Realfoodology - Artificial Sweeteners, Insulin Resistance + Understanding Health Studies | Dr. Nick Norwitz Part 1

Episode Date: September 10, 2024

EP. 212: Hello friends, and welcome back to Realfoodology! Today’s episode is an absolute treat, and you’ll definitely want to stick around for part two as we had so much to cover that we split our conversation with Dr. Nick Norwitz into two parts. Dr. Norwitz, a researcher and educator with a valedictorian background from Dartmouth, a PhD from Oxford, and an MD from Harvard, brings a wealth of knowledge on metabolic health and its intricacies. We explore his personal journey with IBD, breakdown studies on  artificial sweeteners, and his unique perspective on metabolism that challenges conventional wisdom. His passion and depth of understanding are truly captivating, and I’m excited for you to hear this fascinating discussion. Timestamps: 08:30 - Nicks Instagram  09:03 - Nicks background  13:11 - Clinical medicine school & nutrition & metabolism  18:49 - Reading studies & trusting your intuition  21:05 - Conflicts of interest & data points 23:59 - Food frequency questionnaires  26:20 - Discourse and online noise 30:11 - Genetics & diet  34:40 - Misrepresenting data  41:07 - Challenging your biases  48:08 - Artificial sweeteners, brain health, insulin resistance  55:05 - Aspartame study  59:27 - WHO & aspartame 01:02:32 - Carcinogens   01:04:25 - Consistency vs perfection  01:06:58 - Longevity  Sponsored By: Timeline Go to timelinenutrition.com/REALFOODOLOGY and use code REALFOODOLOGY for 10% off LMNT Get your free Sample Pack with any LMNT drink mix purchase at drinklmnt.com/realfoodology Organifi Go to www.organifi.com/realfoodology and use code REALFOODOLOGY for 20% Off Cured Nutrition Go to www.curednutrition.com/realfoodology and use code REALFOODOLOGY for 20% off  Needed Use code REALFOODOLOGY at thisisneeded.com for 20% off Paleovalley Save at 15% at paleovalley.com/realfoodology and use code REALFOODOLOGY Check Out Dr. Nick: Website Youtube Instagram Check Out Courtney: LEAVE US A VOICE MESSAGE Check Out My new FREE Grocery Guide! @realfoodology @realfoodologypodcast www.realfoodology.com My Immune Supplement by 2x4 Air Dr Air Purifier AquaTru Water Filter EWG Tap Water Database  Produced By: Drake Peterson

On today's episode of the Real Foodology Podcast. How does the listener determine who is a reliable resource? Because there are different heuristics you could use. And one of those is academic credibility. The brands, the PhD, the MD. Let's just say you don't have that. What do you go with? There are a lot of other platitudes that people throw out there,

like, quote, do your own research. Follow the science, follow the data. The thing is, the core of them is really true and good, but they always get like co-opted and twisted. You end up with this very messy intellectual ecosystem that generates frustration and generates polarization, since you can use any of these kind of excuses, terms like do your own research or XYZ is cherry picking or oh, it's just animal models or oh, follow the money, these things to just sweep under the rug any data you don't like and generate an endless stream of confirmation bias. Hello, friends.

Welcome back to another episode of the Real Foodology podcast. Today's guest is a really fun one and stay tuned for part two because we recorded for almost two hours and we decided to split this up into two episodes just to make it a little more digestible. I sat down with Dr. Nick Norwitz who is a researcher educator whose mission is to make metabolic health mainstream. He graduated valedictorian from Dartmouth College, majoring in cell biology and biochemistry, and then completed his PhD in metabolism at the University of Oxford before attending Harvard Medical School to complete his MD. I found Nick on Instagram not too long ago,

and I think somebody sent me one of his videos talking about artificial sweeteners, and he was talking about a study about artificial sweeteners that I had never heard before. And I feel like I've heard a lot about artificial sweeteners, and so I heard before. And I feel like I've heard a lot about artificial sweeteners. And so I was very intrigued. I ended up following him and have been loving following his work.

And I think you guys are really going to love this episode. His enthusiasm for the field of metabolism derives from a personal struggle with severe inflammatory bowel disease, also known as IBD. And in desperation, he found a ketogenic diet, put his disease into remission where conventional approaches failed. And then he became curious. So fast forward, and now Nick is completing the last months of his dual doctorate with a distinctive determination to upset the intellectual and social environment with respect to metabolic health. His mantra, stay curious, was very prevalent in the episode. And I loved it because

he had me very curious in a lot of different areas and different topics of conversations that we had. And I like that he challenges the status quo and challenges certain biases and really knows his stuff. He's very smart and it's very apparent that he spent a lot of time studying this and he knows the data. He has the data to back it up and it was just a fascinating conversation. So I really hope you guys love it. Some of the topics that we went over are the case for calories in versus calories out are not the cause of obesity, but he does mention that thermodynamics still applies. And we go over all of this in the episode. I also asked him if somebody wanted to lose weight, how could they do this effectively, knowing what we know about biology, genes, and the current food landscape,

and he gave some really great, great advice. We talked a lot about food noise and how you can calm that down and what food noise is if you don't know what that is. We briefly go over GLP-1s and satiety. If you don't know what GLP-1 is, think ozempic, wagovi. We also talk a good amount about artificial sweeteners. We go over sucralose, aspartame, and then we also talk about the more natural ones like allulose, monk fruit, stevia.

And lastly, we dug into this study that he performed on himself, which was, he's now calling it the Oreos versus statins study. And you're going to want to stay for the end of this because he lowered his cholesterol, his LDL cholesterol by eating Oreos. And that's all I'm going to say. So I hope you guys will stay tuned till the end of the episode. And if you are loving this podcast, if you could just take a moment to subscribe, if you're not already subscribed, it really helps the show. And if you could take a moment to rate and review, if you've not done that yet, it really helps this show. This show would be nowhere and would be nothing without you, the listener. And so your support means everything. And I am so grateful. Also, if you guys want to go and follow the new Real Foodology podcast Instagram, it's

at realfoodologypodcast on Instagram. And then, of course, if you want to tag any of the episodes that you are loving, please tag me at realfoodology so that I see it. And then you can also tag at realfoodologypodcast. Thanks again for your support. Love you guys. Are you looking to boost your energy and support healthier aging? I've been using Mito Pure by Tim Timeline and the results have been pretty incredible. It was developed by

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And here is the best part. You can try Element totally risk-free. Get your free Element sample pack with any purchase at drinkelement.com slash realfoodology. That's drinkelement.com slash realfoodology. Plus you guys are not going to want to miss out on their new Element sparkling. It's a 16 ounce can of sparkling electrolyte water, and it is so freaking good. So make sure when you're on the website that you grab some of those too. Again, that's element.com slash realfoodology. Well, first of all, Nick, thank you so much for coming on. I just more recently found your Instagram and I was trying to think earlier about where and how I

found your page. I think somebody might've sent me a video that you did about artificial sweeteners, which I'm very excited to dive into. But first and foremost, thank you so much for coming on the show and let's dive into it. I'm so stoked. Absolutely. Thanks. Yeah. The reason you haven't found me on Instagram is I'm new to Instagram. I've been historically active on X and then some YouTube. There hasn't been a lot of time for social in medical school. So the social expansion is new to me, but I'm having fun with it. Amazing. Well, first, before we get into any of the questions, give everybody a little bit of a background, what you're doing right now and what makes you qualified to talk about all this as far as nutrition. I went to undergrad at Dartmouth where I studied cell bio and biochemistry. Then I went and did my PhD at Oxford in metabolism before coming back to do my MD at Harvard, and I'm finishing up my MD. One could call those qualifications.

