The Future of Nutrition
To see what the future holds in the field of nutrition, let’s take a quick journey through some fascinating new scientific discoveries and developments. The profound impact these factors will have on human health and disease is a very exciting aspect of our dynamic progression towards wellness. This journey will focus on the healing properties of foods and end with developments that will have a direct influence on the state of our health, the cost of healthcare, and the spawning of new business opportunities. We will learn of new discoveries that can potentially save millions of lives and increase our vitality, longevity and quality of life.
An important starting point for achieving optimum health is through utilizing optimum nutrition. Optimum nutrition helps maintain good health in a dilapidated environment, fights off disease, corrects imbalances in the body and provides energy and enthusiasm for life. Each year the average American eats twelve pounds of food additives and a gallon of pesticides, not to mention all the air-born pollutants that are inhaled! It’s no wonder our bodies are overworked, overburdened, and no longer able to adequately eliminate all these foreign substances.
Diet-related diseases include, but are not limited to, coronary heart disease, hypertension, stroke, non-insulin dependent diabetes, various cancers and osteoporosis. These diseases take the lives of millions of people each year and cost us billions of dollars in healthcare.
According to the National Academy of Sciences, 60 percent of all cancers in women and 40 percent of all cancers in men may be due to dietary and nutritional factors. Consequently, diet and nutrition are the principle preventative measures against cancer, and the ones over which people have the most control. It is this consistent correlation between diet and disease that offers not only nutritional challenges but also great opportunities for the future.
In actuality, there are two very different ends to the nutrition spectrum. On one side, more and more processed and fast foods are showing up on the market and consumer demand and ignorance are on an increase with respect to compromising health for convenience.
But on the other side, there is also a growing number of people who are shunning the mainstream supply of “dead” foods and turning instead towards organic whole foods that nourish their bodies instead of poisoning it. You may have noticed new and exciting varieties of foods that are enriched with different herbs, vitamins and minerals. In all probabilities this industry will continue to grow and prosper and many foods will be specially tailored to improve health and extend life.
History in the Making
Modern scientific advances have a huge impact in the area of discovering the healing potential in foods. You may be aware that there have been three phases in our understanding of the role of foods and nutrients and their biological processes.
Firstly, the issue of sustenance, the understanding that humans, like other biological systems, require a daily intake of particular nutrients to support fundamental activities -- for example energy is essential for growth, development and daily activities.
Secondly, a recognition that deficiency disorders may occur when one or more specific nutrients necessary for health and life are absent from the diet. For example, up until the 18th century many people on long ocean journeys would die of scurvy.
Today we are entering the third phase, the recognition that certain constituents in food have a health potential that goes beyond sustenance and differs from deficiency. We now know that there are many foods which can actively improve health. A great amount of this understanding is a consequence of discoveries in the areas of nutrition, biochemistry and physiology. For example, there is ample evidence to suggest that humans, as well as other living creatures, are exposed to substances called free radicals. Free radicals are highly reactive molecules that can bind to and destroy cellular compounds. Free radicals may be derived from our environment (sunlight, X rays, pollution), ingested in our food, or produced within our bodies during chemical reactions. Many of them are derived from oxygen and they can be damaging to our cell membranes, proteins and genes.
These unwanted free radicals have been linked to a number of human diseases, including atherosclerosis, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, cataracts, osteoarthritis and immune deficiency.
How can we minimize the effects of these dangerous free radicals? One possibility is to look and see how other organisms tackle such a process. Plants, for example, are also exposed to free radicals, often as a consequence of exposure to and utilization of ultraviolet light but they have developed special molecules known as phytochemicals which have the ability to destroy unwanted free radicals. The potential now exists to identify particular plants that have these special agents that can act in unison with our immune system to reduce the impact of free radical damage and thereby lower the risk of degenerative disease. We are now aware that many fruits and vegetables contain not only important vitamins and minerals, but also powerful compounds called antioxidants.
Healing Foods
Broadly speaking, there are three major categories of foods that possess great healing properties. The first category is made up of foods (and drinks, e.g. red wine and tea) that contain the previously mentioned antioxidants. These are currently being studied for their ability to prevent the unwanted oxidation process in the early stages of diseases such as cardiovascular disease.
The second category is composed of foods that contain essential fatty acids, such as certain vegetable oils, nuts and seeds, and fish. These help protect our blood vessels from the effects of cholesterol, help lower blood pressure, nourish the brain, and protect the cardiovascular system.
The third category of foods that are very important for prevention, maintenance, and the reestablishment of health consist of foods that are rich in fiber. These include whole grain breads, pastas, rice, cereals, legumes, fruits, and vegetables. High-fiber foods help protect our gastrointestinal tract, keep us regular and ward off deadly diseases like colon cancer.
Conclusion
In the next few years the discovery (or rediscovery) of the healing properties in foods will certainly have a tremendous impact on our lives, health and economy. This knowledge will help not only extend our longevity and improve our quality of life but also reduce the direct and indirect health care costs attributed to diet-related diseases in America.
We can definitely expect a continued discovery of foods that have a positive influence on our health. There will also be an increasing number of people taking personal responsibility for their well-being, opening the way for new market segments and stimulating the development of new industries, products, and services in the field of nutrition.
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“Whereas the ancient Greeks believed that human disease was caused by the capriciousness of their gods”, writes Dr. Charles H. Halsted in Clinical Nutrition Education, “Hippocrates taught that illness is caused by an imbalance of nature and bodily humors [fluids] and that the goal of medicine should be to ensure health through proper diet and hygiene… Twenty-two centuries after Hippocrates, the golden era of nutrition was ushered in by the British naval surgeon James Lind in 1747. In the first recorded controlled clinical investigation, Lind investigated the potential for dietary treatment of the devastating epidemic of scurvy in seamen on the British ship Salisbury. Lind provided two oranges and one lemon to two scorbutic sailors every day for 6 days and cider, vinegar, nutmeg, or seawater to other groups of two each. The sailors who received the orange and lemon diet were cured of all signs of scurvy and resumed full duties, whereas those consuming the other diets became sicker or died.”
A disease such as scurvy was obviously of economic importance since often half the crew or more would die on long voyages. We now know that scurvy can be prevented by dietary intake of Vitamin C. Lind didn't know that because Vitamin C wasn't discovered until the 1930's. After this, Admiral Cook of the British navy ordered all sailors to eat limes each day while on sea voyages, and the incidence of scurvy dropped dramatically.
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