What's the Role of Nutrition in Disease Prevention?

In Australia, around 27,500 preventable deaths occur each year due to poor diet, and dietary risks now account for about 4.8% of the country's total disease burden. Fortunately, good nutrition is one of the most powerful tools you have control over. Small, targeted changes in what you eat can lower your risk of chronic diseases, helping you live a longer, healthier life.

Let's explore the role of nutrition in chronic disease prevention and overall health, focusing on which foods support or undermine your wellbeing and practical changes you can implement starting today.

Everlab can help you make nutrition truly personal. Our doctors review your health history and use comprehensive blood testing to identify key nutrition and disease-risk markers, such as inflammation, blood sugar control, cholesterol, and common nutrient gaps. These results don’t diagnose disease on their own, but they give you and your doctor a clear baseline and a targeted plan for improving your long-term health through the changes that matter most for you.

‍

‍

Why Food Is Medicine (And What That Means for You)

Food isn’t a substitute for medical care, but it’s one of the strongest levers for reducing long-term risk..

Your diet influences a few critical things:

• how your cells function
• how your immune system responds
• whether inflammation builds up or settles down

So, eating patterns can either protect you or put you at risk of chronic disease. If your diet lacks specific nutrients or contains excessive amounts of others, the body begins making compromises.

For instance, blood vessels might become less flexible, and cells may lose their capacity to repair DNA damage efficiently. Or, gut bacteria might shift toward strains that promote inflammation rather than protect against it.

The Diseases Nutrition Can Help Prevent

Let's examine some conditions where your food choices and nutrition play a significant role.

1. Cardiovascular Disease (Heart Disease)

Heart disease refers to the gradual damage of the blood vessels that feed your heart. Here are a few ways nutrition can affect heart health:

• When people eat foods high in sodium, blood pressure climbs, and the heart has to work harder to pump blood through the body. Over time, the extra strain damages the delicate lining of arteries.
• Saturated fats and trans fats raise LDL cholesterol, which sticks to the walls of the arteries and gradually narrows them. Eventually, blood flow to the heart becomes restricted, setting the stage for chest pain, heart attacks, or strokes.
• Soluble fibre helps remove cholesterol from the system, while omega-3 fatty acids reduce inflammation and keep blood vessels flexible.

If you eat a balanced diet rich in nutrient-dense foods, you begin actively protecting your heart.

2. Type 2 Diabetes

Type 2 diabetes typically results from years of impaired blood sugar management, but most people don't even realise it.

If you eat refined carbohydrates, your glucose levels spike rapidly, and the pancreas responds by releasing insulin to bring those levels back down. Progressively, your cells become less responsive to insulin's signals and eventually your pancreas can't keep up. As a result, glucose remains chronically elevated, and you develop insulin resistance, which later becomes type 2 diabetes.

A healthy diet plays a central role in both disease management and prevention of this condition.

3. Bowel Cancer

When it comes to bowel cancer, the connection between diet and risk is direct. The foods you eat pass through the digestive system, and some of them can harm the cells lining your bowel, especially with repeated exposure.

The damage is usually subtle and accumulates over time, creating an environment where damaged cells have more time in contact with your bowel walls.

4. Chronic Kidney Disease

Your kidneys are remarkable filters, cleaning your blood around 50 times every day. But they're also vulnerable to harm, particularly from high sodium intake.

Your kidneys contain tiny, delicate filtering structures called nephrons. When you consistently eat foods with too much sodium, your kidneys have to work overtime to balance your body's fluid levels and maintain normal blood pressure. This extra workload, sustained for years, can damage those filtering structures. The damage progresses silently, often without symptoms, so that by the time symptoms appear, significant harm has already occurred.

This becomes even more important if you have diabetes or hypertension, as these chronic conditions already put strain on your kidneys.

5. Inflammatory and Chronic Conditions

Chronic inflammation is an underlying driver of many chronic diseases, including arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, and autoimmune conditions. Your gut microbiome sits at the centre of it all.

Your gut houses bacteria that constantly communicate with your immune system. When you eat a diet rich in processed foods, sugary drinks, and unhealthy fats, you create an environment where inflammatory bacteria thrive while beneficial bacteria struggle. This imbalance, known as dysbiosis, triggers low-grade inflammation that can spread throughout the body, affecting immune function overall.

When you eat a fibre-rich diet, beneficial bacteria ferment that fibre and produce short-chain fatty acids. These compounds actively reduce inflammation and strengthen your gut barrier, preventing harmful substances from leaking into your bloodstream.

