It is astounding how resilient is the human body and how effective a healthy diet can be.
There are a number of documented cases (with measurable test results and MRI image scans) where a change of lifestyle resulted not only in stabilizing serious and life-threatening conditions, but quite often in a dramatic reversal of the disease. This is true for for heart diseases, osteoarthritis, diabetes, and even some types of cancers.
In my personal circle of friends, my friend's uncle who suffered a heart attack in his sixties, consequently changed his diet and committed to a regular gym exercise, where he exercised to his mid nineties. He died two years ago at age 97.
I agree, Les. A wholesome diet and regular exercise are the key to a healthy and long life, within the limits of one's genetic disposition.
I get the impression that a lot of confusion results because of the variability of this genetic disposition among individuals. Some people can smoke cigarettes for most of their life, and die at the age of 97 without any symptoms of lung cancer. Others can over eat junk food, not bother to exercise, and yet still not be overweight.
The result of such observations tends to feed the denialism of overweight and obese people who tend to claim that it is their genes that are causing them to be overweight, rather than over eating, because they are not eating more than certain friends or colleagues who are not overweight.
However, the fundamental principle is, one can over eat and not becomes overweight,
but one cannot become overweight without over eating.
There's a huge problem in addressing the issue of diet because the processed food industry is so massive and influential, and the complexities of diet combined with individual genetic disposition are so great, almost like climate change.
The processed food industry also employ their own dieticians who might tend to behave like the scientists employed by the tobacco industry, when asked for advice on the harmful effects of certain processed foods.
My own view is that the solution is the introduction of an additional subject on diet, in all schools for children. The regular subjects are maths, science, literature, history, English, foreign languages, and even religion. Why not introduce a new subject on dietary matters? Too difficult?