Honestly, I've learned more from self-experimentation, YouTube University, and self-study about specifically nutrition and metabolism than I did doing my PhD in metabolism, which is a very narrow focus with a PhD, you know, you know a lot about a very little and honestly through self-experimentation, which is, you know, accessible to anybody and through a personal journey. So while I was finishing up college and starting grad school, I really struggled with severe inflammatory bowel disease that took me from being high performing academician and high performing athlete to being like stuck in an ICU bed, like physically fragile, emotionally distraught, socially withdrawn. And it was through experimenting with the lifestyle modification

that I really discovered internalized the power of metabolic health, which is what drew me into this this area of study that now has become my life, my career, and life passion and mission. So yeah, I think my real qualifications, PhDs and soon to be MD aside are, I love to experiment to myself. And I have background that I think helps me connect with people who have had similar story arcs where they struggle with a chronic disease and conventional medicine just doesn't serve them. And then they become a little bit desperate, try something maybe experimental or renegade or maybe not socially acceptable, like an extreme diet, and it works fantastically for them. There's a big

population, a growing population of what I call the metabolic health army that I think I'm in a good position to speak to. So that's my quote qualifications. But... What you just said is exactly what I started speaking out about years ago, because I initially wanted to be an RD. So my undergrad was in communication. So I had no sort of science background at that point. So I went back and I did two years of just all the science prerequisites, the anatomy and physiology, chem one, chem two, biochem, all of that. And then I started on this track to become an RD. And I was starting to do all the nutrition programs in the RD program and then was going to apply to start on the RD track. Now, as I started taking all these nutrition courses, what I was being taught in these classes

were going exactly against everything that I had known up to this point about nutrition. For example, when I started getting into nutrition and a lot of it in the beginning was all self-taught. It was based off of books that I was finding from people like Michael Pollan, Mark Hyman, all of those amazing people in their field. And when I went into school and I was learning that we, so for example, they were telling us, you need to put your clients on a low-fat diet. Well, I knew that actually a low-fat diet is incredibly horrible for not only our metabolism, but also for our brains. And there was all this stuff that I was learning that I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, actually this is

really outdated. And so what I ended up doing is I left the RD program and I went, I took a year off because I really wanted to find a good program. And I found this integrative program that was based in science, but then also based on a more integrative approach, which was integrating Western and also more holistic practices. And what's interesting is that a lot of times what we're seeing right now, especially with RDs, is that they have this traditional training of nutrition from the RD program, but they're then going online telling people like, oh, it's totally fine to have a Diet Coke every day, eat your processed foods.

They're peddling this everything in moderation, including eating packaged processed foods. So can you speak a little bit more to your experience as far as, you know, you obviously are an academic, you've been going to these amazing schools that are very highly regarded, but then you're coming out of it going, well, actually most of it I've learned

from my own experimentation and my own research. I mean, I think the academic path that I've gone down is very good at teaching certain things. There are certain elements of clinical medicine that Harvard teaches very well, and certain elements that, you know, about metabolism that it doesn't teach very well. I think it's important for any individual to know what their strengths and weaknesses are. Harvard doesn't really teach nutrition and metabolism. It just doesn't. So I wouldn't say that my affiliation there

or the MD I get there gives me, that alone gives me any qualification to talk about nutrition. Well, and we know that most doctors don't get any sort of nutrition training. Well, it's worse than that because people then would just advocate for, oh, you know, let's get more in terms of volume of nutrition training. But again, that then bears the question or begs the question, well, who's going to teach

it and what are they actually teaching? Because typically it does go towards the, you know, what I would consider platitudes, eat a balanced diet, everything in moderation, you know, X, Y, and Z. what I would consider platitudes, eat a balanced diet, everything in moderation, you know, X, Y, and Z. And these are just platitudes. You talk about things like, you know, the acceptable macronutrient distribution range. And this is something that we were taught among other things. And then you actually, you know, interrogate the lecturer about, do you know what the basis of these ranges are? Things like you should get 45 to 65% of your energy from carbohydrates. Inevitably they don't, we don't

have to get into what those are. They're I think quite sketchy, but bottom line is I'm trying to actually reflect and bring this down to something that will be functional to the listener, because as we're talking, it's occurring to me. How does the listener determine who is a reliable resource? Because there are different heuristics you could use, right? And one of those is academic credibility. The brands, the PhD, the MD, you know, the Ivy League, yada, yada, yada. It's not, it's one heuristic, and maybe for some things it works. I mean, it's pretty poor, but let's just say you don't have that.

What do you go with? And there are a lot of other platitudes that people throw out there, like, quote, do your own research, or, you know, follow the science, follow the data. And the core of them, the thing is, the core of them is really true and good. But they always get like co-opted and twisted into something that becomes like, take the example of the term do your own research. I'm 100% for that if it means really try your authentic best to look at the data with an open mind and just struggle with it and try to learn from primary sources. That's fantastic. Or actually conduct research is a whole nother thing. But inevitably,

it becomes twisted into become like, do your own research, good idea. Also, it's the clarion call of conspiracy theorists. So you end up with this very messy intellectual ecosystem that I think generates frustration and generates polarization, since you can use any of these kind of excuses, terms like do your own research, or XYZ is cherry picking, or oh, it's just animal models, or oh, follow the money, these things, to just sweep under the rug any data you don't like and, you know, generate an endless stream of confirmation bias. Yeah. So the question I think people have to ask themselves is like, none of us, it doesn't matter how smart you are, doesn't matter, you know,

who you are, can digest all the literature, even within the space of diet and nutrition. There's so many papers coming out at once. And there are elements of metabolism that like, frankly, I just don't know about. I was just on a podcast. They're like, Nick, can you tell us more about light and metabolism? Like, quite honestly, I have not had the time to study this particular sex. So I'm not going to speak about it. Even though I think I read pretty fast, and I can digest literature pretty fast, it's just an area that I don't have expertise in. So if you want to be a broad learner, realistically, you do need to figure out who to follow and who to trust. And I think that trust, I don't actually have, this is something I'll throw out to you and I'll throw

