Dr. Steven Gundry:
Brooke, welcome to the show.
Brooke Burke:
I’m so happy to be here.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Alright. How is it that women face greater challenges? Uh, you know, you guys try to do everything right and women are a huge part of my patient population. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Why are you guys having such a hard time with this?
Brooke Burke:
Well, I love a conversation like this because I deal with so many women that are frustrated that seem to be making all the right choices. I’m actually one of those 80% that you just spoke about. So I’ve got a handful of autoimmune disorders. I’ve had thyroid cancer, Hashimoto’s, IBD vitiligo mean years. My list is long, and yet I work so hard to take great care of myself. And the statistics show us, you know, 80% of us then you’ve got heart disease, we’ve got osteoporosis, right? Autoimmune, all of these things, hormonal challenges. Why are we facing so many more challenges than men?
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Well, how come <laugh> <laugh>?
Brooke Burke:
What do we need to do differently, <laugh>? Well,
Dr. Steven Gundry:
You know, you’re right. In fact, I was just, uh, being interviewed by a podcast host this mm-hmm <affirmative>. Uh, yesterday afternoon, who is a fitness influencer, who is a mother. And as we progress, she’s got autoimmune issues. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. She’s on thyroid replacement, and she’s doing everything right.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
And she said, what, what the heck? You know, why, why, why me?
Brooke Burke:
Mother Nature really stuck it to us. <laugh>.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
<laugh>. Yeah. And, and again, I, I’ve written a lot about this. I, I think you guys are, you’re designed to have a parasite in your body for nine months at a time.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
And your immune system, unlike men, doesn’t have to dramatically shift gears during the time of a pregnancy from accepting this incredibly foreign, uh, entity in and not attack it, and then return kind of quote to normal. And it’s so interesting to me. 80% of my practice is autoimmune patients. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Who have tried everything mm-hmm <affirmative>. And done work. So many women right after pregnancy may be the first time that an autoimmune disease
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Or a bowel issue appears. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Or fatigue appears. Many of my patients who are dealing with an autoimmune disease, let, let’s just choose rheumatoid arthritis. When they get pregnant, they go into remission. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And their rheumatoid arthritis goes away. Interesting. Their markers goes away, the swelling and their hands go away or wherever. And then minute that baby comes out, their autoimmune disease flares, and it just, you know, it’s just a storm.
Brooke Burke:
So no one’s really talking about this. It’s so fascinating. And when you, when you describe it that way, you’re right. I, I was diagnosed with my first autoimmune disease after pregnancy. Yeah. So is it a hormonal shift? Is that what we’re talking about here? Is it a neglect to, to try to manipulate and that, that process
Dr. Steven Gundry:
No, I think a lot of, a lot of it, at least for, for my patients, is just the act of labor. Mm. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Causes really profound changes in the wall of the gut. Mm-hmm. The gut wall becomes ischemic. And you also, during the active labor, there’s a lot of foreign particles from the baby that are actually released into the bloodstream of the one
Dr. Steven Gundry:
And so I think it’s this kind of damage to the wall of the gut plus the sudden change in that baby coming out of there that starts a lot of this process.
Brooke Burke:
So do you think in the world of preventative care, or even manipulating the body, if we were to attempt and make our best effort to build a stronger immune system, do we then have a better chance at managing all of these health challenges?
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Well, I don’t think it’s so much a stronger in the immune system. What I think is more important is educating mm-hmm <affirmative>. The immune system.
