Speaker 1: (00:00)
Welcome to the Dr. Gundry Podcast, the weekly podcast where Dr. G gives you the tools you need to boost your health and live your healthiest life.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (00:13)
Welcome to the Dr. Gundry Podcast. I’m back with another info packed mashup episode, where I cover some of your most requested topics. This episode features bite-size lessons, where I share life changing tips to help you live your longest healthiest life. So stay tuned, we’ll be right back.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (00:36)
It’s nearly that time again, my favorite holiday, July 11th is National Polyphenol Day, and also my 72nd birthday. Woo hoo. And do you know what the greatest gift I could ever receive? The honor to equip you with the tools to incorporate these powerful compounds called polyphenols into your diet with polyphenol rich foods like olive oil, mushrooms, even dark chocolate. And that’s what this holiday is all about. Just like last year, our polyphenol party is kicking into high gear and I want you all to celebrate with us. Yep, we’ll all be doing shots of olive oil, bottoms up. Plus there will be product giveaways, special podcast episodes, and collaborations. So make sure you follow along to stay in the loop of the festivities on these social media channels, @DrStevenGundry on Instagram, Dr. Gundry on Facebook, and @GundryMD on Instagram. Let’s get this polyphenol party started folks. Join me on July 11th, National Polyphenol Day.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (01:45)
The Dr. Gundry podcast is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Let’s face it, sometimes multitasking can be overwhelming, like when your favorite podcast is playing and the person next to you is talking and your car fan is blasting all while you’re trying to find the perfect parking spot.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (02:00)
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Dr. Steven Gundry: (02:57)
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Dr. Steven Gundry: (03:33)
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Dr. Steven Gundry: (04:15)
Let’s talk about the three worst fasting trends. All right, fasting is the health trend du jour, no doubt. And that’s why there’s a lot of misinformation out there about this ancient health practice and a cornerstone of almost every religion to achieve enlightenment. Everyone is talking about it, but not everyone knows the dangerous side effects if you don’t fast correctly. Now don’t get me wrong, fasting is one of the keys to longevity and vitality, but you need to know how to do it properly in order to reap the maximum benefits. So today I’m going to address the top three fasting trends to avoid at all costs and what you can do instead.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (05:03)
All right, number one, cutting your window of eating too drastically. Now, if you read any of my books, my favorite way to fast is intermittent fasting or time controlled eating. Now, that basically says that we are going to shorten the period of time during the day that we consume our food. That’s intermittent fasting. Time controlled eating means we shorten that window, preferably down to about six to eight hours a day. Now, as I talk about a lot in Unlocking the Keto Code, unfortunately, if you are used to eating 12 to 16 hours every day, and the average American, believe it or not, eats 16 hours a day, literally from the minute they get up to the minute they go to bed. And as I show in my last two books, most of us are insulin resistant and metabolically inflexible. That means when you stop eating, normally you should be able to, instead of using glucose as a fuel, sugar, use free fatty acids, fat as a fuel, but the vast majority of us can’t do that.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (06:26)
And when we stop eating, within a few hours, our glucose stores fall dramatically. That could be compensated by using fat as a fuel. But most of us can’t use fat as a fuel, so we crash. We get headache-y, we get grouchy, we get dizzy, we get worse. And that’s why so many people fail at time restricted eating. Now, as I talk about in my last few books, what I want you to do, if you want to do this is gradually decrease the amount of time that you eat your food. So for instance, if you eat breakfast at seven o’clock in the morning, this next week, let’s eat breakfast at eight o’clock in the morning. I just want you to wait one more hour. Accomplish that, take the weekend off.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (07:19)
The next week we’ll do nine o’clock in the morning, that’s just one more hour. Gradually work your way out to about a six to eight hour eating window. That means eat breakfast at 11 o’clock in the morning, finish dinner at seven o’clock at night. That’s an eight hour window. Want to compress it to six? Eat breakfast at noon, finish dinner at six o’clock. Fantastic health benefits, but you don’t jump off a 10 story building to do that. I’ve seen it fail so many times. Just avoid that at all costs.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (07:56)
