The School of Greatness - 282 Dr. Peter Osborne on the Honest Truth About Gluten and Your Health

Episode Date: January 27, 2016

"If you put in garbage, your outcome is going to be garbage." - Dr. Peter Osborne If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes and more at http://lewishowes.com/282

This is episode number 282 with Dr. Peter Osborne. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome everyone to this interview today.

Very excited about our guest and our topic because it's something I've been experimenting with and testing over this last month, but also on and off for the last few years with my health. And some of the main things that we're covering today is what gluten actually is and what is found in. If you're not gluten sensitive, should you still stay away from eating it? What about all those cheat days that people talk about? The top leading causes of death in the US andS. and why they are food induced, how to get your mind on board with switching to a no-gluten diet, and so much more that we cover.

And our guest is none other than Dr. Peter Osborne, who is a chiropractor and a board-certified clinical nutritionist. He is licensed with a pastoral medicine association and is a doctor of pastoral science and medicine. He's been practicing since 2001. His clinical focus is the holistic natural treatment of chronic degenerative musculoskeletal diseases. He is an expert in the relationship that gluten sensitivity and food allergies play in chronic inflammation, and he has helped thousands of patients recover from chronic painful conditions. So if you feel like you're curious about learning this information or you know someone who is affected by gluten or any type of food sensitivity

or food allergies or anything with chronic inflammation, then make sure to listen to this and share this episode with your friend, with your family member, because this is impacting many people, specifically in America and all around the world, in a negative way. And it must stop if we want to live a better, healthier, longer life and be happier in the process. So I hope you guys enjoy this one. I found it very interesting and very intriguing with the information and the research that's out there right now. So let's dive in and introduce you to the one and only Dr. Peter Osborne. Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness podcast. Super fun for today.

Our guest is Dr. Peter Osborne. How's it going, Peter? Oh, doing great. Thanks for having me, Lewis. Yeah, and I want to dive right in here because you've got a new book out called No Grain, No Pain. It's a 30-day diet for eliminating the root cause of chronic pain. And this is something that I'm actually this week doing some different tests on my own body. It's the beginning of the year. I'm really trying different things out, and I'm doing no gluten this week. And for about two months back in 2010, I was about 30 pounds heavier than I am now, and I decided to go off all gluten and sugar for two months,

and I lost 30 pounds in the first 30 days. And I felt this incredible weight, emotional weight lifted off of me as well at the same time. And I remember after this like couple of months of not having gluten, I was like, okay, I'm going to celebrate. I'm going to have a big bowl of pasta. And I literally, I've never been drunk in my life. I've never, you know, I've had sips of alcohol, but I've never been drunk, but I, I ate this pasta and I went for a drive afterwards. My friend was driving and I literally could not get out of the car. I was like a zombie when we got, when we stopped, I was, I don't know. I felt like the sensation of being drunk, um, only worse. And, um,

I realized that it had a huge effect on my body and I'm assuming that it always has. It's always weighed me down as an athlete. I always used to have lots of, you know, pasta and pizza and bread right before a game. And I realized I probably limited myself and I never reached my full potential. So I'm excited to dive in to learn about how you became first, to learn about how you became first an expert in this topic of essentially gluten-free and why we should be living this way and why it's the root of chronic pain. So first off, how did you get into this topic and why are you so passionate about it? Well, I actually started at working. I was working in the VA hospital during graduate school and interning through

the rheumatology department. So we saw, you know, all kinds of chronic pain patients with rheumatoid arthritis and lupus and dermatomyositis and scleroderma, you know, all these very debilitating joint eroding autoimmune conditions. And nobody ever got better. That was the point of frustration for me was that all these people come through, they'd be put on these powerful anti-cancer medications like methotrexate and these powerful anti-inflammatories, but they really weren't better, and they'd end up in a surgical consult with a joint replacement surgery anyway. So to me, it was almost like an exercise in futility because a lot of the drugs, the side effects of a lot of the drugs that were being used were horrific. And so I asked the fundamental question, why do we continue to do the same thing repetitively?

