106 Joel Fuhrman, M.D.animal foods has repeatedly been shown to be dangerous. No more
than 10 percent of one's total calorie consumption should come from
animal foods. There is insufficient data at this point to suggest that
there is a clear longevity advantage from adhering to a pure vegan
diet (one entirely free of animal foods). However, the scientific liter-
ature suggests that there is a longevity advantage to dropping your
animal-food consumption to as little as one or two servings per
week. The most consistent finding in the nutritional literature
throughout every epidemiological study is that as fruit and vegetable
consumption increases in the diet, chronic diseases and premature
deaths decrease.Elevated Insulin Levels — A True Measure of Cardiac Risk
An elevated (fasting) insulin level may be as powerful a predictor of
future heart disease as a high blood cholesterol level. As stated ear-
lier, insulin level parallels excess abdominal fat stores. The thicker
your waist, the more insulin is pumped out by the pancreas.Insulin is a hormone that is secreted by the pancreas and trans-
ports sugar from the blood into your cells. High levels of blood sug-
ars drive up insulin in order to help "clear" the blood of the excess
sugars. Fat on our body makes our cells resistant to the effects of in-
sulin, and the pancreas must respond with higher production.
A Finnish study that started in 1971 tracked 970 policemen for
twenty-two years. Their ages ranged from thirty-four to sixty-five
years old. All participants showed no sign of heart disease, diabetes,
or other cardiovascular disease when the study started. During the
twenty-two years of follow-up, the men with the highest insulin lev-
els had more than double the heart attack occurrence of those with
lower levels. The researchers have suggested that the predictive
power of insulin levels was of the same magnitude as that of choles-
terol levels.'^9 A tape measure around the waist would have shown
the same results.So, it certainly is true — as the advocates of animal-food-rich di-
ets, such as Atkins, Heller, Sears, and others proclaim — carbohy-
drates drive up insulin levels temporarily. These writers, however,
have not presented the data in an accurate fashion.
A diet revolving around unrefined carbohydrates (fruits, vegeta-
bles, whole grains, and legumes) will not raise blood sugars or in-
sulin levels. Studies have shown that such a diet can reduce fasting
insulin levels 30-40 percent in just three weeks.^40 Obviously, a low-