Dhru Purohit Show - A Deep Dive into The Healing Power of Polyphenols with Dhru Purohit

Episode Date: May 23, 2022

This episode is brought to you by Vivobarefoot and InsideTracker. Humans and plants co-evolved to help each other survive, and polyphenols were integral for nurturing this relationship. Even though they aren’t considered “essential nutrients,” the latest research is starting to suggest otherwise. Polyphenols help prevent disease by interacting with our DNA and modulating our gut microbiome; they are not just antioxidants as we once thought. Today on The Dhru Purohit Podcast, Dhru talks about what polyphenols do for our gut health and our overall health and how to incorporate eating more of them into your life. In this episode, we dive into:    -What are polyphenols?-Which plants contain toxic phytochemicals-The different types of polyphenols-How polyphenols feed our good gut bugs and help them grow Also mentioned in this episode: -Try This: A Deep Dive Into The Healing Power Of Polyphenols For more on Dhru Purohit, follow him on Instagram @dhrupurohit, Facebook @dhruxpurohit, Twitter @dhrupurohit, YouTube @dhrupurohit, and TikTok @dhru.purohit. Text Dhru at 302-200-5643 or click here. Interested in joining Dhru’s Facebook community? Submit your request to join here. This episode is brought to you by Vivobarefoot and InsideTracker. Vivobarefoot footwear is designed to be wide, thin, and flexible—as close to barefoot as possible. They promote your foot's natural strength and movement, allowing you to feel the ground beneath your feet. Vivobarefoot is offering 20% off your first order at vivobarefoot.com/DHRU. InsideTracker provides detailed nutrition and lifestyle guidance based on your individual needs. Right now, they’re offering my podcast community 20% off. Just go to insidetracker.com/DHRU to get your discount and try it out for yourself. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi everyone, Drew Pro here. Today we're talking all things polyphenols. Here's a little bit of a summary of what we're going to get into for today's episode. So first and foremost, the big idea. Humans and plants co-evolved to help each other survive. And polyphenols were an integral part of this relationship. Even though they aren't considered essential nutrients, the latest research is starting to suggest. otherwise. Polyphenols, also another big idea, help prevent disease by interacting with our DNA and modulating our gut microbiome. They're not just antioxidants as we once thought. Why is this important? Our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate a much wider variety of plant food, primarily because they had to adapt to the seasons and make up for the shortfalls of not having access to certain animal proteins. So today, Unfortunately, 15 crops make up about 90% of the standard American diet, which unfortunately is being exported all around the world. So eating a diversity of plant foods helps diversify our gut microbiome, which is linked to better

health, less chronic disease, and greater resilience for our bodies and our minds. The takeaway that I hope I leave you with in today's episode is that there are over 8,000 different polyphenols identified to date, and each one of them has unique effect on our biology. Most people aren't getting enough of these powerful plant compounds because our diets are so, so limited. We all eat very little variety. 15 crops make up 90% of the standard American diet. Now, it might sound basic, but eating a variety of plant foods personalized to you. There's certain plant foods that don't really work well with me. Plant foods personalized to you, a of them is one of the simplest ways to recap the healing benefits of polyphenols. So let's jump in.

There are over 25,000 different phytochemicals that we know and probably a lot more that we don't know, 8,000 different polyphenols and 30,000 edible plant species worldwide. As I mentioned previously, our hunter-gatherer ancestors naturally ate a much wider variety of plants, primarily because they had to. You know, our hunter-gatherer ancestors had cravings just the same way we had. So when there was honey available, when there was fruit available, they would gorge on those things. When there was animal foods available, they would gorge on those things. But there wasn't always those foods available. And obviously we don't know exactly what was going on back then. But we have some indication to know that they had to supplement their diets when those other more preferred

foods were not available and they did that with the plant foods that were around. And as I also mentioned, today, three crops make up two-thirds of our calories in the United States. Can you guess what they are? They're wheat, corn, and soy. We're overdoing wheat, corn, and soy. That means that we're missing out on all the amazing anti-inflammatory, anti-aging, disease-fighting benefits of polyphenols that they have to offer. Each polyphenol has a slightly different structure, which means it has a slightly different function and impacts our bodies in a different way, which is also why it's so important to eat a diversity of plant foods to get as many of these benefits from these molecules as we can. Now, the world of polyphenols

