Tag: wfpb diet

• Gut Bacteria, TMAO and Whole-food, Plant-based Diets

  It is well established that microbes in the intestines are essential for the breakdown of complex carbohydrates, the production of short chain fatty acids and synthesis of vitamins. More than 1000 different species have been identified. Despite the vast number of bacteria species and people, there are only two types of bacteriological ecosystems in the gut (enterotypes).

  Enterotype 1 dominated by Bacteroides genera bacteria which is strongly associated with high-fat, high-protein, animal-based diet.

  Enterotype 2 dominated by Prevotella genus bacteria which is associated with high-fibre, plant-based diets.

  Microbiome composition changed within 24 hours of initiating a high-fat/low-fiber or low-fat/high-fiber diet. However, it takes a longer period of time to change the enterotype from one state to the other.

  Gut bacteria dominated by Prevotella are associated with healthier outcomes.

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  13 October 2025

• Dan Repacholi and Health Advocate

  Ketogenic and low-carbohydrate diet advocates have been having a much greater impact on our diet and our health in the recent decades.. Book sales are higher, website visits are much more frequent.

  Our health indicators have become progressively worse. The prevalence of many cancers have continued to rise. The mortality rate for all cases of cancer has risen for females. It has decreased for males because of the reduction in lung cancer.

  Breast cancer, a sex-hormone related cancer with a high prevalence rate, continues to rise.

  Pancreatic cancer, has a lower prevalence rate but has a high mortality rate, continues to rise unabated.

  Whilst a substantial reduction in cervical cancer occurred between 1992-2002, there has been no reduction in the following two decades.

  n 2018, 36% of Australians aged 18 and over are overweight (BMI of 25 to up to 30) and 31% of the population are obese (BMI 30 or more).

  34% of adult Australians have hypertension (greater than 140/90 or taking medication). According to the Framingham Risk Assessment calculator, a systolic value of less than 120 mmHg is ideal.

  Autoimmune diseases are a pernicious group of diseases where the immune system produces antibodies that destroy the body’s cells. There are 80-100 autoimmune diseases that have been identified.

  Autoimmune diseases cumulatively affect 5-10% of the industrial world population and are a significant cause of morbidity and mortality.

  World-wide, the incidence of autoimmune diseases is increasing at the rate of 19% each and every year.

  5.3% of Australian adults aged 18 and over had type 2 diabetes in 2017–18. Diabetes is the fastest growing chronic condition in Australia, increasing at a faster rate than other chronic diseases such as heart disease and cancer.

  Almost 1.9 million Australians have diabetes. On average, one in three of these people have some level of diabetic retinopathy.

  Dementia is a syndrome in which there is deterioration in memory, thinking, behaviour and the ability to perform everyday activities. It is not a normal part of aging. 50 million people world-wide have dementia with nearly 10 million new cases every year. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia contributing 60–70% of cases.

  In 2016, the global number of individuals who lived with dementia was 43·8 million which increased from 20.2 million in 1990. This represented an increase of 117% in 16 years. Dementia was the fifth leading cause of death globally accounting for 2·4 million deaths. This could be attributed to modifiable risk factors of high BMI, high fasting plasma glucose, smoking, and a high intake of sugar-sweetened beverages.

  In the US, in 2010, the rate of autism at age 8 was 14.7 per 1,000 which is 1 in 68. Boys are 4.5 times more likely to be affected than girls.

  This rate continues to increase. As at 2020, about 1 in 36 children has been identified with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) according to estimates from CDC’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network. About 1 in 6 (17%) children aged 3–17 years were diagnosed with a developmental disability.

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  That is the bad news. The good news is much of these illnesses can be prevented and even reversed with the consumption of a whole-food, plant-based diet with NO added oils (or salt). Coconut oil, olive oil or mayonnaise are not healthy and are most assuredly NOT associated with a natural diet of humans (or chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans).

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  14 June 2025

• Kidney Disease and Diet

  2½ millennia ago, Plato wrote about the foolishness of eating animals. 500 years later Plutach wrote about the immorality of killing and eating animals who are entitled to life as much as we are.

