GLOBAL SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION
Abstract: Global Scientific Nutrition values foods based on their content of nutrients using Biochemical Engineering analysis and advanced computer modeling using useful population research found relating nutrient amounts to risks of disease. This method can value quantitatively and objectively the health value of any diet and of any individual food in any diet. The method should produce a health valuation of foods of much higher accuracy than that possible from the risk ratios of conventional health study methods. Global Scientific Nutrition is felt to provide a major breakthrough in the health valuation of foods and diets.
In concept, Global Scientific Nutrition provides 'A best useful measure of health from how each of the nutrients in a food affects the risks of all major involved diseases as developed from all pertinent research published'. Life Ahead Model #3 uses as a basis all useful population research found published on risks of up to 15 different diseases or disease groups from 23 different food nutrients as of about 2006. The method can use effectively the results from about 500 research studies of nutrient risk combined with the USDA values of actual food nutrient composition in developing a single food valuation. The scope and accuracy of Global Nutrition should advance as more research on nutrient-disease combinations and improved valuation methods become available.
Background: 'Diet Health' became a major focus of health research starting a half century ago. The early concept was that fats in a diet caused cholesterol in the blood to increase and this in turn increased risk of heart disease. This led many in our population to consider meat, sweets, and other fat containing foods to be 'bad', and chicken and lower fat foods to be 'good'. Salt or Sodium also was indicted as a problem for blood pressure early in the Diet Health research era.
Research starting mostly in the 1980's found that other factors also affected diet risk. Eskimos that ate highest fat diets suffered little heart disease. And researcher's were shocked by studies of the so-called Mediterranean diet that showed that people having the same cholesterol could have a 2/3 lower risk of heart disease death. The beneficial cause of this turned out to be Omega-3 fats. And it became clearly known that that 'bad' fats were the saturated, with unsaturated fats that usually comprised most of the total fat ranging from 'modestly good' to 'very good'.
Fish were found to include the most beneficial Omega-3 fats that reduced risk, and a variety of foods include useful amounts of Omega-3 fats. Folic acid and Vitamin B6 were found to be importance to heart disease and some cancer. Antioxidants such as Vitamins A, C, E and Selenium are now confirmed by most of more than 160 studies to reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases, multiple types of cancer, dementia and macular degeneration. Certain types of carbohydrates and sugar produced elevations in insulin that promoted both diabetes and heart disease, and this factor now is quantified by Glycemic Load. Lycopene that was included mostly in tomatoes was found to reduce risk of some cancers. Lutein found mostly in spinach was found to reduce risk of macular degeneration, a serious life diminishing disease. Nutrients Magnesium, Calcium, Potassium and Zinc each have been confirmed by multiple population studies to have potentially beneficial effects of on major disease. Trans-fats even in small amounts increases risk of heart disease. And dietary Fiber has been found to be importantly related to both heart disease and some types of cancer.
Other Diet Factors Could be More Important than Cholesterol: Most publicity on and public awareness about diet health has been and still is oriented to cholesterol and heart disease. But population levels of cholesterol have declined during the last two decades and other factors can now be much more important to diet health. The premier 10 year study of 316.000 men on serum cholesterol and heart disease showed that at age 50 each increase of one ml/dl in serum cholesterol produced a compounded increase of 1.1% per year in risk of heart disease. But this effect declines with age, and at age 60 the risk declines to 0.7% per year. Highest cholesterol values usually tend to be due to genetics, a maximum effect of diet on cholesterol seems to be about 50 mg/dl from a high junk food diet. Although cholesterol highest from diet may increase risk of heart disease at age 60 by about 40%, a more usual effect on risk of diet differences and cholesterol is 10-20%.
In comparison, a usual Mediterranean diet reduced this risk by about 65% due to higher amounts of omega-3 fats. The large Nurses study showed those with diets high Glycemic Load (GL) increased risk of heart disease by 57%. GL identifies the risk of certain carbohydrates in increasing risk of heart disease due to their effect in producing blood sugar. An analysis of 160 studies of antioxidants confirmed that each of four of them could reduce risk of both heart disease disease and most types of cancer by 30% or more.
Heart disease is the most important diet related life limiting disease. But the risk of most types of cancer, diabetes, respiratory disease, dementia, osteoporosis, and macular degeneration also are diet related. And in aggregate these other diseases can be more important to life than is heart disease. A large body of research data now is available on the risks of various major diseases related to different dietary nutrients. But at this writing no scientific analysis appears to have been made of the relative importance of these various disease-nutrient risk combinations to risk of disease or overall healthy life..