can be complex and confusing, and as much as we think we know a lot, we are barely getting started down the pathway. So today, we're going to break down a few important areas that we're pretty excited about and hopefully get you hyped about the power of polyphenols and putting them back on your radar. And in today's episode, I'm going to give you a full breakdown of what polyphenols do for your gut health and overall health too and how to incorporate eating more than in your life in ways that can align with everything that I've talked about in past episodes when it comes to blood sugar and metabolic health and just overall health too. But first, let's go on a little bit of a journey of how humans and plants and this beautiful symbiotic relationship came to be.

So what are polyphenols and how can we look at them from an evolutionary perspective? Plants need to protect themselves against threats like ultraviolet radiation and disease and infection and bugs, bacteria, viruses, all that stuff. Especially after the arrival of insects, herbivores and our early human ancestors, plants had to start fighting back so that they could serve. and pass their genes on to the next generation. Phytochemicals are plant's main line of defense and survival. Most concentrated in the stems, leaves and seeds,

phytochemicals are survival mechanisms of the plant. That's a super important thing to just understand. Their survival mechanism, they're defense species. Because at the end of the day, plants don't want to necessarily be eaten, just like we don't want to be eaten, unless if we're talking about their fruit. Fruit seeds send a different message. These are the parts of the plant that actually want to be eaten. Why would plants want to be eaten to spread their seats?

Plants make themselves irresistibly sweet. Now, not the sweet that we know today in the grocery store from a lot of cross-breeding and hybridization of different food species that are out there. Many people will tell you, like if you think about wild strawberries, they were much smaller and much more flavor-rich and nutrient-packed. Today, they're plumber, they're bigger, they taste sweeter, but they don't have as much as nutrients, even if they're organic. That's how we've read and kind of modified the species over the years.

But back in the day, sweet but not as sweet as we have today. So using polyphenols, these classifications under phytonutrients to project color, plants were able to communicate to their predators and let them know that. the food was good, bad, should be consumed, should not be consumed. They were sort of traffic stop signs. Red means stop, green means go, just to give kind of like an analogy. Plants are master manipulators that used predators to carry their plant seedlings into a nice droplet of fresh fertilizer, aka poop emoji. Fascinatingly, meat from herbivores have more polyphenols in their nutrient makeup. For example, pasture-raised beef from cows allowed to graze on plants and grasses

contain significantly more polyphenols than beef fed from a conventional diet of feedlot grains. This means that the meat of our hunter-gatherer ancestors that they ate from primarily free range, wild animals, contributed to their overall polyphenol intake. And we're still learning more and more about this. If you want to look at one of the papers that I've mentioned inside of this show notes, we have a paper from the journal Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, and the papers titled, Health Promoting Phidonutrients are higher in grass-fed meat and milk. And that's a great little overview of this topic we went into. This also might help us understand that over the years, as we've gone to eating less quality, whether people,

are eating meat or not eating meat, how we understand the important role of phytonutrients in our gut bacteria, which I'm going to be discussing a little bit more in detail in a minute. But this could also help us understand that because we're not getting a lot of meat for those that do eat meat from wild animals, they're going to have less polyphenol content and we would have less exposure, which would mean that we'd have less polyphenols interacting with our gut bacteria. But it's interesting and nonetheless something to pay attention to, even though we're early. How crazy is it that our dieted lifestyle are such a given when it comes to our health and our focus? And yet, we're still wearing the same antiquated shoes that damage our feet

and our structural health and lead to lower back pain, joint pain, and sciatica problems. It's kind of nuts. I especially feel for the women that are out there whose shoes are often way too small and unnaturally shaped. This happened to my wife for years in the role of investment, banking. She wore her heels every single day and it messed up her feet. She has bunions and it messed up her knees and her back. That's why I'm a huge fan of Vivo Barefoot and why the women on my team are two. When I asked them, the women on my team, that is, what they like most about Vivo Barefoot shoes, they told me that, number one, their active footwear is extremely light and comfortable, which makes them great for traveling. And number two, their hiking boots provide a totally different

