Super Immunity (2 page)

I was allergic to pollen, grass, trees, ragweed, and cats, and was chronically congested. After being on antihistamines, and needing antibiotics over and over again, I developed recurrent UTIs [urinary tract infections] and bacterial sinus infections. I tried one diet after another to try to lose weight too; I craved food and felt guilty about my eating habits. It was a roller-coaster ride of one illness after another and more and more drugs—and I was still in my thirties.

Finally, after I read your work, it began to all make sense; I realized my immune system was weak. I dropped the fifteen pounds I had been trying to lose for years, and within weeks I felt mentally sharper and my stomach stopped bothering me. The really exciting part came six months later, when I realized my allergies were gone. I could finally breathe freely again and my allergies, sinus infections, and frequent urinary tract infections simply disappeared. I no longer need drugs anymore. I have discovered what really works to stay in great health, and that settles it for me.

What Laura experienced is available to all of us. This new science that you are going to learn in the subsequent pages is too valuable to remain hidden in the basement library of a medical school. Everybody needs to know that they can transform their lives too.

What most of us are still unaware of is how a weakened immunity, common to those eating the standard American diet, leaves us more exposed.

Not only does a weakened immune system leave us vulnerable to influenza and other diseases, but we have evidence to indicate that our overuse of antibiotics and other medications may be a contributory factor in the development of cancer.

A study published in the
Journal of the American Medical Association
(
JAMA
) provides evidence that the use of antibiotics is associated with an increased risk of breast cancer. Authors from the National Cancer Institute (a part of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland), the University of Washington in Seattle, and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, also in Seattle, concluded that the more antibiotics the women in the study used, the higher their risk of breast cancer.
⁴

The authors of this
JAMA
study found that women who'd had more than twenty-five prescriptions—over an average period of seventeen years—had more than twice the risk of breast cancer than women who had not taken any antibiotics. However, even women who had between one and twenty-five prescriptions over that same period had an increased risk; they were about one and a half times more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer than women who hadn't taken any antibiotics. The authors found an increased risk in all classes of antibiotics that they studied.

I remember the first pharmacology lecture I heard in medical school, when the professor emphasized, “Make no doubt about it: all drugs are toxic and can even hasten one's death. They should be used only after careful consideration of the risk-to-benefit ratio, because they all have considerable and serious risks.” Couple our nutrient-poor diet—and the resultant immune system weaknesses, leading to frequent illnesses—with the use and overuse of medications, including antibiotics, vaccines, and immunosuppressive drugs for autoimmune diseases, and we have a good reason for the explosion in cancer rates over the last seventy years. But we can alter this course.

That witches' cauldron of nutritional deficiencies coupled with the overuse and dependency on medication is destructive to our health as we age. If you, like Laura, are sick all the time, if you are overly dependent on drugs just to feel “normal,” that should trigger an alarm. Those frequent infections are like your body's immunity alarm. Excellent health is not merely how you feel at the moment; it is how resistant your immune system is to microbes, which also reflects how resistant you are to cancer. This is a serious subject that may be uncomfortable to discuss, but it is too important to hide from. Laura's frequent infections and dependency on drugs finally triggered an alarm and alerted Laura. Deep down she knew she had to change. Today, with her improved health, she has protected herself in more ways than she even knows at this point. She was heading toward a health tragedy that she averted.

We were taught that viruses are passed from person to person via hand-to-face behavior but are otherwise unavoidable. If this is true, why do some of us get sick more often than others? What makes some people more susceptible? Once someone in our household or workplace is sick, are we simply doomed to get sick as well?

What if science advanced to the point where it became possible to become almost totally resistant to colds, influenza, and other infections—and if you did “catch” something, you bounced back to wellness within twenty-four hours? What if we could prevent the complications of viral and bacterial exposures and keep them as minor annoyances that never evolved into more dangerous infections? What if it were possible to develop Super Immunity to infections? Wouldn't you want to have it?

What if we found out how to build immune defenses with proper nutrition to develop Super Immunity—defenses so strong that more than 80 percent of cancers would not occur? What if these same positive actions enabled you to age more slowly and maintain your youthful vigor and excellent health into your later years?

The truth is that nutritional science has made phenomenal strides and discoveries in recent years, and if you apply this new science to your dietary choices, it will enable you to take control of your health destiny. At this point in the history of nutritional science, evidence exists demonstrating that the human immune system can be supercharged to protect our bodies against disease. I will help you understand this new science and put it into action in your kitchen and your life.

Food gives us energy and the building blocks to grow in the form of calories, but we have not fully appreciated the
noncaloric
micronutrients in food, including those that are neither vitamins nor minerals, but phytochemicals—elements that strengthen and support normal immune function. This book teaches you about these critical factors for normalizing and strengthening immune function. Utilizing a combination of foods that are rich in powerful, immunity-strengthening phytochemicals and other micronutrients, it's possible to prevent most common modern diseases. By maximizing the function and protective potential of the human immune system, we can earn Super Immunity.

Super Immunity helps with everything from the colds and flu to cancer. This is not only about getting through the flu season; it is about living with superior health
for the rest of your life
. We are not talking about just a quick fix, but an entire shift in how we understand our health and wellness.

