06. May, 2022

Best Foods for Fat Burning

The allergy, autoimmunity, inflammation of joints, and those are all obvious things. But the the big concern is that this low level, purposeless inflammation may be setting the stage for very serious diseases that you develop, you know, after midlife. What are the top foods to eat to reduce inflammation and burn belly fat. Doctor. Well, I would say it’s the top foods not to eat because, a lot of the foods in the mainstream diet or a very pro inflammatory, and that includes a lot of the fats and oils that are used, especially, vegetable oils with high content of polyunsaturated fatty acids. It includes quick digesting carbs, you know, things with made with flour and sugar.

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So a lot of the the manufactured processed refined foods, these are all pro inflammatory.

And I think that’s where you’re gonna start is trying to eliminate all of those things as much as possible. What what is it about refined grain products?

Quote unquote inflammatory can you define what those oils are, where where they’re hiding in the food supply? What what is it about those foods? Okay. Let’s do the oils first.

Okay. We are different kinds of fatty assets. There are saturated ones, which we used to think were bad for the heart, and probably aren’t so bad. There are monounsaturated fatty acids, which are predominantly olive oil, and that’s those are very good for us.

And then there are probably unsaturated fatty acids, which are very susceptible to oxidation and degradation if they’re exposed to heat light in the air. And when they degrade, they form carcinogenic co inflammatory compounds. And most of the oils in the American diet are of that sort. They’re refined vegetable oils, that are very high in these polyunsaturated fatty acids and easily break down the pro inflammatory compounds.

Wow. And where where are they typically found? I mean, what kinds of foods foods are they typically found in? All manufactured food. You know, we’ve made refined soybean oil very cheap through, federal subsidies. So it is a universal commodity crop, and it’s in all manufactured foods.

Wow.

Big, big problem. And also, I I feel like restaurants are probably very prone to using them because they’re dirt cheap. Absolutely.

So we need alternatives to them. And but with the carbs, it’s a different matter.

It’s that when you refine carbohydrates into forms that quickly digest into sugar and raised blood sugar, that provokes inflammation by a different mechanism.

Interesting.

Is it a is there a, is it sort of a scenario of the dose making the poison? I mean, is a is a little bit here and there. Sure. I don’t think that’s true of of most things. But at the moment, the mainstream diet is very overloaded and top heavy in these pro inflammatory elements.

Wow. And what what exactly is inflammation? Because, I mean, your medical doctor, you hear the term inflammation thrown about quite a bit in the online health and wellness space. But I think, laypeople, maybe could use a bit of a crash course on what what it actually is from the standpoint of our physiology.

Well, it’s very simple. We all know inflammation on the surface of the body. It’s local redness feet swelling and pain at an area that’s been injured or is under attack. And inflammation is the body’s way of getting more nourishment and more immune activity to an area that needs it.

But inflammation is so powerful in a so potentially destructive that it’s very important that stay where it’s supposed to stay and end when it’s supposed to end. If inflammation persists, if it serves no purpose, it becomes productive of disease. So the body has very complex mechanisms for being able to produce enough inflammation to protect you and not enough inflammation that it’s gonna cause problems. So these are delicate balances of hormones and regulatory compounds If you can’t produce enough inflammation, you are susceptible to infection and poor wound healing.

If you produce too much This can spill over into allergy and into autoimmune disease, but most interesting, it looks as if many of the most serious chronic illnesses begin as inflammatory processes.

So it’s low level chronic purposeless inflammation that you need to be concerned about.

So it’s it’s really our immune systems reacting to our diet. Whereas in in in antiquity, historically, our immune systems would have had to have evolved to respond to physical physical threat. Right? It’s not entirely diet because there are many factors that influence your inflammatory status. One is genetics. Another is stress.

Another is exposure to environmental toxins. For instance, second hand cigarette smoke is strongly pro inflammatory, for example.

So but diet is a major one, and that’s one we have control over. So that’s the one you wanna look at because as I said, the mainstream diet is strongly pro inflammatory. It gives us all the wrong things and not enough of the right things that are protective.

I feel like for people when they’re healthy, chronic disease is sort of an abstract concept. So are there any short term consequences to inflammation wrought by diet and lifestyle? Well, as I said, allergy, autoimmunity, inflammation of joints, and those are all obvious things. But the the big concern is this low level, purposeless inflammation may be setting the stage for very serious diseases that you develop. No after midlife, things like coronary artery disease, which begins as inflammation in the arteries, Alzheimer’s, which begins as inflammation in the brain. And cancer is related to, because anything that increases inflammation simultaneously stimulates cells to divide more frequently. You can’t separate those those two things.

Aspirin is a has cancer protective effects because it is an anti inflammatory agent. So, you know, this is all linked. When I was in medical school, I was taught that coronary artery disease and cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. These are completely separate disease forms that have nothing in common.

And now it looks as if there’s this common thread in in appropriate inflammation. And the good news there is if that’s a common element, then there’s common strategies for dealing with Absolutely. It gives us agency, which is what I love so much about your about your work. Is there any effect that inflammation has on on the burning of fat, and and weight loss?

I think if you’re in a an inflammatory state, you are more likely to put weight on and add some more difficult to come off.

Interesting.

Tell us about your background. You are one of the world’s most inspected physicians. You are one of the most prominent figures in the field of integrative medicine. You’ve been doing this for decades at this point.

How did you get into, what got you interested in medicine and how did you then come to find integrative and and and what really is integrative medicine. Okay. So those are big questions. Yeah.

I’m always interested in science and biology my family doctor, who was a general practitioner, was an influence on me, wanted me to go into medicine. Right. I I never saw myself practicing medicine, but I thought I’d want a medical it seemed to me that would be very useful to me. So you didn’t wanna do residency, but you want to be empty.

Is that kind of — Yeah. — I thought that would be useful and also, I I had too many interests, and people were always after me to say what I wanted to be, and I didn’t know. And it it drove me crazy. So when I said I was going to medical school, made everyone go away.

Also, it was during the Vietnam War, and it was a way of not dealing with that. You know, I got the deferment for all those years in school. At any rate, I had before I went to medical school, I studied botany, and that’s an unusual combination.

So as an undergrad, to it at Harvard. I majored in Botney, and I had the good fortune, to study under the man who would who really created the modern field of ethnobod and a Richard schulte’s, and he stimulated me and interested in medicinal plants. So I entered medical school with that background, and I was very shocked to see that the people teaching you pharmacology had no knowledge plant sources of the drugs that they were teaching about, and now they differed from isolated chemicals.

I also had a long standing interest in the mind and the body and how they interacted.

And I I got nothing about that in medical patient. I think that’s one of the big omissions in conventional medicine. And then when I finished my clinical training, in an internship, didn’t wanna practice that kind of medicine. I still didn’t do too much harm, especially in the form of adverse drug reactions, and it didn’t teach me anything about how to keep people healthy.

You know, I really need to learn nothing about health and healing, and it seemed to me that the main business of doctors should be to teach people how to live in order not to get sick in the first place. So I was very disillusioned. I dropped out of medicine for a number of years. I made my living as a writer.

I found ways to travel around the world and look at healers and alternative practitioners of all kind. I did that for about three and a half years, and then my car broke down in Tucson, and I never left. And, you know, I the University of Arizona found out that I would There, they asked me if I would begin giving lectures at first on the cannabis because nobody on the faculty knew anything about it. And I had done the first, human double blind experiments with it in nineteen sixty eight.

Wow. And then I began giving some lectures on addiction. And I said, look, I really wanna of alternative medicine. Nobody even knew what that was in those days in the seventies.

So I started getting lectures in the medical college at the University on things like chiropractic and osteopathic medicine and Chinese medicine, and I gradually put my own ideas together and people started showing up at my doorstep, wanting me to treat them. So I gradually got drawn into practice. I called what I did National and preventive medicine at first, and then I came to co integrated medicine.

Wow. So you you basically invented the field. Yep. Long time ago. Wow. And for many years, nobody paid any attention to me.

I got a a larger and larger following in the general public, but no medical colleagues listened to what I was saying. And that didn’t change until the early nineteen nineties. And that was when the economics of health care began to go south. And the lesson that I draw from that is that no amount of ideal far, you can boost anything.

It’s only when pocketbooks and institutions get squeezed, that they begin to open up to new ideas.

Interesting.

I think a lot of physicians are, are evidence based, which is a good thing, obviously.

But they are, but but but many also are evidence bound, which I think is not necessarily a good thing. I couldn’t agree more. I think in its in its most extreme form, the evidence based medicine movement is analogous to religious fundamentalism. It’s scientific fundamentalism.

