The Rich Roll Podcast - Leveraging Plant-Based Nutrition to Treat, Prevent & Reverse Disease

Episode Date: March 24, 2014

A few weeks back I had the pleasure of being a keynote speaker & instructor on the Holistic Holiday at Sea — 1500 people cohabiting for 7 days on a Caribbean cruise ship for the specific purpose of learning more about health. How to eat better. And live more fully. When I agreed to participate, I had no idea the magnitude of this event. The incredible scale of this thing. I’m not a cruise ship kind of guy. Quite honestly, I prefer a shack on a deserted beach to a floating mall housing 2200. I was leery. In the aftermath, I can't say the experience converted me to cruising as a lifestyle. But I will say it ended up being an extraordinary experience — an event I highly recommend to those out there looking for something different to kick things into a new gear. I got to meet and spend time with some of the leading minds in the plant-based wellness Universe. Some I already knew, like legends T. Colin Campbell, author of The China Study* and Whole* (podcast coming soon!), PCRM founder Neal Barnard, Chef AJ ( RRP Episode 56 ), bodybuilder Robert Cheeke, fitness impresario Koya Webb and many others. But what made the experience so memorable was meeting and spending time with people I had never before met. Presenters like today's guest of course, but mostly just normal people interested in learning more about getting better — and sharing their intimate stories. And so – despite my preconceived notions of what this experience would hold – I left rather inspired. By the lives and experiences and struggles and obstacles people face. And the success stories of overcoming everything from obesity to cancer, diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, food addictions and more to live happier, healthier and more fulfilling lives. Leeriness transformed. A win-win. Today’s guest is one of the guys I met on the cruise. I guy who I’ve admired from afar for some time, but had yet to meet. Dr. Michael Klaper. A rare bird this one. A physician who actually really cares about the patient. Before you get angry and defensive about docs — I’m not saying that doctors don’t care about their patients. I am saying that this insane institutionalized system of medicine we have created basically forces well intentioned docs from getting too invested in their patients. They just can’t. Economics prevents this kind of time and emotional investment. Well, Dr. Klaper is a guy who got fed up with that system – like Peter Finch’s epic famous lament in Paddy Chayefsky’s Network — I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore! – and started treating patients the way he felt they should be treated. It wasn’t exactly the best business plan – there was the time he went broke trying to make it work. It’s that hard to do. But his story, his message. and how he now makes it all work, is educational. And inspirational. Enjoy! Rich

Welcome to the Rich Roll Podcast, Episode 77, with Dr. Michael Clapper. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the show. We're back. I'm back. I'm the guy behind the avatar, behind the microphone. The guy holding the pen, typing on the keyboard, the guy tweeting out the tweets. But I do exist outside the virtual world. At least I think I do. I need to go back and watch The Matrix. Anyway, my name is Rich Roll. Each week I bring to you the best, most forward-thinking paradigm, busting minds in health, fitness, wellness, diet, nutrition, spirituality, creativity, entrepreneurship, and life transformation. The people who make stuff happen, everybody. And the goal, the goal is simple, but the goal is powerful, to motivate and inspire you to take your life to the next level, to help you discover, unlock, and unleash your

best, most authentic self. Yeah, dude. Today's guest, well, actually, let me backtrack a bit. A few weeks ago, I had the distinct pleasure of being a keynote speaker on this doodad called the Holistic Holiday at Sea, which was quite something. It was 1,500 people on a gargantuan cruise ship. I think there were like 2,200 people total, but 1,500 of them were here for this specific purpose

of participating in this Holistic Holiday at Sea in the Caribbean, all there to learn more about health, how to eat better and be happier. And when I agreed to do the cruise, I'd only been on one cruise in my life quite some time ago. Julie, my wife, had produced a yoga retreat on a cruise. That was my only experience. And I have to say, I'm not like a cruising kind of guy.

And at the time that I signed up for this thing, I had no idea the magnitude of this event, the scale of this thing, the pure scale. Like I said, I'm not really a cruise ship kind of guy. I'm more a guy who would prefer to just be in a shack on the beach, quite honestly. So I wasn't really sure how this was going to go, but I thought at a minimum, it might be a fun holiday for the kids and an opportunity to, you know, be of service. And, you know, I can deal with being in a giant floating mall in the ocean. But I guess you could say I was leery. And I can't say that the experience converted me to the cruising lifestyle, but I can say that it ended up being an amazing experience. I mean, 1,500 people there to get healthier. I gave my keynote in an auditorium that was like

the size of a Broadway theater on this boat. It was ridiculous. And I got to meet and spend time with a lot of the pioneers in this whole plant-based wellness thing. A lot of people that I already knew or had met, but also lots of new people. I mean, we're talking about people like T. Colin Campbell, the author of The China Study and Whole, Neil Barnard, the guy behind PCRM, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.

I mean, these guys are legends. But more than that, much more than that, actually, it was amazing to meet and spend time with and connect with so many people who are interested in learning more about getting healthier, about eating better. And so despite my preconceived notions of what this whole experience would be like, I have to say that I left very inspired by the whole thing. And today's guest is one of the guys that I met on the cruise. He's a guy who I've admired afar from some time, but a guy that I had yet to meet in person. And his name is Dr. Michael Clapper. He's a rare bird, this guy. He's a doc who actually really cares about the patient. So before you get angry and defensive about doctors in general, I am not saying that doctors don't care about their patients. Of course

they do. I'm just saying that this modern institutionalized system of medicine, of healthcare that we've created basically forces well-intentioned doctors from getting invested in their patients. They just can't. The economics of it all simply prevents this kind of time and emotional investment, patient, doctor, doctor, patient. Well, Dr. Clapper is a guy who got fed up with that system. He's like Peter Finch in Paddy Chayefsky's epic movie Network. I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore. And Dr. Clapper started treating patients the way he felt that they should be treated. And it wasn't exactly the best business plan. There was the time he went broke trying to make it all work. It's that hard to do. But I think you will find his story,

his message, and how he now makes it all work, not only educational, but quite inspirational. So, all right, who is he? He's a plant-based guy, long-time plant-based eater, advocate, physician, clinician, who practices preventative and nutrition-based medicine and teaches his patients that health comes from healthy living. Simple, right? Preventative medicine. Now there's a concept. As an acute care physician for many, many years, decades, he began to realize that many of the diseases his patients were consistently bringing to his office, in other words, clogged arteries, arthrosclerosis, high blood pressure, hypertension, obesity, adult onset diabetes, and obesity, adult-onset diabetes, and even some forms of asthma, arthritis, and many other significant illnesses were made worse or were actually caused by the high-fat, high-sugar, overly-processed standard American diet. So sort of akin to Dr. Lippman, who I brought to you guys in episode 72, Dr. Clapper really came to understand how crucial proper nutrition

and a balanced lifestyle are essential for health. And in many cases, it's what makes a difference between healing an illness, preventing an illness, and even reversing an illness, yes, reversing, versus merely treating symptoms or masking them with drugs and pharmaceuticals that have zero impact on dealing with the actual cause of the malady. So he began to just treat his patients accordingly. And the results have been astounding. He's practiced medicine in Canada, Hawaii, New Zealand. And now he currently resides in Northern California where he's a staff physician at True North Health Center in Santa Rosa. And True North is a really cool place. If you listen

to my interview with Chef AJ, she talks about her experience being a patient there and how it transformed her life. But basically, it's a nutritionally-based medical clinic that specializes in therapeutic fasting and health improvement through a whole foods plant-based diet. Oh, yeah. He's also a pilot. He's a teacher. He's an author. And basically, he's a great, very kind and giving, affable guy.

