Habits and Hustle - Episode 118: Dr. Steven Gundry – Heart Surgeon, Medical Researcher Specialized in Diet and Health, 4x NYT Best Seller

Episode Date: June 1, 2021

Dr. Steven Gundry is a Heart Surgeon, Medical Researcher Specialized in Diet and Health, 4x NYT Best Seller. Making a habit of challenging the way we perceive health and healthy eating, Dr. Gundry has spearheaded controversial take after controversial take in the field. From his anti-fruit stance, his 2 hour eating window, and his position on the importance of melatonin, to discovering and treating most physical and mental health problems as a gut issue. Dr. Gundry has taken his research and care to extremes all for the sake of health and longevity, and it’s showed results. Controversial takes seem a dime a dozen these days, but if you’re interested in hearing from someone who’s put the real work in to challenge where others have become complacent with over 20 years of self-tested study, then this episode is for you. Youtube Link to This Episode  Steven’s Instagram Steven’s Website ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Did you learn something from tuning in today? Please pay it forward and write us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. 📧If you have feedback for the show, please email [e-mail]  📙Get yourself a copy of Jennifer Cohen’s newest book from Habit Nest, Badass Body Goals Journal. ℹ️Habits & Hustle Website 📚Habit Nest Website 📱Follow Jennifer – Instagram – Facebook – Twitter – Jennifer’s Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Today on Habitson Hussle, we have Dr. Stephen Gunnry. He's one of the world's top cardiothorastic surgeons and a pioneer in nutrition. He's also the author of many New York Times bestselling books, including the plant paradox, the longevity paradox, and his newest book is called the energy paradox. What to do when you get up and go has gotten up and gone. Dr. Gunter and I speak about lots of things nutrition. Some of it's a little bit controversial as you will hear in the podcast, but he's definitely someone that has shifted how people think about nutrition.

He's also an expert in the microbiome and spent over 20 years in gut health, micro-mightocondural energy and production. And anyway, it's a quite an interesting episode. Hope you'll enjoy it as much as I enjoyed speaking with him. Well, thanks for coming on the podcast. It was fun doing your podcast just before this, and now you're kind of doing mine. And, you know, I'm very excited to talk to you

because you've been kind of a because you were kind of a controversial figure for a little bit with your plant paradox. And although that book stayed on the New York Times best sellers list forever, how long was that book on? So I think it was on 34 weeks. And it's been translated into 36 foreign languages. And it's still, that's very, very well.

Yeah, you know what I find, this is why I find very interesting. Like a lot of people who say certain things, right, people all like just like poo-poo on them and they're crazy in this and then like years later, the data proves it, right? But people haven't, you're just like too early on to, people don't adapt or adopt until way later on and then you're the genius, right? But people haven't, you're just like too early on to, people don't adapt or adopt until way later on. And then you're the genius, right? So I find those things super interesting. You know? Yeah. And well, sorry, go ahead, you're going to say something or? No, if we get a chance, you know, I mentioned on my podcast with you, My first book, Dr. Gendry's Diet Evolution, I actually had an entire chapter

on intermittent fasting on time restricting. And my editor, that was at random else, Heather Jackson said, no, we're cut in this chapter. This is too crazy. This is nuts. You're crazy enough as it is. No one is going to believe this. I said, no, no, no, no, no. Here's all the data in the chapter. Here's the references I've been doing

this personally for six years now. I'm using them with my base. She said, no, I'll tell you what, you get two pages to make your case. But everything else is going to throw it out. So there's two pages. And she came up to me at the Mindbite Green meeting, pre-COVID, and she said, you know, congratulations on the Planned Paradox, and she said, I got to apologize. She said, I shouldn't have taken that chapter away from you. You were so far ahead of your time and I realized I

should have believed you. She said, how did you know I did? I told you. She said, I should have known. I should have given you the chapter. Just like we liked it. No. How many years ago was that first of all? You said the book. The book was published in 2006. And that was so long before the 5-2, it was long before Jason Phong was, it was the first, as far as I know, it's the first book I've ever talked about. Too funny things.

Number one, Heather Jackson is my editor too, which is very funny. She was on my last book, not on all of them. So I know the name. And secondly, I find that very interesting because again, it's like now that is not only just a buzzword, intermittent fasting, time restricted eating, it's literally like I feel like everybody has even, if anyone has not heard about it, I mean, there must be living under a rock. That's all that anybody's speaking about now.

And so that's very interesting because, number in your new book called The Energy Paradox, you talk a lot about time restricted eating as it pertains to someone's energy and my acondria health. So let's talk about how it does affect your myacondria health and your energy. And I also want to make a note here that you do an extreme version of it where you restrict your eating to two hour windows six months of the year. Is that true? Yeah, during the week.

Five days a week from January 1 to June 1. All my calories in a two-hour window Monday through Friday. That answers. How long have you been doing that for? This is my 21st year of doing that. Okay, so you're saying everyone, no one can start off that way. So let's first talk about, well, why do you do that? Why do you do the two-hour window?

What's the benefit of that? It actually, I think, and there's pretty interesting evidence, particularly from rodent studies, that the tighter we restrict that eating window, the more longevity benefit we get, eating window, the more longevity benefit we get, the more health-span benefit we get, the, believe it or not, in animal studies, the less amyloid formation we get, and I go into the studies, they were done by Dr. DeCabo at the NIH, and I was a fellow at the NIH, early in my career, and it gets kind of nerdy, but kind of fun. And I've written in the longevity paradox, there were two competing studies of racist monkeys

on calorie restriction. And one of them came out of the University of Wisconsin, the other one came out of the NIH, the National Institute of Aging. And these recess monkeys were put on about 35% calorie restriction, followed for all their lives against recess monkeys that are allowed to eat normal. And they both had incredible improvement in health spans.