All right, how about a prolonged water fast? Now, of course, this is the most well known, historically speaking, approach to fasting. Even Jesus has said to have done it for 40 days and 40 nights. And almost all great religions have some form of prolonged water fasting. There is clearly benefits in ancient times to water fasting, but not so fast. Excuse the pun. Most of us store our heavy metals and organopesticides in our fat cells. So when we stop eating anything for a continued period of time, we release not only fat from our fat cells, but those heavy metals and organopesticides. We have a horrible detoxification system in our liver to eliminate these problems. In fact, Ray Walford, the famous UCLA professor, who was the doctor on the Biosphere two experiments in the Arizona desert, documented in that group of people who literally starved for six months, their levels of heavy metals and organopesticides went up dramatically and remained dramatically high for a year following re-eating. That’s because they put them into their bloodstream and they couldn’t get rid of them.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (09:33)
So right now, for Americans, water fasting is dangerous because of that fact. Now, if you want to do that, understanding the risk, you want to absorb those heavy metals and organic pesticides by taking chlorella tablets and activated charcoal that will bind those heavy metals and prevent them from being reabsorbed into your system. But you don’t need a prolonged water fast. Instead time controlled, intermittent fasting will have just as good an effect. Or as my friend and colleague, Dr. Walter Longo has shown, a fasting mimicking diet which uses a five day low calorie vegan fast once a month has been shown to duplicate the ability of a water fast in terms of health benefits without the danger of the heavy metal and organopesticide release. So a lot better and safer ways than a water fast.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (10:52)
All right, and the drum roll, please, for the worst fasting mistake that I have seen, the fruit fasting detox diet. Most of you have heard of this, it’s basically all you do is for three to seven days, drink or eat lots and lots of fruit, lots and lots of fruit juices. I know, it’s touted to clean out your system, help you lose weight and reset your digestive system. But I think this is actually the worst idea. Just remember fruit is loaded with fructose, fruit sugar. Fructose is the best way to cause uric acid to increase in our blood, which causes gout and kidney stones and high blood pressure and diabetes.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (11:53)
I’ve had several patients recently go on these fasts for fun, as an experiment. And we looked at their blood work before and after, and they were shocked, every one of them to look at their triglyceride numbers go sky high, to look at their liver enzymes, go sky high. These were liver detox diets, and yet their liver enzymes got worse. Their uric acid levels went sky high. And one of them doing it for a month became a diabetic. So please you do not need a fruit detox. This is the worst way, in my opinion, to detoxify your diet. If you want to, do a vegan fast, like I write about in all my books, you’re going to be much better off and much safer. Now, I highly recommend that you check out chapter five in my new book, Unlocking the Keto Code for the latest studies on the most effective fasting practices.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (13:03)
Do these drinks dissolve your teeth? Well, as you know, gut health is certainly trending, but we tend to overlook the very important microbiome in our bodies, in our mouth, the oral microbiome. And it’s the first contact your body has with the outside world. So it’s critical to keep your oral microbiome healthy. So let’s take a look at the three worst drinks for your teeth and mouth. Soda. Yes, even diet soda. Soda is loaded with acid and phosphates that are really good at dissolving enamel, number one. I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and my next door neighbor was a professor of chemistry at the University of Nebraska Omaha. And he used to do a fun experiment for his son and me in his kitchen. And he would take a bottle of Coca-Cola and he would take a tooth that he got from dentist in the local area and put the tooth into the glass of Coca-Cola and watch, to our shock, that the tooth would be eaten away by the Coca-Cola.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (14:26)