And there are situations now where you’re not allowed to give a lecture in a medical institution unless you previously submit what you’re gonna say and have references in journals that are approved by the evidence based medicine committee. And also, doctors can’t do treatments that aren’t approved the evidence based medicine committee, and those are always interventions, drugs. You know, there’s a big It’s a big tangled mess involving medical journals, the pharmaceutical companies, the health care institutions. You know, doctors are no longer they’ve lost their autonomy, and their told how they have to practice?

Well, I feel like the evidence based model does prevent health care from becoming the wild, wild west, right, where where we’d like to thank that. But, you know, when you look just at medications, all of this insistence on double blind trials has not kept a great many worthless and dangerous drugs off the market. So, you know, it’s not it’s it is not a it’s not a perfect system by any means. But here’s what I teach about evidence to the doctors that I train.

I think we should use a sliding scale of evidence that works like this. The greater the potential of a treatment that cause harm, the stricter that the standards of evidence it should be held to for efficacy.

If if, you know, I teach everybody breathing techniques, they there’s not a lot of published evidence on the efficacy of breathing, but I know my own experience, how valuable this is, and the potential to cause harm is is negligible. So I’m quite comfortable recommending that until we begin to get more evidence. And the reason why we don’t have, requisite, the the requisite amount of evidence to convince the most ardent evidence based practitioners is that who’s gonna fund a study on on Breathwork? Exactly.

Or if people are even interested in it, you know, you try to talk to average physicians and scientists about breathing, it’s too simple. You know, there’s no device. There’s no substance. How possibly could this affect anything?

Interesting. And you’ve seen it perform amazing. I mean, I I I teach a very simple technique called the four seven eight breath. You can find it on On YouTube, I I have seen miraculous changes in people from practicing this in terms of the lower blood pressure, improved digestion, improved.

Circulation, I mean, all sorts of things. From a high level, what what what does that technique entail?

You breathe in through your nose quietly to account four hold your breath for a count of seven and blow air out through your mouth to a count of eight. And you do that four breath cycles. That’s it. And you have to do it at least twice a day, but you gotta do it religiously.

And that changes the balance of tone in the involuntary nervous system. It increases parasympathetic tone, decreases sympathetic tone, and that has far reaching effects on, on all functions of the body. What does it mean to, to increase parasympathetic tone? Okay.

So, you know, the involuntary nervous system has two divisions. One that speeds things up, which is the sympathetic nervous system. That’s the one that mediates the fight or flight response, and the parasympathetic nervous system slows things down. And these two have to be in balance.

And in most people in our culture, there’s too much sympathetic tone and not enough parasympathetic tone. You wanna activate that. That’s the relaxation response. There’s lots of ways of doing it, but breath control is one of the simplest and most effective.

That’s amazing. Wow. When I when I think of tone, I think of a a muscle that’s been exercised. Same thing with the nerve with nerves. It’s like how what frequency are they operating at? So if there’s increased tone in in a division of the nervous system, there’s more firing, more activity.

Wow. Would you say that integrative medicine really, is about the intersection between the the mind and the body?

That’s one big component of it. I think it’s much more than that. It’s the intelligent combination of conventional medicine and natural, and preventive strategies, emphasis on lifestyle, but mind body medicine’s a big piece of it, and that’s one that’s been neglected totally in conventional training. What role does the mind play in systemic health?

I think you can’t be can’t disentangle the mind in the body. They’re two holes of the same thing. The only way you can separate them is verbally.

Anywhere there is anywhere there are nerves, there is potential up to for mine to create an influence. So I think there’s no system of the body that’s not out of the range of of, what goes on in your mind. And when something changes in your body, that’s reflected in changes in the mind. So there is this back and forth continuous interaction, and you wanna take advantage of that in medicine because the strategies that are available for you taking advantage of the mind body connection are very cost effective, very time effective. They’re even fun for both practitioner and patient, and they’re totally underutilized in medicine today. Includes things like hypnosis and biofeedback and guided imagery. I mean, there’s a whole range of mind body techniques.

Most people under appreciate.

That I would say that the vast majority of underappreciate the fact that the mind can actually have an effect on one’s predisposition to cardiovascular disease.

Or to forms various forms of dementia or, autoimmunity.

But you’re saying that that actually it does play a role.

It’s a huge role. I studied medical hypnosis, took a course for physicians at Columbia University after I finished my internship, one of the best courses I’ve ever taken, and I saw demonstrations in that that were mind blowing, you know, things like you can, like, a good hypnotic surgeon touch them with a finger, tell them it’s a piece of hot metal. They get a blister. Wow. I mean, the opposite, you can touch a person with a hot piece of hot metal and tell them it’s not hot and they don’t get a blister. I mean, that’s all you need to see to know how powerful that connection is. In your experiences, is everybody hypnotizable?

I’ve never been hypnotized.

There’s a range. You know, there is a range of susceptibility. There are some people about general figures are that twenty percent of us are highly recognizable.

Twenty percent are relatively not recognizable. The rest of us are somewhere in between. But even for the ones who are not very advisable, there are ways of of taking advantage of that. You know, it’s just putting you in a focused state where your, with scope of your awareness is reduced, but the intensity is increased. When you’re watching a movie, you’re in a light trance state. And when you’re in that kind of state, the the channels between the mind and the body are are open.

I’ve worked with a very skilled hypnotherapist and tease on our faculty at our center of integrative medicine. And he once said to me, and I’ve come to believe this absolutely that he thought that every skin disorder and every GI disorder should first go to hypnotherapy before you go to dermatologists or gastroenterologists because Those two systems of the body have the highest ratio of nerves, tissue, and they’re the most frequent sites of expression of mind body imbalances.

So people can have so so so skin problems can be a manifestation of a mind body imbalance. Absolutely not. You have to be careful on how you present this to people because you don’t want to give them the impression that you think your disease is unreal. Where that they are creating it with their mind. That’s not the point. The point is that there is just this back and forth, and you can take advantage of that connection.

I just can’t remember the last time I’ve been to a dermatologist and they asked me about how I was doing mentally.

Right. And, you know, with the GI stuff, All you have to do is if you were in a student health center at exam time to see the number of people that come in with diarrhea, vomit, digestive upsets and stress from, you know, that period in their lives.

What are some daily habits then that you think could be useful for our for our viewers and for our listeners to to support mental health, which I I I’m I’m hearing from you plays a a large role in systemic health, a risk for chronic disease, our our predisposition to weight gain. What are your daily daily habits that people should really, attempt to adopt? I think everyone should learn and practice some method of neutralizing the harmful effects of stress on the mind and the body. There’s a wide range of choices, everything from guided imagery, relaxation, yoga.

I personally like breath control because it’s so time efficient. And as I said, that four seven eight breath that I teach, it takes thirty seconds. You just have to do it twice a day religiously, and it produces marvelous effects. Physical activity is they were I think some has to be a component of everybody’s life. Walking can satisfy that need if you do enough of it.

You know, do it aerobically enough. I think getting adequate rest and sleep, that’s a very key component of a healthy lifestyle.

So, you know, those are some basic ones in addition to paying attention to your diet. Walking is so important. A lot of people will say Oh, well, I don’t have access to a gym. How am I how how can I be expected to, to to to be be active Right?

But walking, I think, is it’s in our DNA to walk. It’s like it’s part of our ancestry. Our bodies are designed for it, and it carries the least risk of injury. You can do it any you can do it outdoors, you can do it with other people.

It’s great, and it can satisfy all your all the requirements for, you know, using your body. I love that. Non exercise physical activity.

Yeah.

Crucial.

Okay. So I want to talk a little bit about your background as a as bot or as an expert in botany, and and where that how that has informed your, your practice as a physician because I’m I’m imagining you have insight into the role that various plants can play in our health that few do. So, you mentioned cannabis, which is, definitely a a plant that falls outside of my wheelhouse. But from a from a dietary standpoint, What what are your thoughts on on on fruits, vegetables, herbs, spices?

Any favorites that you have from from the standpoint of of physical health? Yeah. I have a lot of ideas about that. First of all, fruits, vegetables, herbs, spices, beverages.

All of these are sources of a protective compounds. We call them phyto protective compounds or phytonutrient compounds and there’s a whole range of them. Now the government is always telling us to eat more fruits and vegetables. I think vegetables are more important because fruits are often concentrated sugar sources you wanna be careful about your intake of them. But vegetables, we we really should be eating a lot, and you wanna eat across the color spectrum.

