Dr. Steven Gundry:
Today I’m sharing why I’ve changed my mind throughout the years on certain foods based on the latest science. So stay tuned to the end to find out what these foods are. This is an exclusive content only available on the audio version of this podcast. We’ll also take a closer look at my favorite beverage, coffee, how you can maximize your daily cup of Joe. Stay tuned to find out. I’m also cracking up on the truth about nut butters. I’ll reveal which ones truly support your health and which ones are secretly loaded with inflammatory ingredients that could be damaging to your gut and waistline. Before we get started, don’t forget to rate and review the Dr. Gundry Podcast on your favorite app. Your support helps more listeners discover the truth about vibrant health.
Best nut butters. Now, you’ve probably been told your entire life that all nut butters are healthy, right? I’m here to tell you, buyer beware. Some of these so-called healthy nut butters could be doing a lot more harm than good. That’s why today I’m revealing the top nut butters that are actually good for your health. And believe me, there are ones that you probably wouldn’t even think of. But let’s start with the worst nut butters. The worst one by far is peanut butter. Unfortunately, peanuts are not nuts, they’re legumes. They’re full of lectins. In fact, studies have shown that 98% of people are born with the IgE antibody to the peanut lectin. And lectin peanut allergies are notorious. Plus, peanuts unfortunately are one of the most common foods contaminated with aflavotoxin, one of the most potent carcinogens known.
Peanuts are high in omega-6 fat, which can contribute to chronic inflammation and other health issues. Usually most commercial peanut butters contain sugar, other oils as stabilizing agents, and additives as preservatives, making it even a worse healthy choice. And as anyone probably knows, peanut butter can make you fat. Now, interestingly, having trained in Georgia and medical school, roasting increases the lectin content of peanuts, whereas boiling decreases the lectin content of peanuts. And that’s why, oddly enough, boiled peanuts in the shell are incredibly popular in Georgia. Who knew? In general though, peanuts are not a healthy choice for your nut butter.
All right, next up is cashew butter. Let’s be clear on this. Cashews are not nuts either. They are part of the poison ivy family, and if you think swallowing poison ivy or spreading poison ivy on your celery stick is a good idea, then have your cashew butter, but cashews are not a nut and they are unfortunately very inflammatory. Did you know there’s such a thing as cashew pickers disease? The peel on cashews, which you never see, is so inflammatory that it causes burns on the hands of people who pick cashews.
So where cashews came from originally was the Amazon and the Amazonian indians always pulled the cashew nut off the cashew fruit and ate the fruit and threw the nut away. Cashew butter is not your friend. Now, here’s a very interesting fun fact, pecan butter. I secretly put in a little note in The Plant Paradox cookbook one of my New York Times bestsellers that pecans have a lectin. Now, I secretly put it in there because, as I mentioned, I trained at Georgia medical school and pecans happened to be rather important to the Georgia economy. And as much as I liked pecans, a number of my patients react to the lectin in pecans. So pecan butter is down the list of acceptable nut butters. Now, if you’re enjoying what you’re hearing, make sure you like, subscribe, and share with your friends.
How about the best nut butters? The good news is that there are plenty of other really good butters on the market out there and the first up is walnut butter. Now, I’m a huge fan of walnut butter for multiple reasons. First of all, walnut butter is a really good source of a short-chain omega-3 fatty acid called alpha-linolenic acid. And if you’ve read Gut Check, you might’ve noticed that alpha-linolenic acid is extremely useful in making good gut buddies happy and also diminishing the amount of LPSs, those pieces of bacterial particles, from getting into your bloodstream. In fact, the more I can get alpha-linolenic acid into you, I can measure the lowering of LPSs in your blood. Good news.
Walnuts are loaded with polyphenols, so that means they feed good gut bacteria and they offer antioxidant protection. Walnuts don’t have any lectins. Now, they do have a tannin, which is another defense molecule that gives some people a burning sensation in their mouth. The good news is that soaking walnuts removes that tannin. Now, you can find soaked walnuts in many health food stores. In fact, Whole Food usually has them in the nut area and you can make your own walnut butter with that. But most commercial walnut butters are fine, but if you notice that you don’t like that burning sensation, get yourself some soaked walnuts and that’ll eliminate the problem.
