The Dr. Hyman Show - How To Master Hunger And Cravings with Dr. Elizabeth Boham

Episode Date: September 13, 2021

How To Master Hunger And Cravings | This episode is brought to you by Rupa Health and Athletic Greens So many of my patients tell me they feel their food cravings have gotten out of control and a lack... of willpower is driving their weight gain, generally making them feel like crap. But, the truth is, this is not a matter of willpower. Our industrial food industry produces food-like substances specifically made to hook our taste buds with every bite, hijacking our brain chemistry and metabolism, and giving rise to disease. Our bodies actually have a finely-tuned appetite control system that is governed by certain hormones. However, our modern diet, elevated stress, and inadequate sleep impairs this system, leading us to crave the wrong foods and feel hungry all the time.  In this episode, Dr. Hyman discusses our natural hunger regulator, ghrelin, with Dr. Elizabeth Boham. They talk about how this hormone works and what can interrupt its natural production. They also discuss strategies to help the body regulate hunger naturally. Elizabeth Boham is a physician and nutritionist who practices Functional Medicine at The UltraWellness Center in Lenox, MA. Through her practice and lecturing she has helped thousands of people achieve their goals of optimum health and wellness. She witnesses the power of nutrition every day in her practice and is committed to training other physicians to utilize nutrition in healing. Dr. Boham has contributed to many articles and wrote the latest chapter on Obesity for the Rankel Textbook of Family Medicine. She is part of the faculty of the Institute for Functional Medicine and has been featured on the Dr. Oz show and in a variety of publications and media including Huffington Post, The Chalkboard Magazine, and Experience Life. Her DVD Breast Wellness: Tools to Prevent and Heal from Breast Cancer explores the Functional Medicine approach to keeping your breasts and whole body well. This episode is brought to you by Rupa Health and Athletic Greens. Rupa Health is a place for Functional Medicine practitioners to access more than 2,000 specialty lab tests from over 20 labs like DUTCH, Vibrant America, Genova, Great Plains, and more. You can check out a free live demo with a Q&A or create an account at RupaHealth.com.  Athletic Greens is offering Doctor’s Farmacy listeners a full year supply of their Vitamin D3/K2 Liquid Formula free with your first purchase, plus 5 free travel packs. Just go to athleticgreens.com/hyman to take advantage of this great offer. In this conversation, Dr. Hyman and Dr. Boham discuss: What ghrelin is and how it affects hunger and cravings How ghrelin works to tell us we are full The effects of gastric bypass surgery on ghrelin Why diet, sleep, and stress affect ghrelin Case study of a 45-year-old male’s weight loss The role of sleep apnea on ghrelin levels and weight  Functional Medicine strategy to regulate hunger Additional Resources: Why Obesity, Hunger, and Malnutrition are Found Together in the Same People How Sleep Apnea Drives Weight Gain, Memory Loss, High Blood Pressure, ADHD, and More We Got it Wrong When It Comes to Weight Loss with Dr. Rangan Chatterjee The Secret to Losing Weight and Feeling Great Stopping the Stress Epidemic What is Driving Your Poor Sleep and How Can You Fix It? Book Mentioned in This Episode: Always Hungry? By David Ludwig, MD, PhD

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Coming up on this episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. Getting off of processed foods and onto real whole foods, that natural ability for us to regulate our hunger just happens. So one of the biggest things we can all do is just stop eating things with labels on them. Hey everyone, it's Dr. Mark. I know a lot of you out there are practitioners like me, helping patients heal using real food and functional medicine as your framework for getting to the root cause.
