Well with Arielle Lorre - 255: Wellness Myth Busting: Glucose Spikes, Seed Oils, Inflammation & More with Simon Hill, MSc, BSc

Episode Date: June 28, 2023

Simon Hill is a physiotherapist, nutritionist, author and host of the hit podcast, The Proof, on a mission to help people make informed lifestyle choices. With a love for science and the qualifications to translate it properly, he makes health and nutritional information simple and accessible. He joins the show to do some wellness myth-busting and share is expertise around topics including the truth about blood sugar spikes and CGM’s, lifestyle contributors to both optimal health and to many diseases that plague us in the Western world, the best diet according to science, all things protein, inflammation, seed oils and so much more. This episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct, or indirect financial interest in products, or services referred to in this episode.Love Wellness is offering my listeners 15% off your first purchase at LoveWellness.com with the code BLONDE15.For a limited time, House of Macadamias is offering listeners a free box of their best-seller, Namibian Sea Salted Macadamia Nuts (worth $35) with your purchase at houseofmacadmias.com/blonde  +20% your whole order with code BLONDEVisit CleanSimpleEats.com and use code BLONDE at checkout for 20% off your first order.For a limited time, listeners get 20%  off their first order by going to vegamour.com/blonde use code blonde at check out. Visit sephora.com/clean to learn more about Sephora’s range of clean products. Produced by Dear MediaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The following podcast is a dear media production. We all know that when it comes to health and wellness, hydration is so important, but I think a common mistake that people make in the pursuit of hydration is choosing things like premixed vitamin drinks and kombuchas thinking that these are health drinks, but in reality, the active ingredients found in these drinks really diminish sharply over time. So this is where Karma water comes in. I've talked about this before. Karma's unique push cap basically protects vitamins and nutrients until you're ready to drink it, ensuring that you get full nutritional benefits. So it has these key active ingredients stored. And then you infuse the

nutrients seconds before consumption, ensuring optimal potency. So now Karma's new hydration kits combine everything I love about the brands ready to drink line of functional waters with an enhanced level of convenience and customization. So each kit comes with a four-week supply of Karma push caps that can be fully customized and Karma designed a new BPA-free, reusable bottle, specially designed for its patented push cap. So customers can choose from a combination of Karma's three existing functional lines to create their customized kits. So Karma Wellness Water, Karma ProBapture. water and karma CBD water. I personally love the pineapple mango probiotic water and then I also love the orange mango wellness water. So clearly I'm in a mango mood lately, but they have so many

good flavors. So definitely go check those out. Visit drink karma.com slash blonde and use the code blonde a checkout for 15% off your first purchase. That's D-R-I-N-K-R-M-A-A-com slash B-L-O-N-D-E, and use the code blonde for 15% off your first order. Welcome to the Blonde Files podcast. I'm your host, Arial Lori, and I'm here to talk all things wellness. From how to achieve optimal health and well-being to the best beauty tips and everything in between, no topic is off limits. I know there's so much information out there, so I'm bringing on expert guests and sharing my own experiences to help you sift through all the wellness stuff without the BS. Enjoy the show. Hey, everybody, welcome to the show. I am really excited about today's episode. And one of the reasons

why is because my guest is somebody who I wanted to have on my show for years now. I feel like he's always kind of been sitting there on the top of my list of dream guests, but I really am focusing on having conversations with people in person now. I don't want to do Zoom. And he lives halfway across the world. So I saw that he was in L.A. I slid into those DMs real fast. And he responded. We met up in person, did this episode. And it is such a good one. And I'm just really excited to have him here, of course, I am talking about Simon Hill, as you know, because you saw the title of this episode. So Simon is a physiotherapist, nutritionist, author, and host of the hit podcast, The Proof, and he is on a mission to help people make informed lifestyle choices. And I wanted to have him on today

to do some myth busting, which we do in this episode. And he really has this love for science. And he also has the qualifications to translate it properly. So he makes health and nutritional information simple and accessible. So a little background. Early in his career, he realized that research-backed evidence was being drowned out by the myriad of marketing ploys pushed by quote-unquote wellness industries prioritizing profits over public health. He was concerned by this. So he decided to shift paths and he returned to school to study a master of science and human nutrition. During this time, he established his podcast and began hosting world-renowned doctors and public figures who shared their significant expertise in translating the latest research into actionable

lifestyle recommendations. So over the past decade, Simon's mission has become increasingly clear, and that is to help others live longer and experience more years of a healthy life. He believes the best way to do this is by utilizing research to explore the new one. wants inherent in nutrition science and tap into expert knowledge to dispel myths, reduce uncertainty, and ultimately feel confident in the choices we make every day. In 2021, he published his first book, The Proof is in the Plants with Penguin Random House. And as of 2023, his podcast, The Proof with Simon Hill, has been listened to over 30 million times. As a natural evolution of Simon's

curiosity and science-driven mindset, the proof extends beyond nutrition to other crucial lifestyle factors that impact our well-being. So what I appreciate about Simon, which I think I tell him in this episode, is that I often see him in the comments of a lot of other big health and wellness and lifestyle professionals and influencers on social media, kind of challenging their claims with science-backed research. And he said people, tag him a lot. And so he responds and he does so in a really knowledgeable and respectful and rational way where he is just relying on research to offer a different perspective to whatever it is that they're claiming. And I think that's so important because we all know there's so much

information out there. It's hard to navigate as somebody who doesn't have a scientific background. And something else that I was impressed by was that oftentimes when I have a on like Simon, I'll give them topics ahead of time so they can prepare. And I offered to do that with him. And he was like, no, we're good. And I have to say his ability to retrieve information and studies just extemporaneously is very impressive. He's really smart. He really is a gift for, like I said before, translating these studies in a way that everyone can understand and apply. And I know that on his podcast, initially his goal was to have, you know, these experts and world-renowned people on who have an ability to do that. And I think, you know, he would be classified as one of those