out to the audience, it's something to struggle with. Like, how do you find your trustworthy, reliable resource? Because it's not going to come through something as simple as you know a brand or a degree it's actually something that kind of needs to be built part of it can be a vibe for someone but always to be thinking you know is this person saying something that i want to hear or does this person actually authentically seem like someone who's going to have an open-minded discussion and evolve their positions in a sincere, authentic manner, not evolve like, oh, like I've come to see the light and I'm evolving myself because there's like the humility, then there's false humility. It's all very messy. I think though people generally have a decent read on authenticity. So authenticity is always something I try to look for in people, but

that's just like an emotional intelligence skill. That is a question that I get quite frequently in my DMs is how do we actually navigate all this? How do we trust, you know, the messaging from certain people? Where do we go for true information? What studies and data do we actually trust? And, you know, as you were talking about this, I was writing down a couple notes because I didn't want to forget. So I have a couple things that I go by. First and foremost, every study you can read at the very bottom in the fine print, who's actually paying for the study. So if you're reading a study that's telling you that, and I see you making a face, so maybe they don't always disclose this. No, go, finish your thought, finish your thought, and then I'll reply.

Okay, so, for example, if you're reading a study that says that aspartame is totally fine and safe to consume, and we don't see any, you know, potential harmful effects on the body in small doses, and then you read in the fine line that it's been paid for by the American Beverage Association, and then we know that the American Beverage Association gets funding from Pepsi, Coca-Cola, and we know that they're using aspartame in all their products, then it's going to make you second guess that. And then my other thing too is intuition, which kind of goes down to your authenticity thing is, I like to ask myself often, what does my gut tell me about this when I actually think logically about how humans have eaten for a really long time? I remind my listeners constantly, I'm like, what foods stand the test of time? What have humans been eating since the dawn of time? You know, I mean, and that's really

simple. It's eggs, meat, produce. And you know, it's going to change depending on the regions, right? Where people, where your ancestors grew up and that does play a role in it as well. But getting more in touch with that of what logically makes sense, because I do know that there's a statistic of it generally on average takes about 17 years for the science to catch up to what we already logically know to be true.

So it's logic is fast, science is slow. And so sometimes it takes a bit for the science to catch up. And then not to mention with nutrition studies in general, it is so hard to quantify the data because there's so many different things going on in a one general study. I mean, people are not always honest about reporting what they're eating all the time. Sometimes they're not even adding in some of those factors. Like, for example, there's some studies that they're trying to blame meat on cardiovascular disease, but then they weren't even testing if the people were smokers and other lifestyle factors. So there's so many factors going on

that in general, unfortunately, it's just hard to quantify in the data with nutrition. Yeah. You said a lot of things and I could go in 12 different directions right now. I'll try to go chronologically as you spoke. So one thing you spoke to was the issue of who's funding studies. The reason I was making a face right there is I think it's, you know, the example you gave is a good one and I think it should raise an eyebrow. The issue I see, and this goes back to what I was saying, is I don't think it's sufficient to disregard a study's findings, because sometimes practically it makes sense for industry to fund a study. So I think it'd never be

the only argument that this isn't worth focusing on because X, Y, and Z funded it. It always is best to start with, here are the problems with the data. And then you can point out, you know, there is a conflict of interest here, but just because there's a conflict of interest doesn't mean it's necessarily a bad thing. I'll give you another example, because this comes up practically when we're trying to do metabolic health studies, because guess what? The government's not throwing multi-million dollar, well, they're not throwing lots of multi, some people they they are but they're not throwing millions of dollars at me let me put it that way for some studies that i think are really really important which is a shame so i think there's a signal for you know a metabolic health trial let's say i want to do a trial this may or

may not be you know in the works of a large-scale randomized controlled trial for inflammatory bowel disease and i want to do a whole food plant-based vegan diet versus a carnivore diet. Let's take extremes, both whole foods diets, but at different extremes. And it's possible that I could get the beef industry to fund that study. Am I not going to do that study because the money is coming from the beef industry? Nevertheless, if I did that study and publish the findings, you know, I personally would publish the data no matter what they are. But if they were positive for a carnivore diet, which for that particular use case, not speaking broadly for that particular use case, it's going to be more on this soon. I can drop some hints, but I would expect, you know, a ketogenic animal-based low residue diet to

actually perform well for inflammatory bowel disease. But, you know, again, if that came out and then I said, oh, beef industry funded again, if that came out and then it said, oh, beef industry funded it, would it mean that the study findings are, you know, irrelevant? No. So I think you always need to start with the data and then frame it up as, you know, okay, there are these conflicts here. How does this fall into the larger picture? The example you gave is interesting because there are like independent papers showing that the American Society of Nutrition and Dietetics has been paid off by multiple industries and that it's actually created a conflict within the system where they've, you know, been able to, you know, manipulate the entire society. So if you can create, you know, a broader framing,

I think it's something that can be relevant to bring up, but I don't think it's sufficient to undermine the results of the study. Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, no, that's a great point. My one thought was that I had, what was the name, we were talking about figuring out who to trust. Yep, and I brought up intuition and then also like it's hard to quantify nutrition data sometimes. Yes, we can go through an example. I want to bring up one. I think I might've emailed you the paper. I did a review video on,

there was this Jack Advances paper you were talking about. Actually, no, before I get to that, I want to comment on like food frequency questionnaires you mentioned. The difficult thing with these and the reason it's so hard to quantify is because again, it's very easy to say, oh, nutrition epi is useless or food drink and nutrition questionnaires like you know make this

study irrelevant they can be really good and they can be practical as a tool when implemented and used properly so not all food frequency questionnaires are the same not all nutrition epi is the same you know different studies have different questions and it's always about what is the design does it match about what is the design? Does it match the question? Is the interpretation fair to the question that's being asked in the study design? So I think a lot of times people like to say, oh, it's just a low end value. It's not enough people.

Or it's just epidemiology. Which we hear a lot. Simple like people like to say, oh, you should go only to the human randomized control trials and this trumps everything else. The fact of the matter is, if you understand science and the pragmatism of science and what studies are needed to answer what questions, all these tools can be valuable when used appropriately. And conversely, all these studies can in some way, shape, or form, because there's no perfect study, be brushed aside by those that don't want to look at the data based on some limitation, you know? Unless you have, for whatever reason, there's never a perfect study. So I think a heuristic that I go with that is probably pretty good is if somebody is being entirely definitive on a matter, like if they

say a carnivore diet is the best human diet or randomized control trials on humans are the most important studies, be all end all. Those kind of definitive ultimate umbrella statements raise a major red flag for me that the person isn't actually nuanced enough to start to dissect things. You could say calories and calories out the same thing. It's all about calories. It's like, you're missing the forest for a tree. And sometimes, this is another red flag, that's one red flag.