That made a tremendous impression on me for a little while. And then of course, as a surgeon, I began drinking eight glasses of Diet Coke a day. I guess I forgot that lesson. But these things are really good at dissolving enamel. Plus, the phosphates in many of these sodas have been implicated in producing osteoporosis, and who wants that? And remember, almost all diet sodas, not only have that acid load, but they’re also loaded with artificial sweeteners, which destroy your gut microbiome. So if you want to destroy your mouth and your microbiome simultaneously, have all the sodas and diet sodas you want. Juice, now juice is just another fancy way for mainlining sugar, particularly fructose. We now know that bacteria in our gut and yeast in our gut, Candida, absolutely feast on fructose. They prefer fructose even more than glucose. So fruit juices are loaded with fructose.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (15:47)
They also impair the ability of your white blood cells to engulf bacteria. And we want our white blood cells to be able to engulf bacteria, obviously. So just drinking juice fills your mouth and your gut with fructose gives bad bacteria, bad fungi, the things they want, and then impairs your immune system’s ability to fight those bad bacteria that you unleash. Interestingly enough, long ago, my wife and I practiced a raw food diet for about a year. And quite frankly, got to know a lot of raw foodists, a lot of very famous, raw food chefs, many, not all of these raw foodists and chefs gave up raw food because so much of a raw food diet is fruit based. And these people had huge dental cavities, had huge amounts of gingivitis because of the amount of fruit that they had in their diet. And it’s always reminded me that be careful that we are not frugavores, we are not supposed to subsist on fruit. And fruit is a really good way of destroying your gums and your teeth.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (17:18)
Similarly, sports drinks. Sports drinks are loaded with usually sugar, artificial dyes. Have you noticed many of them seem to glow in the dark? These dyes have no place in food. They’re more and more regulated. We are now finding that these dyes are increasingly toxic, they’re toxic to our immune system, they’re toxic to us and they’re toxic to a healthy microbiome. So, stay away from the sports drinks.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (17:58)
Now, what are the two best options for your teeth and oral microbiome? Well, number one, you’ve heard me say this before, and I have no relationship with them, San Pellegrino mineral water. San Pellegrino I love for two reasons. Number one, it has the highest sulfur content of any mineral water. It also has been tested to have the lowest number of impurities of any mineral water tested. Sulfur is incredibly good for our oral and gut microbiome. It serves as a base for many postbiotics, including hydrogen sulfide, which is actually incredibly good for your blood vessels. Now, please avoid other carbonated waters, like La Croix or others. Italy has a law that the pH in waters have to be balanced in carbonated waters. France and other countries, including the United States have no laws to balance the acidity in carbonated beverages.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (19:09)
So those of you who are using your soda makers at home, please get rid of that, that’s not a health benefit. You want San Pellegrino. My personal opinion is if you want a drink like a cola, pour a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar, or other vinegars for that matter, apple cider vinegar, in your San Pellegrino, you’ll have a refreshing cola or sports drink that’s going to benefit you. And the short chain fatty acids and polyphenols in vinegar are going to benefit your microbiome. And more importantly, your mitochondria.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (19:55)
All right, tea. I have a great tea that promotes healthy teeth and gums called Brassica Tea made out of a component in broccoli and broccoli sprouts. Yes, sounds terrible, but Brassica Tea made by the Baltimore Coffee and Tea Company. And I have no relationship. Brassica Tea has been shown to have really fascinating anti-cancer properties. Brassica Tea was patented by John’s Hopkins, and all of my cancer patients I prescribe Brassica Tea, and I have it in my office and it’s part of my daily routine as well.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (20:41)
Matcha tea. Matcha, If you get it from Japan, rather than China is a great way of getting the full benefit of green tea, plus it’s loaded with chlorophyll as well. Be careful, there are many additives in Chinese matcha tea that I think we need to be aware of. White Willow Bark Tea. White Willow Bark Tea, many of you may know that contains a small amount of salicylic acid. And fun fact, we need a small amount of salicylic acid, that’s aspirin, to activate long chain omega-3 fats into anti-inflammatory compounds called resolvins. Now, there is not going to be a test on this, but I actually have White Willow Bark Tea every day in my tea.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (21:37)
