Holistic Nutrition: A Food as Medicine Approach to Health

Why use food as medicine?

Modern medicine has given us many blessings. In the first half of the 20th century, insulin was discovered. It soon became available as a drug, and subsequently type 1 diabetes was no longer a deadly disease. In the 1940s, antibiotics became available and have since saved millions of lives. It seems hard to believe now that before then, an injury as slight as the scratch of a rose’s thorn could kill you. Surgeons save lives every day, removing inflamed appendices, stitching up injured tissues, screwing bones back together, replacing joints and even organs.

Yet, the one thing modern medicine still cannot cure is chronic diseases. Contrary to the impression conveyed to us, it is not even particularly good at managing them. For chronic diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, arthritis, dementia, depression and more, the treatment of choice is drugs. However, all drugs come with unintended side effects. What’s more, according to Danish physician and researcher Peter Gøtzsche, prescription drugs are the third leading cause of death in Europe and the US.[i]

Very little attention is given to prevention, despite ample evidence that diet and lifestyle choices play a significant role in the development of chronic illness. A real food diet, movement, sleep, sunshine and natural light, relaxation techniques and stress management go a long way to prevent us from falling ill in the first place, but even late in the day – when a chronic disease has already struck – diet and lifestyle changes are still able to slow or even halt the progression of the disease or even reverse it altogether. For example, we now know that type 2 diabetes, which used to be considered progressive and incurable, can be reversed, either through gastric bypass surgery or a change of diet.  No drug can achieve that! But if there’s a choice between changing the diet or have gastric bypass surgery, I know which one I would try first.

Even if there is a genetic predisposition to a specific disease that runs in your family – say cardiovascular disease, diabetes, dementia, depression or cancer – diet and lifestyle choices still matter. We used to think that our genetics determined the state of our health, but the truth is that genes can be switched on or off depending on environmental factors such as diet and lifestyle.

It is often said that, our genetics load the gun, but poor diet and lifestyle choices pull the trigger.

Can food really be that powerful?

 In short: Yes. Many people think of nutrition and the value of food only in terms of calories: “You need X amount of calories to sustain life, X amount to be healthy.” And also, “If you want to lose weight, you need to expend more calories than you consume.”

Yet, food is so much more than just calories.

Real food contains a plethora of nutrients your body needs. Many of those, you only need in trace amounts, but you do need them. The human body consists of and evolved to require protein, fat, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals and lots of other nutrients from food. You did not evolve to require medication, and you do not get sick as a result of medication deficiency!

Nutritional deficiencies cause or contribute to many illnesses. In cases where malnutrition or malabsorption are not the underlying cause of disease, food can still a) reduce the damage and b) help the body heal itself.

I’m not saying there is no need for medication – far from it - but you may need less or none at all if you give the body what it needs for repair and maintenance.

On the flip side, of course, the modern diet contains a lot of so-called ‘food’ that you do not need at all. Not only that, but the evidence that modern ultra-processed food causes harm is also mounting.[ii]

Research links such foods (think convenience food, novelty foods, junk foods etc.) to many health problems. People who eat more of them are more likely to be obese and have diabetes and cardiovascular disease. One study found an association with cancer.[iii]

So far, this research is based on observational studies, which can only confirm that two things occur together but not that one is causing the other. Experts do not yet know whether it is what’s in ultra-processed foods that causes harm or what they are lacking. Most likely, it is a bit of both.

So, if you want to get (or stay) healthy, you need to think about what you eat as well as what you don’t eat.

If you are new to holistic nutrition and would like to see how a food as medicine approach can work for you.

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[i] Gøtzsche PC (2014): Our prescription drugs kill us in large numbers. Pol Arch Med Wewn. 2014;124(11):628-34.

[ii] Rico-Campà A, Martínez-González MA, Alvarez-Alvarez I, et al (2019): Association between consumption of ultra-processed foods and all cause mortality: SUN prospective cohort study BMJ 2019; 365 :l1949

[iii] Fiolet T, Srour B, Sellem L, et al (2018): Consumption of ultra-processed foods and cancer risk: results from NutriNet-Santé prospective cohort. BMJ. 2018 Feb 14;360:k322.