Dr. Gundry: 00:00 Hey there. Welcome to another exciting episode of The Dr. Gundry Podcast, the weekly podcast where I give you the tools you need to support your gut, boost your health, and live your youngest, healthiest life.
Before we get started, let’s get to this week’s Review of the Week. Irm from Hawaii writes, “I see that Psyllium is on the yes list of the Plant Paradox diet. Does that mean the husk is safe to eat? Thanks.” Yeah, I’ve reviewed this. Believe it or not, there are a number of plant seeds that have no lectins, and those are plant seeds that, by design, are indigestible in our intestines, and the whole idea is that you’ll eat those plant seeds and poop them out someplace else with a dollop of fertilizer. So things like sesame seeds are perfectly safe. Things like flax seeds and Psylliam seeds are perfectly safe. On the other hand, there are a number of seeds on the no list that unfortunately do have lectins and are designed to protect themselves. So just consult the list, and if there’s any question, just write me, and we’ll try to get an answer for you, okay? Good question.
If you’d like me to read your review, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review my podcast on iTunes. If you’re listening on your mobile device, take a screenshot, share your favorite takeaway, and add a tag me in your Insta stories. I’ll make sure to reshare them in mine. Welcome to The Dr. Gundry Podcast. My guest today has spent the last two decades challenging conventional medical wisdom, and he’s actually been crusading for a more natural approach to human health. He’s also the author of the New York Times bestseller, The No Grain Diet, and The Great Bird Flu Hoax, and his brand new book called Keto Fast: Rejuvenate Your Health with a Step-By-Step Guide to Timing Your Ketogenic Meals. Of course, I’m referring to none other than Dr. Joseph Mercola. Dr. Mercola, it’s so great to finally have you on my podcast.

Dr. Mercola: 02:14 Yes, well thank you for inviting me. It’s a great privilege, and I really appreciate the honor. Just one slight … Not really correction, but a modification, I think, is that the best book I’ve written wasn’t mentioned, which is Fat For Fuel. It was really my previous one. But while it didn’t make the New York Times Bestseller, but it was the number one book sold in America by Nielsen ratings, Wall Street Journal and USA Today. But New York Times got their little algorithm. We sold too many books on Amazon.

Dr. Gundry: 02:42 No, that’s absolutely true, and I agree that that was absolutely your best book. So one of the things I’ve admired about you through the years is your willingness, number one, to adapt your program or change your views based on the most current information out there, and also on your personal experiences. And I’ve lauded you on this when you’ve had me on your podcast. You’re willing to try something out and really do a deep die in it, and you’re not afraid to say, “Oops, maybe that wasn’t such a good idea,” or “Here’s what I learned from this experience.” And I think as you and I both know, there’s so many people that have not changed their view in the last 20 years despite obviously plenty of new information that should allow us to evolve things. Have you been like that all your life? Did you start out this way?

Dr. Mercola: 03:40 I think so. I’m really a perpetual sometimes, and I really think most of us should be, because there’s so much to learn, you couldn’t learn it in multiple lifetimes just in one isolated area, let alone the whole breadth of human knowledge. Yeah, so I think we’re perpetual students, and to think otherwise is really quite frankly intellectually arrogant.

Dr. Gundry: 03:59 So what started you down this path towards the keto diet and intermittent fasting? What piqued your interest?

Dr. Mercola: 04:08 Well, let me give you an example of how I changed my views. When … Many years ago, I thought it was foolish, and that’s being kind, for people who were fasting. I thought, “Clearly the evidence is obvious that you need to eat all the time,” and in fact, 90% of the population, according to Satchin Panda, eats more than 12 hours a day, more than 12 hours a … I know that’s not you. I know you have a one to two hours window, frequently. Most all of us are doing the same thing, believing the same, and I’ve changed that.
And I recognize that, especially as keto started coming on board and I’m experimenting with it and Mark Sisson taught me about metabolic flexibility, I tried it for myself and was just amazed at what it did. Then I started to finally appreciate some of the subtle molecular biological components which we’ll talk about further today like autophagy and stem cell activation. And this cycling, which is so important, and there’s … I’ll share more of how I changed my views as we go on, but it’s … You’ve got to learn and adapt and really modify things as you acquire new information.