There'll be a lot of bickering between influencers. I found this as I've been coming up newly mostly on that stuff. And what'll often happen is if you observe the exchange, sometimes there's just two parties fighting equally. Sometimes, though, there's one party that's actually trying to break through and saying, no, no, no, you're misunderstanding me. You're saying I said this.

I didn't say this. I said this. And see if you can catch the moment where the opposing party refuses to properly acknowledge the stance of an individual and continually tries to strawman and misrepresent them in order to create an atoning create the caricature create the cartoon in their mind because drama sells it's the truth it gets clicks it gets engagement. If somebody's built up their platform based on that form of drama, they're going to always steer

more to it. They are beholden to their followers who have gotten a taste for that. So it actually makes discourse, especially in short form platforms like Instagram and Twitter, you know, it creates caricatures of influencers, especially if they're outside your sphere. So that's another thing that I think just to watch out for. Who's actually trying to have an authentic conversation and who's just being a dick? You ever feel like you're just swimming in a sea of toxins from air pollution to processed foods?

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code REALFOODOLOGY. Elevate your mental game with Rise and experience nature's power with every dose. Your brain will thank you. Well, and to your point, the people that I have the most respect for are the ones that come out later saying, you know what, I had this stance on this

and actually I found out I was kind of wrong. And this is why, and this is how I got here. I have the utmost respect for people like that. And, you know, for the listener, I tell people this all the time. If there is somebody that you're listening to for diet and health advice, and they tell you that their way is the only way and there is nothing else that works for anyone, run. Because that completely discredits and tells me that this person saying that doesn't understand the bio-individuality of humans. Because there is no right one way for every single person to eat. There's just not. You know, we're so bio-individual. I mean, I just did a nutrition genome test recently and I've been talking about it a lot on my podcast, on my Instagram, because it found a lot of things

for me that I was like, oh wow, it makes sense to me because intuitively I'm like you, I do a lot of personal experiments on myself. So like I've tried keto, I've tried paleo. I feel like I've tried like everything except for carnivore. It's the only one I haven't tried. I was vegetarian for five years. And along the way, I have found what works best for me by experimenting all these different ways. And what's interesting is my nutrition genome test just came back recently. And my doctor was like,

well, you know, when you told me that you didn't do very well on the vegetarian diet, it literally says in your genes and your DNA that with certain pathways that you have and certain genetic mutations you have, that a vegetarian diet is actually really bad for your health. But then we wouldn't say that about some other people, you know? No, and the literature bears that out. I mean, let's take one example.

Let's take fiber as an example. There was an interesting study that came out. I think it was, I don't know how to pronounce it. The first author's last name was like W-A-Y-S-K. I think it was in 2021. Is that the Sonnengrad lab? Sonnengrad lab at Stanford, I think. But they were looking at, among other things, the impact of fiber on people. And the general idea is fiber is healthy for people, you know? And what they actually found is a diverse profile, which by, by which some people had a inflammatory response to fiber, albeit a minority, and some people had an anti-inflammatory response. So again, you know,

if you want to think broad sweeping commentary, then on average fiber is probably anti-inflammatory, but there are definitely people for whom it has a pro-inflammatory response. And if we start to dissect, well, what is the physiologic basis for these differences, we can start to make more informed choices. I have a pretty provocative saying, I actually have a video on it that'll be coming out, that the randomized control trial is dead. And I'll unpack that a little bit. It was on a podcast that came up with the idea with Dom D'Agostino. But right now we have this idea of the hierarchy of studies, right? With the human randomized control trial at the pinnacle of the pyramid. And there are great elements to randomized control trials, of course. I think

probably the listener understands what that is broadly, but a major limitation is you're taking large populations of heterogeneous humans, diverse humans, and then coming out with differences in group averages between a treatment and a control group, right? And that loses individuality, it loses specificity, right? So, you know, if there are statistically significant results, it still could mean that many people in the experimental group didn't have a benefit or might have even been harmed. It's just about the group. So, you know, it only applies so much to the individual. So I asked the question, as we

advance with the tools we have to monitor individuals, right now we have basic things like CGMs, continuous quick list monitors. Where we're moving is something called longitudinal multiomics. Multiomics, multi-omes, genome, proteome, microbiome, transcriptome. What happens if you have multi-omics, pictures of individuals, the meta-organism that is you plus your microbiome, and then you take longitudinal cross-sections? So you end up with this incredible high-resolution video on what's going on in you with your physiology as an individual.

And then you can understand by like, you know, big data sets and machine learning, how these things interact and you can identify the nodes and the network of your physiology and then target that and use bottom up physiology focused targeted approaches to actually address the root cause of chronic disease rather than relying on monotherapy that's the derivative of randomized control trials on heterogeneous humans. Yeah.

So I do think we're going to see a shift. That's fascinating. And this is a total tangent. I love it. We have so many tangents, but we were talking about misrepresenting data. Yeah. And there's a couple levels here there's the influencer of the randos just saying things on you know on various social media i just got the threads and

i was looking one person said three things that slow your metabolism ketogenic diets i'm like this is nonsense you just made this up like this it was some i mean it's a random person i'm not picking now like picking extreme cases but it's true. People will just say these crazy things. And that is true for people with low profiles or people with massive profiles. We can generate some examples. 100%. Yeah. But there's that. And then there's issue in publication bias.

And that, I think, is a deeper and more sinister issue because people think, oh, it gets through the peer-reviewed literature. Therefore, it gets like the golden star, and it is the science, the body of science. The truth of the matter is the peer-reviewed process is not a meritocracy, and there's a lot of narrative building and biases. So I'll give you one example. There was a paper that came out in Jack Advances recently, which was arguing for low carb diets, promoting cardiovascular disease, major adverse cardiovascular events, M's been a while since I read it, so don't quote me on the numbers, but I think it was 2.18 hazard ratio. So like a twofold increase in major adverse cardiovascular events. And it talks about how the low carb diet increased LDL and even worse ApoB, which is like, a marker of particle count, which is thought to be a better marker than LDL cholesterol. But there was a catch, or there were a few catches. One, the low-carb diet group had more obesity, more diabetes, more smoking, and a different racial demographic. And, and here was the funny thing, they tried to build this narrative in the