experts as well now. He really has a knack for it. So definitely check out his podcast. He has incredible guests and conversations on his show. Again, it's called The Proof. So definitely go listen to that. And with that, please enjoy Simon Hill. Welcome, Simon. Thank you for having me. It's great to be you. I'm really excited to have you. I told you on DM that you have been one of like the top. people that I wanted to have on my show for a long time. And I just so happened to see that you were here. So I jumped in those DMs, really excited to have you here. Something that I really enjoy about you is I often see you in people's comments on Instagram. A lot of these big, like, wellness, influencers, lifestyle influencers, even people who are in the medical profession who have large

followings and you're very respectfully challenging them in the comments. You know, you're just so, so focused on science, which I think we've kind of lost a little bit in this culture right now. So maybe you can start by telling people a little bit about yourself and your background. Yeah, well, sometimes I question whether I should be doing that or not for my emotional health, but I do tend to get tagged into a lot of different posts about nutrition. And sometimes I'll choose to reply. And I think being respectful is the right way to kind of go about it. I try and play the science, not the man, if possible. And that interest really was born during my childhood through sort of observing my dad. My dad's a 40-year professor, and he's spent his entire career studying

cardiovascular disease. Had a very deep science level, so microscopes and understanding how our arteries his work. And so on weekends growing up, I would often be in his lab and throw his lab code on. And, you know, over that journey, I just developed a deep appreciation for science as a tool and how we can use it to better understand the world and make better decisions. And my dad over the years really drilled into me the sort of main scientific principles and how to conduct science objectively and with integrity and how we use it to test our assumptions, our hypotheses. That's what science is. Science is really just trying to reduce uncertainty. There's so much uncertainty and we use different types of science to get us closer to a truth. So I've always found that to be just a

fascinating process, this idea of coming up with questions and then working out, you know, what's the best way through science to kind of test that? And I finished high school and I did my undergraduate degree in physiotherapy over here. I think they call that physical therapy. So I was like a pretty decent football player back in Australia and kind of wasn't quite good enough, wanted to stay within the football environment. And so I pursued physiotherapy and graduated and was working with professional footballers in Australia and did that and enjoyed that for quite some time.

before really becoming extra curious about nutrition. I was always experimenting on myself nutrition-wise as a kind of young, fit, active male. But I was getting that information from sort of fitness culture and in the locker room. And so I became curious as to what evidence do we actually have that supports our food choices, both from a performance point of view,

but then also from a longevity or health span, whichever one of those words we choose to use. And some of that was sort of inspired through my dad had a health scare when I was a kid. He had a heart attack in front of me. And so I kind of had this idea lingering in the back of my head that I've got cardiovascular disease in my family. And I'll probably follow my dad's footsteps. And he had his heart attack when he was 41. And that was with all of his background and knowledge and everything in that particular area too. Right. Interesting. Yeah. So, and I mean, that's not uncommon for academics and scientists to have great information but not be able to implement it in their own life.

That's a cardiologist and I know what you mean. Yeah. So I went back to university and did a master's in nutrition science and I love learning. I just love staying curious. really dove deep into understanding science through the lens of nutrition. What are all of the different types of studies? What are the strengths and limitations? And how can we look at the entire evidence base and make some solid decisions here that are grounded in science? They might not be perfect science,

but it's enough there to make some decent choices that should help us sort of expand the number of years where we're in good health. which is increasing our health span. So I did that and then one thing led to another and here we are today. How much do you think of certain health outcomes are genetic versus lifestyle and things that we can control with everything you know? There's some studies that have tried to quantify that. Looking at identical twins, they're a pretty good model for that. Genetics are the same. What happens to these people as they age? And it seems like genetics probably account for about 20% of someone's health fate and then their lifestyle,

the other 80%, so we could sort of flip that around and say we have four times more control over our health fate than, or our long-term health than our genes do. Now, I'll add one little bit of context or nuance there. There are some, clearly some conditions that are highly heritable and driven almost predominantly by genetics. But those are quite rare and they're not really the diseases that are accounting for the majority of the chronic disease burden. So cardiovascular disease, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, which is now affecting about 25% of adults in this country. Type 2 diabetes affects about 10 or 12% of adults in this country, pre-diabetes, 40%, various types of cancers, Alzheimer's dementia. Those are the types of

diseases that I'm talking about when I say 80% is driven by how we navigate our life. What is an example of maybe that other type of disease that is really genetically predisposed that lifestyle doesn't really impact? That's a great question. Huntington's. But even with some of those diseases where there's a strong genetic component, your lifestyle can still affect whether those genes are expressed or not. So another example is someone with two copies of APOE4 has about 10 times the risk of developing Alzheimer's dementia. But not everyone with two copies of APOE4 gets Alzheimer's dementia. So there is always some element of lifestyle typically.

Interesting. I have been getting a lot of compliments on my hair lately. And if you guys follow me on Instagram, you know that I approach this from all angles. So obviously I do things to address root causes of things like thinning and shedding hair. I am really mindful of my lifestyle and nutrition. But I also do things topically. And everybody asks what shampoo and conditioner I use. And for months, I've been using vagamore.

It really changed the game when it came to my hair care. I really have visibly thicker, fuller, shinier, longer hair. and it's all without the harsh ingredients that are in common hair care products. So vagamore products are 100% cruelty-free. They're never formulated with potentially harmful chemicals like parabens and hormones. And it is super effective, I have to say, if you use this consistently, you will get results. Like I said, I've been using it for months. And I would say around three months, I really started noticing a difference in my hair.

But even when I initially used it, what I loved about Vagamore shampoo and conditioner and also the grow hair serum was that my hair felt really clean and fresh without being weighed down. And that's a common issue that I run into with a lot of other popular hair products. They can be really heavy and actually seem to cause more breakage than anything in my hair. So I absolutely love the revitalizing shampoo and conditioner kit. It's amazing. I also love the Grow hair serum. So I use that daily. And not only is my hair thriving, but I feel like my scalp is thriving. And so many people overlook the scalp. And it's so critical in the overall

health of our hair, how our hair is growing, and all of that. And with Vagamore's value kits, like the Grow Essentials kit, you get to try more than one amazing product at a great savings. So when you sign up for a monthly subscription, you save more, you never run low on the products you need to take care of your hair. And right now you can give yourself the hair you never thought you could have with Vagmore. So for a limited time, blonde files, podcast listeners get 20% off their first order by going to vagamore.com slash blonde and use the code blonde at checkout. That's V-E-G-A-M-O-U-R.com slash blonde. And the code is blonde to save 20% on your first order. Again, vagamore.com slash blonde, and the code is blonde. You guys may have seen my take on the viral yogurt cup that I posted last week.

