In a world where the essence of vitality seems elusive, today’s episode offers a beacon of hope and insight. We have the pleasure of welcoming Dr. Steven Gundry, a luminary in the field of health and nutrition, who has transformed countless lives with his profound understanding of the human gut and its far-reaching implications. Dr. Gundry’s journey from a renowned heart surgeon to a best-selling author and wellness advocate is nothing short of inspiring.
Dr. Gundry starts by shedding light on the hidden perils of the modern diet. Our conversation dives into the processed and ultra-processed foods that dominate our plates, loaded with sugars and unhealthy fats. He introduces us to the concept of lectins, a type of protein found in many plants that, surprisingly, are designed to protect the plants by creating havoc in our digestive systems. Lectins can poke holes in the walls of our gut, leading to what is known as leaky gut syndrome. This condition is more than just a nuisance; it’s a gateway to chronic inflammation and a myriad of health issues.
As Dr. Gundry eloquently puts it, “All disease begins in the gut,” echoing the ancient wisdom of Hippocrates. The modern diet, rife with lectins from grains, beans, and nightshades, exacerbates this issue. Dr. Gundry explains how these harmful proteins cause inflammation by breaching the gut barrier, allowing foreign particles to flood our bloodstream. Our immune system, in response, goes into overdrive, leading to chronic inflammation—a silent but deadly contributor to many modern ailments.
SPIRITUAL TAKEAWAYS
- Listen to Your Body: Understanding the signals your body sends can lead to profound healing. Pay attention to how different foods make you feel, and be mindful of the hidden enemies in your diet.
- Heal from Within: True wellness begins in the gut. By addressing leaky gut and reducing inflammation, you can unlock a new level of vitality and health.
- Simplicity and Tradition: Sometimes, ancient wisdom holds the key to modern health. Traditional methods like fermenting and properly preparing foods can make a significant difference in your wellbeing.
Dr. Gundry doesn’t stop at identifying the problem; he offers solutions grounded in both science and tradition. For instance, he mentions how pressure-cooking beans and peeling and deseeding nightshades can significantly reduce their lectin content, making them safer to eat. He shares insights on the importance of eating anti-inflammatory foods and supplements, though he emphasizes that the real solution lies in addressing the root cause—leaky gut.
Inflammation, as Dr. Gundry explains, is the body’s way of defending itself against perceived threats. But when the gut barrier is compromised, this defense mechanism turns against us. Chronic inflammation underlies many diseases, from heart disease to autoimmune disorders. The exciting part, as Dr. Gundry highlights, is that by repairing the gut, we can reverse many of these conditions. His patients have seen remarkable improvements in their health by simply eliminating inflammatory foods and healing their gut.
Our discussion also ventures into the realm of dietary practices. Dr. Gundry advocates for intermittent fasting and time-restricted eating, strategies that have been shown to promote longevity and overall health. By limiting the eating window to six to eight hours a day, we can significantly boost our mitochondrial health—the powerhouses of our cells. This practice not only enhances energy levels but also contributes to a longer, healthier life.
In our fast-paced world, it’s easy to overlook the profound impact of diet and gut health on our overall wellbeing. Dr. Gundry’s insights remind us that the journey to health is deeply personal and begins with the choices we make every day. By understanding and respecting our bodies, we can unlock a reservoir of vitality and resilience.
Please enjoy my conversation with Dr. Steven Gundry.
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Follow Along with the Transcript – Episode 037
Alex Ferrari 0:09
I'd like to welcome to the show, Dr. Steven Gundry. How you doing Dr. Steven?
Dr. Steven Gundry 0:13
Alex, thanks for having me. Appreciate it.