hiking experience, which makes them feel way more connected to the earth and grounded in nature, and we all need more of that. What I personally love about Vivo Barefoot, besides the fact that everybody at my gym and everybody at my chiropractor's office loves them and rocks them is that their shoes are made from recycled materials and are designed to be wide, thin, and flexible for natural strength and freedom of movement. That's a huge win for our foot health and the planet's health too. I honestly cannot recommend these shoes enough. I have a pair of myself and within two weeks of wearing them, my chronic knee pain that had suffered from for years completely went away. It's not that I had chronic knee pain. My shoes, my old shoes were causing the knee pain. How freaking crazy

is that. Right now, Vivo Barefoot is offering my community 20% off their first order at VVoBairfoot.com slash Drew, that's V-I-V-O-B-A-R-F-O-F-O-O-T dot com slash D-H-R-U. Check it out today. That's V-O-Bairfoot.com backslash Drew for 20% off your first order. I've experimented with every eating approach in the book. I'm talking about raw foodist, vegan, vegetarian, meat eater, you name it, I've tried it. And the truth is, at first, I felt pretty good on all of them. until I didn't. The common denominator for all these diets is the fact that they're all made up of

mostly whole foods and free from processed foods, which will do anybody good. But after some time has passed, I still didn't feel like I was thriving. I was dealing with some lingering gut issues, endotoxemia, and acne breakouts. Through a bunch of trial and error, I found that following one specific eating style wasn't the answer for me. And maybe it hasn't been the answer for you either. In my personal opinion, I think technology can be a critical part of the solution in helping us figure out what foods are best suited for our own unique genetic makeup. That's why I was super excited when I heard about Inside Tracker. Inside Tracker helps take the guesswork out of living optimally and creates a nutrition,

exercise, and lifestyle plan that's personalized. That's the key word personalized for you based on your blood work, DNA, and personal preferences. InsideTracker's cutting-edge technology gives you science-backed recommendations for positive changes to your daily habits. With their app, you can track your progress every day, and they even have an amazing support team to help you with all your questions. InsideTracker looks at everything from metabolic and inflammatory markers to nutrients and hormones. It even tests your cortisol levels to help you better manage stress, and you have the option to see how your inner age compares to your chronological age. InsideTracker makes their results easy to understand and provides tips on how to use food first for optimal nutrition. And now you can even connect InsideTracker to your Apple Watch to unlock deeper, more personalized insights into your health.

With real-time exercise, resting heart rate, and even sleep data synced with your InsideTracker plan, you can truly wear your health right on your sleep. Right now, InsideTracker is offering my podcast community 20% off. Just go to inside tracker.com slash DHRU. That's true. InsideTracker.com slash DHRU to get your 20% discount code and try it for yourself. That's InsideTracker.com backslash DHRU for 20% off. Polyphenols have incredible benefits for our biology through their ability to modulate our gene expression and our gut microbiome to produce anti-inflammatory metabolites

that lower inflammation, promote health, and prevent disease. In the show notes, reference number seven from my Try This newsletter, we have from the Journal of Nutrition and Metabolism, a overview paper called a review of the science of colorful plant-based foods and practical strategies for eating the rainbow. Great little review paper from Deanna Minnick, a dear friend of mine. My friend and business partner, Dr. Mark Hyman, calls this relationship between plants and animals a symbiotic phyto adaptation, which basically means that certain plants, co-examination. evolved with humans to help each other survive. However, some plants want no business being eaten, and they make their phytochemicals extra toxic to make that loud and clear. So which plants contain toxic phytochemicals? It's not all rainbows and butterflies when it comes to polyphenols. Nature didn't exactly design phytochemicals with our well-being only in mind,

at least not in the beginning. Because plants can't run and don't have claws, Some make their phytochemicals extra potent as a way to discourage animals, including us, from eating them. It's good to be aware of the plants that could potentially cause issues, especially if you, or someone you know, has gut issues or an autoimmune condition. However, it's worth mentioning that these phytochemicals aren't problematic for everyone. This typically comes up in the topic of lectins. We're going to get into that in a second. As always, this is always about personalization. You know me on this podcast.