Brooke Burke:
For sure. For sure.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
And we’re, we’re beginning to realize that long ago, back when our ancestors, our great-great-grandparents had a, a normal microbiome, basically we’re supposed to have a tropical rainforest of microbes in our gut with all this diversity of creatures, if you will, that are dependent on each other. And we know that the more diverse this tropical rainforest is, the more information is actually given to our immune system about who are bad guys. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Who are good guys. But perhaps more importantly, the information is given to the immune system that this set of microbes has got our back. That anything that comes down the pipe, anything that we’re exposed to, our gut microbiome, our oral microbiome will take care of the problem naturally,
Brooke Burke:
Naturally.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
So we
Brooke Burke:
Have this natural ecosystem that’s supposed to work for
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Us. Right. And you immune system, you’re the, you’re the, and
Brooke Burke:
Then we mess it up.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
<laugh>, you’re the last guard and we’ve got you and you guys just kind of relax, we’ll call you if we need you mm-hmm. <laugh> and, and we’ll tell you who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. Now, un unfortunately, most of us have a desert wasteland mm-hmm. Instead of a tropical rainforest. So number one, we don’t have a really great defense system
Dr. Steven Gundry:
In our microbiome. And number two, we don’t have any teachers in our microbiome to tell our immune system who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. So that’s a one two punch. So we’ve got a, as I talked about in the gut brain paradox, we’ve got a poorly trained militia that doesn’t know who to shoot at. Mm-hmm. And so we’re more likely, I think, particularly women
Brooke Burke:
Sense
Dr. Steven Gundry:
To just shoot at just about anything rather than
Brooke Burke:
Sounds like a disaster. <laugh>. Yeah.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
And, and it is, I mean, autoimmune diseases in the dark ages, when I was in medical school, um, they were so rare. Mm. They, they existed, but they were so rare that when we do workups of somebody who had a problem, when we exhausted all other possibilities, we’d say, let’s do the funny tests. And they were called funny tests, which were these blood tests for autoimmune diseases. And they were called funny tests because we almost never needed them. It’s like, well, maybe she’s got, she’s got one of these funny diseases like Crohn’s or rheumatoid arthritis. Isn’t
Brooke Burke:
That so interesting? Why are we seeing it so commonly now?
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Because that whole system has fallen apart where we don’t have a gut microbiome to protect us, and we don’t have teachers in our gut microbiome to teach who the good guys are and bad guys are.
Brooke Burke:
So is it because of what we’re putting into our bodies? Is it the environment around us
Dr. Steven Gundry:
All? Yeah. All of the above. All of the above <laugh>. Yeah. You know, I, I write about the seven deadly disruptors, but one of the things that really over the last, I’ve been doing this for 25 years mm-hmm <affirmative>. And I was in medical school in the middle seventies, believe it or not, three things happened in the 1970s that changed everything. And you can look back now and go, holy cow,
(07:18):
These three things, number one, broad spectrum antibiotics were developed and they were miraculous when they came out, because before that, we had to put something on a Petri dish and see if it would grow. And then we’d have to try individual antibiotics to see if it would kill it. And that would take a long time days. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And most of these bacteria wouldn’t even grow on a Petri dish. So we didn’t know how to treat serious infections. Mm. When broad spectrum antibiotics came out, it was great. ’cause now we had a shotgun or an AK 47 on set, on automatic, and we didn’t just plow down all these bacteria, and it was miraculous. What we didn’t know is that it also killed all the bacteria that lived in our gut, but we didn’t even know were there. So that was number one. Number two, glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup was invented and by Monsanto, and it was actually patented as an antibiotic, not as a wheat killer.
(08:15):
And now glyphosate is not used on GMO crops. It’s actually used on conventional crops to dry them, desiccate them so you can harvest them easier. And so it’s sprayed on all our wheat, all of our corn, all of our soybeans, you name it, it’s sprayed on it and it’s not washed off. So it’s fed to our animals, and we eat the stuff. And now we know that glyphosate is a really good way to kill off bacteria in our gut. So that’s number two. And number three, NSAIDs were developed nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories like ibuprofen, like nap prien.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Aleve and Advil. These things were so dangerous in, in holes in the wall of our gut that originally was only by prescription. And you could only use them for two weeks because the FDA said, they’re so dangerous now. They’re the largest cell,
Brooke Burke:
They’re popping a like tic texting and no one’s talking about this. So I know that because of my autoimmune autoimmune challenges in my gut, I know that that’s bad for me, but nobody’s really talking about this.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
No. And I see, I’ve seen a number of That’s amazing world class athletes who
Brooke Burke:
Popping them daily for anti-inflammatory
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Disease Yeah. Who were, you know, who had an injury and they were treated with this stuff all of a sudden developing autoimmune disease. And they go, well, what, what, what the heck? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. How would that happen? And then we look and they’ve got wide open leaky gut and their immune system is activated.