Alex Ferrari 0:15
Thank you so much for coming on the show I, like I was telling you, before we started recording, I've been I feel like I know you because you're inside of my intestines. And I've been taking your products and I, I saw I think I think I found you on YouTube. And I found something and I was like, Well, you know what I need? I love probiotics. Let me give. Let me give Dr. Gundry. So I try. And my God, it's the best probiotic I've ever taken in my life. And it's changed a lot in my health and my body and everything. So I wanted to kind of bring you on to talk about what you're doing and your books, and everything. So first question I have for you, sir, is what in the modern diet is killing us? I know that's that's five hours right there. But
Dr. Steven Gundry 0:58
Yeah, we don't have enough time. So you know, the the modern American diet, which is now the Western diet, because we've exported it to the world is is killing us, because number one, we have processed and ultra processed foods that are loaded with sugars, and loaded with actually pretty nasty fats. And one of the things that a lot of people have missed, but there's made the plant paradox series so popular is a lot of plants have proteins that are called lectins that are used for the plants defense against being eaten. And many of us don't realize that plants have no interest in us eating them. They have a life they want to live, they want their seeds to live. And they protect themselves by these little plant compounds called lectins. And several other things. And lectins are actually designed to create holes in the wall of our gut. Now, it's called leaky gut or intestinal permeability. And it's not some pseudoscience, this is actually been proven by Dr. Alessio Fasano from Harvard. And we can actually measure markers of leaky gut in our patients. And lectins, like gluten gluten happens to be elected is one great way of poking holes in the wall of your gut. And what happens without us knowing it, we can't feel those holes being poked. But the lining of our guide is only one cell thick. And it's the same surface area inside you and me as a tennis court. So you know, when you're watching the Australian Open, that surface area that they're playing on is in us. And we have a design flaw those, the surface areas, only one cell thick, and the cells are held together with glue called tight junctions, because everything that we swallow ought to stay on, you know, that side, the other side of the wall, about 80% of all of our white blood cells, or immune cells are actually right up against the wall, kind of like a border patrol. And they're there because mischief can come through. So lectins job is to make spaces between those cells gaps. And then not only can lectins come through, which are foreign proteins, but pieces of undigested food can come through and bacteria and pieces of bacteria could come through. And our immune system goes absolutely crazy. And one of the things that I've shown in other books is one of the things that makes us fat, is that our immune system actually stores fat in our gut to fuel the immune system. It's kind of like an ammo dump. And that explains why you know, I use the expression one of my books fat on your ass, you're built to last fat in your gut, you're out of luck. And that's actually true. JLo's gonna live forever.
Alex Ferrari 4:25
Obviously, she is she's been she's been drinking the blood of children for quite some time now. That's the only the explanation I have. So so those are I didn't really know about lectins until I started, you know, doing reading your books and and watching your content. And it makes a lot of sense. And another thing that happens when lectins get in in leaky gut is inflammation. Can you talk a little bit about the inflammation? I mean, we have so much inflammation in our bodies, and it causes so much havoc I'm in my last blood test that I had with my new nutritionist we did a full full I mean, like obscene V 15 vials of blood were taken out of me. And she said inflammation was a problem. So now I that's one of the reasons why I searched out your work. I'm also taking turmeric to kind of deal out with that as well as other things like that and avoiding certain foods that avoid inflammation, but specifically with the leaky gut. What can you explain to me what the inflammation inflammation is for people who don't know? And what is it doing to us?
Dr. Steven Gundry 5:28
Yeah, so your your immune system recognizes foreign substances, and literally attacks these foreign substances. And the attack is actually inflammation. And a property's. 2500 years ago, the father of medicine said, all disease begins in the gut. And the guy didn't have our sophisticated tests, but the guy was absolutely right. And I've paraphrased to poverty is to say all disease begins with a leaky gut. And the good news is that you can stop all disease by stopping leaky gut, you can reverse it, you can reverse heart disease, you can reverse autoimmune disease, about 80% of my patients that I see now have autoimmune diseases now, and it's from leaky gut. So inflammation, for instance, inflammation underlies all diseases, whether it's heart disease, whether it's diabetes, whether it's arthritis, and we can trace all of that to leaky gut and the activation of our immune system. Now, you mentioned tumor, got nothing against Tumeric love tumeric. But if you've got a forest fire in you, and most of us have a forest fire, taking tumeric, or anti inflammatories, foods or supplements, is like using a garden hose here in California to keep your house from burning down with a forest fire. It's not gonna work, what you got to do is you got to stop the source of inflammation, and that is from leaky gut. And I think that's why the whole idea we ought to eat anti inflammatory foods or take anti inflammatory substances actually misses the boat. But we got to do is get the foods and other toxins in our diet out, and then our leaky gut will actually repair itself, which is really exciting. Now, it may take a year to repair, quite frankly, when I started this, I was pretty naive. I thought, yeah, we can fix leaky gut in two weeks now. And the other problem is, people will get relief and their arthritis will go away or their autoimmune disease will go away and they go, Oh, I'm fine. Now. I can go back any things I want. And that's not gonna work. One of the things I mentioned in some of my previous books, is particularly here in the United States, we almost have automatic leaky gut with the foods we eat, because almost all of our foods now are tainted with glyphosate, which is the active ingredient in Roundup, and glyphosate, most people associate roundup with genetically modified organisms, GMO foods. In fact, glyphosate now, Roundup is sprayed on almost all conventional crops like wheat, like corn, like soybeans, like canola, to harvest to make it easy to harvest. And so almost all of our oats almost all of our bread products, almost all of our cereals play or not, most wines in the United States are contaminated with Roundup. And roundup in and of itself causes leaky gut. I documented this in my previous book, the energy paradox. So we're sitting ducks, not only do eat lots of lectins containing foods and in corn and whole grains and breads, but we're just inundated with Roundup that's been sprayed on almost everything.
