What Can We Do That Has The Most Impact On Our Health?

What Can We Do That Has The Most Impact On Our Health –

Including Lessening the Impact of COVID?

We can change our health outcomes with simple changes to what we eat!

Now the festive season is over we can really focus on leaving behind the foods that lead to poor health

As Dr David Katz states ‘Diet is the Single Most Important Predictor of Health’ (Katz,2019) and he notes the succinct statement made by Michael Pollan: “eat food, not too much, mostly plants”.
The best message I can give you all for the New Year is ‘Eat as close to how Nature intended as possible’. We all need a slightly different approach because we are all individuals, with different constitutions, different energy outputs, different cultural and personal tastes etc, however this statement can be used for all – and ditch the addictive junk food – as Dr Katz says ‘Food cannot be junk; junk cannot be food’!!.
As is recognised by leading scientists in Nutrition today: ‘a good diet is associated with more years in life and more life in years – we don’t want to live to an old age in decrepitude and we can change this, but don’t wait until illness is entrenched!

Personalised Diet

Dr Tim Spector (2021), a reknown genetic epidemiologist, has spent many years researching how a personalised diet is the best way forward and how the microbes we house in our gut make a profound effect on the way we utilise the food we eat. He has studied over 13,000 pairs of twins and has noted that while our genes play a part in our destiny, the biggest players are the mighty but microscopic microbes we house in the Gut. The greater the diversity of microbes we house, the easier we manage weight and reduce health risks. The microbial genera we want to dominate are Akkermansia and Christensenella and we encourage these by eating at least 30 different types of whole plant foods weekly – more if you can and this includes – nuts, seeds, spices, herbs as well as all the wonderful array of healthy vegetables and fruit, lentils and pulses. Here is a great starter breakfast: 35-45gms mixed nuts and seeds with a handful of berries and a tablespoon of live plain yoghurt – sets you feeling great for the day –  vary the nuts and vary the berries.  

Calories and Quality

Stop counting calories and instead assess the quality of the food – food calories are not equal in their effect on the body. Food needs to be ‘real’ and close to Natures intent, so our bodies know what to do with it and respond to the food messages for health and wellbeing.
We also want to cut down on the carbohydrates, especially all those highly refined and processed carbs! If you don’t use them they store as fat around the middle, increase our triglyceride count, make us sluggish…
When you eat a high content of carbs. such as bread, potato, cakes etc up goes your blood sugar and then in a short time a blood sugar dip occurs and you crave sweet food again and feel hungry – don’t be fooled by calories – we need quality food.

For an individualised/personalised diet plan to support your health needs contact:

Jane Rose-Land BSc Nutritional Medicine, BANT, CNHC. email jane@nutritioninnorfolk.co.uk

References

David L. Katz.Alternative and Complementary Therapies.Dec 2019.280-284.http://doi.org/10.1089/act.2019.29244.dlk published in Volume: 25 Issue 6: December 3, 2019

Tim Spector – ‘Is a personalised diet the secret to long-term health?’ Interveiw  with Jim Al-Khalili about the need for personalised diverse diets – on Radio 4, ‘The Life Scientific’ October 19^th 2021