I made a high protein version of this, which is basically yogurt mixed with protein powder, and then you melt a little bit of chocolate on top, freeze it for about 15 minutes. It creates this really nice, thin shell, and it's an amazing snack or dessert. And the main question that I got on that post, which got a lot of attention over on the internet, was what protein powder do I like best? I have to say I am absolutely obsessed with clean, simple eats. So I saw this all over TikTok, and usually I'm skeptical of protein powders. I find that a lot of them can have a chalky aftertaste, but this one really hits different. It's so creamy and smooth with absolutely zero chalkiness. And each serving contains 20 grams of grass-fed

weigh protein. The way is cold processed from start to finish, which keeps all the nutrients intact. And their formula also contains a digestive enzyme blend to help break down the protein into usable amino acids, which we talk about the importance of that in this episode. So they have over 22 delicious, all-natural flavors. I love the simply vanilla. It tastes. like ice cream. When I use it in this yogurt cup, I think it tastes a little bit like kind of vanilla cheesecake. It's so good. But they have tons of other unique flavor combinations. So you can actually try 10 different kinds with their protein variety pack, which is only $18 with my code. And one of the things that I appreciate the most about Clean Simple Eats is their high ingredient

standards. Their protein powder is non-GMO, gluten-free, third party tested, always grass fed and made with zero artificial ingredients. So visit clean, simpleeats.com and use my code blonde at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's clean simpleeats.com and the code is blonde for 20% off your first order. Hey, I'm Molly Sims. And I'm Emma Shogormley. We are two best friends with one common obsession. Beauty. And by that, we mean everything that makes you look and feel beautiful. We've tried it all and we've got your back. We'll be calling on all our favorite health experts, history insiders and friends to answer all your beauty questions. Consider us your beauty 411 and sometimes your 9-1-1. From how to fix brassy hair to the pros and cons of laser facials and always with a

cocktail in hand. Always. So be prepared to be obsessed. Check out lipstick on the rim wherever you get your podcast. Well, what I thought we would do today would be to kind of talk about these trends and I guess for lack of a better word myths in the wellness community. I know there are a lot of them and just challenge them a little bit as you do so well. So let's talk about protein. Protein. Low protein, high protein, is the focus on protein valid? Yeah. Do you know I've had about almost 10 hours of conversations on this topic alone in like the last six months. We're with everyone from Don Lehman to Stuart Phillips to Volta Longo, all the guys out there that would be seen as the experts in protein,

protein metabolism, longevity. And so let me just firstly say, this is a horribly confusing topic for people to make sense of. And there's a lot of different questions here. Are we talking about longevity or are we talking about performance? And are we talking about protein amount or protein source? I find with athletes that I work with, and I still work with athletes now, very rarely when I assess their diet,

are they consuming insufficient amounts of protein, even though the obsession is there. And I had this question come through the other day from someone saying, I feel like I'm not recovering very well, do I need to increase my protein? And they may well, without assessing their diet, it's very hard to answer that. But in my experience of working with a lot of athletes, they tend not to be under consuming protein. And we kind of think about recovery and attribute a lot of that or a whole of that to protein, but there's so much more to recovery.

What is your training volume? Are you over training? You're not allowing sufficient time to rest. Are you consuming insufficient calories? Is your sleep not dialed in? So it's quite multifaceted. And I think that does come back to the typical obsession with this macro nutrient. It is important. And I think athletes need to be aware of it. I think being protein aware is like a good way of thinking of it rather than protein obsessed. It's not a panacea. You can't just keep dialing it up and you get. continued benefits. There is a bit of a ceiling. And so for athletes and someone that's wanting to maximize muscle strength and or hypertrophy, so building muscle tissue, it seems to be a kind of lower threshold of around 1.5 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram. And when you hit that amount of protein, this is where the protein source argument or debate is interesting, but it's only interesting in the context of people that are not consuming

a optimal total protein intake. So if you're at 1.5, 1.6 grams, there's plenty of clinical data now to show that whether that's coming from plant or animal or mix or one of the other, you don't really see any difference with regards to the outcomes that I just mentioned, which are strength and hypertrophy. Then if you're consuming less protein, protein than that. So when you're down at one gram per kilogram or 1.2 gram per kilogram, I think protein quality matters a little bit more here. And that's where if someone is consuming a diet that's either completely plant exclusive or mostly plant-based, diversity is really important. But providing someone is getting just modest diversity, they're still able to get all of the

amino acids that they need. And people can run a really easy experiment if they want. They can use an app like chronometer. I'm not sure if you've seen that. I have no affiliation with them, but the one neat thing that they do is if you put a day of your food in, I'm not huge on tracking food, certainly not long term, but I think it can be helpful here and there. If you put a day of food in, it won't just tell you your total protein intake. It will actually break it down and show you the nine essential amino acids. Wow. Interesting. So you can go through and make sure you're getting the right amount of leucine and methylene and all of those. And that's a pretty simple exercise for someone to do. What about supplementing with things like amino acids,

not necessarily BCAAs, but I just had somebody on my show. I don't know if you're familiar with the brand Kian. I got an inbox from them today. Oh, synchronicity. But he was talking, Angelo, the founder of that was talking about like the importance of supplementing with them because you might not necessarily be getting all of those essential amino acids just through food itself. I would probably take a similar position to what I just said there that if your total protein was absolutely optimized and you had a high protein intake, I'm not sure adding a BCAA or an EAA is going to make a big difference. But if you're under-consuming protein, the biggest issue here is that there are a couple of essential amino acids and one in particular called lucine. And lucine is what's known as a lucine threshold. And in a meal, you need to hit about two or two and a half grams of lucine to sort of, sort of

trigger muscle protein synthesis, which is needed to repair and build muscle tissue. So if someone, let's say, was under-consuming protein, total protein, but then was able at their meals to use a BCAA or an EAA supplement and that was getting them to that lucene threshold, then that could be helpful for sure in that context. And what about protein powders and protein sources? I mean, we can discuss plant-based sources versus animal. I think the data is fairly clear that, I guess weight protein has been seen as the gold standard for a long time,

and it is a great protein from an amino acid perspective. There's now plenty of trials showing that whether it's a soy protein isolate or a pea protein isolate, if you're getting enough total protein, so 30, 35 grams usually of protein, then those outcomes that I mentioned before, strength hypertrophy appear to be the same. 30, 35 per meal or per day? Per meal. Meal.

