#285: Dr. Matthew Nagra - Cutting Through the Nutrition Confusion and Debunking Diet Myths
Dr. Matthew Nagra, a naturopathic doctor, dissects the latest research in nutrition, particularly around plant-based diets and their impact on health.
He emphasizes that a whole food plant-based diet that is rich in fruits, vegetables, and legumes can prevent and treat chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes while also promoting longevity.
The conversation covers several hot topics including the pros and cons of oils, the role of protein in the diet, the impact of eggs, fake meatsl and the misconceptions surrounding gluten and organic foods.
Rip and Dr. Nagra also delve into the effects of sleep on food intake and the importance of understanding individual dietary needs. With a commitment to evidence-based research, this episode aims to clarify common misconceptions and encourage listeners to focus on whole, nutritious foods for optimal health. And that gets a big kale yeah from us!
Episode Highlights
00:20 - Diving into Plant-Based Nutrition
05:50 - Dr. Matt’s Journey into Naturopathic Medicine and Plant-Based Living
20:01 - Understanding the Toxicity Argument Against Plants
24:17 - Plant-Based Meats or Real Meat- Which is Better?
35:11 - The Impact of Salt Alternatives on Blood Pressure
38:48 - Examining the Egg Debate
43:26 - The Truth About Oatmeal
57:21 - Exploring the Controversy of Dietary Oils
01:00:52 - Can Oil Be Part of a Healthy Diet?
01:16:41 - The Benefits and Considerations of Creatine Supplementation
01:23:10 - Sleep and Food Intake
01:26:43 - Understanding Gluten and its Effects on Health
01:31:50 - Understanding HDL and LDL Cholesterol
01:40:53 - Ozempic and Weight Management
Episode Resources
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Full Episode Transcription via Transcription Service
I'm Rip Esselstyn, and you're listening to the PLANTSTRONG Podcast.
Introduction to the PLANTSTRONG Podcast
[0:04] If you're the kind of person who loves going deep into the latest research and trends in the health and fitness space, I know you're going to love this conversation with Dr. Matthew Nagra, a plant-based naturopathic doctor from Vancouver, Canada. Today we're going to cut through the noise and the so-called expert advice on all the latest topics like organic foods, plant-based meats, salt substitutes, eggs, protein, and yes, Matt's thoughts on oil. We're going to have this informal ax it or stack it right after these words from PLANTSTRONG
Dr. Matthew Nagra Joins the Discussion
[0:53] Follow Dr. Matt Nagra on Instagram, and you'll get a glimpse into his philosophies and entertaining insights on many of the latest topics in the world of nutrition.
[1:05] Dr. Nagra himself is a plant-based naturopathic doc who specializes in nutrition, so it's little wonder that he stays on top of the research so he can apply it with his patients to address their various health concerns. Well, today, I threw the book at Dr. Nagra and asked his thoughts on many hot topics. It's almost like an Axe-It or Stack-It episode I did with David Goldman a few weeks ago, as Matt shares research on things like eggs, meat substitutes, gluten, protein, and, of course, oil. Now, we may not necessarily see eye-to-eye on every topic, but you know what we do agree on? Cutting through the BS and the confusion and providing evidence-based research that shows a whole food plant-based diet can prevent and treat chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes, as well as optimized longevity and performance. And that gets a big kale yeah from the both of us. Please welcome Dr. Matthew Nagra.
[2:23] All right, Dr. Matthew Nagra, welcome to the Plant Strong Podcast. It's a pleasure to have you. Yeah, thanks for having me on. It's a pleasure to be here.
[2:34] Absolutely. Matt, where are you right now? Are you in Canada? Yeah, Vancouver, Canada. Got it. Are you a Canadian citizen? Yeah, I was actually born and raised on Vancouver Island. I don't know if you've ever been, But I spent most of my life there and then moved over to the mainland and to Vancouver about, I want to say, six, seven years ago now. Oh, yeah. No, I've been to Vancouver Island. It's a little slice of heaven. Absolutely. We have a little bit of everything there. And it's becoming quite the sort of retirement destination now as well. There's a lot of a lot of nice properties on the water and everything. Right. I'm sure it's not cheap either. Yeah. Depends where you are. If you're on the water. Yeah, it's definitely not cheap. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I, I, uh, we took an Alaskan cruise this last spring and we ended up in Vancouver and you talk about a beautiful city, God, Vancouver, you got, you've got the, you got the ocean and they've also got the mountains. It's quite, quite the kind of a combination.
The Impact of Nutrition on Health
[3:46] Yeah yeah if you don't mind the uh the cold um water you can probably go skiing and go for a swim in the same day if you really wanted to yeah um so let's let's jump right in because you um.
[4:03] You have done a kind of a remarkable job on your on your Instagram channel, sharing with people a lot of the studies, the research. I can't even imagine how much time you spend reading, reading journals and surfing the net. Can you give me an approximation how much time you spend a week doing that? Um i would say pretty much every day when i first wake up and you know have a tea or coffee i'll uh look up basically what's new um that day so i have all these pubmed searches all preset so every morning i have my beverages i have my foods my nutrients my plant-based searches and i'll i'll filter them all and kind of scroll through what seems interesting that day and i'll either read them if i have time or i'll save them for later that day but i do that almost every single day. So it's quite a lot. Yeah. So is there anybody that you kind of nerd out over this stuff with? Oh, yeah. I mean, I feel like I'm in plenty of sort of group chats that, you know, we can nerd out. But people like Simon Hill, he and I talk almost daily and I'm familiar with him.
[5:14] Nutrition Made Simple. He has a really good Dr. Gil Carvalho. He has a really good YouTube channel that actually your dad was just on for an interview. Um, so, uh, I talk with him pretty regularly and, and we chat about, you know, the nitty gritty details of some of these studies. And so I feel like there's quite a few, um, people like that. What, um, you know, who is in my circle and seems to be really starting to embrace the, the, the research and the studies is, uh, Adam Sud.
Journey into Naturopathic Medicine
[5:46] He and I talk all the time yeah absolutely yeah now you when did when and why did you decide to go into medicine, So I'm actually, to clarify, I'm a naturopathic doctor. So we can get into a little bit about maybe those details in a minute. But when I was going into my undergraduate studies, I definitely thought about going into healthcare. But I also started to get really interested in nutrition. So just in my last couple years of high school, I started changing my diet, actually shifted towards a more of a plant based diet. And I saw improvements in athletic performance, weight loss, my skin was clearing up, my asthma seemed to be getting better. And you know, whether it's a coincidence or related to the diet, I'm sure there's a bit of both.
[6:34] I, you know, thought, well, maybe nutrition plays a role in our health, you know, something as I'd say, as a teenager, a lot of people don't really think about too much. And so once I got into university and I started taking my nutrition even more seriously I thought well how can I meld the two like how can I focus on nutrition with my patients but also embrace medicine as you know it's it has a lot of utility there is a lot of importance in that realm I know there's a lot of people that are like anti-medicine or one or the other like no no we we can do both, And it was actually one of my instructors, an undergrad who recommended I speak with and shadow a couple of her naturopathic doctors. And I thought I learned about how broad their scope is. So here in B.C., we can prescribe, we can send for blood testing, we can do a lot of nutrition counseling. It's actually a very broad scope.
[7:29] And obviously, that's going to be different between different provinces or states. But here in B.C., it is sort of the best of both worlds in a way. If you choose to practice in that way. And so it was around my second, third year of undergrad that I decided that this is the route I wanted to go. And I do focus a lot on nutrition now while obviously incorporating those parts of medicine as much as needed or as much as I can. Where did you go to undergraduate?
Embracing a Plant-Based Diet
[7:55] At the University of Victoria on Vancouver Island as we were talking about. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, very, very nice.
[8:03] And so you mentioned you know you went plant-based and your skin cleared up and you saw some other benefits but, Can you remember who it was in your life that suggested or inspired you to kind of lean into the plants? Yeah, I've told this story many times, but it was funny enough, my personal trainer at the time. So in I think it was grade 11 or maybe the summer between grades 10 and 11, I was working with a personal trainer as I was gearing up for football. I also played a lot of soccer, did some martial arts. So I was quite active. And he was really pushing more of a plant-based approach. Now, he wasn't exclusively plant-based, but we'll say, you know, 90, maybe 95% or somewhere in that realm. And he recommended it. And it was actually him, and his wife, who was also a trainer telling me to record everything I ate for a couple weeks, do a food diary.
[9:00] And at the time, I was like, Oh, man, they're gonna see how terrible my diet is, it's gonna be so bad. this, the workouts already suck. And how much worse are they going to make it once they see this? And so I actually cleaned up a lot of my diet in many ways for that period, I was like, I'm just gonna, you know, really show them how healthy I can eat. And again, I was, you know, maybe 15 at the time, but I ended up cutting out dairy at that point, I reduced my meat intake.
[9:31] I got rid of a lot of these sort of classic, you know, ultra processed foods, things like sugary beverages potato chips and so on and that made a world of difference along with having more smoothies like fruits and veggies and things like that but um it made a big difference especially when it came to weight management which is something i struggled with growing up quite a bit even though i played all those sports so that was really what triggered those changes you know you mentioned you mentioned it was your trainer that kind of sets you off in this direction which i absolutely love because here in the United States, I mean, I can't even imagine a personal trainer suggesting to their client, hey, you should consider plants. It is so much more slanted, I think, towards paleo, keto, carnivore. It's sinful. And I think that's a testament to the fact that I think Canada is way, way ahead of the United States when it comes to eating healthy.
[10:37] You know, the, the, the plate or the nutritional guidelines that the government has laid out for Canadians by and large. And I just find that Canadians, you know.