Why don't we change the nature of what we're doing? And nobody else seemed to be on board with me. with me, but I spent a number of weeks in the medical library here in Houston, the Jesse Jones Medical Library, burning the midnight oil, just researching autoimmune disease. And I came to two fundamental light bulb moments. One of them was the only known cause for autoimmune disease that was scientifically validated was celiac disease, and that was gluten. And then the other thing was that when you took these patients with with autoimmune pain conditions and you fasted them you took away

food altogether a lot of them would be pain-free within 48 hours and to me it just spoke very loudly that you know food is part of the problem at least and so we should at least begin the investigation of that process so i i took i took stacks of literature to my attending physician and I was pretty much laughed out of the room and told, you know, that we're not going to do this. And so I left there. I couldn't work in that kind of environment. I ended up leaving and started my own practice. One of my first patients was terminal. A little girl, she was terminal. She had six months to live. She, she had a disease called juvenile rheumatoid arthritis she had a permanent stent embedded in her arm because she was in and out of the hospital so frequently and um anyway today she's getting ready to graduate high school she's off all

medication stents out of her arm and it was diet change you know very simply put it and it saved her life literally within a year so So from six months to live, Make-A-Wish Foundation granting her wish to I'm no longer dying and I'm thriving, all because we looked at gluten and grain as a culprit in her disease. And to me, that message was just so powerful. I knew I had to get it out to more people in the world

because frankly, 100 million people currently are diagnosed with some form of autoimmune disease. It's the number one condition in the United States. It's right. Now, what's the definition of autoimmune disease, just so we know? What does it mean? It's when your immune system becomes overly ambitious and confused and starts to attack your own tissue. And there are about 140 different forms of autoimmune disease. Celiac is one of them. Rheumatoid arthritis. Hashimoto's, so low thyroid or hypothyroidism.

Addison's disease. Dermatomyositis. There are some conditions now being it's now being studied that osteoporosis is actually has an autoimmune component. Several cancers have an autoimmune component. Some forms of heart disease have autoimmune as the as the cause of the origin. So it's a much more prevalent problem than what people realize. more prevalent problem than what people realize. And the reason why is that when, when medically, when we put out the statistics about what diseases exist and how many people die from X, Y, or Z, we clump all cancers together and we clump all forms of heart disease together, but we do not

clump all forms of autoimmune disease together. We separate them out as individual diseases. And so it takes the back burner to research and it takes the back burner to attention. Okay. Fascinating. So I want to go over some myths and have you answer and let me know the facts and the myths, if that's okay with you. Sure. Okay. About gluten. Myth. Gluten is only found in wheat, barley, and rye, and sometimes in oats. Yeah, the commonality or the common thought process is that if you go gluten-free, you can go down the gluten-free aisle at the grocery store and buy all these other products that are full of corn and rice and sorghum, some of these other grains. And the reality is that there's no such thing as a gluten-free grain. By definition, gluten is defined as the family of proteins found within the seeds of grass.

So oats, they're a grass. Corn's a grass. Rice is a grass. So a lot of these people, they're gravitating toward these, you know, quote-unquote gluten-free substitutes and what's happening. And even the research validates this. and even the research validates this. The last study that was done showed that 92% of people going on a gluten-free diet had persistent inflammation because they were eating these other forms of gluten. Wow.

Okay. So I wasn't even aware of this. So corn and these other grains that isn't, quote-unquote, gluten, that's in the gluten-free aisle, it still can create inflammation in the body is what you're saying right so they yeah the fda only there's a there's a name of a form there's a there's more than a thousand types of gluten a lot of people don't realize this and and there's more than 400 forms of gluten in wheat alone now of all the types of gluten, there's one particular type of gluten and its name is alpha-gliadin. And it was discovered in 1952.

And the new FDA gluten definition is based on research that dates back to the 50s. And so we're only calling gluten-free or we're only calling foods with gluten foods that contain this alpha-gliadin. So if the food doesn't contain alpha-glutin they can call it gluten-free by law that's the fda law on gluten labeling so again corn the name one of the names of or one of the glutens found in corn is called zine or zane and um and this particular gluten is is been found in a 2012 study to be just as detrimental to people with gluten sensitivity as the alpha gliadin found in wheat. It's just not common knowledge. It's not being taught. The doctors who are diagnosing

celiac disease and telling people to go gluten-free are encouraging them to eat corn and rice as substitutes as opposed to educating them about this newer research that's coming out that's quite alarming. So corn and rice, you're saying, is essentially not that good for us to eat as well. Correct. Interesting. So what, I mean, here's the challenge. It feels like corn or some type of wheat or gluten or these other substitutes are in every type of food. You know, I'm in LA, so there's all these different vegan and, you know, vegetarian restaurants that don't have gluten as well, but they put other substitutes in. It sounds like those substitutes aren't healthy for us either. So if that's the case, what should we be eating to have an optimal body, mind, spirit, soul?

