Dr. Barkat Charania

Our lives: We all start eating and drinking right at birth and continue until death. During life, our bodies are made of we have ingested, while interacting with the environment we live in and the air we breathe. The process continues for whole life. So nothing else could be more important to all of us than food, nutrition, and our life style;  our health and longevity is directly proportional to it. However, surprisingly many of us are so indifferent. Either they don’t know or don’t care. Hence they suffer from diseases they could avoid or even die prematurely.

Our history on planet earth: Our ancestors have lived on this planet for many thousands of years. They were healthy and have procreated successfully for such a long time. Surely they must have done something right. We only need to  emulate their life styles. It is that simple. Instead of waiting until we face diseases, start taking care of yourselves. You can prevent or delay most diseases. Our genes are same as that of of our ancestors, but diseases like Cancers, Heart disease, Diabetes and Obesity are rife in our “modern” times. Let us try define, what has changed in past 100 years?

1. Most of our food grains are now processed
2. We have started using large amount of simple added sugars.
3. We have started eating a lot of animal proteins.
4. We have started using substantial amount of processed oils.
5. Most of us are living a sedentary life.

Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs): In recent past there were a lot of killer communicable diseases, which have been eliminated. Lately many authorities including World Health Organization (WHO) is talking a lot about Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs). These are: Cancers, Cardio Vascular Diseases (CVD), Obesity and Diabetes. Almost 70% of deaths today are attributed to these NCDs. If we can PREVENT or DELAY the onset of such NCDs, we can stay healthy longer. Evidence suggests that Whole Food Plant Based (WFPB) foods prevent and delay diseases.

It is simple to understand that if I could delay my heart disease and diabetes until age 85 (instead of having at 65), I would have enjoyed 20 years of disease free time. And if I were to die before 85, voila, I would die WITHOUT having suffered from any such disease at all. So it is easy to comprehend that we must prevent diseases so we do not need to treat them.

Issue of animal proteins: A large number of nutritionists and medical doctors are now in agreement that the animal proteins are cause of diseases including cancers in human beings. For those who have not yet heard, International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an arm of WHO issued a press release in 2015 about Processed meat and Red meat.

Modern Medicine: This may come as a surprise to many, but modern medicine is only about a hundred years old. For example, Blood Groups were found in 1905, Insulin was discovered in 1925, Penicillin was discovered in 1936, Blood sugar machine was invented in 1978, HgA1c found in 1980 and Ultrasound, with which now we find the sex of unborn child in uterus was discovered in 1980s. This and many other examples tells us how young modern medicine is. There is a lot to discover to help us have longer and healthier lives.

Our responsibilities: From birth to our last breath, we all have certain material and worldly responsibilities to fulfill besides spiritual and religious obligations. Some of these obligations are to our parents, others to our children ad yet others to our society and humanity. Let us carry them out well. To be able to do that we need to have an able body and mind. Let us start looking after our diet and nutrition and change our life styles to such that it is conducive to give us optimum health and longevity so that we can best fulfill all our obligations.

What should we do?: Our action plan is simple and easy to adopt, based on foregoing. Here is a pictorial suggestions of what we need to do.

• 1. Stop eating any processed or refined food
  

• 2. AVOID all simple sugars
  

• 3.  Consume preferably only Plant Based Whole Foods (PBWF)
  

• 4. Avoid all kinds of oils and fats
  

• 5. Start being active. If you are sedentary, start walking at least 5,000 steps daily
  

With these simple changes in your life, you should be able to prevent or delay almost all diseases.

Here are two quotes from veteran medical doctors, Dr caldwell esselstyn and Dr Dean Ornish, who have done first hand research on “How to revert Heart Diseases”. They are both advising President Clinton, on diet after he had two heart attacks and Coronary Artery Bypass. They say this:

Good luck and God speed to you all.