Disease Prevention Through Diet & Nutrition
Medical Author: Dennis Lee, MD
Medical Editor: Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD
There are three important reasons why following a healthy diet is critical:
- To maintain health by preventing loss of muscle
strength, bone mass, and vitamin deficiency states,
- To prevent diseases such as heart attacks, strokes,
obesity, osteoporosis, and certain cancers, and
- To help control and/or treat diseases such as high blood pressure, diabetes mellitus, and
celiac disease .
Maintaining health
The body needs carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, and minerals to maintain healthy organs, bones, muscles, nerves, and to produce hormones and chemicals.
Vitamins and minerals are naturally-occurring substances that are essential
for the proper growth and functioning of the body that are necessary (in small
amounts) for normal chemical reactions (metabolism) inside the body.
Preventing and controlling diseases
Obesity and heart attacks are major public
health problems in the United States and other countries. Therefore, most
dietary recommendations are aimed at preventing these two diseases. Obesity is
caused by eating more calories than the body burns. Obesity in turn can be a cause of many diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, liver disease, arthritis, high blood pressure, gout, gallstones, and certain cancers. To lose weight or maintain a healthy weight, one
needs to eat more low energy-dense foods. Low-energy-dense foods (such as vegetables and fruits) contain few calories per unit volume of food so that one can eat a large volume of it (for example: lettuce) without taking in many calories. One should also eat less of the high energy-dense foods such as fats, egg yolks, fried foods, sweets, and high fat salad dressings. Foods with a high energy density also often have high cholesterol and saturated fat content. One should also eat less of those foods that provide calories but little other nutrients, such as alcohol and many packaged snack foods.
The
Dietary Guidelines for Americans, published in 2005 by the United States
Department of Agriculture (USDA), contains guidelines for healthy diets based upon review of scientific studies for people above two years of age. These guidelines recommend that a healthy diet should:
- Emphasize fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and
fat-free or low-fat milk and milk products;
- Include lean meats, poultry, fish, beans, eggs, and
nuts; and
- be low in saturated fats,
trans fats, cholesterol, salt (sodium), and added sugars.
MyPyramid is an online animated program to help a person customize his/her
diet by choosing proper foods and portion sizes based on the individual's age, sex, and activity level. The key objectives of the MyPyramid Plan are to help a person get the most nutrition (proteins and vitamins and minerals) out of the recommended number of daily calories, and to achieve a balance between food intake and physical activity to maintain a healthy weight. MyPyramid Plan
recommendations include:
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