abstract where they alluded to, okay, you know, this ketogenic diet increased the LDL cholesterol and it increased the hazards ratio by, you know, two point or increased it by 1.18. So it was 2.18. So a hundred percent increase in major adverse cardiovascular events. And you can see the narrative they're trying to build there, right? Keto diet, saturated fat, increased cholesterol, heart disease. But there are a few things they omitted or shifted around. And one was actually the absolute change. What was the

change in the LDL? Because you'd expect, okay, if there's a twofold risk in major adverse cardiovascular events, you probably have to see a pretty big change in cholesterol. Do you want to just give a guess in a number what the LDL change was. I mean, I want to say like, maybe it went up by like five or 10, like maybe not even that much. 3.48 milligrams per deciliter, 3.4. And so this is only the top of the iceberg. It was a tiny increase. The increase in ApoB in the total population was 0.03 grams per deciliter, I think, something like that. It was minuscule. It was so minuscule that it was clear to anybody with a modicum of clinical knowledge there is in no way, shape, or form this could account for a two-fold

increase in major adverse cardiovascular events. Then you kind of frame that by the fact that this low-carb group, presumably, quote, low quote low carb, although we'll get into how we define their low carb diet in a minute, has higher diabetes, smoking, and obesity. And it's like, yeah, I don't know what was actually driving the increased rate of heart disease in this group. Exactly. And then you build on that, that, oh, how did they collect dietary data? A one day food intake questionnaire. And then to figure out actually what the questionnaire was about, you had to go to a reference. Then you had to go to reference in that reference. And I think it was like page 13 in the reference of the reference where there's

literally a line where they're like saying, tell us what you ate yesterday. Oh, by the way, if yesterday was not a standard day of eating for you, it doesn't matter. We still want that information. And they based the grouping off of the one day questionnaire and then if they took two separate one day questionnaires the results actually weren't significant but then they argued oh it was a decreased power yada yada yada so you can start to see how there's this weird narrative building and not only that the way like this is something that does require a little bit of academic background what you'd expect to see where but this is the thing that sets off red flags for me. It's like,

okay, you're really interested in LDL levels and Applebee levels, but you don't put the absolute change in the abstract. That's weird. That's a red flag for me. And then they actually took the main cohort differences and these baseline factors, the diabetes, the obesity, and the smoking for the main cohort, and threw it into the supplement, which people don't tend to read. And it's like, very clearly, the paper was structured in such a way as to promote a narrative that was not even biologically plausible, setting aside the terrible data collection. So terrible data collection, and then misleading narrative building in the paper,

but it then gets presented in the publication. And then you have lipidologists, literally lipidologists on Twitter saying, finally, good science. That was their wording. Oh my God. And I'm like, it's finally good science because it was bashing on keto.

And that is a game that gets points on social media that people gravitate towards, whether they're an influencer or an academic, and it feeds forward because the incentive structure is built to attack certain dietary sects, including ketogenic diets. So I bring that in as an example. I can come up with many more examples in the literature where it's subtle if you're not an academician, so I don't expect people to pick up on this. I can send you the video. People can watch it, and I title it Low-Carb Lies Quite Provocatively, and I go through a few examples, including a headline. This wasn't actually the paper, but it was coverage of a major paper,

and I think the Lancet Public Health, where they talk about low-carb and keto-like diets promoting premature mortality. The keto-like diet was, it was a study broken up by, I think it was quintiles of carbohydrate intake. The lowest quintile had a carb intake threshold of 37% for carbs, which is the equivalent of a Big Mac with fries. No, sorry, a Whopper. Let me be specific. I did the math. A Whopper from Burger King with fries. And that was the macro distribution they were calling a quote ketogenic diet in the headline. That wasn't the paper, but again. That's insane. And so it's misleading. It's very misleading, but we are all very subject as human beings to the mere exposure effect. Yeah, for sure. None of us are immune to it. Even the best, you know,

highest integrity academicians. Now you can learn to challenge your biases, but if this is the narrative that you keep getting exposed to, it will ingrain itself in your psyche. And you need to be aware of that. And the media, and also to some extent, peer-reviewed literature will propagate this. And I'll tell you, most people aren't going to dig into the supplement of the supplement or the references of a reference to try to figure out like, wait, this is what they actually did. It's difficult. And sometimes there are tautologies built in and kind of circular referencing circular logic that it makes it difficult if somebody is set in their ways to actually break through and communicate what you're saying, which is something I'd run into all the time with

respect to talking about cholesterol and talking about calories. The two C words, which in the nutrition and diet space just seem to have no end of controversy. Hey, look. Oh, yeah. Which I actually, which I want to dive into. And I love everything that you just shared. And it's important for the listener to hear that and to understand that they need to know that if they don't have a certain understanding of how to read studies, that is a problem because then they could get trapped in this bias like you just mentioned. And it is incredibly concerning. I mean, I took a couple classes in school to learn how to break down studies and really understand how they actually conducted it and how to read the research and the data. But even myself, like you just telling that story,

I was going back in my brain being like, oh my gosh, I wonder if there have been studies that I have presented online and then completely misinterpreted them. And I probably have. Yeah, and I have too. We all do it because it's like, you can become better at this,

but it always requires an effort. And we never, I read a lot of papers. I try to read papers every day to really break down. Some of these papers could take hours to like properly dissect. And even then you're going to miss something. So it's, it's a matter of fact that people are going to miss things, but that's why you create a community of intellectuals who are going to pick up on different things. And then if we can create an environment that doesn't put people on their back foot and make them defensive

when somebody else points something out that you missed, and it's actually okay then in the culture where it's okay to say, oh, I missed that. Thank you for correcting me. And you don't need to feel ashamed because of that. Like that's what we need to cultivate somehow. It's just not really the community we have. 2024 is the year of fertility for me. I'm just naming that right now. While I am not actively trying to get pregnant, this is not an announcement for that. I do know that it can take a couple years to get your body ready and fertile for pregnancy. And I do know that I very much desire to have kids. And I also know that pregnancy and postpartum are some of the most nutritionally demanding times in a woman's life. And a mom and

her baby's health now and for years to come is influenced by her nutrient status. Also, a woman's fertility is also influenced by her nutrient status. So I am really taking this year to focus on all the things that I can do in order to set up my fertility for hopefully the best outcome that I can have. Most prenatal vitamins include bare minimum nutrition based on outdated guidance and stale research. And we deserve to thrive, not just survive. This is why I really love this company Needed. They offer radically better nutrition products, education and advocacy rooted in clinical research and practitioner validation. I know that there's so many women's

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with third-party tests, testing every batch to ensure the safest product. Needed offers radically better nutrition for women from conception to pregnancy to new motherhood and beyond. If you would like to try any of their products today, head over to thisisneeded.com and use code realfoodology for 20% off your first month of needed products. Again, that is thisisneeded.com and use code realfoodology for 20% off. Snacks. Let's talk about snacks. Everyone loves snacks. And I feel like it's hard to find a good snack that actually fills you up and that you really crave and like to eat. I am obsessed with the grass-fed beef sticks from Paleo Valley. If you guys follow me on Instagram, you probably saw recently that I literally went to this show downtown and my girlfriends were

making fun of me because when I met up with them, I literally had a Paleo Valley beef stick sticking out of my pocket. My friend goes, are you packing meat in there? I was. I always have a Paleo Valley stick with me either in my purse or I always shove a bunch of them in my car and just leave them in there for emergencies, for snack emergencies. I'm always bringing them places on hikes, you name it. I always have them on me because they're such a great snack. It's a great source of protein. They taste really good. They come from 100% grass-fed beef and they're really high quality.

