How Important is what I eat to my Health and Longevity?

Let me give you the short answer…Totally!

It is pretty much a matter of common sense that what you put into your mouth is going to impact your overall health and vitality, but does it really affect how long we are going to live? I can say with absolute certainty that the answer to this is yes.

Never in the history of humanity have we had more food options to choose from, and in the same breath, at no time in our evolution has there been so many bad choices at our disposal. Mankind is now the sickest species on the planet with the root cause of much of that illness being directly related to the nature and quantity of the foods we consume. All the big killers such as cancer, heart disease, stroke and diabetes in more cases than not find their roots embedded in the nature and volume of the foods we consume. 

Over the last fifty or so years, the average North American diet has devolved from what would have been considered healthy and nutritious to one replete with pathologically ultra-processed garbage. Even options that one would think as being reasonable have in many ways been subtly altered through genetic engineering, use of chemical enhancers, stabilizers and preservatives. Vegetables are grown in artificial environments designed to speed up maturation and enhance harvest volumes, and livestock are routinely fed enhanced feed and systematically inoculated often in the absence of clinically relevant circumstance. There is obvious danger embedded in all the above, but what concerns me the most is the fact that food producers and distributers are becoming much more cunning in their efforts to conceal or deflect much of the bad stuff  in order to maintain market share and protect profits. A classic example is found in the case of many artificial sweeteners. Here, even though the research has for years warned of the dangers and health hazards associated with their use, they continued to regularly find their way into many popular food and drink options. This defies logic, and what is even more perplexing is the power of the special interest lobbies in government which continue to allow products of known danger to health to continue to be offered to the public as safe. This is not an isolated example with artificial sweeteners, similar scenarios can be found with the use of agricultural chemicals such as glyphosates and atrazine. Pesticides like neonicotinoids are particularly harmful to pollinators like bees, impacting crop production and ecosystems and have been linked to liver and breast cancers, and the list continues to grow. 

I don’t present the above to scare you, (my God, there is enough in life to do that already), but most of us struggling to keeping our heads above water in this tumultuous world we live in, naively assume that the food we eat; if not necessarily good for us, at worst… will not harm us. Nothing could be further from the truth. The average North American diet is a death sentence, but we have been so conditioned to ignore the consequences and embrace the taste, (sold to us through both overt and subliminal propaganda) that we quietly plod along towards disease, medical dependence, loss of quality of life and an untimely death. What is most disturbing is the fact that somehow, we have bought into the notion that this is somehow normal. I am boggled by the absurdity of it all.

Survival is not for the weak. As in every other aspect of life, to thrive with efficiency, you must firmly buy into the age-old truth that “you are ultimately responsible for you”. Quit drinking the proverbial cool-aid and use your God-given reason to take back control of this aspect of your life. The 30 trillion cells we drag around and call a body will love you for it. The rewards you will experience will be positively invigorating. Remember that “nothing tastes as good as being healthy feels,” and the best place to start is by consciously paying attention to what you eat. Let’s dig in.

Ok, so you can make it complicated where you research everything you stuff down your gob, and this approach will statistically last about as long as the average diet, or you can be realistically proactive and make it slick and simple. For the most part, I am not going to tell you what not to eat. I don’t know you or your lifestyle, and unless you were born and continue to live under a rock, you are smart enough to know what is bad for you. There are lots of things that we consume that make us sick, but when you dial down to basics, most of what kills us revolves around sugars or the breakdown of complex carbohydrates and saturated fats into sugars, which in turn becomes wasted excess energy stored as fat. Full stop! Let me make it clearer. Refined complex carbohydrates such as found in refined breads, pastas, cereals, deserts/snacks, all soft drinks or energy drinks (remember the sweeteners), fast foods, factory-prepared meals which are often both high in saturated fats, and alcohols are all ultimately seen by the body as sources of sugars called glucose. Lean proteins and fats (independent of saturated and trans fats or omega-6 fatty acid found in many corn, canola and seed oils) don’t cause obesity, metabolic syndrome or diabetes.

To make it really easy, I am going to share with you a super-simple strategy that I discuss in my book the “Un-Diet Diet”, that I have used with patients over my 47 years in practice, and it works. If you want to lose weight, have more energy and live a longer healthier life, start by systematically isolating the three most common sources of sugars from your diet, one at a time per week, for three weeks. Remember that I am using the term sugar in its broadest sense. At first blush, you may be thinking this is just too simple. Yep, it is. If you take ten minutes to sit down with a pen and paper and dissect the foods you eat, you are going to be surprised at how many of the same foods and drinks show up repeatedly. From this list, boil it down to the three most frequently consumed sources of sugars and remove them without substitution, one each week for three weeks and examine how you look and feel at the end of the twenty-one-day process. This program is certainly not the endgame for achieving an ideal nutritional balance but does serve as a gateway to get you started in the process of reclaiming the diet component of your health.

I am not going to tell you what fruits, vegetables, legumes and meats to eat. You have a computer and there is no end of information on good eating to be found on the net. Suffice to say that the adage: “You are what you eat”, has never been more applicable than it is today. Let me flesh-out the importance just a bit more:

• Globally, a study published in The Lancet found that poor diets accounted for 1 in 5, or 11 million, adult deaths in 2017. 

• 10.6% of all deaths in 2021 were associated with poor diet, with cardiovascular disease as the leading cause of death associated with diet. 30% of deaths from cardiovascular disease were attributed to poor diet in 2021.

• A recent online publication of March 2025 by Dr. John Mercola presented a terrifying statistic that 99% of North Americans demonstrate some degree of insulin sensitivity which is a precursor to the eventual development of Type II Diabetes. (All diet related)

• Diet, often considered as a lifestyle factor, contributes to the development of many chronic conditions including obesity, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, stroke, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, some cancers, and perhaps some neurological diseases.

• Consider a Mediterranean-style diet: According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), this diet, rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, olive oil, and fish, has been shown to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and other chronic diseases.

• Your diet significantly impacts how long you live, with studies showing that a healthy diet can increase life expectancy by up to 10 years, while unhealthy diets can shorten it.

At the end of the day, it is all about moderation. There are too many food terrorists out there, most of whom selling something. Life is short, and enough resident stressors without adding diet to the list. If you do nothing more than pay the same attention to the foods you eat as you do to your cell phone you will likely be healthier, have more energy and have gone a long way towards eking out a long and satisfying life. 

Be well!

About the Author: Dr. POOLEY has been in practice for over 46 years, is a former champion bodybuilder and author of the book the Un-Diet Diet.