The Life Ahead Project: Health and nutrition research identifies a statistical ratio of amounts of a disease suffered from populations that eat different amounts of an individual diet nutrient. As examples we have the have a risk of saturated fat on heart disease, a risk of omega-3 fat on heart disease, a risk of saturated fat on colon cancer, and a risk of antioxidants on dementia. 23 different usual dietary nutrients as noted above that can affect risk of a disease and the health value of a food were identified as 'usefully verified' in the Life Ahead project. These different nutrients were verified as affecting the risk of up to 15 different major diseases. From 1 to 8 different nutrients - with an average of about four - were found to affect the risks of the individual diseases. Life Ahead now includes 55 different quantified nutrient-disease risk factors as 'usefully verified' by from at least three to more than a hundred consistent population research studies. The term individual nutrient as used here does not include the major food groups of total fats, proteins, and carbohydrates.
All useful population research found published that provided a quantification of risk with values of a nutrient was used in developing these nutrient-disease relationships to avoid selection bias and to obtain the highest now possible accuracy.. Detail on each relationship is provided in more than 50 different papers including those hyperlinked above on web site, www.lifeahead.net. Most of these papers include the actual study risk ratio results and error margins of each research comparison included. This site may now include the most extensive assembly of actual results of key research factor-disease wellness research now on the internet. Many other nutrient-disease combinations have been researched that did not meet this standard, and some of these probably also will affect diet health. And some verified nutrient-disease relations could have been overlooked. As such other verified combinations become available or improved in accuracy they should be included to become a part of Global Scientific Nutrition.
Deriving a Useful Measure of Health: A first problem in analyzing diet and health becomes "How do we measure the health value of a food or a diet?" Each of the above 55 different now verified nutrient-disease risk factors must be involved in the overall health value of a food. And each of their values will vary depending on amounts of each nutrient in a food, and with the kind and amounts of diseases they affect. It seems obvious that the risk factor method will not be useful in valuing the overall health of a food. It becomes useful to step back and ask the question, "What kind of a measure will most usefully inform the public about the probable health values of the foods and diets that they eat?"
One measure could be risk of death. But we now have 55 different risk ratios for death in valuing a food, the overall the risk of death due to diet is changing continually with age and all other health factors, some diseases that are not major causes of death can affect seriously the quality of life. And a risk ratio communicates little to the public beyond saying something is 'good.' A next one is "If I eat one portion of a food every day for the rest of my life, how will this change how long I am likely to live?" Although better and a useful goal, life expectancy is dismissed by many people as more unwanted years at old age sitting in a wheel chair. A goal of more interest is "How many healthful days and years will I gain by regularly eating this food henceforth?" Life Ahead uses this latter concept via its measure of 'Well-Days'. Well-Days represents life expectancy days minus discounts for loss of quality of life from major diseases as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, alzheimers, macular degeneration and others that can result because of lifestyle habits. Although deductions for such problems can only be approximate and life expectancy remains as the most important value in the analysis, these deductions do recognize factors such as dementia that can have profound effects on the quality of life The Life Ahead program does display life expectancy and risks of death for all included diseases if these are of interest.
Developing 'Well-Days' of Health: The biochemical engineering based computer program Life Ahead provides what is believed to be a state-of-art technology for computing probable risks of disease from known life-style factors including those related to diet. The Life Ahead Model #3 program develops the risks by year to age 110 of nineteen most important limiters of US healthful life and its quality. The extent of each included disease and cause of death is recomputed each year of life to solve the complexity of interacting amounts of each life limiter. The model includes major causes of death as heart disease and stroke and six major cause groups of cancer. It also includes diabetes, COPD, nephritis, arthritis, dementia/alzheimers, and macular degeneration and others.
The program enters a diet from specific foods eaten at meals from a library of 370 most usual foods and other entry alternates. The food library identifies values of all of the above nutrients for each included food. Included are amounts of omega-3 fats from 18-3 linolenic acid and 20.5n3 and 22.6n3 DHA and EPA fats. The program also develops a new Antioxidant Index for valuing antioxidants, and includes Glycemic loads of all included foods. With a little practice a usual daily diet can be approximated and entered into this program in a few minutes. Once entered, Life Ahead can produce a large amount of information about a diet's composition and health. The program can compute results of a diet that includes amounts of calories and overall nutrient values as input values rather than the more practical inputs of actual diet foods if this is desired..
Life Ahead computes the above 55 needed nutrient-disease risks of disease related to diet at each age, passes these risks to value the extent of each disease and death from disease in a population at each age of life, computes life expectancy from all involved habits and factors including diet, and subtracts the values needed to compute probable Well-Days of life. A first computation is made at user habits including a diet of specific foods. Compositions of all 23 needed diet nutrients are computed and compared with nutrient targets for best health. All health values including diet nutrients are then reset to 'Good' health values and a new risk profile of diseases computed .
