Perricone Diet Review

Dr. Nicholas Perricone's wellness empire is built on 9 books - including bestsellers "The Perricone Prescription", "The Perricone Promise", "The Perricone Wrinkle Cure" and "The Perricone Weight Loss Diet" - and a boatload of (pricey) skin care and dietary supplements he asserts are the keys to overall good health. Perricone, a dermatologist, concluded from his studies that cells which showed the presence of disease also always showed signs of inflammation. So he posits that inflammation - the result of increased blood sugar, caused by foods we consume - is the bad actor in the body which accelerates aging (wrinkles), heart disease, arthritis, cancer, diabetes and obesity. The Perricone Rx is not really a diet, but a lifestyle. It is the Dr.'s comprehensive program to remove inflammation from your life, thereby reversing the symptoms of unwanted health conditions, helping you lose weight and making you look and feel younger. The primary components of the Perricone Rx are proteins, omega-3 fatty acids and antioxidants. You incorporate them into your life in three ways: diet, dietary supplements and skin care products.

Perricone's dietary recommendations are rigid. You must begin by eliminating foods from your diet which cause inflammation, and that list of foods is very long. His recommended foods are high in protein, omega-3 fatty acids and antioxidants, including what he calls "superfoods" like salmon and assorted berries. You'll be eating a lot of fish on this diet, so if you're not a fan, stop reading now. Perricone is an advocate of monitoring the glycemic index of foods - that is, the effects different foods have on your blood sugar levels. Perricone believes that sugar is toxic, and that foods with a high glycemic index cause inflammation throughout the body. Note that many experts disagree on the impact of a high glycemic index to dietary health, and to date the effects of high glycemic index foods remain unproven. Recipes and meal plans are provided in the books.

The strict diet, though, is not enough - as Perricone also recommends taking more than 25 natural supplements a day with breakfast and lunch. Unsurprisingly, the Dr. has an extensive selection of these products branded with his name for retail sale, and he suggests his line of products for the best results. Note: the prices are steep.
To round out the Rx, Perricone recommends regular use of his skin care line (he is, after all, a dermatologist) to assist in the reversal of signs of aging, and improve the overall health and appearance of your skin. He offers an extensive line of branded products including cleansers, toners, lotions, lip plumpers and moisturizers. By nearly all accounts these are lovely and effective skin care products, and they're packaged beautifully, but be warned: they do not come cheaply. It's not for nothing that they are a celebrity fave and available at high-end retailers like Sephora, Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus.

Perricone makes grand, sweeping claims to the effectiveness of his program. He says it can decrease inflammation throughout your body, improve your metabolism, improve your mood, strengthen your heart against disease, decrease your cancer risk, improve your bone density, repair your skin, boost your immune system and help you lose weight. Most grandly, he proclaims that it can "reverse the aging process."

Many of Perricone's recommendations to acheive these goals are sensible and proven out by science - inflammation can cause a whole host of health problems, and/or complicate existing ones. And diet plays a major role in levels of inflammation. In this regard, as well as for weight loss, Perricone's diet recommendations of fish, fruits and vegetables is good advice. Perricone also strongly recommends that you exercise daily, for a minimum of 20-30 minutes. Again: solid, proven, good advice for good health and weight loss. But where the Perricone Rx goes off the rails is with its insistence that these diet and exercise recommendations are not enough, and what will tip the scale in your favor is several hundred bucks a month worth of fish oil tablets and skin creams. Now it is true that studies have shown that a diet heavy on salmon and omega-3 consumption has improved the condition and appearance of the skin. But that's a far cry from "reversing the aging process." Though Perricone is an M.D. and cites his own research, little of it is actually published or been subject to review by outside experts. So what you have here is a little bit of good science wrapped up in good marketing and fancy packaging.