Column #1

This is the age of chronic disease.  Children are overweight, maturing earlier, have asthma, allergies, mental disorders, and more while sometimes contracting what were once only adult diseases.  Many in their late thirties, for sure their forties, are under a doctor’s care.  Most over 60 take drugs, endure operations, and an alarming number die prematurely.  The answer in a Center for Disease Control study regarding prescription drug use “in the prior month” by age was: 0-11: 22.4%; 12-19: 29.9%; 20-59: 48.3%; 60+: 88.4%.

People seem to believe that aging and sickness go hand in hand.  Illness is their right of passage to maturity and becomes their main topic of conversation in what they all have in common: their latest ailments.

Healthcare costs are nearly 18% of our nation’s GNP with 86% spent on chronic diseases.  Chronic diseases are primarily body failures.  Are human bodies prone to fail?

Scientists say man is maybe four million years old.  All those years, food was natural and survival of the fittest honed bodies into resilient “machines.”  These “machines” were constructed with the best metals, oiled with the best lubricants, powered by the best fuels, and managed by the best systems.

What’s happening today?  Are we lazy?  Are pollution, GMOs, and agricultural chemicals to blame?  Are soils no longer fertile?  Do we eat too much red meat, fat, and salt?  The list of “it’s them” is endless.  The Center for Disease Control doesn’t have answers for those issues.  Yet there is one universal constant for all Americans: traditional food choices.  Food is the greatest chemical load bodies ingest.

For decades nutritional scientists have understood the fundamental chemistry required for optimal body function.  In the 1980s evidence really piled up.  From 1984 through 1989, in just the area of marine oils, fish oils, and Omega-3 fatty acids, there were 1,468 publications in MEDLINE (National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health).

Those reports extolling Omega-3 (n3) benefits propelled “good fats” onto the national stage.  But all too quickly the fundamental importance, source, and definition of the n3 deficiency was lost in the media and by marketers of foods and supplements.  If you ask 1,000 health food store patrons about n3, only one may know how to define the n3 deficiency.

Nutritional science is advanced and specialized.  Unfortunately, most medical practitioners have not been educated adequately about nutrition and have only common knowledge, not expertise.  Yet the basic fundamentals of nutrition are simple.  Foods that optimize health and well-being can be identified as well as those that cause bodies to fail.  The animal kingdom, on land and sea, always gets it right.  But man’s inventive ways caused him to abandon the foundation food for all animal life that must be at the bottom of his food chain: the green leaf.  That is the world’s only sustainable life form.

Future columns will address critical dietary guidelines for optimal body function.  The basics involve nutrient completeness and density, glycemic loads, and essential fat balances.

To your health.

Ted Slanker

Ted Slanker has been reporting on the fundamentals of nutritional research in publications, television and radio appearances, and at conferences since 1999. He condenses complex studies into the basics required for health and well-being. His eBook, The Real Diet of Man, is available online.

For additional reading:

Omega-3 Fatty Acids in Health and Disease and in Growth and Development

Man Is an Extension of the Leafy, Green Plant