Fast Food Genocide

by Dr. Joel Fuhrman

  Predators and their prey coexist in a circle of interdependence; what happens to one, affects the other. Nature allots a certain amount of each prey to each predator because if predators ate too many of their prey, they would exhaust their food supply and could eat themselves and their prey into extinction. The size of predator populations are closely linked to the population size of their prey. For instance, the number of Canadian lynxes in a given area is directly related to the number of hares. Canadian lynxes exist in a subarctic environment where there are few other prey species. They eat snowshoe hare and little else. Snowshoe hare cope with the seasonal absence of vegetation by eating bark, which enables them to survive harsh northern winters. Every ten years, the population of snowshoe hare explodes, which always follows a period of decline of the lynx.2 This decline of the lynx always occurs after a period of plenty caused by increased populations of the hare.

  By examining a large number of these relationships, researchers found that if a predator eats more than its allotment, its life is shortened from excess consumption.3 When too many hares are consumed, too few will remain to replenish their numbers; that is, there are fewer prey animals (hares) to produce offspring when too many are eaten. Nature protects against extinction. Too much protein changes the DNA of the predators, and their lives and the lives of their young are shortened, which in turn curtails the eating of more hares in the future, assuring that enough hares survive into the future.

  The lynx population doesn’t immediately recover; the reduced life span remains lower for two generations, which gives the hare population a chance to replenish itself. If the lynxes recovered too quickly, they would prevent the hares from replenishing their numbers. They could eat themselves into extinction. The altered expression of lynx genes caused by the excessive consumption of snowshoe hare is passed on to the lynx’s offspring and their offspring’s young, resulting in the shortened life spans. This example shows that nature maintains ecological equilibrium by diet-induced DNA changes that alter the expression of predator DNA in response to how much food the predator eats. This evidence for the evolutionarily conserved nature of protein-mediated longevity is extremely strong, ranging from invertebrates to humans.4

  Natural law is enforced within the DNA of the predator. It penalizes the individual and its offspring so that it may ensure the survival of the collective. This same law applies to other mammals, including humans. When too much is available to eat, many people will simply eat too much. We don’t normally see ourselves as predators because we buy our meat neatly packaged from the grocery store. However, if we eat meat, we are predators; our genes don’t care where the meat comes from. Excessive meat consumption shortens human life span, too. And that shortened life span may be passed on to future generations.

  Proponents of the Paleo diet are seemingly unaware of the complexity and depth of the supportive evidence. They mistakenly believe that humans will be healthier if they eat more meat because they believe that’s what Paleolithic humans ate and Paleolithic humans were healthier than people are today. However, analysis of Paleolithic skeletons has shown that few people at that time survived beyond middle age.5 In certain regions and periods when Paleolithic humans did become apex predators, eating hunted animals for most of their calories, evidence suggests that they usually died young. Of course, early humans ate what was available to eat in their local habitats and did not have one type of diet, but certainly their diet was not scientifically formulated to maximize longevity, and they ate merely to survive and reproduce.

  Today’s science has uncovered more about the fascinating relationship between overconsumption of meat and shorter life span. We now know that IGF-1 production increases as we consume more animal protein and this, in turn, also shortens life spans in humans.6 Plant-eaters produce far less IGF-1 and are not subject to this life-shortening form of predatory control. We know from credible studies that as we eat more plants and fewer animal products, lifespan increases in length.7

  These studies become more trustworthy and important because they include thousands of individuals followed for multiple decades, and they use the hard endpoint of death. And, as shown in the scientific studies cited in Chapter 3, plant phytochemicals do the opposite: They slow aging, strengthen immune function, and protect against cancer. Methylation damage to our DNA, which can promote aging and cancer, is cumulative and exacerbated by eating too many animal products and too much fast food.8 Further, this meat-heavy dietary approach inhibits the consumption of natural, colorful plants rich in phytochemicals necessary for optimal health.

  “I said to Dr. Fuhrman, I’d rather be dead then eat vegetables, but that was before I found out there was no food at all up here.”

  We are a long way from fully understanding how DNA works. Nevertheless, it is becoming increasingly obvious that DNA not only makes life possible for individuals but also preserves and safeguards life for future generations in order to protect the species. People who seek to maintain good health later in life, while consuming large amounts of meat, are waging an unwinnable battle. Those who shift from a junk food diet rich in sweets and processed carbohydrates to a meat-based diet in midlife may see some health improvements—not because meat is inherently healthy, but because junk food is fundamentally worse. The benefits of such diets are short-lived, and ultimately life span is unfavorably affected.

