Hello and welcome to Nutrition Facts. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Greger. Today we're going to explore smart nutrition choices based naturally on facts.

Have a history of high blood pressure in your family? How about heart disease, diabetes? There are foods we can eat that may not only help prevent many of these chronic diseases, but even stop them in their tracks.

Most of us are familiar with the standard American diet. Hamburger, Todd Dogs, French fries chips, soda, little list goes on. Research has found that this diet may be so detrimental to blood flow within our arteries that sexual dysfunction, heart attacks and strokes can be the result.

Industrial pollutants such as PCBs found mostly in fish may contribute to sexual dysfunction, impotence and the loss of libido. The regular eating of calorie dense junk may down-regulate dopamine receptors in result in a reduced neurological capacity to enjoy all the pleasures in life.

With all that bad news here, there are some positive steps we can take. Selecting foods to improve pelvic blood flow and decrease inflammation, both long-term and immediately after a meal, may improve sexual functioning in men and women. Here's the story.

What are some pill-free ways to improve your sex life? Exercise? Quit smoking don't drink too much, don't weigh too much and eat a healthy diet.

But what does that mean? Heart-healthy lifestyle changes are sex-healthy lifestyle changes, as has been demonstrated in studies from around the world.

Including in women, sexual functioning women is also significantly affected by coronary artery disease, atherosclerotic narrowing of blood flow through our arteries, including the arteries that supply our pelvis.

So high cholesterol may mean lower arousal, orgasm, lubrication and satisfaction, and the same with high blood pressure.

So putting women on a more plant-based diet may help with sexual functioning. Researchers found that improvements in female sexual function index scores were related to an increased intake of fruit, vegetables, nuts and beans, and a shift from animal to plant sources of fat, and the same with men, a significant improvement in international index of erectile function scores.

In fact, the largest study on diet and erectile dysfunction found that each additional daily serving of fruits or vegetables may reduce the risk by 10%.

But why? It may be due to the anti-inflammatory effects. Two years on a healthier diet resulted in a significant reduction in systemic inflammation as indicated by reduced levels of C-reactive protein.

The most fiber itself may play an anti-inflammatory role. Those who eat the most fiber and have significantly lower levels of inflammation in their bodies.

The opposite was found for saturated fat, associated with an increased likelihood of elevated C-reactive protein level.

People don't realize that the level of inflammation in our bodies can change after a single meal.

There's a pro-inflammatory signaling molecule in our bodies called Interleukin-18, thought to play a role in destabilizing atherosclerotic plaques.

As such, the level of Interleukin-18 in the blood is a strong predictor of cardiovascular death.

What would happen if you fed people one of three different types of meals?

Sausage in egg butter oil sandwiches or cheeseless pizza with a white flour crust or the same cheeseless pizza but with a whole wheat crust?

Within hours of eating the sausage sandwich, Interleukin-18 level shot up about 20%.

In effect, not seen eating the plant-based pizza.

And those eating the whole food plant-based pizza had about a 20% drop in aisle 18 levels within hours.

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