Because each different color has unique, Fido protective properties. So you should think about, you know, what did you eat today that was orange? What did you eat that was red? They know what is this green. It’s a good habit to give it to.

Ox, herbs, and spices also have unique compounds in them. That a very useful cinnamon has a, compound that lowers blood sugar, for example.

Turmeric, the yellow is the most powerful natural anti inflammatory agent that we know of.

And everybody should find ways to incorporate that ginger close relative, it has that those are fast as well. So I think the more variety you have in in the vegetables you eat, some fruits, herbs, spices, beverages, you know, all of those things I think, are are are very helpful for us. And that’s an area where the mainstream diet fails us, you know, not only is it giving us, the wrong kinds of foods that are pro inflammatory, it doesn’t give us enough the things that are protected.

What about for people that that are listening to this watching this that that don’t like spicy food? They like foods that are very simple in terms of their, you know, in terms of their palate, bland perhaps is there a benefit to consuming spicy foods? Well, it depends what you mean by spicy, and a lot of people think of that in terms of chili of of hot red pepper. Which I happen to like, but you don’t have to eat that if you don’t want it. There are lots of other, you know, tame spices, you know, things like, basil and oregano and hard sleep, and, cumin and corian. I mean, those are not what I would consider spicy.

But they’re flavorful, and it’s very easy to learn how to add them. Foods. Yeah. I think a lot of people have what what I’ve come to call the twelve year old boy diet, especially in the in the in the context of the standard American diet, you find I find a lot of people that, their their palettes have don’t haven’t seem to have evolved past the age of twelve. They still, as adults, will regularly gravitate towards foods like hot dogs, hamburgers, pizza, macaroni and cheese. Macaroni and cheese is a big one. It’s a big one, especially here in in Los Angeles.

But those foods can’t be providing much nutritional value beyond calorie, right, calorie density.

Yeah. You’re missing out on all these elements that are highly protective, that protect you from inflammation and all sorts of other things. I don’t know. I was a very adventurous eater when I was growing up and, You know, I I wanted to get out and try all sorts of different things, and I I traveled a lot.

That’s been a great influence on me. When I was seventeen, I had a wonderful venture with a experimental school that took the group of people around the world for eighteen months and lived with native families. And that gave me a a great perspective on other cultures and exposing other foods, and I’ve always continued to be that way. And I like to turn people on to you know, new ideas, new foods, new flavors.

So what are some of your favorite cuisines?

I would say Japanese.

That’s one of my favorites. Yeah. I think that’s I’ve spent a lot of time in Japan, and I I love Japanese food. I love Italian food.

Mediterranean food. I think in general, Middle Eastern food. I know these are those are her favorites.

Yeah. I I love that. Middle Eastern food, Mediterranean food. Yeah. We feel like we have probably very similar tastes.

I’m a huge sushi fan. I don’t know why I’m such a as big of a fan of sushi as I am. I think because when I was a kid, my mom and my dad only seldomly ordered it for us.

And so for me now, whenever I eat sushi, the fact that I can now eat all the sushi that I want, it makes me feel, it makes me feel successful. Like, I just love.

Well, when I was growing up, there wasn’t a sushi. And then when I went to Japan in when I was seventeen, I ate it, I liked it, came back, you know, you couldn’t get it in the US. And if anybody had told me that cowboys in Arizona would be sushi ever, never have believed but there it is.

Some people are concerned about, parasites in fish. Is that a concern for you? Do do you eat raw fish?

Few species of fish that that’s a concern for. One of them is salmon. And so there are rules that, you know, salmon Prusushi be frozen for a certain period of time before it’s used, and that kills the parasites. So in general, you’re not gonna be exposed to any of those things in a in a sushi restaurant. Interesting.

That is interesting because salmon otherwise is a is a wonderful, you know, promoted food. Very much. I used to make there’s a preparation for gravlox, which is un unsmoked cured salmon. And so you get salmon fillet, you put a mixture of sugar and salt, and sometimes some spices on it, a weight on it, and then forty eight hours, it’s cured, and you can slice it.

It’s delicious with the Scandinavian food. But that’s one if you buy salmon to do that with. You have to make sure that it’s been frozen because you can get parasites from. Interesting.

Otherwise, just make sure that you’re cooking it well if you’re if you’re cooking it. Yeah. Yeah. It’s not it’s not an issue.

Although, I don’t like fish cooked well. You know, I think fish should be on the rare side? Yes. No.

I I agree with you. That’s I didn’t I didn’t want anybody to to take that as, you know, a suggestion to burn the hell out of your food overcooking.

Have you been to a true food kitchen in Los Angeles? Of course. I love that. I love that chain.

There you go. Okay. We got forty now. That’s amazing. A lot of the recipes are my recipes.

I love that. I love that. Yeah. I don’t think, I don’t think many people because I know that it’s a very popular restaurant chain, but I’m not sure that that as many people that enjoy the restaurant know that you’re the man behind it.

Yeah. I was I created it, and I I supply a lot of recipes and a lot of the ingredients, and it’s been fun to turn people on to foods that I’ve always liked.

I love that. Well, you’re you’re obviously, an expert in in plants and how they can benefit health. What are your feelings on on animal sourced products. Like, what’s your what’s your overall sort of guiding philosophy on on that?

My general recommendation is that people try to reduce the percentage of animal foods in the diet. I don’t tell people to become vegetarians or vegans, I think, vegan diets in particular. There’s there’s problems there, you can get into a a lot of deficiencies with it. But, you know, one of the concerns today is about the impact of food choices on the environment.

And clearly, our dependence on animal foods of beef, particularly, is a major contributor to climate change. You know, it has led to deforestation in South America, for example, the feed lots are great sources of methane, soil pollution. Mhmm. And one of the, you know, in terms of protecting the environment, one of the most practical things we can do is eat lower on the food chain.

So whether that’s eating shellfish, you know, there’s a great push to eat insects today, which are much lower in the food chain. We’ll see how that plays out. But I think that I I there are more and more people who are becoming conscious of the importance of reducing intake of meat, especially.

So as I said, I don’t tell people to eliminate it I think it’s good to try to reduce it. And also the not fall into the habit of thinking that a meal isn’t complete unless it’s built around a centerpiece of meat. That’s when I was growing up, that’s what, how food was I became a Pesco vegetarian long ago. You know, I eat fish and vegetables.

But I found when I was when I made vegetarian meals for people a while back, you know, people would look around waiting for the main course. You know, that’s the habit we’re in. That that that’s That’s the center of the meal. It doesn’t have to be that way.

What are some of your favorite other than salmon? What are what other kinds of fish do you eat regularly?

Sardines, which are a great, the renewable resource. They’re plentiful. They’re high in omega three fatty acids. They’re cheap.

Also another one is Kippers, which is herring. You know, you get smoked Kippers fillets in any supermarket. They’re very inexpensive. I can mash them up with mustard and and onion and lemon juice. So it’s great. That’s a great meal.

Black cod or sablefish, which is not as well known, widely used in Japan, very high sources of omega threes. That’s a good one. Blackcott is amazing. I I always get that when it’s on the menu in Japanese restaurants.

Yes. Terrific. It’s a miso. Miso marinated black cod.

Exactly. That’s the best. You’re you’re my guy, man.

Yeah. It’s so freaking good. I wish I knew how to make that at home. Is that something that’s It’s not I’ll send you the recipe.

I it’s not that hard. It’s pretty easy. Just give me your your your your email when you’re finished. I’ll send you the rest.

That sounds amazing. I can’t wait. That is that is literally my favorite thing in Japanese restaurants next to the sushi. Yeah.

Got it.

I’m obsessed.

Yeah. I mean, a lot of people today struggle with with chronic disease. They struggle with with overweight. It’s it’s shocking to me that by the year twenty thirty, one and two people are gonna be not just overweight but obese.

This is we’ve created this, you know, entirely. And when you look at our society, you think that how can we change things? We’re in such a nutritional mess. And we have made the unhealthiest food cheapest and most available, and people eat what’s cheap and what’s available.

You know, that’s simple. So, you know, where we can definitely begin to change this? Here’s where where I would start. If we could get people, not to drink sweet liquids, That would be such a huge step, and it’s not just soda.

It’s fruit juice. It’s energy drinks. It’s putting sugar in coffee and tea. That single step of, like, not eating sweet not drinking sweet liquids would be an enormous step in the right direction.

I don’t know if you saw, but there was a a a an article published in, the journal circulation a couple of years ago that used a complex math mathematical model to estimate that almost two hundred thousand people die worldwide every year due to sugar sweetened beverages alone.

