Latest / To Your Good Health / Super Body with Dr. William Davis

Transcript

Super Body with Dr. William Davis · To Your Good Health

0:00
David Friedman, BS: Hello, This is Dr.
0:00
David Friedman, host of to Ood Health Radio.
0:03
Here's a sobering reality check autoimmune disease.
0:06
is an, it is an all time high in cardiovascular disease, still remains
0:10
the number one killer, and we're seeing a massive rise in obesity,
0:14
diabetes, depression, brain fog, and.
0:17
Chronic fatigue.
0:18
But what if I told you that a big piece of this puzzle traces back to one place?
0:23
Your gut, your microbiome isn't just about digestion.
0:27
It helps coordinate your immune system, your heart, hormones,
0:30
mood, and your metabolism.
0:32
Sadly, the modern diet has been quietly destroying our gut for decades.
0:38
Joining us next is Dr.
0:39
William Davis, a listener favorite, making his fifth appearance on
0:43
the show, and every time he's here, he leaves everyone reath.
0:46
Thinking their food choices, their medicine cabinets, and
0:49
their entire approach to health.
0:50
And today we're discussing his latest book, super Body.
0:54
You may not be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but Dr.
0:58
Davis is here to transform your inner Clark Kent into Super Body.
1:03
Don't go anywhere.
1:04
The conversation could be the turning point your health has been
1:07
waiting for, and it all starts now.
1:20
Our next guest is a board-certified cardiologist, a relentless health
1:23
advocate, and one of the most influential voices in functional
1:27
and nutritional medicine.
1:29
He's the number one New York Times bestselling author behind the popular
1:33
Wheat Belly series of books, which have empowered millions to reclaim
1:37
their health by rethinking what's on their plate as a true pioneer
1:40
in microbiome based therapies.
1:42
He's the co-founder and chief medical officer of.
1:45
Realize therapeutics a company dedicated to advancing cutting-edge
1:49
research into microbiome science.
1:52
He's al also the creator behind the Popular Dr.
1:54
Davis Infinite Health website And the host of Defiant Health Radio podcast.
1:59
I'm excited to have him back to discuss his latest book, Superbody,
2:03
A three week program to harness the new science of body composition
2:07
and restore your youthful contours.
2:10
Welcome back to the show, Dr.
2:11
William Davis.
2:12
William Davis, MD: Thank you, Dr.
2:13
Friedman.
2:13
Always glad to be back.
2:15
David Friedman, BS: Yeah, congrats on your book.
2:16
Now, last time you were here, we teased the listeners about Superbody was coming
2:20
out and I was lucky to get my hands on a pre-published copy and an excellent book.
2:24
Now it's available.
2:25
We can dive in and first share what you, you've built this legacy writing
2:28
about weak grains and gut health.
2:30
What motivated you to go into full Superbody restoration?
2:34
William Davis, MD: You know, a number of things, including
2:36
I started to see dramatic improvements in the way people look.
2:41
They're shape and body compass.
2:42
But it's all been brought to a head.
2:44
Unfortunately, in the shadow of this horrible trend of people adopting the
2:51
GLP one agonist drugs, what they're not being told, they're told that,
2:55
yeah, you take this drug, you may pay thousands of dollars per month, but
2:58
you're gonna lose all kinds of weight.
2:59
You look great.
3:00
woman's gonna fit in a size six, stress, all that sort of thing.
3:03
What they're not told, of course, is that of the weight you lose.
3:07
And This is true not just of GLP and agonists, it's true of any method
3:11
that involves reducing calories.
3:12
We could call it a diet program.
3:15
We could call it a bariatric procedure like lap band or gastric bypass, or
3:20
we could call it wegovy or Mounjaro.
3:23
But they're all variations on the same theme, which is to
3:26
reduce your intake of calories.
3:28
And we have the advantage now.
3:31
Of 20 years of science that has made it crystal clear when you reduce calorie
3:36
intake, yes, you'll lose weight.
3:38
In the beginning, and of that weight, 25% will be muscle.
3:44
Now that has long-term implications.
3:46
We now know great science from our own national Institutes of health.
3:50
The NIH.
3:51
They have done several studies very, in other words, not biased
3:54
by the interests of big pharma that are exploitative and predatory.
3:59
So the NIH has published now several, including a study
4:02
called The Biggest Loser Study.
4:04
Where they took people who graduated the eighth season of that TV show
4:09
2015, and measured their basal metabolic rate, That is the rate
4:13
at which their bodies burn energy.
4:15
And they showed that at the time of leaving the show, their basal
4:19
metabolic rate was 27% reduced.
4:22
That is they needed fewer calories because your body is smart.
4:26
It thinks you're starving when you take in fewer calories, And in this case,
4:31
engage in extreme exercise efforts.
4:34
Your body thinks you're living in the wild and you're starving.
4:37
So to keep you alive, it cuts back on its energy requirements.
4:41
Now they test these people at time of graduation, And then remarkably, six years
4:46
later, And that reduction in BMR and base metabolic rate persisted for six years.