Okay. Not per day. I was like, is there a conversion here that I'm missing? No, it's grams. Yeah, don't do that. Although there might be some people out there that will claim that could be good for your longevity, but I'm not on board that. What about protein in the morning?

So I would sort of maybe put these in as a bit of a priority list. Number one is total protein intake. That's going to be the most important thing. If we're just talking about optimizing protein here, there are, of course, calories and the actual stimulus, the training is going to be even more important. But with protein, number one is total protein. And then you might want to think about distribution. So there is some evidence to suggest that evenly distributing that protein out over the day could be slightly better than having that protein in sort of one or two meals.

And that comes back to that muscle protein synthesis sort of spike or trigger. It goes up and then it comes down. And it's sort of, you can't just throw extra protein out and it keeps going up. So on a per meal basis, it hits a ceiling. So if you have 35 grams of protein, that muscle protein synthesis rate is just as high as if you have 60 grams of protein. Got it. Right?

So from a, from the point of view of building muscle tissue, you would be better off trying to get that spike happening four times a day. So if you were having 120 grams of protein, then it would be 30 grams of protein over four meals. That's how athletes really should approach it. It's getting a little bit into the weeds for the everyday person. Yeah. Well, I'm sure all of my listeners are like, I train as though, I'm an athlete.

Right. Yeah, that's a good point. What are some of your favorite sources? I mean, when I did the Q&I on Instagram, a lot of people wanted to know what you specifically eat in a day. Like, what is your ideal day look like with meals? I mean, my diet philosophy overall, before I tell you what I eat, so I know that people are very interested in kind of what I eat, but I think what's more important is probably my approach to nutrition and sort of thesis or philosophy. And that is, I don't think there's one diet.

That is scientifically proven as the best diet for every individual out there. And I have to say that's very unusual, I feel like, especially for somebody public facing. I mean, now it seems like the sexier it is, the more they can sell it. I'm thinking carnivore diet. I'm thinking fruitarian. Yes, fruitarian. Right. The absolutes definitely sell.

Yeah. And that's a key part of writing a New York Times bestselling book, I think, these days. but unfortunately the science is not absolute it is gray it is a little murky and and sometimes when i speak like this and and when i explain how i see the characteristics of a healthy diet i think people can maybe see that as a sign of weakness or lack of confidence but it's not a sign of it only seems like that because you have so many absolute messages right everywhere else but then i would add and i'd say within the the academic science community, what I'm about to share is not controversial at all. It's almost

universally agreed upon as consensus. And we can lose sight of that when we're kind of on social media and absorbing a lot of information there. So I think a healthy diet can be cut in a number of different ways. There are lots of different variations of a theme. And that theme that time and time again seems to result in very good long-term health, lower rates of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, Alzheimer's dementia, etc. is a diet that is rich in fiber, it's low in saturated fats, it's rich in unsaturated fats, particularly polyunsaturated fats, it's low and ultra-processed foods, which I think everyone kind of agrees on. There might be some like process variants out there.

Right. And relative to the standard American diet, it has a bias for plant protein. Now, what can that look like? It could be a thoughtfully constructed Mediterranean diet. It could be a thoughtfully constructed pescatarian diet or a thoughtfully constructed plant-based diet. people can choose the variation that feels best for them that they can enjoy and sustain, right? Because none of this is going to be meaningful if they're only doing it for two or three weeks. If you, for diet to impact your long-term health, it's about what you're sustaining over decades of exposure.

So that's kind of like what my overall philosophy is. And then personally, the variation that I choose is a plant-based diet. And so my own variation of a plant-based diet is actually quite different to how a lot of other people would do it. And that's through some self-experimentation and kind of working out what feels best for me. So the way I explain the plant-based diet that I consume is it's sort of like a Mediterranean diet, but plant-based. And so it's probably a little bit higher fat than many people in the kind of plant-based vegan community. would be adopting and that fat is coming from nuts and seeds and avocado and olive oil. I think those unsaturated fats are inherently beneficial.

And so I think it's quite important to have enough of those in your diet. I'm not a huge fan of the ultra low fat diets. So I've got those fat sources in my diet and then protein is going to be like tofu and tempe lentils, chickpeas, different types of beans like pinto beans, like pinto beans. some satan as well, which is a gluten-based product. So it's not going to be for everyone if they have celiac disease or something like that. I have a 40 gram protein shake most days, particularly on the days that I train, which tends to be most days. So that's like the protein bucket and the fat bucket. And then the rest of my calories are coming from fruits and vegetables and whole grains. But because