[10:48] And some of my best friends are Canadians have a much more kind of down to earth humility and also open mind to these things. Does that make sense? Would you agree? Yeah, I think I think if you compare to America that I would agree, I don't think it's quite I don't think it's as big of a shift as some people might garner from what you're saying.
The Role of Trainers in Dietary Choices
[11:11] I think there's still a lot of very pro meat animal based sort of proponents here. Um i think i just got really lucky to be honest um with with my trainer i think you know at that age 15 year old guy wanting to be fit i think if my trainer started recommending the keto diet or carnivore or something i might have bought into it like you know who knows at the time and i feel very fortunate that um it shifted me in this direction instead yeah so how how many years ago was that? So that was about 16 years ago. And then I went 100% plant-based in my first year of university. So it's been almost 14 years.
[11:51] Any pushback from family and friends? My family was actually very supportive early on, but they also knew that trainer very well. They trusted his, you know, recommendations, my dad worked with them as well. So I feel like that helped me a bit. But it was more so when you get to like the grandparents or the extended family. And like, that's where there's more pushback. And of course, especially when it comes to grandparents growing up, they, you know, their whole lives for several decades at that point, they've been consuming a lot of these things. And I think it makes it a lot harder to sort of see that shift. But now my grandparents are eating much more plant-based. And when we're there, they'll make us plant-based meals and things. They'll substitute the milk for soy milk and those. So I feel like it's had sort of a ripple effect. Nice.
[12:40] Do you refer to yourself as vegan, plant-based, plant-leaning, PLANTSTRONG? What's your terminology for what you call yourself? Yeah, so I call myself a vegan. I would say in the year following that transition is when I started to become more interested in sort of the ethical side and those reasons to eat this way. And I would say really that's what keeps me 100% plant-based. Like, can you really make a health argument for 95% versus 100%? Not really. but it's the ethical argument that keeps me at a hundred percent. And so absolutely I do consider myself vegan, but the initial reason for that switch was more so on the health side. Yes. It's funny for me.
[13:27] And all, you know, obviously the ethical, the environmental, all those things have come into play the longer that I've done it. But when I first started it, it was just easier for me. It was just very black and white when I knew, OK, I'm eating plants and I'm not doing animals or animal byproducts as opposed to 98 percent or 95 percent. And it's like my attitude was I'm going to do this. I want to do it 100 percent. And, um, and that was even before, you know, this was back in 1987, right? Before, you know, the environment was a thing and, you know, nobody had thrown the ethical stuff at me. I just was like, all right, I'm in, I'm in, I'm in a hundred percent.
Understanding the Vegan Label
[14:10] I'm not going 98. I'm not going 96. I'm going in. So, but yeah. Yeah. I think that's very similar to my own case. When I first decided to jump in 100%, I think for me, it was much easier to draw that line, because if I, you know, quote, unquote, allow myself to, to, you know, have x amount of, you know, animal products or other things, then, you know, that becomes 2% to 5% to 10%. You know, it is a slippery slope for me, I'm not saying it's that way for everybody, right? So different people might might be able to manage that better. But for me, that was certainly the case. Well.
[14:48] I think you and I both know other human beings. For the vast majority, it is a slippery slope. I think it's the individual that can do actually one piece of, you know, one egg a week or, you know, half a thing of fish every two weeks. They're few and far between. I really honestly believe that. Having done this and worked with people now for a long, long time.
Addressing Nutrient Deficiencies
[15:16] Let me ask you. I'm going to start firing some questions your way, Matt. And I know this is something that you love to do. So how do you respond when people come to you and they ask if a vegan or a plant-based diet, you're going to be deficient in very, very important nutrients? How do you respond to that? So my first question is always which nutrients. And if these are people commenting on my Instagram page, I'd be like, link the reference. You know, I want to see the sources because a lot of people just inherently believe these things, but have never actually really looked. The fact of the matter is with every dietary pattern, whether it's vegan or vegetarian, or I know I'm calling vegan a dietary pattern. I know it's ethical, but for sake of this argument, I'm going to call it a dietary pattern. But vegan, vegetarian, omnivorous, there are pros and cons as far as nutrients. There are certain nutrients that are a lot easier to get on a vegan diet, like fiber, folate, magnesium. And then there are certain things on a more animal-based or omnivorous diet that are easier to get, like obviously protein intake tends to be higher, zinc perhaps could be higher.
[16:24] But then on the omnivorous side, you're typically lacking in things like folate and things like fiber. And so you just shift that focus. So the first thing I like to settle is that, Yes, there are certain things you need to focus on, but that's true of all diets. Once that's gone, then we look at, well, what do you have to worry about as a vegan? Well, okay, B12, take a B12 pill, pretty easy, or consume fortified foods regularly. Vitamin D, possibly, depending on where you're located, but that also, and how much sun you get, but that also applies to pretty much every other diet. Or take a simple multivitamin that just covers your bases really well as a safety net. There are a lot of different ways to manage those, but I would always want to know, like, well, what nutrients are you particularly concerned with? And we can address those individually, whether it's through foods or through supplementation.
[17:17] Yeah. I mean, obviously, you know, the one that's first and foremost with most people always is protein. I don't want to talk about that yet with you, though.
Debunking Plant Toxicity Myths
[17:27] I want to jump into that a little bit later. Okay. So, you know, there's these personalities that are out there. Dr. Gundry with plant paradox you got paul saladino um and they're kind of they go on these rants making people think that plants are somehow toxic uh can you help clarify that plants are in fact not toxic yeah there's a few they i mean the the really quick kind of clippy response is well if they're toxic they're doing a really bad job of killing us um but like that's the first thing and also nobody eats them. Like if you actually look at fruit and vegetable consumption in say Americans, even like, you know, kids, adults, medical professionals, they're typically falling below recommendations quite substantially. So that's the first thing that's really funny. But as far as this sort of toxicity argument, what is typically pointed to, especially for gundry, are these lectins. So these are these compounds found in many plant foods. There's actually certain types of lectins in animal foods as well, but the ones that they typically complain about are the types in like kidney beans, for example.
[18:41] But what they always ignore is that when you cook these foods, those lectins are degraded down to points that they're almost non-detectable, sometimes non-detectable, depending on the type of cooking method. And at that point, there certainly aren't enough there to cause any harm.
[18:58] So we cook beans, we cook grains, you know, that's pretty standard practice, I would say. And there are other types of lectins in things like tomatoes that aren't toxic don't seem to have those types of harmful properties and at least some pre-clinical data suggests they might have anti-cancer properties and whatnot not going to say that tomatoes are going to you know cure cancer or anything like that but we could speculate about possible benefits from those types of lectins but what it all comes back to and this is like the most important takeaway i think when it comes to nutrition is we have to look at the end result. What is the final outcome? And when you consider people who eat more beans versus those who eat less, they have lower risks of cardiovascular disease, lower risks of total mortality. That is the net result of consuming that food. So clearly it's overall beneficial. Even if we were to grant that you're consuming some lectins and those lectins are somewhat harmful, all of the benefits are overcompensating for that potential negative of effect, leading to a net positive result.
[20:01] What do you think is their angle? Why do you think they're trying to scream up and down that plants are toxic when, as you said, and... I think the United States Economic Council would agree most Americans aren't eating many whole plant-based foods whatsoever. So is it just to get attention? Is it something they're trying to sell? What do you think is going on there?
[20:26] I think it's different. Now, I'm totally speculating. I don't know what's going on in these people's heads, but I think it's different for different people. So for some of them, I do kind of suspect that they know they're full of it and they're just promoting this and they're making a lot of money off it, gaining a lot of followers. is this very provocative sort of messaging as possible.
[20:45] For others, they might like truly believe it, they might have found this answer to all of our health concern, or they might think that they found this answer to all of our health concerns, and are trying to promote that message. And, you know, in some ways, that's possibly even more dangerous. But a lot of that is typically based on sort of, again, these individual mechanisms, kind of highlighting these potential things that could be going on and and you know assuming that it leads to that final result and then they might do some you know patient counseling and have people adopt their recommendations and they improve in some way and they use that as evidence the problem is with these anecdotes is you can make so many different changes and lead to short-term benefits you can go carnivore and lose weight and possibly improve some blood biomarkers in the short term but that doesn't mean it's good for you long-term. You could start smoking and lose weight. It doesn't mean it's good for you long-term. We can draw these parallels to things that we know are obviously bad for you long-term, but they don't seem to apply that to things like dietary changes, like going carnivore or removing lectin-containing plants or whatever.
[21:57] So what is driving this? I don't know exactly, but I think those are a few possible explanations. Yeah. You just mentioned that the carnivore diet.
The Controversy of the Carnivore Diet
[22:10] Which, you know, really, I think came out of nowhere, maybe two years ago, three years ago, if I'm not mistaken, you know, it just seems to be another iteration of, you know, the Atkins, paleo, keto, what is your, like, what is your unbridled opinion of the carnivore diet? Yeah, I mean, I think it is absolutely going to be quite dangerous long term. When we look at people posting their blood work, for example, I mean, their lipids are through the roof, we have some people even leaders of the carnivore movement, like Sean Baker, whose hemoglobin A1c It puts them in a pre-diabetes range, even though they don't eat carbohydrates. I've seen others with similar blood work.