I I I can believe it.

Very upsetting. So do you think it’s problem of willpower? I mean, what do you what do you think the the the problem stems from? Is it just that people are mis I think it’s a mismatch of genetic and environment.

You know, the we haven’t heard it. Most of us have inherited genes that enable us to pack on calories, pack on weight when calories are available. You know, this is because, you know, we’ve evolved through periods of seventy evasion through feast and famine eating, and we’ve inherited these genes, which make us very efficient that storing up energy when it’s available. And that did not anticipate that we’d be living at a time when calories would be available in such abundance and such variety that, you know, it’s it’s I say it’s a miss I’ll give you an example that where where I live in Tucson, just west of me, the native group that’s here they’re called the Ovidon.

It needs to be called the profit goes. And when the, Gadsden purchase happened, we gave a certain amount of land back to Mexico, the US border was redrawn right through their territory. So half of them wound up in Mexico, half of them wound up in Arizona.

The Mexican Odom. They look the way the Odom always looked. They were sedentary agriculture as they grew traditional diets, corn bean squash. They we’re physically active, lean, healthy. The Arizona of, typically weigh three hundred pounds They have ninety percent rates of hypertension than type two diabetes.

The obesity often begins at age one or two morbid obesity followed very quickly by type two diabetes. I mean, it’s like day and night difference, and the differences entirely that you know, the the Mexican Odam are eating their traditional diets, and the Arizona ones are breeding, you know, ring dings and big gulps of soda and candy bars and it happened over almost overnight. This enormous change.

Do you think it’s because they’re unaware that big gulps and and other other sources of empty calories are are not good for them. They’re just not aware of that. Or do you think that’s a big part of it? And I think it’s also that these foods have been made very available and very cheap.

So it’s just it’s too easy. Deed. And there’s also been a an interesting experiment. It was not large numbers of people, but they took a group of these Arizona Odom and put them back on their traditional diets and the fat melted off and hypertension normalized, then the diabetes reversed. So, you know, it’s it’s pretty obvious.

Well, traditional diets are are the way. Yep.

So what your average consumer listening to this shopping in Let’s just say, your your your average supermarket. What are some tips, that people can use to to steer clear of those kinds of obesogenic foods and opt more foods that are going to to help them be in their best shape and best health. The easiest way is to stay out in the middle of the supermarket and it just shop around the edges, you know, to shop around where the where the produce is and avoid all the manufactured and refined food. Michael Pollins written a lot of books on the nutrition, and one said that you should not feed yourself and your car in the same place. So that’s a good rule to follow.

Wow. You shouldn’t feed your father. In, I know it. Have you been Italy?

I’ve been. Yeah. I’ve been to Rome once. It was amazing. So I’ve driven in Italy.

And the the, freeways are called the Altaisron is that there’s a chain, of of, you know, food places on them. It’s all operated by the same thing. And when you go in, the rest stops, fabulous, I mean, beautiful salad bars and dress olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressings and wonderful, you know, pot wonderful food. Why do we put up with here.

You know, if I go into a rest stop on an interstate here, I’m lucky if I can get a bag of nuts that doesn’t have crap in it. No. There’s like bright blue slush going around in the thing. And, you know, everything there is, is this manufactured refined stuff with throwing inflammatory things in it, you know, badness.

Why did we put up with this? Yeah. I gotta admit when I was a kid, I, I there was a seven eleven close to my house. And I every time I would go, I’d I would grab a what are they called?

Slurpee? I’d I’d grab myself a slurpee.

Right. Or how about that the big gulps are cheaper than the small size?

Wait. What? Yeah. That’s common. That like these forty four ounce sodas are actually cheaper than the sixteen ounce ones.

Wow. Yeah. It’s all it’s all one big, you know, not at mess there that we have for change. I think it is lack of awareness, and it’s also that we have made all of these, so piece of genetic foods so cheap and so available.

At the start of our chat, you talked about, pro inflammatory oils that the modern food supply is now unfortunately saturated in. But when it comes to fats that you use in in your cooking? What are your what are your staples? I’m a big fan of olive oil, you know, all the olive oil. And it doesn’t have to be expensive. You know, I trader Joe’s has some very good olive oils that are inexpensive.

That’s that’s my main cooking oil. If I want, to cook something without the flavor of olive oil, My first choice would be avocado oil. You know, it’s high in monounsaturated fat as a high smoke point, and it’s become affordable. It used to be an expense of oil, but now much less so.

So those are the two that I mostly rely on. Wow. We’re completely aligned. Those are the two that that are my that are my go to.

What are your thoughts on, on, on dairy fats, and and animal source fats? Because that’s dairy fats an interesting one because as I said, you know, I mentioned earlier that we think saturated fat was like the big evil. And it turns out it’s probably not as bad for us as we used to think, but all saturated fat is not created equal. And different saturated fats have different fatty acid composition.

And it may be that dairy fat is one of the better to not only is not harmful, but may be beneficial.

And that’s particularly true of, yogurt and good quality cheese.

Maybe less through a butter and cream, but, you know, that’s a very interesting new view. On the other hand, beef fat looks like it’s one of the worst for us in terms of our heart health. So I think understanding these these differences, is important, but it may be that I personally like good quality cheese.

And, you know, not the American crap that I grew up with, but although it’s changing here now. But, you know, good cheeses from Switzerland and Italy, France, you know, the those are great, especially from cows that graze in high alpine meadows. That has a better, fatty acid competition.

No. It’s funny. I recently went down the rabbit hole of, trying to learn everything that there is to learn about milk fat globule membrane.

And, and it really, learning about milk fat globular membrane has kind of evolved, forced my perspective on dairy, to evolve. About an organization, for example? Well, yeah. But also the fact that, yes, dairy we know is meant to grow, Bovinder in particular is meant to grow a a turn a baby calf into a cow, but it’s the brain that’s under the most dramatic growth and and and organization and development during that period. And so milk fat and milk fat globular membrane in particular, which is found in full fat dairy products has a number of really important compounds in it that support that can support brain health. Here’s another one that most people are unaware there is relatively new research about the harmfulness of low fat and non fat milk products.

In order to create non fat milk, you know, we thought we were doing would think by making skim milk. It’s done by a centrifuge process. And so milk is separated into a fatty component and the watery component. And different hormones and milk, natural hormones go into one or the other.

And the the watery component has more of the androgenic, the male hormones, and the fatty component has more of the female hormones. And we’re finding now that Boys who are raised on skim milk have a much higher incidence of acne, and girls raised on skim milk have a much hierances of fertility problems when they get their adult adolescents.

Also, there’s some studies from Finland showing that non fat milk seems to trigger the onset of type one diabetes in people who are genetically susceptible.

So my taste tells me that full fat dairy products are better for. You know, I don’t like the taste of, skim milk and non fat things. So if you’re gonna eat dairy. I think you’re much better off eating full fat dairy products.

And it’s interesting because though full fat dairy is is a concentrated source of saturated fat, as you mentioned, Obviously, we see research, that show us that people who consume full fat dairy as opposed to the low fat and and reduce fat dairy. Seem to have better cardiovascular health, better metabolic health. Yep. Yeah.

That’s all really interesting. And I can’t imagine life without parmesan cheese. So I’m very happy to do that. It’s interesting.

Yeah. I, I definitely have been integrating a bit more dairy into my diet. It’s still interesting though that that a large portion of the global adult population is lactose intolerant though. Right.

But but in you know, good good quality fermented dairy products, yogurt, and and many cheeses. The lactose has been digested by microorganisms. So it’s a problem. It’s interesting.

Milk. Milk. That’s the main problem for people who relax us intolerant. Interesting. And I can’t imagine that many of our our ancestors were consuming milk straight out of the cow.

Right? They had to find a way to preserve it. Correct.

Yeah. So, infirmitation is a great way to do that.

Yeah. Are you do you eat eggs?

Rarely. If I’m on the road, I do, I just like choice. I don’t I I don’t grab tortman. But, you know, if I’m on the road, I might have some for breakfast once in a while. I don’t think eggs are bad for you. I think that, you should just eat them in moderation. Interesting, why is that?

Well, because I think there there is concern about, their effect on cholesterol in the blood, you know, if you eat too many of them. I think they’re good foods. They have good nutrients, but you just don’t wanna overdo it. Hasn’t hasn’t dietary cholesterol been largely exonerated though?

Yes.

I think that is largely true, but I still think it’s probably good to be monitored about eggs until we know more about them. So, you know, a a few week is fine.

Interesting. Here’s one other thing.

