Speaker 1 (00:00):
You know, those little bumps on your neck, underarms or eyelids or down in your groin aren’t random. And they’re not just cosmetic annoyances. Skin tags are actually your body quietly signaling there’s something deeper, often metabolic that is probably out of balance. So if you’re experiencing skin tags like I did and thought it was perfectly normal, you don’t want to miss this episode about what they are and how to fix them. Stay tuned.

(00:49):
Does everybody know what a skin tag is? These are little growths of skin, which are quote, harmless. They’re benign. And many of you as you age, uh, somehow these little guys begin to pop up often on our neck, often in our armpits, often in our groin, and they’re benign and it’s kind of just a part of aging. And you go to the dermatologist and the dermatologist says, oh yeah, that’s a skin tag here, let me zap it or cut it off and don’t worry about it. It’s not a cancer. And have a nice day. Why should we be worried about that? Well, I’ll tell you a personal experience that might get your attention. When I was a heart surgeon in my thirties and forties, I actually began getting a lot of skin tags. And yes, I had ’em kind of on base of my neck, I had ’em in my armpits, and I had ’em in my groin.

(01:49):
And you know, I’d have ’em burned off and be told, yeah, no big deal. You’re getting older. Imagine while I was a surgeon operating on my patients that a great number of my patients who I was operating on for heart disease, for coronary heart disease, had skin tags just like me. And I go, gee, that’s interesting. It really is common, isn’t it? Uh, everybody’s got ’em. Well, not so fast. 30 years ago when I put myself on what is now the Plant Paradox Program, after meeting Big Ed who changed my life and I lost 50 pounds in my first year, one of the first things that happened was my skin tags dried up like a prune and fell off every last one of them. And I went, what the heck is that? Well, about that same time I began measuring my fasting insulin level in both myself and all my patients.

(02:55):
We didn’t know back then, but insulin and fasting insulin level is probably one of the best ways to track your metabolic flexibility or metabolic resistance or insulin resistance. And when I first measured my fasting insulin level, it was 16. Now, that doesn’t mean much to anybody, but most of us are now convinced that a fasting insulin level should be well under 10 and preferably under six. So why is that important? It turns out that insulin is actually a growth hormone and it makes things grow. So when I had a high fasting insulin level, my insulin was actually feeding the growth of portions of my skin and they were growing as little polyps as skin tags. When I went on my program, my insulin level fell to about two or three and has stayed that way ever since. My wife’s fasting insulin level is less than one, but I haven’t had a skin tag in 30 years.

(04:09):
And what’s really exciting is that when I have patients with skin tags, a hundred percent of them have an elevated fasting insulin level and a hundred percent of them, when their fasting insulin level falls, one of the first things they notice is that their skin tags dry up and miraculously fall off. Why? Because you’re no longer stimulating these things to grow. Okay? So everybody wants to have their skin tags fall off, right? Sounds like a really good idea. But the important thing to remember is if those skin tags are growing because insulin is stimulating their growth, what else is there in you that you might not want to stimulate to grow? One of the things I’ve seen now in 30 years is that it’s amazing how many people with elevated insulin levels during their colonoscopy are found to have polyps. And if you think about it, polyps are just skin tags on the lining of your gut.

(05:29):
And just remember the lining of your gut is your skin turned inside out. So to me, it’s no wonder that when people report polyps in their colon that they have an elevated insulin level. And part of my program with my patients who do have colon polyps is to lower their insulin levels, and interestingly enough, their polyps don’t return. So there’s a direct connection in my practice and others between insulin levels and growing things that you don’t want to grow. Now, I also measure another growth hormone in my practice in my patients called insulin-like growth factor. It’s called IGF one. It’s called insulin-like growth factor because it too also makes things grow. Now, when we’re young, we have very high insulin-like growth factors. They typically run 250, oh up to 400. If you look at super old people, late nineties, early one hundreds who are thriving, and I get to study a lot of these people in my practice, they typically run insulin-like growth factors of 50 to 70.

(06:51):
So I and others are pretty convinced that as we age, lowering insulin-like growth factor is probably a really good thing because as I tell any of my patients, there is nothing in us once we reach adulthood that we want to grow. And cancer cells love to be stimulated by insulin, love to be stimulated by insulin-like growth factor. And in fact, sadly, I’ve seen a very strong correlation between people who have cancer and elevated insulin-like growth factors and elevated insulin levels. And part of the program for my cancer patients is to dramatically lower insulin-like growth factor and insulin levels. So how do you do that? Well, there’s three basic factors that stimulate insulin production and insulin-like growth factor. The first is pretty obvious sugars or things that turn into sugar. And for many people, simple carbohydrates, not sugar on the label are just as good at elevating insulin levels and insulin leg growth factor as simple sugar Number two, and this has been worked out in many human studies, animal protein and even a fish is an animal.

(08:13):
Even a chicken is an animal. Even an egg is an animal raises insulin-like growth factor studies at St. Louis University looking at calorie restricted individuals, changing them over from a western type calorie restricted diet to a vegan equal protein, calorie restricted diet showed dramatic drops in insulin like growth factor one. And I see that all the time in my patients that substituting plant-based proteins for animal-based proteins lowers insulin-like growth factor time restricted eating, time controlled eating, compressing, eating windows between the time you start eating in the morning or noon, and the time you finish eating in the evening. And the magic window of eating seems to be between six to eight hours a day. Now in all my books, I give a simple way of not just diving in and suddenly only eating six hours a day. Most people fall off the cliff. That’s not what you need to do.

(09:17):
But the more you compress your eating window, the lower your fasting insulin level goes, and the lower your insulin leg growth factor goes. And the good news is, the more you do that, the more you’ll watch your skin tags dry up and fall off. And the more you’ll impress your gastroenterologist that all of a sudden, hey, you used to have polyps and huh, now you don’t. Wow. And they won’t ask what you’re doing. But quite frankly, the drama that you’ll experience the first time one of your skin tags dries up and falls off, that’s enough to make anybody pay attention. Because again, if those things are growing, there’s other things in you that are growing. So yes, skin tags are benign, but skin tags are a visible sign that something is radically wrong with your metabolism. And the good news is it’s fixable by following the simple rules of the plant paradox program.

(10:25):
So that’s the good news. That’s the exciting news. And please never think of a skin tag as something that, eh, it’s an annoyance. And I’ll just get it burned off. You want it to fall off Now it’s time for the question of the week. This question comes from Instagram who wishes to stay anonymous? He said, I’ve been trying out your carnivore diet, which is the chicken and the sea and having great results. But does grass fed ghee have new five gc? I’ve heard you say it’s okay, but curious about that sugar molecule? Well, the great news is that grass fed ghee does not have any new five GC because ne five GC is a sugar molecule, and while it is present in milk, when you extract all of the sugar and proteins and leave only fat, the new five GC is gone. Great question. Now it’s time for the review of the week. This review comes from at legacy with purpose 6, 6, 3, 4 on my YouTube short about if eggs are a health trigger. They said pasture raised eggs, chicken pasture, raised, grass fed and wild fish. Thank you Dr. Gundry, and lots of love and thanks emojis. Well, thank you. I just want everyone to realize you are what you eat, but just as importantly, you are what the thing you are eating ate.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Dr. Gundry podcast. If you did, please share this with family and friends. You never know how one of these health tips can completely transform someone’s life when you take the time to share it with them. There’s also the Dr. Gundry podcast YouTube channel where we have tens of thousands of free health insights that can help you and your loved ones live a long, vital life. Let’s do this together.