  OUR GENETIC MATERIAL IS DYNAMICALLY MODIFIED BY ENVIRONMENT AND SOCIAL INTERACTIONS

  Positive social energy promotes good health. Social energy is a form of power derived from interaction with others. It is an invisible force that grows from encouraging social interactions that connect us to one another.9 Even though we can’t measure it directly, we can measure its effects. The absence of this vital energy is an underlying contributor to obesity, chronic disease, and many hard-to-explain problems. Social energy is not some New Age concept but rather an identifiable force that affects the activity of genes responsible for governing behavior and food preference.

  The term social status applied to humans conjures images of social privilege and elitism. Social status traditionally implies position, wealth, and education. Social energy, in contrast, is built by goodwill toward others and action. Humans get status by harnessing social energy to make things happen. Social energy enables us to build organizations, start businesses, and build social circles. A growing body of research reveals how favorable or unfavorable human interactions affect the activity of our DNA. It is why more socially accomplished people live longer.

  Mark Wilson, professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at the Emory University School of Medicine, has studied the connection between social interactions, behavior, and gene activity, which are all surprisingly linked to nutrition. The way we eat determines how we interact with each other and vice versa. Wilson not only revealed how this process works, but he also showed how the presence of unnatural foods corrupts the natural order and leads to behavioral mayhem.

  Social hierarchy in the animal world is purposeful. It performs an essential function that ensures the survival of entire species by systematically allocating limited resources to those responsible for producing offspring. Consequently, high-status animals pursue healthy resources, while low-status animals are biologically programmed to stay out of their way, even if it means going hungry. We live in a world where resources are sometimes limited. In the absence of an efficient means of allocating resources, life, as we know it, would have vanished long ago. If all animals competed for food equally when food was scarce, there would not be enough for any single mating pair to produce healthy offspring.

  Wilson and his colleagues taught a group of monkeys how to eat junk food.10 They then housed the monkeys together in a shared environment until a social hierarchy formed. The researchers provided unlimited access to healthy monkey chow and also to high-calorie junk food. Two types of monkeys emerged out of this study: One type spent significant amounts of time socializing with and grooming other monkeys, and the second type continued
to be isolated even though they were surrounded by others. Not only did each type exhibit different social behaviors; each behaved differently with food. The high-status monkeys, which exerted more social energy, only occasionally dabbled in the unhealthy fare. They consumed a predominantly high-nutrient diet and instinctively regulated their caloric intake, even in the presence of unhealthy options. In sharp contrast, the subordinated, low-status monkeys ceased to consume healthy foods and dined exclusively on junk. They lost their ability to regulate their caloric intake and became compulsive binge eaters. However, they didn’t do so openly; they waited until late at night to eat after the other monkeys went to sleep. High-status monkeys managed their stress by engaging in social interactions. The low-status monkeys under the added stress of hierarchical subordination managed theirs by self-medicating with low-nutrient, high-calorie foods. They ultimately became obese.

  In a second study conducted on well-fed monkeys, Wilson and his team found they were able to manipulate status by moving monkeys from one group to another and train them to improve their behavior and social status. These researchers were able to show that manipulating social hierarchy could actually alter the expression of genes that regulated social interactions and food preferences.11 The activated genes resulted in better immune function and better health, and those primates that obtained better social positions were simply less likely to become addicted to junk food.

  OUR PRIMATE-WIRED BRAINS

  Humans also have genetically driven behaviors that can be modulated by our environment. Social energy is determined by how others treat us. Like monkeys, we are more likely to behave impulsively and prefer junk food when socially deprived. Furthermore, socially accepted people with a close circle of friends live longer than those who are lonely.12 The longest-lived, healthiest people in the world share some common traits; among them is having good relationships with other people. The Australian Longitudinal Study of Aging showed that people with good social relationships were 22 percent less likely to die during the following decade.13 Close contact with just children and relatives had little effect on survival; those people with the strongest network of friends and acquaintances were the most likely to live the longest.

  The portfolio of studies examining this question corroborate the data: Positive social interactions with other people in our communities improves health and lengthens life span.14 Likewise, people who think of themselves as victims or feel routinely rejected have a significantly increased risk of chronic disease and are more likely to become depressed and obese.15 Social rejection causes depression to set in faster than other forms of adversity. Depressed people then instinctively seek out unhealthy foods and are more likely to gain weight as a result.16

  Scientists studying primates find the same outcome. As we have seen, monkeys with higher social status receive more attention, are more social, and therefore eat a superior diet, resulting in superior immune function. Furthermore, the aforementioned experiments have demonstrated that low-status animals and animals under the stress of dominance by higher-status animals may become biologically wired to eat alone. When exposed to unnatural, unhealthy, artificially flavored Frankenfoods, they become addicted easily, avoid nutritious foods, and remain socially isolated.