Well, that answer is dependent on the person. So one of the things you mentioned is you're getting some tests done to kind of figure out how to better improve your health. So as a clinician, I have a clinic in Sugar Land, and one of the things that I do with every patient is I test what they're allergic to, what they're not allergic to, whether or not they have gluten sensitivity, whether or not they have leaky gut, whether or not they have vitamin and mineral deficiencies, so that we can put together the exact blueprint that that patient needs to follow to regain their health. But if we're just generalizing and we're saying, okay, let's work under the assumption that the person could benefit from a grain-free diet, and we're saying, what can that person

eat? Well, meat, vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, those going to be the best the best food groups that person can consume. And then there's some general rules under those guidelines. Like don't buy don't buy commercial farmed beef, you know, get grass fed pasture raised beef because the the way we feed and treat animals reflects in their own health. the way we feed and treat animals reflects in their own health and if we eat an unhealthy animal tissue then that you know we always you always hear that you know with especially with the vegetarian community is that beef contributes to heart disease beef does not contribute to heart disease unhealthy beef contributes to heart disease so when you when you take a cow and you lock them up in a six by six pen and you force feed them genetically modified grain full of

pesticides and mycotoxins and mold fungus, that's going to be a sick animal. And so we eat that sick animal's flesh and then we blame beef as a whole for causing heart disease. So we look toward what we're eating and we gravitate toward smarter choices, organic, free range, pastured, wild caught instead of farm raised. Those are the choices that we want to tend to gravitate toward. So if we're not gluten-sensitive, is it okay for us to be able to eat foods with gluten in it, or should we stay away from them all in all, even if we

have no sensitivities or celiacs or any of those conditions? Well, if you have any form of autoimmune disease, you should have gluten sensitivity ruled out immediately. If you don't, you could still benefit from a grain-free diet and here's why you know we all talk about gluten as you know the devil so so to say that is the culprit for all these different problems but it's so much deeper than gluten that's why the title of the book is no grain no pain not no gluten no pain if we if we look at gluten itself, gluten is a family of proteins found in grains and it can create inflammatory damage. But there are four other classes of proteins that we've identified within grain. Some of these proteins create gastrointestinal

inflammation and cause leaky gut. And this has been very well established. Studies at Harvard have established these things. We also know that there are families of proteins in grain that shut down your pancreas. So your pancreas is responsible for regulating blood sugar, but also responsible for producing digestive enzymes. And if you're taking in a food as a staple every day that slows down its function, then you have a harder time processing the nutrients from the food that you eat. And so you slowly become malnourished over time. But then we also have the vast majority of grains in the way they're farmed in this country. We've got the chemical glyphosate, which is also known as Roundup. Basically, it's a weed killer.

And another one called atrazine. Well, when we grow grain, we saturate the field in these chemicals. Atrazine is a chemical that mimics estrogen. So for men, it becomes a problem, increasing the risk of prostate disease and other problems, increasing the risk of muscle loss. Because when you eat foods that are high in estrogenic compounds, it's harder to gain muscle. It's harder to be athletic. It's harder to, you know, to train and overcome. So you've got the pesticides and then you have Roundup, which is a different kind of pesticide, which causes leaky gut. It's toxic to humans,

but the grain has been saturated in it and we're eating eight servings of the grain a day. And so we're getting much much much more exposure to these pesticides over time and so that's another aspect and then it's the way that the grain is is stored a number of forms of grain the way they're stored in these big silos and they're stored for lengthy periods of time and they actually grow mold grows within these grains and it's actually been very well studied that mold is a common problem in grain storage. But not just mold. And understand that it's estimated that about 30% to 40% of the population has a mold allergy.

So here's this, you know, you've got a large quantity of people who potentially are allergic to mold are going to have a problem with grain and it has nothing to do with gluten. But then you have this other aspect from mold, which is called a mycotoxin. So think of it like mold poop. It's like a chemical compound that the mold makes and these mycotoxins are extremely dangerous and some of the foods that are highest in mycotoxins uh are the gluten-free the foods on the gluten-free food aisle uh and and it's because what's that or what quinoa and corn and rice. So you've got, you know, you've got mold, you've got mycotoxins, you've got pesticides, you've got the fact that some of these grains are genetically modified. Also, some of these grains are very, very high in heavy metals.

Corn is high in mercury. Rice is high in arsenic and cadmium. So you've got, you know, people that are eating these grains as a staple food. They're eating 50% or more of their calories primarily coming from grain with all these other chemical compounds also found in the grain. Over time, it basically creates a deterioration in those individuals' health. So the old school argument is that you need grain to get fiber right and that grain is super nutritious but there's no scientific evidence that says that humans require grain as a

matter of fact all the scientific evidence says that anytime we analyze the introduction of grain into the human diet as a staple food we see the onset of multiple forms of disease really yep i mean i i mean i may be ignorant here, but it seems like Asian cultures have been eating grains for hundreds of centuries or whatever and thriving on it. Am I wrong? Yes. Well, no. Yes and no.

And that's a great point. I'm glad you brought it up. The Asian culture has the biggest problem with diabetes than any other culture in the world. More than Americans. More than Americans. It's kind of this myth in America that the Asians are so healthy because they follow this oriental, more natural way of living. It's kind of one of those, I guess you could say, one of those common thoughts that people think about that's not – it's just a myth. It's not true.