These animals were healthy almost to the day they died. The University of Wisconsin study actually showed improved lifespan. The NIH study didn't. And there was a lot of argument among longevity researchers, including me as to why that was. And long story short, many of us argued that although the diets were similar, the University was constant diet actually had lower protein. And the NIH diet actually had higher protein. And so a lot of us argued it was the amount of protein

that made the difference. And I've argued that in all my books that protein's overrated if you want to live a long time. But, so enter Dr. DeCapo. And he says, you know, I think you guys are all wrong about this. I think it was the fact that when you restrict somebody's calories down to not much,

and it's put out for you, you're gonna eat it very quickly because you're basically starving. And so these calorie restricted animals were eating a very limited time period. He says, I think it was the amount of time they weren't eating that was actually the benefit of the calorie restriction. So he designs a trial with about 300 mice.

And there's six groups, but we'll break it down really easily. Three groups of mice got the University of Wisconsin diet. Three groups of mice got the NIH diet. So just to be clear, both diets were 65% carbohydrates. They're mysecral. So one group got to eat all they wanted, the normal amount all day long, a mice eat mostly at night. The second group were calorie restricted,

either with the University of Wisconsin or the NIH diet. So they only got 35% or they got 35% lost. But it was put out at three o'clock in the afternoon. And that's a really important point. The third group got all they wanted to eat, but it was put out at three o'clock in the afternoon. So you've got the all day munchers, you've got the binge calibrators that are, their calibrator, they eat everything within one to two hours and then it's gone.

So they're fasting about 22 hours a day. And then you got the mice that they started at 3 o'clock and they finish most of their food in about 10 to 12 hours. And then they're not eating rest of the day. So they finish most of their food in about 10 to 12 hours. And then they're not eating rest of the day. So they follow them throughout their lives. And the punch line is what he did since we were talking about energy. Both of the mice that the food was put out at three o'clock in the afternoon had metabolic flexibility. There might have been a conradic shift from glucose to fatty acids on a

diet. No problem. The all-day munchers could have had no metabolic flexibility. The calorie restricted mice lived about 30-35 percent longer to like all other studies show. But the punch line is that the mice that ate their normal amount of food but had a time restricted window lived 11% longer than the mice that ate the exact same amount of food that much to all day and If you if you take that to a human level, that's adding 10 years lifespan to a human I kind of like the idea of 10 years of lifespan, good lifespan. And then when they broke it down even further, interestingly enough, all my size were all going to die. The mice have very little emaloid plaque, either in their intestines where it reached the cusrum, in their brains. And the mice that ate the interestingly enough, higher sugar and higher fat diet, which

was the University of Wisconsin diet, I actually died mostly of liver cancer, which mice often do. But the long story, Jardiz, that calorie restriction, those diets made absolutely no difference. It was the compression of the eating diets made absolutely no difference. It was the compression of the eating window. They made the difference. So then if you're eating ear-same, but you said the mice were eating a normal amount of calories in that time window. What happens if you are, right? But what if I have to binge in that two hours? Like if I'm only eating it once a day and I can eat like 5,000 calories

and I won't have any effects. I will actually live longer. Will I lose weight though? Will I have all those other benefits? Oh, you will get all those other benefits. So if I'm watching Netflix, yeah, it's amazing. If I'm watching a movie and I'm just stuffing my face for a two hour movie, that will be fine if I don't eat the rest of the day. That will be fine, but like I said, now you don't take this information and say, I'm gonna eat a pound of M&M peanuts

as my major meal for the day, as long as I can bet. No, that's not what I'm saying, because quite frankly, the mice that were eating the higher sugar diet actually had the most liver cancer. So. Right. Well, because sugar is a whole other element we're going to talk about. That's another story. That's a whole story we're going to talk all about the sugar. So in that two hour time restricted eating that you do, what are you eating? What's that?

What do you typically have? Well, also, you know, for instance, dinner last night was shaved artichoke hearts and avocado salad with some Parmesan cheese on top of it. And I followed that up with grass-fed red chowla, with arugula and Parmesan cheese. And I dumped about, I don't know, quarter of a cup of olive oil on both of those. And a cup of olive oil? A quarter of a cup of olive oil each. Okay.

Okay. I try to go through a liter of olive oil from week. A week. A week. That's a lot of olive oil. It's about 10 to 12 tablespoons a day. And I do that because there are multiple studies showing that probably the magic amount of olive oil for perfect else is about a liter per week. A liter a week is a that's a lot of olive oil. A lot of

olive oil. And so where the width? Yeah, tell me, go ahead. And you're not drinking the olive oil or using the olive oil to have a leg acid, which is the major component of olive oil. You're actually looking for the polyphenol content. And it's the polyphenol. The olive oil is merely a delivery device for polyphenols. And my first book, one of my sayings is more bitter or more better.

And the more bitter the olive oil is, the more polyphenols are present. So you want to get really bitter, really high polyphenol olive oil. So could you talk about polyphenols a lot in your book? Or maybe not in this one, maybe the longevity paradox. You use polyphenols as a really big immune system booster, correct? Is that what you talk about? They boost everything you'd care to think about. They boost brain health, they boost immune system health.

They're just a fascinating bunch of compounds that plants make to actually boost their health. Polyphenols come from plants, and there's been evidence that plants that are under stress, whether they're underwater or they're not fed well or they're at high altitude and closer to the sun, they actually produce polyphenols to protect, believe it or not, their mitochondrial function. And yeah, that's what they make polyphenols to protect their mitochondrial. And that's interestingly enough, we know that great, great wine comes from stressed vines and from vines that are grown at high elevation. And so it's

the polyphenol content that these grapes, these vines make that actually are delivered into the fruits. And it's the same way with princes. The leaves of fruiting vines and trees actually have far more polyphenol content than the fruits themselves. So, that's why I take olive leaf extract in addition to having olive oil. The leaf. So, where else can besides the olive oil and plants, what are the main sources that people can get polyscenals? The main that you, that are on your list of... So, well, one of great sources, black coffee, any of the teas are great sources.