Starting point is 00:00:30 What's critical to understanding what each individual person and body needs is testing, which is why I'm excited to tell you about Rupa Health. Looking at hormones, organic acids, nutrient levels, inflammatory factors, gut bacteria, and so many other internal variables can help us find the most effective path to optimize health and reverse disease. But up till now, that meant you were usually ordering tests for one patient from multiple labs. And I'm sure many of you can relate how time-consuming this process was, and then it could all feel like a lot of work to keep track of. Now there's Rupa Health, a place for functional
Starting point is 00:01:05 medicine practitioners to access more than 2,000 specialty labs from over 20 labs like Dutch, Fibrin America, Genova, Great Plains, and more. Rupa Health helps provide a significantly better patient experience and it's 90% faster, letting you simplify the entire process of getting the functional medicine lab tests you need and giving you more time to focus on patients. This is really a much needed option in functional medicine space and I'm so excited about it. It means better service for you and your patients. You can check it out and look at a free live demo with a Q&A or create an account at rupahealth.com. That's r-u-p-a-health.com. My main goal with diet is to use food as medicine. But even when we eat super well,
Starting point is 00:01:49 most of us are missing out on certain essential nutrients. Our soils have become depleted and our digestive tracts just aren't working so great. They're compromised by stress and toxins and they just can't absorb nutrients as efficiently as they should. And that's why I always use, and I recommend to my patients, a multivitamin mineral as nutritional insurance.
Starting point is 00:02:06 It covers the basics for all our day-to-day body functions, all the things that we need that our food might be missing. But there are so many products out there I wouldn't go near because they contain artificial fillers or inactive ingredients, and you have to be pretty picky. The one I trust and take myself is Athletic Greens. They use high-quality, highly absorbable forms of vitamins and nutrients from real whole foods. Athletic Greens comes in a powder that tastes great and mixes easily with water or smoothies and specifically supports my gut health, immunity, energy, and recovery. And it's not just vitamins
Starting point is 00:02:41 and minerals. It has phytonutrient rich superfoods and adaptogens and pre and probiotics and even digestive enzymes. I love that they add the digestive support in their powder since so much of our immune strength and overall wellness starts in the gut. It's really one supplement that covers so many bases and you'd be hard-pressed to find something else in this comprehensive form in any single other product. I use Athletic Greens in the morning as part of my daily routine and I love having it with me whenever I travel. I also love that it's diet friendly, whether you're vegan, paleo, keto, dairy-free, or gluten-free. Right now, Athletic
Starting point is 00:03:16 Greens is offering my audience a full year supply of their vitamin D3 K2 Liquid Formula, free with your first purchase. Now, these two nutrients are also so vital for a strong immune system and strong bones, and many of us are not getting enough of them. I use the Athletic Greens Powder and their D3 K2 Formula to make sure I get extra nutrients that complement my diet. They're also going to give you five free travel packs as well. Just go to athleticgreens.com forward slash hyman to get your free year supply of vitamin D3 and K2 and five free travel packs with your first purchase. You'll get it delivered straight to your door and I promise you'll feel the difference
Starting point is 00:03:55 Athletic Greens can make in your daily wellness routine. Again, that's athleticgreens.com forward slash hyman. Now let's get back to this week's episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. Welcome to The Doctor's Pharmacy. I'm Dr. Mark Hyman. That's pharmacy with an F, F-A-R-M-A-C-Y, a place for conversations that matter. And if you're ever hungry or hungry all the time or can't figure out why you can't stop eating or binging, you better listen up because this is a podcast. that's going to help you understand why and what to do about it. And
Starting point is 00:04:28 it's with none other than my friend, colleague, and medical director at the Ultra Wellness Center, Dr. Elizabeth Boham, and one of our special episodes called House Call. And today we're so excited to have you back to talk about this really vexing problem, which is hunger. And if we all didn't struggle with eating and overeating and obesity, it wouldn't be a big deal. But our hunger regulation is something that most of us don't think about. We think we're at the effect of our hunger and not at the cause of our hunger, that we can't really do anything about it, that if we have cravings and we want to eat bagels and muffins and donuts and we just have to have them, then there's just nothing we can do because willpower certainly can't fight those
Starting point is 00:05:11 cravings and urges. And we think that's just how our bodies work. But I can tell you and you can tell me and we can tell each other after seeing so many thousands of patients that this just isn't true, that we do understand the science of hunger. And we're going to talk about hunger today in a particular way, because I think there's so much we can do to regulate our appetite so we're not starving and overeating. And I found that for myself, if you don't eat right, you do definitely feel your blood sugar swing all over the place. You feel hungry and you feel out of sorts and you tend to overeat. So none of us want to do that. So how do we naturally regulate our appetite? And I think most people don't understand that if you have an inherent, that you have an inherent wisdom in your body that knows how to regulate the hormones that
Starting point is 00:05:54 control your weight and your metabolism and appetite. If you're off just by a hundred calories a day and you're, and by the way, nobody can count calories because it's kind of a ridiculous effort in the sense that you can guesstimate, but if you're off 100 calories a day, over the course of 20 or 30 years, that's 30 or 40 pounds of weight gain in terms of the cumulative effect of those 100 calories that you're off every day. So it's really about letting your body's own intelligence come back to find out how to regulate these. So let's tell us about the sort of biology of hunger and particularly about this particular hormone ghrelin, which is, you know, maybe people heard about it, don't really know what it's about. It's really an important appetite regulator.