4:52
For all practical purposes, it's a long-term, perhaps a permanent effect.
4:56
So I talked to one of the graduates.
4:58
I talked to the guy, Danny Cahill, very graciously talked to me.
5:01
He was the winner.
5:03
He won the $250,000 prize 'cause he lost 239 pounds.
5:10
2
5:11
David Friedman, BS: Wow.
5:11
William Davis, MD: pounds.
5:12
Yeah, in seven months.
5:14
You know this idea that people are obese 'cause they're lazy and over
5:17
well, this guy was incredibly committed.
5:21
800 calories per day, as many as six hours per day.
5:24
Six hours per day of exercise.
5:27
Aerobic and resistance training loses that extraordinary amount of weight.
5:30
He looks terrific.
5:31
And by the way, all the other graduates on stage were all wearing Spanx underneath
5:36
their clothes because they had such extensive loose skin flaps that are
5:40
often surgically removed, by the way.
5:42
Anyway, he leaves the show, he goes home, he tells me he kept up a two
5:47
hours per day, six days a week exercise, program resistance and aerobic,
5:53
maintained a low calorie lifestyle.
5:56
Regained all the weight.
5:58
And he'd go back every year to the reunion that the producers of the TV show would
6:01
host, and he saw all the other graduates doing the same, all regaining the weight.
6:06
And that's because when you lose muscle, your basal metabolic rate drops.
6:11
And even if you maintain a very strangest program, you will regain the.
6:16
And you'll regain it as fat, not as muscle.
6:20
So we know, for instance, in the Geo pig one agonist data such as the large
6:26
UK wilding study that people took, semaglutide lost huge amounts of weight.
6:32
It does work when they stopped the drug.
6:35
'cause most people can't afford it forever.
6:36
It's very expensive.
6:37
They regained most of the weight as almost nearly all fat.
6:42
And if you went back and compared.
6:44
How many type two diabetics, pre-diabetics, people with hypertension,
6:48
fatty liver, et cetera, resulted at the end of the experience off the drug.
6:54
There were more.
6:55
After the weight loss than there were before.
6:59
And we also know from great evidence from the NIH when that happens.
7:02
We now have NIH data, NHANES data, epic Norfolk data aspirate large databases
7:10
of people who've engaged in weight loss by reducing calories in aggregate.
7:14
60,000 people we now know.
7:17
That you're going to die several years younger.
7:21
So the FDA approved a class of drugs that yes, achieved near term weight loss,
7:28
generate guaranteed fat regain, and you're likely to die several years younger.
7:34
And your last few years are not glorious years.
7:38
They're plagued by falls.
7:40
Fractures, frailty, loss of independence, acceleration of cognitive
7:45
impairment, And then death several years before you should have died.
7:49
This is what the conventional answer has gotten us.
7:51
David Friedman, BS: Yeah.
7:51
I'm so glad you brought that up because I've been finding there's an
7:54
increase in hip fractures in elderly that are going on these, JLP ones,
7:58
because as you mentioned, they're losing their muscular ability and they
8:02
fall and it's, yeah, they look thin.
8:04
But you know what, so does a corpse, so it you, it's not just looking thin.
8:09
You gotta be healthy.
8:10
Right.
8:11
William Davis, MD: Dr.
8:11
Friedman so far, recently 3000 lawsuits have been filed against the
8:17
manufacturers, the GLP one agonists.
8:19
Many of them, by the way, for optic neuritis.
8:22
People who have gone blind on those drugs as well as bowel obstruction,
8:26
a surgical emergency, thyroid cancer, intractable gastroparesis
8:31
where the stomach is paralyzed.
8:32
Those two, but also blindness.
8:34
I'm waiting to see, I'm sad to say, sad to say I'm waiting
8:38
for the class action suits.
8:40
When people start to recognize, as you point out, you stop the drug or you take
8:45
it for long enough, it's not all roses.
8:48
It's a deterioration of health.
8:50
Programmed premature death yet Pharma pockets, billions of dollars to do this.
8:56
And we have colleagues dispensing this stuff like candy 'cause
8:59
they did not read the science.
9:01
They don't understand what's happening.
9:03
They just think the near term weight loss is good enough.
9:06
David Friedman, BS: Yeah, and something I'll share.
9:08
I had a patient come in yesterday.
9:09
I hadn't seen her in about a year and didn't recognize her.
9:12
She looks 20 years older, but you know what?
9:14
She lost 65 pounds on these GLP ones.
9:17
So yeah, she was thinner, but they call it what Ozempic face.
9:20
They're getting older looking And pads in their, it was like, you know
9:23
what, I'd rather look 20 years older and have some excess weight than I
9:27
would be looking like an old woman.
9:28
And she's young.
9:29
And it was like, ah, it's awful.
9:31
Like you said, you gotta do it in, a conscious effort.
9:33
And one other thing, you, mentioned in your book is conventional dieters.