It's only organic spices in there. You're not going to find any other fillers. And you know what I love so much? Their beef comes from 100% grass-fed cows raised entirely on natural grass pastures by family farmers right here in the US. And they also are committed to supporting regenerative farms, which is really important. If you guys are not into beef, if beef is not really your thing, they also have pasture-raised turkey sticks, and they also have pasture raised pork sticks. So they have a variety of different flavors and all different kinds of meats to serve your meat desires. And if you guys go to paleovalley.com slash real foodology, you're going to save 20%. Make sure you go to paleovalley.com slash realfoodology. You're going to save some money.

Also check out everything else they have on that website. They have superfood bars. They have organic super greens. They also have bone broth protein. They have grass fed whey protein. They have essential electrolytes. They also have a superfood golden milk, which is going to be really good going into fall. So make sure you guys check it out, use the code realfoodology and you're going to save some money. It's really not the community we have. And you and I were talking about this a little bit before we started recording, and I'm going to use it as a segue to go into talking about artificial sweeteners. Because one, I want to know what your stance is on artificial sweeteners. And also the reason I bring this up is because I am continually

shocked by the amount of people that I would consider generally to be colleagues in this space that will come out and defend drinking things like Diet Coke. And now I say that I actually don't 100% know what your stance is on artificial sweeteners, I am inherently of the thought that things like aspartame, sucralose, what's the other one? What's the really, which one did you say? Ace K. Oh yeah, saccharin are not good for us. Yeah. So I would say, uncharacteristically for me, I'll be brief on my initial response. Yes, I agree. But what I would say, one, they're a tool like many other things. Sometimes they're the lesser of two evils, and that's fine. I will never judge someone for their individual choice. If somebody has a Diet Coke, I don't care. That's their choice. However, I want them to have it in an informed

manner. And so I actually think it's worth talking about the drawbacks, which there are. And I think people like to get into the camp of they're just bad or they're just good. I'm going to defend them depending on which, you know, camp you've planted your flagpole in. And this boils down to people liking heuristics. It's easy to think, oh, it has no calories, so it's benign. Or, you know, it has no calories and it's sweet. So there, you know, there's no such thing as a free lunch. I should be skeptical. The fact of the matter is those are both at some level, lazy heuristics. Sweeteners in general, I'm going to broaden it beyond artificial sweeteners, include natural like stevia or rare sugars like allulose are a broad and heterogeneous group of molecules. So it's like, you know, protein sources are different.

Tofu, eggs, they're both protein, but they're very different and they have different biological effects. Not to say either of those is better or worse. I'm trying to place a value statement. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I get my point. Yeah. So it requires dissecting the literature on each one and their metabolic impacts and the

context around which they're consumed. So I'll give you an example. And then I actually want to dive into like limitations of literature, but let's take sucralose. That's most commonly in Splenda. It's the brand name, which I think, you know, Splenda endorses or ADA endorses a lot of Splenda recipes. They have some synergy. You go to the American Diabetes Association food hub. They have a ton of Splenda recipes. So I did a video on that. I found it interesting. Anyway. Very interesting. Plus, are there other data on sucralose being harmful for humans? Well, let's, you know, look at the human randomized control trials first. Are there data?

Absolutely there are. There was a study out of Yale in 2020 by Dana Small's lab, who does incredible work. And they were looking at the effects of, I think it was seven drinks over two weeks in a cohort of adults and then a subgroup of teenagers. And what they found was that sucralose, when, so actually it was, let me explain the study design. It was three arms arms there was a standard sugar drink there was a for 120 calories and seven of them over two weeks there was a sucralose sweetened drink that was sweet taste mash but zero calories and then there was a combination group where there was um maltodextrin which is you know a high glycemic load of sugar, and sucralose. And their initial hypothesis was, this is a great example of posing a bold hypothesis and actually being wrong,

was an uncoupling hypothesis where they thought there would be metabolic dysfunction if they provided sweet without the calories, where your body's like, it makes sense, right? Your body's like, oh, I taste sweet. Oh, but I didn't get calories. Oh, no, oh, no, I need to adjust. That was the uncoupling hypothesis. What they actually ended up finding is that when consumed alone, sucralose didn't promote insulin resistance, at least in a short two week trial at a moderate to low dose. Doesn't mean over the longer term, it couldn't have damaging impacts on the microbiome. A little return on

that. Let's set that aside because I want to emphasize context. What they found was that whereas the regular sugar didn't induce insulin resistance, when you combined the high glycemic load sugar, the maltodextrin with the sucralose, profound insulin resistance was induced in just two weeks. The reason this is interesting, a few reasons. One is, well, this is the context in which they're generally consumed, right? You generally have carbs with the sweetener. If you have a beverage that has a sweetener in it, you typically have a meal. You have Splenda in your coffee and you have a bagel, the carb is there. Or you get a sweetened yogurt, like a light and fit yogurt, carbs plus the sucralose. You know what I mean? So this is actually the real world use typically is in mixed meal diets, as opposed to like, you know, based on these data, it'd be much better. Or

let's say the metabolic impact of a pack of Splenda or two will be far less in a cup of black coffee in the morning while you're fasted than it would be, you know, as part of a mixed meal. So there's actually, you know, important context here, but really interesting. Yeah. It did induce insulin resistance. Also, it promoted changes in brain activity in the dopamine circuits, the mesolimbic reward circuits, the brain on fMRI. It wasn't clear if it was a top down process of brain changes causing insulin resistance or insulin resistance causing brain changes or, you know, a basal change that caused both changes or physiological change that was like common to

both underlying both that remains to be worked out, but there was an effect on the brain and insulin resistance induced. And they did a sub analysis in a group of teenagers, 13 to 17. And the reason they did this is because when you're a teenager and you're growing, you have like a physiologic insulin resistance that's induced. So you get hyperinsulinemic and this is because you're growing. They found the changes in HOMA-IR, marker of insulin resistance, were so profound that they terminated the study early on ethical grounds. And here's an interesting thing. Think about this. If there are changes in the brain too, which there were, if it were a top-down process whereby brain changes were causing peripheral insulin resistance, could it be that you're affecting a critical period in development that could cement itself throughout your adolescence and set you up for metabolic disease later in life?