Pistachio butter. My wife is a huge fan of pistachio butter. Why not? It contains two great eye compounds, lutein and zeaxanthin. They’re powerful antioxidants for your eyes. They’re very high in fiber, and again, it’s the type of fiber that your gut buddies want to eat and digest. So pistachio butter is great. Also, pistachios are really high in plant-based proteins and also some good monounsaturated fats which can actually been shown to improve your cholesterol levels. So those are really great nut butters to start with. And before we go on, if you like what you hear, like it, share it and subscribe.
Macadamia nut butter, I happen to be a big fan of macadamia nut butter. Why? Macadamia nut butter contains two really interesting fats. Number one, most of it is the monounsaturated fat oleic acid, the same fat in olive oil. Plus it has another fascinating fat that has been shown to actually improve vessel health in human beings. Why not? It’s also a great source of fiber, fiber that your gut buddies really like and enjoy. Plus macadamia nuts are packed with minerals like magnesium, manganese, and copper. Really important for heart health and energy production and bone health. Now, they’re high calorie and I have some patients who really need to gain weight and I love to do experiments with them having them eat either macadamia nuts or macadamia nut butter. And lo and behold, it’s an effective way to add healthy fat onto your weight. Now, to learn more, check out my YouTube video, The Insane Health Benefits of Macadamia Nuts.
Hazelnut butter. As you know, I spend a lot of time in Europe, particularly in France and Italy and hazelnuts are the European equivalent of almonds, and they are used in everything from butters to chocolates and for good reason. First of all, the peel of hazelnuts have some fantastically important polyphenols, and whenever you can find whole hazelnuts, you’re better off finding those. They’re also very high in folate content. Folate is one of those two vitamins along with B12, which dramatically help lower levels of homocysteine. Homocysteine is an amino acid that can really damage blood vessels and damage your brain, and folate and B-twelve help lower these levels and hazelnuts are rich in folate. They have lots of vitamin E. And there are studies that show that hazelnuts support cognitive health and help protect against age-related cognitive decline. No wonder they’re so popular in Europe.
Now, another thing that’s popular in the Middle East, in the Mediterranean are sesame seeds and tahini is a butter, if you will, from seeds or sesame seeds rather than nuts. And tahini has a lot of things to speak for it. First of all, it’s a part of the plant family that do not contain lectins. On the other hand, you may say, sunflower seeds are a seed. Unfortunately, sunflowers come from a completely different plant family that unfortunately have high amounts of lectins. Plus the fats in sesame seeds are totally different than the fats in sunflower seeds, which are incredibly high in omega-6 fats. So even though they’re both seeds, just because something is a seed doesn’t make it good or bad, you got to know the family that that seed comes from.
Tahini is loaded with monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats. We’ve seen that sesame seeds lower high blood pressure in humans. In fact, a study in humans giving people two tablespoons of sesame oil a day lowered their systolic blood pressure by 10 points. And interestingly enough, when these people stopped taking the sesame oil, their blood pressure went right back up. Also, as I’ve written about in Gut Check, sesame oil helps lower LPSs in your blood. So why not? Sesame, tahini, contains calcium, zinc, magnesium, and vitamin E, and lignans. And lignans are part of the plant compounds that actually improve your gut microbiome, and they’re powerful antioxidants, and quite frankly, they’re delicious and can be used in so many ways.
All right, how about pili nut butter? Yeah, pili nut butter is absolutely delicious, but it’s hard to find. The good news is it’s always organic because of the way it’s sourced. Now, pili nuts are high in saturated fats, but actually really good saturated fats. They support brain function and they’ve been shown to reduce inflammation. They’re profoundly low in carbohydrates and they support a, “Ketogenic diet.” They’re perfect for low-carb eating. They’re really rich in magnesium, they contain fiber, they contain phosphorus, but they’re expensive. But if you could find them, try them, it’s absolutely delicious.
Now, my least favorite but okay nut butter is peeled almond butter. You may recall that almonds have a really nasty lectin in their peel, and that’s why in my books I urge you to use peeled almonds like Marcona almonds if you’re going to use almonds, or blanched almonds. But a number of my patients, particularly with autoimmune disease, not only react to the lectins in almonds, but also react to the almond themselves and they’re very sensitive to them. And we test our patients and a lot of patients, unfortunately, are sensitive even to peeled almonds.
