#215: Doug Lisle, PhD - Do the New Weight Loss Drugs Really Work?
Rip and Dr. Doug Lisle
The news is out and the headlines are clear - drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy DO help people lose weight and they have become "the next big thing" for weight loss.
But, questions remain: How do they work? What long-term impacts will these have on health? Are they really helping the underlying cause of obesity and disease? Is it enough just to lose the weight? Will these drugs actually improve our health in the same way that a whole food plant-based diet can?
Rip welcomes evolutionary psychologist, Dr. Doug Lisle, back to the podcast to discuss his thoughts on these new weight loss drugs and why they may or may not be a panacea for improved health.
They discuss:
The correlation between obesity and disease processes
The underlying cause of obesity
Pros and Cons of weight loss drugs
Why people struggle to change their behavior even when they know better
The importance of making your environment look like your goals
Listener Question: recovering from medical cannabis withdrawal
Listener Question: Can a whole food plant-based diet cure schizophrenia?
Dr. Doug's thoughts on screen time and social media influence
About Doug Lisle, PhD from True North Website
Dr. Lisle has been the clinical psychologist at the TrueNorth Health Center for over 30 years. He has published numerous articles in the scientific literature. He is the co-author of The Pleasure Trap and is in private practice, conducting psychotherapy at the TrueNorth Health Center.
Delightfully candid and warm, Dr. Douglas Lisle is one of psychology's most innovative and curious minds. Deeply dedicated to exploring the mysteries of human behavior from fresh, uncharted waters, his research in evolutionary psychology and its impact on health, happiness and the pursuit of pleasure is generating critical acclaim.
Dr. Lisle is a graduate of the University of California at San Diego (Summa Cum Laude). He received the President's Fellowship and was a Dupont Scholar at the University of Virginia where he completed his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. He was then appointed Lecturer in Psychology at Stanford University and was on the staff at the National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder at the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Palo Alto, California.
Dr. Lisle worked as a forensic psychologist for the criminal justice system in Dallas, Texas and as a consultant for the National Institute of Health Clinical Trial on Cognitive Therapy for Recurrent Depression at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Dr. Lisle lectures nationally to health professionals on topics including evolutionary psychology, cognitive therapy, lifestyle modification, relaxation and stress management, and weight loss.
Episode Resources
Reserve Your Ticket for our 12th Annual Plant-Stock
Join our PLANTSTRONG Sedona Retreat - October 9-14, 2023 - use code Doug150 for $150 off
To stock up on the best-tasting, most convenient, 100% PLANTSTRONG foods, including our cornbread, teas, stews, pancakes cereals, granolas, pizza kits, broths and soups, check out all of our PLANTSTRONG products HERE.
Give us a like on the PLANTSTRONG Facebook Page and check out what being PLANSTRONG is all about. We always keep it stocked full of new content and updates, tips for healthy living, delicious recipes, and you can even catch me LIVE on there!
We’ve also got an Instagram! Check us out and share your favorite PLANTSTRONG products and why you love it! Don’t forget to tag us using #goplantstrong 🌱💪
Transcript via AI Transcription Service
[0:01] I'm Rip Esselstyn and welcome to the Plant Strong Podcast. The mission at Plant Strong is to further the advancement of all things within the plant-based movement.
We advocate for the scientifically proven benefits of plant-based living and envision a world that universally understands, promotes, and prescribes plants as a solution to empowering your health, enhancing your performance, restoring the environment, and becoming better guardians to the animals we share this planet with.
We welcome you wherever you are on your PlantStrong journey, and I hope that you enjoy the show.
I always love it when Dr. Doug Lisle pays a visit to the PlantStrong podcast.
He's always a huge hit at our PlantStrong retreats. In fact, he'll be giving multiple lectures at our next month's event in the Red Rock Mountains of Sedona, Arizona.
If you're not doing anything, come join us. You'll love it.
[1:05] Not only is Doug a brilliant evolutionary psychologist and author of the book, The Pleasure Trap, but he is able to explain our human behaviors in a way that just makes sense, especially when it comes to seeking pleasure and the highly palatable addictive processed foods, that are ubiquitous in our culture and almost impossible to resist.
A few weeks ago, I had Doug live on Facebook and YouTube to touch on the very, very hot topic of weight loss drugs, that are now becoming the next big thing.
Drugs that were created to treat diabetes are now making their way into the mainstream as a weight loss drug.
It sounds great, right?
[1:56] But in actuality, what long-term impact will these have on health?
Are they really helping the underlying cause of disease?
Is it enough just to lose the weight?
Will these drugs improve our health in the same way that a whole food plant-based diet can?
We talk about this and a lot more in today's episode. Please welcome the man who is never afraid of the truth, Dr. Doug Lisle.
[2:26] Today, we have a very, very special guest. We have Dr. Doug Lisle joining us from, Doug, where are you live from today?
Sacramento.
Sacramento. What's the heat there today? It's getting up there.
I think we'll be 100 today.
Uh-huh. Yeah. Well, we got you by about seven degrees here in Austin.
Oh yeah, there you go, all good.
It's 107. You're a swimmer. You've got to get a pool sometime today, I'm sure.
Oh, I've already been in the pool twice. Absolutely.
What about yourself? Have you been on the basketball court anytime soon?
Or recently?
Oh yeah, I've been on the basketball court. And so when I see you in October, I'll be showing you the upgrade of the shot.
Oh no, I love it. I love it. For people that don't know what Doug and I are talking about, Doug is quite the basketball player. And on many occasion, he has schooled me either in one-on-one or horse or 33, whatever it is.
And Doug is, you're probably five years my senior? Yeah. A couple of years my senior.
I just turned 60 recently.
[3:39] And I consider myself, you know, a pretty good athlete. And Doug, you just, you got my number.
And it's kind of infuriating.
Well, you're the, you do it all, but when you do it all, you can only be so good, right?
I only do one thing, that's it.