He's sort of a throwback to the friendly family docs of the bygone era. The guy who would make house calls, which he did in his past. The kind of guy who would sit and have tea with your mom while you are upstairs in your bedroom as a child with a thermometer in your mouth. Kind of like you see in the period piece movies. Actually, mental note, develop an app like Uber that with one click will send a doctor to your house. Make millions. Good idea. Okay. Anyway, also, and like Asher Gunsberg, last week's guest, Dr. Clapper is a radio host.

So his acumen behind the microphone, once again, makes me look good and my job easy. look good and my job easy. Anyway, we sat down together in his little cabin on this huge boat and gave it a whirl in the Bermuda Triangle. So let's see how we make out. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place

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For the listener out there, we're sitting on a cruise ship, locked in a cabin when we could be outside enjoying the sunshine, the ocean breeze, but we're going to bring a podcast to you today. The thing that's funny, there seems to be this epidemic of plant-based focused doctors who are raised on dairy farms, and you're not an exception to that rule. Really? You grew up in Wisconsin, yeah. I spent my first 16 summers on my uncle's dairy farm in northern wisconsin and uh i went i went to school in chicago during the uh during the

winter time during the summers uh back in the 50s and 60s uh 50s actually uh the polio epidemics would come through the big cities through chicago detroit etc and as i said my uncle had a dairy farm up in northern Wisconsin, so my parents would, and the first day, as soon as school was out, the next day we were up on the farm, and spent my first 16 summers driving tractors and milking cows and slinging hay bales and living on a farm and getting exposed to the natural world.

How did that experience inform your perspective on nutrition and health today? Oh, you know, again, from my young years to mid-teens, what it really did was expose me and imbue me with the realities of the natural world. My summers were filled with nature, with early dawn working with the morning dew on your boots, thunderstorms, rolling clouds coming in, full of animals, hawks and frogs and deer, and of course all the animals on the farm. And the life force was so vital and full. I got to see it in all its complexity, everything from the birds eating the snakes to the birth of the various animals on the farm.

And the rhythm became so natural. Plus the solace, the healing when I was upset or needed to think. Boy, I knew just where the path through the forest was. And I spent hours walking through our lovely beach and maple forest up in northern Wisconsin. And I became very at home in the forest, and it was a place I would go for comfort. And so everything made just inherent sense to me, the way the waters ran, the way the winds blew. And it might be in my genes a little bit. My father was a dentist. My brother's a biology teacher. We had an affinity for the natural world. But it was there that

I tried to say I became a natural man, but I guess in a way that happened as opposed to spending my time under stainless steel rooms and fluorescent lights. So nutrition came way down the road there, the awareness of that. But the biological forces have been in my awareness since I can remember. Right, this connection to the natural world that we seem to be moving towards a state of being ever so disconnected from that and the importance and how that makes us feel and how that informs our perspective and how we relate to other people

and how we connect with the environment around us. Absolutely. You must on your long runs, when you're out there alone in the desert there, nature shows herself to you as well. Absolutely. You must on your long runs when you're out there alone in the desert there. Nature shows herself to you as well. Yeah, there's no replacement for that healing force. Exactly.

So because of the family lineage, this drives you, or not drives you, but sort of interests you in the medical profession? I mean, is that what? Yes, I knew I was going to be a physician since I was a little kid. It was your destiny. Absolutely. When any of the animals on the farm would be hurt, we had a sheep that broke its leg, and I was 12 or so, and I made up a splint and splinted its broken leg,

and it seemed to heal okay. But the various, anyone who was hurt, I just wanted them to be okay, whether it was an animal or one of the other kids there. And as far as becoming an actual doctor or medicine, my father, as I said, was a dentist, and during the rest of the year when we weren't on the farm, we were living in Chicago, I was going to school, and I'd watch my dad come home after 12, 14 hours standing at that dental chair.

And I love him dearly, but I knew I did not want to be a dentist. And it just became so natural to become a physician. And I identified with the doctors on TV there, from Dr. Kildare to Doc Adams on Gunspoke. I wanted to be the doctor, not the gunslinger. I wanted to be the guy who made everything okay, that patched everybody up. Right.

And you took a pretty traditional route. I mean, you ended up specializing or doing residencies in surgery and in anesthesiology. So it wasn't like you came out of the gate as some kind of alternative doctor practicing, you doctor practicing strange modalities or anything like that. You're very much traditional in that regard. Oh, absolutely. I am a physician.

I'm a doctor of medicine and will be till my last breath. And I rely on the fundamentals that I learned. The physicians are seekers of truth in the literal sense, not being self-aggrandizing. But when a person's in front of you with a fever or a mass or a fracture or a pain, the question is, what is the truth of this situation? What is happening in this person's body? And whatever it takes to discern that truth, then I start there. And it comes down to the fundamentals. Take a good history, do a physical exam, order your labs. You usually know what's happening.

And that's what I still practice to this day. If you don't do that, you're not a physician. That's what being a doctor is about. And people come to me these days with various issues, mostly stemming from what they're eating. come to me these days with various issues, mostly stemming from what they're eating. And again, I had a very wise professor in medical school at the University of Illinois in Chicago. I said, you know, if you just shut up and listen to the patient, 90% of the time, they're telling you the diagnosis.

And if you keep listening, they'll tell you what treatment they need very often as well. But doctors don't listen. I think, what is it now, the average 18 seconds into a visit, the doctor's already pulling out his prescription pen. If you just be quiet, just listening to the patient is healing in itself. I mean, it's one of the major affronts to the human spirit these days is nobody listens to me. I ain't got no respect. The very fact that the physician put the book down, leaned across the table and say, tell me, what do you feel? What is this? What's happening? What can I want to help with? When did this start? Tell me what you're feeling about this.

That alone, the patient walks out of the room, the doctor listened to me. He heard what I was saying. That alone is a gift to the patient, and it starts the healing. Plus, from the physician's point of view, they tell you, yes, I lay down at night. I get short of breath. I have to sit up.

Well, I know that they've got fluid overload, and they're probably in congestive heart failure. I mean, there's medical reasons why you want to listen. They are telling you important stories. But again, as I said, it's the first way to show respect for someone, to show love for someone. It's just to listen to what they're saying. And again, you make the diagnosis by listening to what they're saying. And it seems like that's the obvious, natural, initial point of inquiry.

And yet that seems like that's not really going on. of inquiry, and yet that seems like that's not really going on. And that's not to say that doctors are not aware of that being sort of the appropriate place to start. Is it just the economics of the medical profession, or what is driving the practice, the sort of traditional practice of medicine, away from that type of patient care? Sure. And, of course, a perspicacious fellow, as you are. You certainly go home right on it. I'm now turning 67 this year, so I've been in medicine for 40 years, and I've seen American medicine over the past 40 years turn into what started as a very intimate and collaborative enterprise between the doctor and the patient.