Alex Ferrari 9:28
Now organic food doesn't have that stuff, right? Or does it?
Dr. Steven Gundry 9:32
Yes and no. Roundup can be sprayed on fields next to an organic field and there's actually been very interesting documentation of looking at organic granola or organic oats and finding roundup in them. So know your farmer know besides, there's no human need for oats. Oats are used Ratan horses. And quite frankly you don't look like a horse.
Alex Ferrari 10:04
Appreciate. Now what are some of the foods that we should be avoiding that have a lot of these lectins that are hurting our gut?
Dr. Steven Gundry 10:11
Well, so most of most grain products are loaded with lectins lectins are in the halls of grades. There are two hauless grains that are perfectly safe. Sorghum and millet are perfectly safe. Quinoa is loaded with lectins sorry about that. And so barley, rye, wheat, oats, corn is loaded with lectins. Mostly most of the bean family legumes are loaded with lectins now you can pressure cook beans and make them safe and there's several companies now that have can pressure cook beans. Eden is one of them jovial which is an Italian company is another. I have no relationship with any of these companies so but I use them. The other family which surprises people is the nightshade family. Potatoes, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes and goji berries. Goji berries are actually part of the nightshade family. They're primarily in the peels and seeds. And interestingly enough, you look at traditional cultures. And they appeal in DC, their tomatoes or their peppers before they eat them. In fact, you know, open up a can of green chilies chop chop green chili, you'll find there peeled deseeded because the Southwest American Indians who started chili eating always peel chard and peeled deseeded their chilies before they ate them or made peppers. Same way with the Italians. The Italians would not eat tomatoes for 200 years after their native son Columbus brought them back from America. And they always to this day make tomato sauce by peeling and de seeding their tomatoes. Because they're throwing the lectins away.
Alex Ferrari 12:02
Is that just something they did? They obviously didn't know about lectins they just just something culturally they did.
Dr. Steven Gundry 12:07
Yeah, they figured out that they, they hurt when they ate these things. And they found that they could remove these things and they didn't hurt anymore. In fact, I worked with a lot of chefs in Italy. And so you know, and they saw never make a tomato sauce with peels and seeds. I suppose why not? You know who told you or my mother told me? And I said well, who told her all my grandmother told her and it these cultural traditions are handed down. For instance, I mentioned quinoa. The Incas used quinoa as a grain. But the Incas actually soaked quinoa for 48 hours, and then they let it rot. They ferment it, and then they cook it and it's not on the package directions. And then we know that soaking and fermentation dramatically decreases the electronic content and food
Alex Ferrari 13:02
Is it just break it down I guess so it doesn't get a
Dr. Steven Gundry 13:04
Yeah break it down. So yeah, yeah, the bacteria actually eat these lectins.
Alex Ferrari 13:08
And same thing for beans and like and lagoons and all that kind of stuff.
Dr. Steven Gundry 13:14
Correct.
Alex Ferrari 13:14
Um, so it's, what can we eat? You just, you just you just knocked out a lot of stuff that I like I enjoy.