[22:55] Sean Baker's testosterone was super low. Paul Saladino mentioned that his testosterone was dropping, and which is why he started incorporating plants, funny enough, even though he was known as the carnivore MD for years. These are all, again, anecdotal. We don't have good long term evidence, but we're seeing harms, at least in those individuals who previously touted benefits based on their own experience. So like down the road, it ends up not being so good. But what we can do is we can look at the data we have on other food groups and sort of draw conclusions about what would happen. So we know that red meat consumption, when you're consuming it at a level of, say, a serving a day or more, is associated with a higher risk of all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, colorectal cancer, and they're eating several servings a day. Do they just assume that the risk goes like this and then drops off once you hit high levels? Like, it doesn't make any sense. They're also removing foods that are associated with reductions in risk, things like fruits, veggies, whole grains, legumes. So it's like a double whammy. You're removing all of these really healthy foods and you're just maximizing consumption of these foods that may increase risk. How on earth can you expect that to lead to good outcomes? Like the sort of mental gymnastics that are done to try to justify that is unbelievable. And I've, of course, engaged in these kind of debates. I've seen the types of arguments out there and they're just nonsensical, really.
[24:17] What exactly is the carnivore diet? What do you eat if you're on the carnivore diet? If you ask different people, they might give you slightly different answers. But generally speaking, it's a diet comprised largely of meat, dairy, eggs, and, you know, they'll typically recommend including some like organ meats. Things like liver and whatnot. But that's really it. And some of them will say you can add salt, a lot of them take electrolyte supplements, which I don't understand how that fits into this ancestral narrative. But, but, you know, they'll, they'll definitely add salt as a seasoning. But as far as I know, they won't really add herbs and things, because those are plants, and you don't want those. So that's the basis for it. It's really not that complicated.
[25:03] There's a a personality who who actually i think he just moved here to austin peter atia, who's been getting a lot of attention as of late and yeah i know you have a instagram post where he basically says that red meat doesn't cause cancer you know i just saw a t-shirt not too long ago it says beef it's what's rotting in your colon um what uh how do you think a Stanford-educated, very obviously bright individual can, with a straight face, say that red meat
The Case Against Red Meat
[25:40] doesn't promote or cause cancer? Yeah, I think the waters have been sufficiently muddied around a lot of the red meat literature.
[25:51] There's certainly some industry influence in some of the messaging. There's certainly people with biases. And I would say, just to put this out there, everybody has a bias. Everybody eats, everybody enjoys eating certain things more than others, whether it's ethically motivated, like with a vegan or not. And so I will admit that as a vegan, I have some kind of bias. But when I evaluate the literature, I understand that and try to set that aside and see like, how can I look at this objectively? There are people like Peter, like Lane Norton, etc, who I don't think can see their own biases. I think they believe that because they eat an omnivorous diet, plants and animals, that they don't have a bias. And that's just not true your bias could be for that omnivorous diet.
[26:34] So that's one. Second, I think he really, I think he holds a double standard with different types of evidence. And this is one of the things I pointed out in my post. So for example, he will say the research on exercise is phenomenal. He'll cite like massive reductions in cardiovascular disease risk, for example. But that's based on observational research, this research where you follow people over time, see those who exercise more versus those who exercise less, and how much of a reduction in risk they have, of course, while doing your best to account for other variables like smoking, alcohol, etc.
[27:10] We have the same kind of research on red meat consumption, yet he discounts it because apparently you can't consider all those variables properly and whatnot, when it's literally the same thing with the exercise research. Like why is it that you can hold the exercise literature in such high regard, and then say that the red meat literature is just garbage. It doesn't make sense. There has to be some kind of double standard there. And I think that's really just his bias at play. And so yes, even though he's, you know, Stanford educated and all that, he's not free of bias, nobody is and you just have to understand that and be able to put that aside. Like me as a vegan, I can say, hey, some fish can be a part of a healthy diet, some low fat dairy can be a part of a healthy diet. I don't think it's ethically, you know, responsible to consume those foods. I think there are other issues with it environmentally as well. But I can say that and then still recommend a plant-based diet for all of those reasons. And I would like to see similar sort of messaging from people who are sort of on the other side, but we just don't see that a lot. Yeah. Good point. Really, really good, good point there.
Plant-Based vs. Animal-Based Meats
[28:13] Speaking of meat, you know that there's a lot of vegan meat alternatives, substitutes that are out there. I think that you've done a pretty good deep dive into whatever literature exists around meat alternatives versus the real meat. Is there a definitive answer as far as which is, which is healthier? Yeah. So, um, I actually don't know if you're aware or who is, but I actually published a paper in the Canadian journal of cardiology this summer on that topic. It's called animal versus plant-based meat, a hearty debate. Wow. And we, yeah, we focused on heart health, um, specifically. So, uh, it was really exciting. I got a ton of media attention, like men's health, everything. It was awesome. Um, and so yes, I've done a deep dive into this topic and basically there are two things we looked at. One is the nutritional composition. So especially things like fiber, saturated fat, trying to understand, um, how the, the nutrient profiles are with regard to like cardiovascular health and looking at those important ones. And then we looked at the studies actually giving people either plant-based or animal based meats and seeing how their their blood tests, you know, fare, essentially. And so.
[29:29] On the first part, when we reviewed the literature, we looked at 14 studies done in different markets around the world. So all over Europe, South America, North America. I think there might have been one in Australia. And we found very consistently that plant-based meats had less saturated fat, more fiber, unsurprisingly, because animals don't contain fiber, less cholesterol. Again, animal foods are the only ones with cholesterol.
[29:54] And then we saw, at least in the limited studies that looked at this.
[29:59] Less monounsaturated fats and more polyunsaturated fats, which are more of the heart healthy ones. So just on the basis of less saturated fat, more fiber, less cholesterol, like that's enough to suggest that the plant-based meat alternatives have a more heart healthy nutritional profile overall. Again, this is compared to meat. I'm not comparing it to like a black bean burger per se, which is a sort of separate comparison that we'd have to do. But that's positive. Then we looked at the trials where they give people one or the other. And very consistently, we saw lower total and LDL cholesterol levels with the plant-based meats, even when they use plant based meats with coconut oil, which are higher in saturated fat. So even in those cases, it tended to improve LDL cholesterol compared to the meat. And then there were some studies that suggested a little bit of a reduction in waist circumference in body weight, And there were no significant differences in blood pressure, even though a lot of the plant-based meats have a lot of salt. So that was really interesting. And one of the possible explanations is that these plant-based meats, they come pre-seasoned. So they already have salt added. Whereas when you cook up a burger, a typical burger, you're adding salt to it. So the salt intake ends up being about the same. That's one of the most easy sort of explanations for what's going on. But there could also be benefits of the little bit of fiber lowering blood pressure could be things like some of the phytonutrients lowering blood pressure and compensating.
[31:27] But really, the take home is the plant-based meats on average, have a healthier nutritional profile, even though there's obviously variability, some products will be better than others. And then compared to meat, the plant-based meats tend to improve cardiovascular risk factors. The next thing we need is long term studies looking at do they ultimately reduce risk of heart attack compared to animal based meats. And I suspect we'll get that in the next couple of years or so, hopefully, as there are some studies that have tracked intake of those products over time, but they just haven't published them yet. Yeah, yeah. When was the last time that you had some sort of a meat alternative?
The Role of Meat Alternatives
[32:08] I'm trying to think. I have them when I eat out every now and then. Actually, I did try. I was in the U.S. When was that? I want to say maybe a few weeks ago, a month ago. And I had the new Beyond there with the avocado oil. So it was actually quite good. And that's one thing about these plant-based meats is you can reformulate them. You can't reformulate a cow you know overnight very easily you can reformulate these products so they lower the sodium they lower the saturated fat down to two grams like it's actually a pretty solid product and um i tried it and i thought it tasted really good um so that was that's the last time that rings a bell as far as trying it but i mean i i may have eaten out once or twice since and had some i i can't remember yeah no i mean yeah i know that whenever i have a um, beyond meat burger i'm like jeez i just it's really i mean it's good right i'm like this is really good um but i mean i probably haven't had one in six months but probably two weeks ago i was at a friend's house and i had a field roast sausage and it was just too much the the sodium i was like i i took uh like two or three little bites of it and then i was like i just can't continue the sodium is just killing me here and i think you know one of the things that happens is.
[33:30] As our uh palates become a little bit more sophisticated to the the nuances of you know salt and fat and other things um it becomes harder to eat even though they're for for most people they're probably absolutely drop-dead delicious i think a little bit harder for some of us to eat yeah i think i think particularly the sodium is uh an issue like that for some people where if you don't really add salt to your food and you're not used to that and then like field roast in particular is quite high in sodium i think it's like five six hundred milligrams per per sausage what it's like to give you reference the new beyond burgers are like 300 it's like half of that um per whole patty so uh but yeah what when you have those higher salt products sometimes um it can be a little overpowering if you aren't used to having salt like that but as we know most people are used to having a lot of salt so it might might suit them a lot better yeah Yeah.
[34:26] So when you did your study, can you remember like how many different meat alternative brands, products were you guys looking at in totality? Oh, man, it's it's a lot. Yeah.
[34:40] I couldn't give you a number. It was probably over a hundred. I think basically we didn't look at the individual brands, but we looked at studies done in these different areas of the world where they would actually look at what's available commercially. And they would, so obviously a number of different products in each area, and they would look at the nutritional profiles and compare them to the meat that they're designed to mimic.
The Power of Salt Substitutes
[35:02] So, um, it would have been a ton overall. I just can't give you an exact sort of number yeah so we were just talking about salt talk to me about salt substitutes uh are there any that you're a fan of that you know do do the trick for people yeah so um i actually think from a public health um perspective i i think salt alternatives are one of the most powerful tools we have for lowering blood pressure and there was a um a project sort of a public health intervention done in finland called the north korelia project where they on a massive scale they lower the saturated fat content of foods they replaced a lot of the salt with these salt alternatives based on potassium or magnesium and they significantly brought blood pressure down they brought cholesterol levels down and they lowered coronary heart disease risk rates in men by like 80 percent like unbelievable um public health intervention, probably the best ever done.