Starting point is 00:06:33 And the key to appetite regulation is regulating this particular compound, ghrelin, which is so prevalent and so dysregulated in our bodies. Yeah. Oh, Mark, it's great to be with you and everybody again today. So thanks for having me. And I think it's such an important topic, like you said, because when our hunger is out of control, it is very hard to control what we eat and why we eat. And so it's important to understand how all these hormones work together. And like you mentioned, taking a step back and listening to the natural intelligence of our body is really important for maintaining a
Starting point is 00:07:12 healthy weight and having great energy and vitality. And so ghrelin is really an interesting hormone. And it is secreted from the stomach, mostly stomach and part of the small intestine. And it goes to the brain. And then it says to the brain, okay, you better eat. You're hungry. So it is that hormone that makes us feel hungry. And so when we eat, typically, our ghrelin levels go down. And we'll talk about this a little later.
Starting point is 00:07:44 Sometimes our food composition, what we eat in a typical meal, impacts our ghrelin levels go down. And we'll talk about this a little later. Sometimes our food composition, what we eat in a typical meal impacts our ghrelin levels differently. So when we eat, typically our ghrelin levels go down and it says, okay, now you're full and you can stop eating. And so one of the reasons people always say, don't eat too fast, or if you're hungry, take a few minutes to make sure you still want to get seconds is just to give the body time for that, for the hormones to shift. So and for that, you know, ghrelin level to go down. So the other reason we know a lot about ghrelin is because when people lose weight, they often feel more hungry. And, always explain this to my patients. I'm like,
Starting point is 00:08:29 they need to and want to lose weight. And when they do, sometimes they feel more hungry for a period of time. And I think that's a really natural, normal thing. And we sometimes have to work through that to continue to get to our goal if we're working to lose weight. So we've got a lot of hormones that have an influence on what we choose to eat and when we choose to eat. Yeah, it's so critical because if we don't understand how those are regulated, it's really a big deal. I think when you're not eating and when you're losing weight and when you haven't eaten for a while, your body will naturally produce this hormone in your stomach that makes you hungry which is a good thing uh so we don't we don't starve to death right right and so you know it goes down if you
Starting point is 00:09:17 eat and you know and so forth but um if you have um a diet that's causing, um, a dysregulation of that hormones, um, it can really create a problem. And I think, you know, we mentioned the microbiome, which also is key, but, uh, the, the, you know, if you're overweight, it seems like the, this hunger is so dysregulated. So people are literally overeating and they're already so obese. And it just seems to be counterintuitive. Why would people feel like they need energy if they're already so overweight and they have so much energy in their body? But it really is about this particular hormone rate that's being dysregulated.