I have a higher fat plant-based diet, the food group that I actually consume a bit less of is whole grains. It tends to be naturally. So that's the way that I've kind of structured it. And it's, yeah, it seems to be working well. I know that people are being really conscientious about the ingredients that are in products that they use every day. We're learning more about how certain chemicals can act as endocrine disruptors and really

affect our overall wellness. And this applies to makeup as well. And I know that it can be confusing and overwhelming when looking for good brands. But Sephora actually has so many clean options now. So you guys can go to Sephora.com slash clean and you can browse it for yourselves. But I'm going to tell you a few of my favorites. So first of all, if you are a makeup, girly, or guy, lawless, in my opinion, has some of the Best Clean Makeup. So Annie Lawless was on my podcast a couple years ago, and I think what she did with

her brand is so smart. She loves a full face of makeup. She does a lot of makeup tutorials. She likes coverage. She likes pigmented colors. And before she developed her brand, that was kind of hard to find in the clean space. A lot of it was kind of this minimal makeup vibe. So she created her line of amazing products that don't feel clean, if you know what I mean. They feel like real makeup. but I will say clean makeup has come a long way. There are so many brands and products that I love. Some of my other favorites are Westman Itelier. Anything by them is incredible. I personally love the baby cheeks lip and cheek cream stick. It is amazing for that dewy, glowy kind of baby pink look, which I love. I also love Ami Kohl. They have the best volumizing and lengthening mascara. They also have an amazing

lip and cheek multi-stick. And I have been using Ilya skin tint foundation. It's the goat, in my opinion, when it comes to clean foundation. I've been using this for years when I just want like really light, barely there coverage. It has SPF 40. And it also provides that dewy glow. Another favorite is summer Fridays, which I'm sure you guys all love. And just so many other amazing brands. So again, you guys can go to sephora.com slash clean. That's S-E-P-H-O-R-A-com slash clean. You guys know that I am kind of beauty-obsessed. I do all the topical things that are available to us, but I really do believe that true beauty

begins within. I really believe that choosing the right snacks and preparing our food with nutritious ingredients is crucial to maintaining a healthy body, but also that glow. So when it comes to snacking, you also probably know I love my macadamia nuts. This is something that I have incorporated into my morning for a long time. I love to have my macadamias with my macha. I feel like it helps to kind of counteract some of that caffeine and the sugar that I get from the little bit of maple syrup that I like to add to that macha. And macadamias are actually very special because, They are the lowest carb nut. They have more healthy fat than even avocado. And they are rich in the rare omega-7s that no other oil or nut has. So macadamia benefits are totally unique. I also think that they are the best tasting, most satisfying nut that there is. But you have to get really good qualities. So I like to buy mine from House of Macadamias. They bring the highest quality premium

macadamias directly to you in a range of bars, purified oil, nuts, and nut butters. And I've also been cooking with the oil. I think everybody in the nutrition world can agree that cooking with certain oils at certain temperatures can actually be detrimental to our health. So a recent study showed macademia oil has more beneficial effects to overall health than olive oil or coconut oil. its omega-7s have been linked to natural collagen production, increased skin elasticity, anti-inflammatory properties, and fat loss, and it has that high smoke temperature. So it reduces the risk of free radicals, which can cause health issues if it's something that you are repeatedly exposing yourself to.

And on top of it all, I just think that the oil has the best flavor. It's really rich, really nutty. It's so good. I actually just had an acne expert on my show, too, who said that macadamia oil is really helpful for acne. So who knew? So right now, for a limited time, House of Macadamias is offering my listeners a free box of their bestseller Namibian Sea Salted Macadamacadamets worth $35 with your purchase at House of Macadamacadam.com slash blonde. And you will get 20% off your whole order with the code blonde. So again, that's House of Macadamias.com slash blonde.

and the code is blonde. What does skincare for down there look like for you? Chances are you're using fragranced bar soaps and body washes to cleanse your vulva, which is doing more harm than good. And that's why I love wellness is on a mission to make vaginal care, simpler, safer, and more effective than what we were once used to. They formulate products without paraben, sulfates, fragrances, or any other harsh ingredients that may disrupt your vaginal pH and dry out these. skin. And based on their over 50,000 five-star reviews, Love Wellness is essential intimate care. If you're not sure where to start, kick off your vaginal care routine with their pH balancing cleanser. Unlike ordinary cleansers, this gentle cleanser is specifically designed for your vulva

and made with safe hydrating ingredients like aloe vera and calendula. Soothe and nourish your vulva and bikini area with their new comfy cream. It's a fragrance-free moisturizer. It's a cleaner, safer take on body lotion made to protect your most sensitive skin. Love Wellness believes caring for your vagina shouldn't be complicated. They're science-backed, doctor-developed solutions, make feeling your best be simple. So visit lovewellness.com and use the code blonde 15 at checkout for 15% off your first purchase. That's L-O-V-E-W-E-L-L-N-E-S-S dot com. and the code is blonde 15 for 15% off your first order. Do you believe that some people are more like carb efficient?

I'm doing air quotes for everyone who can't see. Some people are more fat efficient. Or do you think back to what you said earlier, it's just kind of about what you can do consistently that feels good to you that's sustainable? I think your body adjusts to what you're doing over a longer period of time. So you do become sort of fat adapted if you're having a high fat diet and you almost put yourself into a state of insulin resistance.

And in that scenario, when you add carbohydrates, you're not going to tolerate them as well as someone who is eating a much higher carbohydrate diet. I don't know that we have a very good answer for that question, but there is some very interesting research out of Stanford. There was a study called Diet Fits. and Christopher Gardner, the primary investigator in this study, wanted to specifically look at why do some people do better on a high fat diet versus some people on a low-fat, high-carb diet, in terms of weight loss. And he'd already run a big study called A to Z before this and was able to see, and all the studies show this, the meta-analyses, that when you compare low-carb to a high-carb diet,

over the long term, the weight loss is pretty much the same. but in each group you'll have some people that are successful and some people that are not. And so they wanted to investigate this further and see, is there genes? Because I think this is where you were going with the question. Like, is there something genetic that's happening here that makes us better at utilizing fats or carbs? So they looked at, they ran this study, they looked at who was successful in each group, and then they were looking at three different genes that are thought to be contributing to obesity. and they also looked at insulin resistance and they thought maybe we can predict based

based on the genes or insulin resistance who did well and they couldn't so it kind of remains to be seen why why do some people feel better and do better on a high carb and low carb and really my takeaway from that is there's options here yeah and find the way that feels best for you and if weight loss is a goal find the the macronutrient food selectors that feels easiest to you, right? Because ultimately, if you're trying to lose weight, you want to fill up and feel full on the fewest calories. And that may differ from person to person as to which foods will do that. Yeah, I mean, I'm just thinking of myself and I kind of feel like I fall under the more carb efficient where if I am focusing on things like protein and fat, some grains,