[35:59] And so and since then, we've had a lot of trials where you'll take people with high blood pressure, replace salt, at least for half of them with these salt alternatives, and follow them for a number of years. And you see reductions in blood pressure in ultimately stroke risk, which is what we're most concerned about. And so they're really, really effective. The people that need to be cautious about their use or should definitely speak with their doctor before using any of those with, say, kidney disease or taking blood pressure medications that might increase their potassium levels. So there are certain concerns that way. But ultimately, I think it's a really, really good idea. So how to choose one and what you should be aiming for sort of depends on your palate. So I actually personally use 100% potassium, 100% potassium option. And I think it's fine. Other people believe or will say about Bye-bye. Three quarters roughly, or just over three quarters can taste a bit of a sourness to it. So for them, mixing sodium and potassium is better. If you look at a 50-50 split of sodium and potassium, most people can't tell the difference. It tastes the same, but you get half the sodium, which is obviously a good thing.
[37:11] So it'll depend. There are products like low salt or light salt that are a mix. And then there's products like Windsor salt free. There's one called no salt another one called i think new salt um these are all 100 potassium so there's different options available but um but i think they're a really really good idea for managing blood pressure provided again you aren't on medications that would make it contraindicated or you don't have kidney disease yeah that makes me wonder like why don't a lot of these meat alternative products have a potassium chloride or something that's to bring the salt level down. But if there's contraindications, you think that might be the reason? See, I don't know if that's necessarily the reason because people with, well, particularly when it comes to kidney disease are likely managing their sodium anyway. So I don't know how much different that would be. Now for some of the medications like potassium sparing medications, then it makes more sense that it would be geared towards potassium. So maybe that's it, but we are seeing it more. So the new Beyond Burger, one of the ways that they lowered their sodium content was by including a potassium-based salt. So I think there might be some regulatory hurdles or some regulations around how much you can add and those sorts of things. So I don't know the ins and outs of all of that, but we are starting to see some of it.
[38:33] And hopefully it's something that can be done at scale, but I don't really know at this point. At least I don't know what the hurdles are. Yeah, sure.
Examining the Egg Debate
[38:44] What are your thoughts on the the almighty egg?
[38:49] It's a very nuanced topic. I guess depends how much detail you want to go into. I can try to give sort of a surface level explanation. And then if you want me to dive into more details, we can. Well, I guess for me, and I'm just going to jump in for a sec before you answer.
[39:11] I'm surprised how many people still think that eggs are healthy. I think they're heart healthy. uh i was i just got finished playing pickleball the other day and i handed uh one of these players a bag of the PLANTSTRONG nine grain pancake and waffle mix and he says no i don't do grains he's like i i just do eggs in the morning and you know i i didn't say anything i just like okay hey thanks you know no problem um but eggs eggs eggs eggs what's the deal with eggs yeah Yeah. So I think a lot of people can probably relate to that sort of story and myself as well. But I think it depends on two really important factors that a lot of people just don't pay much attention to. So one of them is the dose. So you have to look at how much egg we're talking about. We're talking about an egg or two a week. That's not going to really do anything. We're talking about every day, then that starts to matter. And so when you look at studies where you're comparing a difference of about an egg a day, So those consuming low amounts of eggs are having maybe one or two a week at most, and those eating a lot of eggs are having, we'll say, at least seven more than that a week, roughly an egg a day.
[40:29] In those cases, very consistently, we see higher risks of cardiovascular disease in those consuming more eggs versus those consuming less. But there's another really important variable, and that's what you're comparing it to. So when you compare eggs to meat, other cholesterol-containing foods, which we'll say is mostly meat, in those cases, eggs are actually beneficial. They actually lower your risk compared to meat. So if you replace meat with eggs, that's a good swap health-wise. But if you replace eggs with plant protein sources, you lower your risk even more. So eggs are, we'll say, harmful, at least for heart health, if you're consuming them regularly instead of plants. but if you're consuming them instead of meat, they could be considered beneficial. Help me out here.
[41:17] What is it in... Is it what what is it in the meat that makes meat that much worse than the egg? So there's probably a couple things. One of them is definitely the saturated fat. So most meats, unless you're having really lean cuts, are going to have more saturated fat than eggs. And saturated fat is even worse than cholesterol. Cholesterol has a smaller impact on our blood levels of cholesterol. And it's also variable depending on genetics, whereas with saturated fat, it's more consistent and a larger effect. So that's one issue. Meats, especially red meats, are also rich in things like heme iron, which may play a role in cardiovascular health. There's some evidence supporting that. And there's other compounds. I mean, there's a lot of speculation around things like new 5GC and whatnot that are in the meats. But can we pin down exactly what role those play? Not at this point. It's mostly preclinical studies done in like, you know, with cell cultures in Petri dish or in animal models. And so we can't necessarily say like this is responsible for 15 percent of the risk in humans or whatever. You know, we can't we can't draw those lines yet.
[42:25] But there are reasons to believe that that there is something contributing to a higher risk in meat. And we can kind of speculate around what that is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, OK. Anything else around the egg or I think those are the big ones. Oh, actually, you know what, I think this is worth mentioning. And maybe we'll get in, as you mentioned, the protein topic later on. But I also see a lot of people saying that, like, we need to eat eggs for protein. And that, I mean, if you replace eggs with tofu, same amount of calories from either, you get actually quite a bit more protein from tofu, like a tofu scramble. If even if you replaced eggs with like an egg alternative, like just egg, you get the same amount of protein. Like, there are other options out there, which I just find kind of funny. Yeah. Yeah.
[43:14] Trying to think which direction I want to go with you right, right here, right now. There's so many, so many different places. Let me see here.
The Truth About Oatmeal
[43:26] One of the things that's really steaming my clams these days is all these people that all of a sudden are thinking that oatmeal is not healthy because it raises their blood sugar levels. They're wearing these continuing glucose monitors. And, oh, my God, I can't believe what it does when I eat oatmeal. Can you help clarify that oatmeal is, in fact, healthy and a good food for us to eat? Yeah so i mean there there's like multiple layers to this so for starters this idea, that raising blood or blood glucose rising after a meal is a bad thing just has no basis in the evidence so it's normal when you eat carbohydrates like oats or whether that's like even a whole wheat bread or some fruit it's normal for your blood sugar to go up a little bit and then it just comes back down that's normal that's what should happen and that's what you want the problem is where it goes up and it stays up because you have a lot of insulin resistance or diabetes from you know excess body fat accumulation or you know that we can talk about more of those details later maybe um but it is completely normal has never been shown to translate into worse outcomes in humans um to have these you know slight rises and drops um but again what we want to do is go back to.
[44:48] What is the end result? What are the outcomes? And we have long-term studies like the Nurses Health Study, Health Professionals Follow-Up Study running for like three decades. Those who consume more oatmeal than those who consume less have lower risks of coronary heart disease.
[45:02] That's a good thing. You know, these glucose spikes aren't hurting you in those cases. We also have randomized controlled trials where oatmeal improves a bunch of blood parameters like your LDL cholesterol levels, for example, we have the same sort of data on fruits and higher fruit consumption associated with lower risks of cardiovascular disease. And what's really ironic about it is that people will then swap things like oatmeal for bacon and eggs because those don't have carbohydrates and aren't going to quote unquote spike your glucose as much, but they're actually associated with higher risks of those diseases. So you're actually choosing something that's worse for your health because on your CGM, you see this little bump and it just doesn't make sense. It's actually harmful in the long run. So I would certainly advise people to, again, focus on what is the end result? What is the final outcome? Not these like intermediate markers. Like, look, I can actually make an argument that exercise is bad for you based on the same kind of speculation. I can say exercise increases inflammation, which is true. If you exercise, your inflammatory markers can rise depending on how hard you exercise for a day or two, roughly. Um and then i can you know fear monger say you see inflammation or markers of inflammation rise inflammation is associated with heart disease therefore or exercise is bad um but obviously that's insane because at the end of the day exercise is incredibly beneficial and lowers your risk of disease um so that's the type of sort of gymnastics that are going on here.
[46:31] Well wouldn't it be interesting if somebody would come out and say that exercise is bad for us he or she would probably get a lot of attention. Yeah, but here's the thing. I think they would be universally bashed for it. And that's what's so incredible about this is when it comes to things like oatmeal. Um, it's, it's like normal to just accept that. Oh yeah, it's bad for you because, because of this wild speculation, it's weird. You wouldn't get the same response with exercise. Yeah. You know, since 2010, I've been throwing these six or seven day PLANTSTRONG total immersions, and all we're feeding people in the morning primarily is fruit and steel cut oats.
[47:21] And a lot of people they come in the first day and their baseline fasting glucose is well over 100 sometimes you know 125 135 and typically by the time they leave six or seven days later it's below 100 right so it's they've gone from basically pre-diabetic to to being fine again eating fruit eating
The Misunderstanding of Fruit Sugars
[47:43] oatmeal and potatoes and rice and beans and all this stuff you you get it What about fruit? Can you believe how many people these days are afraid of the sugar that's in fruit and all these influencers that are continuing to, you know, kind of encourage this behavior? Sure.
[48:04] Yeah. I mean, yeah, fruit contains sugar, obviously, but also contains a ton of fiber. It's high in water content, or most of them are high in water content, rich in polyphenols that actually lead to changes in sort of the absorption or regulation of the glucose in the blood. But at the same time, I think the concerns come from sort of a misunderstanding of the what causes diabetes or type 2 diabetes or insulin resistance. And like the primary driver by far is excess body fat accumulation. Basically, when you pack on enough body fat, especially if it's around the liver or in the liver and pancreas, eventually, that's what leads to insulin resistance. And things like fruit are so low in calorie density, so filling, so rich in fiber, that they actually seem to aid with in fat loss, and ultimately improve blood glucose regulation. Now, if you have a really bad, like insulin dependent diabetes, you're going to want to work with a professional to sort of, you know, how do you increase carbohydrate intake while managing your glucose, like there are certain factors there that you have to consider. But at least while you're on the road to recovery, hopefully, but in cases of most people who are just trying to manage their health or even people with, say, prediabetes, consuming fruits can actually be a really good thing for managing those glucose levels. Oh, yeah. I mean, you look at.