And they have more problems with diabetes than any other culture and one of the reasons why is rice. Oh, my goodness. Okay. So what are the main grains that people think are healthy for them that are actually – that we should eliminate completely from our diet no matter where in the world you are? Okay. Wheat, barley, rye, oats, corn, rice, sorghum, and millet. Those are the primary grains that I just don't recommend people consume, especially if they're commercially farmed. Wow. Okay.

Especially, especially if they're commercially farmed. Wow. Okay. So we should completely eliminate these things from our diet because even if we have no sensitivities to gluten, you still think we should eliminate them? Yeah, because you're getting exposure to all the other things. And that's just a part of it. What I just described is a fraction of some of the problems that grain brings when you make it a staple food in your diet. I feel like I've just been eating wrong my whole life then. Did you used to eat a lot of these foods yourself?

I did. And, you know, my story is when I went grain-free, initially I did like everyone else. I went to the gluten-free food aisle and started pounding down gluten-free bread and drank gluten-free beer. Honestly, I felt worse on the gluten-free foods than I did on the traditional grain-based foods. That was actually why I started asking the question. Here I am telling all these people to cut wheat, barley, and rye out, but corn and rice and sorghum are accepted. I feel worse eating those grains. Why? I started diving in diving in and, and, and, uh, you know, the literature is there. It's just kind of the medical literature is there. It's just kind of been swept under the rug and ignored largely by, by, um, by, um,

doctors and science and not all scientists, but by, by most, the vast majority of gastroenterologists who are responsible for diagnosing celiac disease. And,, like I said before, 92% of the patients, their inflammation doesn't clear up. They don't get resolution of their illness and they go on to develop multiple forms of autoimmunity but don't link it to the grain. Yeah, and for people that are going to be saying, well, I don't know if this guy is telling the truth or how can I know this is real or where's the documentation? Do you have all this backed up? I see a lot of notes in the back of your book. Yeah, there's over 300 medical references in the book. Okay, perfect. Yeah, because I'm sure a lot of people are going to say, well, I don't know if

I believe that. This is how I've lived my whole life and I feel fine, yada, yada, yada. But as long as the research is there, I guess that's all that matters. So you're saying, I mean, what do people substitute? You know, what if they're used to putting rice and quinoa in their salad or some type of veggie bowl and they believe that's extra protein and it's not going to be harmful because it's gluten-free? You know, is it really going to harm people that much? And if so, what do you recommend they substitute these grains with for their meals? So let me answer the first part of the question. Is it going to harm them that much? If they're gluten sensitive, it is.

If they're gluten sensitive, it's a zero-sum game. If you're eating grains and you're gluten sensitive, you're in trouble. You're going to end up with much more severe disease than what you already have. And you're going to end up – the average person with gluten sensitivity will develop seven forms of autoimmunity before they're dead. And they will actually shave off 26 years. A study's been done. They'll shave off 26 years of their life. And not only will they live less, but their quality of life will be much poorer.

Wow. But substituting is easy enough. um but but substituting um substituting is easy enough i mean you can substitute i i always substitute you know where instead of a bowl of rice with with other things on top like i put a bowl of vegetable or a bed of vegetables on the bottom you can do cauliflower rice you can do carrots you can do broccoli you can do bamboo you can do chestnut i mean there's a or not chestnut water chestnut there's i mean there's a whole there's 300 different varieties of fruits and vegetables and meats that are in the human diet and i bet lewis if you analyze your diet i bet you would find that the variety is nowhere

near 300 different things all the time like 10 Yeah, and most people's 10 things are grain either punched out in the form of pasta or shells or in bread or in some form of pizza or in a donut or a bagel or a piece of toast or a sandwich, right? We look at the average person's diet, 50% plus is grain, 30% or so is dairy, and then the rest is meat and vegetables of some different kind of variety. So the vast majority of what people are eating anyway isn't a variety at all. It's the guise of variety. Macaroni and cheese is not that different than spaghetti, is not that different than spiraled pasta. But we call that variety because

the noodles are pressed into different shapes and soaked in different kinds of sauces. So for those that love their pastas, what's the – I started doing quinoa pasta because I felt like it was going to be better than the traditional pasta. But obviously now I'm realizing that's still not good for me. What's the type of pasta that I could make? I'm realizing that's still not good for me. What's the type of pasta that I could make? One of the best tools you can get is a spiralizer, a vegetable spiralizer. And you can – basically you can hook up some zucchini and you can make – you can churn it.