  Many people at the Mater Hospital where I am receiving treatment for multiple myeloma are not only dealing with their blood cancers but trauma of kidney, heart disease and type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Lots of great information about heart attacks and both forms of diabetes on my website.

  The treatment greatly magnifies the severity of their problems.

  Kidney disease ranks 9th in the cause of death in Australia.

  Despite the nasty nature of my multiple myeloma disease, my kidney and heart functions are really good.

  There is a really strong correlation between pork consumption and kidney disease. The method of cooking has a big impact due to the increase in serum creatinine with BBQ pig being the worst.

  Then there is the additional problem with the appalling method that we raise pigs in confined cages that are stacked three deep. Pigs cannot move or lie down. Their faeces and urine are deposited onto the pigs below through slatted floor boards. They live in a noxious atmosphere of ammonia and hydrogen sulphide.

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  22 September 2024

• Validation of a Whole-food, Plant-based Diet

  Dr James Muecke is the Australian of the Year in 2020 which was awarded for his work as an eye- surgeon and his work in preventing blindness. He is trying to convince Australians to eat more meat, eggs and dairy. Australia is ranked number 2 in meat consumption, just behind the United States but in front of Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and New Zealand.

  Muecke states that we should be eating more eggs, cheese, meat and dark chocolate to minimise diabetes, its associated blindness (diabetic retinopathy) and diabetic neuropathy.

  Muecke has declared that we need to “Declare war on type 2 diabetes and cut back on sugar” in order to reduce the incidence of blindness.

  He believes that it is the introduction of sugary drinks and highly processed foods are the cause of diabetes – not a high-fat, high-protein diet as shown by numerous papers dating back to 1927.

  Dr Muecke was interviewed by Keith Wheeler for a FarmOnline National article. Wheeler summed up his article with, “Dr Muecke faces a challenge to defeat type 2 diabetes, but if people eat more meat and dairy it would be a good start. And dark chocolate. That’s the sort of report I like!”

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  Muecke refers to a 2019 article in the Annals of Internal Medicine, Unprocessed Red Meat and Processed Meat Consumption: Dietary Guideline Recommendations From the Nutritional Recommendations (NutriRECS) Consortium to support his beliefs.

  Walter Willett, the Harvard professor of epidemiology and nutrition, called the study “the most egregious abuse of data I’ve ever seen.”

  The publications produced by the NutriRECS organisation are concerned with proving that red meat consumption is healthy – or at least not detrimental.

  In a 30 minute address to the National Press Club on 8th February 2021, Dr Muecke said the Australian Dietary Guidelines were flawed, biased at critical multiple levels, conflicted by industry funding and borne out of weak and unreliable epidemiological data that was “certainly not as robust as we have been led to believe”.

  Muecke states that “There now being over 100 controlled clinical trials to support the fact that a very low calorie diet or low carbohydrate diet works to either prevent Type 2 diabetes or to put it into remission.”.

  There are no references given to these 100 controlled clinical trials.

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  7 January 2024

• Videos

  Rip Esselstyn’s Plant Strong podcast discusses the making of “Plant Strong Legacy”.

  Dr. Liz George, who helped a small dairy town in Pennsylvania, transition to a plant-strong lifestyle, shares her story. 12 years later, the impact on this community has endured.

  In the video, How Foods Affect Hormones, Neal Barnard tells the story of Katherine Lawrence who was an Air Force officer working as an aerospace engineer in Iraq. In 2003, she was one of the first group of people in Iraq, building air bases.

  Cheese was one of her favourite foods, so when she returned from Iraq she devoured large quantities of cheese and cheese dishes.

  As a result she gained a substantial amount of weight and started getting pain in her abdomen that become much worse over time. A doctor performed a laparoscopy – the body is examined through a scope inserted into an incision below the belly button. This resulted in a diagnosis of endometriosis.

  According to the WHO, "there is no known way to prevent endometriosis. There is no cure, but its symptoms can be treated with medicines".