[49:32] The work that Cyrus Kambada and Robbie Barbero have done with Mastering Diabetes. And I mean, they're practically fruititarians.
[49:41] It's kind of intense how much fruit they eat, fruit and green leafies and vegetables and chickpeas. And those guys are like hitting a home run. It's really wild. And all the people they're working with. Let's wade into the topic of protein. and because i know that you have some thoughts on protein um from everything that i've read and heard from your vantage point you i think believe that we should be getting more protein not less protein if that if that is in fact correct i'd love to hear your thoughts on that yeah so um i think to start we should understand so the recommended dietary allowance that's at least in North America, that's what we use as far as recommendations, is 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. So you take your weight in kilograms, whatever that is, multiply it by 0.8. And as far as like government recommendations, that's what you should be getting. Now that is based on what are called nitrogen balance studies. So they basically look at how much nitrogen, which is found in protein, you consume and how much you're excreting. And ultimately, you want to take in more than you lose. And that's sort of where those numbers come from.
[50:52] However, as we've sort of progressed and done more research on this, we see that especially in older populations, increasing protein up to about 1.1 or 1.2 grams per kilogram, so we'll say up to about 50% higher, seem to help for things like bone health, so maintaining bone mineral density with age, helping with maintaining muscle mass or improving muscle mass, if that's your goal. And so I do think that there are advantages to going a little bit higher.
Protein Perspectives
[51:20] Also, when we look at studies on higher versus lower protein intake and risks of mortality, so risk of dying during a given study and say like middle age to older adults, we see that higher protein intakes specifically when it's from plants. And that's very important. We do not see this with animal protein, but higher protein intakes from plants are associated with lower risks. So essentially longer life or lower risk of premature death. And so, again, that's another reason I think focusing on a bit more of those plant protein rich foods like your legumes, your tofu, et cetera, are a good idea. Does that mean you should be hitting or you need to be hitting the, you know, one gram per pound or like two grams per kilogram that you'll see some some of the gym fitness community saying, no, I don't think so at all. I don't think there's any advantage to going quite that high, whether it's for muscle mass gains or for health.
[52:13] And so I don't think we need to be aiming quite that high. Well, what you mentioned, particularly the aging kind of population could probably benefit from more protein. Do you think that's in part because as many people age, they're consuming less total calories? That's a part of it. And also our ability to digest and absorb protein seems to decline with age. So it's, it's super reliant on stomach acid production and stomach acid production typically declines as we get older. And that's one of the reasons that vitamin B12 supplementation is recommended even in omnivores or meat eaters who are over age, say like 50 or so, maybe 65, depending on which jurisdiction you're looking at. But, but that's, it's the same sort of mechanism, they both rely on stomach acid production.
[53:03] So, and I know you've got all kinds of studies to back up what you've said. Did you get a chance to look at or read any of Dr. Michael Greger's How Not to Age? Because, yeah, because I know in his book, and he's got 13,000 different citations in there. He's an advocate for longevity and health span of actually reducing protein intake. And my understanding is that like most Americans, most people are getting twice, according to Dr. Greger, twice the protein that they should be right now. And if we just dialed it back to like 9% of calories instead of, you know, 16 to 18, that we'd all be better off. And he cites the 11 pathways to kind of slow down the aging process. And the one that seems to hit every single one of them is a reduction in protein intake, even more so than calorie restriction.
[54:11] So love to know your thoughts on that. Yeah. So I've read I can't remember every little detail but basically what you just said aligns with what I recall um, what I would say is that I focus more so on the outcomes than these mechanisms. So we can, again, look at these individual pathways and the proposed mechanisms by which they might affect one thing or another. But, and he actually notes this in his book as well, when you separate out plant protein and animal protein, they do not have the same effect on outcomes. Plant protein is consistently beneficial when it comes to long-term health outcomes, whether that's risk of frailty, healthy aging, risks of cardiovascular disease or mortality. And so I actually don't see I don't see any outcome based evidence. So actually looking again at the final result, any outcome based evidence suggesting that plant protein is harmful at some level of intake.
[55:04] But there is evidence pointing towards benefits to going higher. And so that's why I would advocate for higher intake, despite, you know, we can speculate about these mechanisms for one pathway or another, the end result is the end result. And so there could be things like you have to think for everything we consume, there are hundreds to potentially thousands of different mechanisms occurring at any one time. And the net result will show us will show up in those final outcomes. So that's my take. Maybe maybe I'll have to discuss it with him at some point when we get a chance.
[55:34] Yeah, yeah. Well, and then, you know, we've all heard, we all know about the blue zones and the or used to come from the sweet potato and seven to eight percent of their calories are coming from protein and they're the you know more centenarians than any other you know population out there but what's interesting about them is um at least for the women their protein intake is around what i recommend if you if you break down into grams per kilogram the men do fall a little below that But for the women, it is around that 1.2. And also, when we look at vegan populations and the sort of ranges of protein intake, on average, vegans are meeting at least the RDA or exceeding it. But there are people who fall even below that even below the low recommendations.
[56:27] Which is something to be concerned about. And that's another reason I would push a little bit higher. So it gives you a little bit of a safety net. My understanding is that those recommendations are actually with a built-in safety margin of about 30 percent sort of so they're they're based on basically we have what's called the estimated average requirement so that's basically the target that we would need to meet um or we need to hit to meet the needs of about 50 percent of the population and then they scale it up to cover about 97 percent of the population right so so there's still like you could be on the higher end of that bell curve and usually usually males will be probably maybe active males or or athletes in general would be a little bit higher on that bell curve um but uh but it's it's sort of has a built-in safety net but not for everybody it depends on where that bell where on that bell curve you would fit right.
The Oil Debate
[57:22] So I want to ask you about oils. We made lock horns here a little bit on oils.
[57:31] I just personally, I'm like, I look at oil and I'm like, all right, it's 100% fat. There's no protein. There's no fiber. There's no water. There's really nothing to speak of when it comes to vitamins and minerals, scant amount of, you know, phytonutrients. To me, it is the equivalent of kind of what white sugar is in the carbohydrate world. And so, and I, you know, I obviously have gone through your Instagram feed and it sounds like you are, I don't know, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but you're, what are your thoughts on oils? And then let's, and then let's talk about, and specifically, let's talk about olive oil. Yeah, so I think, for starters, I think there are definitely areas where we differ there. And I do think they can be absolutely a healthy option. But I also think there are some things that we probably agree on. So for one, when we look at research on whether it's olive oil or other unsaturated fat-rich oils, and again, long-term outcomes, we see reductions in things like cardiovascular risk. Now, if we were to compare that to something specifically, we see the largest improvements compared to butter, obviously, that's not a very high bar to set. But I think we can probably both agree that compared to butter, something like olive oil or another another plant-based oil is probably a good choice.
[58:58] Now, where I think we can make a compelling argument, or I can make compelling argument that these oils can fit into a healthy diet, even when we consider more whole food sources is we have what are called substitution analyses, where they look at the substitution of one food for another when you keep the rest of the diet about the same and you know you consider other variables like exercise and smoking and so on and in those cases we see compared to avocado whole avocado the plant-based oils are typically about the same as far as cardiovascular outcomes and and avocado is very good for heart health when we look at even carbohydrates from whole grains if anything polyunsaturated fats primarily from vegetable oils are even better than the carbohydrates from whole grains, That said, it doesn't mean it's necessary. Like you can get these polyunsaturated fats from things like nuts and seeds as well. It doesn't have to be sourced from oil. And I actually think the strongest argument somebody can make against oil is possibly the calorie density of it. So they do provide some nutrition like vitamin E, for example. And as you mentioned, some polyphenols, depending on the type of oil, more or less.
[1:00:07] But the calorie density, especially if you're using several tablespoons every day, can add up. 120 calories per tablespoon. We saw in that recent study, looking at olive oil in a higher fat versus lower fat diet, worse blood biomarkers, they were having like 500 calories of oil. That's a lot of oil. I would certainly not advocate somebody use that much. But if you are using like, you know, a tablespoon or even half a tablespoon to, you know, season a pan or to add into a salad to increase consumption of things like veggies that can be a really good use for that for a lot of people and especially if you're adding like spices or seasonings and the oil kind of helps soak that up a little bit better i think those can be positives so that that would kind of be my broad overview of the the topic and yeah you can let me know if you have any questions or pushback perhaps well uh i have a hard time believing that you're better off having an oil.
[1:01:09] Instead of whole grains that somehow, what was, what did you say that it's, it's, it's, it's more and, uh, it's less, there's less inflammation or. No, no, sorry. So, so it was a study. Um, this was, I believe the nurse's health study looking at, um, cardiovascular outcomes, a risk of heart attack, um, heart attack or stroke. And when they replaced saturated fat with carbohydrates from whole grains, that was beneficial. So that was clearly beneficial. but when they replaced saturated fat with polyunsaturated fats, it was even more beneficial than with the whole grains. And now there are, there's one caveat to add that this was if you equate calories. So is it possible that in a real world setting, you would probably eat more calories from the oil? I think you could grant that as a reasonable speculation, but the other thing is when it comes to cholesterol, like LDL cholesterol levels, polyunsaturated fats have the biggest effect of all the macronutrients. So they actually lower those numbers the most. So in people with higher cholesterol levels, more polyunsaturated fats would probably reduce that number more than anything else. And so that would be one reason that they could be, you know, even better, perhaps. Yeah, but when you say more polyunsaturated fats, like, that's very nebulous. Like, how much how much are we talking about here? Are we talking about like, the equivalent of a teaspoon?