Differences between program values at 'Good' habits and user habits are listed as user 'Deficiencies' A correction of these deficiencies provides a user with specific opportunities to improve healthful life by reducing risk of disease. The deficiency values in Well-Days are first allocated to major user habits as diet, exercise, smoking. The overall deficiency in Well-Days due to diet is further allocated to deficiencies in specific dietary nutrients. An example that follows will explain this further.
This example is for an average US man of age 50 using a typical un-supplemented diet. The total Well-Days potential was 5,400 (14.8 yrs) for good habits vs user habits, and the fraction allocated for an improved diet was 1,832 Well-Days (5.0 yrs). This 1,832 if the amount that can be corrected by a good diet. This diet deficiency was obtained from the changes in risk of all included diseases from all involved nutrients between the user profile computation and the 'Good Habits' profile computation. An key assumption in each valuation is that a changed habit or factor must be maintained changed for the rest of life.
This deficiency in Well-Days was then divided further to the specific diet nutrients involved in proportion to their amounts and their risk and departure from 'Good' diet nutrient health risk levels. Each of these so-called 'Good' values was taken as the maximum or minimum amount of the nutrient that produced confirmed improvements in risk of disease from available multiple research. In most instances the 'Good' values were taken conservatively and it is likely that higher (or lower) values would produce more benefit. The particular example that follows first showed that the largest deficiency from diet was for Antioxidants that had actual diet values of only 52% of healthful values. Other deficiencies in order were for Folic Acid, Omega-3 fats and Glycemic load. Values are those usual for identifying the specific nutrients as gms, mg, mcg, IU, etc. Antioxidant Index is % of antioxidants vs. a healthful value, and cholesterol is in mg/dl. The full listing follows:
Well-Days POTENTIAL for IMPROVING WEEKLY DIET NO 1 were 1832 (5.0) Years
Supplements are not Included Calories are Prorated to usual diet/exercise Calories
DEFICIENCIES IN -------DIET NUTRIENTS-------
DIET NUTRIENT WELL-DAYS vs. HEALTHFUL DIET VALUES GOOD HEALTH VALUES
Antioxidants 567 52 100+
Folic Acid & Vit B6 287 403 760+
Diet Omega-3 Fats 283 283 439+
Glycemic Load 203 145 110-
Magnesium 137 317 490+
Calcium 133 435 1090+
Diet Saturated Fat 68 10.3 7.5-
Lycopene 67 2187 3736+
Cholesterol Diff from Diet 53 11.8 0.0-
Sodium or Salt 32
Potassium 31 2625 3840-
Dietary Fiber 23 20 27.4+
Lutein 17 0.7 6.0+
Trans Fats 17 3.4 3.2-
Zinc 11 10.9 16.0+
The diet nutrients are straightforward totals from the foods entered. The Healthful values are similar to those often recommended but are adjusted for user sex and weight and most were independently derived from the new data analyses of all useful research found. The interesting observation here is how deficiencies in dietary health of this diet rank in order to nutrients. The relative order of nutrient deficiency will vary with the diet entered. For example a very low carbohydrate high fat diet showed as expected that cholesterol and saturated fat were at high deficiency positions. A heavy junk food diet showed a similar order of nutrient deficiency.
In this example diet saturated fat, cholesterol from diet, and sodium that are so much discussed usually were lesser problems. Surprisingly, no useful methods for determining diet health deficiencies of some of the potentially important nutrients such as Antioxidants or Omega-3 fats appear to have been previously developed. Different diets can show much different orders of nutrient importance than are shown in this example. One demo daily diet #8 included in the program that approximated one of the much publicized Dash diets showed without supplements a 91 antioxidant index and Well-Days 4.8 years better than the above typical US diet. Interestingly, the salt or sodium intake assumed to be a key health factor of the Dash diets turned out from objective analysis to be a very small health factor overall.
The Life Ahead Model #3 program provides extensive options for users to learn more about each included diet nutrient.. Users can view foods in their diets in nutrient order to view which cause the most problems. They can learn from nutrient order listings of library foods the most useful foods to add to their diets. The program usually shows directly how to modify any starting diet to a diet that is very close to 'Most Healthful' using foods that should be acceptable to most users. It is recommended that best diets be developed first from foods, diet supplements can be added to bring nutrients to healthful levels where possible and needed.