Starting point is 00:09:56 I mean, one of the things we know with ghrelin is when people, when they do gastric bypass surgery on people, their ghrelin levels do decrease. And one of the reasons why that surgery can be successful, I say that with some caution, because there's, depends on how you define success. And there's a lot of issues with the surgery that, you know, important for us to talk about, but where they can be successful for some people is decreasing that ghrelin levels and helping their hunger. And not that I recommend the surgery necessarily for people, but that is one way that it works because it decreases your hunger. Yes. So tell us about how, from a lifestyle
Starting point is 00:10:39 perspective, we're affecting ghrelin and what we can do with our diet, with our timing of eating, with sleep and other factors that are really driving a lot of issues. Yeah. One of the things we know is when we have a meal that has sufficient amount of protein in it, that our ghrelin levels decrease and we feel less hungry with that type of a meal. So it's really important. We've talked a lot about how insulin can trigger hunger too, right? But ghrelin also. So when we eat a meal that's balanced, that has sufficient protein and fat, along with all the good healthy carbohydrates, that helps with making us feel more full and not as hungry. So it's really important to think about each of your meals in your day and say,
Starting point is 00:11:21 okay, did I have sufficient protein there? And remember, protein is like your eggs and fish and chicken and beef and beans and legumes and nuts and seeds. And that protein will help when you consume it, help that ghrelin go down and make you feel more satiated after a meal. And ghrelin is one of those reasons that that occurs. You mentioned also with lifestyle, sleep. Sleep is critical. When people are sleep deprived, ghrelin levels go up and they're more hungry. And so we're seeing an epidemic of sleep deprivation in this country and worldwide even, right? So we're seeing this epidemic of sleep deprivation, which is one thing that's driving higher levels of ghrelin. And we want to make sure that we're getting adequate sleep. If somebody has this process called sleep apnea, if somebody has interrupted sleep where they're
Starting point is 00:12:17 having episodes where they're not getting oxygen into the body, that's what sleep apnea is. They're having episodes where either they're somewhere in their nasal area, the back of their throat that's preventing oxygen from getting into the body. Then the body has to wake itself up to take a deep breath. So people will often be snoring and then will stop breathing for a period of time and then take this really big, deep breath. They might not even realize they're having these episodes of apnea or not getting oxygen into the body. But what we're learning is that when you have sleep apnea, ghrelin levels are higher. So people who have sleep apnea have higher levels of ghrelin.
Starting point is 00:13:02 And again, one reason why that drives this vicious cycle of weight gain, obesity, weight gain, obesity, fatigue, hunger, hunger, hunger, right? So it drives this vicious cycle. They know that when people have sleep apnea, their levels of ghrelin are higher than the same group of people that even have the same body weight. So even if both groups are overweight or obese, if you have sleep apnea, your level of ghrelin will be higher. And so it's really important that we pay attention to the sleep, work with our patients and find out, you know, are they getting adequate sleep, first of all, and, you know, adequate hours of sleep, that is, and of the hours of sleep that they're
Starting point is 00:13:45 getting, are they restful? Are they sufficient? Is there any concern about apnea or something that would be disrupting their sleep? But Liz, it's really true that sleep apnea is a big factor. I remember a patient I had who was a lawyer and telling me about his struggle to lose weight, and he needed to lose about 50 pounds. He says, nothing you can do about it. I said, well, tell me about your life. What do you do? He said, well, I'm a lawyer. I'm like, what do you do? I'm going to do this and that. But I have to stand up on my desk every day to work. Otherwise I fall asleep at my desk. I'm like, oh, well, maybe you have sleep apnea. So we tested him. He had severe sleep apnea. We put him on a CPAP machine and he lost 50 pounds like that. And I think, you know, most people don't understand the connection between sleep.
Starting point is 00:14:26 But it's not just sleep apnea if you're not getting enough sleep. And you and I both as doctors know that when we are on call and we're working all night or we don't sleep, that we tend to crave more food. We crave carbs, we crave sugar, and our appetite is so screwed up. And I remember this one study. It was healthy young 20-year-olds who weren't overweight who were sleep-deprived on purpose compared to a control group. And they found that the sleep-deprived group were much hungrier and they were craving more carbs and sugar. So that's an interesting phenomenon. That's why we see such an incredible consumption in this country of these products who are sleep-
Starting point is 00:14:58 deprived as a nation and we have poor quality sleep. And there's 70 million people that suffer from some type of sleep issue, which is a lot of people. I think maybe even more, actually. It's a lot of people. And so it's not just sleep apnea, but it's all the sleep deprivation. And so what about sugar and carbs and stuff and artificial sweeteners? How does that affect ghrelin? And how do we should be thinking about our diet in terms of rate on your appetite when we eat those things? Yeah, you know, so it's interesting that foods, you know, foods will, when we're, our stomach is empty, we produce more ghrelin.