Kakao, chocolate is a great source of polyphenols. Berries, the skin actually has the polyphenols, and that's where the benefit is. Citrus, believe it or not, the peel and the white piths is actually where most of the polyphenols are in citrus. And that's a good starting point. And so, but you're not a big fan of fruit though, correct? Like you're not. So yeah, one of my favorite things is give fruit to the boot, but-

Right. I didn't want to say it. I'm glad you did, right? So. Well, I believe it on my first book. And it's going to get a, it's kind of, I'm going to revise it again soon. What I urge people to do is get a juicer and get a Jacqueline juicer.

I don't know. You love Jacqueline, yeah. Yeah. And take your fruit and get organic fruit as I talk about in the book. And put it through a juicer, throw the juice away, and then take the pulp. And the pulp is the polyphenols and the fiber. And then what you do is you mix it in coconut yogurt or yogurt or lava on my new favorite yogurt and or put them in ice cube trays and freeze them and then throw them in your smoothie.

And so you get all the benefit of fruit without the fruit dose. And the reason I'm not against fruit, love, or designed to love fruit, we gain weight during fruit season. That's what we were designed to eat. Great apes only gain weight during fruit season. But unfortunately, our fruit has been bred for sugar content. And I mean, sadly, I can talk in the book, a cup of seedless grapes, and that's not much. It has more sugar than an entire Hershey's candy bar.

It's like, what? It's unbelievable to me that you make that reference, it's like about a Milky Way versus, like I don't know what fruit it was, if you kind of equal them to be the same, but I mean, that's so crazy to me. I mean, you never hear anyone say, I got fat eating too much, I don't know,

apples and oranges, but the truth the matter is, if I was being honest and people who know me know this is true, I'm a massive fruit addict, and I can eat pounds of it. And it's because I'm a sugar addict, and instead of psychologically eating 10 milky ways, I'll have a pound of cherries, a pound of grapes, literally.

I'm not even exaggerating. And I do gain weight. So no matter how much I am exercising, and I exercise a lot, it doesn't balance out. And I will gain in the summer or what you're saying, like when cherry season happens or whatever it is, I will gain a few pounds because of the amount of sugar content.

People don't want to hear that. I think it's not like a sexy thing to say because it's natural, but I think it's quantity, I guess, too. But talk about it. We were designed. I mean, we were designed when fruit was available. And quite frankly, it was only available long ago, once a year, the summer and early fall. And we were designed, he is much as we could. Two-thirds of our time are sweet receptors.

And that was because it was a way to gain weight. A female orangutan, a great example. A female orangutan eats during fruit season, five thousand calories a day of fruit. She gains about seven to eight pounds. And then, and only then, she goes into Astros, goes into heat, and becomes pregnant. Her body sensors say, okay, now we got enough fat to carry a pregnancy. And okay, now we'll release an egg. I see this, there's actually entire books written about the effect of fruiting in great apes and waking up whole books because fructose, people do not want to hear this, but fructose is a mitochondrial poison.

It actually prevents the mitochond the liver from making ATP. Instead, it is the major driver of hepatic, denovo, lipogenesis, which is a fancy way of saying make fat. We detoxify fructose into two things. We detoxify it into triglycerides, which is the first storage form of fat and Your agasite, which is what causes gout and it also causes hypertension So, you know, we have a system that's designed to take fruit dose directly delivered Do not pass go and convert it into less harmful compound

So I mean that was our design, but our design wasn't to see 365 days of fruit. Just, it couldn't have happened. There weren't 747s bringing cherries from Argentina and, you know, November to Southern California. Did not happen. So, what do you say to people who are like, oh, the sugar that you have in fruit is not the same as the sugar and the processed elements that are in a Milky Way or Hershey bar? That's a great question.

So half of table sugar sucrose isuctose. And there's a recent study that was done with volunteers giving them either glucose, sucrose or fructose and looking at a paddock fat generation. The glucose had absolutely no effect, but both the sucrose, the table shunner, and the fructose dramatically increased fat production in the liver. And now, almost all of our processed foods have high fructose cancer, which is a bit of a misnomer because high fructose cancer is 55% fructose and 45% glucose. So it's still table sugar. So no, do I say, you know, go have a Milky Way? No, I'm not saying, but what we have to understand is that they're the sugar load, particularly the fruit dose load, which is the trouble maker, maybe even higher eating that healthy fruit.

Wow. So then are there any fruits? How about berries, blueberries, berries? Right. Last and yeah. So the safest of the fruits are blackberries and raspberries. They're actually followed by strawberries. Blueberries, in case anybody hasn't noticed,

have been bred for size and sugar content. I mean, organic blueberries are the size of an old grape, and it's like, and they were so bitter when I was growing up that you had to, they were tiny. And you had to put a half a cup of sugar on them to make them edible. And now, you know, you're gonna cost a moon, well. And you had to put a half a cup of sugar on them to make them edible. And now, you know, you're going to Costco. And you're so sweet. They're so sweet.

Candy. It's like candy. They are nature's candy. They have been for candy. And we forget that. The other fruits are really quite safe. The little pixie tangerines, they have a fairly low sugar content. Great fruit, one of the best combos of fiber and fruit dose. But way on the other scale, bananas and apples are some of the worst things you can eat right now for fruit dose content. Apple's eating? Apple's have been bred for. Are you kidding now?

We have honey crisp. Does that do? Yeah, you're gonna say that. I mean, does that tell you anything? They have been bred for sure. Plus, an apple when I was growing up was about the size of what we now consider a crab apple. Yeah.

And I mean, an apple is almost 10 times the content of what an apple was 50 years ago. They've been thread for sure. I mean, but how do we define it? I know we will. And because what I do is I just say, if I want something sweet, I'll have an apple, right? And it satiates me. But then you'll have other people who say, if I want something sweet, I'll have an apple, right?

And it satiates me. But then you'll have other people who say, well, you know what? With the fiber that it has and all the other health benefits, it balances out the sugar content. So it's not, it slows down the digestion, blah, blah, blah. Would you say something like that? So get rid of the sugar in an apple by juicing it, throw throw the sugar away and get the fiber in the polyphenols. That's what you're looking for.