Dr. Steven Gundry 13:23
Well, so here's a Oh, no human being ate a grain or a bean until 10,000 years ago, they did not exist in our diet. These are modern foods. And, shockingly, a lot of our favorite foods. None of us ate until 500 years ago, all of us came from Europe, Africa or Asia. And when Columbus started Columbian trade, a lot of American plants North and South American plants were introduced to our diet, like the night shades like corn like quinoa, like squash family, these are all modern foods that none of us had seen for until 500 years ago. And getting to know a new product new protein in 500 years is like speed dating and evolution. So a lot of our modern foods are actually not designed to be by us without taking some precautions like
Alex Ferrari 14:26
Like pressure cooker pressure cooking and things like that fermentation. Can you can you talk a little bit about what inflammation does in the body because I know a lot of people you know when they hear the word inflammation, you're like, Oh, I broke my arm and it's gotten into there's inflammation in it or I got burned and there's inflammation to it. But that's exterior stuff that you can actually see where blood in flames to protect honestly the area, but internal inflammation can you talk about what it's doing to us and and it's it's an epidemic. I mean, I mean with the with the Western diet, it's an absolute epidemic. I mean, you go to a fast food joint and eat just One meal is just full of inflammation, deep fried this deep fried that.
Dr. Steven Gundry 15:07
Yeah, so inflammation is actually our immune systems way of trying to protect us from the substances that shouldn't be in us, quite frankly. And I got interested in this years ago as a as a heart surgeon. And my life was changed around by this guy called Big Ed, who was a real guy who reversed his inoperable coronary artery disease by changing the foods he ate. And literally, these plaques went away dissolve. I like to use the example. These plaques and arteries are basically if you do any weightlifting, and you wear a wedding ring, you'll develop a callus on either side of your wedding ring. And that callus is protecting your skin from the trauma of you know, the weights. And if there is no trauma, that callus will gradually go away. And so things like plaque and coronary arteries is just repeated trauma from inflammation. And if you stop this process of inflammation, those plaques go away. And that's what started me and this career path. The same way we now have this epidemic of autoimmune diseases, like every commercial you see on TV, and now is, oh, you know, I have Crohn's disease. And thank goodness, you know, I take this medicine, or I have the heartbreak of psoriasis. And now I can show my skin and so on and so on. These are all auto immune attacks by our own immune system that's so hyper turned on that it attacks us. And that's an inflammation that's not supposed to happen. And it comes from Believe it or not, leaky gut 94% of my patients and I published this, reverse their autoimmune disease off of all of their medications by just taking these inflammatory foods out of their diet, and they seal their leaky gut, and their immune system goes, Oh, we don't have to walk around with an Uzi with our finger on the Uzi firing things. We can relax, we'll go have smoking a doughnut and, and be fine.
Alex Ferrari 17:42
So there's been so many, there's so much talk about different diets over the years, you know, not diet fads, but like actual ways of eating. You know, from meat eaters only to keto, to vegan to plant based. I've been plant based for about 10 years, and it's definitely helped me a lot. Because I used to be a very heavy meat eater, and I and nothing is wrong with that, but just was eventually I just decided not to go down that road. So for in your opinion, as a heart surgeon, that's one of the reasons why I went over to a plant based diet is because I you know, I saw the documentaries, you know, I saw all of that stuff and start seeing that. If I kept eating this meat over the course of my life in longevity terms, you know, it's gonna hurt me eventually. Depends on the meat, of course, and all this kind of stuff. What is your opinion on the the, you know, the, the diet? Well, first of all, is there a way to do what we're talking about in regards to lectins? For vegans and vegetarians, so we can actually still eat more than three things. And in your opinion, what is is a diet that really works of internally for longevity?