Starting point is 00:15:33 And then when we eat, our ghrelin level decreases and we feel more full, right? So, or we're not as hungry. So we know that carbohydrates as well as protein and fat can all result in a lower ghrelin release. And as I mentioned earlier, it's really important to have that meal that's balanced with good protein and fat and fiber to feel full and cause that suppression of ghrelin. But one study that was really interesting, there were many studies that are interesting, they're looking at these non-caloric sweeteners and how they impact the ghrelin. And so they've been able to show that artificial sweeteners don't suppress ghrelin in the body. So we think that when we are reaching for these low calorie sweeteners, these artificial sweeteners, that, okay, we are not getting any calories, but we're getting this substance that is, you know, going to, it is going to make us feel more, more satiated, but actually not at all. So artificial sweeteners don't suppress the ghrelin levels in the body like food does, like whether it's carbohydrates
Starting point is 00:16:47 or protein. And so, you know, people who consume artificial sweeteners actually feel more hungry a lot of the time. And that's a concern in terms of food regulation. And what you were mentioning before about listening to our body's natural hormone levels and the natural things that drive us to eat or not eat. And I think that's really important when it comes to these artificial sweeteners. We think some people will come in and be like, okay, it's like a free food, but it's really not in terms of how it's impacting our hunger and satiety. Yeah, it's true.
Starting point is 00:17:27 I mean, I think so. So you think that, oh, if you're eating something that makes you mimic sweetness, like an artificial sweetener would sort of suppress your appetite, but it doesn't. You drink artificial sweeteners and you want more and more and more food, which is really concerning. Yes. And there are a bunch of other things that affect. You mentioned stress, you know, sleep deprivation, you know,
Starting point is 00:17:46 lack of sleep in any way but also stress plays a huge role in your ghrelin right stress has a huge impact you know um stress can high levels of stress will cause us to have higher levels of ghrelin and eat more and you know isn't that fascinating you know, it kind of probably makes sense from an evolutionary perspective that if we're going through a stressful time, we want something to be triggering us to make sure we're working with our patients and help them understand that this chronic stress that they're under can really be disrupting their hunger cues. And so we know that, as I mentioned, stress can cause high levels of ghrelin. And for some people, cause them to eat. We feel more and more hungry and want to eat all the time. And so in order to help them feel less hungry, one of the things we have to talk about is that chronic stress that they're under. And what can we do to help with managing that chronic stress? You know,
Starting point is 00:18:58 whether it's getting outside and enjoying nature and doing regular exercise, getting on a good meditation program, doing your breath work every day, you know, journaling, gratitude, working with a therapist, doing some other types of treatment like EMDR or, you know, other ways to help release some of this chronic stress from the body, you know, is really important for many people. That's huge. That's huge. So the other thing that, you know, people talk about with ghrelin is, you know, other things that regulate appetite. So stress we talked about, what about other foods like protein and fiber and fat? How do those affect ghrelin? Right. Well, they'll trigger ghrelin levels to go down after you consume them. So it's really important. We work with all of our patients to say at every meal, each meal you have,
Starting point is 00:19:51 make sure you've got a good source of protein, a good source of fiber, which is all your vegetables and beans, legumes, nuts, and seeds, ground flaxseed, and healthy fat at every meal, because that's going to help you feel more satiated. It's going to help those ghrelin levels go down. I mean, we also know things like cannabis, right, can cause ghrelin to increase. And that may be why people get the munchies, right? And so it's important to understand what things you're doing and how they're impacting your hunger in your body. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that's right. I think, you know, obviously people smoke pot and they get the munchies for sure. And that drives appetite. So how do we work with people who have these problems? How do we sort of help? And by the way, you know, one of the things that I wanted to sort of mention was sort of the theory about gastric bypass. One of the theories