I recently talked to, Dan Butler, who wrote the blue zones book, and we were talking about, different foods that seem to be in in that people eat in all these areas. And one of the constants that he’s found is beans.

And I am a great fan of beads, and I this is one of my complaints about people who are strictly paleo or keto is that they say beans are bad for you. Beans are wonderful foods. They’re cheap. They’re great sources of protein and slow digesting carbohydrate.

They have a lot of fiber. Minerals. I think it’s really stupid, not the beans. And, he said that in all of these blues on areas, that was one of the constants that people ate beans.

I think a lot of people avoid beans because of the tendency to make, make them gassy.

But that depends on the type of bean because beans contain the indigestible sugars that cause that problem, but different beans have different content of them. In some beans, like, pinto beans, navy beans are particularly bad. And there are other beans like anasazi beans, which are great or black beans that really are not gas producing. So you wanna learn which beans. Wait. So black beans are less gas producing than navy beans? Yeah.

And this is due due to what again. They they, there are unusual sugars that we can’t digest.

And in the gut, bacteria digest them and produce methane, which is the source of, of flatulence. But different beans have different content of the particular sugars. And, some of them aren’t lower in the ones that are problem causing.

Anasazi beans, if you ever, you know, they they’re a beautiful bottle brown and white beans, and they’re they just don’t make gas.

That’s fascinating.

Next time I’m at Chipotle.

Yeah. When I get when the guy behind the counter asks me, would you like black beans or navy beans that I have a problem with beans in general. Right. But, but I’m gonna go with the black beans. Okay. And another really good one is, Azuki beans. Which are loved in Japan.

So see if you can find those. Those are also great. Azuki beans. Yeah. Interesting. Also lentils.

I’m a I actually am a huge lentil fan. I’m I’m I’m prolegumes.

Yeah. Good. I’m glad you’re at they’re good they’re good foods in the I say they’re cheap And, you know, very important and sources of of nutrients that we need. What’s another concern that people, a common concern we’ll have with legumes though.

Is it the, lectins or or anti nutrients in lectins is a non issue. You know, that’s just it’s just something that people get paranoid about it has, I think, no significance for me. Okay. Wait.

Un unpack that for us because there are a lot of people in the prominent voices that are that that advised lectin avoidance at all costs.

Sorry. I just don’t buy it. I don’t think it’s an issue. Where where lectins you typically found?

They’re in a lot of foods, and they’re they can interfere with protein metabolism, But I I think for most people, they just are not a concern. You know, I don’t pay attention to that.

Yeah. I mean, if if you’re avoiding tomatoes and bell peppers, for fear of of lectins, you’re you’re you’re doing it wrong. There is so much nutritional craziness out there. I I if you I once just as a game said, no, you you name any food. I can give you an argument why you shouldn’t eat it. And if it was alright, there’d be another heat.

There’s so much, so much nutritional craziness.

Yeah, I it’s, there’s a lot in the online wellness community, you know, some some days you’ll read that eggs are bad for you, eggs are good for you, peanuts are good for you. They’re terrible for you.

How do you see I mean, your average consumer is left feeling so confused?

Right. So I think Europeans look at Americans as a nation of health nuts. You know, we approach food. We approach the table as if it’s a money field.

You know, you make one mistake. You’re you go to nutritional health. I think most Europeans, certainly true in Italy and France. Look at food as a source of pleasure.

And they just are not obsessed with these concerns about, you know, making mistakes and what you’re gonna do. And I think in general, they’re in much better relationships with food than we are. They are. I love the European kitchen.

To me, it’s it’s very inspiring. The the the focus on quality over quantitative ingredients simplicity and taking time to enjoy food and not being hung up about getting pleasure from food. You know, you’re not hustled out of a restaurant.

People linger over food, and they enjoy it. I think they’re in much better relationships with food than we are. Absolutely. What are some of your favorite beverages?

Well, I am a big fan of matcha.

You know, I started a a matcha company, and got the URL matcha dot com. Wow. We import very high quality matcha from Japan.

So I don’t know what do you drink matcha? Are you familiar with it? I do. I love matcha. I love I love a good matcha latte with, macadamia no milk.

That’s fancy. I like cold unsweetened matcha, and I like hot matcha, but it’s gotta be good quality. And an awful lot of the matcha here is not good because it’s been it’s oxidized. It’s lost. It’s bright green color. It loses its its flavor. But I’d say that’s my number one favorite, beverage.

I also We’ve, my business partner and I found, I was in Okinawa a number of times studying healthy aging there because they used to have the highest concentration of centenarians.

And a beverage that I found there, which I was new to me, was cold unsweetened turmeric tea.

Very refreshing in hot weather, and they make it from a fermented turmeric. And so our matcha company has been importing that and, making it available and it’s become very popular. It’s, you know, it’s a powder that dissolves quickly. You can have hot water, cold water. It’s really good. Wow. What are what are the benefits of of matcha consumption?

Well, a very high antioxidant.

And it’s, you know, a good, content of l theanine, which is the relaxing amino acid that modifies the effect of caffeine. So it’s not a a jangly effect like coffee. It’s more of an alert, relaxed state.

But I think the antioxidant content and flavonoid content, high, and these are very protective compound.

To drink coffee?

No. I never liked coffee because growing up, my parents drank, very strong black coffee without sugar or cream on them is awful. So I never developed a taster call. It’s interesting.

There was a study that came out recently that, found that, you know, tea tea and coffee consumption worldwide is associated with with better health. Yes. I agree. Better cardiovascular health, better neurological health, and and a study came out recently pointing to a potential mechanism by which caffeine plays a a health supporting role.

They found that caffeine is a natural PCSK9 inhibitor, which, im increases the efficiency of the liver at clearing LDL lipoproteins from the blood.

There’s a new Yeah. There’s new, the the latest class of cholesterol lowering drugs on the market are PCSK nine inhibitors.

So they they do that. They increase the availability on, hepatocytes, liver cells, of the LDL receptor.

Which pluck those remnant LDL particles from circulation. Right? So they found that caffeine, at a dose of admittedly a very high dose, four hundred milligrams suppressed PCS k nine by twenty five percent, which is which is pretty significant.

And now, you know, it’s also important to know that there’s a great very variation in caffeine sensitivity.

And this is genetic. That some people are relatively insensitive to to the stimulant effective caffeine, and some people are very sensitive to it. I know people who can drink who drink one cup of coffee in the morning and have no idea that that’s the cause of their insomnia at night. And I see other people who drink pot of coffee after dinner and have no problems with it.

So you wanna find have a sense of where you are on that spectrum. How can we find out Well, you pay attention and you also stop using it and see what happens. You know, if you if you are if you get a a real withdrawal reaction, you know, incredible fatigue and a pounding headache. You’re probably fairly sensitive and you’re physically addicted to it.

So it’s worth finding out about that. Where do you fit on that spectrum?

I’m relatively insensitive to caffeine. You know, I never really and that may be another reason why I never gravitated toward coffee because it really didn’t it it didn’t do much for me in terms of keeping me awake or alert.

Interesting. By the way, I’m also a big fan of chocolate.

And in on my anti inflammatory food pyramid, I put dark chocolate at the top.

So Wow. Dark chocolate is at the top of the anti inflammatory food. I mean, it’s a tiny penny, but it’s the top.

Oh, so that means It’s on the pyramid. So, you know, it’s like the base is is fruits and vegetables and hot grains, but the top is dark chocolate. Wow. What is it about dark chocolate that you like so much? Again, it’s a well, I think it’s it’s appealing. It’s delicious, but also it is another very high source of, of beneficial phytonutrients and antioxidants.

Wow. When, when when buying dark chocolate, to maximize the health benefits, what should people look for on the label? Well, generally a a, cocoa content of, seventy percent or higher.

That’s what you want. Seventy percent or higher. Interesting.

What is so what’s what’s in cacao? Like, what does it what does it do for us? Well, there’s a stimulant drug called theobromine, which is in the caffeine family, I mean, related to the stimulants that are in tea and coffee.

But then there are, you know, all of these antioxidant compounds and flavonoids, and, these compounds that plants produce, probably for their own defense that turn it off to be beneficial for us.

Wow. Isn’t Theo theobromine the compound that kills dogs?

I give I have two dogs, Bradesian roots bags. One of them, see if it goes. I saw one walk by. Or I think both of them sleep on the cows behind me. I mean, it’s good.

There. Anyway, I give them I give them a little bit of dark chocolate every night. Interesting. They love it. So, you know, the the thing with dogs and chocolate, yes, there are deaths reported in some dogs, but it’s not a it’s an idiosyncratic reaction It’s not a breed thing. It’s like some individual dogs have some susceptibility of the roman poisoning.