You turn it and it kind of creates little noodles out of the zucchini. And you can use that as a bed of pasta. You can use spaghetti squash as a substitute. Some people gravitate towards sweet potato noodles that you can actually buy sweet potato noodles they're pretty good there's a mung bean noodle is another option they're made out of bean and they're also sometimes called glass noodles because they're clear in color some people like kelp noodles made out of seaweed and they taste pretty good too so and they're you know they're not, they're not vastly different from the wheat pasta. There's a little bit difference of a texture, a little bit difference of a taste, but it's different, you know, it's a different,

it's a different food, but it's still a really good substitute. How can people test to know what sensitivities they have in their body or if they have any at all? Well, there, there are lots of different ways to test. For gluten sensitivity, you know, for grain, ultimately the best way to test is genetics. We all have these two gene patterns called HLA-DQ-alpha-1 and HLA-DQ-beta-1 genes. And some of us have a pattern on these genes that understand these genes are their job is to create this antenna on our immune system that recognizes things our body does and doesn't like so it's kind of like the guardian or the watchdog and so if you have certain patterns genetically that when

gluten comes in you're actually going to react to it as opposed to treat it like food. So the, you're in those people who have that genetic marker, their normal response to gluten is to create inflammation against it. Um, if we're talking about food allergy testing, um, there's about seven different ways a person can have an immune allergic reaction to food. And so there's a battery of different tests that will tease that out. One of them is called IgE. There's IgA. There's IgM. There's IgG. And there's IgD. And there's immune complex response. And there's T cell responses. And these can all be measured and tested for in individuals to see or determine what foods that their immune system is at odds with.

And it's not all allergies are acute. There's some people say, I eat that and I feel fine. It's like saying, I didn't exercise yesterday and I feel fine. OK, right. And we know that missing a day of exercise is not a big deal, but missing five years of exercise, that's where the problem sets in. It's like eating a food you're allergic to where you're not having an anaphylactic reaction, or you're not having like your lips swell or breaking out in hives, but you're having just chronic low-grade inflammation in your body

every day because the food you're eating, your body is inflamed against. It's slow, it's steady, and it's subtle. It's insidious. And then you hit a point where your body can no longer put out all the inflammation. And that's when we start breaking down. That's when we start saying, oh, I'm just getting older. That's when we start saying, oh, it's normal. It's just a little joint pain. And we start popping ibuprofen and other pills. And the reality is it's accumulated damage over time.

So just because you don't feel bad when you eat a food doesn't mean the food isn't bad for you. Hmm. eat a food doesn't mean the food isn't bad for you. Tell me about your book is a 30-day diet for eliminating the root cause of chronic pain. For people that don't go get tested, because you said there's different ways to go about doing that, what do you recommend? Do you recommend, you know, and how does this program work? Because it's 30 days, complete all grains from your diet, but you can eat anything else you want to eat, or how does it work? Cause it's 30 days complete all grains from your diet. Um, but you can eat anything else you want to eat or how does it work? No, I mean, there's three fundamental rules of nutrition. You can't get healthy eating food that isn't healthy, right? So

I can't have sugar all day and eliminate grain and be good. Well, it's like business, you know, I mean, you get what you put, you get what you put in, right? I mean, if you don't put in the hard work and the dedication, then you're not going to get an outcome that's success. And it's no different in nutrition. If you put in, you know, garbage, your outcome is going to be garbage. And, uh, and so that's a fundamental rule. We have to understand that, uh, rule number two, don't eat what you're allergic or intolerant or sensitive to. And rule number three, if you feel bad when you eat it, stop eating it, listen to your body. But, but beyond that, the 30 day program is designed. I mean, I've been in practice for 15 years and so I've seen pretty much every, every autoimmune disease you can imagine. And I, and I've seen every kind of diet plan and every

kind of, uh, modification you could imagine. And so this 30 day plan is based on person who's not doing any testing and it's based on, on the premise of going grain-free. There's some other foods that we look at that we eliminate, and there's two phases to this diet. There's a phase one, which is 15 days, and then there's a phase two, and it's graduated. So the first phase is a little bit easier, and you graduate into that second phase, and that's where for most people, if it's going to be a challenge, that's where the challenge is. But the 30 days is enough time, Lewis, to establish with certainty for that individual that their diet is directly responsible for creating autoimmune pain and inflammation in their body because the difference will be that profound. They'll feel better. You'll probably lose weight.

You'll have more energy, all those things you're saying. Yep. Gotcha. So you'll just feel it. You'll have more energy, all those things you're saying. Yep. Gotcha. So you'll feel it. Right. Okay. And beyond 30 days, now you have a choice. Now that the 30 days has proven that you feel better, now you have a choice. Do you stop at 30 days and go back to the way you felt, or do you recognize that with great intelligence and pursue forward? felt or do you recognize that with great intelligence and pursue forward?