Now, most people aren’t. So if you want almond butter that is good for you. And there’s a lot of good things about almonds, they have a high level of monounsaturated fat. They have a high level of magnesium and folate. Get yourself the peeled almond butter variety. And the good news is there’s several companies out there, one of them is Barneys. I have no affiliation with either of these companies. The other is called Almondie I-E. They’re available on Amazon. A lot of stores carry this. They use peeled almonds. So if you want a safer almond butter, those are the ones to get. Please don’t get the regular almond butters, they’re loaded with lectins.
Now, additional tips. Anytime you’re looking at any nut butter, please read the label. So many of these commercial butters have added oils that are not part of that family of nut. They have a lot of interesting sugars that are added to make them taste better. They have a lot of preservatives because nuts, once you grind them, can go rancid very quickly and a rancid oil tastes awful. So be careful and look at the ingredients. A lot of them are cut with other unsaturated fats or even saturated fats. Look for no added sugar or unsweetened, but if it says unsweetened, make sure there isn’t an artificial sweetener like sucralose being added.
There are also a number of nut butters that have soy blended in because soy is, “A nut.” It’s not a nut at all any more than a peanut is a nut at all. These are legumes that are loaded with lectins. So buyer beware. Finally, if you get a fresh nut butter, you’re probably better off keeping it, number one, in a dark cool place or refrigerate it because once you grind these nuts and open the jar, they go rancid very quickly. Now, coffee is great for you. It has got polyphenols galore. There are numerous studies about the health benefits of coffee, and one of them that everyone should know is that coffee improves your brain function. Most of us can feel that.
But it goes far beyond that, we know that coffee drinkers actually suffer from less Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s than non-coffee drinkers. We also know that coffee drinkers have better memory as they age. So that sounds pretty good and I could go on and on about the benefits, but there’s a few things that can ruin the health benefits of your cup of Joe. So if you love your morning coffee, you might want to avoid these five things that can ruin both the taste and your health. But before I go on, make sure to subscribe to this channel or follow the podcast if you’re listening. Both are absolutely free to do and this ensures you won’t miss any episode.
Now, drum roll folks, from least harmful to worse here are the five things to avoid putting in your coffee. Number one, dairy, whole, half-and-half or skim, it doesn’t matter what kind of dairy because dairy binds polyphenols and makes that healthy cup of coffee basically null and void. Plus, it’s got neu5Gc. What the heck is that? Dairy contains a sugar molecule neu5Gc that actually our immune system thinks is one of the worst things that you could possibly eat. In fact, when human volunteers are given neu5Gc, our white blood cells immediately make antibodies to it as a foreign compound like they’re battling the flu, and they do this every time you drink a neu5Gc-containing food, which is milk.
Now, the other problem is that LPSs, lipopolysaccharides, those little pieces of you-know-what, increased dramatically following a cup of coffee with cream in it. And this goes the same for tea as well. Interestingly enough, both the Brits and the Japanese and Chinese drink tea, but the Japanese and Chinese don’t put any milk in it, whereas the Brits do, and surprise, surprise the Japanese and the Chinese get the polyphenol benefits of the tea while the Brits are out of luck. And as you can probably imagine, the health difference between Japanese and Chinese and the Brits is enormous, but one of the factors is the milk in their tea.
Now, are there alternatives? If you can’t live without that creamy taste, and many of us have been trained to seek out that creamy taste, because we don’t like the bitterness of coffee or tea, try a non-dairy milk like coconut unsweetened, or a nut milk, particularly walnut or hazelnut. Now, not all non-dairy milks are okay. Please avoid these other non-dairy milks as they’re inflammatory like pea protein, milk, cashew milk, oat milk. Oat milk’s probably got a double whammy because it’s loaded with Roundup glyphosate. Yes, even organic oat milks test positive for glyphosate in some studies.
All right, number two, artificial sweeteners. Because they have no calories and it’s not sugar, these may seem like a healthier choice, but artificial sweeteners like Sweet’N low, Splenda with aspartame and sucralose can actually be very harmful. They alter your gut bacteria. There’s the famous Duke University study showing that one packet of Splenda destroys half the bacteria in your gut. That’s probably not a good idea. We also know that they are bombs for our gut health. Why? Here’s part of the problem. Believe it or not, you do not have sugar receptors on your tongue, you have sweet receptors. You also have sweet receptors in the lining of your gut.