The house call and the family doctor. Yes, I made lots of house calls, absolutely. And in the 70s and 80s, in comes the insurance companies and the bottom line of the HMOs, et cetera. And I watched a hardness set in on the practice of medicine, the flow between the doctor and patient. It got computerized in a way. And then there's time limits and there's money limits and there's pressure on the doctor. And you better see one patient every eight minutes. And assembly line medicine set in.

And it's been dehumanizing for everybody, the doctor, the patient, the nurses, the lab techs. Everyone's under the pressure here. And so that's been really disheartening. dehumanizing for everybody, the doctor, the patient, the nurses, the lab techs, everyone's under the pressure here. And so that's been really disheartening. And I feel so badly for my colleagues, especially as a primary care physician, my colleagues in primary care, the emergency room doctors, the family doctors. They want to communicate with their patients. Right. I mean, I would imagine this is why they get into it.

They don't get into it for the paperwork. Absolutely. Nor really for the money. And so many of them are, they feel like they're on an assembly line, and it's so dispiriting, so disheartening. I've been fortunate enough to disengage from a lot of the aspects of that type of medicine because I don't have a need or desire to make huge amounts of money. And Medicare says, good, I'm glad you don't because you're going to spend an hour with the patient. We're going to

pay you 62 bucks for that. So I'm glad you're not attached to making a lot of money. Which if it was 1948, it would be okay. Exactly. Not so much. Exactly. And at the clinic where I'm working, at True North Health Center, I'm privileged enough to be able to have that kind of time to spend with an hour with each patient. But again, it's not my colleague's fault in any way. patient. But again, it's not my colleague's fault in any way. I had a nice little general practice in Hawaii, in the island of Maui, and not telling out of school, but what's the diplomatic

distinguished way to say I went broke? Because again, you spend all this time with patients, and the insurance companies pay you a pittance. You can't keep the lights on for there. patients and the insurance companies pay you a pittance. You can't keep the lights on for there. And I realized that I become an anachronism in the system. This system is now geared for large multi-specialty, multi-physician family practice clinics with 20 family doctors. You're seeing 40 patients in a day. This is high-value medicine. And oh, the insurance companies, well, you'll earn thousands of dollars a week doing that. But as I said, I find it really dehumanizing. I'll take my few hundred bucks and be able to connect with my patients and be with them.

Right. So to actually practice medicine the way it sort of was traditionally set up for appropriate patient care and to be able to listen actually led you to be broke and that compelled you to go back into urgent care yes yes i you know i my heart is in nutritional medicine and lifestyle counseling but i pay the rent doing blood and guts urgent care suturing and some fracture setting uh local urgent care centers and um and it's an honorable craft and i sew up a good laceration and i set a good wrist fracture. But I said frequently, patients come into the urgent care clinic fat, sick, and bleeding. They leave not bleeding, but they're still fat and sick. And nobody's really connected with these folks about what's

going on. Right. And so as the course of sort of practicing medicine and urgent care and seeing so many people come through, obviously you're starting to see trends in what's really going on with people. I mean, is this what catalyzes this interest in nutritional medicine or where does that kind of start to come into play? Sure. Well, a variation of that. Absolutely. From the purely medical point of view, the light went on in the late oh no early to mid 1980s and the um the the patients that i used to dread coming through the door god love them all were these middle-aged men 40 pounds overweight high blood pressure taking metformin for their diabetes g gout, and I never knew what to tell them. I'd been in acute medicine for 10 years, and gee, Joe, you ought to lose some weight. We ought to change your dosage of your metformin.

I didn't know what to tell them. Well, then, due to my personal evolution, I decided I wanted to get the violence out of my life. So for ethical, nonviolence reasons, I stopped eating animals. I stopped wearing leather. I just, I didn't want to pay for any violence to this earth, to the animals, to other people in any way, shape or form. So, um, what was there a moment that catalyzed that decision? Yeah. I mean, what happened? Yeah, there were, there were a couple, it was a culmination of a number of factors. I did much of my surgical training over at Big Battle Cook County Hospital in Chicago, up in the trauma unit. And it was

almost world famous, or at least nationwide famous, for being one of the roughest, toughest, bloodiest emergency rooms going. The Cook County trauma unit on a Saturday night was just a scene of carnage, just constant gunshot wounds and shotgun blasts and knife wounds. And I saw the violence. I saw the family fabric rendered apart. I saw the personal suffering, the huge expense, just a disconnection from humanity. And I knew I wanted to get that out of my life. And I was reading Gandhi and Satchinanda and people saying violence is not necessary. Talk and love and talk and love and work it out. And so I took that to heart.

And I'm the kind of guy that if there's a spider in the room, I'll put a little cup over the spider and slide a little paper under it and take him outside and let him go in the grass. I'm that kind of guy. And so one evening in Vancouver where I'd gone into practice, I was pontificating to a friend over a steak dinner about my desire to eliminate the violence out of my life.

Well, you're eating your sirloin. Well, I'm eating my sirloin. And he said, well, that's all very nice, Michael, but if you really want to get the violence out of your life, you might want to start with that piece of dead flesh on your own plate because the truth is your desire for that piece of meat in your mouth, you are paying for the death of that animal. You are paying the butcher.

Yes, kill another one. You are doing that. And as much as I wanted to object and negate that, I couldn't. And I heard a little voice on my shoulders saying, you know, he's right. Truth is, you're paying for the death of that animal. You're paying to keep that scene of violence and carnage going. And at that point, I could not do that any longer. The act of taking my wallet out of my pocket and taking dollar bills out and paying for that became a soiled act. It became an act of complicity and violence. I just couldn't.

So I became a de facto vegan for ethical reasons. It wasn't long after I stopped eating meat that I looked at my leather shoes, my leather wallet. I don't want to put those in my body. It's interesting being a doctor that you didn't come into it initially for health reasons. That was almost a byproduct of a spiritual exploration, I suppose. Absolutely. But what that did was then open the door to, it reframed what I was seeing. Because at the same time, I had gone back to finish my residency in anesthesiology in Vancouver General. And day after day, I'm in the operating room, especially on the cardiovascular anesthesia

service. And day after day, I'm putting patients to sleep, opening up and watching the surgeons open their chest. And from their arteries, they're pulling out this yellow, greasy guck called atherosclerosis. And I'm looking down in there. This is what's causing their heart attacks and their strokes and their blue feet and renal failure and lack of blood flow. And it's a stunning thing to see. It's so clear. You seldom see the cause of a disease so evident as when it's pulled out of an artery.

You seldom see the cause of a disease so evident as when it's pulled out of an artery. And one day I was looking, and this particular fellow, his fatty deposits had a bit of a yellow cast to it. And I remember my mother making chicken soup. And I said, you know, that stuff looks like chicken fat. And the little voice again said, there's good reason why, doctor. It's essentially the same thing. It looks like chicken fat. It is chicken fat and cow fat and pig fat and all the fat of any of the slow animals. He was walking past his table when he had a fork in his hand.