Measuring the Health Value of a Food: A serious problem in research has been that of determining directly the health value of a food. Rough risks for Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) have been obtained for baskets of foods and vegetables from the very largest studies. And tomatoes with help of their included lycopene have been successfully valued by multiple research for cancer. Nuts have been found to have unexpected benefits for CVD. But epidemiology has not been able to identify consistent and statistically useful values for such important foods as eggs and meats and dairy products even for CVD. This type of measurement requires much time and and very high expense for results.
A further and major problem in all such valuations is that global dietary health cannot be measured by a risk factor for just one disease as CVD. The nutrients in one food as per a discussion to follow can affect the risk of 10 different major life limiting diseases. Foods are heavily interrelated in actual diets of populations and it is difficult or impossible to separate them reliably. Finally, the error margins of research ratios from this type of research usually are too high to identify health differences among most foods even for a single disease. A full valuation of the health of a diet or food can involve the development of at least 55 separate nutrient-disease risk factors, and as will be explained following could require thousands of large studies to obtain even one potentially useful result. Researchers, nutritionists, and the public need a convenient inexpensive method of health valuation that can be applied to any desired food or diet at any time.
Global Scientific Nutrition with Life Ahead solves this problem. After developing a dietary analysis from a diet as above, a program option permits a return to the diet entry for a new food to be added to a diet. This then provides results for two different diets with complete computer developed risk profiles for each of the 55 different now verified disease-nutrient risks that mostly will differ during the second pass valuation. The differences in diet nutrient composition and computed Well-Days for adding some single foods to a daily diet can be surprisingly large. Adding a portion per day of very unhealthful food can subtract two years of healthy days from a usual life. Adding a portion per day of a most healthful can add two years of healthy days to a life. As always, these results assume that the foods will be eaten every day for the rest of life.
The program can then display another analysis that shows how the addition of a food contributes to health via its individual nutrients. This analysis usually explains what otherwise could be surprising results. An often discussed research problem has been the health value of an egg. An egg has high cholesterol, and this is known to be 'bad'. Millions of health oriented people have avoided eggs because of this. Surprisingly, Life Ahead finds from its more complete analysis that the addition of one large egg to the un-supplemented typical US diet shown above probably will improve diet health by 159 Well-Days. Although not a large benefit, eating the egg every day with this diet increased life's healthful days by nearly a half year. How can this be? The following display from the program shows how adding one egg changed the nutrients and health value of a typical US diet:
Well-Days POTENTIAL for IMPROVING DIET NO 1 were 1832 (5.0) Years
This diet plus one large egg at 1 portion per day provides Gain of 159 Well-Days.
Supplements are not Included Calories are Prorated to usual diet/exercise Calories
ORIGINAL DEFICIENCIES IN CHANGE for FOOD ADDED -------DIET NUTRIENTS-------
DIET NUTRIENT WELL-DAYS vs. HEALTHFUL GAIN LOSS ORIG DIET NEW DIET GOOD HEALTH
Antioxidants 567 121 52 60 100+
Folic Acid & Vitamin B6 287 13 403 417 760+
Diet Omega-3 Fats 283 48 283 299 439+
Glycemic Load 203 16 145 141 110-
Magnesium 137 -6 317 310 490+
Calcium 133 3 435 445 1090+
Diet Saturated Fat 68 -10 10.3 18.7 7.5-
Lycopene 67 -5 2187 2181 3736+
Cholesterol Diff from Diet 53 -85 11.8 27 0.0-
Sodium (Salt) 32 2
Potassium 31 2625 2595 3840-
Dietary Fiber 23 -3 20 19.4 27.4+
Lutein 17 0.7 0.7 6.0+
Trans Fats 17 3.4 3.4 3.2-
Again, the nutrients of the original diet and that with the egg added are straightforward totals for the entered diets. The cholesterol in the egg does produce a significant negative of 85 as expected. But the egg improved antioxidant and omega-3 fats. The gains from modification of these two factors more than offset the expected negative for its high content of cholesterol. Health gained a bit more for glycemic load, and other differences were trivial.
The actual gain and loss figures now developed are approximate. But it is necessary only to view carefully how the different nutrients changed with the egg included diet to understand and verify how this change in health value should have occurred. Interestingly, the egg white and egg yolk tested separately obtained near equal diet health values. This is decidedly contrary to the conventional wisdom that 'the yolk is bad'. Again, the yolk had much better antioxidants, omega-3's, and folates that offset the effect of its higher cholesterol.
Following at the end of this paper are five more nutrition analyses as the above. A first shows the large differences in potential health of cantaloupe as the most beneficial fruit vs grapes as one of much poorer nutritional content. A second shows how differing nutrients in spinach produced a far greater health potential than did corn. The last example shows that a daily portion of a fast food created a much poorer outlook than that of the poorest contributing fruit or vegetables. An important observation here is that it is the nutrient differences in foods that provide their main differences in potential health. The effect of the nutrient risk ratios per se was also important, but likely error margins in some of these ratios from multiple available research usually should not produce major differences in computed results. The examples that follows note the very large differences in nutrients in these foods that caused the large differences in their likely health benefits.