Dr. Steven Gundry 18:56
Yeah, so all my books, all of my recipes have both vegetarian option and a vegan option. Some of the, and I came out of Loma Linda University where I was Professor and Chairman. And Loma Linda is one of the is the only BlueZone in the United States people with extreme longevity. And I'm the only nutritionist who's actually ever lived in a blue zone for most of their life. And one of the things so I have a big practice in vegetarians and vegans. And some of the sickest people I have ever met in my practice are are vegans. Of course. Yeah. And that's because in the United States, vegans are pasta in grain and being a terian starch terian starch, and they they are on the perfect lectin inflammatory promoting diet that I can see what my recommend for longevity and I actually talked about this in the new book unlocking the Keto code, is I'd really like people to be a gorilla who lives in Italy. And by that I, by that, I mean your Adi ate a ton of leaves and pour olive oil on it. And if you do that, and it's hard to do, but if you do that, you're gonna actually activate so many longevity systems that are interesting. The other thing that I think it's really important there that I got into in the last book, the energy paradox, but I really focus very heavily in the new book, unlocking the Keto code is intermittent fasting, time restricted eating. And if you really, if you are, regardless of what you eat, if you limit the amount of time that you're eating during the day, to about a six to eight hour window, what does that look like starting break fast breakfast, at noon, and finishing up by eight o'clock at night, that's an eight hour window. If I can compress it down to noon to six o'clock, so much the better. And you will activate so much longevity in your mitochondria. And this is what we talk about in the book. You will you'll you'll live forever. Not that anybody particularly wants to but you will have worlds, you will have tremendous health span. And I wrote about this in the longevity paradox. We we all want to live a long time, but we don't want to get old. And right. I mean, yeah, it's we want to die young, at a ripe old age. And the tricks to do that I started with in the longevity paradox. But now, I kind of bring that all home and unlocking the Keto code. There's a lot we can learn from the effect of a ketogenic diet that, frankly, in the long term is not sustainable. The idea of eating an 80% fat diet, you know, a stick of butter for breakfast, and you know, think of cream cheese for lunch. That gets old really quickly.
Alex Ferrari 22:29
But isn't that also going to clog up your arteries eventually?
Dr. Steven Gundry 22:31
Believe it or not, no, that myth is one of the greatest myths of all time. Yeah. So again, inflammation is what clogs up your arteries. And if you don't have inflammation, you will not clog up your arteries. I have patients with total cholesterol is of 500. And they have perfectly normal arteries. And they don't actually what's called oxidized their cholesterol, their cholesterol is not inflamed. And they we can measure inflammation on the surface of blood vessels. And we on my program, their blood vessels are slippery like Teflon. Now, can you make inflammation by eating a really high fat cream cheese diet? You betcha. But that in itself is not going to clog up your arteries.
Alex Ferrari 23:27
Now in how about bread? And remember there is a certain kinds of bread sourdough I think it was Italian bread that has doesn't have many lectins.
Dr. Steven Gundry 23:36
Well, so sour dough, if you're going to have bread, sourdough is the safest, but it still has gluten and the vast majority of people in my practice, are sensitive to gluten. Now part of the problem is that almost all of our wheat The United States has been sprayed with Roundup. So I have for instance, I have a lot of patients who we heal their autoimmune disease, and they go over to Europe, and they're having the bread and they're having the croissants and they're not having an issue and they go oh, I'm cured. I can have these things now. And they come back to the United States and they go to their local store and they get the sourdough bread. And a few days later their psoriasis flares are the rheumatoid arthritis flares or they got you know, hurts. And they call me up. This is what I hacked you know, I thought I was cured. Yeah, I was over there. I was fine. I said, You came back and ate our bread. And I detailed this a lot of the books. It's been sprayed with Roundup, it's not the same thing. I'm sorry. We we have made ourselves sick. And we've done it because quite frankly sickness is good for Business.
Alex Ferrari 25:02
Yeah, it's breaking the first rule of being a doctor.