9:36
the GLP ones the popular now, but man, there's some conventional diets
9:40
out there that work against us.
9:42
is that failing?
9:43
Why are they missing the mark?
9:44
William Davis, MD: Probably 'cause of this same, this, theme that runs
9:47
through all most methods of losing weight That is the loss of muscle.
9:51
So recall, your listeners will recall that if you lose 25% of
9:55
your, the weight loss as muscle.
9:57
Muscle on a geo agonist or bariatric procedure or on a diet program, it
10:02
compounds the weight loss of aging.
10:06
In other words, from age 30 to age 65, 70, you lost about a third
10:09
of your muscle, which is a lot.
10:11
You accelerate, you amplify that effect with these efforts to lose weight.
10:16
And of course, as someone, yo-yo dieted, which is a lot of people, right?
10:19
Every time you lose more muscle.
10:22
And we know muscle is we need to guard muscle like gold.
10:27
It's so valuable, so important to health.
10:29
'cause we see the people who can't go up a flight of stairs, who can't
10:33
get in and out of a car easily, who can't carry their own groceries,
10:36
who use a cane walker or motorized scooter just to go grocery shopping.
10:41
They can't.
10:42
And.
10:43
What's happened in this world is we've accelerated.
10:45
We've increased the number of people who are going to succumb
10:48
to those kinds of conditions.
10:50
Yet is a tough trend to reverse 'cause too many people are making oodles of money.
10:56
It's pharma, of course, but it's also plastic surgeons, dermatologists.
11:02
Aestheticians and other people who take those people with the ozempic face
11:07
'cause they've lost both subcutaneous fat and muscle in their face.
11:11
They look, as you point out, 20 years older, well now the aestheticians and
11:16
dermatologists and all those people come to their rescue with thousands of
11:20
dollars worth of filler, injections, red light, microneedling, plastic
11:25
surgery, all in effort to undo.
11:28
But you can't undo the health.
11:31
And life shortening effects just by injecting some fillers, eh.
11:34
David Friedman, BS: Yeah, that's so true.
11:36
I know you've been, uh, sounding the alarm about the damaged modern
11:38
microbiome for years, and I'm curious what are the top culprits silently
11:42
destroying our gut health that most people don't suspect, and how is
11:46
that related to our overall, weight?
11:48
It's definitely
11:49
an issue.
11:49
I.
11:49
William Davis, MD: I.
11:49
fear that there's a lot we know and there's a lot we don't know, so obviously.
11:55
While overexposure antibiotics, there's a time and place for antibiotics of
11:59
course, but the CDC tells us that by age 40, most of us have taken 30 course
12:06
of antibiotics for every 1000 children.
12:09
Over 1300 prescriptions for antibiotics are written every year in the us.
12:14
650,000 prescriptions are written for antibiotics every day.
12:20
Now, sometimes it's needed.
12:21
If you have pneumococcal pneumonia, you'd likely need an antibiotic.
12:25
If you had a bladder infection ascended to your kidneys, then enter the bloodstream.
12:28
Sepsis.
12:29
You need an antibiotic, no question.
12:31
But the overuse of antibiotics for such things as a viral respiratory
12:35
infection has led to decimation of the, gastrointestinal microbiome.
12:40
we know with good evidence, very good evidence in humans.
12:43
One antibiotic, let's say seven days worth of cla erythromycin or similar drug.
12:49
Wipes out literally hundreds of species, but not pathogenic species.
12:54
Species that are beneficial to human health species like lactobacillus,
12:58
bifidobacteria, fecal bactam, akkermansia, but they're generally ineffective at
13:04
killing fecal microbes, so antibiotics as well as other factors like glyphosate.
13:11
The active ingredient in the herbicide roundup and other
13:14
herbicides are very good at killing.
13:17
Beneficial microbes and ineffective at killing fecal microbial species.
13:22
These are species that your listeners will recognize.
13:25
E coli.
13:27
Salmonella, Campylobacter because these are also the species,
13:31
by the way, of food poisoning.
13:33
So humans and other mammals they don't adapt to fecal microbes very
13:38
well when they're outside the colon.
13:40
So if you eat a, some food from a fast food joint And the kid went number
13:44
two and didn't wash his hands and contaminated your food or something
13:47
like that, fecal microbes in the upper GI tract make you very sick,
13:51
diarrhea, vomiting, fever, et cetera.
13:54
But likewise, when there's an overpopulation of fecal microbes in
13:58
the colon that's adapted to these fecal microbes, but then because
14:03
their over proliferation, they ascend into the 24 feet of small intestine.
14:06
Small intestine is not well adapted.
14:10
To having trillions of fecal microbes within.
14:13
And the small intestine is by its very nature, very permeable.
14:17
That's where we absorb nutrients.
14:19
But when you have the infestation of trillions of fecal microbes
14:22
increases its permeability, and those fecal microbes release their
14:25
toxic compounds like endotoxins.
14:28
It's part of their cell wall, And that enters the bloodstream endotoxemia,
14:33
and That is a major driver of the expansion of abdominal fat.