And some people do. They pursue forward and they get tested and they tweak it even more and they get even better. Again, it's kind of like business. You get success and then you tweak that so that you can get to another level of success and you keep moving in that direction. Well, nutrition, it works very, very similar. What about those freaks of nature that are just shredded human beings, have all the energy in the world, and they eat garbage, sugar, candies, junk food, ice cream, whenever they want, and they just seem to be genetic specimens? What about those cases?

They always pay a price. Really? Yep, always. There's always a price to pay. You don't get to escape the price. Some people pay it later in life as opposed to earlier in life. But I see those guys all the time. Usually those guys, and they are guys, women typically get sick around the age of 35 to 38. The men like that you're referring to, they're typically in here at 55 to 58 with low testosterone. Their hair's falling out, sex drive is gone, their muscles are wasting away. They don't understand why they're growing a potbelly when they've always gotten away with treating their bodies like garbage their whole life. Wow. Okay.

What about the whole theory of a cheat day? Six days a week, I'm going to be grain-free, sugar-free, or live by these specific principles. But we live in a day of age where there's amazing dessert foods and all these different things that we could enjoy. And people want to enjoy life and be able to experience different tastes here and there. Is it bad or do you think it's going to be harmful long-term if six days a week you're eating super clean on this process and then one day a week you indulge in you know the donuts and the cupcakes and the brownies well if a person is is truly gluten sensitive that cheat day is a problem um it's a zero tolerance policy that the science shows that gluten can do damage at 20 parts per million which is about the size of a breadcrumb, and that that inflammatory damage can last for up to two months.

So if you're cheating every sixth or seventh day, you're going to stay in that chronic inflamed state. Now, some people… What if they don't have the sensitivity? If they don't have the sensitivity, look, the body is dynamic and resilient, but then we have to do the math. I would encourage people to do the math. I would encourage people to do the math. If you spend one of every seven days, you're basically, if we're scoring your grade, right, you've got a bad score. You've got a bad test grade.

You know, one out of seven is not a – if you miss one and there's only seven questions, you're writing at a low B. So if you want your health to be a low B, then that's your call. You can make that call. But that's the way I like to – numbers don't lie that way. So think of it – if you think of it like that and then you may instead of saying one cheat day, maybe you say one a month. And that maybe becomes more of a realistic thing. I think people have gravitated toward the social engagement with food. In our society, food is out of control. If you look at the top causes of death, every single one of them, Louis, are associated with food. Cancer is associated with food. Heart disease is associated with food. Autoimmune disease is associated with food. disease associated with food. The next leading cause of death is medication. And I know a lot of people are saying that's not true, but it is true. A study published in the Journal of American Medical Association in 1998 provided that evidence. And it's the fourth leading cause of

death in the United States. So the top three causes of death in the U.S. are food-induced. And the fourth leading cause of death is the way we try to prevent the food-induced disease is through medication. Then who's winning? Statistically, you're going to die of heart disease or cancer. So you've got to ask yourself, is that what you want? Is that cheat day worth it? And I'm not saying that a person can never have a treat. I'm just saying let's evaluate where the treat is coming from i mean i like things that are sweet but you know instead of buying this highly processed ho-ho with 17 000 chemicals in it

right yeah we may bake something at home that's got four or five ingredients it's all coming from real food and not fake food and there's no genetically manipulated ingredients and there's no hormones or pesticides or other garbage in it. So you can still have that. It just becomes a matter of having it intelligently. So what does your diet look like on a consistent basis? What are you putting in your body and when do you indulge or do you? I do indulge. I mean, I'm like any other human and nobody's perfect. I do like to indulge. And so, I'm like any other human. Nobody's perfect. I do like to indulge. Breakfast for me typically is some form of meat. Sometimes it's beef. Sometimes it's chicken. Sometimes it's pork. Sometimes over the top and maybe some red bell peppers sliced over the top of that as well with a couple of grapes mixed in for a little sweet. That's a pretty

average breakfast. And then for lunch, I'll generally eat whatever I had for dinner the night before. Fortunately, my wife cooks and we believe the same way about nutrition. So she usually cooks a really healthy dish with lots of vegetables. There's usually a portion of meat. For dessert, typically, I'll have fruit. We've got some fruit trees in the backyard. Grapefruit season is here right now, so I'll pull grapefruit off the tree and I'll spoon it right out. For me, that's a pretty darn good dessert.

