Healthy Living: Diet And Nutrition For Optimal Health || By Eniola Afolabi-Obe
It is a pleasure again to be sharing, on achieving our “Healthy Living” goals, with a focus on diet and Nutrition, one of the pillars of Lifestyle Medicine (LM) for optimal health”. Another opportunity presents itself to learn, unlearn and relearn from the depths of scientific evidence, the impact of healthy nutritional choices in achieving optimal health and wellbeing,
Lifestyle medicine, as a medical specialty uses therapeutic lifestyle interventions as a primary modality to treat chronic conditions including, but not limited to, cardiovascular diseases, type 2diabetes, and obesity.
Lifestyle medicine certified clinicians are trained to apply evidence-based, whole-person, prescriptive lifestyle change to treat and, when used intensively, often reverse such conditions.
The six pillars of lifestyle medicine includes a whole-food and plant-predominant eating pattern, physical activity, restorative sleep, stress management, avoidance of risky substances, and positive social connection. (American College of Lifestyle Medicine)
To begin with, diet can be referred to as food habitually eaten by an individual or group, so typically certain diets are common to particular regions or geographical location. While, nutrition on the other hand focuses on foods and food substances, which provides the body with energy (calories) and nutrients. So when do we refer to a food as been nutrient dense or energy dense?
Nutrient-dense refers to foods that are high in nutrients and low in calories in relation to their weight. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), examples of nutrient-dense foods includes fruits and vegetables, whole grains, low-fat or fat-free milk products, seafood, peas, beans and nuts.
Conversely, energy-dense foods when over consumed are related to dietary risks associated with being overweight and obese as well as type 2 diabetes and some cancers.
Examples include sugar-sweetened beverages, processed meats, fried foods ,processed snack foods (with added fat, sugar and salt), Confections (Ice creams, Candy) ,High fat dairy (especially with added salt and sugar) ,red meats ,eggs, added fats and oils ,refined grains (white flour, white rice and white pasta), alcoholic beverages
The World Health Organisation defines a healthy diet as that ,which is high in fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts and grains, but lower in salt, free sugars and fats, particularly saturated and trans fat (commonly found in margarines, butter, fried foods, refined flour products, red and processed meat).So, this basically refers to a high-fiber, low-fat and plant-predominant eating pattern.
A plant-based nutrition maximizes use of plant-sourced foods in diet namely vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, legumes, mushrooms, seeds and nuts. Shortly, i will be speaking to general principles on foods to consume for optimal health and wellbeing.
To begin with, when determining the relative healthfulness of a food it’s imperative to think beyond a single nutrient and consider the entire “food package”. Although some foods are high in a particular nutrient, the rest of the package may not be ideal. Hence, as a “food package,” it may not be a healthy choice.
For example, though a milk source with a high fat content constituting a top source of calcium may be a top source of saturated fat. It’s important to ask, “Is there a better source or package to get these nutrients?”
Also, whole foods are unrefined, close to their natural state or minimally processed in such a way as to not substantially diminish their nutrient content. Whole foods often do not have an ingredient list because they are single ingredient foods. For example, fresh produce, like an apple or a carrot.
Another way to determine a whole food: can you visualize everything that has happened to the food before it’s consumed? For example, it is easy to imagine what has happened to an apple.
It’s been picked from a tree, cleaned, shipped, and purchased in a store. It is more difficult to visualize what has happened to an apple when it’s incorporated into an apple-flavored juice, which would be an example of a processed food. Here’s an example of moving an apple from a least-processed whole food to a highly processed food: Apple → applesauce → apple juice→ apple fritter. Generally, the more whole the food (or less processed), the more nutritious that food is.
A key scientific study on the health benefits of plant-based diet is the Ornish program (which combined low fat whole foods plant based diet and other lifestyle measures) on participants with moderate to severe heart disease.
Patients had lowered systolic and diastolic blood pressure after only 12 weeks. Statistically significant improvements in their total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and triglycerides were also noted.
Also, significant improvements in their weight and their BMI as well as decreases in their HBA1C were reported.
In summary center dietary intake on whole plant foods. “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants,” according to the guideline of food writer Michael Pollan.
a. Food; implies unprocessed, natural foods
b. Not too much: appropriate portion sizes
c. Mostly plants: doesn’t require vegan or vegetarian, but the diet should consist mostly of plants (legumes, vegetables, fruits, whole-grains, nuts, and seeds).
d) Eat a rainbow every day. Eating a rainbow refers to eating a variety of plants of different colors. The colors come from different flavonoids and vitamins that are essential to disease prevention and health.
By consuming of a wide variety of plant foods every day, most people will be able to meet the daily requirements of macronutrient (all three major macronutrients (fat, protein, and carbohydrate are present in all whole foods in varying proportions) and micronutrient (vitamins and minerals).
DR. ENIOLA AFOLABI-OBE IS A CONSULTANT FAMILY PHYSICIAN/LIFESTYLE MEDICINE PHYSCIAN AT THE LAGOS STATE UNIVERSITY TEACHING HOSPITAL, IKEJA, LAGOS, NIGERIA.