Brooke Burke:
Gosh, we have to do a better job of, of being educated. I mean, we, there’s so much information out there, it’s really difficult for people to cipher through that and to understand what the positive changes are. And, you know, I’m, I’m curious, smarter supplementation, how important is that? And how much of a difference does that really make in our overall wellbeing?
Dr. Steven Gundry:
You know, I used to tell patients for my change of life, <laugh>, that supplements made expensive urine <laugh>. And, uh, I, I firmly believe
Brooke Burke:
That. Right. I don’t disagree.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
They don’t make, uh, expensive urine. Uh, as I subsequently learned <laugh>, in fact, I’ll, I’ll tell you a story from this week. I, I had a patient who had very low co-enzyme Q 10 levels. And before we started measuring co-enzyme Q 10, we knew that statin drugs, like, you know, Lipitor, Crestor mm-hmm <affirmative>. Block the production of co-enzyme Q 10, uh, by the liver. And so, for instance, in Canada, if Canadian physician prescribes a statin drug by law, they also have to prescribe co-enzyme Q 10. That law doesn’t exist in the United States. No <laugh>. So, and most well-meaning physicians don’t know that you literally have to give someone on a statin drug co-enzyme Q 10. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Why is it so important? Because co-enzyme Q 10 is so called because it is the co-enzyme to make a TP the energy currency that we burn. And if you don’t have co-enzyme Q 10, you don’t make as much a TP as you need. And what surprised me when we first started measuring co-enzyme Q 10, is that most adults after the age of 50 pretty much don’t make co-enzyme Q 10 anymore. So you have to supplement it.
Brooke Burke:
And most adults, I imagine, don’t understand because they’re not a great detective of their own body. Why they don’t have energy, which we know leads to a whole lot of negative things. It’s, it’s so interesting. We need energy <laugh>,
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Otherwise <laugh>, we we’re not around. Yeah. And the other thing that is interesting is that, for instance, half of us, at least half of us, carry one or more mutations of what are laughingly called the Mothereffer genes. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Which are the Mt FFR mutations. And everybody wants to blame everything bad that ever happened to ’em ’cause of this mutation. Yep. But it’s very fixable with the right form of methyl B12 and methyl folate.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
And a lot of us naively say, oh, there’s a, there’s a supplement that says methyl B12, I’m gonna swallow it. Unfortunately, a lot of us don’t have a receptor in our intestines that allows us to absorb methyl B12. But if we put it under our tongue, it can go directly into our bloodstream. So I’ll tell you a hilarious story. <laugh>, I had a patient who had this mutation and I put him on a methyl B12 sublingual under his, his tongue. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And we measured his B12 level and we measured his homocysteine level, and his B12 levels were low. And I said, you’re not taking your methyl B12. He says, yes, I am. I’m taking every day. I said, no, you’re not. You know, look, here’s the evidence, you’re not taking it. He said, I’m telling you I’m taking it every day. And I said, and you’re putting it under your tongue, right? And he says, well, no, it’s so sweet. I sweetened my coffee with it. Gosh.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
And I said, you can’t do that. You can’t swallow it. I said, put it under your tongue. You know, I’ll see you in three months. And sure enough, he put it under his tongue and it’s B twelves were perfect. And its homo system is fine.
Brooke Burke:
But in his defense, how would one know, so what is sort of the baseline for somebody where, where do they begin? How are, how is the general population gonna have a better understanding of what to do and what not to do and what the enemies are? Well, where, where does somebody even begin?
