Do you eat to live or do you live to eat?
Diet is the second highest risk factor for early death after smoking. Other high risks are high blood glucose which can lead to diabetes, high blood pressure, high body mass index (BMI) which is a measure of obesity, and high total cholesterol. All of these can be related to eating the wrong foods, although there are also other causes.
Is the western diet unethical (evil)?
By ebru (Flickr) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
It appears that the spread of the western diet may be having a negative effect. Where did the western diet come from and how did it evolve? What is causing the spread of a diet pattern which clearly has a negative impact on human health? Generally the western diet today is associated with fast food, such as hamburgers, fried chicken, and similar fried high saturated fat foods. These foods cause problems such as raising inflammation which may be linked to coronary artery disease, diabetes, immunity issues (cancer link), and more. Endothelial dysfunction is known as the cause of atherosclerosis while inflammation is the process which causes endothelial dysfunction. Fried foods are high in dangerous fats, where the heating process changes the chemical process of the fat and this may be a trigger for inflammation (pro-inflammatory effect from the food itself). In addition to fried foods the western diet also is obsessed with heavily processed foods, and in specific dangerous processed sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup.
Millions of people are eating the wrong sorts of food for good health. Eating a diet that is low in whole grains, fruit, nuts and seeds and fish oils and high in salt raises the risk of an early death, according to the huge and ongoing study Global Burden of Disease.
Processed foods raise the risk of diabetes and in particular high fructose corn syrup has a negative effect at least in mice. Processed foods have a higher glycemic index which can result in insulin dysregulation over time. Whole grains or to be particular, sprouted grain bread, has a much lower glycemic index than processed white bread. Seeds, nuts, fruit, vegetables, are all associated with good health, where certain nuts like walnuts in specific even provide omega 3 whilst raising nitric oxide. The western diet does not heavily focus on whole grains, whole foods in general, nuts, seeds, fruit and vegetables, and that is what is required to support human health generally.
References
Cordain, L., Eaton, S. B., Sebastian, A., Mann, N., Lindeberg, S., Watkins, B. A., ... & Brand-Miller, J. (2005). Origins and evolution of the Western diet: health implications for the 21st century. The American journal of clinical nutrition, 81(2), 341-354.Cordain, L., Eaton, S. B., Sebastian, A., Mann, N., Lindeberg, S., Watkins, B. A., ... & Brand-Miller, J. (2005). Origins and evolution of the Western diet: health implications for the 21st century. The American journal of clinical nutrition, 81(2), 341-354.
Myles, I. A. (2014). Fast food fever: reviewing the impacts of the Western diet on immunity. Nutrition journal, 13(1), 61.
Ostan, R., Lanzarini, C., Pini, E., Scurti, M., Vianello, D., Bertarelli, C., ... & Martucci, M. (2015). Inflammaging and cancer: a challenge for the Mediterranean diet. Nutrients, 7(4), 2589-2621.
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