And I realize it's from what these people are eating. And they're paying for the death of those animals. And they are eating the flesh of those animals. And without being outrageously symbolic here you know we kill the animals but in a way they get revenge they kill us from the inside i never thought of it that way oh it goes around and around and i just had to disconnect from that and in all forms and so i did um i left anesthesia i couldn't be part of the assembly line next next because nobody's talking to these patients about what's going on, why they're laying on that operating table.

Right, you're one cog in the assembly line. You see them for that one specific purpose and there's no follow-up or any other kind of connection with that individual. Exactly. And as much as I loved anesthesia and the surgery seems it's a wonderful, magical place to work. I just felt that that's not for me. I needed to go out and start helping my patients stay off that operating table, stay out of that hospital. So I left anesthesia. I had six months to go in my residency. I had paid my money for my national board exams, but I knew I did not want to be an anesthesiologist any longer. And so, much to my parents' consternation, I withdrew from the residency. And I went back to general practice. But in this time, things had changed. So I had

changed in that when I adopted a vegan diet, a totally plant-based diet, within six weeks, a 20-pound spare tire of fat around my waist melted away. My borderline high blood pressure slipped down to 110-70. That was like 250 or something like that. Oh, it was officially high. And I felt great waking up in a nice, light, lean body. And I found myself a healthy man. So then the wheel goes full circle.

I find myself in my general practice office. I'd moved to Florida by that time. And who walks in my office but those middle-aged, overweight, high blood pressure, diabetic guys that I had dreaded coming in to see me before. Now I knew what to tell them. I knew why. I knew what they were doing to their bloodstream after every bacon and egg breakfast, every cheeseburger lunch, every fried chicken dinner. They send wave after wave of fat and sugar and animal protein through their bloodstream, and it hurts their arteries, and they clog up. And so I said, I had a professor in med school said, you know, medicine is 10% science and 90% common sense. You know, and if you're doing something, if I have a patient complaining of headaches, I say, when did you get headaches? Oh, every time I hit myself in the head with a hammer.

I said, well, maybe you don't want to do that. Well, same thing. A doctor, I keep running all this fat and then further my bloodstream. I keep putting on this weight. My diabetes is getting worse. What do you think I should do? Well, why don't you stop doing that? And I had a colleague that gave cooking lessons.

I sent my patients to her and we got them going on a lean, clean, plant-based diet. Got them walking every day. And the magic happens. You put a nice, clean fuel through the body, as you well know, and the engine hums along, and they started losing weight. And things that I never thought I would see in medicine started happening. When I went to med school back in the 70s, the adage carved in stone was,

if you put someone on high blood pressure pills, they will take these medications the rest of their life. No one gets off high blood pressure pills. Well, I had this overweight fellow who was eating lots of salt and cranking his blood pressure up, changed his diet, started eating a whole food plant-based diet, take a good walk every day, 50 pounds melted away over the course of six months and with that much less flesh you need a lower pressure to to send blood through the right the blood pressure drops blood pressure drops and those arteries open up and and i've got him on two powerful medications to lower his blood pressure ones that he's going to take the rest of his life right and he's calling me saying, Doc, I'm standing up.

I'm getting layheaded and darn near passed out. It's too low. My blood pressure's too low. I said, well, at this point, I said the words I was told never to say, stop your blood pressure medications now. You no longer have high blood pressure. Stop taking medications for a disease you do not any longer have. And they did.

And guess what? They didn't die. They didn't have a stroke. And I half expected a puff of smoke and the ghost of my internal medicine professor would appear saying, you told them to get off their bill. But they did fine. And now I routinely get people off their blood pressure medications. The folks with diabetes, once on insulin, always on insulin.

Nonsense. Get them off their insulin. Get them off their metformin. And same with the cholesterol, the statin meds as well. Oh, the statins. Absolutely. Talk about the data. I mean, the statin thing with the new recommendations that essentially everybody should be taking.

Stunning. Stunning. Yeah. So talk a little bit about that and the body's ability to kind of address and reverse that scenario. You know, I guess after 40 plus years in medicine, you get a little philosophical, I suppose. is so powerful and so precise that the smart guys and girls in the white coats in the laboratory can identify the most subtle of genetic malfunctions

on gene number A21 on chromosome 13 that puts an enzyme defect on this amino acid. This they can identify. But the cause of childhood obesity, the cause of type 2 diabetes, the cause of clogged arteries. Let's spend another $100 billion and I find the cause of childhood obesity,

the cause of clogged arteries. It makes me want to get the biggest soapbox I can find, go down to Washington, D.C., stand on it and yell as loudly as I can, you want the cause of childhood obesity? It's the food they're eating. It's the food. Well, the cause of high blood pressure and the clogged arteries. It's the food.

It's the burgers and the fries and the fried chicken and the pizza and the olive oil and the chicken and the cheese. Oh, this tsunami of fat and animal proteins that are sent through their bloodstream from vegetable oils day after day, hour after hour. That's what's going on. How can you not see that? And yet my colleagues, oh, they want to look at that. Oh, I don't know anything about nutrition.

Oh, people never change their diet. Oh, it's none of my business to talk to them about that. And they don't. It's none of my business to talk to them about that, and they don't. But statins will pound down their cholesterol, so it's easier to give them a pill. And that's what's happening. And they'll take it, but they may not take my dietary advice. Oh, they won't take my dietary advice. So why bother?

Exactly. And the reason that they don't, and human nature is human nature, and I'm not clucking my tongue or wagging my finger, because when I was eating animal flesh, I didn't see it either. Until you see it, you don't see it. But there's a lot of resistance. One, we weren't trained in it as physicians, but also, I hope it's not casting any aspersions,

but the truth is most doctors, they don't want to tell their patient to adopt a plant-based diet because that means they've got to stop eating their filet mignon and their lobster thermidor and their brie cheeses. And they don't want to do that themselves. So they'd rather just not open that door. It's easier to give them a prescription for statins. That dissonance brings up a really interesting issue because I think that there is a lot of dissonance out there. Like we're in this really fascinating time where we've never had more access to information than we have now because of technology and the internet, we can access all kinds of crazy, amazing information when it comes to our health. And yet there is this, you know, sort of crazy level of confusion

because there's so many conflicting opinions out that the truth is, you know, one of crazy level of confusion because there's so many conflicting opinions out that the truth is, you know, one thing we can't dispute is this epidemic healthcare crisis that we're in the midst of, you know, we're the most prosperous nation on earth, but we've never been more sick or more obese, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, these problems are insane. Right. And so the sort of educated consumer goes online. let me let me try to get to the bottom of this. Well, the Dr. Clapper says this, but, you know, kind of some of the some of the noise, or I don't know if it's fair to say noise, but some of the information that's out there that kind of is taking center stage right now, especially with young people and like technologically savvy

young people who are into like biohacking and life hacking and all of this is this is this low carb kind of high fat craze so you have all these people out there who are professing the benefits of a ketogenic diet you have Peter Atiyah you have Dave Asprey you have dr. Gary Taubes you have professor Tim Noakes and these people have large followings. They have big audiences. People are listening to them. And they're sort of advising something very, very different than what you're saying. And so this creates this dissonance that we're talking about.