My dogs do not. They love it.

They’ve been getting dark bits of dark chocolate as treats for as long as they’ve been alive.

That’s hilarious. And I haven’t when I eat my dark chocolate after dinner, I always bite off a little piece and give it to them. Do you eat it every night? After dinner?

Is that your your go to? Often. I would say often, like, when if I want a sweet treat, that’s what I would, you know, tend to go for. And your cash ine insensitive you said.

So the the the natural caffeine content of cacao isn’t isn’t Yeah. I don’t notice anything from it. I think probably theob roman is less stimulating for most people than, than caffeine, but I do know some people that will, you know, really get a zing from, from chocolate.

I typically, yeah, I’ll enjoy a little bit at night sometimes, but I do remember one time I ate too much at night, and it kept me awake. You really wanna be careful, especially if you’re if you’re caffeine sensitive. Right.

Hey, guys. If you enjoyed that conversation, you’re gonna love this one. Let’s talk about the potential consequences of inflammation that people might be familiar with. Sure. So, I mean, common things are common.

Weight gain, is a simple one, brain fog, joint aches, muscle pains. Those are simple ones people experience on a day to day basis.

Mood fluctuations, people having heightened states of depression, anxiety, things like that.

Longer term issues associated with inflammation, you’re looking at diabetes, heart disease, increased risk of stroke, you know, cognitive issues. Those are kind of the long term, like, bigger mountains that an individual has to navigate through if they have prolonged inflammation for a long period of time. But on the day to day, I would just say it’s probably the best descriptor is I just don’t feel quite right if that makes sense. So Yeah. It’s it’s hard to really nail in because inflammation when we use it in our day to day vernacular is kind of like a an adjective. Right? But it there it’s not necessarily a descriptor more as something that’s, that’s happening biochemically physiologically inside the body.

That has a multitude of impacts depending on where it’s occurring, how long it’s been occurring, you know, to what degree. So We use it somewhat loosely, and I don’t think people necessarily understand etiology, what’s contributing to it. How really simple it is to correct in terms of excessive inflammation and also allowing people to understand that eliminating inflammation is not the goal. Right?

Like, you know, we’ve talked about previously, The inflammation pathways are messaging pathways. We need them. That’s how our immune system responds, identifies things that are not going right, tissue, foreign invaders, bacteria, viruses, whatever. So we need it.

So this crusade to eliminate all inflammation is a bit, inaccurate and probably problematic long term.

What we need to do is understand how do we control it, how do we have an appropriate amount, because there is reasonable belief based on tons of data, both you know, case reports as well as objective that if you can minimize unnecessary inflammation, you should live a long and healthy life. Your overall health risks, health issues, should be fairly minimized. Wow. So what are the main causes of inflammation then?

Yeah. I would say it’s just it’s stress so we can use that as a broad based term. So stresses are not always bad. We have good stresses.

We have bad stresses. The majority of the stress we associate with that word are negative stresses. Right? So lack of sleep, poor diet, lack of exercise, work related stress, the good stresses, eating well, strong community support, people around you that can, you know, provide emotional, physical, spiritual, uplifting.

And then I think I mentioned exercise, but that’s a positive stress on the body. So what we need to look at is the balance of stresses that were being subjected to, and how do we minimize the negative, maximize the positive. Does that make sense? Yeah.

It makes total sense. And I love that you pointed out that inflammation is something that we just wanna completely do away with. Absolutely. Yeah.

It’s like, you know, when when people are are Google searching with positive intent. How do I get rid of how do I stop inflammation in my body? Right. That’s probably not something that we wanna do.

Completely correct. Stop. I mean, it’s it’s just such a general term stopping inflammation. Right? It’s like, you know, obesity.

Right? Access body fat. We know obesity adipose cells that can or that are essentially the building blocks of fat in excess and large volumes can contribute to inflammation.

But if we said we’re on a crusade to eliminate fat from the body, that’d be insane. Your brain’s eight pounds of fat. Like, we need fat. It’s a building block of cholesterol, hormones, all these things.

Again, what we have to understand is balance. Like, what can we what can we introduce into our daily life that’s minimizing bad, optimizing good, And then the body should take care of itself. Like, it’s a the most intricately complex yet, also simple machine that’s ever been created. And as long as we keep the environment reasonable for it to function, we should live a long and healthy life with minimal impact of these chronic diseases that have over overtaken us that have consumed, you know, the American population as well as the global population now.

What are some of these chronic diseases that people seem to be suffering with? Obesity related diseases, diabetes, heart disease, cognitive dysfunction, which is probably correlated to inflammation as well as, you know, excess body fat, blood sugar issues.

Those are the the primary ones. If you look at the top ten sources of morbidity and mortality for the American population, you could probably argue that eight or nine of the ten are associated with some sort of preventable illness, and a lot of those things the root cause is excess inflammation. Does that make sense? Yeah.

So, like, for instance, heart disease. What contributes to heart disease? Well, It’s, you know, inefficient perfusion blood flow caused by atherosclerosis, meaning hardening of arteries. Well, how do arteries harden?

If you wanna get simple with it, it’s it’s excess inflammation in these these, oxidative reactive oxygen, excuse me, reactive oxygen species that are the byproducts of inflammatory reactions are starting to change the composition of our our vessels, which are meant to be flexible so they can compensate for blood flow. And they become like a solid cement tube. And now all of a sudden, our vascular system has to work harder to get blood to tissue that needs it. So if we, again, minimize inflammation, minimize those reactive oxygen species, and that’s where people use anti inflammatories, antioxidants, things like that, we should maintain patent and functional, you know, blood flow vascular system.

From a, you know, diabetes standpoint, you know, blood sugar is something that we’re starting to be able to measure almost in real time with these continuous glucose monitors that are becoming commercially available.

Well, sugar is essentially, you know, in large volume, toxic to the body. We need it, but we don’t need large volumes. Again, not eliminating sugar from our diet completely, but making sure we’re consuming an appropriate amount. We have blood sugar that’s too high for too long. That’s going to impact liver function. That’s going to impact pancreatic function we’re not gonna be as sensitive to insulin, and we’re gonna see this chain reaction of things that’s basically associated with a high elevation of a toxic substance that’s circulating in our system, and the outcomes can contribute to, you know, cerebral vascular disease or, you know, strokes and things like that, heart disease.

Yeah, a whole host of of health issues. So, again, like, We need to refocus our conversation not necessarily on eliminating something like inflammation but making sure that we are monitoring how much is present for how long, because again, small doses, intermittently for a long period of time, our overall health outcomes should improve across the board. I love that. So you mentioned that we have we have you stress.

Right? We have, like, exercise, good stress. But then we have distress. Distress. Right. That’s it.

It’s a, you know, I’m in distress. Okay. That’s a bad stress. No one uses eustress.

Like, I’m gonna go to the gym today and get some eustress and it’s just like, I’m gonna go to the gym. So, yeah, we we just don’t we don’t really understand the the stress and things like that, that’s going to contribute to promoting or reducing inflammation.

Paradoxically, good stress, quote unquote, good stress actually can reduce chronic inflammation. Correct. How how does that work? So it’s kind of like a dose response approach, which is we’re challenging our body.

We’re forcing it to become more resilient. You exercise at a moderate to high intensity, intermittently, you know, once a day, twice a day, multiple days in a row, you’re forcing your body to basically tolerate a stress, figure out, okay, what worked, what didn’t, you know, and when you’re building muscle, you’re basically stressing the muscle causing it to break down at the micro level. And then allowing it to rebuild so you become stronger and and things like that. So those would be good stresses.

Some people you know, the topic of alcohol comes up in terms of should I drink? Should I not drink? And the question isn’t one or the other. It’s you know, how much volume are you consuming?

If you’re consuming more than two drinks, and I people don’t really know what an actual drink is, and that’s probably top for a different discussion, but if you’re consuming too much, that’s not only gonna impact your blood sugar level. It’s going to impact your sleep quality. And those are a confluence of negative stresses that build up and then you’re, you know, the following day, your physiologic system has to deal with you know, things that it doesn’t necessarily wanna deal with. You got bad sleep. Cortisol levels are going up because you’re probably dehydrated. Like, all these things kind of compound And then you have a a bucket of, you know, a decent volume of negative stress.

