How Not To Die… What we didn’t know until now!

How not to Die? Hmm intriguing title! Latest on Immortality? With the book beside me as I type I have already had someone say that we all die eventually and ask so what is this all about?  This is Dr Greger’s excellent life changing new book and it packs a big punch right up front by informing us that there may be no such thing as dying from old age. Apparently current research shows that we actually die from diseases rather than old age! Think about it! Of course, the book is really about how not to die prematurely from diseases and how to live as healthily as possible. This is my dream book! I was very lucky to get an advanced copy. Mine is on order.

I have lost several dear people prematurely to heart attacks, leukaemia  and cancer as well as now caring  for loved ones with different stages of dementia so I am always on the alert for anything that helps me to get to a ripe old age while remaining as healthy, disease free and as active as possible. Whether you have had any kind of  similar experience (and I hope you haven’t), or whether you just want to know the current scientific evidence on what will keep you fit and healthy for as long as possible, then this is definitely the book for you too.

Dr Michael Greger and NutritionFacts.org

For anyone who doesn’t yet know of Dr Greger, he is the creator of NutritionFacts.org, a wonderful information website available to us all for free. This website was the starting point of my research into my own health issues some years ago after a doctor said he could not help me and I had to help myself. Am I glad that doctor couldn’t help me now!.

Here is the lowdown taken from the website itself:

“NUTRITIONFACTS.ORG is a strictly non-commercial, science-based public service provided by Michael Greger, MD, FACLM, launched with seed money and support by the Jesse & Julie Rasch Foundation. Now a 501c3 nonprofit charity, NutritionFacts.org provides free updates on the latest in nutrition research via bite-sized videos. There are now hundreds of videos on more than a thousand topics, with new videos and articles uploaded every day.”

 

 ‘How Not to Die’ revealed ….

How Not to Die  - The Book!

Chapter 1 extract:

“Imagine if terrorists created a bioagent…claiming the lives of nearly four hundred thousand Americans every year. That is the equivalent of one person every eighty-three seconds, every hour round the clock…  We’d marshall the army… …we’d stop at nothing until the terrorists were stopped.  Fortunately we are not losing hundreds of thousands of people each year to a preventable threat…are we?  Actually we are…….The killer I am taking about is coronary heart disease…. … heart disease may be a choice” – Michael Greger, M.D.

 

Gripped yet? I love Dr Greger’s style of writing. It is fast paced, very easy to read  and it flows. He is also very amusing.  I found I could not put the book down. But then Dr Greger has had plenty of experience with making nutritional science interesting and accessible to people. Check out any of his videos on his website and you will see what I mean!

How not to die of heart disease..

How not to die of heart disease – the leading cause of death in the USA today. “Heart disease may be a choice”  – Dr Greger

Do you want to know what food will help  with certain chronic health conditions? Are you currently researching what are the top cancer preventing foods? Have you read some conflicting stories and want  to know the risks and benefits of changing your diet? Want to know the herbs and  spices that will work as  anti-inflammatories for such conditions as gout, menstrual pain, headaches?  Do you just want to know what to eat to make your diet healthier than it is now? Is there an edible green plant you should avoid?  Are you wondering if you can you do anything for depression with diet?  Need to reduce muscle soreness after exercise? Are you concerned that Grandad is making his illness worse and wondering what he can do about it? Want to know how to change your genes? Are you interested in where Dr Greger get his protein? Remotely keen to know why stool size matters? – You should be!  Want to know why you might not want to sit next to Dr Greger when he eats a mango?

“We didn’t know until now!” 🙂

It’s all, with a huge amount more, in this excellent book!

 

How Not to Die – a book written in two halves.

Dr Greger has taken all his research and shown us, with full references to the currently available scientific evidence, how the right food and drinks may prevent disease and even reverse it. He gives us with the lowdown on all the different foods and their nutritional value to health so as to provide a  blueprint for what to eat.

The first half of the book is how to avoid dying of 15 diseases that are the leading causes of premature death . Dr Greger reveals the scientific evidence behind the only diet that can prevent and even reverse many of the causes of disease related deaths. Diabetes, kidney disease, lung diseases,  brain diseases, infections, Doctors’ mistakes (apparently a leading cause of death! Who knew?), heart disease, various cancers , Parkinson’s etc etc. It makes gripping reading and the powerful and vivid anecdotes, about himself, his patients and people who have written to him, really bring it to life.

The second half explains all the different groups of food and drink that make up the optimum diet for health and longevity.

Fresh vegetable smoothie on wooden table. Tomato, cucumber, carrot. Top view with copy space

Fresh vegetable smoothies – My version of a traffic light system  LOL!

Dr Greger has included how he eats and exercises BUT he is very keen to present the facts and let us decide, based on the available evidence. He says he only provided  an example of what he eats because he keeps being asked. He includes what he calls a “Dining by Traffic Light” illustration  – Green for go, yellow for caution and red for stop,  – as to what are the healthiest foods to eat as well as a brilliant checklist of his “Daily Dozen”. He makes choosing, what is best to eat for health, extremely easy.

How not to Die will give you the tools to take your power over your health back! Dr Greger wants us to feel empowered and in control of our own diets, making choices based on the evidence rather than just eating something because he tells us to. We can, of course,  choose whether to go the whole way to the healthiest foods or just choose to go with some of the recommendations and make changes to suit ourselves. The choice is ours. For myself, as I have a disease to reverse or to keep in check, I have long since taken the choice to 100% plant based vegan but this book will definitely gives me some tweaks to my diet.

I have always needed to be my own expert with my illness. I am very comfortable making my own food choices based on the available evidence and this book gives me the latest information to be able to do just that.  I like being treated as a adult who decides for myself rather than have someone decide for me. Changing my diet to change my health has been the most empowering thing I have ever done for myself. It took me two years of trial, error and research to find the answers for me. Now, this book, that gets straight to the point, is available to us all as a short cut through the research.

Just in case you are still wondering,  the available research indicates that a whole food plant based diet is optimum for health and longevity.

Why is this such a thick book? Because it is stuffed full of empowering knowledge but approximately a quarter of the pages are full of the many references to support the information provided in the book. If you are a nerd like me, you can go back to the source of anything that interests you.

If this is all sounding like an advert for this book, well  it is!  I am a huge fan of Dr Greger’s website and all the work he is doing to bring us the facts about nutrition. His work is a labour of love and all the proceeds he receives from the book will go towards keeping NutritionFacts.org running so that it continues to provide a free service to us all. That’s worth supporting and this book is a gem.

Thank you so much, Dr Greger.

How not to die - fresh fruit and veggies

Stall Holder At Farmers Fresh Food Market – Fresh Fruit and Veggies

How Not To Die: Discover the foods scientifically proven to prevent and reverse disease by Michael Greger M.D. with Gene Stone.

For ease I am including below the links to Amazon USA and UK  but please go buy the book from wherever is convenient to you. It might just save your life!

It’s available here on Amazon.com for USA readers and here on Amazon.co.uk for UK readers . It is also available on Kindle and for those pf us who are used to listening to Dr Greger’s dulcet tones from his videos, he is recording an audio book.

 

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