14:39
Obesity, type two diabetes, cognitive impairment risk for numerous
14:45
diseases, including as you point out autoimmune diseases which are on
14:48
fire like Hashimoto's thyroiditis.
14:51
In other words, this mess we've created.
14:55
Through antibiotics and other factors has caused the over proliferation.
14:59
By the way, This is applies to over half the US population.
15:02
I used to think this was rare.
15:04
This process that we label small intestinal bacterial overgrowth,
15:08
of course SIBO, we say sibo.
15:10
I thought it was rare until we started looking for it with a consumer device
15:14
that became available a few years ago.
15:15
The AIR device, A IRE, and of course with other forms of formal testing.
15:20
We're seeing that easily easily conservatively, estimated over half
15:25
the US population has this process, but as you know, our conventional
15:30
colleagues don't look for it.
15:32
They'd rather give you a biologic for four to $12,000 a month a month.
15:38
For your rheumatoid arthritis, for your psoriatic arthritis,
15:42
for whatever condition.
15:44
so in other words, if we can address a problem, and it's almost without cost,
15:49
there's no pot of gold, there's no reward, there's no pharma, that's reaping billions
15:55
of dollars for some purported solution.
15:57
And yet, it's important to note that This is a process created by modern
16:01
life, and it's a process we can correct with some basic strategies.
16:05
David Friedman, BS: Yeah, I know some people probably hearing says,
16:07
oh, he mentions, you know, top is antibiotic damage, and they say,
16:10
well, I don't take antibiotics, but.
16:12
They do inadvertently, don't they?
16:13
And admit they could be getting, it's not just that they're going
16:16
out into the pharmacy, they could be getting that elsewhere.
16:18
Correct.
16:19
William Davis, MD: Exactly.
16:20
Meat.
16:20
Yes.
16:21
Other foods.
16:22
Of course, glyphosate is ubiquitous.
16:24
It's in your water, air, hair, skin, clothing.
16:29
How about microplastics?
16:30
We now know with pretty good evidence that microplastics and nanoplastics,
16:33
even small, that you can't see are major disruptors probably of a mucus
16:38
barrier, and it's in your food.
16:40
So one of the most offensive, This is horrible to say, but one of the
16:43
most offensive foods for the presence of microplastics are carrots.
16:48
Apples lettuce.
16:50
So in other words here we think we have a big green salad with extra virgin
16:54
olive oil and some balsamic vinegar, you may be adding a huge burden of
16:59
microplastics to your gastrointestinal tract, And that also has disruptive
17:03
effects as do preservatives.
17:06
Food like sodium benzoate, potassium sorbate.
17:09
They're antimicrobial in your food.
17:10
They keep out mold and fungi, but they also kill off microbes in your GI tract.
17:15
Other, food additives like Polysorbate 80 and carboxy Methylcellulose,
17:19
That is emulsifying agents that emulsify your mucus barrier.
17:23
You know what's, ironically, the prep used for a colonoscopy And the
17:28
cause of hopefully preventing, or at least identifying early colon
17:32
cancer, the prep they use is a major disruptor of a gastrointestinal
17:37
microbiome of an effect that persists days, if not weeks and months.
17:42
So we had this world conspiring to screw up your gastrointestinal microbiome.
17:47
David Friedman, BS: I just got this vision of the firemen putting
17:49
out the fire and there's a little bit of gasoline in the water.
17:53
That's the colonoscopy,
17:57
putting out the fire, but they got gasoline.
17:59
Oh, that's disgusting.
18:00
William Davis, MD: And you know, I don't take this idea that the
18:02
gastroenterology community says, well, you need to have a colonoscopy
18:05
periodically to prevent colon cancer.
18:08
Why aren't they also informing people that the presence of a microbe,
18:13
fusobacterium, nucle, autumn, that got its start in the mouth.
18:17
In people, especially with bleeding gums, gingivitis, periodontitis,
18:21
that this microbe fusobacterium enters the bloodstream And then
18:25
colonize the colon And the evidence, it's hard to prove in a human.
18:28
If I said, Hey to somebody, I'm gonna give you a capsule.
18:31
It could have fusobacterium, nucle, ato, it could be placebo.
18:34
I'm gonna watch you for 10 years to you if you die of colon cancer.
18:37
So no one's gonna do that.
18:39
But we know that Fusobacterium, for instance, if we take a piece of colon
18:42
cancer taken out of somebody's colon.
18:45
It's filled with fusobacterium.
18:47
If we take that same microbe and put it in a mouse or rat's,
18:50
colon, it will get colon cancer.
18:53
So the evidence is pretty good that this microbe.
18:56
Well, if you're gonna purport to prevent colon cancer, why aren't you
18:59
talking about testing saliva and stool for Fusobacterium, especially since
19:05
Fusobacterium is also known to be factor in dementia And in breast cancer.
19:11
David Friedman, BS: I'm glad you brought up the microplastic.