vegetables, fruits, you know, and kind of lower carb, I feel just more lethargic. I feel like I actually gain weight a little bit. Maybe I'm eating more, maybe to your last point, maybe when I'm eating higher carb, I'm eating less calories. I'm not sure. Right. And there could be differences in the reward centers of our brains as well. And that may be a genetic thing, but it could also be a conditioned thing, something that's occurred through our childhood. And so there's so much more research that needs to take place here. I just had Stefan Giney on my show. And he has a great book for anyone that wants to kind of deep dive a little bit more into reward centers in the brain and how different foods affect appetite. And I think sort of almost explains some of this

in terms of why there might be differences between people. And that book's called hungry brain. Okay. Hungry brain. Where does he live? Should I have him on the podcast? Yeah, we'll get it. I'll do an introduction. Let's get him on. Amazing. Something else that I wanted to talk to you about that's really big right now is the blood sugar balancing. Again, I'm like using air quotes for everything for those listeners who can't see this. I know that this is kind of a hot topic. You know, glucose goddess. I've seen you comment on some of her posts. Maybe people have tagged you in those. And I think that there is this emphasis on stopping blood sugar spikes, which to my understanding, that's how your blood sugar works. It's normal.

Yes. Yeah. Okay. It's not a pathology. Roll with that. Tell us. Yeah. I think that this is an example of an area of nutrition where there is a grain of truth and it gets taken a bit too far.

Mm-hmm. And there's a kind of narrative that is very fear-centered, which grabs a lot of attention. And so we are seeing this trend now of a lot of people wearing CGMs. I had this discussion with the Stanford professor last week, and I said to him, if these companies were really serious about their devices, because there's very little research out there, if they were very serious about the devices that they're giving people and the instructions that they're giving them, Because the instructions of how to use that thing is just as important as what the device is actually measuring. How do you actually interpret the data?

Right. What's the behavior that you change? What is that decision? And then how does that affect your health, whether it's now or long term? So a very basic study that needs to be done is recruit a bunch of people and have them wear a continuous glucose monitor, give them your set of instructions, give them your set of instructions. instructions, whatever that may be, and measure, do their changes in food choices lead to an improved diet quality, or what we would say is a worse diet quality? Such a basic study, it's never been done.

So I can sit here and say, I have no idea when someone puts that thing on, are they actually making better food choices or not? Because if the instruction is to lower blood glucose is better, well, I can take out some extremely health-promoting foods and food groups that we know are associated with good long-term health. And I can swap those for foods that we know are associated with poor long-term health, but make that blood glucose curve look better, better, right? So I think this is the cart before the horse kind of thing. It's bolted. And hopefully there's some science, there's some researchers out there who are curious, and I'm sure there are, who are going to start testing this.

and my suspicion is that the devices themselves could have some utility, but the instructions are going to be very important. So if I said to you, Ariel, I'm going to give you this device and it's going to show your blood glucose. And when it goes up after a meal, it's bad. We don't want that. We just want it to be lower. That's likely going to lead to very different food choices than if I said,

Ariel, this is what we understand as a healthy dietary power. pattern, what I just explained before. And there's a number of different ways of going about it. I want you to use the CGM, but within that context of a healthy dietary pattern, those are the food choices. We're not going outside of that. And then, even then, it would be, well, what data from that CGM is helpful for you? And I'm still not sure that we actually even know that.

But if you were having an abnormally high blood glucose response and it was something that might be suggestive of pre-diabetes, for example. So like as a screening tool, it could be helpful. But I think there's a long way to go. Is there any truth or validity to these strategies of like maybe eating things in a different order or eating your vegetables before you eat your rice? I think there is in terms of does it do what they're claiming in terms of lowering blood glucose. Does it lead to improved health? Right. I don't know because the question you're asking, and we have to consider context,

if we're saying for someone with type 2 diabetes who has poor blood glucose control, yeah, sure. Those tips or hacks could be really helpful. What about something like PCOS or hormonal health? Possibly. Right. Again, I'm kind of speculating on some of this stuff. I wish there was more data on it. But we have no data to show that in a healthy person, if you lower your post-pranile after meal blood glucose a little bit, that that is in any way better than a higher blood glucose level that was still within the healthy range. Right. So it's a difficult question to answer. I think that for most of the most of the level, people if they are doing a routine blood test and their HBA1C and fasting glucose are fine, I don't think they need to be using CGMs.

Not until there's more research. And here's the other thing. As you, and I pointed this out in one of the videos I did on this, we have clinical trials, Kevin Hall's done trials where he has had CGMs on subjects. And there was a trial that he did a high fat animal-based diet versus a low-fat plant-based diet. were wearing CGMs. And what you see is certainly on that low fat plant-based diet because there's more carbohydrates, the blood glucose goes up higher after a meal. You would expect that. Still was within the healthy range for all subjects. Now, and people can refer to this study, there's another graph

there. At the same time, they're also looking at what happens to lipids. And we know that as your saturated fat content goes up in the meal in particular, Although that blood glucose certainly is much flatter, you see a much higher rise in LDL cholesterol, for example, or APOB. So when you are looking, when you have a CGM on, you're getting one side of the coin. Right. What else is happening from a metabolic point of view? Interesting. Okay.

One other thing, just since we don't have a lot of time left, that I wanted to ask you about, were seed oils. You're really trying to land me in hot water today. So you're squirming. Yeah. It's interesting because I'm sure you've come across Paul Saladino before. He's a carnival guy. And I bumped into him at the gym a couple weeks ago. And we actually trained together.

We worked out. It was quite fun. But one of his central claims, which I strongly disagree with, is that he thinks linoleic acid, which is the primary fat in many of these seed oils. It's an amoeca six fat. He thinks that is highly inflammatory. and is essentially obesity he thinks that that is what's driving obesity.