Foods That Protect (And Foods That Harm) Your Immune System

You want to eat the most essential nutrients for disease prevention. That said, building a balanced diet requires understanding which foods support optimal health.

Eat More of These Foods

As you make dietary modifications, consider these foods:

• Aim for five servings of vegetables and fruit daily. You need at least 25 to 38 grams of fibre per day (about 25 to 30 grams for most women and up to 38 grams for men). NHMRC+1
• Whole grains such as brown rice, quinoa, oats, wholemeal bread, and pasta help stabilise blood sugar and support heart disease prevention.
• Legumes, such as beans, lentils, and chickpeas, can help prevent chronic illness by lowering cholesterol and improving blood sugar control.
• Healthy fats, such as olive oil, avocados, nuts, seeds, and oily fish, provide unsaturated fats that reduce inflammation and support brain and cardiovascular health.
• Lean protein sources, including chicken, turkey, fish, eggs, and tofu, provide essential amino acids that support tissue repair and help maintain a healthy body weight.

Limit or Avoid These Foods

Certain foods can also promote disease when consumed regularly or in excess. These include:

• Foods high in saturated fats or trans fats, and foods with synthetic additives.
• Diets high in processed meats like bacon, sausages, and ham.
• Red meat: aim to keep intake to around 350 to 500 grams cooked weight per week (roughly 700 grams raw), and eat little if any processed meat. Cancer Council NSW+1
• Ultra-processed foods that contribute to excess calories, weight gain, and metabolic dysfunction.
• Sugary drinks, lollies, and baked goods, which spike blood sugar and promote insulin resistance.
• Packaged foods, takeaway meals, and restaurant dishes, since they are often high in sodium.

What You Can Start Doing Now

The truth is, you don't need to overhaul your entire diet overnight. The better way for most people is to implement small, consistent changes that support disease prevention and foster a positive relationship with food. You can:

• Start where you are: If you currently eat one serving of vegetables daily, aim for two. If you eat refined grains, consider swapping half for wholegrain versions.
• Focus on addition, not just subtraction: Fill your plate with healthy foods such as vegetables, grains, lean proteins, and legumes to promote sustainable dietary patterns.
• Make it convenient: Buy frozen or pre-cut vegetables and canned legumes to make healthy meals easier.
• Try to cook more often: Cooking at home makes it much easier to build a nutrient-rich diet.
• Practice mindful eating: Pay attention to hunger and fullness cues. Eat slowly, without distractions, and avoid overeating to improve digestion and overall wellbeing.
• Drink more water: Replace sugary drinks with around 2 to 2.5 litres of plain water per day.
• Get adequate sleep. Aim for 7 to 9 hours.

Understand Your Personal Nutritional Needs for Optimal Health

Everyone's nutritional requirements differ based on age, sex, physical activity level, health conditions, disease risk factors, genetics, and body weight.

Blood testing can reveal key markers that guide your nutrition and dietary patterns. These markers can show where you currently stand and what areas may need attention for optimal health. They include:

• Glucose and HbA1c: To indicate blood sugar control and diabetes risk.
• Lipid profile (cholesterol and triglycerides): Reflects cardiovascular risk.
• Vitamin D, B12, and iron: Indicate common nutrient deficiencies that affect energy levels and immune function.
• Kidney and liver function: Show how well your body processes nutrients.
• Inflammatory markers: Signal underlying chronic inflammation and immune activity.

You can take a functional medicine approach to nutrition, using comprehensive testing to identify specific deficiencies and modifiable risk factors. Personalised testing allows you to work with registered dietitians who offer a systematic review of your diet and provide nutritional support tailored to your needs.

Conclusion

You need a good diet that's sustainable over years and decades. Starting now, you can focus on the patterns, choose whole foods most of the time, eat plenty of plants, and limit processed meats, added sugars, and ultra-processed foods.

In addition to that, a comprehensive health screening can give a clearer picture of your current disease risk and nutritional status. Everlab combines advanced testing with doctor-reviewed results to help you understand which changes are likely to make the biggest difference for your individual health. These tests do not diagnose disease on their own, but they can help identify modifiable risk factors so you can act early with your doctor.

‍

‍

Sources:

1. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare: Diet - Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
2. eClinicalMedicine: Dietary attribution to burden of chronic disease in Australia (ABDS 2024)
3. Obesity Evidence Hub: Disease burden of overweight, obesity and poor diet
4. Australian Bureau of Statistics: Food and nutrients, 2023