Some Problems with Present Global Nutrition: A problem in this and perhaps any useful health valuation of a food is that a valuation is obtained in one specific diet. A food can have substantially different values when included in different diets. If a starting diet is has a sufficiency of certain nutrients, adding more of these same nutrients in an added food will produce no further gain. Thus the added food could produce less benefit than if were added to a base diet insufficient in these same nutrients. The egg showed only a 35 Well-Days gain when included in a specific Dash diet and a gain of 106 days in a vegetarian diet. These were values in diets prorated to a common overall calories to equalize potential gains or losses in weight. If the diets were not prorated, values could differ even more. The probability that a single measurement of a food value in one diet would not reflect its value in another diet illustrates again the difficulty of obtaining useful food valuations with the conventional risk ratio study method. The Well-Days from foods also will change appreciably with the age, gender and other health habits of the user. Detail such as this that appears obvious and logical could be invisible via conventional health comparison statistics that often are based on a single population and user average age and habits that would not be valid for an individual person.
A further problem with present food and diet valuations is that their values are highly variable. For example not only do Life Ahead health values for a food vary with every base diet of valuation, age and gender of user, but change with every other habit change as for example a change in exercise. Why? Because if anything else changes a risk of heart or other disease, this will affect the outcome of everything else. Life Ahead is a highly dynamic model that reflects what probably happens in a human body. Similarly, a program update probably will change program results somewhat. Thus a computer program most suitable for general Global Nutrition Valuation should standardize base diet, user age and gender and other values to eliminate this variability problem. But in most cases, the relative values of different foods probably will not change too widely for most people. More on this follow later. This can be accomplished approximately with the present Life Ahead program by using the Typical US Diet as a base, an age of say 50, and the program default values as habits. But a problem remains in valuing body weight implications from diets that differ in total calories.
Changing a Diet by Adding a Food Changes Risks of Multiple Diseases. Another result displayed in Life Ahead is the probable changes in risks of major diseases that accompany an addition of a food to a diet. Eight of the above nutrients are active in determining risks of heart disease, and others in combinations affect risk of cancer, diabetes, macular degeneration and dementia. Adding the egg decreases risk of heart disease and stroke by a computed 2.3% and 2.8% respectively. Risks of some cancers are reduced by about 6-7%. Adding a food to a diet typically changes the risk of at least a half dozen to ten or more different major diseases. The probable computed differences in risk of specific diseases that accompany adding different foods to diets often will be much too small to be successfully measured even by largest epidemiology studies, but can be estimated usefully from Global Nutrient Analysis.
Dietary Supplements: The Life Ahead method first designs diet improvements from foods. But dietary supplements are usually needed to meet health targets. Antioxidants needed can easily be supplied by dietary supplements, and preferably by amounts of each of the four now recognized. Omega-3 fats can reach health targets with use of fish oil or flaxseed oil. And nearly everyone should be taking a supplement or fortified food of folic acid. But obtaining full antioxidant, calcium and magnesium need and keeping sodium to targets can be a major problem. It has commonly been speculated that "We can get all nutrients we need without any supplements". Recognizing that research has confirmed benefits from food nutrients at far higher amounts than the usual RDA values, this speculation lacks demonstration.
A common health recommendation to the public is "Keep diet to 7.5% saturated fat, to 2,000 or less mg of sodium and fiber at 25 grams etc. Such advice is essentially useless for two basic reasons. First, a computation of such diet values is far beyond the capability of the public and impractical even for nutritionists. Time required even with today's usual diet computer programs would be too high. Second, a diet must be achieved by adding or subtracting actual foods. Adding a new food with one favorable value could impact values of up to nearly two dozen other nutrient values differently, and some unfavorably. It is very difficult - without a computer program such as Life Ahead - to develop an acceptable diet of foods that will meet more than two or three nutrient value objectives. Meeting 15 different desired dietary nutrient values from foods without use of supplements can be impractically difficult.