Dr. Gundry: 05:20 So your latest book, Keto Fast, there’s a lot of books out there on the keto diet. That’s the new buzz thing. And I’ve read your book, and it’s fabulous, folks listening and watching, gave you a nice blurb that’s on your back cover. So you’re preaching to the choir, but I want you to preach to our listeners and our viewers, what new approaches are you taking in the book, which I think are just great?

Dr. Mercola: 05:52 Yeah, well. Thank you. The basic strategy is to first become metabolically flexible, which I discussed in my previous book, Fat For Fuel. That is the primary issue, where … And you do that with a simple step that doesn’t cost anything, saves you money, and radically improves your health. What is that? Compress your eating window. When I give a lecture, I feel I succeeded if I can get that one single message to the audience: Compress your eating window. [inaudible 00:06:24]. Actually, much before I understood that fact. So what’s a compressed eating window? 12 hours … Which 90% of people are doing … Is not enough, I think. 14 hours probably starts to get the benefit, and I think the sweet spot is 16 to 18. I think most of us don’t have to go to your level, and probably 16-

Dr. Gundry: 06:46 Remember, I only do that six months out of the year.

Dr. Mercola: 06:51 Yeah. Was that two hours, and then what’s the … Then you go to four hours?

Dr. Gundry: 06:55 Yeah. So the rest of the year, I go to about 16 hours, yeah.

Dr. Mercola: 07:00 Okay, 16 hours. That’s fine. Then that’s not a big deal. I’m glad, because to do that long-term, I think you’re going to run into some complications, because really one of the basic tenets of the book is to go into these cycles, which we were designed to. Because the human species was never designed to have access to food 24/7. Just that wasn’t the case. So we have to replicate that pattern if we want to maximize our biological benefits and what our genetics are designed for.

Dr. Gundry: 07:28 Yeah, no. You’re absolutely right. As you know, my new book, The Longevity Paradox, also stresses exactly what you’re saying. We should be eating in circadian rhythms. And there is just utmost evidence, even in looking at modern hunter-gatherers, that there is cyclically feeding periods, and there are extended periods of time where we do not eat or we eat very minimally. So it’s this cycle that you so eloquently talk about in Keto Fast is really important. So give me an example. What does that mean for the average person? How do you in Keto Fast structure this?

Dr. Mercola: 08:12 Well, after I wrote Fat For Fuel, I was very excited and was pretty firmly convinced … This is an example of me changing my views … that the most powerful metabolic intervention I’ve ever seen in nearly four decades of clinical practice was multiple-day water fasting. I mean, it’s profound benefits. We could talk a bit about that if you haven’t discussed that previously. So I decided to write a book, which was Keto Fast. And as I started to research the book and discuss in network with some of the experts in the field, I realized that that was an incorrect observation. It is a powerful intervention. There’s no question. It’s been done for thousands of years as an integral part of nearly every major religion on the planet, and it wouldn’t persist for so long if there wasn’t some value to it. Clearly there’s value, but what I learned is that it was useful, historically, but we’ve evolved into the 21st century. And not as a species, but more our technology.
And as a result of the technology, we’ve accumulated not thousands but 10s of thousands of these chemicals, industrial chemicals, that we’re all exposed to. It’s virtually impossible not to be. I mean, it is … Virtually everyone watching this is. I mean, you’d have to be in a remote, rural, isolated part of the planet, and that’s no one watching this. So anyway, most of these chemicals are fat-soluble, and they get stored. They typically aren’t immediately metabolized, they’re stored for safety in your fat cells. And when you do multi-day water fasting, you’re using your fat for energy, and these fat-soluble toxins are released, go into your bloodstream, and they cause side effects for a number of reasons. One, because they’re toxic, but primarily because the people don’t have ramped-up enough detoxification to address that. So I thought that was a massive flaw, and I developed strategies to accommodate for this, and essentially developed the 21st-century fasting, which has multiple other side effects and benefits that I can discuss.

