SUSAN BRATTON
CEO, SAVOR HEALTH

Dating back to Hippocrates (406 BC), the “Father of Modern Medicine” who believed that disease was the product of environmental factors, diet, and living habits and who is credited as saying “Let food be thy medicine, and let medicine be thy food,” it is generally accepted that “healthy” food and nutrition positively impact one’s health and wellbeing (1). What constitutes “healthy” nutrition has generally been broad-based and general, a one-size-fits-all approach relying on the findings of large population-based studies such as The Adventist Health Study (96,000 Adventists) which found that those who followed a vegetarian diet had a significantly lower risk of obesity, high blood pressure, and high blood sugar, strong risk factors for heart disease and early death (2-5), and decreased risk of colon cancer (6). By definition and due to historical limitations on our ability to rapidly and accurately ingest and analyze the copious amounts of relevant data involved in nutrition and nutrition research, such population-based studies do not and cannot account for the unique combinations and permutations of medical, genetic, cultural, contextual, food and nutrition dat ...