I have a very different take on that and that's based off of the evidence that I've read. So there's a bunch of different angles we can sort of take here with regards to the evidence base, but I guess the first thing I would say is we have lots of clinical trials that have looked at,

these are randomized clinical, trials that have looked at comparing saturated fat to polyunsaturated fats and the polyunsaturated fats tend to be high in omega-6s and looking at over the long term sort of two, three, four, five years, which is long for a randomized controlled trial, is there a difference in events, cardiovascular disease, etc. And there's enough of those trials now to do what's called a meta-analysis. and in that we do see from a cardiovascular disease point of view, there is clear benefit swapping saturated fat for polyunsaturated fats. So that is what we would call hard health outcome data. It's not mechanistic. Often a lot of these crazy ideas and fear generation comes from my studies or bench top

science, which again, I said at the beginning my dad has been involved in bench science. It's not that science is not important. It is, it's important to building the overall body of evidence, but it's hypothesis generating, right? And it's at, it's a, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, sort of evidence hierarchy. It's not considered it as reliable and valid as human data. So we have that, then we actually have really strong data that long-term observational studies, not just observational studies where they do a food frequency questionnaire. A lot of time epidemiology gets flack for, they're measuring their diet through these surveys. How accurate is that? Everyone lies on those surveys.

Exactly. All of a sudden eat a lot healthier. What hamburger. Sleep longer. What coke. Yeah. Yeah, no soft drinks. But in this sort of really large paper that's been published in the last couple of years, they took it a step further and actually looked at the serum, so in your blood and also the adipose tissue in your fat, the levels of linoleic acid. So they were able to clearly show that people who have higher levels of linoleic acid had less risk of disease and less risk of total mortality. Essentially, the people that had more linoleic acid, the primary fat that's in seed oils,

in their body, were living longer. So in the face of that data, and there's much more than I've just explained, but those are kind of two big pieces of it. I find it very difficult to point the blame to seed oils as the cause of chronic disease and these highly inflammatory oils. I will say, what's my view on oils in general? We know you like olive oil. Yeah. I think that they have their place in a diet. They can often make vegetables tastier for people.

And there are studies showing that people who are cooking with oil tend to eat more vegetables, which is a great thing because I think it's like 90% of adults are not consuming enough vegetables. But if someone's trying to lose weight, then oils are very calorie dense. So it is good to be aware of that, that 120 calories comes in a tablespoon. So a little bit does go a long way. Linoleic acid aside, I feel like a lot of the argument, against seed oils is about the processing and, you know, by which the oil is produced and that having, again, in quotes, inflammatory, causing inflammatory reactions. Is there any truth to that or is

it just? Well, there's probably truth to the nature of the production and how it's produced. But when we test them, that's a hypothesis. Yeah. And I think that that's, it's interesting. And if there was no other data, then look, maybe you take the precautionary approach. But there's so many studies that have fed these oils to people. You're not seeing inflammatory markers go up. In fact, I can think of a study right now where they were looking at liver fat and inflammation. And in this study, it was comparing saturated fats to polyunsaturated fats, primarily omega-6 linoleic acid.

And this has been repeated. This group eating the saturated fats get increased liver fat and inflammation. The group eating the polyunsaturated fats get reduced. reduced liver fat and inflammation. So, you know, to me, I kind of, I kind of have to look at the evidence base and then go from there. I'm not paid by seed oils, big seed oil, any of that stuff. And quite frankly, I consume olive oil, but I'm not sort of out there scared about these other oils. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think that, you know, just talking about inflammation, that's another one of these nebulous terms that's being thrown around that I don't think people who use it even know what they're

referring to. Yeah. So that's probably a whole other conversation. Yeah. And, you know, I just, I read a paper a little while ago, which kind of shows how complex inflammation is. And this was a study comparing fermented foods to fiber looking at inflammatory markers. This one came out of Stanford as well. A researcher, Justin Sonnenberg, does great work on the microbiome. But just to show how complex the immune system is, they measure 210 inflammatory proteins. Wow. Right? Wow.

And most people, if they're going to get tested, they test like CRP. Right. One of my friends who's a doctor said, if someone gets their ESR and their CRP tested, they had a joke in residency that that was just to check if the lab was open. It was like, it really doesn't tell you much. It's very general. Yeah. Okay, we have a couple of minutes.

So I'm going to grab my listener questions. Maybe we can do like rapid fire here. As rapid fires we can. Obviously there's so much nuance to all of this. What supplements or are there supplements we should make a priority for our overall health? Definitely filling any nutritional gaps. So depending on your diet, your life stage, are you pregnant or lactating? There might be specific nutrients that you need to supplement.

And the best way of kind of going about determining that is ideally some lab work. looking at where where do you sit like you really can't improve something that you don't measure so know where you're at and and then you can work with a dietitian if you kind of have access to one to help make the best choices there so that's filling the gaps but then there are other supplements so we've spoken about protein powders I think they can be useful in terms of being super convenient for people to reach an optimal protein intake creatine I think most people should consume creatine, even if they're not working out, there is some signal there to suggest that creatine is good from a cognitive long-term perspective. Those are probably my top ones. So filling up any

nutritional gaps, whether that's a B-12 or an iodine or multivitamin for someone, protein, creatine. There's obviously- Any creatine specifically that you like? Creatine monohydrate. So that's what's been tested across the board for, safety and efficacy, it also happens to be the cheapest. So you'll see a lot of different fancy types of creatine out there. And look, some of those might work and you can try those out if you want. They tend to be a little bit more expensive. Creatine monohydrate three to five grams per day. And you take that ongoing. You don't have to cycle that and sort of stop start, which people thought might be the case years ago, but that's since been disproven. And there may actually be some small

benefit for bone mineral density, which could be quite interesting for the sort of post menopausal woman who tends to be at higher risk of that. Awesome process. Interesting. How to start making healthy changes in your diet? I think you really need to start small. So let's break this down. If I could say one bit of advice for people, for the average person that would improve their

diet the most and shift those sort of biomarkers that predict long-term health in the right direction, it would be to eat for their microbes. And the average person today in this country is getting maybe 15, 16 grams of fiber a day. We know that ideally that should be a 30 to 35 grams a day, but there seems to be even benefits going up above that. Fiber is only found in plants and different types of plants contain different types of fiber. And that's important because different prebiotics feed different bacterial species in our gut. So I would maybe start by looking at a bit of an audit of your current diet. And an interesting kind of little fun challenge can be just over the next week before making any changes.

just every time you consume a plant, just make note of that and see how many unique plants you eat over the course of the week. Perhaps it's eight, maybe it's 10. Now what we want you to do here ideally is try and work that up towards about 30. And that's based on some research out of Rob Knight's group, the gut microbiome project. And again, this speaks back to what I said earlier about there not being one optimal diet. they were assessing microbiome diversity, which is typically thought of as an indicator of a healthy microbiome. And what they found was, and they had 10,000 people send in stool samples, and they had dietary assessment for all these 10,000 people.