What do you do about staining of teeth? Well, I can tell you my dental hygienist just loves to see me coming because I get a lot of tea stains on my teeth and she thinks it’s just great fun. Her trick, which I sometimes remember to do is after you drink your tea or after you drink your coffee, have a glass of water or have some San Pellegrino, it’s actually the foaming action really helps remove that stain. Okay, to sum it up, put that soda, sports drink or juice down right now and pick up a spot of tea or a San Pellegrino for a beautiful smile and more importantly, a happy oral microbiome.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (22:29)
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Dr. Steven Gundry: (23:36)
Simply glide the small handheld device slowly along the cheek, nose and over the brow area for five minutes and voila, quick relief for up to six hours. So say goodbye to harsh chemicals and nasty sprays and give clear up a try with a 60 day risk free trial and use promo code Gundry22 for $20 off, plus free shipping on your clear up. Again, that’s T-I-V-I-C health dot com, and promo code Gundry22 to receive $20 off plus free shipping on your Clear Up device.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (24:15)
Did you know traditional mouth washes can be extremely damaging to your health? Yes, it’s true. Most mainstream mouth washes contain alcohol, which kills off both the good and bad bacteria in your oral microbiome. These laden mouth washes have even been proven to lead to diabetes. This is why I’m such a huge fan of oil pulling. Oil pulling is an ancient Ayurvedic practice of gargling with oil to clean the mouth and freshen breath. Aside from gargling with olive oil, I love gargling with Guru Nanda’s Coconut and Mint Pulling Oil. This pulling oil is free of synthetic chemicals, preservatives, artificial colors, fragrances, and GMOs. So you no longer have to worry about harming your oral microbiome.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (24:59)
It is so important you make the change today because the right oral care is crucial to your overall wellbeing. Guru Nanda is offering something special for our listeners. For a limited time, you can save three dollars off each bottle purchased exclusively at Walmart. To redeem, grab your Guru Nanda Pulling Oil at Walmart and check out using the 51 Savings app. That’s not all. Guru Nanda also likes to treat his friends so he is giving away $500 gift cards. Just go to GuruNanda.com/win for your chance to win a $500 Walmart gift card.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (25:41)
You all probably heard me speak about my favorite blue light glasses from the company BLUblox. Well, I have some exciting news, BLUblox has rebranded and is now called BON CHARGE. BON CHARGE now has a huge range of products that are founded by science and inspired by nature to help you optimize your life in every way. Their premium wellness products can help you recover faster, reduce inflammation, sleep better, and so much more. Besides their blue blocking glasses, one of my favorite products from BON CHARGE is their Remedy Blackout Sleep Mask. Since using this sleep mask, I’ve been able to sleep throughout the night without waking up once. I even use it while I meditate and it’s helped me so much with my focus. This game changing sleep mask as adjustable eye cups so that they can be the perfect fit for anyone. And the best part is no matter how you sleep, the mask has been designed to be completely comfortable in all positions.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (26:39)
Aside from their sleep mask, BON CHARGE also offers red light therapy devices and EMF blocking products for phones and laptops that are all backed by science. To celebrate their rebrand, BON CHARGE have a 25% off rebrand sale happening right now until the end of June 2022. Go to BONCHARGE.com and use coupon code B-O-N-C-H-A-R-G-E to save 25%. That’s B-O-N-C-H-A-R-G-E dot com and use the coupon code BON CHARGE to save 25%.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (27:20)
A-K-K-E-R-M-A-N-S-I-A. Say it with me now, Akkermansia. And if you have been listening to our great show, you will know that Akkermansia is the MVP, best friends forever, good gut buddy. Pendulum is the first and only company to offer probiotics containing the strain I’ve been talking about for years, they’re patented Akkermansia muciniphila bacterial strain in a standalone probiotic or in pendulum glucose control designed for people with type two diabetes. Right now you can head over to www.PendulumLife.com and use my code Gundry20 a checkout for a 20% discount on your first month. It’s very important to know that we lose Akkermansia as we age. And the only way to introduce it back into your body is through pendulums’ Akkermansia probiotic, since you can’t get it from any foods. Don’t let this holy grail of microbiome health get away, get some Pendulum Akkermansia probiotics for yourself. It can really have a dramatic impact on the health of your microbiome, which equates to total wellness.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (28:32)