As far as cheat days and things that things that nature splurging i mean you know for birthday or for you know holiday celebration you know we can bake my wife bakes grain-free cookies she bakes grain-free yeah oh yeah you use you use different kinds of flours so you might use almond flour or coconut flour tapioca flour or cassava flour plantain flour there's there's plenty of other options. You know, a lot of people, they look at this and they say, there's no way I could do it, right? Just like they might, you know, in the business world, they look at a successful person and say, there's no way I could ever reach that person's level. And they stop themselves before

they're ever even beginning the process of investigation. And I would say, don't go into this with that attitude. Go into this with understanding there is a learning curve. There's an intelligence. There's a preparation that if you put the time in, the outcome could dramatically change your life. But that's the process. It's just the process of learning. And once you learn, you'll find there's just as much if not more variety in your diet. And there are foods that are just as social and engaging and as enjoying as what you were eating before

and probably even better because now you don't feel like shit while you're eating them. Right, right. But tell me about, you know, there's a lot of vegans out here. A lot of my friends are vegans in L.A. and there's a movement towards this. But essentially, you could be a really unhealthy vegan if you're just substituting everything with gluten, right? Oh, yeah. I mean, you could be.

And just like the opposite, you could be a meat eater and you could be eating the worst foods too and you could be very unhealthy. There's this whole battle with vegans and non-vegans in that some people on one side will say it's impossible to be a healthy vegan. And then on the other side, they'll say it'll be impossible to eat meat and be healthy. And both arguments are wrong. Everybody's different. There's this concept in what I do, which is called functional medicine, which is basically that there's this concept called biochemical individuality. Everyone is a unique individual. There are some people who when they eat meat, they don't digest it. They can't process it properly. It backs them up, gives them constipation,

makes them feel horrible. And so they do better on a diet of vegetables and on a diet with either much less meat or fish as an option as opposed to red meats that are harder to digest. And then there are people genetically, if they don't eat meat, their bodies will emaciate and waste away and they'll actually become sick. So both sides of that equation are actually correct, but it just depends on where the person as a unique individual falls. And can you talk to me about legumes? Because the whole, you know, the whole paleo movement and, and they're talking about legumes. What are your thoughts on them? And what are legumes?

So people know. Yeah, legumes are basically beans and lentils. And just like grains, grains are seeds. And legumes are seeds. And the fundamental problem, if you look at paleo, one of the arguments, you know, with saying, hey, we need to avoid legumes is that legumes as a seed, the function of a seed in mother nature's grand scheme is that a seed is designed to survive. It's designed to protect itself biochemically so that it can perpetuate its own species. And so it has, it has to have embedded within it mechanisms that protect it from predators. Humans are the predators. And some of these mechanisms are, are that this outer shell of the seed is very hard and hard to penetrate. So our digestive

enzymes can't penetrate that shell very efficiently. So it can be harder to digest. That's why a lot of people with beans, they take Beano when they cook their beans to pre-digest the beans so that it's less toxic and less harmful on the GI tract. But legumes also, like some of the glutens and some of the proteins in grains, legumes contain proteins like lectins and some of these other proteins that can inhibit digestion. And so some people really have a hard, hard time consuming beans consistently because their digestive tracts just can't penetrate with them and just can't break them down. And so what happens is the beans end up rotting in their gut and feeding the wrong bacteria. And so then we get this person that develops this abnormal gut bacteria and leaky gut,

and then they start ending up with all these other kinds of problems as a result of it. So you're saying we should not be having legumes as well? I'm saying that if you're having, no, I'm not saying that everybody as a general rule of thumb avoids legumes at all costs. I'm saying that some people are better digesters of legumes than others. I think if you're going to eat legumes, you've got to cook them appropriately. Legumes by themselves are real, again, they're really hard to digest and you might get away with eating small portions, but if you're eating massive portions, your gut might pay the price. So the proper way of preparation for beans is actually soaking those beans. So beans come in those packages are really, really hard and you can soak them.

And most people will soak them for about 12 hours and then drain the water and then begin cooking them. Well, if you soak them about 36 hours and you replace that water, drain it about every 12 hours and replace the water, what you're actually doing is you're washing away a lot of the anti-nutrients that are found in legumes. And in essence, you're almost in a sense pre-digesting that legume so that it's less work for your gut. Gotcha. Okay. and i'm seeing here in your book cashew and peanuts those are not nuts right no those are legumes legumes okay gotcha what about almonds and almond butter perfectly everyone's fine that's good okay everyone's using i think i read somewhere recently that you know people are having consuming too much almonds in their diet now as a substitute

for everything else. You can do that too. Yeah, you can get too much. The problem with almonds is they're higher in omega-6 fatty acids and omega-6 fatty acids promote the inflammatory cascade. So if your diet ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 is out of balance, you tend to be hyper-inflammatory. So with any food, Lewis, you can overdo anything, right? I mean, the principle law of toxicity is that anything in high enough quantities can eventually become toxic to the body. And that's why, you know, that old saying exists, you know, moderation. So don't, don't, don't pack down a pound of almonds just because almonds are on the safe list, you know, do it intelligently.

