FOOD AS MEDICINE
Sabia Nutrition focuses on prevention “P4 Medicine”: P4 medicine is a new term. This new approach means that medicine should be Predictive, Personalized, Preventive, and Participatory. Taking positive, personalized measures to optimize your health before things break down is the new normal. Medical practice is on the verge of a transformative change.
In the coming years, medicine will progressively shift from being reactive and disease-based to becoming personalized, predictive, preventive, and participatory (P4 Medicine) focused on health. This change will be possible thanks to advances in basic science (for example, complete sequencing of the human genome), the development of information tools (for example, the Internet), and traditional medical practice has been “reactive” (the doctor intervenes when there is illness). Technological and biomedical advances represent a transition toward “anticipatory” medicine, centered on health (not on disease).
A HEALTHY DIET
SABIANUTRITION Our nutritional principle is based on the concept that each person has different characteristics and needs, and therefore we provide personalized dietary care.
We invite you to read the following article.
“The main causes of death in the developed world are no longer plagues or famines, but largely preventable conditions we inflict upon ourselves: obesity, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease. The problem lurking behind these lifestyle-related diseases is partly our easy and static existence, but also the excessive consumption of fabulously substantial foods. We face epidemics not caused by infectious diseases, but by the avoidable consequences of eating too much and physical inactivity. Industrial agriculture, so efficient thanks to mechanization and the use of artificial fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides, generates abundant harvests, and mass production of meat means it has never been so cheap and easy to obtain. We live in an era of overwhelming abundance. However, the problem is not only the amount of food we have at our disposal but the kind of food we often prefer. Generally, we don’t tend to eat too many fruits and fresh vegetables. And the root cause of our excesses originates in programming deeply embedded in our biological makeup.
For our ancestors on the African savanna, survival required directing efforts very carefully, so evolution programmed our sense of taste to prefer sources of essential nutrients and minerals that were scarce in that environment, such as sugar, fat, and salt. However, as human evolution cannot keep pace with cultural changes, we have preserved our paleolithic palate and continue to crave high-value foods, which today we have in abundance.
Seen this way, the totem of modern fast food—the cheeseburger with fries and a soft drink—is like a primitive dream come true: fatty proteins, wrapped in energy-rich carbohydrates, sprinkled with tasty salt, and washed down with a concentrated sugar solution. It’s almost disturbing how well-crafted it is to awaken each and every one of our primary nutritional instincts and stimulate the pleasure centers of our brain. These kinds of foods activate the brain’s dopamine reward pathway exactly the same way as other addictive substances. In fact, almost all processed foods we consume today are loaded with fat, salt, and sugar. And much of the meat we eat is industrially ground into minced meat (we have even delegated the effort of chewing to factories).
Regarding the caloric intake the human body needs, the energy-laden, soft, easy-to-digest nutrients of modern meals are like rocket fuel supplied to people who barely move. There is a marked disconnect between the primitive environment in which our genes evolved and the modern world we have created. Thus, when we allow our primitive impulses to determine our diet, we become prone to what we call mismatch diseases. Excess energy is stored in the body as fat reserves and eventually causes obesity; excess salt promotes hypertension, and blood sugar spikes lead to diabetes.
Another important reason why it’s so hard for us to resist eating too many processed foods and sweets, despite knowing they are very unhealthy and fattening, is due to a cognitive bias. Our tendency to overvalue immediate rewards while ignoring the long-term consequences of our decisions prevents us from acting rationally. This tendency makes evolutionary sense. In an uncertain or dangerous world, it’s worth taking advantage of benefits immediately, since later we might not have the opportunity to do so, or focusing on a current threat instead of a future one. And, in the modern world, the cognitive myopia of the “present bias” not only manifests in unhealthy eating habits but also in the decision to spend our extra money today instead of saving it for the future or in postponing tasks or work seeking instant gratification and leaving them for another time (or never!). It is also one of the various cognitive biases that prevent us from responding effectively to problems that are serious but develop gradually, such as climate change.
A healthy diet should have a balance of three macronutrients: carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. We break them down during digestion and metabolism to supply the chemical energy that drives our body’s activities and provide all the molecular components from which we build our cells. However, we also need small amounts of other essential substances known as micronutrients. Minerals are inorganic compounds.