Speaking of which, so, well, first, let me make a proper introduction.
So for those of you that don't know who Doug is, Doug is an evolutionary psychologist.
Doug is the author of The Pleasure Trap that is really an iconic part of anyone, that wants to succeed eating whole food, plant-based.
You really wanna understand the principles of the pleasure trap.
Doug has taught at Stanford University. You've taught everything from statistics to psychology.
You're one of the lead researchers at the True North Health Center in Santa Rosa, California with your lifelong buddy, Alan Goldhammer.
[4:41] And then you also, we're very fortunate, you've been part of the PlantStrong Retreat team for nine years where you give.
Really typically three or four of your iconic lectures and this october in sedona october ninth to the fifteenth you're gonna be joining us you'll be doing.
The pleasure trap of course you'll be doing how to get along without going along and then the last lecture that you give that's absolutely brilliant is how to.
Weigh less or how to lose weight without losing your mind. That's it.
And that actually is a topic that I wanna dive into today in light of the fact that yesterday, one of the lead articles in the New York Times, if anybody hasn't seen it, it's called, we know where new weight loss drugs came from.
[5:41] But not why they work.
And the article is by a woman that does a lot of writing on health, her name's Gina Kolata, and she's been writing on weight loss and drugs and diet and exercise for 25 years.
And she says that, in her opinion, none of these things have any kind of lasting effect, but she is kind of convinced that these new drugs may potentially be a game changer, that can change the world in weight loss.
So Doug, given your background and your vast knowledge in this subject, I wanna start by diving into this.
And we may spend the whole 45 minutes on this subject, but people feel free to throw a question in for Doug about this or anything that you want, because this to me is super, super important.
So for starters, Doug, let me, are you aware of these weight loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy, I think it's pronounced?
Yes, I am. And my reaction to these, I'm sure your dad could sit down and tell you stories about.
[7:05] How whenever there's some new drug that's supposed to be the big fancy cure to whatever the problem is, you can expect it to be ushered in with a lot of excitement and a lot of press. These are, unbelievably lucrative and important business opportunities for the pharmaceutical industry and for medicine. And so, there's a bunch of excitement, a bunch of confidence. And, you know, Ralph Nader has a rule, don't take any drug that hasn't been out there for 7 years.
And in this case, these drugs have been around for use for other things. But still, they haven't been used like this for this problem, these dosages. And so, people charging into this thing, I think are making a classic mistake, which is that you don't actually know what the long-term cost benefit is.
And so we're not gonna know for a while.
[8:09] But people are, I understand people are desperate and they feel like they cannot manage this problem and they don't understand actually how to manage it intelligently.
And so, and the energy conservation strategy inside of humans, they just want it fixed.
And these particular drugs, I know I'm kind of running all over the place with this, but these particular drugs.
[8:34] I'm hearing, and I can't verify this, but I'm going to tell you what I think is true.
I'm hearing from multiple clients over the last six months that are frustrated with their weight and want to do weight loss, that they go to their doctors and their doctors say.
[8:55] Look, you know that your obesity, that this is a big risk, this is a big problem with your health. And so therefore we have to do something. Yes, there's side effects, but you know, it's this trade-off. This comes from the physician. The physicians actually don't really understand, quite frankly, they don't understand the nature of the etiology of health and disease. And so they're not trained particularly in this. And so as a, a result of that, they have a misunderstanding of what it means to see a correlation coefficient between obesity and disease. So when the studies that show the correlation between obesity and disease would make the average physician very susceptible to believing that obesity is causing disease processes. Obesity is not causing disease processes. It's the food that you eat to make you obese that is causing the the disease processes.
That is a very, very different thing, okay?
Can you repeat that one more time? Because I think that's very important to have that sink in.
Right, so the physicians I believe, this is what I can't verify. I know that many physicians believe that obesity is a cause of health problems.
[10:22] That is for all intents and purposes or most intents and purposes, this is not true.
Okay, it is the diet that causes the obesity that is the cause of the health problems.
So the obesity is a side effect of multi-dimensional system-wide problems that are caused by the foods that are overly rich for people.
And obesity is just a marker of the fact that that's the foods that they're eating.
So to blame obesity for the health problems that are correlated with obesity is absurd.
And so this is very much like, you see exactly the same lack of understanding in medical doctors around high blood pressure medication.
So doctors say, well, we've got to get that blood pressure down.
It's a risk. It's like, a risk of what?
[11:18] Well, you know cardiovascular disease. It's like no, it's not high blood pressure doesn't cause cardiovascular disease, The same thing that causes the high blood pressure causes the cardiovascular disease, So if you take a person that has, you know blood pressure of 170 over 110, And you medicate them down with high blood pressure medication. You haven't reduced their risk of heart attack at all, Not by one percent Okay, you just made them look like a person who has a lower risk factor, You made them look like a healthier person, but you didn't make them into a healthier person because the blood pressure itself isn't the problem. Now the blood pressure is in fact there would be three sort of problems, that would come out of high blood pressure or associated with it that terrified people and medical doctors ie heart attacks and strokes and Strokes come in two types. They come in embolisms and they come in hemorrhages and so an embolism is a clot That's the same thing that causes a heart attack and a hemorrhage is a is a vessel breaking and bleeding into the brain, Now it's going to turn out, that heart attacks and embolisms.
[12:29] Those are not influenced by blood pressure They're associated with blood pressure because the same diet that clogs up your arteries and causes havoc in the cardiovascular system The results in you throwing clots that diet will also cause you to have high blood pressure pressure, but the high blood pressure isn't causing those events. It's just a correlate. Okay. Now, it turns out that 90% of all strokes are embolisms, 10% of them are hemorrhages were blood vessel breaks.