Yeah, I guess, well, maybe. I think also it's, you eat out of boredom. And so you kind of say, oh, I'll have fruit, right? Instead of having... And that's on the point, you know, like I talked about in the book, a lot of times, particularly with COVID now, we're, we're born. You know, like I talk about the book, a lot of times, particularly with Kovan now, people

are born. And we often think that hunger, you know, that we're hungry. In fact, we're not at all. And that's one of the reasons I talk about the energy snacking. Whenever you get that feeling, oh, you know, what's something to eat. Instead, you know, put on an iTunes song or something and dance around the room like you were talking about. And, you know, make fool of yourself for three minutes. And you'll find and study, show this that you'll make my own kinds that will actually

cut your hunger. And not only that, it'll actually energize your mitochondria. So the more we can recognize boredom as an opportunity to take a little exercise snack rather than to eat an apple with a bunch of fiber in it, there's far better places to get fiber in an apple. That's the point. Where do you think that is for you? I have some eagom.

I have some eagom. I love hickamats. It's my favorite. Okay. Where do you think that for you? Have some ego. I love hickamats, my favorite. Yeah, so there's a perfect way to get fiber that fills you up. It doesn't have any sugar. Oh, it's everywhere now. You may have to. It's in rouse, it's in vans, it's in all foods, it's in Bristol farms. It's in most of the grocery stores.

Coralware, I've been in probers in the Midwest. I eat it all the time. And I actually thought it was my favorite snack, by the way. But what's the sugar content in that? Isn't that kind of high in sugar? It's kind of like a... No, it's actually very low. It's mostly fiber.

And what I tell people to do is cut up some vegan sticks and make some guacamole without tomatoes, please. And you can buy guacamole without tomatoes. And use that as your dipping stick. And avocado is actually full of fiber as well well and great mono and centripet fast So yeah, just have yourself a you know party you and and you'll get all the crunch you wanted fruit Yeah, but you won't have the downside I'm glad that you brought up the tomatoes. We have to talk about the lectin. Why is lectin?

Why I mean this is what you're a lot of your book and this is how you came such a controversial figure is why, what is lectin tell people and why do you think it's so bad for you? For people who don't know, who haven't read the plant paradox. No, okay, so lectins are a part of the plant defense system against being eaten and

Electons are sticky proteins and most people have heard of electing that they didn't know was electing and gluten happens to be electing and so if they think they're gluten intolerant believe it or not your electing intolerant and so plants or your electin intolerant. And so plants want to protect themselves from being eaten. They want to protect their seeds from being eaten, which are their babies. And they use literally chemical warfare to do that.

And so electins are designed to actually cause leaky gut. They're designed to interrupt the communication between one nerve and another. By binding sugar molecules, they're designed to cause heart disease, they've written papers about this, they're designed to cause arthritis. And the idea is that if an animal is feeling bad when it's eating a particular plant,

the smart animal says, gee, and I'm every time I eat this plant, I don't feel very good. And I'm going to stop eating that. I'm going to go eat something else. And the plant wins. The animal wins. Everybody's happy. As all of us know, humans are very stupid. And so when we eat something that disagrees with us or makes something hurt, we reach for, you know, thumbs or nexium or priceless egg or avial or aloe, and we keep eating the dumb stuff. And we don't learn. One of the most fascinating facts is cows,

obviously you're supposed to eat grass and there are grass in There's lectins and grass, but the cows have a stomach that and they've been eating grass for millions of years If you feed cows corn and soybeans which both have lectins in them that are foreign to cows Cow's will get so much harper that they stop eating. So half of the world's production of calcium carbonate tons is mixed into cow food so that the cows will keep eating and they won't get harper.

And so, you know, any time you see Larry, the cable guy, having a private sec OTC, so you can have a corn dog, I just kind of think about those cows. And they're a lot smarter than Larry, the cable guy was. So then, so then like tomatoes or something that you don't. Yeah, that's a big deal. Okay, so the back to tomatoes. So the night shades are actually American plants. They're from North South and Central America. And they were only brought to Europe in Asia during Colombian trade when Columbus started

to come and trade 500 years ago. So all of us in America are from Europe, Asia, or Africa. So none of us were actually exposed to the Nightchef family until 500 years ago. And they include potatoes, regular potatoes. They include the peppers, they include tomatoes, and they include eggplants. And oh, by the way, they include tomatoes, and they include eggplants. And oh, by the way, they include goji berries. Goji berries are actually from America.

They were taken to China. Yeah, they were taken to China and trade where they grew. They were called the wolfberry in America. So the Italians, for instance, refused to eat tomatoes for 200 years after their native son brought them back, because they were so dangerous. And to this day, Italians always peel and deseed tomatoes before they make pasta soft, because the peels and seeds are where the lectums are. The Southwest American Indians who lived on peppers always peeled and deseeded their peppers before they ate them or

ground them into chili pepper. That's why the hatched chili roast exists because they knew that there was stuff that made them feel bad in the peel in the seeds. So you live with what cultures do and you go son of a gun. Look at that. That's why they did this. So what's the example? Yeah. But when it's a cause, what happened in your opinion, what does it do? Like if you, if for people who eat tomatoes or nightshades, what is the cause and effect?

Like what will happen? Where are some of the things that can happen? Yeah, so it'll cause leaky gut. It will actually break open the lining of the wall of your gut and allows food particles and bacteria to get through the wall of your gut. And on the other side of the wall of your gut, and the wall of your gut is the same surface area as a tennis court inside of us. And tennis court.