19:12
I read an interesting, story, a study that microplastics every week is a equivalent
19:17
to a credit card that you're consuming.
19:19
That's a lot of plastics we're eating.
19:21
And then you got 97% that they say have high levels of the PFAS forever
19:25
chemicals in their bloodstream in.
19:27
These are linked to not just weight gain, but hormonal chaos and diseases.
19:30
I'm curious, we can't escape them, but is there any low hanging
19:33
fruit changes people can make right now to reduce this exposure?
19:37
William Davis, MD: You know, make an excellent point.
19:39
It's become almost impossible to avoid them.
19:41
All we can hope to do, is to minimize our exposure.
19:45
So do things like, if you have the luxury of a backyard, grow your own vegetables.
19:49
You're not gonna spray.
19:50
Roundup on it.
19:51
You might use some cow manure or, or some other, organic type things.
19:56
Buy whenever you can.
19:57
Organic, even that's not a guarantee, but it does reduce your exposure to,
20:01
to A-P-F-A-S and to microplastics.
20:04
filter drinking water, of course, using a filter, either a charcoal or even better
20:09
reverse osmosis to remove microplastics, pharmaceuticals, heavy metals, et cetera.
20:14
of course try to choose, real foods, not processed ultraprocessed
20:18
foods, which are just havens for those kinds of, ingredients.
20:22
But it is very di it's one of the most difficult things I've ever encountered.
20:26
That is it's e if we wanna go wheat and grain free, that's pretty easy.
20:29
We can accomplish that.
20:30
We wanna limit our sugar.
20:31
Explore.
20:32
Okay, that's pretty easy.
20:33
We wanna supplement Omega-3 fatty acids or vitamin D.
20:36
Okay, that's doable.
20:37
But to minimize exposure to these ubiquitous compounds that are in
20:41
everything from air to water, to clothing, to your kitchen counters,
20:46
to your children's bloodstream, to a newborn's umbilical cord.
20:50
It's everywhere.
20:51
All we can do is try to reduce it.
20:53
David Friedman, BS: Yeah, that makes sense.
20:54
And we talked about autoimmune disease on the rise.
20:57
it's been described as the body attacking itself and, but from
21:00
an evolutionary standpoint, that doesn't make a lot of sense.
21:02
We're talking about a defense system refined over millions of years.
21:06
Why would it suddenly go rogue on the very hostess designed to protect?
21:09
Can you enlighten us on what's actually happening in an immune response?
21:13
William Davis, MD: I know of several factors we could begin to blame.
21:16
One is a shift in the composition of the glide and protein of wheat.
21:20
So this goes back to my wheat belly days, but we know that agribusiness scientists.
21:25
Shifted the composition.
21:27
The, amino acid sequence of the Glidden protein glide is
21:30
the protein within gluten.
21:31
That's one of the truly offensive things in wheat and grains.
21:35
And they changed, they tweak the amino acid sequence to make it more.
21:40
Immunogenic.
21:41
We know this with good confidence that the new forms of lyin protein
21:45
that emerged in the market in 1980s are more effective at generating
21:50
autoimmune disease, and probably now This is a bit speculative and more
21:54
likely to generate the opioid peptides.
21:57
The four or five amino acid long peptide fragments that come from the.
22:03
Partial digestion of the Glidden Pro.
22:05
'cause we can't digest it completely.
22:06
We don't have the enzymes to do that.
22:09
So the glidden proteins reduced to four or five amino acid long peptide fragments
22:14
that do travel to the brain and bind to opioid receptors and activate appetite.
22:20
Their appetite stimulants.
22:22
But the glide protein that's been changed, we know is a more potent
22:26
stimulant of the immune response.
22:28
There's also this, endotoxin endotoxemia problem I mentioned.
22:32
That is when you have a flood of endotoxins, the bloodstream, it tends
22:37
to activate autoimmune diseases.
22:40
So we're seeing a lot more, for instance, Hashimoto's thyroiditis in
22:44
people who have endotoxemia So, Yeah.
22:46
You could give somebody radioactive iodine, you could remove their
22:49
thyroid, all that nasty stuff That is largely inappropriate.
22:53
Or you could just say, well, how did this happen in the first place?
22:56
And one of the things that has to be addressed is this surge in endotoxemia.
23:00
One of the frustrations with documented endotoxemia is the tests we use.
23:05
Tend to be indirect, like breath, measurement of breath, hydrogen gas
23:09
or stool analysis, stool analysis.
23:11
Very helpful, very useful, but it can't be used to locate
23:15
where microbes are dwelling.
23:17
In other words, when you get a stool sample, it's from the rectum.
23:21
It's not from the ileum.
23:22
It's not from the jejunum.
23:23
So we can only, speculate what's going on when we do a stool analysis.
23:27
So it's all indirect.
23:28
The direct test would be a, serum or plasma lipopolysaccharide
23:32
endotoxin measurement.
23:34
Unfortunately, the FDA is seen fit to not allow us to use that.
23:38
Clinically.
23:38
It's available.