We talk about personalization so much. So when it comes to personalization of toxic phytochemicals, the main category to pay attention to is nightshades. Night shades are things like tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, potatoes, tomatios, goji berries, tobacco leaves, et cetera. And they contain an ingredient, a phytochemical, rather, called solanine, a phytochemical that can have irritating effects on the body for some people who might be more sensitive. And actually, I am one of those individuals.

I'm quite sensitive to these foods and have a history of gut issues. And even though I've largely 95% repaired my gut, I still have reactions to larger quantities of these foods like tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers. They also contain lectins, which are most concentrated in the seeds, but are also present in stems. And as we know, Dr. Gundry has been very vocal about that. It's a highly debated topic. And, you know, I really appreciate the approach of functional medicine. and practitioners like Dr. Terry Walls, and a dear friend of mine over here in Los Angeles, who's coming on the podcast again soon, Elroy Vigdani, because they focus on the fact that some

people, especially with severe gut issues and autoimmune conditions, are more sensitive to lectins. They see it in their practice day in and day out. There's no way around it. So they'll often recommend that people avoid these foods that are high in lectins. And then as they start to repair their gut, feel better. They can introduce these foods back in. And in some cases, I have friends, one of my dear mentors, has really bad rheumatoid arthritis. And for him, even though he's so much better from when he first got diagnosed, if he eats nightshades, he flares up. But that's not going to be the case for most people. My wife has no reaction to nightshades whatsoever, at least that we know of right now.

And where I have reactions to peppers and eggplant and tomatoes and my face immediately starts to get red. And there's a redness that's there. and I get scratchedness in my throat, my digestion feels a little bit off. I'm not talking about one or two tomatoes over here. I'm talking about like a bowl of tomato soup or a whole eggplant dish that's very common in the Middle Eastern culture. Those things will set me off, but they don't set her off. So Dr. Vigdani, Elway Vigdani here in Los Angeles, Terry Walls, who works primarily with

MS patients and MS is an autoimmune condition, and she sees that a lot of people benefit from removing foods that are high in lectins and other things, too, they might be sensitive to having a lot of fiber. So she starts them off slower with fiber, maybe cooked fiber, and building their tolerance up until they get better. So it's not black and white. It's not like this happens for everyone because there's some people that say lectins don't matter at all.

And that's just not the reality of people in their clinical experience. It matters for some people. It doesn't matter for others, and a lot of it has to do with healing your gut. And largely because we've bred a lot of these foods, tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, et cetera, to be bigger, more plumber, more water content. They're a lot different than the tomatoes of the old days. Generally, most people can well tolerate them. Lectins are in the highest in legumes, cashews, beans, peanuts, lentils, grains, and certain nuts and seeds.

And as mentioned above, small doses are tolerated and safe for most people, but those that are more sensitive have to be a little bit more mindful. If you think you might be sensitive, try eliminating them all together and then adding them back in one at a time to see which ones you're most sensitive to. That's called elimination diet. Now, to reduce the antin nutrient and lectin content of these plant foods, there's a lot that we can do. We can cook them instead of having them raw. We can pressure cook them. We can de-seed them. We can sprout them.

and we can ferment these high lectin foods. And that makes a difference. When I have lentils that are not pressure cooked, I immediately feel bloated. I don't feel good. It's like it just messes with me. But I go have a homemade Indian meal. My mom makes lentils as part of like a doll. She pressure cooks them.

She prepares them with healthy fats, other stuff, things like that. I can eat those and I feel totally fine. So preparation is definitely key. So that's a little note on the toxicity around certain phytochemicals that might just be something to be aware of and not let the sensationalism of somebody saying, this is complete bullshit that these anti-nutrients impact people. And then another group that says antinutrients are the cause of most diseases that are out there in the world. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle and a lot of it's due to personalization. Now, let's talk about the different types of polyphenols. Flavinoids are the largest group of polyphenols.