[1:02:38] Of, I don't know, some sort of oil? Or are we talking about half a handful of walnuts? Yeah. So I think in that particular study, it was 5% of calories. It might've been 3% of calories, but let's just say it was 5% to make the math easy. That would be about a tablespoon of oil or just over that. We'll say a tablespoon of oil plus a little bit of nuts maybe in your day. So it's not like you're adding a quarter cup of it or anything like that. Yeah. What you mentioned when you mentioned polyphenols and I kind of I looked it up a little bit. And what I in my research, what I saw was that if you have a let's just say 100 grams of in black olives, that's like three and a half ounces. OK, it's about 115 calories and it's got 117 milligrams of polyphenols in it. So, you know, almost one-to-one, right, calories to milligrams. You look at olive oil, and you get 400 calories to 55 milligrams of polyphenols. And my point here is that, to me, I don't see a world where the refined processed version of the whole food is ever going to be more beneficial for you.
[1:04:02] I see. So I would say a couple things. For one, it'd be a hard sell to consume that many olives for most people, right? So you have to look at more like feasibility as well. When it comes to olive oil, a lot more people will consume that at hopefully less than 400 calories worth in a go. But even like half of that in a serving, it'd be more realistic, a more realistic source of some of those polyphenols and also the polyphenol content is highly variable. So there can be products with more or less.
[1:04:31] But that said, it's not it's not necessarily that a food needs to be the best in order to make it something we can recommend. So for example, if we look at fruits, berries are, I'd say as far as the clinical trial data we have probably the best. Does that mean I would say, oh, you shouldn't eat watermelon because it's not as good?
The Gluten Discussion
[1:04:49] No, or bananas. No, it's not as good as berries. Absolutely not. I think they're both fine. And they both have benefits one might be better than the other but that doesn't mean we have to advise against something like a watermelon or a banana because it doesn't have that same polyphenol content as like blueberries so i i think there's there's ways for that to fit in but it's not necessary like i think that's another thing that we can both agree on there is no world in which it's necessary to consume oils right i just i just think that if it makes it easier for someone to eat more vegetables for example then go for it you know within within a reasonable amount don't go crazy, obviously, but, you know, I don't want people guzzling the stuff, but within a reasonable amount, a tablespoon or so, to saute some veggies, fine. I absolutely...
[1:05:37] Agree with you there. Where I have an issue is you look at the average American right now, and I bet you they're consuming between the package, box, can, and foods that they're eating and what they have at home, their salads, their stir fries, whatever it is. I bet you most Americans are consuming somewhere between three to five tablespoons of oil a day. I don't think that's- Oh, I don't think that's unreasonable. That's an exaggeration. I think that's probably close that's almost if you're on a 2000 you know a day cal uh 2000 a day calorie diet that's basically almost 25 percent of your calories that are coming from 100 fat and you know you know about my father's you know work and he how he is an absolute taskmaster and with his patients where it basically is life and death he basically says i don't want you guys doing any oils. I don't want you doing a thimble full of oil because he knows if he basically gives them permission to do a thimble full, it's what we talked about at the very, very top of this broadcast, right? Human nature, it's all of a sudden a slippery slope. And my father, I think you would agree, has gotten some of the most incredible before and after angiographic results on the planet showing that you can actually reverse heart disease with a low fat, no added oil, whole food, plant-based diet.
[1:07:03] So I actually think, um, on that there was really good discussions of around the oil and the reversal stuff in that podcast. I mentioned with Gil Carvalho from nutrition made simple, uh, that interview with your dad, which I commend him for doing. I thought there was a lot of like really good gritty sort of, of questions and stuff. So I recommend people watch that. Um, but at the same time, I would just push back a little bit to say that I don't think.
[1:07:32] Allowing someone to include some oils, if let's say it's for the purposes of sauteing some veggies will lead to higher caloric intake, really when you consider the alternative, right? So if we take people eating the standard American diet, and we're trying to get them on more veggies, and they're using oils specifically for the cooking, let's say they don't want to do your veggie broth or whatever alternative, the overall calorie density of those meals will likely be very low. And that's why in trials, we don't typically see weight gain with oils. Like even in that olive oil versus low fat study, the recent one, the parameters improved in both groups. Even with olive oil, they improved, just not necessarily as much because they were having four or five hundred calories worth of the oils. Yeah.
[1:08:17] Well, you know, I used to be a firefighter. And when a house would burn down.
[1:08:22] You'd have to have somebody that would basically monitor that house for usually at least 24 hours because you have something called spot fires that will basically ignite if you're not constantly putting it out. And just to the audience that's listening to this and and to you matt you remember you know my father's typically dealing with people that have many of them end-stage heart disease people that have had 47 stents put into their arteries 47 and so he's playing hardball with people that that want to live and um and he has you know he's been doing this since 1984 and so i actually called him up yesterday to ask him a couple questions about this and he said the problem rip is that when i gave and asked my patients to go ahead add a little olive oil back into your diet because some of these guys were you know from italy and it was in their blood they had to have some literally within three weeks the angina would come back these these these basically conditions would come back now i know that that this um is more of a uh you know a story but for my
Creatine Insights
[1:09:40] father who's been you know basically shoulder to the grindstone with this since.
[1:09:45] 1984 and has worked with literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people and And.
[1:09:53] Um has gone over every morsel that they eat and with his first initial patients every other week for five years right and then so i just i give the guy right a lot of credit for being so hardcore with people that want to live and just can't go a little bit it's like the person that has a little bit of chocolate, the next thing you know, they're, you know, they're, they're, they're in trouble. So, um, when I, so when I look at, at oil, I just see basically white sugar, the white sugar of the fat world. And I understand when you say, yeah, but you know, if you use a little bit here to basically saute your veggies and it adds spices and you know, all that, I get that. I think it depends upon who you are what your health condition is and uh um what happens i mean go ahead experiment and see what happens but um to me given the fact that you know it's it's what 14 olive oil 14 15 saturated fat uh it's uh only 11 polyunsaturated fat and the remaining 75 is.
[1:11:11] Monounsaturated fat um i don't i don't view it as a health food i i think that's one of the things that um where that gets sort of ignored is that what we should care about or what most of us care about are the outcomes like what is the final result does it lead to a higher risk of heart disease or not um and or having a heart attack or a stroke or not, like you could technically have some regression of the plaque and have a higher risk of heart disease depending on how it was regressed. So I would really advocate that we focus more on the long term clinical outcomes. And I know your dad's gotten good results of that. I know that if we look at the five year results of the Ornish trial, there were good results with that, that are comparable to what we see with some of the Mediterranean diet data, right? Even if we look at Ornishes, not everyone was free of having events at the end of the day, right? There were just less events, significantly less events, which is what we care about, which is why I'm an advocate for plant-based diet. Yeah. And you look at my father's results that were published in the Journal of Family Practice in 2014. The title was a way to prevent cardiovascular disease. Yeah. CAD. And he basically was checking up on 198 patients after four years to find out what was the adherence, right? And then how many cardiovascular events had there been?
[1:12:38] 89% adherence rate, one person had, I think it was a small stroke, of the 21 patients that did not adhere, went off, did their own thing.
[1:12:51] 26 different events. So, that to me, Matt, is pretty darn powerful that that this is arresting and halting the disease for years that's that's substantial yeah that's definitely substantial and and you know kudos to all those people who who stuck with the program obviously like that that was and we have good reason to believe that that was a significant benefit i i wouldn't say that it's necessarily uh comparing apples to oranges though in that people who weren't adherent to the diet were they as adherent with other healthy lifestyle behaviors like probably not i think it's reasonable to assume that they probably weren't as healthy overall um that said yeah significantly less rates of cardiovascular disease and that's in line with other data we would suspect there to be less risk of cardiovascular disease from eating that way um so i'm definitely a proponent for eating a plant-based diet i just don't think it's necessarily evidence of completely you know avoidance of oil being being what drives that i think there are a lot of other factors i wasn't i wasn't i wasn't i wasn't saying that either i was just saying it was it was the whole food plant-based diet that is doing it uh and the no oil on top let's just say i was the cherry on top of it but the other thing that you have to realize matt is that with my father's patience and.
[1:14:14] The only thing he wants them focusing on is the food. It's like exercise, no. You know, stress management, no. Meditation, no. I only want you focusing on the food, and I want you to get that right. And if you can get that right, you're good to go.
[1:14:32] So, you know, I think I've heard you and some other people say, well, there's all these other factors that potentially were going on, you know. And I know that, you know, my hat goes off to Dean and all the incredible work that he's done, right? But he recommends stress reduction, meditation, exercise. So those were not really taken into account with my dad's work. Yeah. And like, I didn't mean to suggest that they were changing those behaviors. I was just suggesting that if someone's not adherent to the diet, chances are when it comes to those other behaviors, they typically aren't as good with those either, right? Like, even though they weren't necessarily recommended for or against. But but that said i mean i think we agree on a lot around you know the diet and cardiovascular disease and and how beneficial it is to prevent that um it's just a you know is there a little more leeway and how it's done i think i would argue that there could be um but uh but that's really the only big difference there yeah and i'm and i'm sorry to beat a dead horse here or a dead piece of kale here. But I think that the bedrock.
