Macrobiotic diet
A macrobiotic diet (or macrobiotics), is a diet in which an attempt is made to balance the yin and yang elements of food; this means that grains are a staple, supplemented with other foods such as vegetables and soy; certain kinds of cookware should be avoided.
Macrobiotics writers often present a macrobiotic diet as helpful for people with cancer, although there is no good evidence to support such recommendations; neither the American Cancer Society nor Cancer Research UK recommend taking the diet.
History
Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland
Hufeland, a German physician, in his book The Art of Prolonging Human Life (1797), first used the word "macrobiotics" in the context of food and health. Hufeland was an influential doctor who was active in medical research and became a medical professor at Jena and, later, the first dean of medicine at the University of Berlin. As per the title of his book, he considered macrobiotics a science aimed at prolonging and perfecting life. According to Hufeland, macrobiotics is a medical philosophy on a higher level than the curative, preventative, or health levels of medicine. "The medical art must consider every disease as an evil which cannot be too soon expelled; the macrobiotic, on the other hand, shows that many diseases may be the means of prolonging life."
