First, Let’s Dispel a Popular Myth
One of the many myths about health that particularly concerns us at Hallelujah Diet is the widely accepted notion that our health is supposed to diminish when we reach our senior years. While people are living longer, unfortunately they do often experience a deteriorating quality of life, which feeds the myth. But it doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t have to lose our health and vitality and become more susceptible to illness, disease and physical limitations. Positive changes can dramatically improve one’s quality of life literally by enhancing one’s health.
A great example of this truth is my own father. He consumed the unhealthy Standard American Diet until he ended up with a baseball size tumor and colon cancer in his early 40s. My grandmother had died of the same cancer after enduring what traditional medicine has to offer—chemo, radiation and surgery. When my dad saw that these painful and debilitating “remedies” didn’t work, he decided that maybe a radical change in diet might give him a fighting chance. An evangelist by the name of Lester Roloff convinced dad to begin eating nothing but fruits and vegetables and drinking one to two quarts of raw vegetable juices every day.
He got well within one year, then made adjustments to his diet to maintain his weight (the Hallelujah Diet balance of 85% raw and 15% cooked foods). And, today, at age 81, my father is still very healthy and active. My stepmother is another example of how diet can change one’s life. She overcame chronic arthritis and lost over 80 pounds in about a year, thanks to switching from processed foods and meats to raw foods and juices.
Why Do Older People Often Contract Diseases?
It all comes down to how healthy or unhealthy our body’s cells are and why. Before we explore that subject, let’s take a look at the current state of elder health. Roughly half of all people today die from a cardiovascular disease. Another third or more dies from some form of cancer. But these are not age-related diseases. They are diet-related.
And poor diet results in these sobering statistics:
- Two of three senior citizens will become physically or cognitively impaired.
- One in three will end up in a nursing home.
- By 2030, there will be approximately 72 million older Americans, more than twice as many as in the year 2000. And many will be sick or declining physically or both because they didn’t change their diet.