Those are influenced by blood pressure. So the higher the blood pressure is it's putting more pressure on those veins, And as a result, it's more likely that we're gonna get one to burst, So if your blood pressure is extremely high, then you are increasing your likelihood of a hemorrhagic stroke But remember hemorrhagic strokes are only 10% of all strokes, Mm-hmm So when it comes to medicating people with high blood pressure medication to get their numbers lower to make them look like they're healthier people, people, the only influence that it's having that's positive is a reduction in the likelihood of a hemorrhagic stroke.
[13:38] Now almost all hemorrhagic strokes are taking place in people with very high blood pressure.
So they're taking place in people with 170, 180, 190. They're not taking places down to people with 140.
But notice where modern medicine puts the place where we start medicating people.
You start medicating them down at 140, even quote, pre high blood pressure borderline, we're going to take it down to 130, 135, because that's every bit.
So now, now you massively increase the market. You're medicating people like crazy with this medication that has almost no positive effect at all.
The only thing it does is modest reductions in the likelihood of hemorrhagic strokes, which are rare.
But the average medical doctor has no idea that this is true They think that it's making you look like a person who has a better cardiovascular profile, It thinks that it's taking you if you're a 160 over 100 It's taking you down to 135 over 85 and it's like well, you've got a 50% less likelihood of having a heart attack, No, you don't you do absolutely do not have a 50% less like a heart attack You have exactly the same likelihood of heart attack because the diet and health of the cardiovascular system hasn't changed at all as a result of taking that medication, You just look like you belong to a category like that. Mm-hmm. If I make my middle name.
[15:03] Michael that doesn't make me part Michael Jordan.
[15:09] So that's not gonna help if I actually go down to the courthouse and change my name to Michael Jordan Lisle It is not going to help my basketball game at all.
[15:20] It makes me look like it makes my on paper It makes me look like I'm better, but I'm not any better and the same thing is true with using, Drugs to make numbers look better. So when ozempic
[15:34] Drive somebody's you know takes 18 pounds off of somebody that's 220 pounds Which is typically the result that that is seen in the studies, So if you're a 225 pound person and you lose 18 pounds from using this medication as it's prescribed and it was done in the drug trials. Then the question is, is your health profile better now?
18 you know now down at 207 than it was a 225 and the answer is - Well, you're not actually any healthier at all, the question is whether or not a bit but the doctor says that you. Statistically look like you're better because it looks like you're in a category of a less obese human. So we've had some gains there. Well, nobody knows that there's any gains, So in actually studying the long-term cost-benefit analysis with respect to health that is unknown And I am always deeply suspicious of any drug that that you know changes a body so significantly that it would cause you to drop 10% of your body weight. That is no small interfering factor, And anything that can do that. I believe it's going to be having rather, Relatively profound influence on all kinds of bodily systems and it's likely to have the straining.
[16:52] Uh, systems pretty aggressively in a way that they weren't designed to be strength.
So we got problems. Yeah. And in the, in the article, they talk about how, what they're doing with these drugs is they're exposing the brain to levels of a natural home hormone at, at, at these levels that have never been seen in nature before ever.
So you're right.
Uh, there's, there's obviously some weird stuff going on there and you know, kind of in reading the article, one of the scientists that's been working on these weight loss drugs for you know 20-30 years uh says that you know.
[17:33] When he was working on well, do you increase the leptin or do you block the girl in right?
He basically came to the realization because he wasn't having any success with humans. Yeah, I had fantastic success with mice, Yeah, but with humans none and so he came to the conclusion that the body has so many.
[17:55] Redundant circuits of interacting nerve impulses and hormones to control weight loss that just tweaking one, basically doesn't make a difference. Right.
So, yeah. Yeah. Let me ask you this, Doug, because one of the things this article talks about is, is obesity a moral failing by us or is it a chronic disease?
I mean, I think you've already answered it, but I mean, how would you answer that question?
Okay, it's neither.
So what this is, is a natural consequence of having a diet that has been altered away from human nature.
And so the diet is now far richer in calorie density than it was designed to be.
And so, and it's gonna turn out that animal nature is to try to conserve energy.
In other words, basically life is the process of trying to get your hands on energy and then expend it and the processes needed to keep you surviving and reproducing.
So that is essentially what the life process is, is the acquisition of resources, primarily energy, but there are other resources too.
But primarily energy is the, like a shelter would be another resource that you would seek out and try to get, for example.
But the...
[19:23] But food is unbelievably important. And so it's the primary energy source, ambient heat is obviously another one.
[19:35] But this is a primary resource that you're designed by nature to have exquisitely well-engineered preferences to let you know that if you're sitting in front of a bunch of lettuce in the middle of a meadow somewhere and you put it in your mouth and you can actually chew it and taste the tiniest bit of sugar that's inside some romaine or something.
So it actually tastes a little bit sweet.
And you're like, hey, I can eat this. I can't eat the grass, but I could eat this.
And you sit there and start eating it.
By the time you eat a pound of it and pretty well fill your stomach up, you shouldn't be designed by nature to be satisfied with this.
Because if you do this And you did this three or four times a day, you'd eat three or 400 calories that day, and you would starve to death in pretty short order on such a diet.
So the nervous system has to be really good at chemoreception.
It has to know the chemical content of what it is that you're eating within pretty close parameters, and it does.
So it can tell the difference between a chocolate shake and an apple.
And it knows that the chocolate shake has vastly more calories in it than the apple does.
And so it's going to turn out that, of course, then, what you should see throughout nature is a preference in animals for the richer food.
And anybody that's ever fed a dog a dog treat knows this. I mean, this is really obvious.
[21:03] And so, yeah, you know, just your kid isn't pulling on your sleeve trying to get another carrot out of you. Your kid's probably wants another Pop-Tart, obviously. And so, this isn't a moral failing. This is an evolutionary imperative that this is the way that we're designed.
[21:21] So now, now you've got an interesting problem. So for the first time in life on earth ever, one species actually has the ability to be eating foods that are unnaturally concentrated if they choose to do so.
And the answer is, well, every one of them will choose to do so as long as they're designed properly by evolution, which they are.