That is really interesting. Now, to be clear, these data don't say that, but that's a possibility that we should consider when making our own choices or if we have teenage children, you know, in terms of what they eat. So I would say there are definitely randomized controlled human trial data suggesting that these can be harmful to our health, but context does matter. I'll pause there because then I want to give another example that's not an RCT, and I'll show you why it's so important and it's not an RCT. So let's talk about aspartame, which is in Diet Coke, right? I think one of my favorite studies on aspartame was in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2022. And it was a mouse study. And what it showed, this has actually been shown in at least one human RCT, it was marked as

irritability, but rather than anxiety, but it showed that a low dose of aspartame equivalent to eight to 15% of I think the FDA permitted limit for a day, equivalent to two to four diet cokes, promoted anxiety in mice. Now now the reason it was a mouse study and the reason it's important it's a mouse study is they actually weren't just looking at anxiety in people or in not people i guess let's let's give mice their humanhood no um in in mice but they wanted to look was there a transgenerational impact because these things can change you know your epigenetics so the question is a bold hypothesis, but if you exposed mice to the equivalent of two to four Diet Cokes per day, and then it promotes anxiety, what if you looked at

the offspring of those mice? In particular, they were offspring of male mice in this study, hashtag spermatogenesis. But those offspring had never been exposed to sweetener, could they still have the anxiety phenotype based on the exposure of their parents and their grandparents? And it turned out, yeah, they could, which is crazy. That's really crazy. And here's the thing. It's like, you could say, well, this isn't a human trial. I'm like, but you're is the data we have given this and the caveats that come with that data, those data, data, plural. Do I, is this Diet Coke something that I want to have, or does this give me pause to swap it out for, you know, goodness forbid, you have a sparkling water. Is that so terrible? Do you know what I mean? So in the end, if you

hear me talk about this, this mouse data, let's just, we'll leave it as one mouse data study, one mouse study for aspartame. If you still want to have a Diet Coke, great. You're now more informed and you can make a more informed choice. And I won't judge you for that. Personally, I'm great with water, so I'm just going to have some freaking water. But I think what I'd say is all these molecules are unique. They have unique impacts depending on context.

And we just need to accept that. And also there are some like, I think stevia, the literature I've read, it's pretty benign. Allulose might even have metabolic benefits. Ben Bickman's lab just came out with a study showing that as compared to stevia, allulose was protective against western diet induced obesity in mice and there's also literature on it you know basically acting at the um well acting having beneficial effects on fat cells fat cell physiology we can get into all this it's derived from some of the glp-1 literature i have a whole different video on that

but um and and also being a natural glp-1cer, that's a whole different topic because it's not promoting like semaglutide level equivalents of GLP-1, so I don't want to give that impression. But there's definitely interesting physiology, I'm just saying, with that natural rare sugar, whereby I would argue on balance. And let me actually just be clear, I'm on the scientific advisory board of RX sugar and how you this company. So that's my CEO, but I joined them because I'm interested in the science of this molecule. So like, I'm not anti low calorie sweetener. I'm just saying like, these are diverse molecules are super interesting. And you can have them but just be willing to learn a little bit more about them. So you can make an informed choice. Because what I'm saying is like, you could just have them, but just be willing to learn a little bit more about them so you can make an informed choice.

Because what I'm saying is, like, you could just have water. You could just have a Diet Coke. Or maybe there's a middle ground or, like, an eat your cake or have your cake and eat it too, where you have, like, a sparkling water with a little bit of lime and you put a little bit of, like, you know, allulose in it. And you enjoy it just as much as a Diet Coke, but then you don't have to worry about poisoning your sperm if you're a guy.

You know what I mean? Yes, yes. Well, and there was that really interesting thing that happened around last year when I actually need to look into this, and maybe you know what's happening currently, but the World Health Organization was set to claim that aspartame was a human carcinogen. And then there was all of that controversy

because then the American Beverage Association started paying RDs to say that aspartame was actually not harmful. And then in fact, it was really good for us. And then there was people going on Good Morning America saying like, oh, you have to drink like a hundred Diet Cokes a day or something. And there was all this controversy around it. And my thought was that I would err on the side of caution

and say, okay, if there's any sort of concern about it being a human carcinogen, why don't we use something like allulose monk fruit or stevia instead? Yeah. What I'd say is, one, I skimmed over that report when it came out. I will be totally honest, I skimmed it. So I'm not going to give informed comments on the mechanisms and data behind the carcinogenic potential of aspartame. I have noted like a lot of journals, including like Cell and Nature publishing the physiological basis for why this might be. And my understanding is there is, there are some data supporting that approach. What I would ask people to think to themselves is even if the data is weak and let's say incomplete,

and there are studies that you'd like to be done, where do you place the burden of proof? Is it the burden of proof of science to prove without a shadow of a doubt that it's carcinogenic? Or can you have some suggestion in the literature combined with biological plausibility and be like, maybe let's pause until we prove unequivocally that it's safe. So that's an individual choice. I would say my impression based on what I've read is there is carcinogenic potential. However, that does not mean you have a diet Coke and like a glial blastoma multiform erupts in your brain. And with respect to aspartame, I mean, like cancer is a hot topic, but let's just say there's no carcinogenic potential of aspartame. Let's just say that for sake of argument.

What about all the other things? What about the thing we just talked about? Like there's so many other things that, you know, sucralose is an example. We talked about how it caused insulin resistance. And then if I told you like, you know, there's no data sucralose causes osteoporosis. I'm like, okay, let's set aside that use case. Like, let's talk about everything else. So I think the preponderance of data would suggest that aspartame, sucralose, saccharin, most artificial sweeteners, the actual artificial sweeteners are

not good for your body. That doesn't mean you can't have them. It just means there are a lot of concerns ranging from microbiome disruption, insulin resistance, anxiety phenotypes at different levels of evidence appropriate to the question being asked again. So if I'm asking, could this cause anxiety in your offspring? I'm not going to do an RCT. If I want to see, can this induce insulin resistance in two weeks, then I do an RCT. So those are the two studies we just talked about. But yeah, the literature suggests they are or can be harmful. It doesn't mean you can't use them, but that's what the literature says. There was also a recent study that came out. It was either

last year or the year before saying that sucralose, they found sucralose to be a genotoxin, which to translate that means that it damages our DNA. Yeah. So that's a basis for carcinogenicity. Exactly. Which is a big concern. Yeah. It depends what your concerns are. Again, it's like. Yeah, fair. From what you've heard, again, mere exposure effect.

