Western Diseases: Their Dietary Prevention and Reversibility

Description

Sir Richard Doll, FRS, FRCP ICRF Cancer Research Studies Unit Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, UK The twentieth century has seen few changes more remarkable than the improvement in health that has occurred nearly everywhere, most spectacularly in the economically developed countries. In these countries improved nutrition, better housing, the control ofinfection, smaller family sizes, and higher standards of education have brought about a situation in which more than 97% of all liveborn children can expect to survive the first half ofthe three score years and ten that formerly was regarded as the allotted span oflife. From then on, however, the position is less satisfactory. Some improvement has occurred; but the proportion of survivors who die prematurely, that is under 70 years of age, varies from 25% to over 50% in men and from 13% to 28% in women, the extremes in both sexes being recorded, respectively, in Japan and Hungary. Most of these deaths under 70 years of age must now be called premature, even in Japan. For most of them are not the result of any inevitable aging process, but instead are the consequences of diseases (or types of trauma) that have lower-often much lower-age-specific incidence rates in many of the least developed countries. Front Matter....Pages i-xiii Front Matter....Pages xv-xv The Emergence of a Concept....Pages 1-13 Western Diseases and What They Encompass....Pages 15-27 Front Matter....Pages N1-N1 Diet-Related Disease Patterns in South African Interethnic Populations....Pages 29-66 Diet and Chronic Degenerative Diseases....Pages 67-118 The Dietary Causes of Degenerative Diseases....Pages 119-152 Diet and Western Disease....Pages 153-185 Dietary Fiber....Pages 187-208 Vitamins and Minerals in Cancer, Hypertension, and Other Diseases....Pages 209-235 Front Matter....Pages N3-N3 Reversing Coronary Heart Disease....Pages 237-316 The Reversibility of Obesity, Diabetes, Hyperlipidemia, and Coronary Heart Disease....Pages 317-348 The Therapeutic and Preventive Potential of the Hunter-Gatherer Lifestyle....Pages 349-380 Front Matter....Pages N5-N5 Organized Medicine....Pages 381-398 Changes for Health....Pages 399-417 Front Matter....Pages N7-N7 Medical Research....Pages 419-436 Western Disease....Pages 437-439 Back Matter....Pages 441-453