They’re there because way back when, the only time you would’ve ever tasted anything sweet was from fruit or honey. That meant that sugar was on the way and your body and your brain were alerted that sugar was coming, your body produced insulin in your pancreas to handle that sugar. But when the sugar does not arrive, two things happen because you released insulin, even in response to the sweet taste that wasn’t sugar, your blood sugar actually goes down. Your brain says, “What the heck? I know you just ate sugar, I got the alert. You got cheated because I didn’t get any. In fact, I got less. Go back and get some more.# And that’s how it works.
Now, as many of you know, I was addicted to diet Coke. I had eight diet Cokes a day and I always joke, if they could sterilize a can of Diet Coke, I would’ve drunk it during surgery. Part of my problem was that I was always looking for more food, particularly carbohydrates, because my brain constantly got the message that I was starving it and yet it knew I was eating sugar. Remember that studies show that there is a greater risk of type 2 diabetes in people who use artificial sweeteners. There’s even a study on the effects of artificial sweeteners on atherosclerosis. People who daily consumed a drink with artificial sweeteners had a 35% greater risk of metabolic syndrome and a 67% increased risk of type 2 diabetes.
Sadly, there’s an increased risk of cancer. Research published in 2022 evaluated artificial sweeteners and cancer risk by utilizing data from the NutriNet-Santé population-based cohort study. After revealing the consumption of these sweeteners in over 100,000 French adults, the researchers concluded in this large cohort study, artificial sweeteners, especially aspartame and [inaudible 00:23:14] K, which are used in many food and beverage brands worldwide, were associated with increased cancer risk.
Now, are there alternatives? Luckily there are some great healthier options including one that actually feeds your gut microbiome and that is allulose. It’s a natural sugar first discovered in figs and it’s a actual prebiotic. Now stevia’s okay, monk fruit is okay, but really use allulose. It’s the preferred non-caloric sweetener. Plus, there’s actually studies that allulose lowers weight in humans and there’s exciting information that allulose actually blunts the rising glucose that follows a cup of coffee. Yes, black coffee will slightly raise your blood sugar, but allulose will blunt that effect. In fact, even though I drink my coffee black, since the discovery of allulose, I add allulose to my black coffee.
All right, how about number three? Worst thing you can add, flavored syrups and flavored creamers. Those pumpkin spice or vanilla syrups, they’re basically liquid sugar bombs, often loaded with high fructose corn syrup and artificial flavors and colors. And if you look at the back of any of those Nestle cream mates, Coffee Mates from Snickers flavor to peppermint, here’s what’s inside, water, sugar, number two ingredient, soybean oil, dipotassium phosphate, micellar casein, mono and diglycerides. Cellulose gel, cellulose gum. I love wood in my coffee. Natural and artificial flavor, carrageenan. Yeah, I like algae in my coffee too.
Now, that’s what’s in there. Now, monoglycerides, you’ve heard the word triglycerides before? That’s another word for fat. Monoglycerides are one of those fats. Is that really what you want to put in your coffee? Particularly if it’s coming from soybeans because that will be loaded with lectins as well. Now, there’s a great alternative. Get yourself some flavored stevia drops like SweetLeaf. I have no relationship to them. They have a lot of great flavors similar to Coffee Mate like Vanilla or English Toffee and use that instead.
All right, number four. Now, sorry about this Dave, but it’s butter. The problem with butter is, number one, almost all butter in the United States is from Holstein cows and butter does contain casein. Not a lot of it, but it’s in there. And casein A one comes from Holstein cows, and casein A1 is one of the biggest lectin-like trouble makers in milk. But the big problem with butter is that butter is mostly a saturated fat that increases the amount of LPSs, those little pieces, the you-know-what, hopping on the saturated fat and getting across the wall of your gut and being recognized as actual bacteria in your bloodstream and that’s not a good thing.
There is a great alternative and that is MCT oil. Now, there’s some great MCT oil creamers out there. I happen to make one at Gundry MD that I’m very proud of, but there are other ones. The great thing about MCT oil is that, number one, it will be converted in your liver to ketones. And we know the benefit of ketones particularly early in the morning. And number two, LPSs cannot ride on MCT oil. So you’re going to get that creaminess that you’re looking for without the danger of butter.
