Dr. Steven Gundry:
What if everything you’ve been told about cholesterol, fatigue, and thyroid health is missing the most important pieces of the puzzle? Today we’re busting some big myths, starting with statins. You’ve heard they protect your heart, but I’ll explain why that might not be the full story. Then we’ll talk about one of the most powerful compounds your body makes: glutathione. It’s your master antioxidant, working around the clock to protect your cells, supercharge your immune system, and even slow down aging. And finally, a surprising connection you probably never heard before, how Hashimoto’s disease, leaky gut, and iodine deficiency could all be linked. This hidden trio may be behind your fatigue, hair loss, and stubborn digestive problems, and I’ll tell you what you can do about it naturally. If you want to uncover how inflammation, oxidative stress, and autoimmune triggers are quietly shaping your health, and start turning things around, you are in the right place. We’ll get right back after a message from our sponsors that make this podcast possible and free to you.
Statins are some of the most prescribed drugs in the world, but despite their popularity, there’s a lot of confusion and misinformation out there. So today I’m busting four of the biggest myths about statins and revealing what your doctor might not be telling you. But before we go any further, let me say this loud and clear: I am not telling you to stop taking your statin medication. That can be dangerous, and it absolutely must be done under the supervision of your doctor or healthcare provider. And even then, it needs to be done slowly and strategically. I do prescribe statins, but in very specific situations. So, keep listening.
Now, myth number one: if your cholesterol is high, you need a statin. Wrong. Most doctors still rely on outdated cholesterol testing, the kind that was developed back in 1963. It only looks at total cholesterol, HDL, LDL, and occasionally, we’ll also look at triglycerides. But it completely ignores the particle size of these cholesterol molecules, the number of particles, and most importantly, whether or not your cholesterol particles are oxidized. Now, the kind of testing that this is is kind of like using a flip phone in the age of smartphones. We’ve got much better technology, so why aren’t we using it?
I use advanced lipid panels in my own practice including NMR testing, which looks at all the cholesterol subtypes and particle sizes, and I also measure oxidized LDL and oxidized phospholipid apoB. Without those measurements, quite frankly, it’s meaningless, and I do mean meaningless, what your total cholesterol is, what your total LDL is. You got to know whether your cholesterol is activated, whether it wants to stick to your blood vessel. If it’s not activated, if it’s not interested in sticking to your blood vessels, then those numbers are quite meaningless. Now, if you want to learn more, check out episode 173 of my podcast with Jonny Bowden. We break all this down in detail.
All right. Myth number two: statins are the best way to protect your heart. Now, in my opinion, that’s an incredible oversimplification. Now, we once thought that the reasons statins did appear to improve outcome in patients preventing coronary artery disease or preventing a recurrence of coronary artery disease, in other words, a new stroke, a new heart attack, a new bypass, a new stent, is that it appeared that the more statin drugs we use, the more we push down LDL, the results seem to get better. But that was before we realized that statin drugs are anti-inflammatory and that statin drugs block what are called toll-like receptors, TLRs, on the inside of your blood vessels that cause inflammation. The more statins you took, the more you block toll-like receptors and the lower the inflammation went. Statins lower inflammation. And in certain patients, I use them for that purpose temporarily.
As I tell my patients, and again, I will prescribe statins for someone who’s just had a heart attack, or has a new stent, or I did bypass surgery on, “If you break your leg, I’m going to put a cast on it, and you’re not going to wear a cast the rest of your life. Once that bone heals, you don’t need that cast anymore.” So I will use statins to stop the inflammation that caused the problem in the first place. Once I teach you how to stop having inflammation, and that’s through your gut, for the most part, we won’t need those statins. Do I still use statins for certain patients? Yes, because quite frankly, we can still see that their leaky gut is there, that there’s still inflammation, and statins are a piece of the tool to help us block inflammation, not necessarily to lower their LDL.
Once I teach someone how to eat and once we see that that gut wall barrier is intact and there’s no longer any inflammation, quite frankly, in my practice, statins are rarely needed. You can lower inflammation and support your cardiovascular system in other ways. Polyphenol-rich foods, for instance, olive oil, omega-3s, targeted supplementation, and a low carbohydrate diet to lower triglycerides. And that’s all spelled out in all my books, so there’s nothing that you need to hear more about there.