Right now, pendulum is offering a 20% discount on the first month of an Akkermansia membership with the code Gundry20. Go to www.PendulumLife.com and use my code Gundry20 at checkout. That’s P-E-N-D-U-L-U-M-L-I-F-E dot com, and use my code Gundry20 for a 20% discount on your first month.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (29:00)
We’re going to do some deep dives into what I think are some of the most important takeaways and concepts from the energy paradox. And this is for you. So let’s start off with the first topic that probably underlies the energy paradox, and that is your mitochondria and why your mitochondria might be the most important thing in your life that you probably didn’t even know existed. So what are mitochondria? Mitochondria are known as the energy producing organelles that live in almost all the cells in your body, with a couple of exceptions. There’ll be a test at the end of all this, no, there won’t. But if you want to ACE the test, red blood cells don’t have any mitochondria. So as soon as you finish watching this, go amaze your friends, ask them what cell doesn’t have any mitochondria, and you’ll be ready, red blood cells. So your blood cells don’t have mitochondria.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (30:08)
So mitochondria are fascinating. Many, many years ago, we think about two billion years ago, ancient bacteria were eaten or engulfed by other cells. And rather than, if you will, being eaten alive, that bacteria thought it was a pretty nice place inside this other cell. And in exchange for nutrients from that other cell, the bacteria made energy for that cell in the form of ATP, adenosine triphosphate. And that’s the energy currency that you spend every day to power everything that goes on in you. So without ATP, I got news for you, you are dead. And without mitochondria functioning, right, you are either dead or all of the things that we think is just a process of getting old, like our energy levels slowing down, our thinking slowing down, can all be traced back to your mitochondria and how well they function.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (31:29)
The second important point is that your mitochondria, because they actually are ancient bacteria, are viewed by your immune system as ancient bacteria. And if for one reason or another, that you’ll learn about in The Energy Paradox, the cell dies or mitochondria are actually spit out of the cell for not doing work properly. Your immune system can think you’re literally infected by bacteria, even though they’re your own mitochondria. So it’s really important to realize their ancient origins. Now what’s really interesting about mitochondria is that they have their own DNA, and they can divide separate than when the cell divides. We all remember cell division where all the chromosomes separated and then came back together and you made two cells from one. Well, the mitochondria can do that inside the cell. So for instance, let’s suppose there’s a hundred mitochondria in a cell and believe it or not, there can be thousands in muscle cells. There can be thousands in your heart muscle cells, there can be thousands in a neuron.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (32:57)
You can actually make several hundred more, several thousand more, using the tricks that we’re going to talk about in this masterclass. And that’s one of the real keys to getting you more energy, because quite frankly, the more mitochondria you make, the more energy you make. And believe it or not, the better functioning your mitochondria will be. So that’s why, bottom line taking care of your mitochondria is job number one. And there’s lots of ways of taking care of mitochondria. But I first want to talk about why we have not been taking care of mitochondria.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (33:42)
So mitochondria essentially are a system with inner and outer membranes. And in between this inner and outer membrane exists what’s called the electron transport chain. And there’s an old joke in science that the only purpose of life is to move an electron from one level of charge to another. And interestingly enough, that actually probably is correct. In this electron transport chain, and you remember in the book we talk about electrons and protons. And hopefully everybody remembers high school biology where protons are part positively charged particles and electrons are negatively charged particles. And batteries have a positive end, have a negative end. And electricity energy moves from one charge to the next charge. And in the process of the electron transport chain, electrons are moved along the mitochondria and kind of like a game of hot potato where it’s tossed from one carrier to another. And in the process, protons, which are contributed believe it or not by the food you eat are also bouncing around inside this chamber. And the protons are desperately trying to get out.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (35:31)