And that confusion leads to paralysis, right? People don't know what to do. So while these guys can't even agree, these guys are saying one thing, these guys are saying another thing, so I'm just going to keep eating the way that I'm eating. Yes, that seems to be what's happening, and it causes me great dismay. And again, I don't know these men and women, and I don't want to cast personal aspersions, and I'm sure they're trying to do the best they can. But unless they've read a different physiology book than I did when I was in med school,

a state of ketosis is not a natural state of being for your physiology. You're driving your car and the red light comes on the dashboard. There's distress happening in that engine. Well, the same thing in ketosis. You have run out of glucose, of muscle fuel, and you are now dipping into emergency fat stores. As emergency fuel, you know, the red lights come on. And as burning that emergency fuel, you're in a state of ketosis. And the body can handle that for a day or two or three or five, I suppose.

But in no way is this the natural state of human beings. We've always been grazing on carbohydrate-containing foods. That's why we have taste buds for sweet on our tongue, because we like to go for those fruits and high calorie plant foods. To say that we've got a natural taste for animal flesh and that we want to stay in the state of ketosis, it's stunning to me that medical physicians can say this is a good and natural state to keep the body in. It's a crisis state for the body, right?

Absolutely. body again it seems a crisis state absolutely absolutely it's like being at the at the stop light in your car and um and at a red light and you put the car in neutral and you you put the whole the accelerator down on the engine and down to the floor and you run it on you know on a high octane fuel you know you're going to overheat the engine i mean it's not gentle with the metabolic so yeah so what would happen if somebody is in a persistent state of ketosis or in this key you know sort of on this ketogenic diet i mean what are the long-term ramifications of that or have you seen any result have you dealt with patients that are experimenting with this yeah oh i'm sure there are many and they uh they don't come to me though because they know what they're going to hear. But the beautiful thing about running on plant foods from the

biochemical point of view is that when you metabolize sugars, it breaks down basically to carbon dioxide and water and you breathe off the carbon dioxide and you eliminate the water through your kidneys. And that's a clean burning fuel, doesn't follow the metabolic spark plug, so to speak. But when you run on animal flesh as your primary fuel, these are dirty fuels. And they're metabolically dirty in that they leave residue. While you burn fats, you're going to generate ketones. And ketones by their nature are acidic. We're talking about acetone, beta-hydroxybutyric acid. These are acidic molecules. And to keep yourself in a state of low-grade metabolic acidosis day after day, week after week, this is not a healthy state to be in. That's going to create chronic inflammation, is it not?

Which is going to lead to these diseases that we're talking about. It's certainly not going to be gentle with any inflammatory state in your body. But also to neutralize that acid, you're going to have to give up either some calcium out of your bones or make your kidneys work extra hard in order to excrete extra electrolytes. It's a stress state for the body. But you lose weight. Yeah, I'm sure you lose weight on that, but you're ill because your appetite is – when you're sick, people lose their appetite. When you're in ketosis, yeah, you don't feel like eating. You feel like you almost got the flu. And so you can lose weight on cancer chemotherapy,

but it doesn't mean there's a healthy way to do it. And so the issue is not weight loss. The issue is health. And I just cannot see that being a healthy diet. Plus, we're not carnivorous apes. And that's really what they're trying to turn us into. We are carnivorous. We eat flesh three times a day.

Well, not even mountain lions eat flesh three times a day. You know, official carnivores don't eat flesh three times a day. You know, official carnivores don't eat flesh three times a day. It's only because we're wealthy enough and have subverted the whole food system. So we kill a million chickens an hour and we've got all that flesh floating around us here. But there's nothing natural about eating animal flesh on a daily basis, let alone two or three times a day. I mean, I think this group would say one of the kind of common arguments that comes up when you start talking about the link between eating animal flesh, animal protein, and the connection between that and a variety of diseases is, well, look at the Inuits. You know, the Inuits, they're basically eating meat all the time. They seem to not have heart disease.

And it creates this inconsistency. Well, one, they do have heart disease. And it creates this inconsistency. Well, one, they do have heart disease. And second, these people are living, they used to be living, in extreme weather conditions, many degrees below zero, doing stunning amounts of physical labor, pulling their sleds across, ice flows, and paddling their kayaks on the ocean. They're burning 4,000 or 5,000 calories a day. building their kayaks on the ocean. They're burning 4,000 or 5,000 calories a day. And they're a little asterisk on the side of humanity here.

And they may have adapted that in some way, but in no way can you extrapolate that. That Joe American ought to be eating whale blubber three times a day. Well, if he's burning 5,000 calories, then Joe Sixpack, get off your couch and go start burning 5,000 calories a day and we'll see how your arteries do there. But it's a silly analogy to make and to use that as a justification

that that's the natural diet of humans when nothing like that is spread across the planet in any form. Right. And when we're talking about eating a plant-based diet, my experience and my strong belief is that this is the optimal diet for long-term sustainable health, as well as a potential solution to the environmental disasters that we're facing. I mean, it's sort of a win-win across the board. And one of the arguments that kind of comes up is, well, if you're on a plant-based diet, like you've got to take vitamin B12 or you're going to have this deficiency.

So how can it be the optimal diet? And my perspective is I believe in supplementation. I think humans need supplementation, whether you're on the standard American diet or you're on the paleo diet, especially with the progressive depletion of the nutritional quality of our soils. There's all sorts of things going on that can lead to deficiencies, the stress in our life, et cetera. I think that you should always be trying to get your nutrition from your food, but the food isn't always going to suffice. So whether it's vitamin B12, vitamin D, DHA, omega-3, these sorts of things. And this is something that you speak at length about, right? So I'm interested in your perspective on supplementation.

The vitamin B12 issue, you know, I've heard that canard, you know, expressed many times, how can a plant-based diet be naturally good? It takes supplements. But wait a minute, that reflects an insufficient understanding of basic biochemistry. Vitamin B12 is absolutely essential for normal nerve function, brain function, blood function. It absolutely is essential. And people think, well, that's why I need my red meat. And that subsumes that cows make vitamin B12 and pigs make vitamin B12, when the truth is they don't. No animal makes vitamin B12. The only place vitamin B12 comes from is from bacteria that live in the soil. And those animals have B12 in their muscles because they're eating grass all day, and they're pulling up clumps of grass that have B12, that have soil particles

clinging to the roots. And in those soil particles are bacteria that make B12. And the cow and the pig and the chicken swallow these organisms that then produce B12 in their own gut, winds up in their muscles. And yes, you can kill the animal, shoot it in the head, strip the flesh off its bones, and eat the flesh for your B12. But the truth is, that's bacterial B12 in the cow's muscles. The cow did not make it. That same bacterial B12 used to be running through our systems as well 10,000 years ago, even a few hundred