Are you ready for this? The most dangerous thing that you can put in your coffee, powdered creamers. Now, many powdered creamers contain hydrogenated oils, AKA trans fats. How come it’s not on the label? Because companies have made a deal with the FDA that if they have only a small amount of trans fats per serving that they don’t have to put it on the label and that’s how they’ve gotten around it. If it says hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oil, that’s code word for trans fats. They have artificial additives, they have corn syrup, solids. That’s another name for sugar. Definitely not something you want to put in your body. And the fake stuff in the little pods that you find at the diners, please stay away. The alternative is to use an MCT creamer instead like Gundry MD MCT Creamer.
Okay, I admit that I was wrong, but it’s not because of what you think, I was wrong because I’ve learned things subsequently that have changed my beliefs. And that’s what I want you to know. How many influencers, how many doctors, how many healthcare professionals have ever actually changed their stance on what they recommend? I actually haven’t heard any, but I’m going to tell you what I’ve been wrong about and I’ve written about this in my books. I occasionally change my stance on certain foods and topics. That’s because, believe it or not, for 30 years now, I’ve been seeing patients six days a week looking at their blood work every three to six months and asking them to add or remove things from their diet. And believe it or not, research has changed over the last 30 years.
I just got back from two conferences on the microbiome and on, believe it or not, extracellular vesicles about how our microbiome controls cells within our body. Yes, you heard that right, controls. Now, we didn’t even know that five years ago, so things change and our testing ability changes. So we have more available ways of figuring out what’s good for us and bad for us. And based on my patients, based on my research, I change and I pass that information on to you. So I’m happy to tell you I was wrong about things and here’s why I was wrong.
I always want to update you. When I learn something new, you are going to be the first to hear it here. That’s why if you like what you’re hearing, make sure you all like it, share it, and subscribe because I’m going to bring you the most up to date. And I’m happy to tell you I’ve changed my mind based on what I’ve learned from my patients or my research.
I use blood tests on my patients and those blood tests have become more and more sophisticated over the last 30 years. In fact, we had no good way of testing for intestinal permeability or leaky gut up until about 15 years ago. We had no way of actually testing the microbiome until about seven years ago. And even those microbiome tests have changed dramatically in the last three years about who’s in there, what those bugs are making. So we know more and more about what’s going on in our microbiome and how to test for it.
So let me start with something I mentioned towards the end of Gut Check, my new bestseller, we do a lot of food sensitivity tests on our patients. Back in the good old days, all we had what were called food allergy testing. Now allergies, are based on an immunoglobulin called IgE and we would put 100 pinpricks on your back with various foods and if it turned red, you were supposedly allergic to that food. We used to do that with so many of my patients and quite frankly through the years, I must admit I was not impressed that that really helped, but it was all we had. When intestinal permeability was proven, and ways to test for intestinal permeability, AKA leaky gut were developed, a whole new avenue opened up and we realized that we shouldn’t be testing for IgE allergies, we should be testing for food sensitivities.
Now, what’s the difference? If you have leaky gut, believe it or not, undigested food particles can go from your intestines through the wall of your gut and be recognized as foreign by your immune system. Let me just give you an example. Let’s suppose you have leaky gut and you eat a lot of broccoli. You could develop a food sensitivity to broccoli. In other words, your immune system sees an under just a piece of broccoli and says, “What the heck is a piece of broccoli being over here? I’ve never seen broccoli in my life. That’s foreign to me and I’m going to remember what it looks like and every time I see it, I’m going to attack it because it’s foreign.” And that’s because of leaky gut. Normally, broccoli would never get through the wall of your gut. It’d be broken down into sugars and proteins and fats and absorbed. So that’s a food sensitivity.
Now, what’s interesting is many people when I see them in my office have sensitivities to food even if they’re not eating them a lot. In the Gut Check, I named some of the most common ones that surprised me and surprised my patient. And so let me give you some examples, vanilla. Vanilla bean shows up all the time, particularly my patients with autoimmune diseases. Now, that doesn’t mean vanilla beans are bad for you or that vanilla is evil, I just want you to know that for many people with autoimmune disease, vanilla, vanilla extract, vanilla beans show up on a lot of people’s tests. And I think you should know about that.