Prorating of Diet Calories: Another problem in developing a valid health measure of a food is that of overall dietary calories and amounts. If a starting diet is one that just maintains weight for a person, the regular addition of another food regularly as is assumed in a Life Ahead Global valuation will result in a gain in weight. As mentioned, the program includes a prorate option that modifies calories of all foods proportionately to equal the diet-exercise calories that will maintain weight. This can change the nutrient amounts in the starting diet that affects in turn the value computed for the added food. If the starting diet calories are insufficient to maintain weight - and this is true for the Life Ahead diet used as a base for men - the prorate option can increase the nutrients in the base file in addition to valuing the added food. In this case the use of the added food without the prorate option will more directly value only the contribution of the added food, but will still affect weight gain over the long term. Using the non-prorate option the large egg in the above example contributes 200 rather than 159 Well-Days. It can be useful to value foods with and without the prorate option as each mode can affect computed Well-Days. These two values can vary significantly. Because of such differences, any value of food Well-Days will be approximate because the calorie balance inevitably will affect the effective real contribution of a new food. Another option is to delete some specific food from a diet to offset the calories of the added food. This can produce a quite different net result that should be more accurately valued by the program. But this alternative then involves health valuation of at least two foods rather than just one food.
Valuing the Overall Health of Diets: A nagging problem in recent years has been the lack of any method that can usefully value the health of an overall diet. This has led to much controversy about low fat and low carbohydrate diets. The Life Ahead nutrient based approach can solve this problem because it values directly the overall health value of any entered diet vs. a value at specified targets. The program provides routines for designing diets that meet health targets, and use of these suggest that either a low fat or low carbohydrate diet can be designed that will meet close to optimum health targets. In fact, a very wide range of different diets can be designed that meet health targets using this approach. The terms 'Low Fat' and Low Carbohydrate" per se thus have little meaning for overall health per se. It is the specific overall composition of the diet nutrients that determines its health potential.
Developing Most Healthful Diets: The usual approach in developing a healthful diet is to replace foods that degrade good health with those that promote it. As an aid, Well-Days values have been developed for all foods in the Life Ahead diet library. Values were developed for men of age 50 in the above typical US diet prorated to constant calories with a program version that has been updated slightly since. Although such values can vary widely for different individuals of different age and sex, and in different diets and using different prorate methods, they still can provide a useful guide about foods that usually will be most healthful. Standard dietary advice suggests eating "Several portions of fruits and vegetables every day.' Life Ahead dietary analysis shows that different fruit products can produce a Well-Days change per daily portion from a 642 gain to a 59 loss. Different vegetable products can range from a near 800 Well-Days gain to a 50 loss. Fruits and vegetables are not all "Good." And many other diet health surprises can be found in these new valuations. For much more on this please see Global Food Health Values that shows Well-Days health values for each of the 370 foods in the Life Ahead Model #3 diet library. As a caution, every change in the program, food values used, program updates, and even other habits of users will change the level of these results. But the relative order rank of different foods usually will be approximately similar in most usual diets..
Postscript:
Some further examples of Well-Days potential from foods that have high and low health potential follow. The health value of Cantaloupe, the highest ranking fruit shows that nearly every one of its included nutrients was more healthful than were the average nutrient values in the base diet. The sum total of the differences added up to an impressive total health benefit that included about 2 added years of healthy days and a third reduction in the risk of heart disease. In contrast the same nutrient data for grapes, one of the least healthful fruits are vastly different. First, the nutrient analysis for cantaloupe:
Well-Days POTENTIAL for IMPROVING DIET NO 1 were 1832 (5.0) Years
This diet plus 1/2 Cantaloupe at 1 portion per day provides Gain of 785 Well-Days.
Supplements are not Included Calories are Prorated to usual diet/exercise Calories
ORIGINAL DEFICIENCIES IN CHANGE for FOOD ADDED -------DIET NUTRIENTS-------
DIET NUTRIENT WELL-DAYS vs. HEALTHFUL GAIN LOSS ORIG DIET NEW DIET GOOD HEALTH
Antioxidants 552 207 52 63 100+
Diet Omega-3 Fats 254 37 284 295 439+
Folic Acid & Vitamin B6 251 70 405 451 760+
Glycemic Load 200 -15 146 150 110-
Magnesium 131 35 319 340 490
Calcium 129 18 437 443 1090
Diet Saturated Fat 65 20 10.3 9.8 7.5-
Lycopene 64 -5 2197 2086 3736+
Cholesterol Diff from Diet 52 19 11.8 8.0 0.0-
Sodium or Salt 32 7 3711 3574 2630-
Potassium 31 19 2637 3348 3840-
Dietary Fiber 21 8 20 22 27.4+
Trans Fats 25 12 3.4 3.2 3.2-
Lutein Intake 17 17 0.7 0.7 6.0+
Zinc Intake 191 11.0 10.9 16+
The reductions in risks of disease during a next ten years due the addition of the cantaloupe were: Stroke 29%; Heart Disease 25%; Cancer 16% to 23% for differing cancer types; Macular Degeneration 16%; Dementia 15%; and Diabetes 7%. Expressed as contributions to Well-Days that recognizes a combination of both risk and extent of disease, 171 Well-Days were gained from Heart Disease, 125 Well Days from cancer; 65 Well Days from Dementia and 33 Well-Days from Diabetes for eating the cantaloupe portion for rest of life.