And the way this chamber is designed is there’s essentially only one place for the proton to get out. And that’s at the final end of this chamber. And the protons, which are bouncing around, they’re trying to get out, they’re pushing on the walls, get me out of here. They see an exit. And when they go through this exit, it’s actually a turnstile, it’s a revolving door. And as they go through this exit and almost down a winding staircase, just like water powers a water wheel in a mill, you generate ATP from those protons escaping this chamber. And that’s actually what a mitochondria does for you. Now, here’s the problem. Mitochondria can get the substrates for doing all this from essential from essentially three macronutrients. They can get it from carbohydrates, which are sugars. They can get it from proteins and they can get it from fats. Now, each of these has a slightly different way that it enters the electron transport chain, and it has a slightly different method of producing energy.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (37:03)
Now, what’s fascinating if you think about it, is we’re actually a beautiful design to deliver these energy making components to mitochondria at different times, rather than crowding in all at once. So most of the time when we eat a whole food meal, in general carbohydrates, let’s just call them sugars are absorbed first. And they’re taken to your mitochondria as primarily glucose and there they’re converted into ATP. Okay, so far so good. Proteins take a much longer time to digest and to be broken down into individual amino acids, which are then absorbed and can either be used for building cell walls, building muscle, repairing tissues, or if you’ve got an excess, they too can enter into energy production into your mitochondria. So they would come in general after the sugar has been down the electron transport chain.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (38:32)
And then there’s fat. Most fat is actually not absorbed directly into your bloodstream, unlike proteins and unlike sugars. Fats hop on a big fluffy moving van called chylomicrons. And this fluffy moving van doesn’t enter the bloodstream, but instead enters the lymphatic system. And most of us have heard about the lymph system. The lymph system picks up fats from your gut. In fact, if you were to eat a fatty meal and I was in your chest, I could actually watch this fatty meal coming up from your gut in some very big lymph channels. Some of which can be as big as my little finger. And enter your vena cava, your superior vena cava, or your innominate vein and dump into your bloodstream. And that actually takes a while. So fat in general arrives much later for processing to make energy, or if all of your energy needs have been met by sugar and protein, then fat is directly taken to your fat cells and deposited as fat.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (40:06)
So in general, the way you were designed is the mitochondria should really only have to worry about one energy substrate at a time. But what’s happened in our modern diet through the use of ultra processed foods, processed foods, turning something that was whole. Let’s use an example like cassava. So cassava, if you sat around and ate it as a cooked root, I can guarantee you that simple starch would take a remarkable long time to be digested and arrive as sugar at your mitochondria. But if you take something as wonderful, say, as cassava and make it into a fine powder, you will digest that starch instantaneously. And it will arrive quicker than you could possibly imagine to your mitochondria.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (41:09)
The same thing has happened with grains. Back when people actually ate grains whole, it took a significant amount of time to break down all the walls in that grain to get to the starch. But now when we grind even wheat into a white powder, that powder becomes sugar in your bloodstream faster than if you actually ate table sugar, which takes actually longer to digest than white flour. So there’s an old saying that a white powder is poisonous, and there’s nothing truer about that. Even if say the white powder doesn’t have any lectins in it, anything that we make more quickly digestible is heading right for your mitochondria.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (42:07)
So imagine what happens when you take proteins and break them all apart and make protein isolates, amino acid peptides, sugars that are now in powdered form and you emulsify fats so that they’re picked up simultaneously. Now you have all three components arriving at your mitochondria for processing simultaneously and living in the LA area that is rush hour on the freeways. And as you know, during rush hour things, traffic flow comes to a stop or barely moves, and people get angry and there’s road rage. Well, the same thing happens with your mitochondria. And your mitochondria literally sputtered to a stop, or the mitochondria says, “This is ridiculous. I can’t handle all this traffic. I’ve got to put some stops into place to stop myself from being harmed.”
