I ran across this article today that fascinates me. Scientists are finding that a good diet will affect our health in more ways than have ever been understood before. Edibles (actual food rather than just vitamins) provide amazing benefits that increase cognitive ability, memory, disease prevention, energy levels and the ageing process.
I watch my over-60 mother run circles around me every day. She has for many years insisted on watching her diet and exercise, avoiding any type of medication and staying both mentally and physically active. She is twice my age and has twice my energy and stamina. Mom is my personal proof that pharmaceuticals are overrated and nutrition is the key to a long, healthy life.
Below is a small selection from the article. It's definitely worth your time to click thru and read the entire article. It might change or even save your life.
When I was 7 years old, I read in the sequel to Little Women that oatmeal made you smart. So I demanded that my mother feed me oatmeal on the day of my spelling test. I ate oatmeal before every test I ever took from elementary school through grad school. I even made my mother mail me oatmeal when I had a big exam during my semester abroad; later I thanked both my mom and Quaker Oats: I got a perfect score.
My mother chalked up my success to superstition. But I still believe that the oatmeal itself made a difference. And now it looks like science will prove me and the book's heroine, Jo March, right.
Like just about anything we eat, oatmeal influences the way our brains function. Food, after all, gives our bodies the raw materials to build everything from noses to neurons and the ability to operate them efficiently. Some materials make for better outcomes than others, as a flood of studies attest.
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"Food has a greater impact on health than previously known," declares a report released by the Institute of Food Technologists. "New evidence-based science linking diet to disease and disease prevention" has "blurred the line between food and medicine." Nutrients influence body processes at the molecular level, turning our very genes on and off. The emerging understanding of molecular nutrition, says the IFT, "has the potential to revolutionize diet, nutrition and food products, and health care."
Scarcely a week goes by when scientists don't make some discovery about the health-enhancing properties of food, from the cancer-fighting abilities of brussels sprouts to the anti-Alzheimer's effects of anchovies. For the nation's nutritional scientists, that presents a significant problem: There's no longer a clear boundary between foods and drugs. In some cases—antioxidant-rich cranberry juice, for example—the health claims for nutrients actually have to be soft-pedaled, lest they trigger regulations that require foods to undergo the same approval process as drugs. The IFT is urging the Food and Drug Administration to adopt reasonable procedures for demonstrating safety and efficacy of foods that are, well, more than foods—what some people call "nutraceuticals."
