Carol Alt - A Healthy You: Boost Your Energy, Live Cleaner, and Look and Feel Younger Every Day

(Antoine Verglas)

To all the great doctors who changed my healthand, in doing so, changed my lifeand to all the alternative health experts who have come on my show, A Healthy You & Carol Alt, to share the incredible information they have painstakingly researched and learned.

Thank you all for your selfless dedication to a healthier wayto trying to find alternatives to pills and surgery.

Thank you for suffering the slings and arrows of nonbelievers to deliver your message and to help other people.

You help me in my quest to pay it forward.

I am forever in your debt.

Contents

By David Perlmutter, MD

#1 New York Times bestselling author of Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth About Wheat, Carbs, and SugarYour Brains Silent Killers

W ithout a doubt one of the most important decisions we make on a daily basis is what we choose to eat. And we now find ourselves being strongly influenced, in terms of how and why to make our food decisions, by the vast panorama of recommendations available in the form of books, social media, television, and even advertisements at the point-of-sale.

In broad strokes, these recommendations generally involve varying ratios of the macronutrients (including fat, carbohydrate, and protein), while the notion of consuming foods rich in the micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) seems to be a commonality among most popular diets. Over time, weve seen more and more dietary trendseach one favoring one macronutrient while castigating another. They gain popularity only to be supplanted by the next iteration. Remember, it wasnt too long ago that health care providers actually recommended we reduce our fat consumption under the misguided assumption that dietary fat was somehow detrimental to our health.

But now we understand that simply focusing on macronutrient ratios and micronutrient content represents a significant myopia. The foods we choose to consume are far more than simply metabolic chemicals. Food is information.

Whether our explorations of biology ended in high school or we went on to get PhDs in molecular genetics, each of us was schooled in what has become known as the central dogma. This basic tenet holds that a flow of information from our DNA directs the production of various proteins that ultimately play fundamental roles in our physiology. Moreover, we were all inculcated with the notion that our DNA was an indelible code that would determine everything from the color of our eyes to the ability of our blood to clot. The statement Its in my DNA means the quality in question is a part of a persons essencesomething that cannot be altered.

But the expression of our DNA is anything but static. Moment to moment specific genes are being amplified in their expression while others are being silenceda process that dramatically enhances our ability to adapt to the various environmental changes to which we are exposed. The effect of extrinsic factors in changing genetic expression defines the science of epigenetics.

More important, it turns out that these changes in the expression of our DNA, the changes that will favor either health or disease, are to a significant degree under our direct control. The notion that we have control of our genetic expression no doubt seems iconoclastic. But the idea that our choicesthe foods we eat, the exercise we get, the levels of stress in our day-to-day livesinfluence the expression of our life code should be considered profoundly empowering.

This is not to say that the carbohydrate content or the amount of vitamin C or magnesium contained in a particular food is not relevant in terms of its health implications. But embracing the notion that specific food choices can actually change your genetic destiny will frame your decisions in an all new light. Refined carbohydrates, for example, amplify genetic pathways that increase the bodys production of the chemical mediators of inflammation. And now that weve recognized inflammation as a pivotal mechanism in virtually every degenerative conditionfrom Alzheimers to coronary artery disease to diabetes and even cancerthe nutritional debate has gained game-changing perspective.

Beyond food, other lifestyle factors also amplify gene expression, culminating in the chemical cascade that enhances inflammation. Stress, sleep deprivation, and even lack of aerobic exercise can conspire to turn on maladaptive gene pathways that ultimately lead to disease.

In the pages that follow, Carol Alt not only reveals her personal epiphany based upon the dramatic lifestyle changes she put into play, but she also draws upon a vast resource of information accumulated during the course of her interviews with some of our most forward-thinking leaders in the area of health and longevity.

My hope is that as you read the text you will recognize that these recommendations can certainly stand on their own when evaluated based upon currently accepted metrics. But from the leading-edge perspective of the epigenetic implications of this program, A Healthy You will undoubtedly pave the way for you to rewrite your health destiny.

(Jimmy Bruch)

W hether you have seen my television show, A Healthy You & Carol Alt, have read my books on raw eating, or have just picked up this book because you are interested in creating a healthier life for you or your family, welcome! Im so glad to have you here with me on this journey to healthy living. In opening your mind to the new ideas, habits, products, and foods in this book, youve already taken your first step toward creating a healthy you!

You may be surprised to hear this, but at fifty-four years old, I feel more vibrant and alive than ever. I have more energy than I did in my twenties. I jump out of bed each morning not only because I love my career and Im in the best shape of my life, but also because I am healthier than Ive ever been. If you had told me twenty years ago that this is how I would feel in my midfifties, I would have laughed. I wasnt always like this. It was out of necessity that I found my own health and, in turn, my passion in life.

Now I want to share everything Ive learned with you!

Your health is the most important thing in life. It doesnt matter if you have the latest it bag, own a huge house, or drive a Mercedesif you dont have your health, everything else is meaningless. It took me years to figure this out, as I kept thinking I could put my health on the back burner and get to it later. Unfortunately, I realized that thats not how it works! Once I set out to make my health the number one priority in my life, there was no stopping me.

For the past twenty years, I have been an enthusiastic advocate of raw food and alternative health. Im not a doctor or a scientist, but I have done a lot of my own research and have been introduced to leading experts in the fieldfrom Dr. Timothy Brantley, who introduced me to raw food, to Dr. Nicholas J. Gonzalez, my current go-to doctor, as well as other amazing stars in the health world, like the Food Babe blogger Vani Hari, and One Lucky Duck founder Sarma Melngailis.