[1:15:41] Of the success of my father has been his no leniency, right? And so yes, you're more lenient, but how many people have you worked with with end stage heart disease over the course of your career? It's a pretty young career so far. But only now I haven't really worked with too many end stage i've worked with quite a number who've had stents and are looking to manage their risk now um but uh not not end stage per se they don't usually uh send them to me yeah yeah yeah so uh and obviously i'm you know i'm defending my father here right i mean i i i love his work i love what he's done i think he's been an amazing pioneer and trailblazer and um, And I think his methodology kind of in his work stands, stands on its own. So we can, we can move on.
[1:16:35] I appreciate you, uh, uh, the conversation around that though. Uh, there's been a lot of, um, noise as of late with, with creatine. What, what's your, what's your thoughts on creatine? Is that something that, that I should be taking? I've never taken it before. So it's not an essential nutrient. So creatine is actually something we produce. We have it, we store it in our brain, we store it in our muscle. I would say most people are familiar with creatine as it pertains to strength or resistance training. A lot of people use it in those sorts of settings. And it's actually a form of energy. So when it comes to power output, if you think about more explosive behaviors, some like explosive sort of power lifts or sprints, things like that, it helps fuel those. at least those initial couple seconds. And supplementation with creatine while training has been shown to improve strength. It's probably one of the most consistent findings. And I would say that it's probably the most well studied supplement in the world. It's certainly one of them, if still not number one. Incredibly safe, we have very good data on that, even for long term use at like high, high doses above what's typically recommended. So should people use it? I think if you're in the fitness community, and you're looking to maximize strength gains in particular, I think it's a really good idea.
[1:17:57] Are there other benefits? Potentially. There's some limited data for cognitive benefits. I would say we need a we need a bit more research there, a bit more high quality research there before I double down on recommending it for that purpose. But I think there's enough to maybe consider it. There's also some research, actually, a recent one just came out a couple of days ago, a trial on older adults looking at possible acute benefits, like short term benefits in arterial function or certain markers of arterial function. There's some research on postmenopausal women and improving bone mineral density as well um so there are there are enough benefits there that i think it's a decent idea but i would shop i would stop sorry short i'm saying it's absolutely necessary simply maybe i need creatine my brain wasn't working there um but uh i would stop short of saying that it's absolutely necessary um as we do make it we produce it ourselves it's just that we can get more through supplements and maximize our creatine stores by regularly supplementing. Do different individuals produce different amounts of creatine?
[1:19:03] Yeah, possibly. And also dosage recommendations can be modified based on your weight. So it's typically dosed per weight as well. That said, a five gram a day dose, which is like one little scoop that typically comes with it, or about a rounded teaspoon is a pretty standard recommendation. It's more than some people will need, but it's not really overdoing it. You just excrete the excess. Are you supplementing with creatine? Yeah, actually, it's funny enough. I started when I start a couple of years ago. It was when Simon Hill was doing a lot of content on creatine. Then I started diving more into it. I thought, hey, I'd give it a try. Yeah, been doing it ever since.
[1:19:43] Hmm. What's, what are your thoughts on organic versus conventional food? Yeah, I feel like this is one that, um, I don't know what your position is. I feel like it's one that might, uh, stir things up a little bit. Um, I actually don't think there's good evidence for benefits of organic over
Organic vs. Conventional
[1:19:59] non-organic, um, in most cases. So when it comes to nutritional content, they're pretty comparable. Um, there might be slight advantages one way or another when it comes to land use, environmental impact, conventional is actually better than non-organic in a lot of metrics. And when you consider the cost, it's just, I think it's ridiculous. It's like double the cost sometimes, and it makes it really difficult for some people to afford those products. But when we consider how, and this isn't exact, but I'm going to just outline a little bit about how pesticides, like the amounts of pesticide exposure is sort of calculated or allowed. Basically, they'll test different levels of exposure in often animal models. And I know a lot of us aren't fans of that. And hopefully we can do away with that at some point. But it is what's done currently.
[1:20:50] And they'll test different levels of exposure. They'll find the lowest level that causes any kind of issue. And then they'll scale it back by 100 times, being the maximum amount, like relative to a human's body weight. They'll scale it back about 100 times for what we're allowed to be exposed to. So we're exposed to absolutely tiny, tiny amounts. And most studies...
[1:21:15] Um, they fall victim. Like if you look at, um, studies linking side exposure to some kind of harms, they're usually done in workers and fields. And what happens is they're sprayed with this stuff all day, every day. So they're exposed to a crazy amount. When you actually look at human consumption of organic versus non-organic, it's pretty much a wash. Like you don't really see much risk there when they consider other healthy lifestyle behaviors. Like again, you know, people who eat organic probably exercise more and do other things but when you consider those variables you don't really see much either way it's pretty neutral that's some really good information now i'm i'm a fan of i just want people to get more whole plants into their bodies right whether it's conventional whether it's organic whether it's frozen whether it's fresh i think it's all you know i think at some point you you decide what's important to you and and do it. But it's, I tell people, you know, this is not, how was I going to get a bunch of Texas male firefighters to do this? If I told them you had to have an organic $4.99 bell pepper, right? You know, it wasn't going to fly. And I'm just trying to get white bread and bologna. Yeah. And even like, even if we were to grant some kind of harm from that exposure, which again, I don't think we have good reason to believe there's any harm from the pesticide exposure are at the level that we get.
[1:22:40] But even if we were to grant that there's some harm, the benefits of eating these foods and all the components that they have, like inherently the again, polyphenols, phytonutrients, the fiber, etc, would so far outweigh those risks, it's absurd. And so I just really don't want the label of organic versus non organic to be a hindrance for somebody to eat this way. Great. Good point. I got about three more questions for you. You good to go? Yeah, I'm good. Fantastic. So.
Sleep and Food Intake
[1:23:12] I saw on one of your Instagram posts, a correlation between lack of sleep and food intake.
[1:23:21] What can you talk to me about that? Yeah, that was your, you're, you really did a deep dive. That was a little while ago. Yeah. Yeah. So I can't remember all the details of that study, but my, my parents for reference, they own a couple of mattress stores and they wanted me to look into some sleep stuff for fun. Um maybe that so they can you know throw some stuff at their their customers i don't know um but uh yes i did a bit of a dive into the research on lack of sleep and food consumption and it was something like for each hour less per night below about seven hours again i'm going off of memory here but it was something like for each hour less there was a two or three hundred calories more consumed per night or something like that, or per day rather. And so lack of sleep seems to increase food consumption. Now is that because as you're up later, you end up eating later at night and adding the calories? Maybe. Is that because lack of sleep somehow affects our hunger or satiation mechanisms? Possibly. The exact explanations aren't super clear. But yeah, it does seem to have an effect. And then we can also look at downstream effects like lack of sleep affects our overall mortality risk or heart disease risk or diabetes risk like there's a lot of connections there yeah you mentioned satiation there is is there any.
[1:24:43] Data or research that suggests that protein is more satiating than anything else so there's a lot of people that claim that it is and and there's a reason for that so um if you look at studies on, or we'll say most studies on protein consumption and satiation, basically like fullness, you know, how full you are, how little you eat after the fact. When you look at those studies, you'll sometimes find that the higher protein foods are more satiating, more filling. So you end up eating less and therefore promote weight loss. The problem is most of those studies compare a protein rich food to a very like hyper palatable ultra processed food that's not going to be very filling for other reasons besides protein content.
[1:25:25] There are only a couple studies that have like really rigorously designed them to provide either higher protein or lower protein in a beverage with like the same consistency, you can't really tell the difference. Or if it's not a beverage in a food again, where they sort of mimic the textures and everything and the overall mass. And when you do that, protein does not seem to be satiating, more satiating, does not seem to promote weight loss or less food consumption. So protein inherently doesn't seem to be satiating or more satiating. But if we look at in general protein rich foods tend to be more satiating than a lot of like refined grain-based foods for example so you'll eat more beans and whatnot of course for for a number of reasons and one of them is that they're filling but it's not just because of the protein, well and then when you look at i would say most animal-based protein foods they probably have more fat than they do protein in them like a lot of them yeah yeah yeah um you know dr mcdougall.
[1:26:25] Would always say that the most satiating food on the planet is a sweet potato big old sweet potato, and what is a sweet potato it's mostly mostly carbohydrates and well and fiber which is a carbohydrate but very filling of course and yeah yeah yeah uh do you have any thoughts on on gluten uh you know i just can't believe how many people that i meet say that they're staying away from gluten and when i ask them why they just basically say i was i was told by my trainer or my mother and then when you ask them well what is gluten they don't even know what gluten is, um but i'd love to hear your thoughts on on gluten.
[1:27:08] Yeah, so gluten is a protein found in wheat. Some people can have issues with digesting it for a number of reasons. So some may have what's called celiac disease, which is an autoimmune condition where when they consume gluten, their immune system attacks it and it damages their gut lining. And that's a very potentially serious illness that does mean that someone needs to avoid gluten, like even traces of gluten.
Understanding LDL and HDL
[1:27:31] That affects estimates vary, we'll say around 1% or so of the population. Um you know i've seen numbers from like 0.9 percent up to about one and a half percent you know somewhere in there um and then there are some people with what's called non-celiac gluten sensitivity so these are people who might have some issues as far as usually digestion related as far as like you know gas bloating abdominal cramps when they consume gluten but it's not this autoimmune issue it's not celiac disease it's not life-threatening but can be uncomfortable and again the the estimates range from a couple percent up to like six or seven percent roughly of the population so we can say for over 90 percent of the population it's a non-issue but you're fine with gluten for the most part now what's really interesting is when we look at studies on gluten consumption or rather gluten-free diets and risks of type 2 diabetes or coronary heart disease, we actually see at like best neutral.