Now, number three, and this is maybe most important myth: statins are harmless. There are physicians who firmly believe that we ought to put statins in our water much like we put fluoride in our water for tooth decay. Now, this one really worries me. Now, why? Many of us carry a gene that we inherited from our parents that makes a particularly nasty cholesterol molecule called lipoprotein(a). You usually see it abbreviated Lp(a). Now, it’s incredibly atherogenic. In fact, people with strong family histories of heart disease usually carry Lp(a). It also is one of the largest drivers of narrowing of the aortic valve called aortic stenosis, which I operated on extensively, and it’s the number one cause of what’s called vascular dementia. That’s different than Alzheimer’s dementia. So it’s a real bad actor.
Now, for years, we’ve known, number one, that statins have not only no effect on lowering Lp(a), but here’s the bad news: Statins almost always raise Lp(a), and there’s numerous studies in humans to show that it’s not just my opinion. This is published literature. Now, I’ve seen this firsthand in patients who’ve had bypasses and stents while taking high-dose statins. Their Lp(a) remains sky-high. When we wean them off of their statins and start using niacin and niacinamide, then their Lp levels drop. We can track their activity of their Lp(a), not just by measuring Lp(a) levels, but by using a test that I mentioned earlier called oxidized phospholipid apoB. It’s abbreviated OxPL-apoB. It’s an $8 test. Now, if your doctor is not testing for Lp(a), they could be missing a real important issue that is modifiable. The test for Lp(a) in itself is only $8. So please ask for that test, and then work with your healthcare provider in lowering Lp(a). It’ll save your life. It’ll save your aortic valve. It’ll probably save your memory.
Myth number four: cholesterol causes heart disease. This is probably the biggest myth of them all. Now, what’s the real cause of heart disease? I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: inflammation. I’ll give you an example. Dr. Michael DeBakey, who was one of the great fathers of heart surgery, of vascular surgery, always used to say that cholesterol has nothing to do with plaque formation. It’s an innocent bystander that acts like a spackling compound when there is damage to blood vessels. Let’s say there’s a pothole in your blood vessel. Cholesterol is used to patch that crack or that pothole. If you continue to damage that blood vessel, then cholesterol adds another layer, and pretty soon you’ve got a mound of patch on that damaged area.
This is what changed my life with Big Ed, who reversed his inoperable coronary heart disease by changing his diet and taking some simple supplements from a health food store. It was one of the most remarkable things that proved that Dr. DeBakey was right. The cholesterol wasn’t the troublemaker; cholesterol was just doing its job of patching damage to blood vessels. If you stop damaging blood vessels, if you stop the inflammatory process, then cholesterol is not the troublemaker. Now, personally, I have never seen a patient with coronary artery disease without leaky gut or a leaky mouth. In my practice, if you’ve got coronary artery disease or you want to prevent coronary artery disease, fix your gut. And that’s what we do.
So, let me finally say this one more time: Do not stop taking your statin without speaking with your doctor. If you have heart disease, the answer is to fix your gut, fix your diet, and then, and only then, working with your physician. Consider backing off on statins. This must be done slowly, carefully, and only with the cooperation of your supervising physician or healthcare provider. But please, please, please do not rely on outdated tests or one-size-fits-all prescriptions. Get the full picture. Ask your doctor the right questions, and take charge of your heart health.
Now, everybody’s talking about glutathione, and you see it over and over and over again. There’s glutathione drips. There’s glutathione capsules. There’s glutathione everything. Why is everybody talking about glutathione? Well, if you’ve read any of my recent books, particularly The Energy Paradox, you may have learned, maybe you’re going to be surprised, that there are two antioxidants in our mitochondria. They are glutathione and melatonin. Surprise, surprise, the sleep hormone. Antioxidants, as you might guess, neutralize free radical formation. Free radicals are formed during the process of energy production, making ATP. Now, a few free radicals are actually pretty good for you. You have to have them. But an excess of free radicals is what damages mitochondria, literally kills them, makes them dysfunctional. So glutathione and melatonin are there to kind of mop up the excess of free radical production before they damage your DNA, your cells, and even your brain.
Today I want to take you through the top five health benefits of glutathione. As you just heard, number one, it protects your mitochondria. Mitochondria are the little organelles in almost all of your cells that produce energy, ATP. In that production, they’re making free radicals. That’s the oxidative stress that you’re vulnerable to. So glutathione actually keeps this in check. Now, when your mitochondria are damaged by free radicals, you can’t produce as much energy, which basically means you become more tired, and that’s probably not a good thing. If you’ve been following anti-aging research, you realize that mitochondrial health is probably the number one driver of longevity, long health, long health span, and your brain function, your muscle function, you name it. So keeping your mitochondria happy is the best thing, and it turns out glutathione is really good at doing this.