23:39
I do it as part of clinical studies, but we can't do it clinically.
23:43
Their reservation.
23:44
So, so they say is that it is not effective.
23:48
It's an antibody driven test and it's not, doesn't identify the full
23:51
spectrum of lipopolysaccharide.
23:53
But I'll tell you, it's one of those tests where if we could do it and
23:57
your level is elevated, we know.
23:59
That you have endotoxemia.
24:01
If it's not elevated, you still could have endotoxemia, but then you can look at the
24:05
entire clinical picture and say, well, despite the negative was one test, I still
24:10
think you have it So, It would be useful.
24:12
But we right now can't get, access to it outside of a clinical study.
24:16
David Friedman, BS: Yeah, let's try note.
24:17
And all the times you've been on the show, I don't think we've discussed cholesterol,
24:19
so I didn't wanna, I miss that this time.
24:21
There's so much confusion right now.
24:23
Experts say people with higher cholesterol are healthier, And the
24:26
old total cholesterol, H-D-L-L-D-L models are dinosaur medicine.
24:30
As a cardiologist, what is the real truth about cholesterol and maybe briefly
24:35
kind of discussed triglycerides, which I believe gets too little attention.
24:40
William Davis, MD: Oh, I like your idea of dinosaur medicine.
24:44
So, you I tell my listeners, here's how we manage cholesterol.
24:48
Get a big, thick, black magic marker.
24:51
Cross out total cholesterol and LDL Cholesterol, two garbage pieces of data
24:57
that never should have been construed to be cause of coronary disease.
25:00
They weren't, they are not cause of coronary disease.
25:03
They are at most meant to be crude.
25:07
Indirect markers to guesstimate the lipoproteins fat carrying
25:13
proteins in the bloodstream that actually do cause heart disease.
25:16
You know what?
25:16
The original researchers, Dr.
25:18
William Fredericks and fried Wald at the NIH in the 1950s knew
25:21
this, they pretty much knew this.
25:24
Yet they developed this idea that you could use cholesterol, this one component.
25:28
So lipoproteins have many, many, many things in they're very complex particles.
25:33
They're part of the way your body transacts.
25:35
Energy And in these lipoprotein particles, of which there are many different
25:40
kinds, there's proteins and fats and phospholipids and all kinds of things in
25:45
1958, when they first started studying this stuff, they said, well, how do we
25:49
actually count the number of particles?
25:51
'cause it's likely that more particles you have, the more likely it is leads
25:55
to heart disease, coronary disease.
25:57
Well, how do you do that in 1958?
25:59
Crude techno, they didn't know how.
26:01
So what they did was they said, let's pick one component of those
26:04
lipoproteins and use it as an indirect way to quantify in these
26:10
lipoproteins, they chose cholesterol.
26:12
Unfortunately, that.
26:14
Was interpreted by many people as cholesterol is the cause of heart disease.
26:18
It's not a cause, it was a crude marker for the number of particles
26:24
that do cause heart disease.
26:25
the tragedy is that everybody put all their attention on saturated fat, LDL,
26:31
cholesterol, statin drugs, because pharma made a trillion dollar, literally a
26:37
trillion dollars off that industry and.
26:40
Now we're left with the real causes of heart disease that almost nobody, at least
26:44
until recently, was paying attention to.
26:46
And This is why, of course, even though 80 million Americans take a statin
26:50
cholesterol drug, there's been no meaningful reduction in heart disease.
26:54
That's why your hospital added a $80 million new wing for cardiovascular care.
26:58
Trumpeting.
26:59
Oh, brand new heart center.
27:01
What?
27:01
Because heart disease, as you know, remains the number one killer of men and
27:05
women in the US And the rest of the world.
27:07
The number one money maker for the healthcare system.
27:11
Despite all the conversation about cholesterol, there's been no impact at
27:15
all on reducing because it makes money.
27:18
Why would you turn off this spigot of profit cause if you did, how are you gonna
27:23
pay your mortgage and your, children's?
27:25
How are you gonna drive your Maserati?
27:26
So there's, when money is involved, it's very difficult
27:29
to turn this Titanic around.
27:30
David Friedman, BS: Yeah, you heard it from the horse's mouth.
27:32
There you go.
27:33
well explained one thing I would talk to.
27:35
Out is recently this cooking oil debate, especially seed oils, because that
27:39
topic's now become real rollercoaster.
27:41
The seed oil debate's going viral and people were confused.
27:44
It's like, now it's okay.
27:46
Where do you stand on this?
27:47
these oils.
27:48
William Davis, MD: I think what's clear is seed oils, omega six linoleic acid
27:52
forms are not all that great for you, but they're not all that harmful either unless
27:58
you widely over consume them, as you would say, by going to fast food or eating
28:03
processed ultraprocessed foods, or you allow them to replace or substitute for
28:09
truly beneficial fats like saturated fat.
28:13
Or monounsaturated fats like olive oil or Omega-3 fatty acids like in fish
28:18
oil and linoleic acid in other foods.