Most contain metals that favor determining processes in the body, for example, salt provides both the sodium necessary for our nerves and muscles and the chlorine that is used to maintain the water balance in our cells to produce hydrochloric acid in the stomach.
Likewise, we need calcium for the formation of bones and teeth, iron to transport oxygen through the bloodstream, phosphorus and sulfur to synthesize other fundamental components of our cells, and small amounts of iodine and metals such as copper, cobalt, and zinc. These essential elements contained in minerals cannot be biochemically synthesized by living organisms—they come, ultimately, from the soil and water absorbed by the plants and animals we eat.
Other essential micronutrients are the organic compounds known as vitamins, which, unlike minerals, are synthesized by other organisms. Humans need these chemicals to function properly, but we are biochemically incapable of manufacturing them, so we must obtain them from our diet.
All chemical reactions within cells are driven by specific enzymes, and if a species evolves with a mutation that has eliminated a metabolic enzyme, it may lose the ability to synthesize a certain chemical (as well as other compounds derived from it).
In humans, there are thirteen essential vitamins. They were named alphabetically as they were discovered throughout the 20th century, being crossed off the list when it was determined that a chemical was not, in fact, necessary in the diet, and adding numbers when scientists discovered that some were chemically related to each other: they are vitamins A, B1/2/3/5/6/7/9/12, C, D, E, and K. The human biochemical factory is capable of synthesizing vitamin D through a chemical reaction that occurs when ultraviolet rays from the sun hit the skin. However, many people living at higher latitudes cannot synthesize enough vitamin D, thus, it is considered a dietary vitamin.
Different vitamins are involved in various body processes, from boosting enzyme action in essential biochemical reactions in our cells to helping us extract energy or absorb other key nutrients from the diet. If our diet lacks one of these essential ingredients, our body’s reserves are depleted, and we develop a deficiency disease.
In this regard, humans seem more imperfect than other animals. While most animals can spend their entire lives eating a single type of food without suffering any harmful effects.
Such is the case with buffaloes who are happy chewing nothing but grass; while humans must obtain an adequate supply of the numerous essential micronutrients from an especially varied diet.
The reason we have accumulated these metabolic mutations lies precisely in the fact that, throughout our evolutionary history, we have eaten a wide variety of plants – and, in more recent prehistoric times, also carrion and, later, game meat – in very diverse habitats. A mutation that inactivates a metabolic enzyme may have had no immediate harmful effect: probably the organic molecule it had produced was still present in the varied foods we consumed, so the mutation was not eliminated from the population by natural selection. We have accumulated defects in our biochemical factory because they were masked by the varied diet of our primate ancestors and later, hunter-gatherers. This means that our ancestors, being ecologically favored with a rich and varied diet, created the permanent need for such a diet to survive. When we developed agriculture and our diet focused on a limited amount of staple grain crops, fruits, and vegetables, deficiency diseases began to appear.
Note: We also need twenty different essential amino acids to make the various proteins in our body, but we can only produce twelve. At this point, it is interesting to observe that traditional agricultural diets around the world combine a staple grain to provide calories with a type of protein-rich legume. In South and East Asia, rice is combined with lentils or soybeans; in the Near East, wheat was complemented with chickpeas or broad beans; Native Americans ate corn with black beans or pinto beans; and a common combination in Africa was millet and cowpeas.
Essential amino acids are organic compounds that the human body needs to function properly but cannot produce on its own. They must be obtained through diet.
In the case of deficiency diseases, these are pathological conditions caused by the lack or insufficiency of essential nutrients in the diet. These nutrients can be vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbohydrates, fats, and other compounds necessary for the proper functioning of the body. Deficiency diseases can have serious effects on health if not treated properly.”
The best prevention is to consume a varied diet. Include nutrient-rich foods. Avoid restrictive diets. Perform regular medical check-ups. It is important to consult with a healthcare professional to determine individual needs for essential amino acids.
The above article is a collaboration of Lewis Dartnell (2024), BEING HUMAN: How Our Biology Has Shaped Universal History; pages 231-233, 286, 287 Debate publishing, Barcelona.
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