That doesn’t mean you should avoid it, but I can tell you that a lot of my patients with autoimmune diseases, they react to almonds and vanilla beans. And so many of them were doing what they thought was good for them by having almond flour cookies with almond flour and vanilla extract. And lo and behold, when we took their almond flour cookies away from them and got rid of their vanilla coconut lattes, their symptoms improve and their markers of autoimmune disease improved and their markers of leaky gut improve. So that’s why I tell you about these things.
For instance, ginger shows up all the time in my patient’s sensitivity list. Now, ginger is supposed to be gut healing, it’s supposed to be soothing to the stomach, and yet there it was in a lot of my patient’s profile. So here’s another example that ginger might not be as good for you as you or I think it is. Now, spinach was a real interesting one. I’ve known about a class of lectins for many years that are called aquaporins. Aquaporins are proteins in plants that open and close pores that move water, hence the name Aquaporin. Plants move water from their roots up their stems through canals, and there’s locks in those canals that are controlled by aquaporins. Plants breathe through pores in their leaves that are controlled by aquaporins. So far so good.
You and I have aquaporins in the lining of our gut. We have aquaporins in our blood-brain barrier. And we have aquaporins in our myelin sheath. Now, aquaporins are common in the nightshade family. So aquaporins are common in potatoes, in eggplants, in peppers, in tomatoes. They’re also in tobacco, which is a nightshade family. They’re also present in corn, and they’re present in, ready for this, spinach. And soybeans. And so that’s where most of the common aquaporins are. Now, in some people you can develop antibodies to these aquaporins in these plants. And if you’re unlucky, you’ll develop antibodies to your aquaporins.
And what’s been remarkable to me is quite a number of my patients with MS, Multiple sclerosis, have antibodies to the spinach aquaporin, and it just so happens they happen to be big spinach eaters. I have a patient who has interstitial cystitis, which in my humble opinion is an autoimmune condition. And this patient happened to love spinach and reacted to the spinach aquaporin. And lo and behold, when we took the spinach out of their diet, their interstitial cystitis resolved. Now, does that make spinach evil? No, it doesn’t, but it’s something that you need to know. Do I still eat spinach? Yeah, not very much, quite frankly.
Here’s the other bad news, you can’t pressure cook aquaporins wet. So I have some people that react to the lectins in tomatoes that are in the peels and seeds, but they don’t react to the tomato aquaporin. So they can have peeled and de-seeded tomatoes and they can have tomato paste from Italy, but I have some patients that react to the aquaporin in tomatoes and they can’t have it. Similarly, I have a number of people who just have to have their french fries or their peeled potatoes, and the peeling helps reduce lectins. A number of these patients react to the aquaporin in potatoes, and sadly, when we take their potatoes away from them, they get better. So I have nothing against these foods, it’s just that modern technology has enabled us to spot these troublemakers. Before we continue, make sure you like share and subscribe if you’re enjoying this.
Okay, next up, canola oil. Canola oil is rapeseed oil. Rapeseed oil is primarily a really cool short chain omega-3 fat called alpha-linolenic acid. Now, canola oil was hybridized by Canadians, hence the name canola oil, to be basically rapeseed oil without a really potentially dangerous chemical in rapeseed. And sadly, most canola oil was genetically modified and sprayed with glyphosate. So for years, you notice that canola oil was on my no list. I am so impressed with a study that I’ve done in my patients, but also was done with the Lyon Heart Diet Study.
Now, it’s the Lyon Heart study. It was done in Lyon, France by a Greek physician who noted that the people on his Greek islands who ate a lot of rapeseed and ate a lot of weed called purslane, which is loaded with alpha-linolenic acid, ALA, didn’t seem to get any heart disease. And he, through his research, was convinced it was the ALA in these foods that did it. So they had a approved trial of people who had a heart attack, and the trial was basically a Mediterranean diet where half the people in the trial were given a canola oil, a rapeseed oil-based margarine to eat throughout the day, to spread on their vegetables, to spread on their bread. The other half did not get it. It was a five-year clinical trial.