28:20
So in other words, in some ways, the excess of linoleic acid,
28:24
omega sixes serves as a proxy for the absence of beneficial oils.
28:29
So yes, excess of omega six probably is modestly harmful.
28:33
when we weigh the pros and cons of things, it's not as if everything
28:36
that's bad is really bad, and everything that's good is really good.
28:39
There are grades in between.
28:41
So for instance, Omega-3 fatty acids, we now know are beneficial.
28:46
even though there's been 20, 30 years of debate, we now know they're beneficial.
28:50
How beneficial what?
28:51
Moderately beneficial, not maybe hugely beneficial, but moderately beneficial.
28:55
How about the linoleic acid?
28:57
Plant source at Omega-3 is minimally helpful, so there's always grades.
29:01
And in the world of linoleic acid, omega sixes.
29:04
They're probably modestly harmful, but not to the degree
29:07
that some alarmists are saying.
29:09
Not to say you should pour canola oil, soybean oil, safflower oil,
29:13
sunflower oil on all your food, no, we'll get those from other foods.
29:17
You wanna weigh your diet in favor of the fats from animals, from butter, from
29:22
olive oil, from other natural sources, and certainly not the seed processed oils.
29:27
David Friedman, BS: I'm glad you bought olive oil.
29:29
I've interviewed all the plant-based cardiologists, and oddly they
29:32
say, avoid extra virgin olive oil.
29:34
Oil.
29:34
Their argument is it damages arteries, but you look at Mediterranean
29:38
cultures, olive oil's, a dietary staple, and their cardiovascular
29:41
disease is pretty remarkably low.
29:43
That contradiction's always boggled me as a cardiologist
29:46
who looks at the full picture.
29:47
What's the real story?
29:48
Yes or no?
29:49
Olive oil, good for the heart.
29:51
William Davis, MD: Absolutely.
29:51
the evidence is really un incontrovertible.
29:54
40 years ago, 40 years ago, I heard a Dr.
29:58
Dean Ornish actually talk about his lifestyle heart trial and
30:02
how he claims to have reversed coronary disease with a 10% or less.
30:06
Fat diet vegetarian, and he claims to have revver.
30:11
And by the way, he did not.
30:12
He misinterpreted the evidence.
30:14
It was a very sloppily performed study, and he did not reverse
30:16
heart disease despite that claim.
30:19
And in fact, there are abundance of heart attacks, death bypass
30:22
surgery, hospitalizations in his population that purportedly achieved.
30:26
So anyway, but I, I bought it.
30:28
I stupidly bought it.
30:29
I was in my thirties, so This is a long, long time ago because I heard him talk and
30:33
I thought, well, let's give this a try.
30:34
I did it.
30:36
I had patient's do it, hundreds of them do it, And what I saw
30:40
was triglycerides went way up.
30:43
HDL plummeted small LDL, the real cause, major cause of coronary disease, not
30:50
LDL cholesterol, the indirect marker, but the actual small LDL particles,
30:55
very peculiar particles went way up.
30:58
Blood glucose went way up.
31:00
Hemoglobin A1C went way up.
31:02
C-reactive protein went way up.
31:04
Blood pressure went up.
31:06
I personally gained a bunch of fat in my waist.
31:08
My triglycerides went to 390 milligrams.
31:12
My HL dropped 27.
31:14
I became a type two diabetic on that program.
31:19
I called Dr.
31:20
Werner.
31:20
I said, Hey, I'm not seeing what you're seeing.
31:23
In fact, I'm seeing deterioration of health.
31:25
He says, well, you're eating too many white flower pie.
31:27
I said, no, we're not.
31:29
we've instructed patient's very.
31:30
Clearly no white flour products, only whole grains, multi-grain,
31:35
no fats, no butter, cut the fat, don't eat meat, right?
31:39
All those things.
31:40
And yet we're seeing dramatic deterioration of health.
31:42
We, we almost came to blows over the phone.
31:45
So, uh, but it became clear that a vegetarian low fat
31:49
lifestyle is a very destructive.
31:52
Now what he says, I said, well, how do you explain this explosion
31:55
in triglycerides small LDL.
31:57
Hemoglobin A1C.
31:58
I mean, all the markers we know are not good.
32:00
He says, well, they don't mean the same thing if you're low fat.
32:04
And I said, you made that up.
32:06
There's no such evidence.
32:07
There's no such evidence to say, well, those bad things
32:11
are bad only if it consume fat.
32:13
That is an absolute fiction.
32:15
He made that up.
32:16
David Friedman, BS: Yeah.
32:17
Interesting, interesting.
32:18
Yeah.
32:19
As we get closer to the end, I wanna talk about some big, big longevity splurge.
32:23
It's a focus now, and everyone's chasing the fountain of youth, NAD boosters.
32:27
Oli a resveratrol, I mean, supplemental.
32:30
They're just anti-aging arsenal when you walk in there.
32:33
So much noise out there.
32:34
It's hard to know what's legitimate.
