Baca Family Practice

05/27/2025

Vitamin D

05/08/2025

Most skin cancers strike the most exposed parts of the body, such as the face, ears, neck, forearms, and hands. Melanoma is different. Where it's often seen on patients: https://wb.md/3EDPDiS

04/30/2025

The studies show:

04/29/2025

04/29/2025

Making just small changes to your lifestyle starting in midlife—like eating five or more daily servings of fruits and vegetables, walking about 20 minutes a day, maintaining a healthy weight, and not smoking—can result in a substantial reduction in mortality even in the immediate future.

But don’t wait. Every year, there are half a million heart attacks, half a million strokes, a million new cases of diabetes, and a million new cancer diagnoses in just the United States alone.

Heart disease begins in childhood. By age 10, most kids eating a Westernized diet already have fatty streaks in their arteries—the first stage of the disease. Plaques start forming in our 20s and get worse in our 30s, eventually leading to heart attacks and strokes. For anyone reading this who is older than 10, the question isn’t whether to eat healthy to prevent heart disease, but whether you want to reverse the heart disease that you already have.

The good news is that the potential for preventing disease and death from chronic diseases is enormous.

Diet is considered to be the most important lifestyle factor when it comes to aging, healthspan, and lifespan. We can change how we eat.

Pioneering research from Nathan Pritikin, Dean Ornish, and Caldwell Esselstyn has shown that a plant-based diet may help arrest or even reverse the progression of heart disease in the majority of patients. Indeed, it’s the only diet that ever has.

How Not to Age is out now! See a sneak peak from my book at buff.ly/3SW7ru6

Watch the video "How to Increase Your Life Expectancy 12 to 14 Years" at https://buff.ly/3WdClzm to learn more.

PMIDs: 17602933, 19667296, 17015535, 5346899, 12244281, 26876763, 29800598

04/29/2025

Tangy goat cheese tempers the sweetness of both potato and hot honey in this mouth-watering recipe. https://nyti.ms/4jnpdAP

04/05/2025

When people switch between a whole food, plant-based diet and one based more on animal products, dramatic shifts can occur within their microbiome within just two days.

When we eat fiber, our good gut bacteria produce short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs). The SCFAs are an important energy source for the cells lining our colon and also function to suppress inflammation and cancer. Eat fiber, and these fiber-munching bacteria multiply, and we get more anti-inflammatory, anticancer SCFAs. Eat less fiber, and our fiber-eating bacteria starve.

The good bacteria are nourished by fiber-rich foods, like fruits, veggies, whole grains, and beans. Many bad bacteria—those that may contribute to disease—are fed by meat, including seafood, junk food, and fast food, as well as dairy and eggs.

One of the biggest problems with animal-based diets and other typical Western diets is they don’t leave anything for our good bacteria to eat, which allows bad bacteria to take over and increase our susceptibility to inflammatory diseases, colon cancer, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.

To learn more, see the following on Nutritionfacts.org:
“How to Develop a Healthy Gut Ecosystem” https://buff.ly/2vdvxas.
Microbiome topic page: https://buff.ly/2J2HbqA
“Microbiome: We Are What They Eat” https://buff.ly/2pyo54w
“Gut Dysbiosis: Starving Our Microbial Self” https://buff.ly/2BJoE0P
PMIDs: 24336217, 24060277, 25198138, 24833634, 24495527, 24388214, 24230488

04/05/2025

Eat healthy, your body deserves it.

04/05/2025

The fructose found naturally in fruits is packaged with fiber and antioxidants, which may help to explain why people experience positive health benefits when they eat fruits. Adding berries to a meal can help blunt an insulin spike from high glycemic foods, for instance. The fiber in fruits can help slow the release of the sugar, and fruit phytonutrients can help inhibit the transportation of sugar into our intestinal walls and bloodstream.

Similarly, the fat found in whole plant-based foods comes packaged with health-promoting nutrients, such as fiber and phytonutrients. Nuts can help lower cholesterol and oxidation, as well as improve our arterial function and blood sugar levels. Just a few small servings of nuts a week may increase our lifespan and lower our cancer risk. Removing saturated animal fat from our diet and substituting in avocados may lead to a significant drop in cholesterol and triglycerides. However, simply adding avocado without also reducing saturated animal fat intake does not appear to result in any benefits to cholesterol. Talk to your doctor about your cholesterol-lowering options.

To see the research studies and to learn more, see the following videos on NutritionFacts.org:

"If Fructose Is Bad, What About Fruit?" at https://buff.ly/3TkNFas
"How Much Fruit Is Too Much?" at https://buff.ly/3PB8yNp
"The Effects of Avocados on Inflammation" at https://buff.ly/2LK3CT3
"What Do Avocados Do to Your Cholesterol?" at https://buff.ly/3vdyB6z
"Nuts May Help Prevent Death" at https://buff.ly/3Vq0cfd

04/05/2025

Stay happy and motivated. When you think you are not capable enough, remember that you are stronger than you can imagine.

04/05/2025

Light, fresh, and packed with omega-3s! 🥗 This Salmon & Olive Salad is the ultimate protein-rich meal that fuels muscle recovery and supports heart health. The mix of leafy greens, healthy fats from olives, and protein-packed salmon makes this a perfect meal for lunch or dinner. Plus, it’s bursting with flavor! Who else loves a good salad with a protein punch? Let’s get healthy together! 🐟💪