In contrast, the health of eating a portion of grapes, one of the least healthful fruits from its nutrients and presently verified research was a small loss of 35 well-days or essentially no further health benefit beyond the basic diet. The results in the table following show only some small losses and trivial gains. These nutrient differences were too small to contribute usefully to risks of most diseases. Risks for eating the grapes were 2% higher for heart disease and dementia and 1% for stroke vs. the base diet assumed.
Well-Days POTENTIAL for IMPROVING DIET NO 1 were 1832 (5.0) Years
This diet plus 4oz of Grapes at 1 portion per day provides Loss of 35 Well-Days.
Supplements are not Included Calories are Prorated to usual diet/exercise Calories
ORIGINAL DEFICIENCIES IN CHANGE for FOOD ADDED -------DIET NUTRIENTS-------
DIET NUTRIENT WELL-DAYS vs. HEALTHFUL GAIN LOSS ORIG DIET NEW DIET GOOD HEALTH
Antioxidants 552 -21 52 52 100+
Diet Omega-3 Fats 254 -7 284 281 439+
Folic Acid & Vit B6 251 -5 405 400 760+
Glycemic Load 200 -8 146 148 110-
Magnesium 131 -4 319 316 490
Calcium 129 437 436 1090
Diet Saturated Fat 65 3 10.3 10.1 7.5-
Lycopene 64 -3 2197 2159 3736+
Cholesterol Diff from Diet 52 2 11.8 8.0 0.0-
Sodium or Salt 32 3711 3648 2630-
Potassium 41 2637 2697 3840-
Trans Fats 17 2 3.4 3.4 3.2-
Why is the cantaloupe so much healthier? A comparison of nutrient contents of the two fruits with values for cantaloupe listed first explain this: Antioxidants, 21.3 index vs. 0.1; Omega fat, 21.0 to 1.0; Folic Acid, 58 mcg to 2; Magnesium 33 mg to 3; Potassium 737 to 89; Fiber, 2.5 gms to 0.4 These are very major differences in nearly every nutrient of importance to health in the two fruits. And it becomes evident that from nutrient amounts alone that the grapes should contribute much less to health. But despite the large difference in health values, the lowest value fruits still did not detract much from health in Well-Days, They suffered only in comparison to more healthful foods. An example at the end of this paper shows that a regularly eaten junk food can detract seriously from Well-Days of life, a result far more deleterious than the result on the grapes
Of interest is a comparison of the most healthful vegetable, spinach, with one of much lesser health value, corn. First, the nutrient comparison for adding spinach to the base diet:
Well-Days POTENTIAL for IMPROVING DIET NO 1 were 1832 (5.0) Years
This diet plus 1/2 cup of Spinach at 1 portion per day provides Gain of 780 Well-Days.
Supplements are not Included Calories are Prorated to usual diet/exercise Calories
ORIGINAL DEFICIENCIES IN CHANGE for FOOD ADDED -------DIET NUTRIENTS-------
DIET NUTRIENT WELL-DAYS vs. HEALTHFUL GAIN LOSS ORIG DIET NEW DIET GOOD HEALTH
Antioxidants 552 179 52 59 100+
Diet Omega-3 Fats 254 56 284 301 439+
Folic Acid & Vit B6 251 148 405 556 760+
Glycemic Load 200 40 146 145 110-
Magnesium 131 91 319 408 490+
Calcium 129 47 437 577 1090+
Diet Saturated Fat 65 17 10.3 10.2 7.5-
Lycopene 64 -14 2197 2171 3736+
Cholest Diff from Diet 52 21 11.8 8.0 0.0-
Sodium or Salt 32 -2 3711 3996 2630-
Potassium 31 15 2637 3348 3840-
Dietary Fiber 21 10 20 23 27.4+
Lutein Intake 17 17 0.7 9.6 6.0+
Trans Fats 17 4 3.4 3.2 3.2-
Zinc Intake 11 4 11.0 11.7 16+
As for the cantaloupe, the spinach in the above amount eaten every day for rest of life from age 50 should contribute from a single habit improvement more than two full years of Well-Days of life vs eating a portion of corn. You will note that nearly every nutrient in this vegetable is at a more favorable level than that of the base diet, and thus contributes positively to Well-Days and risk of major disease.
