Fruits and Vegetables

Health and fitness is so often counterintuitive and a nice example of that principle are supplements.  With a few exceptions, supplements just haven't held up under scrutiny of peer-reviewed research as a significant help against cancer, mortality, heart disease and so on.  I document this more in my link on The Dangers of Supplements and Vitamins for those interested in more detail.

Well, what about fruits and vegetables?  Is that a myth as well?  Well, some studies have been lackluster at best.  For example, one large scale meta-analysis of men and women found that fruit and vegetable  consumption provided a mild protection against cardiovascular disease and none against cancer. [1] Of note, though, is that green, leafy vegetables provided the most protection - more on that later.  A massive European study in 2010 found the same kind of results:  a small bit of protection against cancer for fruit and vegetable eaters, but certainly not the huge reduction that one might expect. [2]  NOTE:  In fairness, some of the smaller and earlier studies have found more pronounced benefits. [3][4]

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Furthermore, even if you drill into specific cancers, one finds the results similarly mediocre and/or ambiguous in most cases. [5]  Again, one might expect that fruits and vegetables will miraculously protect you and yours from chronic disease, but that simply does not appear to be the case. There is some evidence that those who eat little to no vegetables are at increased risk, but that certainly does not prove that "bathing" your system with fruits and vegetables is one of the big guns of health and fitness.

So, all of that said, should one forget about fruits and vegetables? In my opinion, all that these studies show is that health and fitness is a COMPLETE package.  You simply cannot ignore exercise, sleep and stress for example. Eating five fruits and vegetables per day isn't going to magically protect the sedentary and those that sleep five hours per night. 

Furthermore, most people in these studies eat a lot of saturated fat, sugars, processed foods, excitotoxins and nutrient-stripped flours.  Do we really believe that five servings of anything is going to magically cure them of disease? 

So you don't want to make the mistake of thinking that a few frozen vegetables are going to save the day.  Likewise, you don't want to think that they will do nothing either.  Remember this:  the supercultures of the world with virtually no heart disease, dementia or cancer all eat lots of fruits and vegetables. It is naive for us to think that these have nothing to do with it. 

Furthermore, there is some evidence of just what I am saying in a recent brain study:  researchers have found substantial correlation between ORAC consumption and brain aging.  The ORAC score, you may recall, is scientific measure of the amount of antioxidants in a given food.  The higher the ORAC, the higher the antioxidant power.  Typically fruits and veges that are dark-colored have high ORAC scores. 

In fact, what researchers discovered (in animals) was that many aspects of aging in the brain could be completely halted with high ORAC consumption.  Long term memory, learning ability, responsiveness and other factors were all largely protected through fruit and vegetable consumption with spinach topping the list. [6] In other words, there is decent evidence that fruit and vegetable consumption can in a very significant way halt brain aging under normal circumstances.

Furthermore, you will find that many fruits and vegetables can greatly help with nitric oxide output for erections. Many guys can notice an almost immediate difference. Fruits and vegetables are also a key component of the Ornish Diet, proven to reverse heart disease, the Mediterranean Diet, proven to decrease mortality, and the DASH Diet, proven to lower blood pressure. So, while fruits and vegetables may not be a panacea, they can truly produce miraculous results if included as part of your entire fitness regimen.

REFERENCES:

1) JNCI J Natl Cancer Inst, 2004, 96(21):1577-1584, "Fruit and Vegetable Intake 2) Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 2010, "Fruit and Vegetable Intake and Overall Cancer Risk in the European Prospective Investigation Into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC)"

3) Int J Epidemiol. 1997 Feb;26(1):1-13, "Fruit and vegetables, and cardiovascular disease: a review"

4) Nutr Cancer. 1992;18(1):1-29, "Fruit, vegetables, and cancer prevention: a review of the epidemiological evidence"

5) British Journal of Cancer (2011) 104:6–11, "Fruit and vegetables and cancer risk"

6) http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/ar/archive/feb99/aging0299.htm