Dr. Gundry: 10:27 Yeah, I think that’s so important. Actually, when I wrote my first book years ago, I was very impressed with Dr. Ray Walford’s observations in Biosphere 2, where those folks … He was a pathologist at UCLA as you know, and he actually looked at the Biospherians’ heavy metals in their blood when they lost literally 35% of their body weight in the first six months, because they were literally starving to death. And he was really excited about it, actually, but when he looked … He thought it was a wonderful thing. But when he looked at their heavy metals and their toxins, they went massively high, and it actually took them a year to return down to normal.
And I write about that in The Longevity Paradox, as well. And I think your observation and Dr. Walford’s and certainly mine that we’ve got to be very careful with everybody going on these six, seven day water fasts, because we do not have a system to handle these heavy metals. And again, Dr. Walford proved this 20 years ago. And so I think if we take nothing away else from Keto Fast, I think your observation that, “Wow, I was really into water fasting, and now wait a minute. Let’s put the brakes on here, because we now have some data that we ought to be cautious about this.”

Dr. Mercola: 11:53 Yeah, we also see this in the animal world. There are sea otters or some types of sea life that regularly fast just as a part of their natural ecology, and they’ve done observational studies on this, and they do assays of the fat-soluble toxins in their system and heavy metals, and they go through the roof when they’re not eating, so same darn process. It’s intrinsic to all animal life, I believe.

Dr. Gundry: 12:18 So knowing that now, how, in the Keto Fast, you want people to kind of construct this give-and-take, this circadian rhythm?

Dr. Mercola: 12:32 Yeah, I can go into the details of that in a moment, but before we get there, I think it’s important to recognize why we would even want to do that. You’re not going to be motivated to follow some wacky plan that I happen to come up with unless you have a really darn good reason to consider doing it. Now, let me provide you with some of those. Yeah, one of the reasons I’m so excited about water fasting was because it activates this metabolic process called autophagy which comes from the Greek words “auto” and “phage,” and it essentially means “self eating,” and it’s, to me, one of the most valuable benefits of fasting.
And you’re able to … What that process does … There are several types. Microautophagies, chaperone-mediated autophagy, and macroautophagy, which is mostly what we’re concerned about. But it essentially targets these sub-cellular structures like damaged proteins or mitochondria, and it targets them, and it gets the lysosomes attached to them, and it really self-destructs. It breaks it down to its constituent parts so we can recycle them and reuse them rather than hanging around. In most people, wrecking up your system and actually creating inflammatory cytokines and causing increased silent inflammation throughout your body, which is a massive prescription for metabolic disaster.
So activating autophagy is really important, and you certainly are familiar with NAD plus as one of the most important co-enzymes in your body, and then its cousin, NADPH, which is so important for recharging your intracellular antioxidants like glutathione and all the rest of them, Vitamin C, Vitamin E. But those actually increase … Get this … when you fast, 30%. 30%. It’s crazy. There’s nothing you have to do. You don’t have to take nicotinamide riboside or take NAD plus Ivs, you just increase it when you fast. How good is that? And some of these interventions are really expensive. NAD is not cheap. So that’s a huge benefit.
And then the other side is really, to me, equally as important as autophagy, but you have to understand how to cycle these in, is the magic occurs from fasting not so much when you’re not eating … It’s just like exercise. The magic from exercise doesn’t occur when you’re working out. That’s when you cause the damage. So it’s somewhat similar to causing damage when you’re fasting. The magic occurs when you refeed, when you … And you give your body all this nutrition so that it can rebuild your cells. You’re building your cells over again the way they were designed to be from the original templates. So it’s that combination of those and cycling them in in a right fashion that’s so profoundly powerful to improve your health.

Dr. Gundry: 15:22 So for those of us who are listening who don’t quite get autophagy, I think it’s kind of like taking out the trash. We’re now beginning to realize that trash builds up in our cells, and we’ve got a lot of cells that aren’t pulling their own weight. And there’s even a new term that people like about zombie cells, senescent cells.