SpDr. Steven Gundry:
And that’s actually, I’m glad you brought that up. There’s one of the vitamin companies, a very good company called now, has kind of taken it upon themselves to buy various supplements on Amazon. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And then send them to a third party lab. A third party labs use send like Gundry md, we send all of our products to a third party lab and say, show us what’s in this that I’m claiming that’s there. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. I don’t want to exaggerate, but 85% of the products that now bought on Amazon and sent to the lab either didn’t contain the ingredient. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. They said it did or didn’t have anywhere near what they claimed was in there. Right. For sure. And I’ll give you an example from this week. I have a woman who needs a huge amount of coq 10 to get normal levels, and she needs about 600 milligrams of coq 10.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Most people need about a hundred, but we’d had to work her up. And so she was taking two 300 milligram gel caps from Costco <laugh>, and it was working great. That was her dose. And we Great. So I see her last week and her coq 10 is in the toilet. And I go, what the heck? Why’d you stop your coq 10? And she said, I didn’t. And I said, well, yeah, you did. Look there, there it is. And she said, no, I didn’t. I said, and you’re still taking those two Kirkland, coq tens. She said, well, no, you know, it, it’s two of them. And I found one on Amazon that’s 600 milligrams and it’s got all this other great stuff in it. Right. So I’ve been taking That makes sense. <laugh>. Right. 600 just want, there was nothing in it. Yeah. You gotta know your supplement company, at the very least, you gotta make sure it’s GMP certified general manufacturing practices. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. But you gotta make sure that it’s third party tested mm-hmm <affirmative>. That the company
Brooke Burke:
Says in there. Those are two great points for people to wrap their head around.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Yeah.
Brooke Burke:
Just to simplify it, you know, the whole process. And, you know, one of the questions that I get a lot in my community with women 40, 50, 60, I’m on the other side of menopause, but Mother Nature keeps changing everything as soon as I figure it out. So I have great compassion for most women, but one of the things that’s coming up a lot for me is this mystery of protein and how much do we need, and is it a gram per pound or a gram per kilo? Osteoporosis energy, bone density, you know, BMI, why is FAT showing up? Why do my joints hurt? Like, there’s so much going on in the female body and everybody’s looking for a quick fix and for one solution. So I’d love to unpack a little bit about the mysteries of protein with you and what your thoughts are and how much can we really get from Mother Nature and how important is supplementation in in that world?
(16:05):
I, I’m, I’m adding it to my smoothies now and I’m adding more protein into my daily routine for the first time because I’m really struggling to meet my protein goals. My body’s changing. So I’m trying to change with it. I’m trying to show up differently as my body is different. And that’s what I tell most women. You’ve gotta be a detective. You’ve gotta ask the questions. You’ve gotta have some great advisors, but you’ve also really gotta listen to your body and take those signs and the body language and get curious and stay curious and listen and learn and then change along the way. It’s very complicated. Most of the words that you use mean nothing to the general population. It’s confusing. There’s a lot of information out there.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
There’s probably three of us in the medical community that are the anti protein guys is not the wrong word, but we are over proteinized in this country. Falter Longo, head of longevity at USC. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Christopher Gardner, head of nutrition at Stanford and me have been pleading that we eat far too much protein than we will ever need. And that’s not based on conjecture, that’s based on science. The US Department of Agriculture sets the recommended daily allowance for all of these nutrients. And the way the RDA for protein is set, 50% of people can meet their protein needs with just about 40 grams of protein per day. That’s it.
Brooke Burke:
Regardless of,
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Regardless, regardless of activity. The USDA says, well, we don’t wanna worry about 50%. We wanna make sure that 95% of people, when we tell them what they need will make, get enough protein. And so they double the recommended amount. Makes sense. So that literally everybody, no
Brooke Burke:
Matter, maybe you do half of that
Dr. Steven Gundry:
<laugh> Yeah. That’s our society. Half of that would be just fine. But let’s, let’s err on the side of caution. Isn’t it true that older people need more protein? Yes. But not for the reason you think I actively take away protein mm-hmm <affirmative>. From my older individuals and seal their gut. And we find that their need for protein was because they had damage to the wall of their gut. Re supposed to have a surface area of a tennis court to absorb food. Most of us as we get older, have a ping pong table as a surface area.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
What was remarkable to me is, as I took protein away from patients, but repaired the wall of their gut, their protein levels in their blood, their albumin actually went up as I took their protein away.