The trial was stopped at the end of three years because the canola oil spread group had a 60% less new incidence of heart disease than the group that didn’t get it, and it was unethical to continue. And please look it up, it’s the Lyon Heart Diet trial. And that had a really profound influence on me. So recently, canola oil has been available that’s organic and you can find it. So yeah, it’s a seed oil, it’s a rapeseed oil, but most of it is alpha-linolenic acid. And I can tell you, as you probably saw in Gut Check, that alpha-linolenic acid changes your gut microbiome, protects your blood vessels from damage and prevents LPSs from getting into your bloodstream.
So why wouldn’t I now say, “Hey, if you can get organic canola oil, you probably ought to get it.” Do I think there’s a better oil? Yes, perilla oil or ahiflower oil. But for most of us, it’s a lot easier to find organic canola oil. And just because it’s a seed oil doesn’t make it the evil empire. And human studies prove that it’s beneficial for your heart. So why wouldn’t I recommend it again?
Chia seeds. Look, I used to have chia seeds bags in my office. I used to recommend them. One of my patient’s sons as a chia seed company. I thought they were phenomenal because, quite frankly, they have a small amount, very small amount of alpha-linolenic acid. Why wouldn’t I recommend them? So a number of years ago, I was on the phone with Professor Lore Cordain, he’s the father of the Paleo diet. He is a professor at Colorado State, someone who I respect a great deal. We actually were being talked into writing a book together and it never materialized, but that’s okay.
And we were talking about things we recommend and things we don’t recommend as part of this diet that we were going to do. And I brought up chia seeds and he says, “Don’t you read the literature?” Joking. And I said, “Of course. I read the literature.” He says, “Chia seeds promote inflammation.” I said, “What?” He said, “Stay right there. I’m going to email you a couple of papers about a human trial of chia seeds.” And the trial was designed to look at whether your omega-3 fats went up in your bloodstream. And sure enough they did. But he said, “If you actually read that paper carefully, you’ll notice that the chia seed group had increased levels of C-reactive protein and the other group didn’t despite the fact that they had more omega-3 fats in their blood.” And I went [inaudible 00:43:59]. And so that’s how I changed my stance on chia seeds, thanks to Lawrence Tardine. That’s why I changed.
Now, the good news is basil seeds, and there’s a YouTube, there’s a podcast on basil seeds from me, basil seeds act exactly like chia seeds. They have the same nice gelatinous stuff, but they don’t promote inflammation. So why wouldn’t I tell you, “Look, avoid chia seeds and use basil seeds instead”? I changed my mind thanks to Professor Cordain showing me the literature. I could say, “Oh yeah, chia seeds are really important and I’m not going to change,” but here’s my colleague saying, “Why don’t you look at this?” And that’s why I change.
Okay. As you know, I have been a proponent if you are going to eat beef to have grass-finished, grass-fed. But if you noticed in The Plant Paradox, there was a proviso that there is in very mischievous sugar molecule in beef, lamb, pork, and milk called neu5G, capital G, c. This sugar molecule is almost identical to the sugar molecule that we make called neu5A, capital A, c. They differ by one molecule of oxygen.
So what? If we feed neu5Gc to human volunteers, they will make aggressive antibodies to neu5Gc. It is a foreign molecule. And we know back then when I wrote Plant Paradox that there’s a very strong correlation, not causation, between red meat eating and heart disease, dementia, arthritis, and cancer. Now, I’m the first to agree that correlation does not mean causation. And I was clear that that’s true. But because there is a correlation and because neu5Gc, we make an antibody to, the available evidence back in 2006 or 2005 when I was writing The Plant Paradox, was that true molecular mimicry? Because neu5AC and neu5Gc are so similar that we might attack the neu5AC that lines our blood vessels, that lines our gut, that lines our blood-brain barrier, that lines our joints by mistake in a case of molecular mimicry. And that might be why it happened. And so I said, you really ought to limit these products.
Fast forward we now know, and the references are in Gut Check for anybody who wants to look, that neu5Gc can be substituted for neu5AC in the lining of our gut, in our blood vessel lining, the glycocalyx, in our blood-brain barrier, and in our joints. And it is attacked by our immune system. So rather than a molecular mimicry mistake, there is actual evidence of attacking this. Plus, we now know that cancer cells use neu5Gc to produce local inflammation where they thrive. And spoiler alert, we cannot manufacture neu5Gc, we only make neu5Ac, which means the neu5Gc that cancer cells use came from the diet. So now it’s not a correlation, there is strong evidence. It’s a causation of heart disease, arthritis, dementia, and cancer. I report, you decide.