Yeah. So as a result, this is what human beings are going to prefer to eat.
And that means that they're gonna be systematically overeating on this food, because instead of being six or 700 calories a pound on average for the diet, it's a thousand.
And so of course they're gonna be eating a thousand calorie pound food.
And as a result of that, they're gonna be systematically overeating by 30% a day, whatever it is, four or 500 calories a day.
And then their bodies will reach an equilibrium at that higher level of food intake over a lifetime.
And so the average American woman gains two pounds a year starting in on her 16th birthday to 36 year, by her 36th birthday, she's 40 pounds overweight.
[22:27] So what this is, is that this is the natural biological equilibrium that takes place when you enrich the diet.
This is precisely what happens when they're fattening up hogs for slaughter.
They add molasses to the feed. The molasses is high calorie density is basically pure sugar.
So as a result of that, the hogs don't stop eating until they've now eaten more calories than they would normally eaten.
And that's how they get big. That is precisely how it is that you put weight on an animal and that's how we put weight on the entire United States population.
[23:01] It's not a moral failing and it's not a disease. It's a behavioral regulation nightmare nightmare.
Mm-hmm. Because you are simply doing what you're designed to do, and if you're doing what you're designed to do in an environment that's unnatural, we wind up with problems.
Right. So, I mean, I think the latest figures from the CDC show that, what, 42% of American adults are obese, like 75% of us are considered overweight or obese.
The environment has become so polluted, with these hyper concentrated forms of calories. Do you see a way out in the next 5-10 years?
With the power that the these big food companies have to push their products, you know, everywhere they want to know i don't know the words i think you're looking at situation normal so in other words i think that what you're actually looking at is that.
There's gonna be a small percentage of people they're gonna be brighter than average and they're gonna be a more conscientious than average and they're gonna happen to have a curiosity in this arena so.
[24:24] It's going to turn out, interestingly enough, that men are interested in sports and women are very interested in food.
It's going to turn out that sports is how men ultimately got food, i.e. put a spear in your hand and go chase things down.
Women were always the nurturing creatures that are going to be doing the cooking and they're concerned with the food prep, etc.
Going to turn out that in any nutrition program in the United States, you're going to find it dominated by women. Women are inherently interested in food. They're also interested in people. Men are interested in things. Men have a very strong interest in machinery.
So these are differences. And I forget where I'm going with this as I just sort of wandered off topic, but the point is that men aren't even interested in their food. They just want rich food, they're not going to be studying it, they're not going to become knowledgeable about nutrition, they couldn't care less. So you've got half of the population that is basically uneducable.
[25:39] All right, so that we begin there. Well, and the question was, you're like, Like, yeah, so with the number, with the food environment we have, yes, we're basically doomed and you were like, yes, except for some people that, yes.
And you've got, you've got a significant percentage of women that are inherently very interested in nutrition, food. They're going to feed their children.
They're concerned about feeding their families there. there's a certain percentage of people that are health conscious, that that are understanding that there's going to be some underlying principles of nature here, that the input and the output and the cost, the cost and benefit that there's cause and effect relationships between what on earth you put in your body, and what happens to it. And so there's a certain percentage of people that are inherently interested, and they will discover what is that we know, and they'll just and they'll utilize it and they'll be successful.
That will be the minority of humans. So, human nature is not built for this problem.
[26:48] This is an unnatural problem. So therefore, only a few percentage of people, I don't know what it is, 10, okay?
Probably 10% of humanity has the necessary prerequisite nature of their psychology that they could actually pull something like this off.
Okay?
And that's, to those of us that have that, it's frustrating and bizarre that other people can't adopt this.
It's like, we can't understand why you wouldn't do this. It's kind of like a Wall Street inside trader.
Like, don't you know? You're just supposed to cheat. Like, what are you, a fool?
You're just investing in regular stuff? No, don't be an idiot.
Get inside information. So in other words, if you look at things a certain way, you can't understand why everybody wouldn't do it this way.
And you and I can't understand why wouldn't you be unbelievably interested in treating your body extremely well and having a high percentage chance of really good long-term outcomes.
And the answer is, gee, that's because you're an oddball.
[28:00] Exactly. Well, let me ask you this, Doug, because I would imagine that these doctors that specialize in obesity, right?
I mean, in the article, it basically talks about how, let me just say, so in July, doctors in the US wrote 94,000 prescriptions a week for Wegovy, and then 62,000 for Ozempic, or however you pronounce it.
Some of these obesity medical specialists are booked a year in advance.
We know with all the different surgeries that are going on how desperate people are.
And according to the article, some of these newer drugs that are going out, and what's interesting is most of these weight loss drugs, one of the side effects from, they originally were diabetes drugs.
And one of the side effects is weight loss. And I guess it's kind of suppressing their appetite so they're not always thinking about food.
But there's this new drug that supposedly is achieving 25% weight loss.
It's in the very early stages.
But like if I'm 200 pounds and I can get down to 150 by taking this drug and it has the potential, to reverse some of my diabetes symptoms.
[29:28] And I just feel like I can't be troubled with whole food plant-based.
I love my pleasure trap, you know, I love these hyper-concentrated foods too much.
Do you think that sometime in the future, maybe even now, there's a time and a place for these drugs?
[29:49] I would say the answer to that question is that we don't know because we don't know their long-term effects.
[29:56] Yeah. So the, um, that is the question is, is there a legitimate cost benefit analysis for any drug? And that, that is always an open question. So for example, they spent a lot, awful lot of money working to figure out Viagra. So instead, you know, you could, could have listened to our friends and they would have said, well, geez, just, you know, we eat some fricking decent food and let's make sure you don't have vascular disease.