Brooke Burke:
So in taking it away, are you still recommending that even older people are getting that 40 grams? Or are you taking away even more than that?
Dr. Steven Gundry:
So we usually just try to get people to you. You basically, two and a half eggs a day will meet your protein requirements. A four ounce piece of salmon will meet your protein requirements. Wow.
Brooke Burke:
Trying to think of how much, how you would
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Function on that <laugh>. You’d function extremely well. ’cause interesting. We really need very little protein. So now those are outlying opinions, but we’re all, all three of us are in interested in how do we maximize not only our longevity mm-hmm <affirmative>. But our health span
Dr. Steven Gundry:
And that’s the side we’ve chosen to come down on. There’s certainly other very valid arguments. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. If I’m a 20-year-old power lifter, I’m certainly gonna need far more calories to accomplish what I want.
Brooke Burke:
We’re also different. And having a greater understanding, I think of our individual needs is, is really key. And you know, I think it’s, it’s such a big picture. It’s smarter supplementation, it’s restorative rest and sleep and rest and recovery. And really understanding that there’s strength in that. I mean, I’m a big believer in this concept of strength as it pertains to training, building muscles, but also strengthen how we show up, strengthen how we surrender, strengthen the need to understand how to regulate our nervous systems. How to slow down. I mean, I think in the concept of lifespan and longevity, it’s, it’s about regulating that nervous system. It’s knowing when to slow down, how to listen to our body, the need for rest, as well as the need to activate energy, which we do through, in my opinion, movement, mobility. Not just fitness, but movement. You know, and we know that to be true from the studies of the blue zones and these people that are living to be a hundred, a hundred and plus years. How did they get that way? And, and you know, and I think it’s mindset, it’s lower lowering their stress levels, movement, nutrition, happiness, energy, all of those things. It’s not just one magic pillar, one magic solution that’s so different for each individual person.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Yeah. The be the best lessons from the blue zones is you really ought to be a goat and sheep herder <laugh>. Right. Because they’re all goat and sheep herders, <laugh>. And, you know, but we all can’t be goat sheep herders.
Brooke Burke:
I’ll tell you a funny story. I went to Costa Rica to host one of my, um, BB body retreats. And I went to know, so in one of the blue zones, and I thought, I’m gonna find these centurion people that are a hundred plus years. I’m gonna interview ’em. They’re gonna gimme their secrets. They’re gonna tell me what they’re eating and what they’re drinking and what they’re doing. And I was so excited about this adventure. And to my surprise, this was a culture that wasn’t really stressed out. They were sleeping great, they were rising with the sun. They were walking to work. They weren’t, there wasn’t a gym to be found ’cause they didn’t need one. It was all about movement and mindset and low stress. And that time there. And I go back there every year, um, to host a transformational wellness retreat. But that mindset really changed me. And there’s some really simple things that by the way, are free <laugh> and available to us. And that mother nature has provided us with like sunshine, quality, sleep, community love, happiness.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
So, so we can all move to Costa Rica,
Brooke Burke:
<laugh>, let’s go <laugh>. But I think movement and mindset also are a really big part of this equation. How we meet ourselves, how we activate natural energy, our willingness to create dopamine and adrenaline and even oxytocin that feel good drug. That when you do something good for yourself, it makes you wanna do more, the better you feel, the more you do, the more you do, the better you feel. It’s a very simple solution for me. How we fuel our body, how we speak to our body, how we meet our body, how we move our body. Some really simple things. You know, I’ve been on this big walking, walking mission lately, and it’s not just walking for a workout, it’s walking for movement and for energy. I take a couple of my calls a day now doing a walk and talk. I’m more focused. I’m not distracted, <laugh>, I’m not locked down at my computer.
