While the coronacrisis is shocking many of our habits into much-needed change, we might as well focus on those with the biggest benefit in terms of life quality and sustainability. This goes well beyond banning wet markets in Asia. The fact is that nearly all of our disease and associated suffering comes from the present food supply and diet.
Dr. Mark Hyman is head of strategy and innovation at the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine and author of “Food Fix: How to Save Our Health, Our Economy, Our Communities and Our Planet — One Bite at a Time.” Today, he distills the main facts and statistics in a must-read article The link between coronavirus deaths and diet. Here’s a taste:
Doctors and scientists are discovering two common characteristics among many of those who are losing their battle with COVID-19 — they are overweight or obese and suffer from a chronic disease. Ninety four percent of deaths from COVID-19 are in those with an underlying age-related chronic disease, mostly caused by excess body fat.
…COVID-19 has pulled back the curtain to reveal just how unhealthy we are as a nation. Only about 12 percent of Americans [Canadians about the same] are metabolically healthy, without a large waist, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, or high cholesterol. The major driver of poor metabolic health, which increases the risk of hospitalization and death from COVID-19, is the nation’s diet — rich in starch, sugar, and processed foods and low in unprocessed food, vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, good fats, seafood, nuts, and seeds.
We are spending trillions on our sick-care system, we might as well get some lasting benefits out of it. Now is the time to restructure the toxic food system behind our elevated health and financial fragility. Yes, we must. We can’t afford the status quo.
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