Diet therapy is a tool used to support the treatment of major lifestyle diseases like cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and cancer. Some listed triggers for these diseases include food, exposure to repeated stimuli of oxidants and carcinogens like smoke, radiation, pollution, inactive and sedentary habits, inadequate sleep, and genetic causes.
Much scientific research validates the important role of diet therapy in illness prevention and cure of lifestyle and other diseases. Diet is being used to treat many cardiovascular diseases. Dr. Esselstyn’s popular book on heart disease -Prevent and Reverse Heart disease, describes his diet therapy experiments on chronic patients with heart disease in detail.
Much research supports that shifting to a plant-based diet can help reverse type 2 diabetes. My research on natural solutions for cancer, diabetes, and obesity presents a lot of scientific evidence on the role of food in disease prevention. However, this research also concludes that diet needs to be supported with exercise and modern medicine to reverse lifestyle diseases effectively. Indeed, I conclude that no single factor – food, exercise, natural solutions, and medicine- is successful. It is a combination that gives the best results.
Diet therapy uses food and nutrition as therapeutic tools to treat and prevent various health conditions. Diet therapy can involve modifying an individual’s current diet to improve their health or prescribing a specific diet to treat a specific health condition.
Some examples of diet therapy include:
- Low-fat diets: Used to lower cholesterol levels and reduce the risk of heart disease.
- Low-carb diets: Used to manage diabetes, as well as for weight loss.
- Gluten-free diets: Used to manage celiac disease, a condition in which the small intestine cannot absorb gluten.
- Elimination diets: Used to identify food sensitivities or allergies by eliminating specific foods from the diet and then slowly reintroducing them to see if symptoms reappear.
- Anti-inflammatory diets: Used to reduce inflammation in the body, which is thought to contribute to various health conditions, including heart disease, arthritis, and cancer.
- High-protein diets: Used for weight loss and to maintain muscle mass.
- Mediterranean diets: High in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, healthy fats, and low in red meat and processed foods. This diet has been linked to numerous health benefits, including a reduced risk of heart disease, stroke, and some types of cancer.
It’s important to note that while diet therapy can be an effective tool for improving health, it is not a one-size-fits-all approach.
This is a vast subject. I would not like to make sweeping statements in favor of or against food to remedy disease.
Additional reading: The link to the three books quoted below is https://amzn.to/3dovSuY