What they found was that it wasn't whether someone was vegan or vegetarian or pescatarian or other that predicted microbiome diversity. Didn't matter. What predicted it was the number of unique plants in their diet. So if people were getting 30 unique plants a week compared to 10, they had significantly better microbiome diversity. So if you want to focus on one thing, focus on what you're adding. Maybe don't even think about what you're removing. Now, by virtue of adding foods, it will nudge some out, but focus on increasing the number of unique plants and building that plant diversity in the diet. And I think that's probably the kind of most impactful first step that people can make.

I know that that sounds overwhelming for people. I've had guests on who have said that as well, but you can tell me if this is correct or not. But even adding things like herbs is a really good way because I think people think 30, like I don't even know 30 different. Yeah, so nuts and seeds, herbs and spices, whole grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables, even sprouts. We can add sprouts to that. So broccoli sprouts or alfalfa sprouts, that sort of thing.

Sprouts are amazing, super nutrient dense foods. And the great thing about herbs and spices actually, and they can be dry. or they can be fresh, is they're super rich in polyphenols. And I kind of just rushed over prebiotics earlier saying food for the microbiome, but just quickly so people are aware, and I think it makes this all more interesting, is that prebiotics is an umbrella term. That stands for polyphenols, resistant starch, and prebiotic fiber. All three of those are considered prebiotics. What that means is they're not, those compounds are not absorbed in the small intestine. They pass through undigested into the large intestine with a 38 trillion microbes,

then start to ferment them. And as they're fermenting them, they're producing these metabolites that reward us with good health. It's almost like your own sort of personal pharmacy in there that's dispensing these compounds. Fodmaps are prebiotics, right? And kind of ironically, one of the things that people often remove are Fodmaps, if they're, experiencing some kind of digestive issues. And I know that it can definitely have an application short term, but it's not a long-term solution. And I think what at least I've seen and heard a lot of people who follow me and everything do is they start to remove things, especially when you're experiencing symptoms. And so you think, okay, I got to remove the grains. Oh, maybe it's the legumes.

Maybe it's the FOD maps. And then all of a sudden, you're really restricted in what you're eating and you're not getting any of that diversity. So maybe a closing question would be like how to navigate that. Yeah. So what you're describing is an elimination diet, which has its role. And I think it actually explains why you'll hear anecdotes online of people adopting a kind of all meat-based diet and feeling better. But when you remove 20, 30 foods all at once, how do you know which one was triggering your symptoms? You don't unless you start to reintroduce and re-challenge in a very, systematic way. There's a protocol called the low FODMAP diet out of Monash University in Australia. And that diet has been clinically shown to be helpful for people that have certain FODMAP intolerances.

And the way that it's meant to be done though is, I think it's an eight, maybe it's a 12, kind of some studies are varied, but it's a very short-term elimination. And then you're working with a dietitian to reintroduce. And probably a kind of good analogy is if you busted your knee and you're a basketball player and you had to have some time on the sidelines, right, sitting down and for weeks in rehabilitation, I'm not sure if this is the best analogy, but we'll see how we go. Let's go with that. I mean, option one is you just don't play basketball again, right? But it's a bit of a band-aid. Option two is you rehabilitate that knee and you get back out there doing that, what you were doing

initially. And that's how I think that people should approach this. We know that diversity plants in the diet is good, but it is true that you can have intolerances. And so there is a protocol that you need to work through that might involve some short-term elimination, but ultimately you're getting back to the diversity so that you are feeding the microbiome and you're reaping the rewards of that. I thought that was a great analogy. I was second guessing myself. I'm glad you stuck with it. No, I was, great.

Have I just stopped this up? You're like, where am I going with that? Good follow through. Well, thank you so much for coming on. You have an incredible podcast, The Proof, also on your social media, just so many helpful videos. You have amazing guests. I'm going to stock all of your guests harass you for their contact. But just a lot of science, and I think it is very, you make it very much.

manageable. So tell everybody where they can find you. Sure. Thank you for having me, by the way. This has been really enjoyable. You ask great questions. So the proof is the podcast and that's on Spotify and Apple and YouTube now as well. And on Twitter, it's at the proof. Instagram is at Simon Hill and TikTok. Do you use TikTok? Yeah, it's the bane of my existence. TikTok is at nutrition scientist. Yeah. Amazing. I'm curious like this, we don't have to do this on here, but the difference in feedback that you get on like TikTok versus Instagram versus Twitter. None of them? One thing that I do not do. No, TikTok. I read the comments for a couple weeks and I thought this cannot be good for mental health. Yeah. So I actually have part of my team. They,

they handle that. I don't log into it. Wow. Yeah. That's the goal. Amazing. I need my team to. I do log into Instagram. I'm active on there. And I tend to 99.5% of the comments are really positive in the messages. So, yeah, I have some fun on there. Thank you. I hope you enjoyed that episode.

And if you liked it, and if you like the show in general, please take a second to rate review and subscribe. It goes a long way. And it's actually the best way to support the show. Also, if you want to see more. about each episode, you can head over to the Blonde Files podcast on Instagram. You can go to Arial Lori.com. And I'm always posting about each episode over on my personal page at Arial Lori. Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and

services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode.