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Welcome to the Dr. Gundry podcast, the weekly podcast where Dr. G gives you the tools you need to boost your health and live your healthiest life.
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Metabolism chances are, you’ve heard a lot of misinformation about the topic, maybe you’ve been told it has to do with how much you eat or the frequency you eat, or that you’re doomed with a slow metabolism because it runs in your family. But how do you know what to believe? Well, today I set the record straight on everything you need to know including how to supercharge your metabolism with a few basic tips. Plus, I’m taking a deep dive into one of the most essential vitamins that most of us are deficient in, you learn how to spot symptoms of this nutrient deficiency and what to do to improve your levels. And finally, I’ll discuss the absolute crucial blood tests you need to get from your doctor on a regular basis. They might just save your life. You don’t want to miss this one. We’ll be right back. It’s officially spring. That also means it’s time for spring cleaning. When you think of spring cleaning your bed probably isn’t the first thing to come to mind. But did you know that within just one week your sheets can accumulate up to 5 million bacteria so put your sheets on the top of your spring cleaning to do list I recommend swapping out your old sheets for the softest most luxurious and responsibly sourced bedding on the planet. The bedding you won’t be able to sleep without from cozy Earth goes the earth bedding is made using only the finest premium viscose from highly sustainable bamboo. No wonder top designers choose cozy Earth their bedding is naturally temperature regulating so you’ll sleep comfy all year round. Cozy Earth is also the brand that made Oprah’s Favorite Things five years in a row that speaks volumes. Whether it’s their luxury sheets lounge wear pajamas or plush bath towels, you’ll love shopping at cozier and now you can order their bedding in five wonderful colors plus cozy earthbending comes in a beautiful reusable canvas bag save 35% Now on cozier hurry this offer ends soon, go to cozy earth.com/gundry And be sure to enter Gundry at checkout to save 35% That’s cozy earth.com/gundry The number one reason you might have a slow metabolism, you’re not able to lose weight because you have a slow metabolism or tough luck. Your whole family has horribly sluggish metabolism and you’ll never have a healthy one or the Welcome to menopause a slower metabolism is part of the change any of these sound familiar? Well today we’re gonna do one of my favorite styles of discussion, myth busting, because there’s a good chance that everything your well meaning MDS and family members have told you about your metabolism is wrong. For example, a slow metabolism isn’t caused by eating too little or not exercising enough. But before diving right in, let’s discuss what the heck metabolism is anyhow. And its true function. Okay, ready for some myth busting, I printed a list of reasons web M D says you have a slow metabolism. We’ll run down the list one by one and I’ll explain why this simply isn’t true. Plus, I’ll share two methods to fix a slow metabolism that work no matter your age. Okay, so this is from WebMD. Number one, your genes. But tabble ism is how your body changes food and energy. If your body is slow at burning calories while you rest or sleep, you probably got that from your parents through your genes. I got news for you, your parents and your genes did not tell you how to turn food into energy. That’s actually a part of what your gut microbiome is doing and the types of foods that you’re eating. As I explained in the energy paradox. altra processed foods literally cause a backup at rush hour in the way your mitochondria. Take the food you ate, and turn it into energy. So the more processed foods that you eat, it’s guaranteed to slow your metabolism, not the genes that your parents gave you. Number two hormones. A shift in your hormones can put the brakes on your body’s energy use that can make you feel tired. So Um conditions like an underactive or overactive thyroid and diabetes are hormonal diseases that affect your metabolism. Stress also releases hormones that contribute a slowdown? Well, first of all, as you’ve heard me, right in the energy paradox, cortisol, the so called stress hormone that makes you gain weight has absolutely no effect on weight gain and your metabolism. In fact, the vast majority of people who tell me that they have a slow adrenal gland or they have adrenal fatigue, have absolutely normal cortisol levels. I also have a number of people with high cortisol levels that are not fat that are not sluggish. And that is not the reason for the problem. Now, yes, if you are hypo thyroid, that will definitely slow your metabolic rate. And we have an epidemic of hyperthyroidism in this country, a lot of it is the fact that we do not have iodine in our salt anymore. That’s an easy fix, but hormonal changes. I have women who go through menopause that gain weight, but it’s not because of hormonal changes in estrogen. It’s actually because their microbiome during menopause changes dramatically. We also now know that the microbiome is responsible for making much of the hormones that drive our energy production. And you can read all about that in the energy paradox and unlocking the Keto code. Lack of sleep well, lack of sleep good Shaddai helps your metabolism stay steady. No, that’s not true. Good sleep actually stops you from becoming insulin resistant, and good sleep stops you from becoming carbohydrate hungry. If you don’t get good sleep, you will seek out high sugar calorie foods. And that is what’s going to prompt your weight gain, not the slowing of your metabolism. Number four strict diets how you lose weight matters. I agree with that. If you don’t eat enough your metabolism switches to slow mo. No, that is actually not true. That’s been shown over and over again that you suddenly don’t slow down if you don’t eat enough. In fact, some of my people who gained so much weight are supposedly not eating enough. But when we actually look at what they’re eating, they’re eating the perfect combination of foods to promote weight gain. And it’s not because they’re eating too little. What you can do make your weight loss plan realistic, not drastic. That’s very true. weight off fast will never last weight off slow. You’re good to go. And that’s what I do in all my books. Trendy salt. Trendy salt is the cause of your slow metabolism. But it lacks iodine. I finally found one that I agree with. Iodine is critical for your metabolism. Please get iodized sea salt. There’s so many of them out there now. They’re great. Oh, I love this one, you’re parched. Without enough HTO your metabolism can stall. How about a tall cool glass of water? Now? Do you really want cold water? Or do you want warm water it turns out that drinking something cold will actually make you burn more calories to equilibrate your body temperature. So this idea that warm water will help you burn calories is exactly the opposite. You want the thermogenic effect of cold water. But here’s the problem. The more water you drink, the more you dilute out sodium chloride, potassium and magnesium, which are the essential minerals that drive your metabolic rate. So you can do horrible things by drinking too much water. On the other hand, studies show that having too much salt will actually drive hunger. And as anyone knows after eating a big bowl of salty popcorn, you want a lot of water and more water. And you shouldn’t be eating popcorn anyhow.
seven threes and you have a low metabolism you drink decaf coffee, but you’ll miss out on the jolt of caffeine that gets your metabolic motor running. Now folks, as I showed in unlocking the Kito code, coffee and tea for that matter whether it has caffeine or not, is loaded with poly phenols and those poly phenols in themselves are what are going to produce a higher metabolic rate. Now if you want to add caffeine, I’m a big fan because caffeine in itself is a mitochondrial and coupler. But if caffeine mate gives you the jitters if you notice issues with heart jitteriness, don’t worry about it, your decaf coffee is not slowing your metabolism down. In fact, it’s actually raising your metabolic rate. Number eight, not enough calcium, you need it for more than your bones. It’s a key nutrient for a swift metabolism. Now, here’s what they’re telling you to do. You can get calcium from milk and dairy products. You can also get it in fortified foods such as cereals, a sugar bomb, orange juice, glass of orange juice has more sugar in it than a candy bar. So my gosh, if you want to slow your metabolism right down, please have some cereal, have some milk, which is pure sugar and have some orange juice. Again, it’s the exact opposite recommendation of what you should do. You can get plenty of calcium from green leafy vegetables, you can get it from for instance, canned salmon, don’t swallow any calcium tablets, your thermostat is set to high. Now we are having an energy crisis. And I’m the first to tell you that one of the things we’ve learned about longevity is that people who live in longevity regions actually live in mountainous regions. And they actually live in at least part of the year very cold temperatures. And some of the longevity that’s attributed to Americans in Minnesota and Michigan, in northern climates in Canada, is because they are existing in lower temperatures. And the exposure to cold as you’ve read about in unlocking the Keto code uncouples your mitochondria. And when you uncouple your mitochondria, your energy rate goes up, your metabolic rate goes up. So exposure to cold living in cold climates is an excellent idea. The other thing is, do me a favor, don’t set your thermostat too high in the winter. And for goodness sakes, at least in the winter, open the windows and bring in cold air, your body has to drop at least a degree in temperature to stimulate good sleep. And as my wife’s mother always told her, You have to sleep with a window open. And it was because to get that drop in temperature. Your medications that it’s true medications can slow your metabolism. For instance, many people on antidepressant medications notice that they have weight gain. One of the things that I pointed out in unlocking the Keto code is melatonin is incredibly important for getting your mitochondria, those energy producing organelles and all of your cells to have maximum energy efficiency and maximum production of energy. And we are very deficient in melatonin. Interestingly enough, those of you on a beta blocker for heart high blood pressure or heart failure or coronary artery disease. Beta blockers block your production of melatonin by up to 80%. So just being on a medication, which is supposedly going to help you may be the cause of very low energy, cutting carbs. I love this. Sure, easing up on unhealthy carbohydrates can help you manage your weight and burn fat faster. That sounds like a good idea. But your body needs them to make insulin. No, your body doesn’t need carbohydrates to make insulin. Your body makes sense. Linda handle all those crazy carbohydrates go low carb all the time and you make less of this key hormone. Yes, that’s right. And that’s a really good thing. But these guys say your metabolism stalls when your insulin goes low and you don’t burn as many calories as you once did. Are you kidding me? Where do they get this job? The number one test that I get people to get is a fasting The insulin level. And if your fasting insulin level isn’t below 10 And preferably isn’t below six, you have trouble ahead in the short term, and in the long term, insulin should be low that’s showing you that you’re handling the food you eat without raising insulin and insulin, remember, is a growth hormone and I got news for you. After teenage years, there is nothing in us we want to grow. Number 12. Being nocturnal, catching the red eye flight or working the night shift messes with your body’s natural sleep wake cycle. These changes can lead to a sluggish metabolism and other problems with like diabetes and obesity. Yes, that’s called our circadian rhythm. And we know that shift workers and doctors who work night shift and nurses who work nights and laborers who work nights have dramatic alters in their metabolism. And believe it or not, it comes down to elevated insulin levels. The other thing that nocturnal workers do is they keep themselves awake with sugar. Insulin once again is the problem here, not necessarily the shift work. Number 13. Changing meal times when you eat is as important is what you eat skipping meals or grabbing a bite on the go creates metabolic jetlag shifting mealtimes can wreak havoc on your metabolism and raise your risk of heart disease. Folks, breakfast is not the most important meal of the day. Do we really think our ancestors crawled out of our game and said what’s for breakfast, there wasn’t ending breakfast. Breakfast actually was developed in the late 19th century during the Industrial Revolution in England, to give shift workers workers something to eat before they spent the entire day working without a break without lunch. And that’s where break fast come from. break fast is the worst meal of the day. And the more you skip, break fast and have breakfast at lunch, you watch your metabolism go through the roof. This was recently proven in the Italian athletes study that athletes who skipped breakfast, but ate the same amount of food that athletes who ate breakfast had more weight loss and much better markers of longevity than the people who ate breakfast. So the idea that skipping meals is a bad idea doesn’t jive with science, chronic stress, you’re making more cortisol, high levels of this hormone make it harder for your body to use insulin. That’s absolutely not true. Cortisol is actually not the cause of weight gain. And I’ve been measuring cortisol levels for 25 years in my patients. And it is not the cause of weight gain. And it is not the cause of high insulin levels. A high fat diet. Eating loads of fatty foods like greasy burgers and buttery goodies is never a healthy idea. It changes how your body breaks down foods and nutrients. Your body’s ability to use insulin is affected too. That’s called insulin resistance.
I got news for you. The right kinds of fats are essential to break insulin resistance. It’s the carbohydrates, and often the high processed proteins that you’re eating that are causing this problem, not the fats that are going along with it. All right, so we have just debunked 15 myths from why you have a slow metabolism from WebMD. Is it any wonder that we are so confused about the advice of healthy eating when even a trusted source like WebMD is about 180 degrees wrong from the science, and that’s why I’m here and that’s why I’m bringing you this message. There are great ways to rip your metabolism. One of them we just mentioned is to practice time controlled eating intermittent fasting. It’s one of the easiest ways to do it. The other way is to get high poly phenol foods or supplements in your diet. For instance, like I mentioned coffee and tea. They’re called All thermogenic because they actually uncouple your mitochondria. And the more you uncouple your mitochondria, the more your metabolism will soar. Just recently, I taped our new public television special. Just one thing. Two members of the audience came up to me after the show. Nice, thin, older couple. They said, Boy, we did everything on unlocking the Keto code. It was so successful, that we lost so much weight that people were really worried about. And we actually went and added a few things back into our diet. But they can testify that once you unlock your mitochondria, the weight falls off, your metabolic rate goes up. And that’s what you’re looking for. So it was great to hear two people who I’d never met, who were not my patients come up and say, Boy, does uncoupling mitochondria work and it’ll work for you. I love my morning coffee, but I also like to switch it up to make sure I’m getting the full spectrum of nutrients. That’s why I drink mud water sundaes instead of my second cup of coffee. This delicious coffee alternative contains some of the most powerful mushrooms on earth like Chaga reishi, and lion’s mane. I’ve spoken about the power of adaptogenic mushrooms plenty of times on my podcast and written about them in all my books. In fact, there’s some of my ultimate superfoods that support mental focus the immune system and overall health with 1/7 of the caffeine of a regular cup of coffee mud water is a perfect afternoon pick me up or even an after dinner beverage. My favorite way to prepare it is with spirulina allulose and a splash of hemp milk mud water is plant paradox compliant 100% organic, non GMO gluten free vegan and kosher certified and I highly recommend you try it out. Right now mud water is offering a special discount just for listeners of my show, just go to mud water.com/gundry and use code Gundry to get 15% off your first purchase. That’s M udwtr.com/gundry and use code Gundry for 15% off. Spring has sprung and so as allergy season, but when it comes to the cost of your allergy meds and other prescriptions checking good RX can help you save and stay healthy good RX is the free fast and easy way to find the prescriptions you need at a lower price. With good RX you can instantly find discounts compare prices and save up to 80% at the pharmacy. Good RX is accepted at all the major pharmacies in your neighborhood including CVS Kroger, Walgreens Rite Aid, Vons, Walmart, Sam’s Club and many more and remember good RX works whether you have insurance or not even if you have insurance good RX may beat your copay price so if you’re looking for seasonal allergy relief with low cost prescription medications good RX is a walk in the park for you this spring for simple smart savings on your prescriptions Chet and good RX go to good ar x.com/gundry That’s good. Ar x.com/gundry Do you have monkey brain? Well I do. That’s why I can’t say enough about how helpful headspace the meditation app is it making meditation easy and painless with minimal time investment is easy. It helps calm my monkey brain and I know can do the same for you. Plus, you’ll see improved overall mental and emotional health benefits with guided meditations, mindfulness practices, breathing and calming exercises and so much more. These tools can help reduce anxiety boost your mood and help you feel better headspace combined scientifically proven benefits of meditation and mindfulness with modern practices through their experienced meditation teachers all with customized personalized approaches to help you navigate through all of life’s moments, big and small, the wide range of teachers with diverse backgrounds and areas of expertise ensure there’s a teacher and content to help you whether you’re a first timer or have been practicing for years and when you only have a few minutes to get in the right headspace. There are programs to do on the go when pressed for time. Headspace has helped more than 100 million people worldwide. They can help you to listen up you do not want them This this, I’ve arranged something special for a limited time all of you can try headspace free for 30 days by going to headspace.com/gundry 30. You won’t find this offer anywhere else you must use my link H E A D S P A C e.com/gundry 30. To unlock all of headspace free for 30 days, this is not something they normally do in space.com/gundry 30. Are you one of the types of people who need more vitamin D? Well, first of all, it’s important for you to know that vitamin D is one, if not the most essential vitamins for good health. In fact, Vitamin D is actually not a vitamin at all. It’s a hormone that has effects on almost everything that happens in you and to you. Interestingly enough, we know that people who have the highest levels of vitamin D in their bloodstream, have the longest tail and mirrors those little end caps on chromosomes. And if you like the telomere theory of longevity, then long telomeres are much better for you than short telomeres, and vitamin D level correlates with telomere length. Interestingly enough, all five of the Blue Zones are in high sun exposure areas, including my Blue Zone Loma Linda, where I spent half my career as a professor. The other thing that’s fascinating is that vitamin D is essential to activate the differentiation of stem cells in your gut to provide gut cell lining. And without vitamin D, the stem cells that repopulate your gut lining which is damaged every day, by all the things you eat by all the things we do by all the toxins in our food and by glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, we are very deficient in replacing the wall of our gut. And early on in my career in leaky gut, I noticed that most of my patients with autoimmune diseases, and leaky gut had extremely low levels of vitamin D. And it wasn’t until we got their vitamin D levels higher and higher and higher, that they began to repair their leaky gut and their autoimmune diseases began to dissipate. Now unfortunately, Vitamin D deficiency is a common global issue. And it’s safe to say that pretty much everyone can benefit from more vitamin D. Now that’s not just me talking.
Love tell you about the story of Professor Holic from Boston University, who was a professor of dermatology, who came out with the bold statement that most of us should not use sunscreen, and that we should expose ourselves to the sun. Now for a dermatologist a tenured professor of dermatology, that heresy and in fact for Professor Holick was fired from his job which you can’t do to a tenured professor. And it’s been him years in the courts to get his job back. Why was he fired because telling people to avoid sunscreen and to get more sun if you’re a dermatologist doesn’t seem like a very good idea. But Dr. holics research substantiated the fact that vitamin D and sun exposure is critical to our functioning as a human being. Now his research has subsequently been confirmed by the University of California, San Diego, which has one of the biggest research units in vitamin D. And they’ve published papers showing that the average American should be getting 9600 international units of vitamin d3 per day to have a safe level of vitamin D, not only for health, but in their studies to diminish the chance of cancer. Yes, you heard that right diminish the chance of cancer. In fact, the same study the same center has shown that they have Have not seen a case of vitamin D toxicity, up to 40,000 international units a day. Now, you heard that right. They’ve seen patients taking 40,000 international units a day of vitamin d3, and not experiencing any vitamin D toxicity. I’ve now been measuring vitamin D levels every three to six months and all of my patients for 25 years, and I’ve yet to see vitamin D toxicity. And you would think that I would see it because as many of you know, we use a lot of vitamin D, particularly in our patients with cancer, and with any autoimmune disease. Now, interestingly enough, as you might imagine, studies have shown that people with darker skin pigmentation are at greater risk for vitamin D deficiency. In fact, a few years ago, it was found that over 80% of black people have profoundly low levels of vitamin D. Now, it should be obvious that melanin in our skin blocks UV light from forming vitamin D. in us. So that’s how we convert the sun’s rays into vitamin D. So if you have dark pigmentation, and more melanin, it would seem obvious that you would have less vitamin D. And yet, knowing that the we have not gotten out the word to anyone with dark skin, brown skin, that they are probably from the start vitamin D deficient, even if they work outside. In fact, early on in my career, I found that 80% of Southern Californians are vitamin D deficient and you go well, wait a minute. How in the world could that be? Because sadly, most Southern Californians are putting sunscreen on themselves, or are covering up to protect ourselves from sun. And that hurt us because of what we now know about how important vitamin D? Well, so what can you do? The certainly sun exposure is a reasonable thing to do. And I’ve recommended to my patients that early day and late day sun exposure for about 20 minutes at a time is certainly a good place to start. Now, obviously, you don’t want to go out in midday sun and spend hours in the sun. That’s not what I’m saying. You want to play safe with the sun. I haven’t used sunscreen in over 20 years and yet I spend a great deal of time out in the sun. How do I accomplish that? Well before the days of sunscreen, my parents were pretty smart, and allowed us to gradually increase our time in the sun. And we would get 1520 minutes in the sun and work our way up, we would build a what was called a sun callus, we would tan and as that tanning creased, we would spend more time out in the sun. And that’s still a reasonable way to do it. But we’re much too eager to get into the sun. So one of the things I do is eat my sunscreen, I take time to release vitamin C so like constantly have vitamin C in my skin. I take poly phenols which have been shown and I eat poly phenols like olive oil, poly phenols increase the repair and blockage of UV light. There are even products that are made from ferns that have been effectively shown to block UV light absorption in the skin. Now why shouldn’t you use sunscreen? Well, besides the obvious fact that we need sunlight. Most of these sunscreens contain hormone disrupting compounds that have now been shown to be absorbed directly through our skin that produce some really bad estrogen like effects in boys and girls and adults. If you got to use sunscreen, please EES, use a zinc or titanium based sunscreen that doesn’t have all these other ingredients. Now, doesn’t the sun cause wrinkles? Well, interestingly enough, sunlight can damage collagen, and collagen can break. But collagen can be renamed together with vitamin C. One of the interesting things about smokers and smokers, as most of us know have a lot of wrinkles. Smokers, the oxidative stress of tobacco smoke uses up all the vitamin C in smokers. And so there’s no vitamin C left to remit the collagen breaks that occur from sun exposure. And interestingly enough, as I’ve written in my books, one of the reasons smokers get a typical type of blockages in their coronary arteries is that it’s caused by the college and breaking in flexible areas in coronaries that doesn’t get repaired with vitamin C. So, eating your vitamin C in the form of time release Vitamin C is one of the smartest ways to protect yourself from sun damage. And let’s take a tip from Sofia Lauren, who always attributed her great skin to consuming huge amounts of olive oil and using olive oil on her skin. The benefits of olive oil on your skin when you’re out in the sun or after your son, but really go a long way at making you tolerate some. Okay, so how do you get vitamin D? Vitamin D is easy to purchase. Vitamin D in general comes in 1000 international units 2000 international units 5000 international units, there are now 10,000 international units, and there’s even 50,000 international units. Right now,
University of California San Diego says the average American should take 9600 international units a day. I certainly find that’s true in my practice. I take 10,000 international units a day, I have for the last few years for obvious reasons as a defense against viral illnesses. mushrooms contain a good amount of vitamin D. Now I personally believe that most people taking vitamin D should also supplement with vitamin K to vitamin K to is very different than vitamin K one. Vitamin K one is prompts clotting factor formation in us. Vitamin K two, on the other hand, takes the calcium that we and the calcium that could potentially deposit in our coronary arteries and deposits it into bones. And in my patients with osteopenia, osteoporosis, Vitamin K two is a major part of our regimen. Now the good news is you don’t need much vitamin K to 100 micrograms will usually do it if you want to take more it’s not harmful. But the combination of higher vitamin D and Vitamin K two is a win win. Now can vitamin D bother you? I have some women who swear that vitamin D makes their stomach queasy and even gives them diarrhea. If you are one of those rare people and I have you as my patients, I like you to try a sublingual form of vitamin D vitamin D drops. Interestingly enough, I don’t find the drops as effective in elevating vitamin D levels, because it does seem to ward off those few instances where vitamin D seems to give you queasy stomach. Lastly, I’ve seen a couple of women not men who they swear that vitamin D gives them palpitations skipped heartbeats. And we’ve done the experiment where we’ve lowered their vitamin D and their palpitations got better Is that a placebo effect? I don’t know. But their vitamin D levels in their blood really didn’t change very much. So if you’re one of those rare people who notice either the queasy stomach, or palpitations skipped heartbeats, then consider lowering your vitamin D dose or trying it under your tongue. But in general, most of us should be taking somewhere between 5010 1000 international units of vitamin d3, and you’ll be in great shape going forward. From Instagram at Timothy George asks, Can you go over the most important but not so common blood tests that we should be adding to our yearly physicals like the ones you mentioned in the energy paradox? Or perhaps Are there others as well? Amazing book, by the way, life changing? I’m lucky to have a general doctor who is very open to your teachings and will order labs that you say thank you. Okay, so that’s a great question, Timothy, George.
I’ve gotten I put a whole list out in the energy paradox. But for those of you who have not gotten it yet, so there are certain tests that you really should get from your doctor or your healthcare provider that are cheap, and easy to obtain. And then we can go into more esoteric ones. First of all, your doctor is almost certainly going to get a fasting blood sugar, a fasting glucose, quite frankly, that isn’t half as important as a fasting insulin level. Now, I can tell you training third year family practice residents like I do in my clinics, that most of them haven’t even heard of a fasting insulin level. So if your doctor looks at you funny, just say, you know, Humor me, please order it fasting insulin level, it’ll cost you about $8. Quite frankly, that’s number one. If that fasting insulin level is above 10, then you’re in trouble. You have insulin resistance, it’s useful to get a hemoglobin a one C, you see, I got my a one C down on half the commercials on TV. Hemoglobin a one C looks at how you’re handling sugars and proteins for the two months prior to the test looking backwards in time. But what’s surprising is a hemoglobin a one c should be 5.6 or less. The closer you get to 5.0, the better. But you wouldn’t believe the number of people I see with a normal hemoglobin a one C who have elevated insulin levels. The other tests that some doctors can order is a homer i R, capital H capital O capital m capital A dash capital I capital R the IR stands for insulin resistance. A home IR is another really good way to see whether or not you have metabolic flexibility, which of course, is one of the major subjects of the energy paradox. And about 80% of us in this country have no metabolic flexibility. Our mitochondria don’t have the ability to switch on a dime, to burning sugar for fuel to burning free fatty acids for fuel. And the longer all of us study the various chronic diseases, including dementia, including diabetes, including heart disease, the more and more we’re realizing that this is a mitochondrial dysfunction problem. So all of these will actually help you point to mitochondria dysfunction. Now there’s some good general purpose inflammation markers, the easiest one to get is h s dash c r p. The HS stands for either highly sensitive or heart specific. Either one is just fine. It’s the same test. It’ll give you a generalized marker of inflammation in your body. Another useful one is fibrinogen. If you’re a woman ferritin is actually a useful marker for inflammation. The most doctors associate ferritin with iron levels, but I can tell you it correlates very poorly with iron levels. So if you’re a woman and you have an elevated ferritin level, that means we need to look further into inflammation markers. So those are some simple markers to get, we can get more esoteric. One thing that