  Her doctor arranged for a hysterectomy, a life-changing operation preventing her from having children. While she was waiting for her operation she started a strict whole-food, plant-based diet with no added oils (important) to manage her pain which was becoming unbearable. When she had the operation 6 weeks later, her endometriosis had disappeared. Her doctor refused to believe that the diet caused the change, preferring to believe in a miracle despite evidence in peer-reviewed medical journals that an excess of estrogens can result in endometriosis.

  Neal also tells the story of remarkable story of Dr. Anthony (Tony) Sattilaro who in 1978 at the age of 48, was diagnosed with cancerous growths in his skull, right shoulder, prostate, backbone, sternum and genitals. At the time, he was the president of Methodist Hospital and was told that he had about one year to live. Through a chance meeting he cured himself of this incurable cancer within a year by eating a macrobiotic diet and adopting their lifestyle.

  After 10 years Tony decided he was cured and decided he could revert back to his old habits. Read about the conseqeuences - sometimes you only have one chance.

  See Dr Caldwell Esselstyn's video and angiogram to see how a severely constricted artery can be repaired - on a whole-food, plant-based diet with no added oils.

  A Fireside Chat is a discussion with Dr. Colin Campbell and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn. Dr. Esselstyn has also produced the video Heart to Healthy Heart.

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  7 October 2023

• What does a low-carb expert look like now?

  Find out the views of some popular high-fat, low-carbohydrate commentators. See how well their advice is working for them.

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  15 September 2022

• Animal and Plant Protein – Leucine and Telomeres

  Leucine is an amino acid that is much more prevalent in animal-based diets than plant-based diets. The leucine is found in the high concentrations, measured in grams per kCal of energy, in beef (0.021), egg white (0.021), isolated soy protein (0.020), poultry (0.018) fish (0.018), spirulina (0.017), lamb (0.014) parmesan cheese (0.010), tofu (0.008), soy beans (0.007).

  Aglets are the caps on shoelaces that stop them from unraveling. Our chromosomes have telomeres that perform the same function - they stop our chromosomes from unravelling. The longer they are, the longer the cells survive and the longer we live. An animal-based diet results in shorter telomeres than those on a plant-base diet. Leucine is the amino acid responsible for this.

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  21 March 2022

• Comparison of Dairy Milks with Human Milk

  Milks are complex lipid emulsions in water containing protein, fat, lactose, vitamins and minerals, as well as enzymes, hormones and immunoglobulins which provide initial immunity functions.

  There is approximately 5,500 species of mammals which initially supply their young with milk. There are vast differences in milk composition among the mammal species. Of all the mammals, humans have the lowest protein content.

  Mammals have evolved over millions of years to provide nutrition for their infants in the first stage of life. There are significant difference between species depending upon factors such as rates of growth.

  Proteins in human milk provide sufficient of protein to sustain infants for the first six months without any additional food, as well as supplying the means of establishing suitable environment for the growth of healthy intestinal bacteria and providing the proteins involved in the immune system.

  Human milk is supplied to babies when the need for protein is at the greatest. Babies double in size during the first 6 months of our lives. The ideal food for a baby is mum’s milk where 5% – 6.5% is protein. This should offer reassurance that as long as we a consuming an adequate diet, we do not need a high protein diet.

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  18 March 2022

• Methionine Dependent Cancers

  Homocysteine is a non-protein amino acid. It is synthesized in the body from methionine, which is a sulfur containing amino-acid.

  Methionine is much more prevalent in animal products than plant products. Rotten eggs smell the way they do because the sulfur produces a number of sulfur containing gasses including hydrogen sulfide— rotten egg gas.

  A high level is of homocysteine is associated with an increased risk for chronic inflammation, cardiovascular disease, and Alzheimer’s disease.

  Many human cancer cell and primary tumors have a requirement for methionine, an essential amino acid.

  Methionine-free or methionine-deprived diet causes a regression of a variety of animal tumours.

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  17 March 2022

• Is It Healthy? What are we Comparing

  When we ask the question Is it Healthy?, we need to consider is it healthy compared to what.

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  1 January 2022