Dr. Mercola: 15:50 Senescent cells. That’s a whole different story, which actually fasting doesn’t really address.

Dr. Gundry: 15:54 Right.

Dr. Mercola: 15:54 But that’s a future book I’m writing.

Dr. Gundry: 15:57 Yeah, good. So fasting actually literally, as I describe it in The Longevity Paradox, it basically tells certain cells, “You guys aren’t pulling your own weight, and you need to commit suicide,” and basically die but re-cycle those parts, rather than blowing up, like apoptosis. Autophagy is recycling or taking out the trash. Is that a good way to describe that?

Dr. Mercola: 16:27 Well, from my understanding, autophagy refers to the sub-cellular organelles, not the whole cell. The whole cell would be apoptosis. So it’s a different mechanism. Very similar, same process, but it’s a different pathway, pathways.

Dr. Gundry: 16:42 And so one of the things that’s interesting about communities, super long-lived people, is they have these mechanisms almost built into their lifestyle. So what are some of the … People know this. They hear this. “Okay, I need to have timed, restricted fasting, or I need to do intermittent fasting.” And I’ve actually watched podcasts where people argue that intermittent fasting is totally different than time-restricted fasting. Help us out. You’re one of the world’s experts on this.

Dr. Mercola: 17:21 I’m not sure I understand the question.

Dr. Gundry: 17:23 So I’ve actually heard people … And I won’t mention their names … saying people shouldn’t intermittent fast, they should time-restrict fast.

Dr. Mercola: 17:31 Okay. There’s no difference. It’s just, it’s the semantics. They’re the same darn thing. It’s time-restricted eating would be the way we … As I understand it, the researchers describe for humans. Time-restricted feeding is more for animals. So it’s … Time-restricted eating is just the window. Another term is intermittent fasting. They’re essentially the same term. But intermittent fasting technically could be considered a broader range. It could be alternate-day fasting, like [Krista Berreden 00:18:00] or [Kristine Verde 00:18:02] … University of Illinois. Actually, not too far from where I used to have her office, and I interviewed her personally in my office about four or five years ago.
I didn’t realize how powerful intervention was, and it was partly through her work, alternate-day fasting, which is essentially 500 calories one day and then your normal food the next day. She was totally oblivious, absolutely clueless as to the quality of the food, but her strategy was exemplary. And she’s a really good researcher, too. She just didn’t understand the details about health like we do. And then there is Fasting Mimicking Diet by Valter Longo, who’s in your neck of the woods. I think he’s … He’s down at [Salk 00:18:40]. He’s down at USC, yeah.

Dr. Gundry: 18:43 USC.

Dr. Mercola: 18:46 And he’s probably the most prolific researcher in this area. So the problem … The reason he did not recommend multi-day water fasting was because of compliance. And when I first heard that, I said, “You know, with your thick Italian accents, how could you convince anyone to be compliant to a water-fast diet?” But then I realized he was right. You probably get less than one percent of the people to do that. They’re just not going to do that. Even if their life depended on it, they’re not going to do it. They just won’t. So compliance is a big issue. But here’s the other benefit of doing this keto fating, which is a partial fast. And I’ll explain in great detail what that consists of, but essentially, you can do it because it’s so easy to do. You can do it twice a week, which means you can do it more than 100 times a year and get all the magnificent benefits I described earlier and I’m sure that you describe in your book 100 times a year rather than doing it five, 10, 15 times a year. So collectively, you’re just radically improving the metabolic benefits by this type of intervention and strategy.
And in addition, when you do only a partial fast, which is essentially a two-day fast … It’s a little bit less than a two-day fast … instead of a five-day fast or a fasting-mimicking diet, which in Valter Longo’s case is 1,000 calories the first day, and 750 the next four, it’s still not enough. You’re still pretty beaten up by the fifth day, and it’s really hard to get into the scoop of things. Because another benefit that I did not mention earlier of fasting … And I’m sure … I don’t see it on your hand. I was looking, but I don’t see your Oura Ring. You’re not wearing it now, or … ? Oh, it’s there. Okay. I have to use a back computer, and my monitor resolution is pretty poor, so it’s hard to see your finger. But yeah. So there you go. So you would know this, and you have done the fasting, and I’m sure you can confirm that on the day you are fasting, your recovery rate or recovery index, as Oura terms it, goes through the roof.

