The benefits of a healthy lifestyle are legion. Helping folks in Southwest Florida live longer, happier and healthier lives has always been a commitment for NCH. We are now being joined in this noble pursuit by many organizations including the Greater Naples Chamber of Commerce and Collier County Health Department, just to name a few of the leaders.

Integral to this effort is individual responsibility. Daily pursuit of healthy activities and behaviors needs to be ingrained into our core values. In addition to daily exercise and avoiding tobacco, what we eat has a huge influence on the quality and length of our lives.

In the very interesting 2006 book The China Study, father and son authors, T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell, describe many long, complicated and sophisticated demographic studies that point to the benefits of a plant-based diet. These benefits include living longer, feeling younger, being more energetic and controlling weight, blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar. Plant-based diets can also decrease the risks of suffering from many diseases including cancer, heart disease and mental deterioration.

Eight interrelated principles have been shared which, in general, are just good common sense.

1. Nutrition represents the combined activities of countless food substances, and the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. By combining foods you achieve a biochemical bonanza according to The China Study, all of which interact to be beneficial.

2. Vitamin supplements are not a panacea for good health. Isolated nutrients do not make up for a healthy, varied diet. Over the past decades more money has been spent on vitamins, based on marketing rather than evidence. Very few people who have a reasonable diet benefit from any vitamin supplement. In fact, the amount of vitamin spilled over into the urine equals what is ingested when folks already have a reasonable diet. The message is to consume vitamins in food, not as supplements.

3. Virtually no nutrients in animal-based foods are better than those found in plant-based foods. Eating animal-based foods is markedly different than plant-based foods in terms of the excess cholesterol found in animal foods, versus appropriate amounts of beta-carotene, fiber, folate, Vitamin C, and some of the minerals that are bountiful in plant-based diets. Maintaining a low protein diet has been shown to be beneficial. There is one exception and that is Vitamin B12 which is necessary and not found in abundance in plants. As man evolved we lost the ability to make Vitamin B12 in our bodies, though some other mammals still can.

4. Genes do not determine disease on their own. Genes activated by environmental factors such as poor diet, tobacco use or lack of exercise can cause disease. However, if genes are not activated, even though these genes may predispose to disease, there may not be any harm. There are huge variations in the incidence of disease in people with essentially the same genes. Environment including diet plays a large role.

5. Nutrition can substantially control the adverse effects of noxious chemicals. We understand that a good diet can ameliorate some of the effects of noxious forces around our surroundings. Obviously, a better solution is to remove the noxious environment. For example, trying to make a healthy potato chip is not nearly as effective as avoiding potato chips.

6. The same nutrition which prevents disease in its early stages can help slow down disease in later stages. Diabetics can improve at any stage of their illness with good diet control. Heart disease at any stage can be helped by a diet low in salt and cholesterol. Dont give up because you got a late start.

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The Doctor Is In: We are what we eat: More evidence proving that mainly plant-based diet is best