Dr. Steven Gundry 25:06
Yeah. Let me give you a great example of that. I had the the former head of the FDA on my podcast that Dr. Gundry podcast last year. Don't Kessler, and he was the guy appointed by the President Reagan to put the food label on the back of the package that has all the carbohydrates, the nutrition label, right? Yeah, nutrition label. And he said, so we did this. And I get a call from the White House and says, Get over here. President Reagan wants to see you. And he walks in. And there is the big food lobby. People like Arthur, Daniel midlane, and cargo. And he said, I understand that this is the food label. And he said, Yeah, he says, You you can't tell people how much sugar is in here. Because they won't buy it. And he said, Yeah, but that's how much sugar is in here. And they, they said, Well, this is a non starter, you're gonna have to put that sugar somewhere where they won't see it on the label. And he's like, and they said, Yeah, you're gonna put it under total carbohydrates. And you're not going to put it under sugar. And I, and I said, I knew this, actually. But he said, but that's not right. They said, Yeah, that's right. This is how we're going to do it. So he uses the example of a bagel. And there's 300 calories in a bagel and you look at the label, and it says, zero grams of sugar, nor three grams of sugar. And you go, oh, there's no, no sugar in this big oil, you look at total carbohydrates. And I there's like 40 grams of total carbohydrates. And then you look right below it, and you see fiber, and there's two grams of fiber. So what you have to do, as an lert consumer is you take the total carbohydrates, let's take 40 Minus the fiber, which we can adjust. So now there's 38 grams of carbohydrates. There's four grams of carbohydrates in a teaspoon of sugar. So you take that 38, and you divide it by four. And basically, there's about 10 grams, 10 teaspoons of sugar in that no sugar free bagel. And he said, that's how we fooled you all these years. I just had this happen to me with one of my patients earlier today that he was having. He's pre diabetic, telling someone they're pre diabetic is like telling a woman she's a little bit pregnant. Right. And so he says he's having rice checks every morning, because it's extremely low sugar. It's so right on the label. So I pulled up the rice check box on my phone. And lo and behold, there's 38 grams of sugar per serving. And the serving is only a half a cup, and I got news for you. Nobody has half a cup of rice check. So this guy was having 20 teaspoons of sugar for breakfast. And that was before we put the milk on it, which has five teaspoons of sugar in every cup. So this guy was you know, eating his low sugar cereal. It says Oh, right on the label, you know, approved by the American Heart Association. And he was a diabetic. Yeah. Wow. All because he's not the label.
Alex Ferrari 28:55
Yeah, I mean, I've learned the whole label game a long time ago. I educated myself about that. And every time we go shopping, my wife just hands it to me, can I eat it? And I'm like, I look at it. I'm like, Nah, no, there's that there's that. First of all, if I can't pronounce it, that's probably not a good, not a good indicator of where we're going. Now, in your book. You also discussed the seven deadly disruptors what are the seven deadly disruptors?
Dr. Steven Gundry 29:23
Well, one of the worst is kind of right up at the top of the list is antibiotics. Broad spectrum antibiotics only were invented in the mid 1970s. They were miraculous and I was in medical school back then. Because before we had to figure out what bacteria was causing a problem and we had to culture it and then we had to find the antibiotic or work when broad spectrum antibiotics it was like we could take it was like a shotgun shot. It was like a machine gun. You So we could say Here, take this, and we didn't have to figure out what was causing the problem. And it was It was miraculous. The problem is we didn't know about the microbiome, that these broad spectrum antibiotics was not only killing the bacteria that was causing the problem, or at least we thought, but it was wiping out this tropical rainforest of 100 trillion bacteria that were living in our gut. And we didn't even know they existed back then. It was really only until about 12 years ago, that the human microbiome project was completed. And we realized there were 10,000 different bacterial species that were living in our gut, and we didn't even know they were there. And we've been wiping them out. I mean, literally, like burning a tropical rainforest out every time we took antibiotics. That's bad enough, but we found that if we gave antibiotics to animals, they would grow faster, and they would get fatter. And so whether you know it or not almost all conventional beef, or chicken, or fed antibiotics, to make them grow faster and fatter. Those antibiotics are in the flesh of these animals. So every time we, you know, steak or pork chop or chicken, we're eating antibiotics that also is killing our gut microbiome. And be careful because for instance, there is no labeling law that determines what grass fed means. By law, you can feed a cow grass for one day of its life, and then take it to a feedlot and feed it corn and soybeans and antibiotics, and still label it grass fed on the label. Oh, yeah. In fact, the federal government 2007 passed a law that free range chicken means that you can keep organic free range chicken means that you can keep chickens in a warehouse with 100,000 other chickens crammed in, open the door to the outside for five minutes every 24 hours and the chickens, all 100,000 of them have the potential to go outside. And that's a free range chicken. And here's the best part, you feed them organic corn and soybeans. Now, if the price of organic feed is double the price of conventional feed, you can switch them to conventional feed and continue feed them conventional field. Still label them organic because you meant well. And you are not allowed to give chickens antibiotics by law. But if the veterinarian who happens to be hired by the big food company thinks that one chicken in those 100,000 chickens might be sick, you're allowed to dose all of the chickens with antibiotics because one chicken might be sick and still label it antibiotic free.