Dr. Gundry: 20:57 Yeah.

Dr. Mercola: 20:57 Typically, it goes up 10 or 20 points, which means that the next day, after you’ve done your fast, you are just energized. You’re ready to kill it, and you can do an unbelievable workout and really challenge your body and activate the switches to turn on muscle growth, something that we call anabolism, which you don’t want to do when you’re fasting. And the cool thing is is that when you’re fasting, your growth hormone goes up by 300%. Well, you might say, “Well, growth hormone increases IGF1. Doesn’t that suppress autophagy?” And normally, it does, but when you’re fasting, the receptors in the liver become relatively resistant.
So your growth hormone can be high and your IGF1 is still low. So what does that mean when you have high growth hormone? It means when you work out and you have high growth hormone, my gosh, it’s like taking steroid shots. So you get all this benefit. So it gives you the opportunity to really add an exercise program on top of the autophagy. Because you want to exercise when you’re fasting, and then right after you’re fasting, you feast. You have loads of branch-chain amino acids, loads of healthy carbohydrates, and you’re just having a party. It’s great.

Dr. Gundry: 22:17 So in other words, this is not all about deprivation. A lot of times when-

Dr. Mercola: 22:21 Oh, heck no. Heck no. And the beautiful thing about it, because … And you know this. Once you’re fasting, the other side benefit in addition to the mental clarity is that the hunger disappears. So someone like you, it’s like you’re not even doing it because you’d normally … If you’re eating one meal, that’s it. You just lower the calorie rate. And then basically, you eat your next meal, and you’re off to the races. So it’s … You don’t even think about it. Once you have that restricted window of six to eight hours, it becomes as easy as can be.

Dr. Gundry: 22:53 You know, it’s interesting. My research in Yale was on evolutionary human biology, and one of the interesting things is … And this has been confirmed, and you know that actually when you are fasting, when you’re literally starving, your performance actually increases. And the reason evolutionary-wise, if we were starving, we had to catch that animal. And if we didn’t catch that animal, that was curtains. That was it. And so it’s fascinating that we have a built-in evolutionary advantage to perform well while fasting. It makes incredible sense. Just to bring it down to what people can understand. And then of course when we caught that animal or we found the fruit tree or the honey tree, we didn’t sit there, “Oh, I’m only going to eat a little bit.” Really?

Dr. Mercola: 23:49 Yes. Yeah. So yeah, that’s exactly. And it gives you this opportunity for really significant muscle gain, because when you get to be our age and even older, sarcopenia or the loss of muscle fiber becomes a real serious issues, and that’s why the recommendations for protein intake actually increase as you get older. Just to compensate for this loss of muscle mass. And so you have to be really diligent and focused and concentrated on strategies that can help prevent that from being a real issue for you.

Dr. Gundry: 24:21 If you’re listening to this podcast through you’re favorite podcast app, I’ve got some great news. You can also watch every episode of this podcast, plus hundreds more special videos, on my YouTube page. Just go to YouTube.com/drgundry, and be sure to click the subscribe button.
Okay, let’s take the average American. What are the risks associated with taking up intermittent fasting? What if someone has insulin resistance, what if they don’t have metabolic flexibility?

Dr. Mercola: 24:54 Well, virtually no one has insulin resistance.

Dr. Gundry: 24:58 Well, that’s controversial. I love it.

Dr. Mercola: 25:01 Only 80% of the population, right? If you just [inaudible 00:25:04] book or glucose challenge test and measure sequential insulin levels afterwards. 80%. That’s almost everyone. So it’s the rare person who doesn’t have a problem. So they are metabolically inflexible, insulin-resistant. And essentially, all of those people … That’s four fifths of the population … are not activating autophagy. You cannot activate autophagy when you’re insulin-resistant. It’s just like … You can’t. It just doesn’t work metabolically. So the people who can’t, virtually, from my perspective, you might have a little wider intermittent fasting window, but you could potentially make a cause for it in pregnant women. Or certainly, people with eating disorders. But probably, if you’re careful, you can get away with it. It’s the partial fasting, the complete restriction of the calories or the 300 or 400 calories where if you’re underweight, you have an eating disorder or you’re pregnant or breastfeeding, probably not a good idea, especially breastfeeding, because that’s an anabolic muscle-building, tissue-building state, and the last thing you want to do is impair that by fasting.

