MARK HYMAN

The way most doctors practice medicine right now isn't working.

My advice is to give up stevia, aspartame, sucralose, sugar alcohols like xylitol and malitol, and all of the other heavily-used and marketed sweeteners unless you want to slow down your metabolism, gain weight, and become an addict.

You cannot control the primitive urges and hormones that drive your eating behavior.

If you want to get healthy, you just might not want to go to a doctor. You might instead, go to church.

One in four kids have either pre-diabetes or diabetes - what I like to call diabesity. How did this happen?

It is just physics - who can argue with Newton and the first law of thermodynamics?

Just eat less and exercise more.

When it becomes a revolutionary act to eat real food, we are in trouble.

Shrinking someone's stomach to the size of a walnut with surgery is one way to battle obesity and diabetes and may be lifesaving for a few, but it doesn't address the underlying causes.

Your social networks may matter more than your genetic networks. But if your friends have healthy habits you are more likely to as well. So get healthy friends.

The best advice is to avoid foods with health claims on the label, or better yet avoid foods with labels in the first place.

In the 21st century our tastes buds, our brain chemistry, our biochemistry, our hormones and our kitchens have been hijacked by the food industry.

Children with obesity and diabetes live harder poorer lives, they often don't finish school and earn much less than their healthy counterparts.

The very fact that we are having a national conversation about what we should eat, that we are struggling with the question about what the best diet is, is symptomatic of how far we have strayed from the natural conditions that gave rise to our species, from the simple act of eating real, whole, fresh food.

You are more likely to be overweight if your friend's, friend's friend is overweight than if your parents are overweight.

It seems that for many the cure to acne is at the end of their fork, not in a prescription pad.

Paradoxically Americans are becoming both more obese and more nutrient deficient at the same time. Obese children eating processed foods are nutrient depleted and increasingly get scurvy and rickets, diseases we thought were left behind in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Placing too much emphasis on a yes/no diagnosis, meaning you either have a disease or you don't, can lead even the most well-meaning physicians to miss underlying causes and early warning signs of illness.

Our typical Western diet is full of inflammatory fats - saturated fats, trans fats, too many omega-6, inflammatory, processed vegetable oils like soy and corn oils. These increase IGF-1 and stimulate pimple follicles.

Today there are not even enough fruits and vegetables in this country to allow all Americans to follow the government guidelines to eat five to nine servings a day.

While weight loss is important, what's more important is the quality of food you put in your body - food is information that quickly changes your metabolism and genes.

There are ways to cut cravings by naturally balancing your blood sugar.

I don't need the fillers, additives, excessive amounts of sugars, fats, salts and other measures taken to taint the natural goodness of real food.

Seems you can't outsmart Mother Nature.

I have experienced some amazing food! Yet when I think about the most luxurious and exquisite meals I have had, visions of simple food made from a few natural ingredients are what most excite me.