Category Archives: Eating and nutrition

Eating a rainbow

Posted on by

I spent some time a couple of weeks ago with my friend Deanna Minich. Dr. Minich used to work for Metagenics in our R&D department; we became good friends then and continue to be today.

One of the things she has taught me is a greater appreciation for the concept of “food as medicine” and in particular, the importance of variety and diversity in our diet. She’s the first person I heard to promote “eating a rainbow” and has a website/blog talking about the incredible diversity available to us in fruits and vegetables, drawing a contrast between that and the Standard American Diet (which goes by the appropriate acronym “SAD”). Think about color in diet for a minute. Most people eat a pretty monochromatic diet (brown, yellow and white): breakfast cereal, burgers and fries or sandwich for lunch, and a meat and potatoes dinner. Wheat-based breakfast cereal for the most part, animal meats, potatoes, bread and pasta. Pretty much the only concession to color is red in ketchup or tomato sauce (in the spaghetti). (Without taking sides in whether a tomato is fruit or a vegetable, tomatoes are far and away the most consumed fruit/vegetable in America because of ketchup and tomato sauce). Most vegetables are pretty poorly represented.

Anyhow, the color in fruits and vegetables is provided by whole classes of compounds: alkaloids, flavones, flavonoids, carotenoids, saponins, gluconsinolates and on and on. The bright red of tomatoes comes from lycopene, the pink of shrimp or salmon is from astaxanthin, the orange of carrots or squash is from carotenoid, blueberries are blue because of anthocyanins; you get the picture. These colors, it turns out, don’t just provide interesting variety or tell us when the foods are ripe; they have benefit to humans. First and probably most commonly understood, many (but not all) of them are antioxidants. Oxidative stress and the associated free radical damage to tissues is one of the two current finalists in what causes aging (the other being inflammation), and these foods are well-known to help protect us against damage induced by environmental toxicants by scavenging free radicals. But another benefit that’s receiving greater attention these days is the role these phytochemicals play in talking to our genes.

Our genes haven’t changed in any significant way for millennia, yet we see dramatic increases in diseases (such as type 2 diabetes and obesity) that are unquestionably associated with genetic expression. A great example is the Pima Indians of Arizona and New Mexico; in just a few generations they’ve gone from being lean and healthy to obese and with the highest incidence of type 2 diabetes in the US. Their genes didn’t change, but the environmental effect of a high-fat, hign-(simple) carb, low nutrient-density diet has caused their warrior genes to contribute to a dramatic health shift for the majority of them. This is a perfect example of an epigenomic phenomenon, where a different chemical signal being sent to the genes leads to a different (and far less healthy) outcome.

So back to my friend Deanna and her advice to “eat a rainbow.” There are a great many different phytochemicals found in foods (by some accounts more than 10,000). Each of these contributes to the rich color, taste and smell diversity in foods and it turns out that we have adapted to need them. So by selecting a monochromatic diet, we’ve contributed dramatically to a nose-dive in our health. Deanna says to choose as many different (naturally occurring) colors as we can. Carrots, for example, are not just orange; even my local Ralphs now sells bags of carrots in all different hues, from yellow to purple to orange, and even white. Same with potatoes and peppers. The benefit is not in any one color alone, but in the diversity.

So if you’re not already doing so, stop eating monochromatically; start eating a rainbow. And get your patients to do the same.

Thanks for helping me understand phytochemicals better, Deanna!

Introduction to Practical FxMed

Posted on by

I decided to start this blog with the intent of helping practitioners and patients apply the principles of functional medicine in a practical way.

I guess that would be somewhat obvious from the title, but the way I intend to do that is through sharing recently (and some not-so-recently) published articles that pertain to the application of functional medicine, or that help support a functional medicine view of the world, as well as books that might be of interest, and experiences I’ve heard around the industry. Whether you are new to functional medicine, one of its Elder Statesmen (like Jeff Bland, pictured in the photo I use in my header), or somewhere in between, I hope you find something of interest in my blog. Please join my conversation with a comment or experience!

So what do I mean by “functional medicine”? There are several definitions out there that could be applied, ranging from “anything that works” to “supporting the natural and healthy functions of the body.” I guess my definition would be closer to the latter, but it also carries a sense of whatever works, since I believe that there is a place for pharmaceuticals, surgical intervention or whatever we might ordinarily label as “conventional medicine.” That being said, I think the most powerful intervention that I can think of is in the control of the lifestyle choices we make. The food we eat and water we drink, the amount of exercise we get, our sense of purpose and belonging, and the relationships we surround ourselves with have such a profound impact on the quality of life and “health span” we are likely to enjoy that it’s hard to overstate its importance.

A key component of functional medicine is the awareness that by helping people control and modify what they eat, one can accomplish more than any other single intervention. Although I work for Metagenics, I want it to be clear that in my opinion (and for that matter, the guiding principles of the company as well), even the most well-designed and highest quality supplements cannot take the place of a healthy diet. Supplements help “fill in the gaps” or provide higher levels of specific nutrients than may be able to be obtained in the diet, but they don’t replace eating. That’s not to say that I don’t see supplements as important; quite the opposite. I’ve seen supplements turn around a person’s health in ways that diet alone has been unable to. Well-designed nutritional supplements can play an important role, and I take supplements on a daily basis.

Metagenics’ mission statement is to “lead the movement to make personalized nutritional intervention the standard of care in the treatment and prevention of disease and promotion of optimal health.” I hope this blog will help support that mission, and at the same time provides a useful tool in the implementation of functional medicine. Feel free to weigh in with your own thoughts!