Dr. Gundry: 26:10 And what about folks who are going to get the Adkins flu or the low-carb flu or the keto flu? Any tricks to get them through that?

Dr. Mercola: 26:24 Well, the keto flu, so it’s called, is typically a result of sodium depletion or electrolyte depletion, and it could easily be compensated for with salt. And it’s not too much of an issue, because in the keto fast … And we can start to go into how I do it or recommend it … is that I don’t recommend anyone do it until you are first metabolically flexible. And what does that mean? It means that you can restrict your eating window to six or eight hours. Only time you’re eating. No butter in your coffee or anything outside that window. The only calories you have are in that six to eight hour window, and you can do that for one month straight.
And most everyone will be metabolically flexible by the end of that period, but there are some who may not. If they’re really seriously metabolically damaged or two or three hundred pounds overweight, then you’re going to need a long period. But most people, that’s all you need. And how do you know? You’ll know because you’re making ketones, and it’s real easy to measure. You can do them in your breath or in your urine. Best one is the blood. The blood test I like is the Keto-Mojo, which … because it’s the least expensive. It’s only a dollar a strip instead of four dollars a strip. So that’s how you can objectively test it, and you don’t really need to go there unless you’re massively overweight, because most likely, you’re going to be metabolically flexible. And then you could participate. So then I think there’s virtually no contraindications other than the ones I previously listed.

Dr. Gundry: 27:44 Okay. All right. I want to touch on something that you and I both agree on, food safety, particularly the dangerous biocides, the pesticides, and you’re in my favorite, glyphosate, Round-Up. Any thoughts on the recent study … Probably didn’t surprise you … that 35 oat products in this country have glyphosate in them.

Dr. Mercola: 28:13 Yeah. No, we wrote that too, and that’s not because oats are genetically-modified, it’s because for most grains, they use them as a desiccant to dry them prior to harvest.

Dr. Gundry: 28:23 That’s exactly right. Yeah.

Dr. Mercola: 28:24 Yeah. So it’s not surprising. And I don’t know if it’s true even for organic oats. I know we wrote an article on it, but I don’t remember what the details of that were. So my first best-selling book was the no-grain diet. That was in 2004. And I didn’t make up that headline. The publisher did. And I regretted it initially, but now I think it’s a really good idea. Grains will be a problem for most people, especially gluten grains. Because as you mentioned, the lectins. So lectins are massively important, and I really am so grateful for you to helping me more deeply appreciate that and broaden my understanding of human physiology, especially in autoimmune diseases.

Dr. Gundry: 29:09 Well, thanks. Thanks. So as you know, my book, The Longevity Paradox, is out when this is airing. So I like to ask all my guests about one best practice for achieving longevity. If you were going to do one thing, what’s your trick?