Dr. Steven Gundry: (43:27)
So think of those as on ramps to the freeway with stoplights, and we only let a certain number of cars onto the freeway at a certain time. Your mitochondria are so elegant that they’ve designed systems to prevent you from overpowering them. Now, sadly, those systems are a series of fat molecules that are called ceramides. Many of you may have heard of ceramides because there are a number of cosmetic products with ceramides, they’re used to plump the skin. And ceramides actually thicken cell walls. So one of the mitochondrial defenses is to make ceramides on cells, particularly fat cells. To number one, try to keep sugar and protein from even coming in. But number two, the fat cells keep getting fatter and fatter. And believe it or not fat cells can burst. And if they burst that actually produces inflammation. So the fat cell, to try to hold things in is actually producing ceramides to toughen things up.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (44:56)
There’s a beautiful paper that I refer to in The Energy Paradox called Death By Ceramides. And sadly, if you look at people with high levels of ceramides, it correlates extremely well with dementia, with Alzheimer’s, with heart disease, with diabetes. Now, where do ceramides come from? Well, again, they’re manufactured from certain fats. And the main fat that makes ceramides is called palmitate, palmitic acid. Now you hear the word palm and palm oil is a source of palmitic acid, but you manufacture most of your palmitate from, get ready for this, fructose, fruit, sugar. Fructose is manufactured in your liver. Sorry. Palmitate is manufactured in your liver from fructose. And it’s got a fancy name called de novo lipogenesis and it turns out that your liver, if it’s inundated with fructose, will turn it into fat.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (46:25)
No, I’m not making this up. Fructose in your liver makes fat, it makes palmitate, it’s taken to cells, particularly fat cells where it’s made into these waxy compounds called ceramides. And the more ceramides you have, the worse your mitochondria are going to work, the worse your brain is going to work, the worse your heart is going to work. And there’s no reason that paper isn’t called Death By Ceramides. So that’s one of the reasons I’ve told you to increase your energy levels. Number one, give fruit the boot. And secondly, we’ve got to stop constantly inundating our mitochondria with all three energy substrates simultaneously. And as we get along in this master class, you’ll get to see all the tricks that we’re going to use to stop on a daily basis bombarding with your mitochondria.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (47:29)
One of the things we’ve learned from COVID-19 in LA is that during COVID-19, there’s been far fewer cars and trucks and buses on the road. And as someone who has to drive through LA multiple times a week, I can tell you the only pleasant thing about COVID is we have far less traffic, far less rush hour. And if we view my commute as my ability to make energy. So I want you to think about that. I want you to think of rush hour. I want you to think of a traffic jam and think that every time you eat things that are easier to digest or are predigested, you are slamming your poor energy making factories, the mitochondria with more than they can handle, and they’ll protect themselves from you by making ceramides that will do you in inadvertently. And that’s why mitochondria are your number one resource.
Heather Dubrow: (48:45)
Hi everyone. It’s Heather Dubrow telling you to check out Heather Dubrow’s World on Podcast One. Every week we discuss the hippest, hottest, newest trends in health, wellness, parenting style, and so much more. Including all things housewives and botched. Download new episodes of Heather Dubrow’s World on Thursdays and Fridays on Podcast One, apple podcasts, Spotify and Amazon music.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (49:16)
Now it’s time for our audience question. This question comes from one of my YouTube subscribers. They said, “Hey, Dr. G, thank you so much for this useful information. I have a question. Is it good for our health to drink water, tea, coffee, while eating? Shall we drink water before the meal? Or is it better to drink after, a couple hours after? Thank you.” This is actually a really good question and it comes up all the time. One of the things I like to do, particularly if I know I’m going to go to a social function, or I know I’m going to go out to dinner, I usually have a big glass of water or iced tea about an hour before I go. That has a really good effect on making me fuller and in a way, not as hungry as when I arrive.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (50:10)
Interestingly enough, there is some evidence that drinking water with a meal, dilutes your digestive enzymes, and may make your ability to digest food not quite as good. On the other hand, the idea of drinking water or any other beverage with a meal does increase the size of your stomach and may actually slow down gastric emptying. So it’s kind of more cultural than anything, but one thing to have fun with is try not having anything to drink with your meal and see if you notice a difference, notice a difference in your satiety, notice a difference in your belly fullness. Again, this is your body. Try and experiment with it and see what you think. And I’ll tell you what, when you do the experiment, write me and tell me what you find. So that’s a great question.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (51:16)
Now it’s time for the review of the week. This week’s review comes from David Solas who enjoyed my interview with Katherine Arnston. He said, “Fantastic and important podcast. Thanks Dr. Gundry. And you’re very informative guest trying to save lives. God bless.” Well, thank you, David, for writing in. I’m glad you enjoyed that one. Certainly a very enthusiastic guest and we like enthusiasm when talking about health. And I hope you’re as enthusiastic about your health as I am about bringing you your health tips because I’m Dr. Gundry, and I’m always looking out for you. We’ll see you next week.
Dr. Steven Gundry: (51:58)
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.
