Today’s Healthy Living will be presented in Spanish, with subtitles in Arabic, Aulacese (Vietnamese), Chinese, English, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Mongolian, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Thai.

We humans are the result of what we eat. The quality of blood depends on the quality of the food. If there is good food, there is good blood. If there is good blood, there is health. If there is health, there is wellbeing.

Welcome, loyal viewers, to this week’s edition of Healthy Living. Today, we will meet Dr. Tulio Enrique Vargas Mercado, who is a vegan sports doctor in Bogotá, Colombia. In the first in a two-part program, Dr. Vargas will acquaint us with the wonders of functional foods and how a plant-based diet filled with natural fruits, vegetables and grains keeps us fit and healthy and provides all the nutrition we need.

What is a functional food? It must have two qualities, among others. The first is to be a food in its natural state, that has not been distorted, that has been organic. And second, upon ingesting it, not only does it feed us, but it also prevents and helps us to recover from many of the chronic degenerative diseases. In conclusion, it should guarantee health and quality of life.

We asked Dr. Vargas about his patients’ experiences when shifting their diets to one based on functional foods.

I have found that as soon as they change their diet and begin to develop their vegan diet, free of all foods of animal origin, industrialized foods, processed foods, they begin to recover. Even many people who are addicted to medicines, which for extreme situations they have to take, we have noticed that when they change their diet, the absorption of these medicines and the elimination of these medicines, is more beneficial to the patient, because we have found that molecular nutrition is a support for the cellular matrix.

What does this mean? There are many people who for their bad diet, have had to live for many years taking a lot of medication, almost a lifetime. We have found that when their diet is changed immediately, these medications are not as aggressive at a cellular level.

For example: at the level of the cellular matrix, there is an enzyme complex called cytochrome P450. And then when the medication enters, it does not attack so much the cell, but instead it enters very smoothly and does its job, thanks to the diet which has cleared the walls and these cellular structures. Food has that characteristic, the ability, to enter and in a very soft, very subtle, but very strong way to clean all these processes.

Many medical professionals warn that a diet high in refined grains can damage one’s health. Refined grains are not functional foods and many precious nutrients are lost during the processing of the grains.

Whole grains are high in nutrition as they still have the germ and bran, which are absent if grains are refined or processed.

if one chooses white rice over brown rice, one loses 67% of the vitamin B3, 80% of the vitamin B1, 90% of the vitamin B6, half of the manganese, half of the phosphorus, 60% of the iron, and all of the dietary fiber and essential fatty acids.

For example, when a person consumes whole grains, and naming some of them, whole oats, whole barley, rye, millet, sorghum, quinoa, millet, wheat, sago, corn, and other large number of varieties, immediately, at the level of the cell; in the cell there are some mitochondria that are the energy centers of human beings.

When these foods come with all their nutritional potential, the mitochondria are very happy and carry out a very special handling of sugars, making all the phenomenon of glycogenolysis, which is the metabolism of sugars, to be very beneficial and the opposite happens when people feed themselves refined white rice, white bread, buns, cheese bread, cookies, crackers, cakes, etcetera. What happens when the foods enter the cell matrix lacking these nine nutrients?

An example, rice in its industrialization process loses the cuticle, starch, carbohydrate, moisture, ash, chromium, zinc, B complex (vitamins), and fiber. Simply what remains is just a starch devoid of those other nine elements. The mitochondria suffer in the energy centers because they do not have all the nutritional potential for them to do their job.

Besides suffering at the cell level, Dr. Vargas says our organs also are disadvantaged when we follow an unbalanced diet of primarily processed foods. What happens when we take in refined grains at the organ-level?

Another example, if we take grains and we industrialize and process them, then many organs will suffer. Let's take an organ like the pancreas. So the pancreas at the level of its ducts, there it needs a raw material to make insulin, in order to form glucagon. This insulin has to do with the metabolism of sugars.

But when there is no food, when there is no raw material, this pancreas cannot work well and it will go on to become hyperactive and there will come a time when it will no longer secrete the sufficient levels of insulin and three very important enzymes that play a role in the metabolism of food. For example, amylase in the management of sugars, lipase in the management of fats, and trypsin in the handling of proteins.