Alex Ferrari 33:25
This is why I went vegan. This is one of the reasons why I went vegan because there's so much there's enough happening with our vegetables and our fruits and things let alone our meats.
Dr. Steven Gundry 33:37
Well yeah, and our vegetables is a joke. So our vegetable you are what you eat, but your you are what the thing you're eating, but that actually applies to our vegetables as well. They are what they're eating out of the soil and our soil is so depleted of micronutrients and minerals. Believe it or not, in 1936 the US Senate had a document that basically said our soil is so depleted of micronutrients 1936 that you could eat constantly and never get the amount of micronutrients and nutrients and vitamins, minerals, that should be in you, you could eat constantly, and you'll never get to it. And that was in 1936 imagine what it's like now,
Alex Ferrari 34:29
The food doesn't have the nutrient density that it used to have that's why I try to get anytime I eat anything I or supplement something I look for as much nutrient nutrient dense food as possible or supplements that is as best you can. So one other question I had for you his energy. He wrote a whole book about the energy paradox and and how, you know, I you know, as I've gotten older I'm not a spring chicken anymore. You know, energy goes down. And that's normal as you get older, depending on how you take care of yourself. But I've noticed that prior to taking some of your products, my energy was very sluggish after I've been taking your products now for a better part of three months, my energy level, generally speaking is a lot better. And also combination. Now I'm doing other things as well. But that is kind of the bedrock, I found, what is stealing our energy.
Dr. Steven Gundry 35:29
Sounds like a broken record. Leaky gut is healing energy.
Alex Ferrari 35:32
It's this leaky gut about it always goes back to the leaky gut,
Dr. Steven Gundry 35:35
It turns out that inflammation requires huge amounts of energy. And being at war. It requires huge amounts of energy. And I used the example pre COVID. But when we got the flu, playing all flew, you know, you, you didn't want to move it hurt to move, you were headachy. And you know it, you just didn't want to move well turns out that the flu virus and we thought, Oh, you got the flu, the flu virus is causing this? Well, the flu virus is just a dumb protein. It has no ability to do that your immune system, on the other hand, says, Oh, my gosh, you know, there's this virus, it's a bad actor, we need to mobilize the troops, we got to go attack it, we need a lot of energy, where are we going to get it from, we're going to make your muscles hurt, because muscles are the main energy hog of our bodies. So if it hurts, you won't move. And your muscles won't need the calories and we're going to take it for the battle. And it turns out that chronic inflammation, your immune system is sapping all that energy for this battle that's going on inside of you. And so once you start sealing your leaky gut, your energy levels, you know, you don't need it for that anymore. And number one, number two, like I talked about your mitochondria and the little energy producing organelles, and all of our all of our cells can use sugar to make energy can use proteins to make energy can use fats to make energy. But normally when we were eating whole foods whole, these various substances arrived at different times for processing and energy. But now because we eat highly processed foods, sugars, fats, and proteins arrive simultaneously into our mitochondria. And I live in the LA area, and it's like Rush Hour, 24 hours a day in our mitochondria, and nothing moves including energy. So it's a kind of a one two punch, and it's no wonder that everybody's exhausted.
Alex Ferrari 38:05
Now let's talk about your new book, unlocking the Keto code. What made you want to write this book? And can you give us a little bit of information about what it's about?