A valuation below for corn, one of the least nutritious vegetables, shows a quite different result:
Well-Days POTENTIAL for IMPROVING DIET NO 1 were 1832 (5.0) Years
This diet plus 1/2 cup of Corn at 1 portion per day provides Gain of just 22 Well-Days.
Supplements are not Included Calories are Prorated to usual diet/exercise Calories
ORIGINAL DEFICIENCIES IN CHANGE for FOOD ADDED -------DIET NUTRIENTS-------
DIET NUTRIENT WELL-DAYS vs. HEALTHFUL GAIN LOSS ORIG DIET NEW DIET GOOD HEALTH
Antioxidants 552 -52 52 51 100+
Diet Omega-3 Fats 254 -16 284 271 439+
Folic Acid & Vitamin B6 251 23 405 429 760+
Glycemic Load 200 -17 146 151 110-
Magnesium 131 16 319 333 490+
Calcium 129 -2 437 418 1090+
Diet Saturated Fat 65 12 10.3 9.9 7.5-
Lycopene 64 -5 2197 2091 3736+
Cholesterol Diff from Diet 52 14 11.8 8.0 0.0-
Sodium or Salt 32 3711 3711 2630-
Potassium 31 3 2637 2745 3840-
Dietary Fiber 21 5 20 22 27.4+
Lutein Intake 17 0.7 0.7 6.0+
Trans Fats 17 7 3.4 3.2 3.2-
Adding the spinach generated 780 Well-Days vs 22 for adding corn. Keep in mind that these values for Well-Days can vary with age, gender, other health habits of users and the different samples of every food can have somewhat different nutrients. But they usually vary mostly in absolute level, and not too much in food ranking order. But this again shows that just eating four fruits and four vegetables per day may or may not contribute much to long range health. What counts are the actual included nutrients in each fruit and vegetable.
Comparing nutrients from spinach with that in the corn sample selected here we find, with value for spinach first, Antioxidants are 15.4 vs nil at 0.7; Omega-3 18 vs nil of 0; Folic Acid 131 vs 28; Calcium 122 vs 2; Magnesium 78 vs. 28; and Lutein 7.5 vs. 0. These are major differences again in amounts of key nutrients. Spinach values for estimated reduced risk of disease were: For Macular Degeneration 55% vs 12%; Heart Disease 35% vs nil; Dementia 22% vs. zero; Cancer 9-30% for various cancer types vs nil .
Despite these large differences, the low nutrient corn and grapes remain as useful foods that do not seriously subtract from long range health. Rather, they subtract from the better health that a health-interested person alternately could achieve. A different picture emerges from nutrients of McDonald Hot Fudge Sundae following:
Well-Days POTENTIAL for IMPROVING DIET NO 1 were 1832 (5.0) Years
This diet plus a daily McDonald Hot Fudge Sundae generates a Loss of 657 Well-Days(1.8 yrs)
Supplements are not Included Calories are Prorated to usual diet/exercise Calories
ORIGINAL DEFICIENCIES IN CHANGE for FOOD ADDED -------DIET NUTRIENTS-------
DIET NUTRIENT WELL-DAYS vs. HEALTHFUL GAIN LOSS ORIG DIET NEW DIET GOOD HEALTH
Antioxidants 552 -189 52 47 100+
Diet Omega-3 Fats 254 -97 284 255 439+
Folic Acid & Vitamin B6 251 -98 405 351 760+
Glycemic Load 200 -100 146 160 110-
Magnesium 131 -39 319 308 490+
Calcium 129 22 437 617 1090+
Diet Saturated Fat 65 -67 10.3 9.9 7.5-
Lycopene 64 -41 2197 2091 3736+
Cholesterol Diff from Diet 52 -44 11.8 8.0 0.0-
Sodium or Salt 32 6 3711 3327 2630-
Potassium 31 -2 2637 2745 3840-
Dietary Fiber 21 -15 20 22 27.4+
Lutein Intake 17 -3 0.7 0.7 6.0+
Trans Fats 17 16 3.4 3.2 3.2-
Zinc Intake -6 11.0 10.3 16+
The computed health effect of the daily sundae eaten for rest of life subtracts 1.8 potentially healthy Well-Years from life. In this example 10 of the 13 valued nutrients produced losses in potential health because they move away from the most healthful values. Although cholesterol per se shows only a 44 Well-Days loss, other cholesterol related factors of saturated fat and dietary fiber show added negatives totaling 82 more for the food that are allocated separately because these nutrients also are involved in risks of cancer.
Life Ahead Model #3 provides a convenient display and printout of the 23 nutrients in each of the 370 foods in its Food Library As before, Global Scientific Nutrition Well-Days values of each library food are shown in another paper.