(22:36):
I’m moving my body and just creating energy and doing something mindful that really feels good. I think there’s a lot of little things that we overlook because we just want one magic pill or one magic quick fix and we want one answer. And this universal theory, which I really don’t believe exists, we’re so different. You know, even going back to this protein formula, everybody is different, different activities, different needs, different challenges. It’s fascinating and it’s mysterious. And we have a long way to go in regards to educating ourselves and really understanding how our bodies process differently.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Well that’s, you know, that’s why I see patients six days a week and look at their blood work every three months. Because there are, I mean, you can watch these things un unfold in real time and you can, they’re, they’re my laboratory if you will. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. I’ve been a researcher all my life. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. So my patients, most of what I learned, I learned from
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Like, okay, let’s, I invented the concept of exercise snacking act, actually trying to get my patients to incorporate small bits of movement throughout the day. I love
Brooke Burke:
That. I have a similar turn and the app, we call it bite-size burns.
(23:47):
Yeah. And knowing that doing something is better than doing nothing. If you have 10 minutes today, you know, I really designed and choreographed this app for people that are busy that wanna do some, that understand doing something beginning small, doing something today is better than just losing your sense of self and not being able to find your way back. So these bite-size opportunities, if you have five minutes, I can show somebody how to retrain their core. And five, you don’t need more than five minutes a day because that’s all it takes if you do it properly and efficiently. So I’m a big believer in that. And um, taking those moments to activate energy. Um, I love that. I love that snacks, bite sizes, little
SDr. Steven Gundry:
Bits. Yeah. You’re brushing your teeth and pieces, brushing. Do deep knee bends, squats while you’re brushing your teeth. For sure. It’s like you got two minutes. Do it while you’re for sure you’re not doing anything else.
Brooke Burke:
For sure. I have a question for you, ’cause this comes up a lot. I would love to pick your brain about this concept, this mystery of collagen, collagen’s having a moment right now and everybody’s talking about it. Vanity, hair, skin and nails. But beyond that also for me, gut health and gut repair. And I do a whole lot of things in that world because of another autoimmune and IBD and longer conversation. We could do a whole pod on that one and intermittent fasting and gut repair. But what are your thoughts on collagen?
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Well, if collagen was actually the miracle that all the collagen companies want us to think it is, then every one of us growing up in the fifties and sixties and even the seventies should all have looked like Arnold Schwartzenegger. <laugh>. And I say that is because multiple times a day we all ate collagen in the form of jello. And jello is merely collagen. And all of us had consomme, which was bone broth.
Brooke Burke:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
For lunch and fancy restaurants that served it for dinner. So we were awash in collagen and
Brooke Burke:
We were,
Dr. Steven Gundry:
We were <laugh>, I’ll leave it at that. What I think is most important is we know the building blocks of collagen mm-hmm <affirmative>. And to me it’s far more important to make sure that you, number one, are consuming the building blocks that collagen is made from. But number two, you actually have to have vitamin C to knit collagen together. And it’s one of the big missing pieces. I think we are one of the few animals that don’t manufacture our own vitamin C. So we have to have a supply of vitamin C.
Brooke Burke:
You mean a supplement?
Dr. Steven Gundry:
As a supplement. And you have to have timed release vitamin C, you can swallow vitamin C, but it’s gone in about three hours.
Brooke Burke:
Time
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Release, timed release, vitamin
Brooke Burke:
C, another great tip,
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Everybody. Time release.
Brooke Burke:
Time release
Dr. Steven Gundry:
About a thousand milligrams twice a day. Barring that, you could get chewable vitamin Cs and take one about 500 milligrams four times a day. But it’s one of the real keys to putting collagen to use.
Brooke Burke:
I’m starting that today. <laugh>. Alright. I’m a good patient.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Very good.
Brooke Burke:
Um, you know, in baseline, you know, you mentioned something about seeing your patients and doing blood work every three months. Um, one of the best pieces of advice that I could give anybody is to really be a great patient. And I am because I have to manage this very complicated system and you wouldn’t know that. But I am a detective of my own body and I’m a really good patient. But having that baseline blood work, knowing where you’ve been and where you are and having something to really measure that against, it’s so important.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
You don’t wanna manage these things. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. You want to get rid of these things. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And the great thing is like publish my data, 94% of people who arrive with an autoimmune disease by blood markers, they’re in remission within nine months to a year on no medications. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. So this is not, I firmly believe this is not something you manage. Mm. This is something you get rid
Brooke Burke:
Of that’s hopeful.