In there? Really? Yeah, it's only one self-there only one self-there and so 80% of all of our immune system 80% of all of our white blood cells line the lining of our gut because that's the border where mischief can come through and so that is actually the cause of inflammation and people talk about oh ain you know these anti-inflammatory foods It's like us living in Southern California and there's a forest fire. We're trying to protect our roof with a garden Right the forest fire is caused by in this case leaky gut in our immune system causing inflammation

And so that's what you think eggplants, nightshades, whatever, tomatoes. That's what causes it. That's the... That's why I said. Yeah, in fact, it's interesting. My grandmother, my mother's side was French, and she always taught my mother to peel and deced tomatoes,

because everybody knew that. And it wasn't until I went to Yale as an undergraduate that I actually had my first sliced tomato with a peel and a seed. And it was a weirdest thing. I said, why aren't anybody eating this? And when I was over in England doing my fellowship in children's heart surgery, I had a Italian house officer who I decided to surprise him and I was going to make spaghetti and pasta sauce from scratch. So I invited him down to the flat and I got out of the can of tomatoes, you know, open up the can and throw got a can of tomatoes, you know, you open up the can and you throw it in the sauce

Mason. What are you doing? And I said, what are you making tomato sauce? He said, you can't do that. There's peels and seeds. He says, you're trying to kill me. And I said, he's talking about and they're like, oh my gosh, you know, my mother. And he said, I said, I've forgotten all about that. He said, of course, anybody knows you, you know, the peels and the seeds will kill you. Truth is true. Really, that is correct. That's really amazing.

So because it's such a common thing, right? Like everyone eats pizza here and puts tomatoes on, literally everything in burger. And so how do people know, like, what are the symptoms of leaky gut? Because I think that, again, you don't know what you don't know. What does it kind of appear to be? If you don't know the term leaky gut or if you have some kind of pino-mini, you don't know what it is. So, Empocrate, he's 25 hundred years ago, said all disease begins in the gut. And the

guy was a genius. He was actually absolutely right. And I paraphrase that to say all disease begins in a leaky gut. And so if you have, if you have an autoimmune disease, I guarantee you, you have a leaky gut. And the reason I guarantee you that is about 88% of my practice now is autoimmune patients who have been everywhere and aren't getting any better and we have a 90 plus percent success rate in getting rid of autoimmune diseases

once we teach them how to seal their leaky gut. If you have our disease, you have a leaky gut. If you have dementia, you have a leaky gut. If you have eye bling pressure, you have a leaky gut. If you've got eggs and you've got a leaky gut, you got acne, you you have a leaky gut. If you've got eggs in my eye, you've got a leaky gut. You got acne, you've got a leaky gut. I know I sound like, it's all just one thing, but in fact, we see that when we test for people and we can do blood tests for leaky gut now, all these people have leaky gut and then

one way watch it go away. Everything goes away. They're really, I'm going to write that down. And then when we watch it go away, everything goes away. Really? I'm going to write that down. Let me give you a great example of the one that's from yesterday. She's about 50 years of age. She had horrible Crohn's disease and Crohn's disease is one of those autoimmune diseases, which is, and she was on multiple medications,

and she was incredibly depressed, all of her life, horribly depressed, seeing psychiatrists on antidepressants, and she came to realize that she was just a depressed individual, and she was gonna have to take all this. Long story short, She no longer has Crooms disease. She no longer has bloody bowel movements, you know, longer as abdominal pain. And his Saur just for a six month review is we've had her for about two years now. And she said,

you're a miracle worker. I said, no, no, I just thought you out of you. He said no, she said my depression is gone She said my depression is gone. I fired my psychiatrist. I don't take any anti-depressants anymore She said my depression is gone and you wrote that this is going to happen. How did you know I said because depression is coming from your microbiome and from your leaky gut when we seal that it all goes away. And even my own Daniel Ayman has now come around to saying that most of what we've been calling mental illness is actually a gut illness and if we fix the gut everything will be just fine. I mean, women in particular, you guys know, you have a gut sense and men should have listened to you a long ago.

That's first thing. You guys are far more in tune with your bodies than we are. The men, okay, I think so, I think you're right about that, but maybe I'm being biased. Can we, I wanna talk about this, and what kind of tests can people take to see if they have leaky gut, and then how can we see all our leaky gut? Give us some pointers on how to do these things. All right, so there are tests that people can,

physician has to order them. That can actually identify leaky gut. You're looking for markers for what's called anti-zonulins, E-O-L-U-L-M. This zonulin was discovered by Dr. Pazano, who's now a Harvard. And he was actually the first to prove how gluten, which is electing, actually caused leaky gut by breaking the little tight junctions that hold our little cells together and are cut. And he figured out the mechanism and so we can measure, you know, antizonial and anti-actin.

But there are easier ways to do it. If you have, number one, if you have an autoimmune disease or been told or suspect you do, if you have like Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, like 60 million women now have, you have a leaky cut. Kelly Clarkson is one of the great success stories. She found my book, She had Ash most thyroid

nitase. She was on thyroid medication. She followed my program without ever meeting me. Her Ash and Otis resolved. She came off of thyroid medication and just by reading the dump book. So good story. Yeah, good story. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and you have people I guess it works Exactly work You know, so I you know this isn't conjecture on my part for the last over 20 years now I see patients six days a week in my two clinics and We do blood work on them every three months and we watch what happens when we take a food away or put a food back, and we see what the inflammation markers are. We see what their insulin levels are,

and we can learn, I've written in my dedications. Most everything I've learned is from my patients, you know, in a way being my getting, being my getting pigs. Right. So then tell us a couple of ways we can do this, like how we can help your. Yeah, it's, it's not what I tell you to eat. That's important.

It's what I tell you about the, and it's strict. Yeah. One thing most people would like to got have a very low vitamin D level and if you do nothing else everybody who is listening take a minimum of 5,000 internationally heads of vitamin D. Particularly during COVID there's now 17 different studies showing that the higher your vitamin D level the safer you are from getting COVID and if you get COVID it will be a mild illness and certainly we've seen that in our patient population. So that's number one.

Number two, try to eliminate or reduce electing containing foods. And those are all the grains, pseudograins, corn, except sorghum and millet. Sorghum and millet don't have any electums. And there's even sorghum popcorn, which tastes exactly like popcorn. It's phenomenal. Really? I never heard of that. It smells like popcorn. It tastes like popcorn. You can buy a pre-pop on the internet.