And that problem is a canary in the coal mine. So therefore, you know, you shouldn't be making that mousing your way around it. You should be fixing the underlying problem. And a whole bunch of people are going to say, not interested in fixing the underlying problem. Just give me my Viagra. And we could sit back and think, is humanity better off for that, for that innovation, or isn't it? And there would be, you know, I'm sure you can make a case that people would say, Well, I'm better off because that exists. Fair enough. In the same way, we're going to probably find the same things that that some people's lives will be better off from these drugs, if it turns out that their risk profile isn't too bad. But you know, a lot of side effects can be really nasty. Oh, so you're talking about your pain playing Russian roulette with the only body you've got. And this is just not the way I roll.
[31:22] Well, in the article, it mentions how two of the main side effects, one is malnutrition, and the other is facial aging. I mean, who wants premature facial aging? But I guess maybe, be, you know, uh, exactly.
[31:42] No, you you're, I mean, this is, uh, I can't, you know, when it comes to anybody's medical decisions, including bariatric surgery, the, um, I, I can understand the desperation that people have and the, and the frustration that they have, um, and that they, that they feel cornered and they will quote, do anything I understand it because I've talked to you know I talked to a thousand people a year and probably 200 of those people are calling me about weight issues. So I'm talking to three or four people a week in phone consultations about weight issues.
And my solution is of course, never to go to any drugs and or any surgery.
It's to, the people that are calling me are smart enough and interested enough because they found me, they're not calling me randomly.
But they would like to do, to essentially go plant strong do a good job of this, but they're struggling with the challenges that are associated with this that we know can be formidable.
[32:47] And so that's my job. My job is to troubleshoot those things, to break this thing down, to make it simpler and make it increase a person's probability of success.
I've had so much success that it makes me confident to the level of arrogant.
In other words, it's like, listen, just call me and we will find a plan, whatever it is, If we have to throw you in jail at an engine two retreat, that's what we, you know, whatever it is that we need to do, that there is a pathway from where you are now to where it is that you want to go that is sane, reasonable, and achievable.
[33:23] Okay. The, uh, but there are, you know, there are efforts that need to be made to get you there.
And if you want the outcome instead of doing the process properly, and you want to cut out a precious organ that you can never recover or you want to drug a system in a way that has unpredictable results that you have to cross your fingers and hope you're not one of the quote rare side effects whose body is permanently destroyed.
That if you don't want, if you want to do it differently, there is a safe, reasonable and ultimately lifetime sustainable process that will have comprehensive health benefits that to me, it's there's no reasonable choice on the chessboard. But if you ask the question, population wide, among desperate people, you know, I'm saying that that feel like they can't do this, won't do this, we'll never learn about this and just want some results. Will these drugs be a net benefit to to this civilization? Maybe? Maybe they will, maybe they won't. And I'm not really that interested in that question. I'm interested in doing this thing right.
[34:34] You know, what's interesting is supposedly in these drugs, and we talked about how there's this excessive amount of A levels of these hormones, but supposedly there's this thing called GLP-1, and patients, they get five times the amount of this GLP-1 than they would in a Thanksgiving dinner.
To put it out there, how unnatural the levels of certain things in these drugs are.
And to your point, like you're playing Russian roulette.
You are. I just got an email from a young man in another country that wants to talk to me about the fact that he has what appears to be a, between the ages of 15 and 18, he was given antidepressants.
Completely reasonable, in other words, that is considered completely reasonable medicine.
Some depressed young man went into his physician, his physician prescribed him one of these SSRIs, the most common antidepressants in the world.
And he has apparently permanently dysfunctional sexual function as a result.
That is a rare but known side effect.
[35:56] Now, you think about that, okay? It's like, wow, if I had known that that was a possibility, maybe I would have not been, I wouldn't have taken that medication and I would have done other things that might have been reasonable about trying to address my depression.
[36:16] So this is, you know, and I, as someone who has lived in this space now for 40 years.
[36:23] I've talked to 300 of those people in my life, not that specific side effect, but I took this drug and now I'm permanently maimed. I'm tipped at that drug, I'm permanently maimed. And now we are coming behind there with whole natural foods and water fasting at True North and functional medicine from the from the best people that we can find to try to Mickey Mouse our way around and hopefully recover some of the function that is caused by the damage of the drugs. So you will never sell me that the new hot item on the drug market that's going to solve some problem. You'll sell it to me if healthy living if unhealthy living wasn't the cause and healthy living isn't isn't the cure, then I'm all ears, okay?
You got some bizarre problem that human beings occasionally get that has nothing to do with their diet and lifestyle.
And there's no possible reversal of diet and lifestyle.
Now you got my attention.
But you start talking about obesity, forget about it. We know the cause and we know the cure.
And so therefore I'm not interested in the new whiz bang.
[37:30] Well, that whiz bang is gonna have many, many tragedies associated with it.
Well, you know, I got this toenail fungus, Doug, and it doesn't matter what I eat, nothing seems to resolve it.
And, you know, I went on some medicine that you take, and you have to actually have your liver checked every couple of months to make sure it's not wreaking havoc on your liver, but it like resolved it in about two months.
Pretty crazy. There you go.
[37:58] Yeah, but now the thing with cholesterol and elevated blood pressure, these meds and these weight loss meds, I mean.
The doc, you know, when we're at our retreats, the doctors say you're gonna be on this for the rest of your life. Yes. Right. And that, no, I don't think anybody wants to be on a drug for the rest of their life. It doesn't sound that doesn't sound like a smart move. Yeah, it's it sounds like an unbelievably lucrative campaign. Right? Okay, is what this is. And so and it is lucrative.
So I think it was estimated at one point that if you can get a young kid on on ritalin for their quote adhd, That's a two hundred thousand dollar patient for the pharmaceutical industry. Oh god, Okay, so don't think they don't have it gamed out. So the the, I'm sure that you know if I was really a mercenary rep when this medications came out out, I would have rushed and bought a bunch of pharmaceutical stock. You know, of course, I mean, that's a, that would be the intelligent thing to have done. But this is to me, it's a, I understand it. And I understand the allure, but I have no interest in it. And nobody will ever convince me when you sing the praises of it, of all the successes that you you hear, wait until we hear the catastrophic failures.
