Joel Fuhrman - Eat To Live

Eat to Live 143

For most people, illness means putting their fate in the hands of

doctors and complying with their recommendations — recommen-

dations that typically involve taking drugs for the rest of their lives

while they watch their health gradually deteriorate. People are com-

pletely unaware that most illnesses are self-induced and can be re-

versed with aggressive nutritional methods.

Both patients and physicians act as though everyone's medical

problems are genetic, or assumed to be the normal consequence of

aging. They believe that chronic illness is just what we all must ex-

pect. Unfortunately, the medical-pharmaceutical business has en-

couraged people to believe that health problems are hereditary and

that we need to swallow poisons to defeat our genes. This is almost

always untrue. We all have genetic weaknesses, but those weak-

nesses never get a chance to express themselves until we abuse our

body with many, many years of mistreatment. Never forget, 99 per-

cent of your genes are programmed to keep you healthy. The prob-

lem is that we never let them do their job.

My clinical experience over the past ten years has shown me that

almost all the major illnesses that plague Americans are reversible

with aggressive nutritional changes designed to undo the damage

caused by years of eating a disease-causing diet. The so-called balanced

diet that most Americans eat causes the diseases Americans get.

These conditions, and many others, can be effectively prevented

or treated through superior nutrition. As their medical problems

gradually melt away, patients can be slowly weaned off the medica-

tions they have been prescribed.

Food Is the Cure

Patients are told that food has nothing to do with the diseases they

develop. Dermatologists insist that food has nothing to do with acne,

rheumatologists insist that food has nothing to do with rheumatoid

arthritis, and gastroenterologists insist that food has nothing to do

with irritable and inflammatory bowel disease. Even cardiologists

have been resistant to accept the accumulating evidence that athero-

sclerosis is entirely avoidable. Most of them still believe that coro-

nary artery disease and angina require the invasive treatment of

surgery and are not reversible with nutritional intervention. Most

physicians have no experience in treating disease naturally with nu-