Life is not without risks, and of course optimal nutrition cannot prevent all microbial diseases and all cancers. Nevertheless, with advancements in modern medicine, nutritional science, and microbiology, there is no reason why the most common serious diseases should not become exceedingly
un
common.

I hope you scrutinize and critique carefully the information presented in this book. I hope many of you review the scientific references listed as well, and confirm their accuracy. If you do so, I think you will find that the evidence is too great to be ignored, and the solution too delicious. Super Immunity is available for those who choose it!

Before I began to incorporate Dr. Fuhrman's ideas into my own diet, I was always getting colds and suffering from almost chronic sinus infections. Heck, I almost died of pneumonia twice. But now I am never sick. I haven't had a cold in three years. I track my nutritional intake and I can see for myself that I am now eating a diet that meets and exceeds the recommended intake of almost all vitamins and minerals. And now I understand why I was so sickly before: I was getting so little nutrition. Thank you, Dr. Fuhrman.

—Aram Barsamian

H
istorians and archaeologists have revealed that ancient civilizations all over the world recognized that certain foods could provide health-promoting and disease-protective benefits. The historically documented use of certain foods and food extracts from dried plants for healing indicates that the early application of the knowledge about the health-giving functions of plant-derived compounds dates back thousands of years.

Natural plants are complex packages of biologically active compounds. The term “phytochemicals,” which means “plant-chemicals,” was coined to represent these thousands of plant-sourced compounds that have functional effects in animal tissues with subtle but profound effects on human health and immunity. With the recent discovery that superior immune function in humans is dependent on a broad array of these plant-derived chemicals, we can appreciate that food supplies us not only with the basic nutritive functions, but also with a secondary level of nutrition that adds a complex layer of disease resistance and longevity benefits. These secondary benefits have not been adequately appreciated until recently.

Our evolution in a world of edible plants allowed the human body to take advantage of the complex biochemical compounds found in plants that we could use to support superior functioning of our cells. In recent years we have discovered fascinating and enormously complex interactions within our cells—interactions by which a combination of phytochemicals support defensive and self-reparative machinery we never knew the human body possessed.

Phytochemicals are bioactive, plant-derived chemical compounds important for the growth and survival of the plant; they came about for the benefit of the plant world. However, the human immune system evolved dependent on these phytochemicals for its optimal functioning. Some people, objecting to the connotations of the word “chemical” (with its connection to artificial and toxic compounds), prefer to use the word “phytonutrients,” so you will often see those words interchanged. However, the word “chemical” is really what we might call agnostic, disconnected from particular dogma; and the widely established word “phytochemical” is the correct term to represent the broad array of these newly discovered compounds with complicated health effects.

Superior nutrition is the secret to Super Immunity, and it is relatively simple. It does not take years of study and contemplation to become an expert in human nutrition as long as you understand the principles that govern your basic food choices and food preparation. Just like the complicated and synergistic nature of the human immune system, natural plants are complicated and wondrous life forms; they contain thousands of intricate cells and biochemicals working in harmony. Animals and plants developed a fragile, interconnected, and symbiotic relationship on earth, and now human beings rely on plants for our health and survival. When studying the survival potential of animals and humans, we must realize that we are dependent on the health and quality of the food grown from the earth to sustain us: the health of the food we eat ultimately determines our own health. When we eat healthy food, we become healthy; when we don't, we develop disease. Essentially, we are made from the food we eat. As it is commonly said, we are what we eat.

Unfortunately, when we cultivate nutritional deficiencies in our body over long periods of time, especially in our formative years, it can create cellular damage resulting in serious illnesses in later life that can be difficult to resolve. In addition, these deficiencies result in inferior immunity.

The great news for all of us is that the recent advancements in nutritional science have created an opportunity to earn great health via what we eat. And, as you will discover, it is not only the powerful compounds in foods such as berries and pomegranates that are so protective, but these compounds—when combined with those found in green vegetables, mushrooms, and onions in the diet—fuel the miraculous self-healing and self-protective properties
already built into the human genome,
together resulting in Super Immunity.

A
combination
of these compounds is more effective than a single agent, even in a high dose. For example, taking a large dose of vitamin C or vitamin E is not very effective, especially if no deficiency existed prior to dosing. Likewise, although certain phytochemical compounds have more profound, long-acting, and powerful free-radical-scavenging effects than do known antioxidant vitamins such as C and E (more on antioxidants and free radicals later), supplementing with a hefty dose of a natural phytochemical extracted from a green vegetable would not offer as much protection as combining it with the
hundreds
of other beneficial compounds found in nutrient-rich foods. Acting cooperatively, these newly identified micronutrients work together to fuel an assortment of mechanisms that both prevent cell damage and also kill heavily damaged cells that cannot be adequately repaired, before they become dangerous to the body.

My “nutritarian” approach, which includes and mixes the most powerful and protective foods in the diet, is natural, comes without toxicity, and can prevent many human tragedies—not just revving up our immune system against infection and cancer, but also preventing heart attacks, strokes, and dementia.

The American Dietary Disaster, or Death from Processed Foods

Because the modern diet in America and much of the world today is so rich in processed foods and animal products and so low in natural vegetation, especially vegetables, almost all Americans are dramatically deficient in plant-derived phytochemicals, and the effects are far-reaching and dangerous.