Even exercise or eating clean is not necessarily gonna balance that out. And if you are honest with yourself and you think about in a, you know, a year period, how much time were you, you know, working on modifying stress in a positive way, is introducing things that increase negative stresses, increases inflammation, and then you’re kind of in recovery and repair mode. I think if most people were honest with themselves, they would appreciate you probably spend more time in repair recovery, which is associated probably with higher levels of inflammation versus that period of building and allowing your body to to tolerate mild stresses that are ultimately introduced to help you grow.

And strengthen, you know, across the board. Does that make sense? Yeah. It totally makes sense. So where what are some other types of beneficial stress? We talked about exercise, but are there any others?

You mean, again, like, circling back kinda like the alcohol conversation, probably a glass of alcohol is a, you know, for some people believe that’s a positive stress.

But you wanna make sure the, you know, the ethanol consumption is a high quality, so a good red wine, a well distilled liquor vodka gin clear tequila, something like that.

So those would be positive stresses, off the top of my head oddly enough. There’s there’s not a ton that I can think of right now because Well, you, I mean, you you practice in a world class medical facility, monarch in West Hollywood, and you you guys have saunas, you have cold water immersion. There we go. Thank you for reminding me. So, yeah, so, stimulating your you know, vascular system, immune system to tolerate heat and cold. What is that doing in terms of growth hormone output?

You know, there’s cold exposure is associated with certain physiologic adaptations that may allow for increased healing and reduced body fat. And same thing with heat, exposing yourself to heat, increasing blood flow, increasing, filtration of your vascular system, to eliminate toxins and things like that. So there’s there’s methodologies and, ah, modalities that have been used for a long period of time that based just kind of like manipulated our environment, whether it’s movement or as you reminded me, the the heat and cold exposure that our stressing our system in a way that promotes an adaptation that’s ultimately beneficial for us.

Interesting. Interesting. And so when you do those, Is it normal to see? Because I was actually you mentioned continuous glucose monitors.

I was kind of shocked to see. I was I was I wore one for About two weeks, and I sat in a sauna and infrared sauna. And I was kind of shocked to see that my blood sugar actually spiked as a result of sitting in the sauna. Yeah.

So I think the technology in terms of what the gather the the data that we’re gathering from a CGM continuous glucose monitor is still in its infancy. So we’re just trying to figure out what’s for people like ourselves who don’t have a baseline, you know, pancreatic endocrinologic disorder like diabetes, How are we going to use this to help optimize our physiologic function? I think for right now, for most people, it’s looking at inflammation associated with diet, like, really what foods are causing a spike in blood sugar, which is probably associated with an inflammatory response.

Because we’ve in, you know, Los Angeles and other places where preventive medicine forward thinking, types of practitioners are emerging There’s a lot of testing that can try to help people theoretically optimize their life, but the evidence behind it is still being developed. So it’s not super strong.

With simple blood sugar monitoring, like, your blood can’t lie, what’s there is there, what’s not as not, and how you respond is how you respond. Could change over time, certainly. But if you’re trying to figure out because you’re training for something or you just want to increase your daily performance, work life, whatever, you know, your body’s gonna give you the best indication of what’s working, what’s causing inflammation, what’s causing your blood sugar to spike, and things like that. And so now we have tools commercially available that will allow us to do that.

So, to your point of why are you noticing a blood sugar spike? Could it be cortisol response? Could it be, you know, a stress response, essentially? Because your body’s saying, okay, like, something’s happening We need to increase blood flow.

It’s it’s, straining your adrenal glands. We know from the Bikram yoga space that some people struggle with that level of heat exposure because it’s stressing their adrenal glands, which is causing their cortisol to go up, which is a stress response. When cortisol goes up, blood sugar goes up, when blood sugar goes up, inflammation goes up. So it’s this cascade of your body basically saying, like, alright.

Something’s happening. We need to be prepared. We need our immune system on alert. We need blood sugar available in case we have to run from something or fight something.

So it’s an evolutionary response.

Like we said before, though, we don’t want to eliminate those things completely.

We wanna minimize too much bad, and we want to challenger system, because when we challenge ourself, we get stronger. We just don’t want that challenge to be repetitive in high doses or high volume day after day month after month year after year because at some point, the inflammation associated with whatever you’re doing will cause essentially accelerated aging. And what that means is different based on physiologic system. It could be, you know, DNA damage.

It could be, you know, vascular damage. Could be, musculoskeletal nervous system damage that’s commonly associated with diabetes, and can lead to all sorts of complications, vast neurologic and otherwise. So, it’s it’s it’s one of those things that we introduce in all other aspects of our life, which is moderation. But I think when it comes to our physiologic system, we’re just not really good at understanding how much is too much.

Or how much is not enough. Does that make sense? Yeah. Totally makes sense. So it’s kinda like the difference between acute and chronic.

Like, it sounds like in that context, that acute spike in my blood sugar was actually a sign that that I was that I was that I was that I was doing exactly that my body was responding exactly as it should have been. Correct. Sitting in a sauna. That that I was having a stress response.

Yeah. You’re seeing your blood sugar grow up. Like, it’s great data to have. But what does that one data point look like over you using infrared sauna three to four times a week for a couple months.

Like, if if you could track that and see how your body responds, like, Is it better tolerating the stress based on other components of your life? How much sleep did you get the night before? What was your food intake Like, there’s a lot of variables that could have contributed to that response. So, like, specifically taking that one piece of data is a little bit difficult to determine its impact, but to our point.

Like, now we can better, evaluate a lot of these things. So, hopefully, people have more information, which can lead to better informed decisions so that we can minimize the amount of inflammation that we’re exposing ourselves to, you know, over our our lifetime. So it sounds like acute stress can actually reduce the risk of chronic inflammation, but chronic stress increases the risk. Of chronic inflammation.

Would you say that’s that’s not correct? So acute stressors can ultimately allow us to develop resilience for things that are going to inevitably happen through our life. And That’s so important. Correct.

The downside of chronic stresses is our physiologic capability has limits. For instance, the immune system function to use an, a basic example.

If you are diabetic, blood sugar’s not well controlled, are going to have a higher baseline level of inflammation than someone that is not. Well, we know that your immune system, white blood cells respond to inflammation signals because they are basically designed to say, okay. If cells are producing an inflammatory response and inflammation molecules their proteins, like their their legitimate proteins.

Your immune system’s gonna respond. But if you’re constantly being inundated by this inflammation signal, we only have so many immune cells. Right? So we can only allocate so many resources to that response, which increases your risk for colds, bacterial infections, things like that. Does that make sense?

Well, the body is going to try to reproduce more white blood cells, more immune cells. But think of it like, an analogy I use with patients is like zipping up and unzipping a zipper. If you keep doing this a lot, eventually a prong may bend, and then all of a sudden the zipper isn’t working quite right. That’s the problem with chronic inflammation, chronic stress to the system over a long period of time.

You know, all we need is one mutation and something you know, negative could occur from, you know, the cancer side or another, you know, potentially more impactful disease.

So from an immune system long term health as we’re, like, kind of circling back to what I talked about initially, if you wanna live a long and healthy life and keep our body functioning at the level that we know that it is capable of, that’s been demonstrated in blue zones and other pockets of the world’s population.

We wanna keep our resources as functioning at his high capacity as possible. And if they’re constantly having to respond to these inflammation signals from wherever source we’re introducing them, lifestyle, disease, you know, or or otherwise, ultimately, we are probably going to truncate our quality of life for sure and probably our our lifespan.

What about exposure to environmental toxicants? Is that something that that plays a role? Absolutely. So, that is a you know, within the pantheon of human existence, a more relative stressor that we haven’t had to deal with up until probably the last, you know, fifty, a hundred years.

And what is that looking like? Well, we’re consuming things that we’ve never consumed before, synthetic ingredients, colors, flavorings that are ultimately designated generally regarded as safe for human consumption, but we haven’t done the work. We don’t have the evidence or the studies to really say, what is this going to do to us long term? As long as it’s not gonna cause immediate harm, then they’re released for utilization.

And a lot of these things haven’t been completely vetted out or completely studied. Because there’s just so many of them. And that’s just from a a food perspective, food, and drink. We’re also seeing with sunscreen is probably the most famous one recently.

Studies have come out saying, like, a lot of these synthetic ingredients that help with the smell or the color of these these balms and sunscreens we’ve been putting on our body, like, well, the skin’s the largest organ in the body. If it’s getting on our skin and it’s going into our skin, it’s getting into our bloodstream, what then happens? And we’re starting to see impact on hormone output. Thyroid, testosterone, estrogen, progesterones, and things like that.