How do you buy it? How do you spell it? Sorbum, SOR, G-H-U-M. I'm never seen it. I'm gonna look for it. Was hope like, with all the foods out there? Yeah, all foods will have it. But go on the internet, go wherever your provider is, go to Thrive Market, go to Amazon, and look for pop sorgen.

And there's lots of different varieties now. I like that. Okay. What you said. Can I give a shout out to the brand I buy? Go ahead, shout out to whoever you want. Nature Nates, pop sorghum. I don't know.

Never met him or her, but nature Nate's. I like it. I'm gonna look it up. I'm gonna buy you another bag. There's even cassava, flour, or pasta. There's a company called Jovial that comes out of Italy. And by the way, speaking of defusing lectins pressure cooking destroys all lectins except glue and

the lectin and oats so there's now two companies that make pressure cook beans Even brand beans are all pressure cook and this new company jovial just like a happy person And this new company, Jovial, just like a happy person, they not only soak their beans, but also pressure cook them, and they come in a glass jar. So people say, oh, you're getting scared of people bringing beans. I have Jovial or even beans probably three times a week every week. So you just have to diffuse these lectins. Okay, so give me one more way to steal it. So you said a lot of danger is by the beginning.

Pressure code. Yeah, pressure code. And say away from peanuts and cashews. Peanuts and cashews. Ashews too, I love that. There is, I can't tell you the number of particularly women who have got issues and we take their cashes away from them. The dermatologic literature is full of rashes from eating cashews. There's even cashew pickers disease

that you get horrible wealth and blisters on your hands from picking cashew. Why? Why cashews? Why? What's the name? We don't want you to eat their baby. The cashew is one of the few seeds on the outside of a fruit.

To protect that, they put the plant puts lectin's on it. In fact, I've done mission work in Brazil many times and the Brazilians laugh. They pull the cashews, see it off and throw it away and they eat the fruit. This is like, nobody eats them. You know, nobody eats like the nut. You can. Wow.

I love cashews. That's so disappointing. I used to do. I know, it's a pain in the neck. It really is. You talk about a couple other, okay, I wanted to ask you about the other what? You say, I have here how, you know,

basically how inflammation affects our energy. And you talk about the three Ls. We talked about Leaky Gutt. We talked about Lexins. What's the other one? LPS's lipopoly saccharidesides and they're better known in my books as little pieces of Oh, okay, why tell us who they are and why okay so bacteria die in our gut in certain class of bacteria particularly bacteria that love simple

sugars and saturated fats, what I call gang members, they the cell wall of that bacteria, and has a really sneaky system of getting into it. Fats are absorbed in a very different way than sugars and proteins. They actually hop a ride on a molecule called a chylomicron. The chylomicron goes through the wall of our gut and then it goes into our lymph system. It actually doesn't go into our bloodstream. LPS is actually hide in chylomicrons and right across the wall of our gut. And our immune system doesn't know the difference between a living bacteria and a piece of bacteria,

the cell wall of a bacteria. So our immune system doesn't want to make a mistake and assumes we're being invaded by bacteria. And you can actually prove this with healthy volunteers. We can take LPSs, which are sterile, they're not living, and we can inject them into the arm of a healthy person, and they will instantaneously go into septic shock as if we had just given them a bolus of poop into their veins. Septic shop, even though we didn't inject them

with anything living. The immune system assumed it was bacteria. So imagine that happening every time you eat processed foods. And these guys ride through the wall of our God and our immune system goes, oh my God, there's bacteria everywhere. And we need to put up a fight. And so they not only cause inflammation in your God, but these are then transported to the liver where we have another set of fighters

willing to fight with them. And that's one of the biggest causes of what is now called fatty liver disease. And fatty liver disease is an epidemic in this country. So, fructose and LPSs, you get fatty liver disease. Wow. And where are these LPSs? How do we avoid them at all? Like, how do we avoid them? So if you avoid them by not having fats that they can ride on, number one. And number two, most of our gut buddies, the good bacteria, don't make these LPSs.

So unfortunately, most of us have tons of gang members in our gut. So you just have to, you gotta eat to feed your gut buddies what they want. Really want to avoid saturated fats for the most part. There's a few good ones. I'm not demonizing fat. A guy who tells you I have a leader of all of what we read. Exactly.

Demonizing fat. Absolutely not. So whether you're doing a dance to your favorite artist in the office parking lot, or being guided into Warrior I in the break room before your shift, whether you're running on your Peloton tread at your mom's house while she watches the baby, or counting your breaths on the subway. Peloton is for all of us, wherever we are, whenever we need it, download the free Peloton app today.

Peloton app available through free tier or paid subscription starting at 12.99 per month. So basically, we wanna make sure our mitochondria is being optimized, right? That's basically what we're all, this is what we're talking about. Right, correct? Yeah's basically what we're all, this is what we're talking about. Right? Correct? Yeah, absolutely.

I talked about the mitochondria. It's all about the mitochondria. And you say that melatonin is the number one booster of its efficiency by taking or melatonin it optimizes the mitochondria. Now, is that like the pill, like the, you know, pills that you take, like I know people take melatonin to fall asleep and I actually heard a lot of things about that too, that that basically melatonin is a hormone and it's not good to take. Can you give us some information on this little thing? Sure. First of all, melatonin is one of the two principal mitochondrial antioxidants. One thing that people should realize you could swallow all the antioxidants in the world,

and they will not help your mitochondria. Period. They will not help. So if you take one of those melatonin, oh, okay, Mike, yeah. So melatonin is actually present in food and plants produce melatonin to protect their mitochondria just like polyphenols. And so there are some great sources of melatonin in food. Number one source, high source is pistachio nuts. By far, number one source, pistachio nuts by far number one source pistachio nuts loaded with

melatonin. Coffee has melatonin. Our oil has melatonin. Tea has melatonin. The mushroom family are full of melatonin and it turns out that many people, they may believe that one of the huge benefits of the Mediterranean diet and the drinking of, for instance, red wine is that it's actually the melatonin in these things that's actually making the difference in health rather than some other miracle compound or the diet altogether. So, and I've got a whole list in the book on where to find melatonin.