Here’s the good news, fermentation of beef, lamb, pork, milk, the bacteria eat the sugar molecule neu5Gc. So it’s not there anymore or in dramatic diminished amounts. And that explains why fermented milk products like yogurts, like kefir, like cheeses that are fermented don’t hurt you because there isn’t any neu5Gc. Believe it or not, there’s no neu5Gc in Parmesan cheese, even though you started out with milk that had neu5Gc. Believe it or not, in traditionally cured sausages, which use a bacterial culture for curing, this is how you cure them, there’s no neu5Gc in these products. And my friend, Chef Jimmy Schmidt has developed and proven in his lab that you can ferment sausages and beef and dramatically reduce neu5Gc.
So my stance is eat fermented beef products. Believe it or not, dry aging is where bacteria actually eat the sugar molecules. And that explains why dry aged beef was so prized in the good old days because that’s actually how you preserve beef. And that explains why there are cultures that I cite in Gut Check that eat a lot of sausages and they thrive because of the neu5Gc has been eaten. That’s why I’ve changed my stance.
Finally, supplements, they don’t make expensive urine. Now, I am one of the first people when I met Big Ed to think that supplements make expensive urine. But I can tell you, and it’s not because I have a supplement company, that supplements do not make expensive urine. Why do I say that? Because I test people’s blood every three to six months and I look for markers of inflammation. I look for markers of inflammation on blood vessels. I look stickiness of blood vessels. I look for oxidized cholesterol. I look for flexibility in blood vessels. And I published and presented papers based on my findings and patients adding certain polyphenol supplements, adding fish oil, adding alpha-linoleic acid, looking at their markers of inflammation, looking at their markers of flexibility, looking at their blood tests of flexibility. And lo and behold, when we add these, it changes. And interestingly enough, when we take these away, they revert back.
Just this week I had a patient with my full agreement, known heart disease, who really isn’t tolerant to plant compounds, go on a carnivore diet for 100 days and he’s thriving on the carnivore diet and doing great, feels great. But one of the markers of stickiness on his blood vessels, which was perfectly fine before, shot up, and I’ve seen it in every one of my patients on a carnivore diet, even though they feel great. One of the reasons it shot up as part of his experiment he took away all of his supplements. Actually, he didn’t tell me he was going to do that. Now, we’ve just reintroduced his supplement regimen and we’re going to wait one month and we’re going to see what that marker of inflammation and stickiness is going to do.
But that’s my point, I don’t do this because I have a feeling that you should do this, I don’t do this because I have a vested interest to sell you supplements. Now, let me be clear, I see patients six days a week, even on the weekends. And when I make a change about a recommendation, it’s not based on one patient. One patient is important, but this is based on thousands and thousands of patients through the years, through 30 years of seeing patients, of asking them to remove certain foods, add certain foods, asking them to try a supplement, stop a supplement. As I learn about a new supplement, “Let’s try this and see what it does.” As I learn about certain food sensitivities that we didn’t know anything about, “Let’s try this and remove these things from your diet that you’re sensitive to. And then let’s look and see what your intestinal permeability is like. Let’s look and see what your autoimmune markers are like.” So this is not a one-off, when I change, it’s based on months, years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years of experience.
Now, it’s time for the question of the week. The question of the week comes from @gratitudegiving1036 on YouTube, “Are the nut butters you recommend to eat good for people with fatty liver?” I get this question all the time. Eating fat does not cause fatty liver. Fatty liver primarily comes from insulin resistant and eating too much fructose or other carbohydrates. When we eliminate fructose and other simple carbohydrates, remarkably the fatty liver resolves. It’s not the fatty nut butters.
Now it’s time for the review of the week from @keshawilliams19V on YouTube. “Peanut butter is the one causing my hidradenitis suppurativa, HS, flare-up. I have removed them from my diet, now I have less flares. Removing all lectins dairy, except eggs I’m still consuming, and gluten from my diet has made my life pain-free. Thank you, Dr. Gundry, please spread this info to HS patients.” Thank you very much, Kesha. Peanut butter is one of the most mischievous lectin-containing foods I take away from people. And it’s good to hear it was a real culprit in your ongoing struggle. Let other folks know. And thanks for writing.
Speaker 1:
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