years ago. Because we were eating the dirt? Well, we were connected to the natural world. Absolutely, we spent our days foraging. There's nothing romantic about survival. You're either killing animals or pulling roots out of the ground and eating them. animals are pulling roots out of the ground and eating them. And those roots pull out of the ground would have soil with B12 producing organisms clinging to it. Every rainstorm, those organisms and the B12 they produce wash into the streams and rivers. And when it came

time to drink, you'd lay down at the nearest stream and drink your fill and you'd get B12 in the stream water. When we were connected with the natural world, B12 used to flow through our bodies just like it does the deer and the antelope and the buffalo. And no supplements were necessary when we were living Earth-connected lives. And the paleo folks seem to overlook that. Now, what we're running into now is that that link to the earth has been broken. Nobody's drinking out of streams anymore. Nobody's just pulling vegetables out of their garden and eating it without washing it. And modern sanitation has intervened here, which is okay with me. I don't

want to be treating cases of cholera and typhoid fever. It's okay to chlorinate their drinking water supply, but it kills the B12-producing bacteria. And so in this trade-off that we've made for clean water, the price, civilized man, it's going to cost you your natural B12 supply. And so that got taken away from us. So it's this artifact of modern, quote, civilization that has made the plant-based folks, now, well, we've got to get some B12 somewhere. And it still comes from bacteria, but nowadays they culture those bacteria

in big vats of enclosure medium, and they produce the B12, and the B12 is separated off and put into little pills and potions. And it's the same bacterial B12, but now we get it out of the bottle. But it's just because of modern sanitation, not because the plant-based diet is inherently deficient.

And what are the other deficiencies that you commonly see when you're seeing your patients that require supplementation? What kind of supplements should we be looking at and why? Right. Interesting point. So before I get into the specifics, I just have to say that the majority of folks who generate a deficiency in anything, whether it be a vitamin or mineral, anything, it's because of things that you know well. And that is we are consuming products, whether they be breads or soups or whatever, that are processed. And in the processing, the vitamins and minerals are stripped out. They're replaced with a bunch of fat and sugar and salt. If people really eat the kind of diet that you and I and others in the field are prescribing, and the words just flow together, people don't even think about,

oh, a whole food plant-based diet. But stop. We're talking about a whole food, plant-based diet. Nothing like Michael Pollan says, eat food. Not edible food-like substances out of brightly colored packages and boxes, which is what most people eat. Eat food. Eat big, hearty salads, colorful salads, hearty, rich vegetable stews and soups, big plates of steamed greens, handfuls of walnuts, oatmeal and fruit in the morning. You run that through your body day after day after day. Stop the oils and the cheese and the dairy and the processed stuff and eat food.

And I'm talking about big helpings, as I said, fresh whole plant foods, big salads, hearty vegetable soups, healthy lentil stews, and healthy bean burritos, hearty food. These deficiencies don't happen. We'll talk about a little fine-tuning there. By and large, protein takes care of itself. Carbohydrates take care of itself. The essential fats take care of themselves. The vitamins and minerals, they take care of themselves.

It's in the green and yellow vegetables. It's in the fruits. It's in the root vegetables. It's there. Nature gives it to us like she always has. And we're not suddenly awoke in this wilderness of what do we eat. But eat food like we always have done. So with that said, if I presuppose that, listen, eat a really healthy plant-based diet, whole foods like I mentioned, you're not going to run into these kind of deficiencies by and large.

Yes, you've got to deal with the B12 thing because we're not drinking stream water. Other than that, that's about the only official supplement that a purely plant-based eater requires. In the real world, because we're out of the sunshine, we used to spend our days out in the African veld there naked in the sun, running away from lions and tigers. And all that sun on our skin made plenty of vitamin D. Our skins look like old suitcases by age 40, but you got eaten by a lion at 42, and nobody cared about skin cancer or the way we looked. But now we've huddled away from the sun. Now we're all

cowering in our rooms in front of our computers. We're not in the sun anymore. So sunlight is not falling on our skin. So vitamin D deficiency has become rampant. And so I check my patient's vitamin D levels. And if it's way below 40, I will get them on an oral supplement for that. Or I'll still get a half hour morning sun every day. That's the best, of course. So vitamin D is something you do have to look out for. Same thing with iodine is an issue for purely plant-based folks. Again, you know, in ancient times, as you're gathering by the seashore, there was lots of edible seaweeds, and we used to get lots of iodine that way.

And the soils near the oceans, as the tides go in and out, the soils have lots of iodine that way. And the soils near the oceans, as the tides go in and out, the soils have lots of iodine in them. So the root vegetables that grow in those soils, the carrots and the beets and the turnips, were very rich in iodine. Well, that's receding into the dim past. So vitamin D and iodine are the two main minerals or two main nutrients that I'll occasionally consider patients supplementing if they're showing any signs of especially hypothyroid symptoms. And the last one, I just want to make sure my folks get enough of these long-chain fatty acids, the DHA and EPA, the omega-3 fats. And you can make them in your body, but you got to eat the foods that contain the

forerunners of those molecules. So I want all my folks to have a handful of walnuts a day. And again, those- So we're talking about the omega-3s. The omega-3s, yeah. But despite doing that, there's omega-3 fats in dark green leafy vegetables. So again, I'm talking about big helpings of kale and broccoli and chard and collards. If you do that and have your ground flax seeds on the oatmeal in the morning and take your handful of walnuts and eat lots of greens, you should make enough of the omega-3s. But if not, if they've got dry skin or they just can't keep up with that,

I'll have them get some algae-derived DHA at the health food store. Those are about the only three. The DHA, the vitamin D, and the iodine are the only three that I concern, plus the B12, of course. On the subject of omega-3 supplementation, there's a lot of talk about fish oil and what's wrong with fish oil. Fish oil is the best source of omega-3, and why would you tell somebody not to eat fish oil?

Are you just holding on to this idea of plant-based for no reason right so i mean my correct me if i'm wrong my understanding is that uh even fish oils that are labeled toxin-free still have been found to be rife with toxins and i think dr michael gregor did a video on that that there were some studies on that and uh and that the algae-based uh omega-3 supplements are just as good and you can be sure that they're toxin-free i mean is that really is that is that correct is that the argument oh that's certainly my understanding uh and it's almost exactly analogous to the b12 situation where um you know there's b12 in the cow's muscles but the cow didn't make it. It's bacterial B12.

Well, the same thing, fish oil, omega-3s. People, fish, do not make DHA. Fish don't make it. It's made by plants, just like our green leafy vegetables make it. So do the vegetables in the sea. Basically, DHA, this long-chain fatty acid, is made by algae cells. Most of it's floating free in the ocean. And fish live in the ocean, and they swim with their mouths open all day swallowing algae.