Interesting you should mention taking high dose melatonin. There's some interesting research now in dimension of giving people 40 or more milligrams of melatonin During the day. I've done this with a number of patients now. It does not make you sleepy One of the things I think people are gonna have to realize is that we've always associated melatonin with sleep But in fact melatonin is produced during the night and during the night is when we would not be in our mitochondria need to undergo repair and rest. And so rather than we should think of melatonin as a sleep on them, we should look at melatonin for its original purpose.

And that was as an antioxidant to repair mitochondria and protect them. And when you do that, you go, oh, wait a minute. as an antioxidant to repair mitochondria and protect them. And when you do that, you go, oh, wait a minute, it's not asleep for a moment, it's produced at night to repair mitochondria. So no wonder these melatonin rich foods are good for us. And potentially no wonder a lot of melatonin is a supplement, maybe very useful. We've just gotten it completely undernated and greased wrong. melatonin as a supplement may be very useful. We just got completely undernated degrees wrong.

Where did it come from then? Like, you know, it's very common. You hear people like, Oh, I took a couple of melatonin. I couldn't sleep or I'm gonna take them. Yeah, it will have an effect on sleep. But there's actually even easier ways to generate sleep. Black I talk about in the book. One of the coolest tricks is to take glycine, which is an amino acid that you can get in a capsule. Take about three grams, three capsules before you go to bed. And glycine actually lowers your body temperature.

And it's lowering the body temperature that actually initiates sleep and it's it's a really cool effect. I've never heard of that one before. That's a good one. Besides I mean I know I'm saying it's not one of those common things that you hear about. You always hear about melatonin or whatever else and so that's a good one. I like that. Can you talk a little bit more? Just, I really like this because I heard you speak about this before,

about some other immune system stuff, immune system boosters, because people are really still concerned about that. You talk about a bunch like having time-re release vitamin C, for example. What's the difference between taking a vitamin C, you know, you pop in your mouth and one that's time released? So vitamin C is a water soluble vitamin and we have no storage system for vitamin C. We actually are one of the few animals that don't produce our own vitamin C. There is a animals that don't produce our own vitamin C. There is a five step process to manufacture vitamin C from believe it or not glucose. And in us, the final gene, the final enzyme is a ghost gene, it's turned off. Now we think that's because manufacturing vitamin C is expensive.

And if you're surrounded in an environment where you're eating a lot of vitamin C rich foods, like in the jungle, then why would you bother having an enzyme system to manufacture vitamin C from sugar? Because you much rather have the sugar for storing fat. So that's a theory. So great apes don't make vitamin C. We don't make vitamin C guinea pigs don't make vitamin C. So why is it so important? Vitamin C is actually the major weapon that white blood cells use to destroy particularly bacteria and viruses. And there's a fascinating system that was discovered by Linus Pauling back in the 50s that your white blood cells can concentrate, vitamin C, I think 50 full over the vitamin C that's in your circulation.

And they use that vitamin C as a nuclear weapon when they engulf bacteria, viruses, and just blow them up. When you consume vitamin C, it only lasts for two to three hours and it's gone. Time released vitamin C, you have vitamin C throughout that time period. Let me give you the longevity pitch. You can breed mice to carry the human gene to not make vitamin C. These mice will live only half as long as their normal mice colleagues. You put vitamin C in their drinking water and they will come back and

live just as long as they're normal but was in their drinking water and they're always drinking. So we need a couple of two-time release vitamin C or get yourself some chewable tablets and chew one four times a day. And here's another fun fact. Research in humans has shown that drinking a glass of orange juice will paralyze the ability of your white blood cells to engulf bacteria for five hours after you drank that healthy orange juice. Wow, really? Really? Wow, I didn't even, that's crazy. That's amazing. I never heard, I've never heard that either. Do you remember juice is concentrated fruit? It's concentrated sugar.

It's just mean-hining sugar. I mean, that's why the one thing, I have to say, this whole juice craze, you know, I'm juicing, I'm juicing, I'm juicing. I was never someone who got behind it for just for obvious reasons. I mean, the amount of sugar. But I did rationalize the amount of fruit I ate because I thought because I'm eating the fiber content, I'm eating the actual fruit, I'm not juicing it.

It wasn't bad and it wasn't affecting me. So that's why, but I know just as like, if you're taking out all the fiber and juice, it's obviously, I mean, anyway, I'd not like keep repeating myself, but there were a couple other. I'm gonna get you on reverse juicing, Gray. So you're gonna become my apostle for this.

Yeah, well, I mean, I don't juice, I don't juice, I only eat fruit. No, reverse juice. Throw juice away, get the fiber and fiber in the wall. Exactly, exactly, I am gonna try that, but it's probably not as tasty, right? You're taking out the sugar, right? Like it's super hard.

You know what, you'd be starting a little alley. Allows are stevia or monk fruit. You'll be fine. Are you okay with, I was going to ask you, are you okay with stevia? Are you okay with monk fruit? Are those okay sugar substitutes or? Yeah, they're fine. They're safe.

Allie Lose is my new favorite that I talk about in the book. Yeah, which is actually, which is actually a natural rare sugar. Why do you like that better in months actually? It's now been proven to be a true prebiotic and actually fosters the growth of beneficial bacteria. So it's why not? Yeah. My other favorite sugar is called Just Like Sugar, the growth of beneficial bacteria. So it's why not. Yeah.

My other favorite sugar is called Just Like Sugar, which is pretty much pure inion. And inion is the best prebiotic there is for gut bugs. Where do you find that? So inion is present in the Chickory family of vegetables. So radicchio, Belgian and dive, curly and dive, Chickory. His president, believe it or not,

is president Hicom. It's president and asparagus is another great place. Oh, I love that. That's a really good one. And have a seat. Tell me what you think of stevia overall. Is that your idea? I see a lot of that.