They are present in over 4,000 plant species and have antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, and neuroprotective properties. DNA methylation, targeting genes to turn off cancer cell proliferation, for example, and killing zombie cells are other ways that they also end up working. Dr. Jeff Bland, a mentor to my business partner, Dr. Mark Hyman, and also somebody that I look up to, has talked about extensively about how certain polyphenols, can support the process of senescence, which is very fascinating. Okay, insulin sensitivity, cholesterol, and blood sugar are all positively impacted by polyphenols. Reference to that inside of the show notes, which lowers our risk for chronic diseases like obesity, Alzheimer's, and even things like type 2 diabetes. Two references 12 and 13 inside of the show notes, one of them from a paper titled Flavinoids

an insulin resistance from molecular evidence to clinical trials. Nice little review paper that you can check out. And the other reference was a systemic review of polyphenol intake and health outcomes. Is there sufficient evidence to define a health promoting polyphenol-rich dietary pattern? Question mark. Fascinating review paper that's there about a lot of the literature that's available to us in this day. And I think that comes from the journal Nutrients, I believe. Yes, it does indeed. So you can check that out if you want to geek out and dig into the review signs. I love these review papers because they're a nice overview of what we know and also what we don't know. Now, in a landmark nurses study, a 20-year study of over 200,000 health professionals,

in this study, they found that those who ate more anthocyanin containing foods had a 15% lower risk of type 2 diabetes. In particular, two or more servings of blueberries per week, was associated with a 23% lower risk, and five or more servings of apples and pears was associated with a 23% lower risk as well. Fascinating. That's from a paper called Dietary flavonoid intakes and risk of type 2 diabetes in U.S. men and women from Oxford academic. Really interesting and fascinating paper. And I think that's from the American Journal of nutrition published by Oxford academic. Okay, that's one example of how polyphenols like Anthocyanan can be present in multiple fruits and exhibit the same beneficial outcome.

There are literally thousands of different flavonoids in the plant kingdom, which emphasizes the importance of eating a diversity of plant food to get all the benefits of the polyphenols featured in them. Here are a few of the main flavonoid and non-flavinoid polyphenols out there, They're active metabolites and a list of foods that contain them. Hint, by the way, look for foods that are often mentioned more than once when it comes to these main polyphenol categories that are found in flavonoids. All right, let's jump in and cover a few of them. And I might mispronounce some of these words, so just bear with me. Anthocyanins.

These are your purple, blue, and black plant foods. They include blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, cranberries, cherries, cherries, plums, red grubs, red, grapes, red cabbage, cinnamon, cacao, colorful rice, and purple sweet potatoes. By the way, if you want to follow along with the written version of my notes that are here, I've detailed them on my Try This newsletter that's titled A Deep Dive into the Healing Power of Polyphenols. And while you're there on my website, and the link to this article is in the show notes, if you want to follow along in written form, you can click on the Try This newsletter tab and

sign up for my weekly newsletter. And every week on Friday, get a step. by step protocol that will help you take your help to the next level, or in this case, get you excited about a topic that you might know a little bit about, but you want to know more about so you can get the healing benefits in your life and your diet. All right, let's continue on. Flavannols, these are things like quercetin, onions, garlic, chili pepper, apples, asparagus, broccoli, oregano, camphrol, that's things like spinach, kale, dill, chives, tarragon, and fissotin, which is part of the makeup of strawberries.

apples, onions, cucumbers. A quick note about quercetin. It has been in the research a ton for its immune-supporting benefits, anti-cancer, anti-aging properties. This is definitely one that I would make a priority in my life and why it got so much attention during the COVID-19 pandemic. Next step, we have flavons, things like api-genin and lutein, which are found in things like celery, parsley, thyme, dandelion, camomile, carrots, olive,

oil, peppermine, rosemary, and oregano. Rosemary and oregano were part of my featured list of my top underrated spices and herbs a few weeks ago that I published on the podcast. All right. Next up, we have flavonones, things like hesperidin found in lemons, limes, grapefruit, cherries, oranges, and tomatoes. Next up, we have flavin three alls, if I'm pronouncing that correctly. This is the whole category of catechins that are out there in tannins, most known for their abundance in green tea. These are also present in black tea, apples, bananas, blueberries, peaches, pears, strawberries, and cacao. If you've ever heard any of our episodes with Dr. William Lee, he's a huge fan of the polyphenols found in this classification. And lastly,