32:36
Tell us your Mr.
32:37
Encyclopedia, Dr.
32:38
Davis, any approved supplements or foods that could help slow the hands of.
32:43
William Davis, MD: I prefer to talk about being healthy for as long as
32:46
you can, what some would call health span, because I think the world of
32:49
longevity is to a great degree of fraud.
32:53
So, Dr.
32:54
David Sinclair, you may know at Harvard.
32:56
Who got a lot of publicity for his resveratrol conversation about 15 years
33:02
ago, saying it would extend life, all cancer, heart disease, and dementia
33:06
will go away according to him, by this taking this one thing, right?
33:10
Of course, that all fell apart.
33:11
No one could corroborate his science turned out to be, if not outright
33:15
fraud, at least, inaccurate.
33:18
Well, then he comes back out again with his NMN idea that if you replace
33:22
this one factor in the Krebs cycle for mitochondrial energy production,
33:26
and he actually said this, we will do away with all dementia.
33:31
Heart disease and cancer.
33:32
Now wait a minute.
33:33
So we're gonna ignore toxic exposures, lack of vitamin
33:37
D, exercise microplastics.
33:41
In other words, it is incredibly silly and over simplistic, and yet he
33:46
sold that idea, the GlaxoSmithKline.
33:50
For $742 million started a company called Sir two as Pharmaceuticals
33:55
based on this idea that sirtuins are the key to longevity.
33:59
Well, nobody could reproduce his data.
34:01
It became clear.
34:02
So a lot of his colleagues have cut ties with him.
34:05
I'm surprised he's still employed at Harvard.
34:07
Maybe there's a, some kind of contractual thing, I don't know.
34:10
But, it's clear that a lot of it was.
34:13
Not true and perhaps fraudulent.
34:15
I was at the A four M meeting about a year ago, and I was shocked that despite all
34:20
this, he was the keynote speaker and a lot of our colleagues were speaking, talking
34:26
about his science and related science.
34:29
So I liken those ideas that were gonna supplement Coen, MQ 10, lipoic acid,
34:34
methylene blue, all those participants in mitochondrial energy production.
34:39
To me it's like saying, Dr.
34:41
Friedman.
34:42
If you want more power horsepower out of your car, top the end, the gas tank up.
34:49
You would say, well that's stupid.
34:52
That doesn't make your cargo faster, or make it have more horsepower.
34:56
Same thing if all you do is increase a substrate or collection
35:00
of substrates, you might have some positive effects and here's something
35:04
to bear in mind for your listeners.
35:06
What factor common in the human U US population we know with good confidence
35:12
impairs mitochondrial energy production.
35:15
Kills mitochondria, impairs, mitophagy, endotoxemia.
35:20
In other words, we're gonna try to top up the engine in the hopes that
35:24
it generates longevity, which it almost is almost guaranteed not to.
35:29
And we're gonna ignore factors that dominate and damage
35:34
health in so many ways.
35:36
So impairs mitochondrial energy production, and mitochondrial, biogenesis.
35:41
It also impairs.
35:42
Insulin resistance, blood pressure, cognitive health.
35:46
In other words, what I'm trying to encourage everybody to do is focus
35:49
on the things that really do matter and don't go after somebody who's
35:53
trying to make money by selling you some fraudulent collection of ideas.
35:58
And I've heard people say things like, I'm gonna lift 180 years old.
36:02
as you know, we'd be lucky to extend life by four weeks.
36:05
David Friedman, BS: Right.
36:07
Well said.
36:08
So there's no magic pill out there.
36:10
it's a whole conglomerate system.
36:11
As, you're well do in, in your book.
36:13
Boy, time flies back.
36:14
We've gone out of time again.
36:16
You're such a mountain of information, so.
36:18
Is a pleasure.
36:19
And, the book out there folks, I want you to get one.
36:21
It's excellent.
36:22
It's called Super Body, A three week program to harness the new
36:25
science of body composition and restore your youthful contours.
36:30
Fascinating.
36:30
Read, recommend you get one, and you can do that by going to William.
36:34
Davis md.com
36:36
and while there, be sure and check out the many resources available, like articles,
36:39
videos, and his microbiome course.
36:42
Great info there and you can follow him on Facebook at Dr.
36:46
William Davis Health on Instagram at Dr.
36:49
Davis Infinite Health and on x.
36:52
William Davis, md and of course you can follow me on Facebook and X at Dr.
36:57
David Friedman on Instagram at Dr.
37:00
D Friedman.
37:01
If you heard Dr.
37:02
Davis share something today that somebody you know needs to hear,
37:05
send 'em a link to this podcast available to your good health radio.com
37:09
and podcast health.com.
37:11
And while they peruse our podcast library and share these segments of
37:14
interest to friends, family, coworkers.
37:17
On social media, you always hear me say, don't be selfish.
37:19
Sharing is caring.
37:21
You can also subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify,
37:23
and iHeartRadio More to come.
37:25
Stay tuned and stay well.