I urge everybody to get is to have their Apo E for genotype measured. You’ve heard me talk about this. You’ve heard Dr. Dale Bredesen, you’ve heard Dr. Perlmutter talk about this. The Apple II for Gene determines whether you’re going to make a LiPo protein that carries fats around your body. The Apple II for genotype, which about 30% of people carry is sometimes called the Alzheimer’s gene. Now, you really want to know whether you carry that. Because if you whether you follow me whether you follow duck bromide, or whether they follow back Bredesen, this is not sealing your fate that oh, my gosh, I carry the Alzheimer’s gene, I don’t want to know I have that. I’d rather not know, you can actively do something to prevent the development of Alzheimer’s if you carry this gene, and it’s well worth your money. To find out about that. The other one I would get in terms of a genetic test is the MTHF Our mutation. And if you say that out loud, we would BLEEP you from network television. We laughingly call it the mother effer gene, for obvious reasons. It determines whether or not you carry a mutation, that you can’t convert vitamin B 12, and folic acid into their active forms, which are methyl b 12, and methyl folate. And knowing that actually gives you power to get methyl B 12 and methyl folate into you as supplements. So if you have for instance, anxiety, depression, ADHD, bipolar, schizophrenia, alcoholism, drug abuse, and suicide tendencies, you may in fact carry one or more of these MTHFR mutations. And it’s really good idea to figure out if you have them. Now for the real nerds in the audience asked to get an insulin like growth factor level, I g f dash one. It’s one of the best ways of looking at how slow or fast you’re aging. And there’s some fun tricks to play with influencing IGF one. Just a word of warning. If your IGF one is high above about 200 to a 250. And you’re over the age of 40 or 50. That increases your risk of developing cancer. On the other hand, if your IGF is very low, it’s very unusual to develop cancer. insulin like growth factor is simply that it is a growth factor that stimulates cancer cells to grow. So that’s a good start. And thanks for asking that question.
David favela from Instagram asks, Do I need amino acids? If I am a vegetarian? Where can I get them from any specific foods or supplements? Is it true that if I don’t eat meat, I need to supplement because they are only found in meat? Well, here’s the good news. Gorillas and horses don’t ask about where they can get their amino acids. And as far as I can tell, gorillas and horses do very well with muscle mass. So amino acids are present in plants and in animals, they are the building blocks of protein. There are essential amino acids that we do not manufacture our cells. And so we have to obtain them from our diet. Now, so much emphasis in the vegetarian and vegan community is combining foods so that you don’t miss out on certain essential amino acids, and so much, I think wasted time is devoted to Oak, okay, grains are devoid of a couple of essential amino acids. And beans are devoid of other essential amino acids. But if you combine grains and beans, you’ll cover the base for essential amino acids. Believe me there are plenty of essential amino acids in a vegan or vegetarian plant paradox program, you will get it from the leaves that you eat. You will get it from the roots that you eat, you will get it from the nuts that you ate. There are for instance, several knots lots like sacha inchi and verruca nuts, borrow nuts that have all the essential amino acids covered, and so you don’t have to go looking anywhere else. One thing that is very interesting about vegans is vegans actually have low levels of Korea tea, which is a protein. And there are interesting studies that vegans are deficient in creatine. And there are some interesting studies that vegans have smaller brains than non vegans because they’re lacking creating. So if you’re a vegan, I do recommend supplementing with a creatine supplement, and they’re not animal derived, you can get vegan creatine, and just supplement with creatine as part of your diet. Great question, though, from Lucas was Zach on Instagram, what’s the ideal age to begin fasting? Well, so fasting covers a lot of territory, as I talk about in all my books, particularly the energy paradox. So as I’ve talked about before, if you’re a woman of childbearing age, and you want to get pregnant or you’re planning to get pregnant, then quite frankly, time restricted eating water, fasting juice, fasting is not for you. I’ve seen so many patients that fasting or intermittent fasting has actually prevented them from getting pregnant. And when we had them stop that practice, that started things. Also, if you or a family member, have a tendency to focus on controlling your eating habits, then this is not for you. This absolutely is not the direction you want to go in your relationship to food. On the other hand, if you look at hunter gatherer societies, I got news for you. They’re not waking their kids up at eight o’clock in the morning for a bowl of oatmeal to send them off to hunt, you know, berries, the kids don’t eat until the adults eat, and many of them do not eat until 10, or 11, or 12 Noon with their first meal. And in fact, the idea of eating breakfast, as I’ve talked about before, is a modern nuance that was actually fostered in great part by the Kellogg’s cornflakes company in 1906, telling you and convincing you with a massive advertising campaign, that breakfast is the most important meal. And it simply is not. So if you want to make this a part of normal family activities of skin, skipping