Benefit number two, it neutralizes free radicals very quickly. So free radicals are these unstable molecules that roam around your body, stealing electrons from healthy cells. That causes DNA damage, mitochondrial breakdown, premature aging, but glutathione actually is able to capture these electrons, calming the molecule down and neutralizing the threat. That’s actually all thanks to a sulfur group in the glutathione molecule, the same sulfur that gives off that infamous rotten egg smell. It’s nature’s built-in antioxidant defense system. You also might know that the reason cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, arugula, bok choy, Brussels sprouts are so good for you, is that they are sulfur group containing vegetables. Getting sulfur into you to help with glutathione production is a really good thing.
Number three, glutathione supports your immune system. Now, your immune system, quite frankly, can’t function without glutathione. As we age and as we face more toxins in the food we eat, in our environment and what we breathe, our ability to maintain and reuse glutathione declines. So if you’re trying to support your immune system, this molecule definitely should be on your radar.
Benefit number four, it’s essential for liver detoxification. Now, your liver performs two phases of detoxification, and glutathione is involved in both. In phase one, glutathione helps render fat-soluble particles inert through oxidation, hydrolysis or reduction. Then in phase two, glutathione binds to water-soluble particles, making them safe for excretion through your kidneys. Now, here’s a real-world example: In hospitals, and when I was an emergency room doctor, the standard treatment for acetaminophen overdose is NAC, N-acetylcysteine, because it restores the body’s depleted glutathione stores and protects the liver from serious damage. If that doesn’t tell you how critical glutathione is, I don’t know what will.
Now, benefit number five, it helps with crucial signaling. One of glutathione’s hidden powers is to support the production of, get this, hydrogen sulfide, a gas once considered toxic, but it’s now shown to be a critical signaling molecule in the body. Hydrogen sulfide helps fight free radicals in and of itself. It supports mitochondrial function, which is crucial for energy, and it supports gut-to-brain communication. As I explained in The Energy Paradox, hydrogen sulfide, that rotten egg smell, is one of the most important postbiotic gases in the body, and glutathione plays a major role in supporting it. So if you don’t think glutathione is good for you, think again.
So, you’re going to say, “Well, I need to get me some more glutathione.” How do you get more glutathione? Here’s the good news: Your body makes glutathione naturally, but it needs the right building blocks. I just mentioned sulfur-rich foods like the cruciferous vegetables. Garlic and onions are loaded with these sulfur molecules. The other thing that makes glutathione are certain amino acids, particularly glycine, glutamine, and cysteine. You’ll notice I mentioned N-acetylcysteine before. But glycine is also incredibly important. In fact, the combination of NAC and glycine makes glutathione. So you can eat glycine in food, or you can take glycine supplements, and you can take NAC in supplement form and make your own glutathione. A healthy gut microbiome will help support and recycling of glutathione.
Now, as we age, another compound which I talk about is NRF2 begins to shut down, leaving our bodies with less and less glutathione. Now, many supplements claim to boost glutathione by adding glutathione directly. Sorry, glutathione isn’t something our bodies can absorb well when swallowed. That’s why I made Longevitine Plus. So instead of adding glutathione to Longevitine Plus, we added Algevity Factor, which helps you produce your own glutathione. Now, it was discovered by cancer researchers that Algevity Factor, which comes from algae, reactivates dormant NRF2 pathways, the pathways that help your body produce its own glutathione. That means rather than temporarily boosting your glutathione levels, Algevity Factor can help your body naturally sustain them over time. So don’t waste your money on glutathione capsules. Build your own glutathione. Boost your body’s NRF2 ability. And that’s one of the reasons I included Algevity Factor in my brand new product Longevitine.
Let’s talk about Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. So what the heck is Hashimoto’s? Hashimoto’s thyroiditis is an autoimmune disease, which means your own immune system attacks your thyroid gland. Now, over time, this leads to damage and inflammation, causing your thyroid to function poorly, and eventually, if it continues, giving up the ghost. Now, what are the signs of Hashimoto’s? First of all, Hashimoto’s can present with swelling in the front of the neck. In fact, it may even feel tender. Your neck sometimes looks puffy or redder than usual. Now, many times it’s picked up by friends or family who will go, “Do you have swollen glands? Are you sick? Did you catch a cold?” This can often be misleading, but I have a number of patients that the first time they realized something was wrong is that a friend noticed that their neck looked fuller in their dress.