Well, if you could wrap everything up in less than 30 seconds, maybe someone who seems to be living a semi-healthy lifestyle, but they want to optimize their life or someone who's really sick, it doesn't matter who it is. If you could share your message in 30 seconds or less that would inspire them to take action, what would you say? No grain, no pain and follow the seven fundamentals. Eat a clean, healthy diet. Make sure you get eight hours of sleep, plenty of sleep. Make sure that you exercise consistently, but not too advertently. Don't overdo it. Make sure you're drinking clean water. Make sure you're breathing clean air. Make sure you got plenty of laughter in your life and in stress control and stress management. I would say those things. And as a general rule, you will improve your health if you apply those rules across the board.

I love that. What are you most grateful for, Dr. Osborne? I'm most grateful for being able to do what I absolutely love to do. I love that. Before I ask the final question, I want to acknowledge you for your dedication and your consistency and your work of diving in and learning the research that you said was swept under the rug by many medical practices for the last 15 years and really serving all the people you've served. I know you help hundreds, if not thousands of people that come into your clinic in Houston. So thanks for healing people, saving people's lives.

You're doing incredible work. And I want to acknowledge you for all your commitment to this idea and this work. Thank you, Lewis. Appreciate that. Now, where can we connect with you online? I know you've got your new book that we'll have linked up here in the show notes, but where can we follow you? And what's your main site that we can go to? Well, my clinic site is drpeterosborne.com, drpeterosborne.com. And then my foundation, I have a foundation to help people discern and discover the gluten-free lifestyle and kind of get their questions answered. And that's glutenfreesociety.org, O-R-G. Awesome. And you're all over the place on Facebook, Twitter, and everything else, correct?

Yep. Okay, cool. We'll have it all linked up here in the show notes afterwards. I'll tell you guys where to go, but make sure to follow Dr. Peter Osborne and pick up this book, No Grain, No Pain, A 30-Day Diet for Eliminating the Root Cause of Chronic Pain. I think you're going to get a lot out of it. I've already been going through the book myself. And just this interview alone has been extremely informative, but he's got the whole game plan for 30 days, what you should follow, what you should be eating, and a lot more research and information about the things you have been consuming and how it's affecting your health and your long-term health. So make sure to check this

out, get the book. You can get it on Amazon or everywhere else online, but we'll also have it linked up at the end of this episode. Final question for you. What is your definition of greatness? I think greatness is allowing your inner power to shine. I think greatness is being able to take what I do, take what you love and amplify it, because what you love is generally what you're good at. It's your gift. And I think the most and I've done this to the most miserable thing in the world is being stuck somewhere in a position that you don't like in a job that you don't like in a profession that you don't like and being forced to do it simply so that you can make ends meet. So I think the definition of an individual's greatness is tapping into that inner power because everybody has an inner power, discovering what that is and living life to its fullest by amplifying that in your life.

I love it. Dr. Peter Osborne, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your wisdom. Yeah, you're welcome, Lois. Thanks so much for having me. And there you have it, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this very powerful message. Make sure to check out the book, do the research yourself so you're making sure that you have checked out everything. Again, your health is the most important thing that you have. It's all we have. And if we're not emotionally, mentally, and physically healthy, and if we're not constantly educating and updating ourselves on how to improve our health,

then we're missing the point of life, in my opinion. So make sure to continue to update and inform yourself. I hope this was a powerful interview that was eye-opening and enlightening and informative. You can check out the full show notes at lewishouse.com slash 282. Again, share this with a friend as well, lewishouse.com slash 282. Or if you're listening on the podcast app on iTunes, you can click on the share button and send it out to Twitter, Facebook, all those places, and just copy the link and email it to a friend as well. Again, lewishouse.com slash 282 to check out all the show notes, the links, where you can

get the book, and how you can connect with Dr. Peter Osborne as well. I hope you enjoyed this one. Super pumped. We have stepped up the game. Make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel, youtube.com slash Lewis Howes. We're doing videos two, three times a week now. Every interview we're recording, this was the last interview that we are doing without video because we had done this a while back. So we are doing everything moving forward with video. So check out all the videos and inspiring messages we're putting out at youtube.com slash lewishouse as well.

Super pumped for who we have coming up. Make sure to continue to subscribe if this is your first time here. Leave a review as well at iTunes slash School of Greatness and continue to share the message with your friends. We can't do this without you. Your support makes this what it is. It allows us to bring on even bigger, more inspiring, influential guests to give you the information you deserve. So thank you for all that you do to share and spread the message of greatness. I love you.

And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Outro Music