on the topic of flavonoids, we have isoflavans. Things like daisidine are one of the main phytonutrients found in legumes, specifically soybeans and tofu, and are commonly referred to as phytoestrogens due to their estrogen-like activity in the body. When it comes to the non-flavinoid categories of polyphenols found in a lot of plant foods, you have phenologic acid. These are things like benzoyic acid, cinnamonic acid, and their derivatives, gallic acid, and many others present in coffee, blueberries, olive oil, kiwi, plums, apples, cherries, red wine, cereal grains like wheat, rice, and oats.

And lastly, two categories that we have on the non-fellies, Flavanoids are stobinoids and lignans. On the first one, we have things like resveratrol, found in grape skin, red wine. There's a lot less resveratrol and red wine than we often think. And with the second classification, you can find lignans and things like sesame seed and sesame oil, flax seeds, flaxseas, oil, olive oil, peanuts, tangerines, lemons, plums, pears, nectarine, and so on and so forth. If you missed any of that, you can click on the link in the show notes to go through it all. Now, here's how polyphenols help us feed the good bugs in our microbiome and help them grow. Just like indigestible plant fibers feed things like lactobacillus, bifidobacterium, and acrimancia

that work to help keep our gut barriers strong, so do polyphenols in their own way. Many different factors we are exposed to on a daily basis negatively impact our gut microbiome. Everybody knows that. antibiotics, SSRI, sugar, poor diet, food sensitivities, heavy metals, omega-6 oils, a lot of omega-6 oils, stress and exposure to toxic chemicals can all disrupt the gut microbiome. Now, over time, these wipe out our good bacteria and let the bad ones take over and increase our likelihood of leaky gut, which leads to dysbiosis and even things like inflammation inside of the body. Polyphenols can be fantastic as a way to support a healthy gut and prevent diseases

that are rooted in gut dysfunction. One of the benefits is producing and helping our body produce short chain fatty acids like butyrate, which fuel our intestinal cells and keep our gut barrier strong. There's a trial called the Maple trial, and it was a randomized controlled trial in adults ages 60 and older that had high levels of zanulin, which is a marker of leaky gut. And it demonstrated the gut strengthening effects of a polyphenol-rich diet. Now, for eight weeks, the study participants were given a polyphenol-rich diet that included three polyphenol-rich snacks per day. Per day, that's the key.

Here were the snacks that they were having as part of the study. And if you want to link to the study, which was featured in the Journal of Clinical Nutrition, and the title is called Cross Talk Amongst Intestinal Barrier Gut Microbiota and serum Metabolome after a polyphenol-rich diet in order, in older, rather, subjects with leaky gut. So here's where the snacks that were included in this study. 120 grams of blueberries, that's about three-fourths of a cup, 200 milliliters of blood-orange juice, about one cup, 110 grams of blood orange fruit, and that would be about one orange, 125 milliliters of pomegranate juice, which is a half a cup, 200 milliliters of green tea,

which is about a cup, I have my green tea right next to me right now, 100 grams of apple puree. It's about a half a cup, and 150 grams of one apple in addition to the puree, 10 grams of dark chocolate chips, about 1 eighth of a cup, and 2 grams of cacao, which is about 3 tablespoons, for an average of 724 milligrams of polyphenols per day. That's a lot of polyphenols when you compare to what most people are eating in the American population. So compared to controls, here's what the study found. The polyphenols from cacao and green tea increased butyrate, producing bacteria, and reduced zanion levels, that's a good thing, which means

less leaky gut, aka intestinal permeability. Other polyphenols reduced harmful methane-producing bacteria and liposaccharide producing bacteria that caused endotoxemia and chronic inflammation. In addition to improving gut microbiome composition, the polyphenol-rich diet also lowered inflammatory cytokines, the most powerful driver of inflammation. aging through inflammation. Now, what does this all mean for me as the person who's listening? The thing is that as we get older, modern life takes its toll on our gut.