Swallowing often feels different. Your thyroid is literally kind of attached to your vocal cord voice box. And if you’ve ever noticed, when you swallow your voice box, your larynx kind of moves up and down. Some people notice that their swallowing feels different, and that leads them to feel their neck. Hair thinning or falling out. Now, some people notice they don’t need to shave their legs or their underarms as much as they used to, or they notice that in fact their hair is falling out or their hair is thinning. So these are all signs of Hashimoto’s. Perhaps the most important sign that people neglect, because they don’t associate it, is abdominal issues: irritable bowel syndrome, abdominal pain, bloating, changing in bowel movements, either diarrhea or constipation.
In fact, I’ll tell you a story from just this past week. I have a colleague who’s a dermatologist in Montecito, who opened up a new office, and I went over to see her new office. She had a receptionist, and started talking to the receptionist, and she said, “Well, what do you do?” And I started to tell her what I did, and 80% of what I do is treat people with autoimmune diseases like Hashimoto’s. I mentioned this. She says, “Oh my gosh, I have Hashimoto’s, and it’s so terrible because I can’t get my intestines under control. My Hashimoto’s is causing my abdominal pain and my irritable bowel.” And I said, “Well, actually, your abdominal pain and your bloating and your abdominal issues are actually the cause of your Hashimoto’s.” She actually started crying, and she said, “But everybody tells me that I have to do this, this, and this to help my Hashimoto’s, and no one has ever mentioned about what I should be eating.” And that’s the problem.
All right. So what are the symptoms of Hashimoto’s? Well, first of all, lower energy, feeling tired all the time, changes in sleep patterns. For instance, needing naps in the afternoon that you never needed before, even if you’re young. Feeling colder or hotter than normal. Now, early stage Hashimoto’s can actually make you hyperthyroid at first, and then as your thyroid gland gets destroyed, you become hypothyroid. So the same way, if you’re jittery, restless, or having trouble sleeping more than normal, you could have Hashimoto’s in its early stage where you are actually hyperthyroid. Okay, so how is Hashimoto’s related to hypothyroidism? When the immune system attacks the thyroid, the thyroid gland can no longer produce thyroid hormones, T three and T four, effectively, and this leads to hypothyroidism. But not all hypothyroidism is caused by Hashimoto’s. In fact, most hypothyroidism in my practice is not caused by Hashimoto’s.
There’s another major cause of low thyroid, and that’s iodine deficiency. In the early 1900s in the United States, millions of people suffered from hypothyroidism because of low iodine levels. During the 1880s, many Americans moved from the coast into the Midwest, which is often called the Goitre zone. They moved away from eating a lot of ocean seafood rich diets, whether it was ocean fish, whether it was oysters, whether it was clams, whether it was shrimp, into the Midwest, where there were no oceans obviously, and there was very little iodine in the diet.
In fact, it’s estimated that over 10 million people in the early 1900s died from hypothyroidism. So to fix this, the federal government mandated adding iodine to salt. In fact, the Morton Salt company with a little girl with the umbrella was iodized salt. Once iodine was added to salt by law, hypothyroidism and goiter plummeted in the United States. Everyone is switching to pink salt, sea salt, or other fancy salts that sadly do not have iodine. So please, please, please use iodized sea salt. Recently, believe it or not, a pink salt has been introduced with iodine added. It’s amazing how many people, who we find with hypothyroidism, that just adding iodized sea salt into their diet solves the problem. The other thing I see is that people who have been told to eat a low-salt diet because of congestive heart failure or other issues or high blood pressure. Avoid salt. And they’re not getting any iodine. The easy way is, there are a number of iodine supplements. A lot of them come from seaweed or algae. They’re cheap, and you can get your iodine that way.
Now, let’s talk about the real cause of Hashimoto’s. Hashimoto’s is caused by a leaky gut. In fact, I have not seen an autoimmune disease that isn’t caused by leaky gut. Now, before widespread leaky gut or intestinal permeability became an issue, it was incredibly rare to have Hashimoto’s. In fact, when I was in medical school back in the dark ages, we knew about it, but it was so rare that most of the time we didn’t even test for it. Now it’s everywhere. In fact, there’s some estimates that maybe 60 million Americans, particularly women, have Hashimoto’s that they don’t even realize they have.