Dr. Mercola: 29:10 As I’m thinking, listen. I am … I could share this with you offline, but I have a super SRSSV proponent. I’m going through reading about 2,000 studies a year now, the full study, not just the abstract. And the 80 keywords that I’m looking are all for longevity and some variance of it. So this is an area I’m beyond passionate about. So I want to give you a good answer, but … I think the ultimate answer is just do the fundamental basics, because right now, the best we can hope to do is live to 120 in pretty good shape, because that’s exactly where we’re … No one’s living beyond that now with our current technology. And I think of just do the basics.
And I really … So I wrote Fat For Fuel. Get metabolically flexible. I wrote Keto Fast. Do the partial fasting. Get the benefits of autophagy, get the rejuvenation. The other thing it does is activate your stem cells, so that when you’re rebuilding and getting all the extra carbs and the good branch-chain amino acids, and you’ve exercised, those stem cells are activated and they go in to rebuild the tissues, exactly what you need to do. So you get that thing going. Thirdly, you’ve got to stay away from EMF. These are sort of the primal three ones that … Almost everyone, almost everyone doesn’t understand the importance, and I’m really spending lots of time in writing this new book. And hopefully, it’ll be out either late this next year or early next year. I’m almost finished writing it.
And helping people understand why it actually has to … It goes back to NAD, which is the fundamental core of why you see EMF exposure is such an issue. And NAD is required as a substrate for PARP, poly-ADP ribose polymerase, to repair the DNA damage. It lays down the matrix for the DNA enzymes, repair enzymes, to come in and work. And every time you have a single strand break, it sucks out two or three NAD plus molecules. And you do that for awhile, and your just NAD levels go down into the toilet, and you just can’t … This NAD to NADH ratio, then NADPH goes crazy, and you just suffer premature aging.

Dr. Gundry: 31:44 So don’t put this next to your bed.

Dr. Mercola: 31:47 Well, my phone is actually quite close to my bed, maybe two feet away. But it’s in airplane mode, and it’s in a Faraday bag. Because emergencies happen. Thank God we have this technology. If I have to call someone … I have someone break in or I’ve got to talk to the police or something, I need that phone. But I certainly don’t need it on. And the real challenge is that we have so many teenagers, that I think it’s crazy. I forget the specific numbers, but it’s like 70% of the six to 17 year olds are going to bed with their phone. It’s just insane. Because they don’t understand the damage they’re doing. And just cell phones, the one you just held up, there is no doubt in my mind. I have two whole chapters of this in my book that’s coming out are indeed the cigarettes of the 21st century. People just don’t see it yet.
There’s no … And I go through all the analogies, the PR agencies, Hill+Knowlton, that the tobacco industry used and how they were able to scam and confuse the public for 30 years. Actually, probably for 50 years after the science was known that it caused this. Even after the Surgeon General issued a report. And believe me, the situation is far worse with telecommunications and the wireless industry, because they have totally corrupted the federal regulatory agencies. So anyway, that’s on a tangent, but EMF. EMF’s a big issue. You’ve got to understand it. You have to act on it, and if you don’t, you can have the best strategy, you can take the best polyphenols in the world, you can do stem cell transplants, it doesn’t matter. You’re dying prematurely because of this toxic exposure that virtually no one understands. It’s like cigarettes in the 30s.

Dr. Gundry: 33:29 Well from now on, I am not going to smoke my cell phone anymore. Absolutely.

Dr. Mercola: 33:35 That’s a good strategy.

Dr. Gundry: 33:37 All right. Okay. So I told you before we started that we have an audience question, and this is a good one. So Dominique asks, “I’ve been hearing about the all-meat diet,” the carnivore diet, folks, “being better than a vegetarian diet and being better than eating any plant-sourced foods at all. I’ve been a vegetarian for many years, but now I’m wondering if I should go all-meat.” Dr. Mercola, what say you?

Dr. Mercola: 34:07 Well, I just had the opportunity to review this, and it actually changed my views on this. Because a carnivore diet is really similar to your Plant Paradox diet in many ways, and the primary factor is that they both don’t have lectins.

Dr. Gundry: 34:25 That’s exactly right.

Dr. Mercola: 34:27 Lectin free. We know from your work that the lectins stimulate auto-immune disease, so just removing those lectins is going to be a big deal. Now I think the way carnivore diets are traditionally utilized is incorrect. People are just eating rib-eye steaks and all this meat all day long. They’re eating the muscle meat, and I think that is a series mistake for a number of reasons which I’m going to detail. I think you can … It’s probably okay if you eat from tail to … toe to tail or nose to tail.

Dr. Gundry: 35:01 Nose to tail, yeah.

