I haven’t posted much in awhile for a few reasons: no studies on vegetarians have been released in some time, I have been spending most of my nights and weekends upgrading Vegan Outreach’s Adopt a College website, and my wife and I have been planning a move from Oakland to Davis, CA. A very busy summer.

During this time, Dr. Michael Greger, the hardest working man in vegan nutrition, has released 3 DVDs. I finally watched them this past week. The first is a 1-hour talk he recently gave, Uprooting the Leading Causes of Death, in which he presents evidence that a plant-based diet can reduce the risk of most of the top 15 causes of death in the USA. The other two DVDs, Volume 9 and 10 of his Latest in Clinical Nutrition series covered some interesting topics. Here were the highlights for me:

– Meat causes a general state of inflammation in the body, which is linked to heart disease, and this is primarily due to the endotoxin load from the bacteria in these foods.
– Green tea and kiwi = awesome.
– Magnesium is important for preventing sudden cardiac death and the best sources are whole grains and leafy greens.
– Plant foods boost serotonin levels better than does meat.
– Plant proteins are incomplete, but this is good because their incompleteness prevents the production of the protein IGF-1 which is lower in vegans. But plant protein is not so incomplete that it prevents the production of IGF-1 Binding Protein, which is higher in vegans. The combination of low IGF-1 and high IGF-1 Binding Protein should significantly decreases the risk of cancer.

And, as always, the DVDs were loaded with all the ways in which meat gets contaminated and causes foodborne illnesses.

Whenever I get done watching one of Dr. Greger’s DVD’s I find it amazing that people who eat meat can live more than a few weeks. Dr. Greger points out that while the lifespan has increased in the USA, the sickspan (length of time at the end of people’s lives that is spent sick) has increased even more.

As always, for anyone interested in nutrition, I highly recommend these DVDs or subscribing to the daily videos at Dr. Greger’s website NutritionFacts.org.

Now I need to get this posted, as I imagine the next one is on its way!

This entry was posted on Friday, August 17th, 2012 at 10:02 am and is filed under Misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.