And it's the algal DHA that winds up in the fish's muscle. And you can kill the fish and crush its flesh and squeeze out the fish oil, but the truth is it's algal DHA from the algae. Well, if you haven't heard, we are clear-cutting the oceans. We are strip mining the oceans. And to advocate, it's good to scoop up the fish, grind up the oil. When it's coming from the algae in the first place, it's just unconscionable to me to do that on an ecological level. But also, as you said, it's hard to believe that their purification processes are so good and so efficient that every last little atom of mercury and every last little molecule of pesticides really comes out of that fish oil. It's really hard to believe

that they can still do that and sell it for cheap. There's no reason to be eating fish oil. Plus, there's some medical reasons why you don't. It's got an anticoagulant property to it. People get a lot of fish oil. If a little is good, more must be better. And they get a nosebleed and they don't stop bleeding. They fall and they hit their head and they bleed in their skull. It suppresses your immune system. If you Google fish oil and cancers, you're now seeing that the fish oil seems to suppress the part of the immune system that eats up the cancer cells that form in our body every day.

Oh, interesting. I hadn't heard that. Yeah. And you can't do one thing in the body. You can't do one thing. And I'm taking fish oil for my inflammation. Right. This goes't know what you think you're doing. Right, this goes back to those beta-carotene studies, right? This idea that, well, we're driven by our sort of scientific protocol is to isolate out these things and make conclusions about them without sort of in the T. Colin Cantor, he addresses this in his book, whole, like we have to look at this in a macro sense and how this matrix of how all of these things interact on multiple levels

doing many, many things at the same time. Oh, absolutely. this in a macro sense and how this matrix of how all of these things interact on multiple levels, doing many, many things at the same time. Oh, absolutely. And to say that this fish oil is going to create X, Y effect in my body, well, it may do that, but it also creates X, Z and number 1405 in your body. Oh, gee, you didn't realize it also did that. Oh, I didn't think about it stopping my blood clotting and increasing my cancer risk. I thought I was just doing it for a month. Right. It seems like the common theme in all of this throughout this whole conversation

or maybe even throughout this whole movement is the idea of eating low on the food chain. When in doubt, like always eat, try to derive that nutrient or whatever it is you're looking to get from the lowest possible level on the food chain. As opposed to higher up where it becomes maybe contaminated or just convoluted with many other things that have different impacts and effects on the body. Absolutely. I mean, it's still a natural world. Absolutely. I mean, it's still a natural world.

And the biggest animals on the planet, elephants, buffaloes, giraffes, stallions, they create thousands of pounds of mammalian muscle without ever eating cheeseburgers and pepperoni pizzas. They get the protein and the minerals that's in the plants. And it's there for our taking. That's what we're supposed to be doing is foraging and getting the harvest of the earth period and to turn ourselves into carnivorous apes and and supplement takers is is a grotesque distortion of the natural reality as far as i can see right interesting um one of the things that i've noticed in kind of traversing this plant-based world over the past couple of years is getting back to this idea of macro and micro. Like on a macro level, I think all of the people like yourself that are at the top of the field agree on the basics. But

then when we start to kind of get into the nitty gritty or the details, there's lots of differing opinions on certain aspects of how to do this right. And I think with that comes this sort of losing the forest for the trees. And these minor little disagreements over certain tiny aspects of this become arguments to sort of rebut this altogether. So I'm interested in your thoughts on this. Oh, well, you know, the answer is in the question. I see that happening again and again. And they'll get, you know, two experts that basically agree on everything.

We ought to be eating a whole plant-based diet. But this one has a little different viewing about where nuts fits in or whether oils fits in. Aha, see, you guys disagree. You can't believe anything you say. And McDougall and Dr. esselstyn and t colin campbell and dr michael greger and jeff no you get all these guys in a room they're going to agree on 99 of everything and then there's going to be one percent but all the focus is going to go on that one absolutely you guys are quibbling absolutely exactly it's a cynical you know it's

it's an us versus them and there's no need for that where it's all us you know and speaking of all us it's becoming in my viewpoint their intention might be good but the truth is it's becoming unconscionable to recommend a flesh-based diet on a planet of nine billion people to serve animal flesh for nine billion people. It is absolutely physically, ecologically impossible to do that. We do not have the soil, the water, the resources in any way imaginable. And so to be advocating this, for everybody in the world

wanting to be eating like this, is talking about head in the bucket. There's a cynical disregard of the reality of this planet, of world hunger. It's time to get real, folks. We grew up eating plants. We better get back to that and start creating sustainable food systems

that makes the soil richer, which a plant-based agriculture does, than just sucking all the nutrients out of the ecosystem and be surprised when the famine hits. We've got to start a restorative food production system, and it starts with plant-based foods and then plowing that plant material back into the soils

and keeping the cycles going. But burgers for $9 billion is a recipe for ecological suicide. Mm-hmm. Beautifully put. That would be a great place to end it, but I can't let you go without asking you two quick questions. I know we have limited time with you today, but I did want to sort of inquire a little bit about the process when a patient comes to you at True North, right? I mean, if they're coming up to see you and to participate in this clinic, I would presume that they're probably in a relatively poor state of health and need some significant help. What do you commonly see?

What is the typical protocol if you could make a generalization? And what kind of results do you see? I mean, maybe an anecdote or a story to help kind of paint the picture. Sure. When I graduated med school in 1972, I thought I was going to see six cases of leprosy every week, four cases of smallpox, and three of Tsutsugamuchi fever. In 40 years, I've seen zero cases of smallpox, thank God, zero of Tsutsugamuchi fever, one leprosy I did see.

Leprosy. I walked into my clinic in Hawaii. Was that in Hawaii? In Hawaii, yeah. He came in off a ship from Vietnam. But that's not what kills people. Americans are sick and dying from what they are eating. It's that high-fat, toxic food stream.

And it's more than just fat. It's all the animal protein, hydrogenated oils, all the vegetable oil, all the toxic components of that food stream is clogging us up and creating the diseases, the high blood pressure, the obesity, the diabetes. It's all the same disease. It's running too rich a mixture through an engine that wasn't designed to run us, like running diesel fuel through your Volkswagen car engine. It's too rich a fuel, and it's clogging us up.

So as soon as they walk in the door, if they're 40 pounds overweight and on metformin for their diabetes, they're on a Cinepro for their blood pressure, I know just by looking at their medication list what they're going to look like before they come in the door. And so I sit down with them and I listen. And I say, when's the last time you felt really good? When's the last time you were at a really ideal body weight? And I listen. And I go, that was 10 years ago. What happened 10 years ago? Oh, I got divorced.

I lost my job. Okay, fair enough. And what happened with your food? Oh, I had no time to cook. I suddenly had a bachelor's degree on fast foods. Mm-hmm, there's a story. If you listen, they'll tell you the story, what's wrong with them. And so I open up my computer, and I show them what happens to their blood.

When they eat a cheeseburger, I show them how their blood turns fatty and there's more than just fat in that blood, all the carnitine metabolites and the contaminants, all the things that injure their arteries. And I say, man, you have bacon and eggs for breakfast, cheeseburger for lunch, fried chicken for dinner. Every five hours, you're sending a tide of fat and contaminants to your bloodstream. This is why you're sitting in front of me, 50 pounds overweight with high blood pressure and diabetes. You've got to stop doing this to your bloodstream, man. Here's what to eat.

And we talk about a healthy diet, fruit and oatmeal for breakfast and big soups and salads and steamed greens, all the good things we said. Take a walk every day and do a little fine tuning, depending as far as your medications go. And I see them back every two weeks. And if they're able to follow anywhere near this, the progress is stunning. It's beautiful to see these people trim down.