So, it’s the analogy I use with with patients is it’s kinda like we’ve started slowly poisoning ourselves over a long period of time, and now we’re starting to turn the corner on, you know, beauty products that are vegan, cruelty free, you know, foods that have to identify, are they genetically modified? What are the other artificial ingredients in there? And people on the coast are becoming more aware of the you know, whole food, plant based, grass fed, grass finished, organic. But there’s a large population of of the United States and the world that may not know or may not have access.

So there’s still being forced to consume things that have components that, you know, may be harmful to their health, most you know, probably harmful to their health.

In terms of environmental exposure, like air quality, I have no idea what we do about that. Like — Wow. Yeah. — I’m not I’m not your guy to, to solve that problem.

But that’s a big one, especially in Los Angeles. Well, I can I can offer one solution? Yeah. Better ventilation in buildings.

Yeah. As buildings work to become increasingly more efficient and cost effective, they become they become increasingly, well well sealed. Right? Like, they become like hermetic chambers essentially because it it reduces, heating and and air conditioning costs.

But that actually comes with a dark side. Like, that’s a double edged sword. Yes. It reduces cost for the building, right, and the company.

But it increases our exposure. It increases the concentration — Sure. — of volatile organic chemicals. Sure.

In in the air that we breathe. Yeah. And creates a CO two conversation of good stress, bad stress. Like, we’re doing something to minimize a stress, which is cost.

But we’re also increasing the stress, which is exposure to things that may be permeating our our environment for longer than you know, we’re used to or we’re not able to filter as well. So, again, like, it’s, you know, for the most part, it’s kind of a balance of how much of the good and bad, are you allowing yourself to be exposed to? And then the body will take care of itself from there. So, staying inside all day, not getting fresh air, You know, from a filter standpoint, especially in buildings that are older I live in a, in a, an apartment that’s probably hasn’t been updated in, sixty, seventy years.

Like, I have no idea what I’m exposed to from the ducks and and all that that stuff. So, you might still have lead in the paint. I might have no idea. Yeah.

I guarantee you I did not check when I moved in. So those are some things that it’s, you know, it’s somewhat overwhelming if someone’s trying to just you know, look at themselves, three sixty, everything that’s involved in their life from, you know, soup to nuts and try to figure out exactly how they can you know, optimize everything.

Hence, why I take the approach with individuals of, like, let’s control our controllables and things that are relatively easy to introduce because a lot of people can’t even do that. And it’s not necessarily their fault. They just don’t know. You know, so we’ve talked about in the past sleep, how much hydration?

How much should we should you be consuming nutrition How much food should you be eating based on your lifestyle, and then you can dive into what’s your quality, what’s the quantity, what works best for you, intermittent fasting, there’s multiple levels to that. Movement. The World Health Organization has recently updated their guidelines and said everyone on Earth should try to achieve a hundred and minutes of moderate intensity activity per week, moderate intensity activity. For you and me, that’s probably similar, similar, you know, for my parents, moderate intensity looks a little bit different, but their data indicates eighty to eighty five percent of the world’s population doesn’t hit that positive you know, stress level of moderate intensity, which helps with immune system function, mood, and things like that.

So what I try to to do with any individual that I talk to a patient or not, I’m just like, which of those things can we improve? Hopefully, all of them because then if you look at other aspects of your life that may be contributing to some sort of stress leading to inflammation, there are things out of our control. So let’s control our controllables. Try to sleep enough, drink enough water, move enough, eat appropriately, you know, and then the intangible, element of you know, your community, your support system, your friends, your support, like that emotional aspect, of your health, like, you know, try to optimize, that aspect as well and then you should probably handle and be a little bit more resilient than individuals that are not doing that.

But I think from a foundational perspective, at least in my opinion, that’s where I’m introducing a lot of my effort and energy, which is to get people just to understand the basics. Like, you know, you can’t walk before you crawl, and you can’t run before you walk. So, like, let’s get the foundations set. And then we can introduce a lot of the things that, you know, your guests and you’re familiar with, which is a little bit more advanced intervention to kind of tweak and fine tune.

I’m seeing people that, you know, and it’s a majority of people that they’re not even, like, fine tuning what, like, you don’t have anything going on. So because your foundation is not solid. So that’s that’s a lot of where my my time and energy goes is trying to get people to understand those foundations so that their body can be resilient. So that they can tolerate all the various stresses that they’re going to be introduced to. And if you can tolerate those stresses better, you’ll, you know, better handle the inflammation that’s inevitable in life, and if you can handle that and monitor its volume, you know, your body should do exactly what it’s supposed to do, which is function allowing you to do what you want to do for as long as you want to do it. Time will come for us all, but hopefully, you know, our our health span is prolonged by minimizing the amount of stress and inflammation that’s contributing to potential, you know, breakdown and and negative health outcomes.

I love that because sometimes you can’t I mean, the this notion of cultivating greater resilience, because sometimes you can’t control the environment that that you are tasked with having to navigate. I mean, sometimes you you just have to work in an office. And breathe in the VOCs and the and the the increased levels of carbon dioxide and all of the, you know, unhealthy lifestyle behaviors that accompany that. But what you can do is you can cultivate greater resilience.

And we’ve talked about exercise. We’ve talked about, you know, in getting your sleep right. But from the standpoint of nutrition, is there any way that you can eat your way to a state of greater resilience so that you have a a greater, level of protection against inflammation? So we can approach this one of two ways.

Right?

What are you going to eat that’s going to help reduce inflammation? The common ones turmeric or curcumin. Very common. A lot of parts of the world, the Middle East, that’s a staple of their diet. And if you look at the inflammation associated illnesses, cognitive, physiologic, and otherwise, significantly less than the American population. And the hypothesis is, while they’re consuming a lot more curcumin than we are.

Probably reasonable.

The other way that you can look at it is what should you not eat? Right? Because even if you’re taking turmeric every day, but your diet’s high in simple processed foods. You’re consuming too much alcohol.

You’re not getting a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, fiber that help feed our gut so we can process things appropriately. And then once they do end eventually enter our bloodstream, they’re not they’re they’re processed in a way that doesn’t cause an inflammatory response. I think we’re learning more about gut health and the microbiome and understanding if we’re not digesting things appropriately, we’re basically being exposed to food molecules that are half digested. We haven’t seen before in our immune systems, like, well, this is new.

So let’s, you know, send the signal to investigate this, and that’s where the idea of these food sensitivities comes along.

So I try to help patients understand. There are things that we know are beneficial from reducing inflammation. Like I said, a curcumin, fish oil, vitamin d, those are pretty well studied and evaluated.

But there’s not enough of those three things those three things in the world to overcome an unhealthy regular diet on a daily basis, because you’re eating three meals a day. And if three meals a day for fifty two weeks out of the year, fifty percent’s good, fifty percent’s bad. Like, There’s not enough supplements or, you know, things that are gonna help you. So that’s from the supplement side.

From a food side, I think we are Wildly under consuming the amount of fiber that we need. So, you know, more whole food, plant based Mediterranean style, eating. Doesn’t fiber actually help you poop out toxins? Yeah.

So, it’s a it’s a it’s it’s not really complex, but essentially what we’re doing is we’re feeding our gut bacteria, worrying, introducing a a compound that may or may not be completely digested. And when it’s not part of the the reason we wanna consume fiber is because it’s gonna draw liquid into our our intestines so that we can evacuate stool, which is essentially a reservoir of waste.

If you’re not moving that stool, you’re basically keeping this garbage in your intestinal system for a longer period of time, and your intestines are highly vascular.

So, you know, the longer it’s in there, the more likely you know, something may get back into your system. So we want that fiber to feed our gut to help with digestion, to help with regular bowel functions so we can evacuate things that we don’t need. And if you don’t do that, then, you know, it’s like sitting in a poorly ventilated room. Like, the longer you’re in there, the more expose the things to more likely they’re going to impact you.

Wow. Does that make sense? So that was a little bit of an odd analogy that just came to me in the moment. So Yeah.

It’s some that’s something to think about in terms of just your basic diet. And I try not to get stuck on necessarily prescribing a specific eating style for people. I think there are multiple variations. Ultimately, for me, the best nutritional program is one that you can stick with.

Hey, if you liked that video, you need to check out this one here, and I’ll see you there. It’s almost ten percent of the population, if not more, that has problems with gluten, whether they are cognizant of it or not. Right? So it’s very possible that by cutting out bread, which is the number one source of gluten in the American diet, You’ll see an improvement in your psychological symptoms.

Interesting.

Nutrition

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Best Foods for Fat Burning

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The Call to Rise is a guide for the woman ready to heal

The Call to Rise is a guide for
the woman ready to heal