Health
Disease starts on your plate, cardiologist says — here's what to change
More than 133 million Americans (40%) had at least one chronic disease in 2022, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Topping the list of chronic diseases are heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and diabetes.
Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a cardiologist and public health campaigner based in London, believes a big part of what’s fueling all those conditions are the foods on Americans’ plates.
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“I think you cannot fix health or health care without fixing the food,” he said during an on-camera interview with Fox News Digital.
Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a cardiologist and public health campaigner based in London, believes a big part of what’s fueling diseases are the foods on Americans’ plates. (Dr. Aseem Malhotra)
Studies have shown that only one in eight Americans has optimal metabolic health, which Malhotra defines as “the state of balance the body maintains between storing fat and burning it for energy.”
What drives metabolic health?
In his bestselling book, “The 21-Day Immunity Plan,” Malhotra writes that metabolic health is measured using five markers.
Those include blood glucose levels, blood pressure, waist circumference, cholesterol profile (the body’s levels of triglycerides, a type of harmful fat found in the blood), and high-density lipoprotein (a beneficial cholesterol-carrying molecule).
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“A person is considered to have metabolic syndrome when they fail to meet three of these optimal values,” he writes. “For example, someone who has high blood pressure, high blood glucose and high triglycerides would be considered to be at the highest risk of experiencing health problems.”
Poor metabolic health is directly linked to the development of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and stroke, Malhotra cautioned.
Improvements can happen within just 21 to 28 days, according to Malhotra — purely from changing dietary habits. (iStock)
It also puts people at a higher risk of cancer and dementia, as well as complications from infections.
The worst things someone can do for their metabolic health, Malhotra said, is to eat a diet high in ultraprocessed foods, sugar and other low-quality carbohydrates, such as flour-based products, rice and pasta.
More than 133 million Americans (40%) had at least one chronic disease in 2022.
To optimize metabolic health, he recommends eating whole foods, avoiding the aforementioned foods, keeping active and reducing stress through yoga, Pilates, meditation or even regularly hugging close friends and loved ones.
Improvements can happen within just 21 to 28 days, according to Malhotra — purely from changing dietary habits.
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“That means cutting out ultraprocessed foods and eliminating what we call low-quality carbohydrates — the refined breads, the pastas, rice, potatoes,” he said. “If you eliminate those — I’m not saying forever, but if you do that for four to six weeks, you will actually start to reset your metabolic health.”
“And then, of course, you can have those foods occasionally.”
Topping the list of chronic diseases are heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and diabetes. (iStock)
Optimizing metabolic health doesn’t mean people can’t enjoy food, said Malhotra, whose father taught him to cook when he was a teenager.
“I love food like most people — it’s one of the greatest pleasures of life,” he told Fox News Digital. “I cook every day.”
“But I have the resources to be able to afford healthy food as well, which a lot of people don’t have, and that’s a real issue,” he added.
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In his daily diet, Malhotra avoids ultraprocessed foods — but it wasn’t always that way. He refers to himself as a “reformed junk food and sugar addict.”
“I used to eat fast food all the time and lots of sugar,” he shared. “But when I realized it wasn’t good for me, I looked to the research. I converted very quickly and broke that addiction.”
Fighting ultraprocessed foods
Sixty percent of the calorie consumption in the U.S. diet comes from ultraprocessed foods, the doctor pointed out, going on to share his definition.
“These are industrial formulations made up of five or more ingredients, usually with additives and preservatives, and they basically contain unhealthy oils, sugar. They lack fiber [and have] a lot of refined carbohydrates.”
In Malhotra’s view, ultraprocessed foods have been “designed deliberately” by the food industry to make them “hyper-palatable and probably addictive.”
Sixty percent of the calorie consumption in the U.S. diet comes from ultraprocessed foods, the doctor pointed out. (iStock)
“I think that would be one of the most important things that needs to be tackled — how do we curtail the consumption of ultraprocessed food while simultaneously increasing consumption of whole foods?”
To accomplish this, Malhotra suggested taking lessons from tobacco control, which he believes the U.S. did very well.
“I think you cannot fix health or health care without fixing the food.”
“Public health advocates and scientists called out the manipulations of big tobacco through three processes — targeting the availability, the affordability and the acceptability of cigarettes,” he said.
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Malhotra recommends applying the same principle to processed foods, which might mean raising the price or using the taxation of those foods to subsidize healthier foods.
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“I also think banning advertising of ultraprocessed foods … would definitely go a long way to curbing that consumption,” he added.
There is also a need for public health education campaigns to help people understand what ultraprocessed foods are, according to the doctor.
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Eating too much salt has long been linked to high blood pressure, but new research suggests it could trick the immune system into prematurely aging the blood vessels.
A preclinical study recently published in the Journal of the American Heart Association has identified a biological chain reaction that links a salty diet to cardiovascular decay.
Scientists at the University of South Alabama observed that mice on a high-salt diet experienced rapid deterioration in their blood vessel function.
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After just four weeks of high sodium intake, the small arteries responsible for regulating blood flow lost their ability to relax, according to a press release.
The team found that the cells lining these vessels had entered a state of cellular senescence, a form of premature cellular aging in which cells stop dividing and release a mix of inflammatory signals that can damage surrounding tissue.
Excess salt has long been linked to high blood pressure, but a new study goes deeper into its effects on the cardiovascular system. (iStock)
The researchers tried to replicate this damage by exposing blood vessel cells directly to salt in a laboratory dish, but the cells showed no harmful effects.