[39:26] Wait until you are a doctor that is talking to somebody who is permanently maimed and has permanent loss of function as a result of these medications.
That life can never be recovered, okay? And that is the roulette wheel that we use whenever we use any of this stuff.
And you and I both know on the flip side of that coin, what happens when you transition to whole food plant-based.
[39:53] And the incredible results that we have seen again and again and again, year in, year out with literally zero side effects except for the positive ones that everybody wants.
Of course, everything.
And speaking of that, I'm just gonna quickly say, this is a little commercial break here.
If anybody's interested in joining us in Sedona in October, we have about 15 spots available.
And because Doug is gonna be there and to honor Doug, use the code Doug150 and you get 150 bucks, off the trip to Sedona.
So- Hey, look what I did. I did a good thing today. That's great.
You sure did. You sure did. Doug, this is a question that somebody wants to know.
So for people who struggle.
Despite having the knowledge. Yes. What in your opinion is the disconnect between knowing better and doing better?
So what I'm sure he'd call it comes back to the pleasure trap, but why can't people make the change even when they know?
[41:04] The the reason yeah, I'm gonna not you know, how dangerous it is to ask me a question like Well, we can also ask you the dangers of oil.
That's one of the questions. See right there.
[41:22] The danger, I mean, the problem here is that what your mind is doing is it's running a cost-benefit analysis.
And that's what it runs on everything. So when you're in a restaurant and you're looking at a menu, you're running a cost-benefit analysis on the four different options that you're looking at.
And what your mind does is it runs simulation programs in imagination as it attempts to try to figure out what the cost benefit is.
So if a girl is trying to decide between two dates to the prom that she's been offered, that's what she's doing.
Is she's running a cost benefit analysis and she uses her imagination to essentially try to game out in a virtual reality program, which dish do you think will be the better all around experience?
Is it Bill or is it George?
Okay, that's what she's doing.
And so that's what your cat is doing when it's looking up and whether or not it's worth taking its paw and scratching your chin to see whether or not, you know, it can get some more treats out of you.
It's running a cost benefit analysis. That's what brains do is they run cost benefit analysis.
And in humans, you can see evidence to the cost-benefit analysis in imagination.
[42:42] So people don't just magically french fries they have to imagine the french fries the thinking about what those are gonna be like and then they figure out where they're gonna go get them in other words this is all driven in imagination a virtual reality program is running through the system and generating vestiges of the feelings that you expect to get when you achieve it.
So if you see somebody attractive and you're on the dating market and you see them you you can't help it You're thinking about what it would be like in close proximity and touching that person. That's what's going on You're running virtual reality programs. And so when you're running virtual reality programs on food choices of course you've got memories that tell you about what the experience is going to be like to be eating the richer food and the And the virtual reality program is going to be like, well, I'd rather eat a meal that's 1000 calories a pound than a meal that's 500 calories a pound.
Your virtual reality program can tell you that it's a better decision from the standpoint of your biology, which is the problem that you're having is trying to get energy for as little energy output as possible.
So the problem that is at the root of the pleasure trap is that you were simply designed with preferences that saved your life in the Stone Age so that you made sure to eat peaches instead of romaine lettuce. That's exactly or to eat nuts instead of the peaches. You're, designed by nature to be aiming at the high calorie density when it's available. This.
[44:11] Is a problem. So what are we going to do about it? And the solution to the problem is to consistent enough and have your environment set up well enough that you essentially make it so that the virtual reality programs are starting to understand that the rich food is out of season.
That it's not available. Okay. Now the fact this this is true, for example, even with with an alcoholic with with wine, that you're designed by nature to know that a food is in season or resources in season, with respect to food, with taste and smell, but not with vision.
[44:57] Okay, so taste and smell are the, the, the primary mechanisms by which you know that a of resources in season. Where if you are an alcoholic and you have not had a drink in five months, you're not particularly tempted. Because as long as the smell and the taste are not hitting your nervous system, vision is not going to be a big deal. It's not going to. So I can have an alcoholic walk down a wine aisle in a grocery store and not really be pulled very hard at all.
Because the virtual reality program, it does not have recent memories of the taste and smell experience.
So it really isn't seeing it that it's in season.
[45:39] But if they have even a smell of it, now they're in trouble.
Okay, and if they have a taste of it, they're gonna be sunk.
So in the same way, this is gonna be true with our dietary problems.
That if you keep your food sequestered to a healthy, tasty food for a period of time, three or four weeks.
But if you do this, effectively, a lot of the virtual reality programs will be quieting down, on the concept that the food is even available.
[46:11] Now, if you walk by a pizza place and smell it, then it wakes it up.
It says, oh, it's in season.
Okay, so you're in a little trouble right now for the next few minutes until you get out of there and you quit smelling that, because it's gonna be pushing you.
But as soon as you get out away from it and you haven't actually chomped it down, it's quieting down in the system pretty quickly.
So your job is to essentially organize your behavior well enough around healthy foods that and staying away and keeping it at bay, the teasing of the system, so that you don't keep telling the nervous system that it's in season.
If you do that, then it's always gonna be a heck of a dogfight, because the system is designed by nature to keep going for the richest resources available.
And if it knows they're available, you're not gonna forget about it.
So I've noticed this, you know, I've been known to eat some Halloween candy.
And if I do that, the problem is, I'm in trouble for the next several days.
Because it's like, okay, it's in season.
Now, the interesting thing is, is that, you know, once I throw it all away, or, you know, manage to get rid of it, then what happens is, is that two or three weeks later, Doug, Doug, I gotta ask you a question though.
How are you getting Halloween candy? You're not going trick-or-treating.
[47:31] Yes, I have gone trick-or-treating with little kids, essentially grandchildren.
And so, yeah, this is exactly, and I'm not about stealing their candy.
[47:41] So I am not a true North Saint, okay?