Dr. Steven Gundry 38:13
Yeah, so when I was writing the energy paradox, I've had a ketogenic version of my diet for 20 years. And I was trying my best to explain how ketones, which are a short chain fatty acid, made you an energy efficient energy producing miracle and made you an energy efficient machine that would burn up fat. And as I was trying to explain it and looking at the research, I went, Oh my gosh, I'm wrong about this. Everybody who's talking about ketones is wrong about this. In fact, ketones don't make you an energy efficient machine, a fat burning machine, they actually do exactly the opposite. They make you waste calories, and they make you waste fuel, and you go, what the heck. Ketones first were discovered in starving animals and starving humans. And it was thought that ketones are a way to signal mitochondria to hold on every last little bit of food and become super efficient become a turbo charge supercharged four cylinder engine instead of this gas guzzling, 12 cylinder. And that made tremendous sense makes perfect sense. And yet if you think about it, if a ketogenic diet is supposed to make you lose weight and fats have far more calories than proteins or carbohydrates and you become an efficient fuel burner, then you ought to gain weight on a ketogenic diet. And in fact, if you do it right, you lose weight. So there was a obscure paper and 2000 by a researcher by the name of Martin brand called uncoupling to survive. And I recommend it to any of your listeners, it's a small paper, he said that, if you're starving, mitochondria ought to be instructed to save themselves at all costs, because if they die, you're done. That's it. And to protect themselves, number one, by wasting fuel not working so hard. Number two to make more of themselves to share the workload is called mitogenesis. And number three to repair themselves so that they're in tip top shape. And so he actually showed that if you're actually starving, your mitochondria should be instructed to waste fuel rather than just save it. And it's called uncoupling to survive and mitochondrial uncoupling is the premise of the book. And it turns out, the ketones aren't some miraculous fuel. Ketones tell mitochondria to uncouple to protect themselves. And the whole premise of the book is there's lots of ways to uncouple your mitochondria. Interestingly enough, you look at super old people 105 years old, who are thriving, they have the most uncoupled mitochondria of anybody. If you look at, there's an example, the cost of living theory of aging is an animal that has a high metabolic rate. Small little animals don't live very long because they really have this high metabolic rate. Big animals have low metabolic rate, and that's why they live so long. It's called the cost of living hypothesis. Problem is birds. Birds live a really long time. PeriK live 80 to 100 years of hummingbird in captivity, his little baby can live 10 years. And they have monstrously high metabolic rates. It turns out, they have high metabolic rates, because their mitochondria are profoundly on coupling. They waste fuel, they protect their mitochondria. And so the cool thing is, I don't want people to become a Toyota Prius, I want them to become a Ferrari. I want them to waste fuel. And it's the wasting of fuel that actually explains why a ketogenic diet can properly works. And the good news is you can get fuel wasting without eating an 80% fat diet. You don't have to have cream cheese and butter. And that's it. And that's really exciting. It really opens up huge amounts of opportunities. So for instance, olive oil on top of uncouples mitochondria.
Alex Ferrari 43:27
And I love Olive oil. I used to have an olive oil company back in the day. So I know all about olive oil. Well good for you. And phenols and
Dr. Steven Gundry 43:34
Barley finos. Low Yeah. And also uncouple mitochondria. That's actually how they work.
Alex Ferrari 43:39
Now, where can people find out more about you, your your products, your amazing products and your new book.
Dr. Steven Gundry 43:46
So the products are at Gundrymd.com. That's my supplement and food company. My website is drgundry.com. You can find my podcast wherever you like podcast, we're on podcast one. It's the Dr. Gundry podcast about to have my 200th episode. And so you can find the book wherever books are sold Barnes and Noble Amazon target. Go to your local bookstore. I've had multiple New York Times bestsellers, so I can guarantee you, they'll have the book and unlocking the Keto code is is the latest revelations on the how we got ketones wrong and how you can actually harness the power of ketones without doing a ketogenic diet. Yay.
Alex Ferrari 44:34
I am excited to read the new book. And again, thank you so much for the work you're doing the supplements you've created. It's really changed my life and hopefully will continue to help not only me, but people around the world. So Dr. Gundry thank you for the work you're doing my friend. Keep up the good work.
Dr. Steven Gundry 44:51
Alex thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Links and Resources
- Dr. Steven Gundry – Official Site
- Unlocking the Keto Code: The Revolutionary New Science of Keto That Offers More Benefits Without Deprivation
- The Plant Paradox: The Hidden Dangers in “Healthy” Foods That Cause Disease and Weight Gain
- The Longevity Paradox: How to Die Young at a Ripe Old Age
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