breakfast as an example, or eating an early dinner and not snacking at night. That’s a normal healthy practice. And the more you introduce your kids to this style of eating early on, you’re going to set him up for a much healthier lifespan to to come Holly Boyko from Instagram as what is the best fiber you would suggest to eat weekly daily. Thank you, Holly from Ohio. West Oh, there’s so many great sources of fiber it’s hard to hard to start. Certainly the fiber in vegetables in leaves in Riddick, EO and Belgian dive and curly and dive. I posted on Instagram recently, a salad that I had from a chef outside of Missoula, Montana for the wellness weekend. That was just every last wonderful chicory family of vegetables. That was absolutely delicious. And I’ve mentioned before whenever we’re visiting southern France and Italy, there are chicory vegetables in every salad on every plate with every meal. So we’re beginning to see radicchio, which some people call this Italian red lettuce. It’s this bright red and white, firm ball. It’s in many, many, many grocery stores now. Belgian end dive is everywhere. Now it’s in Trader Joe’s. Grab yourself ahead of those pick up some Belgian energize and just mix them in your salads. It’s an easy way On the other hand, ground flax seeds is a great source of fiber. It’s a great source of a short chain Omega three fat called Alpha little linic acid. But if you’re going to buy ground flax seed, the minute you open the package, put it in the refrigerator because it goes rancid. Preferably buy whole flax seeds, grind them in a coffee grinder, and then sprinkle them on your salads. Put them in your coconut yogurt, put them in your goat or sheep yogurt. Great way to introduce fiber psyllium husk you can get psyllium ground psyllium husk anywhere. And don’t forget that resistant starches. For instance, like a purple sweet potato that you cook, then cool and real reheat is another great source of fiber and not to forget he come up, get yourself some heka many places now have it pre sliced, use it as a dipping chip for guacamole. And guacamole has a lot of fiber, avocados are a great source, plenty of places to get your fiber. And remember, you’re eating the fiber to feed your gut buddies. And the more you feed them, the better your health.
Speaker 3 56:24
Hey, this is Dr. Drew and I’d like to invite all of you to subscribe to the Dr. Drew podcast. We are very proud of what we’re doing there at that podcast. I am interviewing some of the most interesting people you could ever want to talk to just whatever I find fascinating whether as a smart person or an expert in a field that I’m interested in or maybe I’m not even interested in I’ve only interested because I’ve heard them speak and become intrigued. I think you’ll be intrigued as well. We get deep into topics that are quite important to the current age. Things like cognitive dissonance cognitive distortions, how does our mind work? We talk about everything in the dark through podcast. It is a real relevance. We get all the way into deep physics and all sorts of stuff but trust me, it’s all very accessible. It’s very interesting headaches. If you’re even interested in learning about headaches we get there we go to the interesting topics of the day. Please join us at the Dr. Drew podcast.
Speaker 4 57:18
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Dr Gundry 57:49
This week’s question comes from Jeff D on Instagram. Hi, could you please tell me why your bio complete three contains maltodextrin I really liked this product. But I feel like multiple dextran is dangerous for the insulin levels and for the gut. Hey, that’s a great question just deep. It turns out if you look at the label multiple dextran is the last ingredient on the list. That means it is the least ingredient in the entire formula. We use multiple dextrose when we have to to allow the product to be malleable so we can actually put it in capsules, but we use incredibly tiny amount and certainly nothing to affect your insulin or your gut. In fact, this product is designed for your gut. This week’s review comes from Hamilton on YouTube Dr. Gundry since I found your channel I slowly changed my diet and eating window to electon free diet three days a week vegan pescatarian four days a week 18 Six eating window weekends off. I was 237 I’m now 176 I lost a total of 61 pounds. I’m 511 so my weight goal is 170 My blood pressure was super high. It’s now 115 over 65 Everyone tells me I look 10 to 15 years younger. My wife is delighted I feel great. My body is slowly healing. I’m a 38 year old man who looks 25 laugh out loud. Dr. Gundry thank you for helping so many people eat the right way. I wish you live to be 150 healthy and counting. Well thank you very much Hamilton and great to hear of your success. You know, I wrote the plant paradox now seven years ago and not a day goes by that we hear a success story like yours. And not a day goes by that I don’t keep seeing patients six days a week every week because I learned from them and I’ve just learned from you. So thanks for writing in appreciate it. I hope you enjoyed this episode of The Dr. Gundry podcast. If you did, please share this with family and friends. You’ll never know how one of these health hacks can completely transform someone’s life. When you take the time to share it with them. There’s also the die Dr. Gundry podcast YouTube channel where we have 10s of 1000s of hours of free health insights that can help you and your loved ones live a long vital life. Let’s do this together, because I’m Dr. Gundry and I’m always looking out for you
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