And you know?
That woman, that pretty young woman
who spurred me on to go to medical school, back 35 years ago?
Well, I married her.
(Laughter)
Now, I am married for 32 years.
I've four wonderful children.
And I am on a mission to share the power of nutritional excellence.
So I'm wishing you all you reach your dreams and pursue your passions,
and have much happiness and great health always
because it can be yours.
Thank you.
(Applause)