And that's where often most chronic disease begins. Health and disease starts in the gut. Eating a polyphenol-rich diet could be one way to prevent or delay in addition to highly reducing processed foods and sugars in our diet. Eating a polyphenol-rich diet could be one way to prevent or delay that. from happening, the toll that is taken on our gut, especially as we age. Some polyphenol metabolites have anti-inflammatory neuroprotective properties because they can cross the blood-brain barrier. That's fascinating. Curcumin, for example, the polyphenol

and turmeric provides a lot of its anti-inflammatory action by restoring gut dysbiosis, which indirectly impacts the brain through the gut brain access. That was featured in a paper that we have linked to in the show notes in the journal Nutrients called Curcumin, Gut Microbiota, and Neuroprotection. Quite fascinating. And ologic acid, a polyphenol featured in cranberries and pomegranate seeds, feeds acromansia. This is the gut micro that I've talked about on the podcast before, and highlighting the work of one of our sponsors pendulum. This is the gut microbe, acrimancia, that modulates the thickness of our intestinal mucosal layer

and helps keep food and bacteria from slipping through intestinal cells and making their way directly into circulation, which is a bad thing. We want our layer and our tight junction strong acrimancia plays a role in that. Polyphenol expert and a friend of mine, Dr. William Lee, has been on my podcast a bunch of times before to talk about why it's so important to have good amounts of acrimancia in our gut. It's associated with the decreased inflammation overall in our body and the ability to combat obesity and anti-tumor responses to some types of cancer when it comes to the role that immunotherapy can play in fighting cancer that was there. Actually, Dr. William Lee had a great

story about his mom who responded so much better to immunotherapy once she got her acrimancia levels up and the science that was out there showing that if a patient did not have adequate levels of acrimancia, they wouldn't do as well with immunotherapy. Fascinating. This is really where food and medicine is coming together. In my protocol for today's podcast, I'm going to give you a few practical tips on how to increase your polyphenol intake through polyphenol rich foods. Let's jump right into the protocol. Number one, eat fruit after a meal, especially meals like dinner. Fruits are incredible source of polyphenols, and we should not be fruit phobic. I've talked about this on the podcast a bunch. It's important for me to say because as someone who talks a lot

about metabolic health, I want to remind people that there's always a lot of. pros and cons to all the different foods that are out there. Now, we don't want to be so focused on blood sugar, and blood sugar is only one part of the story that we forget the power of polyphenols, which are often in things like fruits. Now, a lot of people on my podcast, many experts have come in and said, we'd much rather have you eat whole fruits than fruit juice. Green juice is great. Fruit juice, we want to minimize or potentially avoid instead just eat the fruit because the fruit is yes, there's sugars inside of it, but it's packed with fiber, and that is also going to include all those incredible polyphenols.

One of the things that I do is instead of eating fruit first thing in the morning, like a lot of people do on an empty stomach or a very fruit-rich smoothie, and they'll do that often by itself and on an empty stomach, I typically eat fruit after a meal or after my dinner after I've had a lot of good, healthy fat, fiber, and protein. So I'm not really worried about any sort of blood sugar impact, and I can get all the benefits that come from it. So here's one thing that you can try.

This is something that I do, especially if you've been somebody who's kind of cut down on fruit because you've been a little bit fruitphobic. Don't be fruit phobic. A great way to start is berries with dark chocolate. If you're a fan of dark chocolate like me, this is a combo that's unreal for your taste buds and super satisfying as a post-meal sweet treat.

You can have it after any meal or dinner. It's probably a really a better time to have it, unless if you're really sensitive to caffeine, then maybe move it up to lunch because a little bit of dark chocolate has some caffeine inside of there. And eating this combination is a great way to get all those catechins and all those incredible phytonutrients that I mentioned above. Shoot for 70% cacao or higher. All right, number two, drink high-quality tea. I got a cup of tea right next to me. Drinking herbal tea is a great way to get a variety of polyphenols in your diet starting today.

there are over thousands of research papers on the power of catechins found in green tea, for example. Coffee is another amazing source of polyphenols. Studies from all around the world have shown that black coffee is the most significant source of antioxidants in our diet. But we don't want it to be the only one. We don't want it to be the only one. We want to get a variety of foods in our diet so that coffee isn't pulling all the weight. Now, when it comes to teas, my go-to teas are things like matcha, green tea, or turmeric. These teas are incredibly rich in polyphenols, but we have to be careful because these teas can also be high in pesticides and other microplastics.

