Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Welcome to BIOTECH NATION !!! With understandable interviews requiring no background in science, BTN attracts a wide global audience. From everyday people looking for hope in treatments in development, to bioentrepreneurs interested in the experience of their fellow travelers, to venture capitalists looking for possibilities in cutting-edge breakthroughs, to scientists simply interested in the work of others, BioTech Nation is the voice of human endeavor, driving science to new realities for everyone. These interviews are drawn directly from the public radio program, "Tech Nation", which also can be heard in numerous global radio and podcasting venues.
We are what we eat among other things, but what we eat and how much we eat certainly tells a tale. Today, Tech Nation Health chief correspondent, doctor Daniel Kraft, addresses the topic of food as medicine. Well, hey, Daniel. Great to see you.
Dr. Daniel Kraft:Hey, Moira. Great to see you on the radio.
Dr. Moira Gunn:On the radio. I see you on the radio. We see everybody out there on the radio as well or on podcast, wherever they are. And let me ask you this, because we're all talking so much these days about eating good food, eating real food, avoid ultra processed food. There's just so many things you could talk about in there, but but what qualifies as real food?
Dr. Moira Gunn:What is real food?
Dr. Daniel Kraft:Well, first of all, I can say I'm not that qualified to speak about nutrition, and most physicians are. We get maybe a few hours of nutrition in medical school. No rotations with nutritionists. We rely a lot on them on the wards and in the outpatient world. But, you know, what is real food?
Dr. Daniel Kraft:Well, I know when it comes from the farm or the local market that it's probably real food. But if you have to read, 12 lines of ingredients, it may be processed. And, we know that processed foods, are leading to a lot of early comorbidities and maybe even early deaths. In fact, there's some data that 81% of deaths had a complicating disease related to processed foods, particularly diseases like hypertension, diabetes, high lipids, early dementia, heart disease, renal disease, pulmonary issues, cancer, and stroke are have some tie to higher diets that are rich in in, processed foods, not natural ones. And we also know, and I'm gonna put on my pediatrician hat here, that our kids are getting sicker and they're often not getting real food in their earlier years, which is leading to the point where we're seeing a huge jump in early type 2 diabetes amongst kids.
Dr. Daniel Kraft:And, there's a statistic that, back in 2017 that about 59% of 2 year olds will be obese by 35. So a lot of that progression to obesity, starts young. And so the ability to be clear about eating real food, particularly in our youngest populations, I think, has a huge role, for health and medicine and society writ large.
Dr. Moira Gunn:Well, you know, at some point your child is getting old enough that they make their own decisions. I remember one time my son came back, maybe he was in the 4th or 5th grade, and I said, hey. You didn't eat your sandwich. And he said, well, that's because George wasn't there today. And I said, what are you talking about?
Dr. Moira Gunn:He goes, I always swap sandwiches with George. So George always eats my sandwich, I eat his. I'm not gonna eat this. What? What have I been doing every morning?
Dr. Moira Gunn:You know? So you have no control at a very early age in a a percentage of the of the intake of your kids.
Dr. Daniel Kraft:Yeah. Well, especially, you know, school lunches are where a huge percentage of kids get their nutrition. You know, we know about the the the fast food, epidemic. The biggest fast food chains aren't, you know, McDonald's, Starbucks, or or Subway. They're, public schools.
Dr. Daniel Kraft:And a lot of kids, especially those of socio lower socioeconomic means, end up getting their primary calories in the lunchroom. And, we know that a lot of those lunches are not real food. They're often highly processed. And given the fact, you know, we touched on this that kids are are increasingly moving towards obesity and diabetes. In fact, 1 in 5 youth are pre diabetic and there's been about a 77% increase in type 2 diabetes in youth.
Dr. Daniel Kraft:We know that the average kid now eats a bathtub full of added sugar, added sugar per year, not just sugar. That used to be much lower than that. And, so, you know, it depends what you put in the sandwich.
Dr. Moira Gunn:George's mother put in the sandwich. I was like, scratch your fingers there. Yeah. You know? But it's kinda slipped on by there.
Dr. Moira Gunn:Most of these lunches are either publicly funded or by, you know, a caring private school of some sort trying to get good food in. And did you say 70% of that is not real food?