  Low status in the animal kingdom is not a mark of physical inferiority, nor is it a permanent condition. Primate research has demonstrated that low-status monkeys that do not socialize do not require as much nutrition as their sexually active peers. In the wild, low-status monkeys would be calorie-restricted and thin. Caloric restriction is well-established and shown to slow the aging process and extend longevity.17 Wild primates eating less food do not have worse health or survival compared with their better-fed peers, though they may be less able to produce offspring. However, this situational behavioral pattern can spontaneously change. Low-status animals are like reservists in the military who can be called into active duty when needed. A sudden increase in the availability of nutritional resources, or the death of a high-status peer, represents an opportunity to ascend. As Wilson’s research team observed, a change in status led to a change in the expression of genes that altered behavior, diet, and immune function.

  In the animal kingdom, low-status animals ascend when the opportunity presents itself. Nature guards the health of both high-status and low-status individuals by providing various and overlapping ways of maintaining health and life span. Eating a nutritious diet extends life, as long as too much animal protein is not eaten; however, not only does eating fewer calories and less animal protein extend life, so does eating less frequently (intermittent fasting), thus preserving the health and life span of the lower-status animals.18

  Unlike wild animals that use social function as a means of survival, humans exploit social hierarchies for personal gain. Our species has unwittingly created large numbers of disenfranchised individuals who have been thrust into a dangerous food environment, and the unintended consequence is fast food genocide.

  BRAIN FUNCTION AND IMMUNE FUNCTION ARE INTERTWINED

  Status differences can become biological differences. The emerging field of human social genomics studies this phenomenon. Researchers Gene Slavich and Steven Cole of UCLA point out that our genome appears to encode a wide variety of “potential biological selves,” and which “biological self” gets realized depends on the social conditions we experience over the course of our lives.19 Cole identified socially activated genes in humans that regulate immune function. People with high social energy have strong anti-inflammatory immune responses that are absent in those with low status.

  The immune system benefits greatly from plant phytochemicals and intermittent fasting. Low-status animals in the wild normally consume micronutrient-dense, calorie-restricted diets, so they do not suffer from chronic inflammation, as do low-status humans. In sharp contrast, lonely people or people with primarily negative social interactions in Western countries consume too many low-nutrient calories (fast food), which transforms a mildly compromised immune response into chronic inflammation and very serious illnesses. Being low status or not having positive social connections does not make wild animals innately more susceptible to pathogens. We humans do that to ourselves by eating unhealthy foods.

  Negative social energy diminishes brain function in both monkeys and people. Social energy empowers us to rise above our circumstances by enabling us to increase our status and purpose. We create this energy by being altruistic and compassionate, conversing with others, and helping others. People with this type of social energy are more likely to be healthy, accomplish things, and be financially secure because they are not satisfied with just getting by or maintaining the status quo. A favorable social environment and adequate nutritional intake are the primary determinants of higher socioeconomic potential in life.

  Taste preferences and eating behavior can be manipulated and are excellent barometers of self-esteem and connectivity to others. A study has shown that socially isolated people with poor self-esteem and people exposed to toxic social environments are more likely to prefer high-fat, sugary, and salty foods that are low in fiber. People who were the least educated were found to have the strongest dislike for fruits and vegetables.20 Young children exposed to adverse social circumstances develop unhealthy food preferences long before they are old enough to use money or have gotten an education. Exposure to fast food determined these preferences and did so at an age that can destroy their educational opportunity.

  We can surround our children with positive social energy; we can teach the importance of eating nutritionally superior foods. Undoubtedly, favorable social energy and the importance of eating nutrient-rich foods can be taught, and children given the opportunity to learn communication skills and good nutrition have greater opportunity for happiness and success in life.21

  In modern human populations, low social status predisposes a person to seek out unhealthy processed foods, which fundamentally can alter that person’s character as well as lead to diabetes, obesity, c
hronic depression, and anger. The pervasive availability of these foods tips the balance and transforms low social status into a disease that affects entire communities. In our modern fast food world, children raised in socially oppressed homes, who may not have role models for correct expression of social energy, are further damaged by their disease-promoting food environment; this affects their genes and their brains, and as they age, they lose the will to climb out of the oppression they have experienced.

  SOCIAL ABILITY AFFECTS GENE ACTIVITY IN HUMANS

  For years, scientists operated under the erroneous assumption that the “law of the jungle” prescribed survival of the fittest and that genes determined traits independent of other factors. This idea originated from the Darwinian premise that some genes were better than others. Such concepts created an unprincipled view of the world that treated excessiveness, brutality, and selfishness as natural consequences of being superior. The idea that gene expression can be altered challenges many deeply held beliefs. Scientists dating back to Charles Davenport have viewed genes simplistically as unchanging containers of heredity that define individual traits independent of all other influences. However, scientists now know that genes operate in ways that are far more complex. Areas of human DNA that were previously thought of as “junk DNA” are now known to be important software that can direct cell function. These small areas of our DNA can be turned on or off and dramatically affect the expression and function of genes and in turn other biological functions.