[47:50] Yeah, Alan Goldamber is a true North Saint, but I'm not. So I'm a real person.
I will indulge myself into the pleasure trap every now and then, not all the way into the trap, that I will tease the system, but I know when I tease it, I'm asking for two or three days of turbulence in my motivation.
Like I know it's gonna happen.
And yeah.
Well, what's interesting is you used three words that I've never heard you use before, and I've heard you give a lot of talks. And that was, you used the term virtual reality programming.
Yes. Which I really liked that as well. Yes. And that's an easy way for, I think, people to connect.
[48:30] To what you're referring to.
You know, another thing that you say, and we've kind of refined it with Adam Sud, is make your environment look like your goals, right?
You know what, I keep forgetting that, but like, that's the best thing I've ever heard.
And as soon as I heard that kid say that, I'm like, he's a kid, he's gonna wrinkle his eyebrows, because isn't he 40 now?
Yeah, 40, 41, something like that. He looks to me like he's about 30.
And as far as I'm concerned, he's always gonna be the kid.
But that young man has nailed it.
That is exactly how we have to look at that. I love that analogy.
It's beautiful. I've never heard of a better one.
Make your environment look like your goals.
Yeah, and for people that don't know who we're talking about, this is Adam Sud.
On Instagram, he's a plant-based addict.
He will be joining us in Sedona. He actually came to one of our retreats when he was 330 plus pounds addicted to Adderall cocaine.
[49:30] In 2010, you actually weren't at that retreat, Doug.
And it truly is amazing to see how far Adam has come.
And just what a pillar he has become of the whole food plant-based community.
And what he's doing with his guns and getting big and strong, he is getting after it.
Yeah, that is a, when you see things like that, it makes you feel like everything is possible. It does.
Yes. And that we can get thrown in our community because our community will attract people like Adam that have that kind of commitment and determination.
And you see someone that can absolutely transform their entire life history. And he did. And so it can be done. We know it can be done. We've seen it. And it makes us it makes us feel like, hey.
[50:28] Why can't the whole country do this and turn their life around? And we look at him, we think, Well, in principle it could, but actually in reality it can't. And it's because this problem, people that are listening to this are among a modest size minority that have this as a potential for them. If you have this level of interest, if you're listening to us, this is not an accident.
You have sought out this information and you're curious and you're interested.
This makes you an unusual person. You may not think you're that unusual, but in fact you are.
And so what is, uh, is this is possible for you, but it's not going to be possible for Johnny Lunchbucket right smack in the middle of the bell curve in this society. That guy is, is headed to, to, uh, the life that he's going to live and whatever modern medicine can do to mitigate it.
And it's not going to be too good, but hopefully he'll have a decent life experience and be okay, but it's not going to be good. To be good, you got to treat your body better.
Yeah. Two days ago, Doug, our AC upstairs went out.
And so I called, you know, one of these HVAC companies.
[51:49] John Gonzalez, or John came out, and he told me that his father has had two heart attacks.
He's like 51 now, severely overweight, and can't get a job because he can hardly walk.
So I gave him a copy of, you know, the Engine 2 Seven Day Rescue Book, And he came back the next day and was super excited that, you know, gave it to his father and his father was hopeful.
But, you know, there's so many people, whether I'm driving in a taxi or an Uber, or, you know, and you have these conversations with people because you wanna reach out and you wanna help them.
Sure. Because you and I, we know what's at the other end if people will just be able to grasp, the basic nut of what we're trying to get across.
Yes, that's very true. And the thing is, is that you can't tell by looking at somebody whether they're gonna have it.
You can't. You cannot tell.
[52:54] There's no way we would have known that that was sitting inside of Adam.
Yeah. No, and he didn't know.
And so this is why we just keep spreading our message and do the very best we can and touch as many people as we can, but also understand that this will not be something that if you get it, it doesn't mean your sister or your brother or your husband or your wife or your children or your parents are gonna get it.
In other words, you have to be willing to, you fix yourself first, and then if it leaks to other people, great, But if it doesn't, then that wasn't meant to be.
Here I got a question on the screen for you. Yeah, dr. Lisle. I'm 135 days free from using the medical cannabis trap, Dr. Vera Tarman talked about the psychological withdrawals taking up to one to two years, Do you know of any other withdrawal symptom or symptoms other than what the I'm not sure I understand the question. Sorry about that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I guess there's psychological withdrawals Maybe anything else like with alcohol for example, you know, there's there's withdrawals and yeah You're bugs you're going to you're you're you're the we know from if a person used something like this long-term.
[54:15] That there can be It can take quite a while for the the neurochemistry to all wind up getting, Regulated to back to kind of where it started and so it can be as much as three years Okay, might even be longer in some cases, but probably not for this.
[54:34] Longer term recovery has been Shown to happen and things like cocaine and methamphetamine, So in other words that you can disrupt the brain function enough that it takes, Years and years for it to get all the way back to more normal But that doesn't mean it's not mostly back to normal after a year or two. Okay, same thing with alcohol So, you're mostly normal after a year or so, you're better after three years, and you still may be only 95% of normal at that point.
So I'm not too worried about how long these things take.
As long as you're doing pretty well, the good news is, is that you could still be improving.
And so that's one of the reasons why I try to stay away from all this stuff.
I just can't believe a three year tail on some of these things.
Yeah, more. they've shown that some of it could be 10 years.
So you can see that you effectively, and that the brain is still recovering very, very slowly from the, from essentially the disruption that is caused by a really heavy duty drug.
So, yeah.
B wants to know, could schizophrenia be resolved with whole food plant based?
[55:58] No, it cannot be. So schizophrenia is a cluster, it's a name we use for a cluster of mental experiences that are odd.
[56:17] And those are derivative of thousands Thousands of subtle little combination of genes that result in a nervous system that's a little bit, you know, can be a little bit or can be very unusual.
So the medications are generally, I would say, very bad news.
So the medications are not a solution to schizophrenia.