When a person is accustomed to eating only processed cereals, just refined food, it happens that they do not carry either chromium, or the B complex (vitamins), two key elements in these ducts so that they can thoroughly maintain stable levels of insulin and glucagon, (which are) vital in the metabolism of sugars. That is when a person eats refined foods, that person will have a tendency of always having high sugar levels or leading to spikes of hypoglycemia, hyperglycemia.

The same thing happens at the level of the colon when you eat food in its natural state, whole as nature provides it, it has been found that the body produces a protective enzyme such as sirtuins and other elements such as butyrate, an enzyme that protects us from colon cancer, inflammation of the colon or colitis, irritable bowel syndrome.

And this butyrate, what it does is lubricate the walls, protect the walls, eliminate free radicals that are being generated there, which are creating inflammation. So therefore, we see that diet is important in prevention and is fundamental in restoration.

Similar to when foods are processed and vitamins and minerals are stripped away, many unknowingly discard invaluable nutrients our bodies need while cooking.

Even those in the kitchen preparing their food end up removing and throwing away many of the things the body needs. For example, I have found many mothers when they go to use squash or pumpkin, peel and throw away the skin. In the skin there are alphacarotenes and betacarotenes to prevent skin cancer and which will ensure that optical nerves and our sight work well. I have found that squash seeds are thrown away. These squash seeds contain zinc and zinc will prevent the prostate from swelling. Zinc will prevent damage to the skin, stretch marks, and cellulite.

Some believe nutritional supplements are a necessary part of a healthy diet, but are they really necessary? Dr. Vargas now provides his perspective.

When you have a vegan diet, holistic, balanced, harmonious, and your lifestyle is very healthy, and in harmony with nature, with oneself, with God and with your neighbor, believe me that we will not need any dietary supplements or complements. An example, we like ice cream flavored with fruit. We like juices flavored with fruit. But we do not eat the fruit.

When a person eats fruit in its natural state, in the fruit are the vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and a number of compounds that the body needs in order to work well. So if a person is consuming large amounts of citrus fruits they will not need to consume megadoses of vitamin C. If you're eating fruit as a child in its natural state, you will not have a deficiency as such. Then you do not need to supplement your diet.

How does a vegan diet with functional foods aid those with certain severe medical conditions? Can what we eat actually help to heal us?

For example let’s talk about multiple sclerosis. In multiple sclerosis there is an erosion of myelin. Myelin is like a rubber that protects the neurons in order for the nerve cells to do their job. And when the myelin is worn out, then it begins to lose a lot of functionality and many organs begin to atrophy and that is where functional foods begin to do their job. For example, the oilseeds provide essential fatty acids and not only essential fatty acids but specifically items that the myelin need for it not to wear out, for it not to run out.

So for example, what do almonds do? Almonds in its so-called natural state or in a vegetable milk, almonds have certain essential fatty acids that help rebuild the myelin. In other words, it is the raw material for it to begin rebuilding again. There omega-3, omega-6, omega-9 and eicosapentaenoic acid interact. They begin to make a collective effort to restore this matrix.

That is to say, all chronic degenerative diseases begin at the table, and it is at the table where they should be restored, not in the consulting room, not in the operating room and it’s not at the pharmacy. The father of medicine was Hippocrates and his Hippocratic philosophy says: “Let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food.”

Doctor Vargas, we sincerely thank you for sharing with us your invaluable research and knowledge on functional foods as well as for actively promoting the vegan lifestyle. Friendly viewers, please join us next Monday on Healthy Living for the conclusion of our interview with Dr. Vargas.

Thank you for your company today on our program. Up next is Science and Spirituality, after Noteworthy News. May we all strive to uplift our mind, spirit, body and soul.

Please use the following methods to contact Dr. Vargas: Email tulioenrique1@yahoo.es Telephone. +57 16963143 mobile +57 3108819219 Mail Carrera 45A No 106A-36 Barrio Pasadena, Bogota, Colombia