Stress proof your body

A top Harvard doctor reveals which foods you should eat to...

WE ALL know blueberries are packed with health-giving nutrients, and cabbages sit beside broccoli at the top of the vegetable vitality stakes, but who knew a generous helping of oyster sauce could also help to protect you against disease?

All this week in the Daily Mail, we are serialising a ground-breaking new book by Harvard doctor and scientist, Dr William Li.

His lifelong work is centred on the study of the body’s five key defence systems — immunity, stem cells, gut bacteria, blood vessels and DNA protection — and research identifying specific compounds in certain foods that support them.

Oysters, for instance, have been shown to contain natural compounds that support the body’s disease-fighting mechanisms, protecting your DNA against the kind of damage that causes Alzheimer’s, cancer and depression.

Better still, those beneficial ‘bioactives’ become super concentrated when boiled down into oyster sauce.

With insight like this, Dr Li believes you can achieve optimal health, and give your body the best possible chance to fight to keep you well, by eating foods to support each defence system every day.

Today Dr Li shows how the study of food compounds has become so sophisticated we can now recommend specific ‘doses’ of certain foods, confident that the amount contains exactly what your body’s defence systems need to fight any given disease (see overleaf).

In yesterday’s pullout, we explained the important role of your blood vessels (a system called angiogenesis). Today, the focus is on DNA and its incredible ability to protect you from disease.

Most of us think DNA is our genetic blueprint, but it is also one of the key systems which helps to defend us against illness.

In fact, it controls repair mechanisms that protect us against the ageing process and damage caused by sunlight, household chemicals, stress, poor sleep and a bad diet.

When this system isn’t working effectively, you are at increased risk of the full spectrum of cancers, as well as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.

Your DNA is made up of all the genes you inherited from your parents.

It forms your body’s ‘ source code’, which every aspect of your health depends upon in order to keep you alive and able to function normally.

However, DNA is quite fragile, and is the target of vicious attacks throughout your life.

Pollution, industrial toxins, ultraviolet radiation and emotional stress cause damage to our genetic code, as does inflammation and infection. these all contribute to more than 10,000 damaging events every single day.

When DNA is impaired, genes can malfunction. some consequences, such as ageing, wrinkled skin, can be seen. other effects can be insidious and invisible, causing cancer or harm to the brain, heart, lungs and other organs.

Almost every type of cancer can be pinned down to DNA damage. the best example is skin cancer triggered by DNA damage in the skin, caused by UV rays from the sun.

other cancers can be provoked by repeated damage to the DNA in specific cells, including cancers of the lung, bladder, oesophagus, stomach and colon.

Precancerous lesions (such as polyps in the bowel and changes in breast or cervical tissue) are invariably filled with cells that contain DNA in need of repair.

Cancer treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation can also harm DNA in healthy cells, which could even lead to secondary cancers. some medical imaging procedures, from X-rays to CAt and PEt scans, deliver radiation that can traumatise normal DNA, too.

Autoimmune diseases, such as coeliac disease, rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s, can also lead to DNA damage in the organs affected by an overactive immune system.

some conditions, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, major depression, atherosclerosis, and autoimmune diseases, can be passed down through generations, making some people more vulnerable to DNA damage than others.

Luckily, your DNA is hardwired to protect itself against the consequences of this damage, but, as I explain on the back page of this pullout, certain foods can help.