From Pills to Plants: Why This Doctor Thinks Food Should Be Your New Meds

Four years ago, I had an epiphany. After years of automatically reaching for my prescription pad every time I diagnosed high cholesterol, high blood sugar, or high blood pressure, I started talking to my patients about food.

That’s because our lifestyle choices, especially our eating patterns, are the most powerful determinant of our health destiny. And when it comes to what we eat, nothing beats a diet that is centered around plants.

It’s easy to get duped by all of the nutrition noise out there. We can argue the finer points, but nutrition science overwhelmingly shows that basing your diet in plants – ideally, less processed ones such as legumes, whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds – is the way to go. And where there is any controversy at all, the environmental and ethical arguments render the debates moot. If we want a planet to live on, and to share it in harmony with other species, a plant-based diet is the answer.

It’s not that our genes don’t matter, or that medicines don’t have benefits. It’s that when we leverage our food choices, in many cases we can prevent (and even reverse) common health conditions that many of us, myself included, thought were inevitable. I’m reminded of this every time I see my patients improve their cholesterol, lower their blood pressure, reduce their cancer risk, or prevent diabetes through a plant-based diet.As a physician, there is no reward like seeing patients truly get better. That’s why my goal is always fewer pills and more plants.

 

Michelle McMacken, MD, is a board-certified internal medicine physician and Assistant Professor of Medicine at NYU School of Medicine. She practices primary care, directs a weight management program, and teaches doctors-in-training at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York City. She can be found at @Veg_MD on Twitter & Instagram.