Now, why is that? First of all, every one of my patients with an autoimmune disease tests positive for leaky gut. More and more, we’re recognizing that autoimmune diseases are caused by molecular mimicry, and that is many of the compounds that leak through the wall of our gut. Look very similar to proteins in our thyroid or our joints or our skin. Our immune system gets stimulated to find these odd proteins, and kill them. So if your immune system is stimulated looking for these proteins, it comes upon your thyroid, and it goes, “Oh, my gosh.” There are proteins in this poor woman’s thyroid that look a lot like what I’m supposed to be looking for. They’re not quite the same, but we’re at war, and there’s a problem, and I’m going to shoot to kill and I’ll ask questions later. So it’s the molecular mimicry theory of autoimmune disease that is rapidly being proven over and over again, and that’s certainly what I see in my patients.
So, what do regular doctors do if they check your thyroid? They check for TSH, which stands for thyroid stimulating hormone. They also check for T3 levels and T4 levels. And if those look normal, they stop there. But quite frankly, that isn’t enough. So what do I check? First of all, I do a leaky gut test. A hundred percent of my patients with Hashimoto’s have leaky gut. The other thing I do is I check for free T3 and free T4. These are the actual active hormones that do the work. And then I check for anti-thyroid antibodies, which show up if the immune system is attacking the thyroid. And the two most common tests are the TPO test, thyroid peroxidase antibodies, and the anti-thyroglobulin test. These are the key markers of Hashimoto’s.
Many people bring me their normal thyroid test results, but they’re convinced that something’s wrong. I run my test instead, and suddenly, there it is. There’s the real problem. So as you know, the root cause of leaky gut is food, which explains why certain foods trigger Hashimoto’s flare-ups. Take one of my patients, a Hollywood health fanatic. He was in great shape, but suddenly started feeling exhausted, had low energy, and despite being married to a young sexy wife, his libido dropped. What did I find? Leaky gut. It turns out he was eating a healthy plant-based protein bar and shake every day, but they contained pea protein and the new in thing, Himalayan sprouted buckwheat, both of which are huge lectin-containing foods. We removed them from his diet, and within one month, he felt like himself again.
But food isn’t the only trigger. Viruses can also cause leaky gut. Many viruses are notorious for damaging the gut lining, leading to leaky gut and autoimmune flare-ups. A patient of mine recently, who caught COVID twice, each time, her anti-thyroid antibodies spiked and her leaky gut returned. In fact, 25 to 30% of people with COVID actually reported GI symptoms, not respiratory symptoms, which tells you what? COVID damages the gut. So what can you do about it? Fix your leaky gut. If you’re struggling with thyroid issues, don’t just look at your thyroid, look at your gut. Make sure your doctor is running the right tests. And if you’re using pink salt, you’d better be getting iodine from somewhere else.
Now it’s time for the review of the week from @iPhone5305 on YouTube, “Wow. Thanks, Doctor. I like to try everything once. And everywhere I turn, even at checkouts, is Dubai chocolate, even at Costco. So I had to try. It had eight squares for $15, which is expensive in my book. I broke off one square, bit on it. It was far too sweet that I spat it out and threw out the bar. I care for my family and did not want to subject them to this gagging sweetness. Right now, I’m slowly eating an amazing chocolate, 72%, which only has two ingredients, cacao and coconut blossom sugar from Peru, aromatic fruity with sweetness and spooning homemade pistachio butter in between. Love all your videos. Thank you Dr. G at all times.” Well, thanks very much for that review.
Think fads come and go. And Dubai chocolate is another one of those fads that sounds too good to be true, and it is too good to be true. It’s just loaded with sugar. And thanks for including your recipe for healthy Dubai chocolate.
Now it’s time for the question of the week from @WagnerLee on YouTube, “If allulose is so great for you, why is it banned in Canada and Europe? Harmful foods, et cetera. I’ve also heard it may be unsafe because the body doesn’t recognize it as food. Is there any truth to this?” Well, first of all, it’s not banned in Europe and Canada. It’s simply too novel of food. And until study, it’s not allowed to be added to other foods. But there are numerous agencies studying it. And in fact, it’s not new or narbo. It’s a normal sugar that was first discovered in figs. And if sugar was abnormal to the body, I can assure you that we’d reject almost everything we eat. Evil. And maybe we should. But thanks for that question. It’s not banned, it’s pending study. Totally different.
Speaker 1:
I hope you enjoyed this episode of The Dr. Gundry Podcast. If you did, please share this with family and friends. You never know how one of these health tips can completely transform someone’s life when you take the time to share it with them. There’s also The Dr. Gundry Podcast YouTube channel, where we have tens of thousands of free health insights that can help you and your loved ones live a long, vital life. Let’s do this together.