And there's an easy way around this. Go for organic. Organic teas are pretty cheap these days, especially if you buy them loose leaf. And a good way to avoid a lot of the microplastics that come from plastic tea bags is go for cloth tea bags or, again, loose leaf tea. Those are two ways to hack some of the downsides of pesticides and tea as well as the microplastics of there. Number three, number three way to increase the polyphenols in your diet. Challenge yourself to pick out a weird fruit or vegetable every week. If you don't have food sensitivities or intolerances, this can be a fun way to get the benefits from eating different polyphenols in your diet

and get your gut bacteria to start receiving the benefits. Think of all the colorful plant foods you see in the supermarket. especially like international supermarkets or Asian supermarkets or I don't know if this is a right term. I guess I can say it because I'm Indian myself, but like an ethnic type supermarket. Those are the supermarkets where you might come across things. Like I just went to one other day. My wife is Persian and here in Los Angeles there's a bunch of Persian supermarkets. And there was little fruits where I was asking my wife, what is this?

You know, ask your mom. I haven't tried this one before and they would share the name of it and we'd pick a few of those fruits up. That's a fun little challenge. For example, have you ever tried to eat hickama? This is a root vegetable, and it's all arranged because it's low in sugar, making a fantastic low glycemic substitute. And I have a recipe inside the show notes for hickama fries that you can make in the air fryer at your house if you have an air friar.

What about things like cheramoya? If you've never heard about that, you can get that from a lot of Asian food markets. It's one of my favorite fruits that are out there. I don't eat it often, but when I do, I really love it. And there's also fun subscription services, you know, for you to try different things. There's one called MiamiFruit.org that ships weird and different fruit veggie and veggie boxes to your home. So here's my final thoughts on the topic of polyphenols. And by the way, another plug for something that we have coming out soon,

my business partner and I, Dr. Mark Hyman, have a unique take on the world of polyphenols when it comes to gut health. And we've incorporated into a new product that we have launching in the next few weeks. It's called gut food. I'm not going to say too much right now because we have a whole series of masterclasses coming out on the topic. But if you want to sign up for more information, go to gutfood.com, g-ut-food.com. And you can join our waiting list to learn more about what we're up to in the category of gut health. Now, in regards to today's episode, here's what I want to leave you with. The relationship between plants and animals is crazy.

And we barely know all the details that led into our evolutionary history. of those two different groups co-evolving together. Plants probably didn't evolve to produce phytochemicals for our benefit. We know that. You know, they probably produced them to have elements against survival and increase their likelihood of staying around. However, evolution has made it so that many of them work in our favor and support our gut bacteria.

In return for housing and feeding our gut bacteria, high-quality polyphenols, many of the ones that I mentioned inside of here, our gut bacteria pay us back by producing metabolites that have incredible anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, neuroprotective, and disease fighting benefits that help us stay healthy and strong. Yes, some people are more sensitive to the anti-nutrients or the toxic phytochemicals that are often found in plant foods. I'm one of those individuals and I've got to be a little bit careful, but as long as we personalize our diet and, of course, focus on healing our guts long term, we can ensure that we take advantage of all the great things that polyphenols have to offer. One way to do that is regularly switching it up and eating

different plant foods as the seasons change, which means we're diversifying our gut ecosystem, which makes us all around healthier, happier, and more resilient. I hope you enjoyed today's episode on the power of polyphenols. And if you did, make sure you sign up for my try this newsletter. Go to drew perot.com. That's dh-R-U-P-U-R-O-H-I-T dot com and click on the tab that says try this to get my newsletter right to your inbox every week delivered Friday. It'll help you take your health to the next level. If you enjoy this podcast, be sure to subscribe. That would mean the world to me and share it with a friend who also could be super excited after. listening to this episode about the power of polyphenols.

I'll see you next week.