Yeah, stevia, there are some studies that suggest stevia will change the microbiome. One of the important things is you have sweet receptors on your tongue. You don't have sugar receptors on your tongue. And there's sweet receptors to tell you brain that sugar from fruit is on the way, makes them insulin, geratin, and store fat. When sugar doesn't arrive when you've used an

artifact or a non-chloric sweetener, your brain says, wait a minute, you told me the sugar was coming, I got the message, I'm all set for it. Where is it? You got cheated, go back and get some more. When I was drinking eight diet coaks a day and was 70 pounds heavier, I was going, I had to have a higher take coaks, but to you. And my brain was always going, you got to go find some more or something deep. So and Stevie actually increases your insulin level. So retreat from sweet. You know, I'm thrown away with you, I have. Sure. Yeah, you're going to manage it more. Can you give me a couple

other like kind of not-so-mainstream things to actually improve your immune system? Not the ones that we commonly hear. Yeah, so your immune system is like I talk in the book is on overload because of leaky gut. And so anything you do to repair leaky gut will improve your immune system. That's why during COVID, everybody heard, if you have a pre-existing condition, you're a setup for the cyclone storm. Pre-existing conditions by definition is you have a leaky gut. That's why you have a pre-existing condition. And you fix that, everything goes back to normal.

And it's never too late. Yeah, that's true. Exactly. You can always improve yourself. What about zinc? What does zinc do? Yeah, so zinc, there's a new study that shows Zinc is all that interesting. Too many people. Too many people take too much zinc. Zinc has to be balanced with copper. Max some recommendation from me is only about 50 milligrams a day. Don't exceed it. At that level it has some interesting help for repairing leaky gut, but don't exceed it.

And the one thing I wanted to ask you that you talk about in your book, and I think it's a very timely because of the keto-genic diet. We haven't really talked about time-restricted eating, but I found this interesting, that you said that keto, the keto-genic diet, it's only effective within a time-restricting feeding. If you just do it, if you just do keto without that time-restricted diet plan, it's not effective. I think that's interesting. Well, so, yeah, the ketogenic diet has a failure rate of over 60 percent. I'm surprised I'm more.

How do people stay on it, I don't know, but... Well, that's part of the problem. It's a non-sustainable diet. And you can get literally all the benefits of a ketogenic diet and a lot of waiting the downsides by just time restricted eating. You will generate ketones during the time you're fasting if you keep your insulin level low. And the book tells you how to do this.

And isn't there something that, I mean, you're the doctor that people can overdo the ketogenic diet too, and there could be the reverse effect? Oh, yeah. People somehow seem to forget that fat has nine calories per gram, protein and sugar has four calories per gram. And so by the same weight, over two times the amount of calories per gram. And so I see these people and, you know, oh, I'm on a cute, genetic diet and all I'm eating fat moms throughout the day. And I'm gaining weight and I'm going, what, yeah, yes, what?

You're eating a 10,000 calorie a day diet. And you can't overcome, you know, basic biochemistry. Right. Yeah. All this out there is, oh my gosh, you know eat 12 sticks of butter every day You know I have a pint of sour cream on top of your keto ice cream. It's like no folks There's certain rules that you know still apply here Absolutely, so do you believe in calories in calories out or? Absolutely not true. Okay.

That's not true. Right, but so then, but you're saying you get to a point where you will, you will overcome. No, calories in a calorie time. Do you remember abcams diet? It's like the acin diet. So it's like all just derivatives of these old diets. And the accounts diet was actually the drinking,

the derivative of the drinking man's diet that was sold two and a half million copies, Robert Cameron, the drinking man's diet. And basically said, you get rid of all carbohydrates and you can have booze, you can have gin, you can have vodka, you can have bourbon, because there weren't any carbohydrates. And it was incredibly popular.

Not in straight booze. Oh, not in tequila or, but in beer, there's tons. No, there is beer, that's not straight booze. Yeah, wine is not straight. I guess it was staying like hard liquor. Hard liquor, exactly. Yeah, hard liquor. And interestingly enough, he was called a mass murderer

by Harvard Nutrition School. And he actually lived in 96 years old. He was actually celebrated the 50th anniversary of his book. No kidding. Additionally. Well, maybe his diary works well. I'll leave everybody when that but check out the no don't check out the yeah. No check out. These are these are all just variations

of a theme. Oh absolutely. Well other than I mean I think basically I think I've asked you pretty much a lot of different things. I have a few other things you know I didn't get to but they could pick up your book, Energy Paradox, and they could check it out themselves about inflammation, how to have a healthy mitochondria, which is good for your energy, and your other books too. You have, like, how many books do you have now? No, I think we're up to seven. We're writing a lot of books. Oh, and I also got your thing in the mail. Thank you. It was like, you sent it to me.

Basically, it's a scoop of vital red. Is that what it's called? Oh, I have vital reds. Yeah. Polyphenols. Polyphenols, yeah. So what I did with vital reds was my original product. I took the benefits of fruits and got rid of the sugar and dehydrated.

So it's just a blast of polyphenols without all the sugar. I'm actually going to try it now. Next time you reach for your apple, I have a scoop of oil risk. I think you'll be impressed. That's why I was thinking about it. But I'm like in my head as I was wrapping this up, I'm like, I'm kind of hungry. Maybe I'll have an apple and then I said I'm gonna try that I'll try a cup of that and let you know a glass of that I should say But thank you so much for being on the podcast. Why don't you tell people about trying to find you know you're great

So they can go to dr. Gundry.com. They can find my supplement food company gundri MD dot com The drgundri podcast which you've appeared on My mom Facebook. I'm on Instagram. I have two YouTube channels too Do it. Why too? two. Two. Two.

Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two.

Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two.

Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. episode being shared and you know we'll let you know how I how I like the vital red. All right great. Yeah, give me feedback you can get to know. Be inspired, this is your moment. Excucess, we in heaven at the Habitat and Hustle Podcast, Power by Habitat.

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