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This suggests that salt isn’t directly causing damage to the vascular lining but that the real culprit may be the body’s own defense mechanism, the researchers noted.
Excess salt may trigger the immune system to release a molecule called interleukin-16 (IL-16), which acts as a messenger that instructs blood vessel cells to grow old before their time, according to the study.
Excess salt may trigger the immune system to release a molecule called interleukin-16, which acts as a messenger that instructs blood vessel cells to grow old before their time, according to the study. (iStock)
Once these cells age, they fail to produce nitric oxide, the essential gas that tells arteries to dilate and stay flexible.
To test whether this process could be reversed, the team turned to a class of experimental drugs known as senolytics.
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Using a cancer medication called navitoclax, which selectively clears out aged and dysfunctional cells, the researchers were able to restore nearly normal blood vessel function in the salt-fed mice, the release stated.
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By removing the decaying cells created by the high-salt diet, the drug allowed the remaining healthy tissue to maintain its elasticity and respond correctly to blood flow demands.
Excess salt may trigger the immune system into stopping the cells from dividing, the study suggests. (iStock)
The study did have some limitations. The transition from mouse models to human treatment remains a significant hurdle, the team cautioned.
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Senolytic drugs like navitoclax are still being studied for safety, and the team emphasized that previous trials have shown mixed results regarding their impact on artery plaque.
Additionally, the researchers have not yet confirmed whether the same IL-16 pathway is the primary driver of vascular aging in humans.
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Eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables was found to have a surprising link to lung cancer among younger non-smokers, early research suggests.
The observational study, led by Jorge Nieva, M.D., of the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center at Keck Medicine, was presented this month at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting in San Diego. It has not yet been peer-reviewed.
Researchers looked at dietary, smoking and demographic data for 187 patients who were diagnosed with lung cancer at age 50 or younger.
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They found that among non-smokers, there was a link between healthier-than-average diets – rich in fruits, vegetables and whole grains – and the chance of lung cancer development.
Young lung cancer patients ate more servings of dark green vegetables, legumes and whole grains compared to the average U.S. adult, the researchers found.
Eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables was found to have a surprising link to lung cancer among younger non-smokers, early research suggests. (iStock)
The researchers hypothesized that pesticides applied to conventionally grown produce could be a possible factor in the disease association.
“Commercially produced (non-organic) fruits, vegetables and whole grains are more likely to be associated with a higher residue of pesticides than dairy, meat and many processed foods,” according to Nieva. He also noted that agricultural workers exposed to pesticides tend to have higher rates of lung cancer.
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“There is a large subset of lung cancer patients whose disease is not caused by smoking,” Nieva told Fox News Digital.
The disease is becoming more common in non-smokers 50 and younger, especially women – despite the fact that smoking rates have been falling for decades, the researcher noted.
The researchers hypothesized that pesticides applied to conventionally grown produce could be a possible factor in the disease association. (iStock)
“These patients tend to have eaten much healthier diets before their diagnosis than the average American,” he went on. “We need to support research into understanding why Americans – and women in particular – who no longer smoke very much are still having lung cancer,” he said.
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The study did have some limitations, Nieva acknowledged, primarily that it relied on survey data and was limited by the participants’ memories of their food intake.
“Also, the survey participants were self-selected, and this could have biased the findings,” he told Fox News Digital.
“There is a large subset of lung cancer patients whose disease is not caused by smoking.”
The researchers did not test specific foods for pesticides, relying instead on average pesticide levels for certain types of food. Looking ahead, they plan to test patients’ blood and urine samples to directly measure pesticide levels, Nieva said.
Although the study shows only an association and does not prove that pesticides caused lung cancer, Nieva recommends that people wash their produce before eating and choose organic foods whenever possible.
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“This work represents a critical step toward identifying modifiable environmental factors that may contribute to lung cancer in young adults,” said Nieva. “Our hope is that these insights can guide both public health recommendations and future investigation into lung cancer prevention.”
“It is possible that the increased lung cancer risk could be due to pesticide exposure in whole farmed foods, but is by no means certain,” a doctor said. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Dr. Marc Siegel, Fox News senior medical analyst, said the study is “interesting,” but that it “raises far more questions than it answers.”
“It is a small study (around 150) and observational, so no proof,” the doctor, who was not involved in the research, told Fox News Digital.
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“It is possible that the increased lung cancer risk could be due to pesticide exposure in whole farmed foods, but it is by no means certain,” Siegel went on. “How much exposure is needed? How much of it gets into food and in which areas? This requires much further study.”
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Kayla Nichols, communications director for Pesticide Action & Agroecology Network, a distributed global network, said the organization agrees with the study’s conclusion that more research should be done on the rise in lung cancer, particularly in individuals eating diets higher in produce and fiber.
“There is a large subset of lung cancer patients whose disease is not caused by smoking,” the researcher told Fox News Digital. (iStock)
“There is a bounty of existing research that already links pesticide exposure to increased risk of multiple types of cancers,” Nichols, who was also not involved in the study, told Fox News Digital. She called for more research on chronic, low-level exposures to pesticides, as well as more effective policies to protect the public from pesticide residues on food.
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The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute, as well as industry partners including AstraZeneca and Genentech, among others.
Fox News Digital reached out to several pesticide companies and trade groups for comment.
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