They get off their pills. So it comes down to listening and then getting real with them. They're not paying me to be an enabler. Oh, a little bit of chicken and cheese is okay, Joe. No, it's not okay. That's what's keeping you fat and diabetic and hypertensive. Stop doing that to your bloodstream.

Stop. If you can't do that, I'll help you fat and diabetic and hypertensive. Stop doing that to your bloodstream. Stop. If you can't do that, I'll help you taper it off a little bit. If you want, I'll have a little piece of flesh once a week, I guess. But, man, either get on board or you really need to find a doctor who will enable you in your bad habits. I can't be that doctor. If you want to work with me, if you want to get healthier, you're going to get on to a whole food plant-based diet and stop the cigarette smoking, et cetera. And there's lots of help available. I send it to our dietician and the cooking classes and the psychology support. They're entitled to all the support they can get, but it's get real time in my office. This is what

you're doing. And you want to get healthy, clean up the show and everything gets better from there. Right. And in terms of the success stories, it's one thing to talk about prevention or even damage control. Like this guy's headed for a disaster. Let's try to reduce the risk of that. But it's another thing altogether to talk about reversal. But I know that, you know, reversal is well within the realm of possibility when people are sort of adopting the protocol, you know, whole cloth from what you're saying oh absolutely these the reversals i've seen the recoveries are stunning these people who are headed for the icu or the more they're morbidly obese only all these

medications lean clean plant-based diet a walk every day boy they trim down it's we don't take before and after pictures in my office but boy i, I wish we did because so many times. Why not? Because when they first come in, they're sick and they're diabetic. They don't want a camera in front of their face recording it. But so often, when they stop eating the dairy alone, you see the bloat leave their face. You see their bull neck melt away. You see their jawline emerge.

You see their walk change. You see the expression on their face when they get out of the chair in the waiting room to come to my office. You can see they don't grimace anymore. They don't grunt. They're off their pills. Their bowels are moving for the first time in years. Their doctor hasn't felt this good in years. It just warms every cockle in this old doctor's heart.

And so that's what makes it worthwhile. And everybody can do it. Inside every fat, sick person there, there's a lean, healthy person who just needs to make better decisions. And the art and the joy in medicine now is helping people do that. I was relating to a friend of mine that when I was a young doc, oh, the excitement, oh, let's get him on these beta blockers for his heart rhythm and his ACE inhibitor for his blood pressure and the statin for his and let's put this pill in this pill now the fun of medicine after we get him on a healthy plant-based oh we can stop that pill oh get him off that one oh we can just continue that one doesn't need that one anymore now now the fun

is getting them off their pills and again turning them back into normal healthy people and uh that's it's the greatest most satisfying type of medicine I know how to practice, and that's what I'm going to finish my career with, no doubt. Beautiful. Thank you so much. You're so welcome. You're an inspiration. I hope that you continue for many, many years speaking the good word and helping people.

And to you. Keep running, man. We need the example you set. Boy, every time it's early in the morning and I don't want to you. Keep running, man. We need the example you set for you. Every time, it's early in the morning, and I don't want to get up and do my workout, I think of you out on the road. I say, if Rich can do it,

Clever, get out of bed and put on those running shoes and get moving, man. So you help me more than you do. We were joking at the Q&A session I did with Robert Cheek the other day. You were in the audience, and I was like, oh, no, Dr. Clapper's here. People are asking me nutrition questions. I was so intimidated.

I felt like you should be up there answering them, not me. You guys did very well. You guys know the field very well. All right, great. Fantastic. Thanks for taking the time. If you want to learn more about Dr. Clapper, the best way to find out about him is dr clapper.com right correct one p k l a p e r right and it's all spelled out d o c t o r k l a p e r.com and you

have a retreat in maui coming up we do at the end of march we have a seven-day uh retreat a beautiful retreat center on maui uh drinking lots of fresh juices, some beautiful yoga, relaxation, a little life coaching. It's just going to be a wonderful renewal cleanse to get you started in the spring. Awesome. And all the information about that's on your site, right? It's all on the website. And you have a Facebook page.

No, I don't. Oh, you don't? No, I don't. Really? So just your website. Just my website. We've got to get you on Twitter. You'd be great on Twitter. I can't even get my emails answered every time I open my inbox. At least we've got to get a podcast up and running for you. I'll start a network. You can join my network. Thank you. I'll take you up on that one.

All right. Very good. Great. And you've got a couple books out there. You have a book called Vegan Nutrition. That one's out of date. I do have four DVDs. That one's out of print. I have four DVDs, and they're available for download on my website on how to do a fast, on how your digestive system works, sense and non-sense nutrition, and understanding what your laboratory tests mean, as well as a good talk on salt, fat, and sugar.

Excellent. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Yeah, that's a whole. I mean, I have so many other things I want to talk to you about. Sure. So you're going to have to come on. Hopefully we will cross paths at another event coming up. Do you have other speaking engagements?

Oh, I'm sure they're sprinkled through the calendar, but I'm available to you anytime when I want to connect. I'll be glad to talk with you anytime, Richard. All right. Excellent. Thanks so much. Thank you. All right.

Peace. Plants. All right, everybody. That's our show this week. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you enjoyed Dr. Michael Clapper. We made it out of the Bermuda Triangle intact, alive, unless this is all some kind of waking dream like lost.

I'll have to think about that this week. Anyway, if you dug what you heard and you want to learn more about Dr. Michael Clapper, check out his goods, what he has to offer and all of his resources. I'm going to list them out on my website at richroll.com on the episode page for this episode, obviously. So go there, read up, do it up. Want to support the show? The main thing is just tell a friend, spread the word. This is all about viral, everybody.

So for those of you who have been doing that, we appreciate it. If you want to take it to the next level, the best way to do that is to use the Amazon banner ad at richworld.com. Just click it. It's on the homepage. It's on every page, I think.

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I'm not telling you what to do, just that you do it. We would greatly appreciate that as well. If you're inspired by Dr. Clapper and you want to learn more about how to get more plant-based, you're plant-curious, you can check out our online course at mindbodygreen.com, The Ultimate Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition, three and a half hours of streaming video content, an online community, downloadable tools, all kinds of good stuff. And it kind of answers a lot of the questions that I get via email about what to eat, when to eat it, what to eat before workout, after workout, how do you do it with kids, how do you do it when you travel.

All that good stuff is contained in this program of which I am quite proud. Of course, for all your plant power provisions, go to richroll.com. We've got some cool plant power t-shirts up there, a couple of nutritional products, our Jycee cookbook, and lots of fun stuff. So anyway, that's it. And you want to read some more of my thoughts, go to richroll.com on my blog. Follow me on Instagram and on Twitter and on Facebook. I'm at Rich Roll in most places. That's it. I'm out of here. Thanks, you guys. I hope you have a great week, a healthy week, a fit week. I hope you take time to invest in yourself this week

to do the inside work and the outside work. Let's all make our lives better together. All right, everybody, I'll be back with you next week. And until then, I bid you adieu. Thanks, you guys. Peace. Plants. Thank you.