You're going to hear a lot of things. You can measure me based on what you've heard in this podcast if you think I'm trying to be honest and authentic. But ask yourself, how much do you like this? Do you still want it? Is there a better substitute? Because we like to create these binaries. Like, oh, if I say something, this has happened before,

where I break down an artificial sweetener paper and it's like, how dare Nick say that Diet Coke is bad and worse than Coke? I'm like, I didn't say that. You just made that up. You created this artificial sweetener. I'm just saying, here's the data on this thing. I'm not saying Coke is better. I'm saying, well, water is probably better.

You can have this, but it has these concerns. It's the same with literally any food stuff. And in the end, I think all of us just need to make adult decisions in the moment and sit comfortably with them, whatever they are. An example that comes to mind just because it's like it's happened to friends of mine is like, friends of mine that are interested in metabolic health, but they have young children and like their daughter comes that it's like made them a grilled cheese sandwich, or like says, Daddy, can we get some ice cream? And they choose in that moment to sit on a summer day with their three year old daughter and have a scoop of ice cream. Not because it's good for their metabolic health, or it's gonna, you know, get them the six pack, because they want to enjoy that moment with their daughter and it's worth it

for them. And that's not only understandable, it's almost admirable. It is admirable at a level, but that doesn't mean we should go off to say you should eat ice cream for your health. So like we can just acknowledge we have the data and then we have the human context in which we can place the data. And I'm of the mind that if you, for the most part, I say this all the time, it's all about consistency. It's not about perfection. And for me, what I strive for is to overall be really healthy and resilient so that my body is resilient for those times that I want to go out to eat with my boyfriend and have ice cream afterwards. Am I doing that every single night?

No, because then I would be a metabolic mess. But if I take care of my health and I really prioritize whole real foods, putting a CGM on and seeing where my overall metabolic health is and measuring my A1C and making sure that everything for the most part is really good so that then I can go out with friends and enjoy that meal. Yeah. And I think that's actually valuable. We were talking about like what makes a good quote, we didn't use the word influencer, but I'd say influencer. And like one thing I love to look for in people is like, can you gather when they're being their authentic self, when they're revealing things about themselves that might make them seem vulnerable, but they're just showing their whole humanity, even if it could be attacked as an

inconsistency. An example I'll give you that is, because I brought it up on other podcasts, like I'm a guy that likes to talk about metabolic health all the time. I would probably tell you, no, it's not good to have a lot of sugar intake. You want to know one thing I'm trying to do this summer with my girlfriend? We have a mission to make like cheesecakes, like a lot of sugar intake you want to know one thing i'm trying to do this summer with my girlfriend we have a mission to make like cheesecakes like a lot of really good cheesecakes i don't mean low-carb cheesecake she's not low-carb just like make great cheesecakes and actually i have my cheesecake bible right here um and the reason i bring it up as a funny example and the reason i'm like i i opened i've been bringing up as an example a few times, it's like, look, do you want to call me a hypocrite for being like a metabolic health guy, but then making cheesecakes and like spreading

sugar into the world? I mean, you can if you want. But the fact of the matter is, I have my public persona, I have my educated persona. I have the son that I am to my parents, the brother that I am to my siblings, the boyfriend that I am to my girlfriend. And there's a part of me that understands the like cultural and love aspects of food and just wants to do that as an activity with my girlfriend. And I don't think that makes me dishonest or a hypocrite. I think it just makes me human. I wish we had a little bit more of that transparency

and authenticity and multi-layeredness in the discussions. It does creep up every now and then. And anytime it does, I really appreciate it. Because it's just like, it's nice. It's nice to know the person you're listening to is trying to be authentic with you, not trying to, you know, sell you something. Well, and I think also it speaks to the fact that there's many different ways to be unhealthy in this life. And it doesn't all boil down just to diet. I mean, I've shared this many times with my audience, but I went through a phase when I was first learning

about nutrition and metabolic health and everything. And I was so extreme in my ways that if I was invited out to dinner with friends, I would eat my meal beforehand and then I would just show up and have drinks with them because I didn't want to expose myself to non-organic food. I was worried about the seed oils. And now don't get me wrong, nothing about my personality has made me not worried about those anymore. But I realized that I was also holding myself back from a really healthy part of participating in society and in community, which is like, I like to go out sometimes and have a meal with my friends.

Do I do it all the time? No. Do I try to go to restaurants that prioritize healthier oils that they cook with and organic food and higher sourced, high quality meat? Yes. But am I always doing that? No.

And to your point, that humanizes me. It also makes it to where I'm not living in this bubble that's also not healthy of anxiety and food fear. And there's a balance to it. Yeah. I think it's interesting what unites centenarians, like the people that live to be 100, 110. It's never a dietary factor. In fact, you often interview like, what is the secret to longevity? I've had patients like this who are near 100. And they'll joke like, I didn't exercise. I didn't smoke. Secret of like longevity is cake or something. Actually, the sharpest patient I ever had, she had the brain of a 20 year old. It was like a lifelong smoker, but what she had and what she that's wild that's on 80 years smoking history a pack here but

what she had what all other people that I think have profound longevity have is a sense of purpose and a site tight-knit social community for longevity I do think that those factors Trump most dietary factors and there isn't like a one clear one best diet. Actually, the diet literature on longevity is pretty poor, but to the broader point, well, one, don't smoke. I'm not encouraging that. But there is something to having equanimity to your approach to health, that you actually need to enjoy the process. If it's causing extreme anxiety, there's something wrong that needs to be investigated so that you can direct your efforts in the most functional and pleasurable way. But really, I think the metabolic health journey should be something

that is enjoyable and a privilege and not a chore. So if you have anxiety around these things, just think about that. Think about how you can attenuate that because overall it's probably going to do better for your health, even if it means that you end up in a restaurant where they cooked your steak in corn oil. Exactly. And let me be very clear, this is not a permission to just have a free for all and go eat McDonald's every day and, you know, go out to eat for every meal. Because unfortunately we're living in a time right now where we, we need to be aware that a lot of these food like products are now showing up in restaurants and obviously fast food we know is

not healthy, but there is something to be said about finding that balance in yourself where you prioritize. I remind the listener all the time, control the controllables, what you bring into your home, the consistency in your diet, the things that you are doing on a consistent basis, and that includes your habits, the foods that you're eating consistently. Overall, try to eat really healthy so that you can have that flexibility and so that you can also enjoy and live your life. Thank you so much for listening to The Real Foodology Podcast. This is a Wellness Loud production produced by Drake Peterson and mixed by Mike Fry. so that you can also educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and doesn't constitute a provider

patient relationship. I am a nutritionist, but I am not your nutritionist. As always, talk to your doctor or your health team first.