Starting point is 00:20:40 about gastric bypass is that since ghrelin is produced in the stomach, that when you have a gastric bypass, it shuts down the ghrelin levels. But I'm not sure if that's the only thing that's going on. And I think the reason I say that is it was a recent randomized controlled trial comparing people who had a gastric bypass with those who were matched to them, but who didn't have a bypass, but just went on the bypass diet. And they both lost the same amount of weight. Now, I don't know what their appetites were like, or if there was a difference, but they basically lost the same amount of weight. So I'm being very curious, actually, to look at the fine print of the study to see if the people who didn't have the bypass were hungry,
Starting point is 00:21:15 or they just starved them and lost weight, or if it was that they actually cut down their diet, and they actually were able to accommodate to a lower caloric intake. Yeah, I think it's really important what you just said is that, and prior, actually, prior to working with you at both Canyon Ranch and the Ultra Wellness Center, I worked in a practice where we worked with surgeons who were doing gastric bypass surgery. So I saw a lot of patients who were going through the surgery, and I saw a lot of the side effects and the negative side effects of the surgery as well. And what I think is what you mentioned is really so critical to understand is that when we can help people get off of this vicious cycle of hunger and eating and hunger and eating and hunger and eating, when we can help them break that cycle, they can be
Starting point is 00:22:02 successful at getting to where they want to be in terms of their intake of food. So you're right. Maybe at the beginning, for that group of patients who didn't have the surgery, that first couple of weeks may have been really hard of saying, OK, I'm going to really cut back on the amount of calories, the types of calories that I'm eating, the balance of my nutrients. And they might have felt really hungry for those first couple of weeks. But we see this all the time. Once people get through that time, they start to feel better. They don't have that hunger
Starting point is 00:22:35 anymore, that drive to constantly eat and snack and choose unhealthy foods. then they, they can kind of start to be successful. You know, the surgery prevents, you know, makes, you know, makes it so you can't eat for those first few weeks. And then that just spirals into, yeah. But then of course you're dealing with all the side effects of the surgery, unfortunately. So, you know, I think that is an interesting thing that we see, right? Fascinating. And, and the, you know, I think that is an interesting thing that we see, right? Fascinating. And the, you know, you've seen patients with this, and you've had, you know, I remember many patients who have struggled with this, and you get their numbers dialed in, and you kind of sort through everything with them, and they do so much better.
Starting point is 00:23:18 So can you tell us about this patient who's a 45-year-old guy who was, like, hungry all the time, was overweight and struggling with his appetite and hunger. Yeah. He came to see me and he was really trying to be healthier. He was working hard to be healthier and really frustrated that he couldn't get his weight to where he wanted it to be. He had gained 25 pounds over the last couple of years. He was feeling hungry all the time. He didn't have the same level of vibrancy anymore. He was just feeling kind of sluggish and low energy. We noted when we did his vitals and his physical exam that he had really gained a lot of weight around his abdomen and around his belly, right? That visceral adiposity,
Starting point is 00:24:11 that belly fat that's really causes a lot of inflammation in the body, causes high levels of insulin and, you know, is associated with all of those negative things like heart disease and stroke and cancer. So he gained a lot of weight around his belly. His waist to hip ratio was one, which is higher than it should be. And, you know, when you look at his diet, he was trying to be healthier, but he was grabbing coffee drink for breakfast. You know, at lunch, he was having orange juice. He had switched that out instead of soda, sandwich and chips. You know, he did have a few beers at dinner, you know, and maybe snacked on crackers and popcorn after dinner. And, you know, so he was trying, he felt like he was trying to make the healthier food choices. But we saw a lot of issues when we really delved deeper in terms of his diet, where we needed to do some work. And we also, when we got his full history, realized, you know, that he was a snorer.
