The Beauty Detox Solution Read Online Free PDF

animal-based foods—and disease. As Dr. Campbell summarizes: “Plant-based foods are linked to lower blood cholesterol; animal-based foods are linked to higher blood cholesterol. Animal-based foods are linked to higher breast cancer rates; plant-based foods are linked to lower rates. Fiber and antioxidants from plants are linked to a lower risk of cancers of the digestive tract. Plant-based diets and active lifestyles result in a healthy weight, yet permit people to become big and strong.” 14
    HEART DISEASE
    Heart disease is currently the number one cause of death for both men and women in America. According to the American Heart Association, 20 cardiovascular disease affects over eighty-one million Americans for a stunning total of 37 percent of the American population. 21
    Dr. Dean Ornish is a Harvard Medical School graduate and a pioneer in the connection between heart disease and diet. Dr. Ornish headed up the research in the Lifestyle Heart Trial, 22 in which he treated twenty-eight heart disease patients with lifestyle changes alone, without any medications or surgery. For a year the twenty-eight patients in the experimental group were asked to eat a plant-based, low-fat diet (about 10 percent of their daily calories coming from fat). They could eat as much food as they wanted from the allowable food list, which contained primarily greens and other vegetables, whole grains and fruit. No animal food products were allowed at all, except some egg white and a maximum of one cup of nonfat milk or yogurt per day. The patients exercised three hours a week and practiced various forms of stress management, like meditation and breathing exercises. During this year Dr. Ornish also tracked a control group of twenty patients that were put on a standard treatment plan for heart disease.
    The results were nothing short of fantastic. Eighty-two percent of the patients in the experimental group that were eating the plant-based diet had a regression in their heart disease over the course of the year. The blockages in their arteries diminished. This group had a 91 percent reduction in the frequency of chest pain, their total cholesterol dropped on average from 227 mg/dL to 172 mg/dL and, on average, their “bad” LDL cholesterol fell from 152 mg/dL to 95 mg/dL. In contrast, those in the control group, who received the standard care, saw a 165 percent rise in the frequency of chest pain. Their cholesterol levels were significantly worse than those of members of the experimental group, and the blockages in their arteries increased by up to 8 percent.
    This success inspired Dr. Ornish to expand the Lifestyle Heart Trial into the Multicenter Lifestyle Demonstration Project. 23 Patients with serious heart disease enrolled in a one-year lifestyle program as an alternative to heart surgery. By 1998 two hundred people had taken part in the program. After one year of treatment chest pain was eliminated for 65 percent of patients, and after three years 60 percent of the patients continued reporting no chest pain. We can see from Dr. Ornish’s research how a plant-based diet with little to no animal products has serious implications for the battle against heart disease and the restoration of health.
    DIABETES
    Another disease we should touch upon is diabetes. According to the American Diabetes Association, as of 2007 over 23.6 million Americans have diabetes, which is roughly 8 percent of the American population. 24 Type 2 diabetes (also known as adult-onset diabetes, though it’s becoming more and more prevalent in younger individuals) is on the rise. Diabetes treatments cost something to the tune of $174 billion in the United States in 2007. 25 Besides greatly increasing the risk for heart disease, stroke and high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes comes with such terrifying complications as blindness, amputation and kidney disease.
    The good news is that studies show that the diet we choose to eat can not only prevent