SDr. Steven Gundry:
Yeah. Yeah. That’s why I see patients six days a week
Brooke Burke:
Because you’re a good doctor.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Yeah. Not that I, you know, I, I get up to see a miracle what I would’ve called a miracle 30 years ago. If I don’t see a miracle happen in my office, you know, then, then I wouldn’t get up. But my goodness, getting up and saying, wow, what miracle am I gonna see today? That’s pretty motivating. I
SBrooke Burke:
Love that. That’s hopeful. So, um, I know Mindy Pelz was one of, was a guest on your podcast. Yeah. Love her. Um, fast like a girl. Fantastic book that I think every woman and young woman should read. I’ve been intermittent fasting for over a decade. It works for me. I’m a big believer and it’s not just my fed fast window. Gives me a little bit more freedom. But I do it for rest and recovery. I do it for gut repair. We’ve been doing it for centuries. I’m a big believer it is the greatest nutritional choice that I’ve ever made. Um, what, what are, what are your thoughts? And I like to extend my fast window as well. Thank you Mindy, for the inspiration, but also understanding when and how, for me it’s really the why, but when, when my body needs certain things and when my body functions at a functions at a higher capacity and when my body needs to slow down and rest and recover. So it’s not just somebody who’s skipping breakfast and starving. That’s not intermittent fasting everybody. Um, but it really works for me. I love it.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
As far as I know, and nobody’s contradicted me yet. And people love to, I was the first person to write about time restricted eating back in the early two thousands.
Brooke Burke:
Okay.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
And it was in my first book, Dr. Gundry’s Diet Evolution. We actually had an entire chapter on the manuscript. And my editor Heather Jackson at Random House said, this is crazy. I am not going to let you say this. You’re we’re cutting the chapter.
Brooke Burke:
Oh no <laugh>.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Seriously. And I said, no, no, no, no. I, you know, I’ve been doing this since 2000 and
Brooke Burke:
’cause no one was talking about it
Dr. Steven Gundry:
At all, that nobody, nobody. And I said, you know, here’s why I’m doing it. Here’s the data.
Brooke Burke:
Mm-hmm <affirmative>.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
And here’s the studies. And she said, okay, uh, I’ll give you two pages in the book to make your case. That’s it. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. The chapter is gone. You get two pages and anyone who’s looking, you can find those two pages. <laugh>. I’ll look that up. And yeah. So I was, uh, speaking of the MINDBODY Green Symposium a couple years ago and who should be in the audience, but Heather Jackson. And she came up to me and she said, you know, I always knew you were gonna be a great author and can you ever forgive me for taking your chapter away? She said, I should have realized that you were right about this. Like you were right about other things I should have, I should have let you have it. I said, nah, no hard feelings, but no one’s. I was first to write about this. We did not crawl out of our cave and said, what’s for breakfast? Right. <laugh>, there wasn’t a storage system. You know, there wasn’t a pool of Cheerios
Brooke Burke:
Up there. Yeah, that’s so true. So
SpDr. Steven Gundry:
True. And if you look at hunter gatherers, modern ones, they don’t eat until 10 or 11 o’clock in the morning. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. They find something or when they find a food, it’s very simple. Yeah. It’s very simple. It’s very simple. And the point of that is, and I’ve written several books about why that’s beneficial, is we know, look, we know our brain needs seven, eight hours mm-hmm. Of rest. Mm-hmm. We need it shut down.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Part of that is for repair work. Part of that is brain cleaning, this wash cycle. And if we know the brain needs that rest period, it just makes sense that perhaps our GI tract, which is incredibly metabolic active, needs that same period of rest. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And, you know, work out of San Diego, uh, has shown that the average American now is eating 16 hours a day. Wow. Literally from the second they get
Brooke Burke:
Up, which means they are digesting in their rest period. Nothing good is happening. Nothing good happening. I mean, in my rest period, I wanna cleanse my body. Yeah. I want cellular repair. Yeah. I wanna recharge my
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Batteries. Yeah. And so that just doesn’t happen.