Starting point is 00:25:25 So he was, you know So he was snoring frequently. And we talked about how snoring can be a sign that you may have sleep apnea. I mean, there's lots of other signs too. High blood pressure, weight gain, fatigue, falling asleep during day, or when you don't want to fall asleep. So, but because of all this, I really encouraged him to get a sleep study. And we found out that, you know, he did end up having sleep apnea. So, but what we saw with his blood work, we saw high levels of fasting insulin. They were 10. We saw a C-reactive protein, that marker for inflammation was really high. We saw that he had low levels of vitamin D, and we know vitamin D is critical for so many things in our health, including insulin sensitivity. We saw that his omega-3 fat levels, you can do something called an omega quant, which looks at the amount of omega-3s in the red blood cell membrane. And we saw that his omega-3 levels were low. And we know that omega-3s are really important for resulting in helping lower inflammation in the body. We can also do
Starting point is 00:26:16 some special testing, something called an organic acid testing. And we did that for him. And we saw that his mitochondria, which are the powerhouse of your cells, needed a lot more support. And one of the reasons that people develop problems with hunger and weight gain and insulin resistance is with issues with their mitochondria. And we saw that we needed to really support that. He had high levels of free radicals or oxidative stress. And so there were a lot of things we needed to work on with him. One of the first things we did is we got him his sleep apnea treated. He got a CPAP machine and he started to feel better right away. You know, patients resist this a lot, but, but, you know, we see that when they, when they really do jump on board and start using that CPAP machine and it's fitted right,
Starting point is 00:27:05 many times they just feel so much better. Their energy is better. And one of the reasons, and their hunger decreases because that ghrelin decreases. Because remember we said that if you have sleep deprivation or sleep apnea, your ghrelin is going to be higher and you're just going to, you're going to just be wanting to eat and eat and eat. So that was one of the first things we really, really helped him do. And it really was very helpful for that, that decreasing his hunger and that drive to just eat and eat. We also really supported him nutritionally with cutting way back on his carbohydrates, getting more vegetables in his diet, more nutrient-dense foods. We gave him some supplements that supported his mitochondria like CoQ10 and B vitamins and
Starting point is 00:27:52 alpha lipoic acid. And he did really well. I mean, with some of these simple shifts, he started to lose weight. After like six months, he, down to his ideal weight. After about four months, his waist to hip ratio got to 0.9, which is really where we wanted to see it. And he just started feeling better and he was having more energy and not hungry all the time. And he really understood what foods to choose. And then most importantly, from my perspective was that, you know, we just really decreased his risk of all sorts of diseases, right? Because we know that, that that insulin resistance pattern drives heart disease and stroke and cancer and dementia and diabetes. And, you know, so we really, you know, that,
Starting point is 00:28:35 that was really great that we were able to intervene at this age and, and I think help prevent a lot of diseases for him in the future. A hundred percent. So, you know, hunger is complicated because it's, you know, it's not, and we talked about a lot of diseases for him in the future? 100%. So, you know, hunger is complicated because it's, you know, it's not, and we talked about a lot of the aspects that regulate hunger, right? The protein you eat, the fat you eat, how much starch and sugar you eat, because those make it worse. Artificial sweeteners, whether you use substances like cannabis, for example, sleep deprivation, stress.
Starting point is 00:28:59 And so even hormones or, you know, levels of insulin, which goes along with carbohydrate intake, all drive our appetite. And so if we begin to understand how to regulate our appetite, we can really have a huge impact on our metabolism and health. Why do you think people's hunger is so dysregulated? And what are the other sort of strategies from a functional medicine perspective that we can use to help people get into the place where they're feeling even and not swinging all over the place with hunger and cravings and sugar?
Starting point is 00:29:29 I mean, I think the biggest reason that people are so dysregulated is from our food supply. You know, I think it's, you know, it's hijacked, as you always say, our taste buds and our drive for food and just helping people get onto, you know, getting off of processed foods and onto real whole foods, that natural ability for us to regulate our hunger just happens. So one of the biggest things we can all do is just stop eating things with labels on them, right? And stop eating processed food because so many things, even if they're sort of marketed as being more healthy, have things in it that contribute to hunger and dysregulated hunger signals in our body. So I think that's probably the first thing we should be focused on with everybody. So our diet and then sleep, right?
Starting point is 00:30:21 Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. The other, like we said, people are, are just sleep deprived in this country. We're living this, this, this lifestyle of sleep deprivation and chronic stress. And all of that is just driving, um, our hunger. And we're not really, you know, able to listen to our body. If we're just going, going, going, looking at our phone, you know, checking, checking an email, rushing, eating quickly, not taking the time to let our food digest and signal that we're full, we're just
Starting point is 00:30:55 rushing, rushing, rushing, and not sleeping and not managing stress, we're not paying attention to what our body naturally knows how to do. So true. So with people who are struggling with hunger and cravings, I think one of the books that I really loved about this is called Always Hungry by David Ludwig, who's a friend of ours. Brilliant book. He's a Harvard professor. And he's really studied the biology of hunger. And he showed that you can literally retrain the brain to not be hungry by regulating what you're eating, by increasing fat, protein, decreasing sugar, timing of eating when you're eating, you know, not being late at night, making sure you have a little period of fast.