If you've got someone close to you and you have questions about this, I mean, the first place that I would ever go to learn about this would be Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker. But in terms of Whole Foods plant-based nutrition.
[57:04] That's going to be a hard, that's a high bar to try to get somebody's diet to improve that is struggling with limitations that are around schizophrenia. So I'm not.
[57:18] And it's not going to fix it, but certainly people can feel better physically, they can be calmer if they're less stimulated by a bunch of the junk food that people very often eat. A lot of of schizophrenics are disturbed by a lot of internal stimuli and it helps focus their attention a little bit temporarily if they smoke cigarettes. So a high percentage of them will smoke cigarettes and they'll get several minutes of relief of their mind not being kind of so open and fragmented. So this is a hard problem, but it's going to turn out that most of the best of of what we have for schizophrenia is peaceful, calm environments without too much stimulation, healthy food, really good regular bio rhythms of not staying up so late at night and getting up at a reasonable time in the morning and getting some daily exercise and reasonably healthy food.
This is in some productive activity during the day that's simple enough that they can do this and in a supportive social environment.
This is, i.e. living in a small town, okay? Or living in something that looks and feels like a small town in a nice, simple, supportive environment.
This is the best treatment that there is for schizophrenia.
Yeah. Yeah. Let me ask you this, Doug. How long have you been?
[58:47] Practicing psychology. I've been a psychologist for more than 30 years. Okay. What are your thoughts on screens and screen time and what it's doing to the mind and are you, is this something that you are.
[59:07] Seeing with people that you're, patients that you're talking to and having to like try and get get to the bottom of that and try and minimize it?
[59:18] Yeah, I think that one of the problems is is that the world's wealthy enough, that literally people aren't having to work a hundred hours a week the way they used to.
So if they had to work a hundred hours a week, then they couldn't be staring at screens all day.
So what we're looking at is one additional new way way for people's lives to get out of balance.
And so the screens are inherently interesting. There's interesting information on there.
And they're now designed by nature, now designed cleverly by robots to try to figure out what's going to pull your nervous system and find out what's a little 1% more enticing.
So basically the same thing is happening with your attention as what happened in the foods in the second half of the 20th century.
They got increasingly sophisticated about how to put the food together so that you can't keep yourself out of it.
And they're doing exactly the same thing with your attention.
So if we're not careful and you don't set up boundaries, i.e. make your goals look like your environment is what Adam would tell us.
And so, you know, I have never in my life been on Facebook.
It never happened, okay? What about Instagram? Have you been on Instagram?
I've never been on Instagram. So in other words, I'm bragging like I'm some saint, but the truth is I'm technologically incompetent. And so therefore my life remains remarkably 20th century.
[1:00:47] I need to say that I just wanted to see if you'd posted anything on Instagram before we went on today. I could like ask you questions. And of course, I found a Doug Lisle.
Yeah. But it's a Doug Lisle that says, he says, I like to pick things up and put them down again.
This guy's a power lifter and he also loves the Warhammer 40K log.
There you go. There you go.
Not me. No. Very quickly, it was like, oh, that's not, that's not the Doug that I know and love. Yeah, you got it.
[1:01:21] Wow. That's remarkable that you've never been on Facebook or Instagram. Wow. Like I said.
So, but here's the thing though, Doug, Doug, Doug, if you will indulge in a little bit of Halloween candy, you must indulge a little bit of Netflix or something like that.
Oh, sure. Okay. Yeah.
And so it's going to turn out that this is one of these things like it's all about balance, you know?
So if you got a basketball team, it's all about balance. And with your diet, it's about balance.
And so it's also true with everything in your life.
And so we have to look at all of these things like...
[1:02:01] We have to look at everything. Everything needs to be under a reasonable amount of scrutiny about is this thing pulling my life out of balance. So there's people that can go into a casino, and spend two or $300 a year, a couple times a year, playing a little bit of blackjack for an hour. And that's that. And then there's people whose lives are destroyed by it. There's people, that can have a glass of wine now and then on some special occasion. There's people whose lives are destroyed by it. And the same thing is going to be true with all of the screens and media.
You can have your life probably not destroyed by it, but certainly impoverished. And that is a, that is something that is very evident that is happening. And, you know, just like the food, you know, you're going to be, you're going to have a lot of human life, essentially, not destroyed, but made mediocre.
So we need to respect that they're after us.
You know what's destroying my life right now is pickleball. I can't get enough pickleball.
[1:03:06] That's a good way to destroy your life, Rick. That's a perfect place.
That's good. I hope we get to play again in Sedona.
I'm sure we will. Good, good, good. Hey, Doug, this has been absolutely terrific.
I appreciate you on such short notice, jumping in to tackle some of these questions on these weight loss drugs and how.
[1:03:33] Big question marks there and how we believe that whole food plant-based is a much smarter choice.
Absolutely, you bet, Rick.
Yeah, so I will see you in just over a month and a half in the Red Rock Mountains of Sedona.
And again, anybody, if you wanna join us, Adam Sud, Jane, Dr. Klaper, the whole Incredible Plantstrong Team and about 80 other.
People that are want to enjoy everything there is about plantstrong living use the code Doug150, Thanks, Doug My pleasure. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, give me a give me a virtual fist bump on the way out There you go. Perfect, Bye. I have a great weekend everybody.
[1:04:20] Thank you for listening to the plantstrong podcast, you can support the show by taking a quick minute to follow us wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.
Leaving us a positive review and sharing the show with your network is another great way to help us reach as many people as possible with the exciting news about plants.
Thank you in advance for your support. It means everything.
The PlantStrong podcast team includes Carrie Barrett, Laurie Kortowich, Ami Mackey, Patrick Gavin and Wade Clark. This season is dedicated to all of those courageous truth seekers who weren't afraid to look through the lens with clear vision and, hold firm to a higher truth. Most notably, my parents Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr.
And Anne Crile Esselstyn.
Thanks for listening.
