One of the biggest perks of what I do is meeting extremely interesting people. For the City of Talent campaign we are making three posters that will give a little insight into the minds of Prof. Bert Otten, Prof. Gert ter Horst and Prof. Frits Muskiet. Last week I found out you can’t really be in love with 10 people at the same time and that there has been no research on pathologically falling in love while talking to Gert ter Horst. Bert Otten explained me amongst other things how scientists generally miss the poetry in their work, how speed walking ruins your back and how my lower legs are too short for sprinting. This week I had the privilege to talk to Prof. Muskiet about the way we eat. I was absolutely flabbergasted by what he told me. 95% of all diseases are the effect of lifestyle. The rest is genetic. By far the most research money goes into the genetic research though. One of the main reasons for concern is the way we eat. We eat so much crap that we get diabetes, heart disease and even some forms of cancer are clearly a result of our diet.
Drink a glass of cola and your insuline is still through the roof an hour later. Drink it every day and you can imagine what happens. The tragedy being that everything that was scarce once, now is available in huge quantities and flashy packaging for us to buy and eat.
It all sounded so absolutely clear and logical that it became obvious we are missing out on a lot by just researching disease and medicine and not looking at obvious causes of sickness. As Prof. Muskiet said: ‘Students that say they study ‘medicines’ are absolutely spot-on, that’s what they study’.
His tip: live like a hunter gatherer. Meat + fish, fruit and vegetables. That’s all you really need. Go easy on the fats, the rice, potatoes and pasta.