Starting point is 00:31:34 Snacking is probably the worst thing in the world. When you go to the grocery store, I mean, most of the food is snack food, which is crazy. You know, and it's just like I don't even go into those aisles but it's mostly just snack food and it's just striking to me how we've kind of gotten this culture of eating all the time and snacking and hunger and ups and downs and something we can really manage by addressing these underlying biological systems and and paying attention to the simple daily rhythms that we need to follow in order to regulate our appetite and then you know i i just i just um noticed in my own biology when i am dysregulated, I get hungry, I get cravings, I want this, I want that. When I'm eating well, and I'm eating whole foods, and I'm giving myself
Starting point is 00:32:12 the nutrients I need, I don't, I don't feel hungry, I don't want, actually, I'm suddenly, you know, before dinner, I'll get a little hungry, that's fine. Or if I'm working out a lot, I'll get a little hungry. But it's not this crazy, oh, I want to eat, you know, a muffin, or I have to have something bad. So I think there's a real science of hunger and people are interested more in this topic. I'd encourage them to read his book called Always Hungry. He's got a great cookbook that goes along with it. But this is something we see all the time, Liz. We see so many people struggling with weight and with metabolism and hunger and cravings
Starting point is 00:32:38 and feel discouraged. But I found people within days can change quickly their biology and get rid of the craving, get rid of the hunger. I just remember this one woman who came to one of my workshops years ago on ultra metabolism, I think. And we basically put people on a, you know, really simple whole foods diet. We even broths and protein shakes and lots of vegetables and good quality protein, good fats. And she was like, look, I'm never going to be able to do this. I've been craving sugar my whole life. I have to eat it. I don't know what to do. I'm really worried about it. I'm so stressed. I'm like, look, just try it for a couple of days, see what happens.
Starting point is 00:33:11 And the design of the program was really designed to regulate these hormones, to regulate the ghrelin and to regulate the insulin and to regulate the blood sugar and the brain chemistry. And within two days, she's like, I can't believe it. I don't have any cravings anymore. I don't want this. I don't want that. So she's like so happy. And I think people don't realize just how close they are to feeling good. And you're bringing them all those cravings that are really driving their behavior. And you can't do it really without using the science of understanding all of this. Absolutely.
Starting point is 00:33:37 Absolutely. It's so powerful. And like people's bodies change really quickly. And they can start to feel better really quickly with just some simple changes. I agree. I love that book, Always Hungry, question mark. I recommend it to so many of my patients. So thank you, Dr. Boham, for joining us again on the Dr. Schwarmcy podcast and talking about another challenging topic we're all struggling with, which is weight and hunger. I think, you know, given the science of functional medicine and our approach here at the Ultra Wellness Center, we really help people do the right kind of testing, navigate these problems,
Starting point is 00:34:07 get to the root of them, and help them restore balance. So we're happy to see you. We've got now five physicians, and we're just kind of growing because you guys keep asking for more. We'd love to see you. Go to ultrawellnesscenter.com. If you love this podcast, please share with your friends and family on social media. Leave a comment. We'd love to hear from you, maybe how you've conquered your hunger. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and we'll see you next week on The Doctor's Pharmacy. Thank you, Mark. Hey, everybody. It's Dr. Hyman. Thanks for tuning into The Doctor's Pharmacy. I hope you're loving
Starting point is 00:34:41 this podcast. It's one of my favorite things to do, and introducing you to all the experts that I know and I love and that I've learned so much from. And I want to tell you about something else I'm doing, which is called Mark's Picks. It's my weekly newsletter. And in it, I share my favorite stuff from foods to supplements, to gadgets, to tools to enhance your health. It's all the cool stuff that I use and that my team uses to optimize and enhance our health. And I'd love you to sign up for the weekly newsletter. I'll only send it to you once a week on Fridays.
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Starting point is 00:35:24 my favorite stuff that I use to enhance my health and get healthier and better and live younger, longer. Hi, everyone. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. Just a reminder that this podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast is not a substitute
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