Dr. Daniel Kraft:I don't know percentage per se. Obviously, it varies. But, a a large percentage of the kids are getting their primary calories in the lunchroom, and a lot of those foods are relatively, you know, today actually, the statistics because about 67% of the calories are ultra processed in, a lot of the the foods that kids are getting in their school lunches. And so there's an organization called Eat Real, eat real dot org, run by my friend Nora La Torre, that's trying to work on that particular issue. Because one of the biggest ways to impact long term health is the health of kids and accessing and changing their diets is, with a goal of improving their nutrition and a sustainable nutrition for kids will help them thrive and live longer healthier lives.
Dr. Daniel Kraft:So I think that's, you know, interesting tie in. There's need to be fancy drugs like putting GLP 1 inhibitors on on kids in their teens when they're already obese, but to start proactively.
Dr. Moira Gunn:So it's not the percentage of the food. It's the percentage of the calories. So you could do really, really well up into that dessert.
Dr. Daniel Kraft:Sure. And I think, you know, it's it's not a secret that, processed foods are sort of snuck into to lots of things we don't often realize, but there's, you know, a real value instead of real food. It has less sugar, it's often sourced more locally, It's better for the planet, in many cases. And as we think about how human health is tied to global health or what's often called now One Health, being more mindful about the food you eat, your kids eat, where it comes from. And, of course, you know, everyone needs to have their ice cream and and maybe their ultra processed, Twinkie every every once in a while.
Dr. Daniel Kraft:It's more like the long term, elements.
Dr. Moira Gunn:You can have all my Twinkies. I hope
Dr. Daniel Kraft:the Twinkie be all cat is real food in the first place, but I I grew up in the seventies, eighties. We had a lot of Twinkies, and ho ho's, and, they're still out there. So, you know, I think part of the challenge is how do we all take individual action and maybe societal. So in your own family, you can start to look in your fridge and when you go shopping and say, is that real food or not? In your workplaces, here in Silicon Valley, a lot of workplaces have lots of options and often pretty healthy ones, so it's pretty easy to pick the the salad over the the pizza.
Dr. Daniel Kraft:You can go to your community, right, and, talk to your principal about what kind of school meals are they getting. Sometimes they go to lowest bidder and they have the less expensive but less healthy foods. And then you can advocate, you know, across schools, systems to congress where congress every year subsidizes, I think it's the the the cheese lobby. That means we're adding all these extra cheeses to pizzas that raises our lipids and cholesterols and downstream causes heart disease and and strokes. And, you know, we're subsidizing that.
Dr. Moira Gunn:Oh, yeah. So life is pretty complicated these days. I gotta give it I gotta give it that. So I think part of the message here is to try to simplify your life. Look back to when you were much younger, much simpler foods, much simpler profile, turns out it's healthier for you.
Dr. Daniel Kraft:Yeah. And and, you know, as we're seeing the actual reversal of life expectancy in the United States, kind of this a bit of this, often called the health collapse, you know, in terms of we're going the wrong direction. I think the ability to to go back to the basics with real food can help, again, stop disease before it ever happens. You're not gonna get the diabetes and the the heart disease and the downstream stroke and need your kidney transplant. You know, so we wanna be again proactive, not reactive.
Dr. Daniel Kraft:And food is medicine, as we've talked about before, is can be a real key component of that.
Dr. Moira Gunn:Well, Daniel, thanks for stopping by. Come back. See us again.
Dr. Daniel Kraft:I'll see you at our, Michelin Star restaurant for some for some real food. Everyone's invited.
Dr. Moira Gunn:Thank you, Daniel. Technation Health chief correspondent, doctor Daniel Kraft, is the founder and chair of NextMed Health on the web at nextmed.healthanddigital.health. More information about Daniel at danielcraftmd.net. And you might also be interested in his NextMed conference, NextMed Health 2025, to be held in San Diego at the Hotel Del Coronado, March 29th through April 2nd. More information about this conference to explore the future of health and medicine on the web at nextmed.health.
Dr. Moira Gunn:For those of you who might be wary of the validity of the food is medicine concept, I refer you to the US Department of Health and Human Services. And within that, the office of disease prevention and health promotion. They have an official federal program called food is medicine. It turns out that over half of adults in the US, that would be 60% of American adults, have a diet related chronic disease, which obviously is cause for concern. In fact, earlier this year, health and human services held a food is medicine summit 2024.
Dr. Moira Gunn:And this federal program is partnering with the private sector to move this agenda forward. Among what is available to anyone online is the food is medicine analytical concept as well as peer reviewed research and interventions, including such concepts as medically tailored meals and even medically tailored groceries. I don't know. I kinda just wanna sit down and have one of those 67% ultra processed meals just to soothe my soul.