Dr. Mercola: 35:02 Yeah. The connective tissue, the collagen. And you’re eating the organs. Now meat is a … Animal food or proteins and an incredibly nutrient-dense food. You get your micronutrients. A lot of the plants don’t have the micronutrients. They have the macronutrients, but they don’t have the micronutrients, so it’s really good from that perspective, but you’ve got to eat the whole animal if you’re going to do it well. And then I have some concerns, and when I actually interview an expert in this … He’s a physician who is advocating the carnivore diet, and he really understands the molecular biology at a deep level. I’m looking forward to dialoguing with him. But one of the concerns, the reasons that people like … Is it Dominique?

Dr. Gundry: 35:47 Yeah.

Dr. Mercola: 35:48 Yeah. That … and many others like Dominique choose to be a vegetarian or even a vegan is because there’s a lot of studies that suggest there’s benefits, and one of the primary justifications is that they have low levels of methionine, which is an amino acid, and meat tends to be high in that. Well turns out, that may only be an artifact of the strategy of not eating the whole animal, because when you are eating muscle meat, you’re getting loads of methionine, but when you have the connective tissue and the collagen, you’re getting high levels of not only glycine but proline, hydroxyproline, and that glycine balances out the methionine.

Dr. Gundry: 36:29 The methionine. Correct.

Dr. Mercola: 36:31 Yeah, so that glycine to methionine ratio appears to be very crucial. And when you look at it very carefully, the people who do that don’t have the same problems the people with high methionine levels typically do. So that’s one issue. But the issues I’m concerned about … And it gets back to the cycling. The cycling is so important, eating the food and then resting and recovering and doing that regularly, the cycles. Because the mistake I made when I did the ketogenic diet was to do it continuously, and I do not, do not, do not recommend it, unless you’re doing it initially for a few months and you’ve got some ground to catch up on. Then it’s fine. But you do it long-term, you’re going to be a disaster. You have to cycle in and out.
And the problem with … The potential problem with the carnivore diet is if you’re not cycling, you’re going to run into problems. It’s the same issue, even though it’s a really health food, and of course you’ve got to have clean meat. You just … 95% of the meat up there is going to make things worse, because it’s loaded with toxins, absolutely loaded. So you have to be really careful in choosing it, and it can be pretty costly because you have to have clean organic, sources. So that’s … And grassfed, and read the labels. And then so that’s one, and then the other thing is it’s pretty high in branch-chain amino acids, so that you’re going to stimulate mTOR. So I think you could do it, especially if you integrate it with the keto fasting, because then you’re cycling in and out, in and out. So I think it’s a wise strategy. I’m actually even going to recommend it to my girlfriend, who has some struggles herself and is … I’m going to see if she’s open to it, because I think it might make a difference. But integrating those components I mentioned with the cycling in and out, having healthy foods, and eating the whole animal.

Dr. Gundry: 38:07 Yeah. I think that’s a great observation, and I’ll put in my two cents here, starting with the last. I think long-term, this is going to stimulate mTOR, and I’m really afraid of the long-term effect of this. But I think your point is really good in that these sorts of diets basically eliminate lectins. And if you look at all the diets that have worked for, for instance weight loss and have caught on, whether it’s the Adkins, the South Beach, the drinking man’s diet that I talk about in the book from Robert Cameron, these are basically lectin-elimination diets. The paleo diet, the keto diet were all lectin-elimination diets, and I think that’s why they worked. So all right. That is our time is up. I’m getting the wave. So it’s always great to see and talk to you. You’re really one of the most stimulating pl out there, and I congratulate you on your curiosity and your willingness to keep questioning your belief system and others’. So we’ll have you on again, I hope, and I hope I can come back on yours, and I can’t wait to see your EMF book.

Dr. Mercola: 39:23 All right. Sounds good.

Dr. Gundry: 39:24 All right. So that’s it for the Dr. Gundry Podcast. Thanks for joining me. The Longevity Paradox is out, and it’s out because as you know, I’m Dr. Gundry, and I’m always looking out for you. See you next week.
Thanks for joining me on this episode of The Dr. Gundry Podcast. Before you go, I just wanted to remind you that you can find the show on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you want to watch each episode of The Dr. Gundry Podcast, you could always find me on YouTube at YouTube.com/drgundry, because I’m Dr. Gundry, and I’m always looking out for you.