Brooke Burke:
It’s so simple to me. And going back in time with what you said, it’s just fundamentally how the way of the world was back then. It’s interesting, you know, after reading, you know, Mindy’s book as well, you know, even religiously, when we go through fast, everybody thinks they’re starving and so broken down. But really we’re creating and activating a great opportunity for energy. We just have to change our mindset in this fed fast window.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
And it’s one of the best ways to activate stem cells.
Brooke Burke:
Yeah.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
I mean, we’ve got oodles of stem cells. Yeah. We don’t need to go buy ’em in Mexico, <laugh>. We just have to activate them. So true.
Brooke Burke:
So strength is a really, is a very new concept for me at BB Body. Um, and mostly because my body is changing in my fifties. And I have chosen to incorporate strength training to maintain muscle that I have. I’m not worried about bulking building too much muscle. We talked about the power of protein, but it’s also strengthened the way we show up and strengthen our boundaries and strengthen our inner dialogue and strength in so many ways. And it seems to be that strength is the new healthy and even a little bit sexy lately. Strength is the new sexy in my community of women. It’s, it’s, it’s new for me. Love to know your thoughts on that and lifting heavier. For me, it’s progressive overload. It’s slow form first, you know, strength follows in in my opinion, but I’m, I’m seeing more and more of it. And it’s probably because my community is 40, 50, 60 and seeing results and feeling much better since I’ve added strength training into, um, our, our workout split at BB Body.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
We can see in our patients’ blood work, most patients, uh, in America are insulin resistant. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. 80 odd percent of people who are overweight or insulin resistant. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. 98% of people who are obese or insulin resistant. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Now what does that mean? Insulin is basically a salesperson that takes the sugars we eat and the proteins we eat and tries to sell it to our muscles. Who are their biggest customers? And if the muscles are hungry or if there’s a lot of muscles, then insulin has a really easy job. The muscles go, oh yeah, we’re starving to death. We’ll buy everything you’ve got <laugh>, we’ll take it. You don’t even have to work. But if the muscles are number one, not a lot of them, or if they’re not doing any work, they’re going and insulin shows up. Say, Hey, you know, she just, Brooke just ate some great stuff here. Open the door, I wanna sell it to you. And the muscles go, couldn’t eat another bite on stuff. Or there’s, hey, there’s only four of us to buy what you’re eating and you’ve eaten for 12 people or 12 muscles. We can see that we can measure it. So then we put them on a strength training program and all of a sudden their insulin resistance drops. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Their insulin drops. And if I wanna show patients a crystal ball mm-hmm <affirmative>. Of what bad things are going to happen to them, cancer,
Dr. Steven Gundry:
<affirmative>. Then insulin resistance and elevated insulin is the two perfect predictors of bad things happening. And so they can say, whoa, you mean all I had to do was do some, you know, exercise nagging or add a little strength training. And strength training can be done at home.
Brooke Burke:
A hundred percent. That’s why I created my app. Absolutely. It doesn’t take a lot to set up your digital space.
Brooke Burke:
It takes a commitment and you can start small, but
Brooke Burke:
I think that makes an incredible difference. And then the other side of strength training for me is the surrender where yoga and the stretch philosophy comes into play. And I really think that yoga for me, it’s not even a workout. It’s medicine. It’s my therapy. It’s where I get all my inner housekeeping done. It’s my time to really rest and reset and to listen to my body and the messages from my body. I think our bodies have so much to say, and if we learn to slow down, whether it’s meditation, stillness, whatever it is that, you know, makes you feel good. But for me,
(35:10):
Or get a dog or get a dog <laugh> dog theor dog yoga, animal yoga, yoga at my go house, my live streams, there’s dogs, cats, children, everything. But I think yoga really helps and it’s time to really do that inner housekeeping and to drop into that inner voice inside and learn about your body. And sometimes we have to slow down to just listen. Um, that’s where I get most of my information. It’s in that, in that pace and in that stillness. So yoga’s the other side of strength training for me. And I think it’s all really important.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
More amazing episodes, just like this one watch now fruit is just another form of sugar that will spike your blood sugar. I guarantee it.