[1:28:31] Or sorry, at worst neutral at best beneficial effect on those outcomes for eating gluten. So actually eating gluten compared to gluten free seems to lower risk of type two diabetes, possibly lower risk of coronary heart disease. Now, is that because of the gluten? I don't know, I'm not set on that. I think it's probably more likely that people who eat gluten free eat a lot more refined grain products than whole grains. If you look at what's gluten free out there, most gluten free products are refined grain products, they aren't the whole wheat, or whole grain versions, like brown rice or whatever.
[1:29:03] They're usually they're usually, you know, white refined, refined, you know, flour with the gluten removed. And so that could potentially play a role.
[1:29:13] Yeah. Yeah. Totally makes a lot of sense. About, I think it was in 2023, there was a study or a trial that came out called the Fourier trial, if I'm pronouncing it right, F-O-U-R-I-E-R. And you said it was like the number one important, the most important research study of the year, as far as I think lowering LDL cholesterol. What, what, what was that study all about? Oh, I can't remember the exact findings, but it was about lowering LDL cholesterol over, it was a very long, long timeframe. So you're digging up these studies that I haven't looked at in a little bit. And it's good, though, you're keeping on my toes.
[1:29:53] But it was around lowering LDL cholesterol over decades. And I can't remember exactly how long, but substantial reductions in cardiovascular risk. And if I recall, there were there was a potentially a generational aspect or they looked at people with familial hypercholesterolemia, which is genetic aspect. I can't exactly remember, but it was one of these studies in now a long line of studies showing how clearly lowering LDL cholesterol is beneficial for cardiovascular risk. Right. And my follow-up question to that is, is there such a thing as getting the LDL cholesterol too low? No. So we have really good data on that. Actually, I think that was one of the aspects of the Fourier trial as well, where they looked at some people with very, very low levels. But that aside, we have studies called Mendelian randomization studies where people will have sort of genetic variants that lead to very, very low levels of LDL cholesterol. Like much lower than you'll ever get with a diet intervention or even most drugs. And they don't have issues with hormone production. They don't have issues with cognitive function. It's totally fine. And that's because all of our cells make all the cholesterol that we need.
[1:31:10] We just don't want a lot of it in our blood, where it doesn't really serve much of a purpose. And so we don't see any issue in those genetic studies. And then we have studies on medications called PCSK9 inhibitors, where they just abolish your cholesterol levels down to almost nothing, your LDL cholesterol levels. And again, we don't see any harms as far as hormone production, as far as cognitive function, and we see people living longer lives and a lower risk of cardiovascular disease. So, you know, number one killer, it's a really good thing to lower that. So yeah, I don't see any good evidence of any harms to having levels too low. Hmm.
[1:31:50] What about HDL levels? Yeah, so HDL is, it's often referred to as sort of the good cholesterol. It has for a long time been associated with good long term health outcomes. But the issue is that it doesn't seem to be because of the HDL. Higher HDL levels are associated with not smoking. They're associated with exercise. They're associated with other good things that end up lowering risk. but HDL itself doesn't seem to be responsible. So if you look at people with higher genetically determined HDL levels, they don't seem to have a lower risk of cardiovascular disease. If you try drugs that will, or they've done trials on these drugs that raise HDL, they don't seem to lower risk of cardiovascular disease, but we have that for lowering LDL. We have drug trials where you lower it. We have genetically low levels and they're beneficial. That's how we know that LDL is problematic and why we don't really think the number of HDL particles or the HDL concentration matters very much. Yeah. Yeah. I think I've heard in some individuals that sometimes that those elevated HDLs can actually turn into rogue LDLs. Again, kind of, it's an HDL posing as an LDL, whatever, whatever that means.
[1:33:04] Yeah. I mean, I'm not sure exactly what they'd be referring to there, but we do see in people with very high HDL levels that they tend to have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease. So it seems to go the other way. Yeah. Well, I know, for example, my father was telling me about one of this one woman who was sent to him and he. Her cardiologist said with an HDL of 120, you never have to worry about having a heart attack. She had a heart attack, right? And then found my father.
[1:33:33] But what's also really interesting is that in all the work that I've done in taking people's cholesterol levels since 2010.
[1:33:41] It's always the women that have the, occasionally that have these cholesterol levels that are 75 to 110.
[1:33:50] I never see men with a cholesterol, I'm sorry, an HDL that high. And I find that to be really kind of peculiar. Yeah, I haven't actually noticed that as far as the literature goes, but I'll keep an eye out next time. I honestly don't pay as much attention to the HDL values nowadays, just given what we know about it not being all that important. Yeah, yeah.
Ozempic and Weight Management
[1:34:11] All right. Here's my last question for you, because this is obviously a hot topic of the of the year and uh it's like ozempic and wagovia uh are you are you pro con in between you think that there's a use case for them what are your thoughts so i'm pro in for their use in the way that they are meant to be used i'm not pro for people using them simply for aesthetic purposes and like hollywood and that sort of thing um i think that leads to shortages for people who actually need them. And one thing I would just sort of point out is that year after year, or basically, our whole lives, the rates of obesity in the US have gone up. Now, prior to 2019, I think it was 2019 or 2021, whenever these first got approved. Prior to that, I believe the rate in the US was 41% overweight or obese.
[1:35:11] Since then, it's dropped to 33. It's the first time ever in our history that that has happened. And so it seems like it could potentially be a tool that actually leads to improvement or resolution of this huge issue that has affected us forever at this point.
[1:35:31] But there are cases where it's indicated and can be used. And there's cases where I think it's being abused for things, like I said, with Hollywood and what. What are you what are you hearing or some of the side effects yeah so the primary side effects are usually gut related things like nausea you know abdominal discomfort and those symptoms um but they can largely be mitigated by either reducing dose or um increasing at a slower rate and that's one thing i think people tend to increase too quickly um but if you do have some of those side effects you're supposed to back off a little bit and and uh maybe to the next tier down and then see either stay there or see if you want to increase later on. So that's one, one issue that comes up. And that's really the main one. Now, a lot of the side effects that we're seeing are actually quite positive. So we're seeing things, potential benefits for like addiction behaviors. And they're now studying it for those purposes. There are a number of other outcomes that there's a lot of interest in that I think we're going to see more and more research over the next couple of years. But the gut related side effects are definitely the main one. Yeah, Yeah.
[1:36:36] Help me out here. Cause I think according to everything that I've read is that you can lose about 10% of your body weight. Uh, is that, is that correlate with what you're seeing or hearing? It can be more, it can be more. That's, that's pretty typical over, I can't recall if it's over one year or two years. Um, something, I think it's about one year, 10% and then it go beyond that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I just, yeah. Uh, yeah. So let's say you're, you're 200 pounds and you know you're down to 180 at the end of the year um what about i think i've also heard something about like does this make sense facial drooping or something going on with the with the skin or the face yeah.
[1:37:19] Yeah, I've seen those. So that's just a result. So for starters, I think, yeah, calling it like facial drooping and stuff, it sort of exaggerates it. But you can have that sort of, like, you know, your cheekbones become more prevalent and whatnot, as you start to lose fat. And so it's really just a result of rapid fat loss, especially in the beginning, typically more rapid. It's not due to some effect of the drug independent of that. But it's just one of those things. But yeah, it's, I see it on Tik TOK and Instagram and all that. Yeah. Is this a, is this something that you prescribe to your patients? It's something I can prescribe. I have the ability to, in my practice, but for any patient who I thus far, who it would have been indicated for, they've already been prescribed prior to seeing me by, by say their GP. So I haven't had to actually prescribe it other than like refilling prescriptions. Right.
[1:38:13] Matt, I feel like I put you through the ringer today. Oh good you did you did a spectacular job man that was that was really incredible matt uh you know it was it was adam sudd that told me he's like if you haven't had matt on the podcast yet you need to get him because this guy is incredible and um you know you did not disappoint matt i i i appreciate i appreciate everything you're doing i appreciate the deep dive you're taking into the research, and your cool, calm, and collect personality. And I hope to see you again sometime in the future. Just so people know how to follow you, get in touch with you, anything you'd like to say? Yeah, you can follow me on basically any social media platform. Instagram is where I'm most active, but I post those same videos to YouTube, to TikTok, et cetera. Just at dr.matthewnagra. I also have a website drmatthewnagra.com where I'll sometimes publish longer blog articles versus the you know short snippets that I put on Instagram and I'll of course link any podcasts like this one there so people can always make sure they catch up on whatever I'm doing and yeah other than that I think I have a few things coming up soon hopefully that I can announce soon but I can't quite yet. Oh boy.
[1:39:43] Wow it wouldn't happen to be a book, would it? Not yet. Working on it. All right. All right. Hey, Matt, will you give me a virtual fist bump on the way out?
[1:39:56] Boom. There it is. Boom. And Matt, you're not wearing your PLANTSTRONG t-shirt today. I saw it. Yes, I almost did. And then I thought I'd look a little more professional. Oh, man. Look at me. I always wear t-shirts. Yeah. All right. Hey, Matt, Have a great rest of your day. Appreciate you.
[1:40:21] I really appreciated Dr. Nagra's time and knowledge today, especially with topics that can be so confusing and convoluted. He has a gift of distilling research into easily understandable and digestible segments of knowledge. He's also a great follow on Instagram, and I'll be sure to link up his social media accounts in the show notes to make it super easy for you. As always, thanks so much for listening to the PLANTSTRONG Podcast, and I hope that your 2025 is off to a rip-roaring great start. Next week, we're going to teach you how to break up with dairy with Chef Bailey Ruskus. Until then, always, always keep it PLANTSTRONG. The PLANTSTRONG podcast team includes Carrie Barrett, Laurie Kortowich, and Ami Mackey. If you like what you hear, do us a favor and share the show with your friends and loved ones. You can always leave a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And while you're there, make sure to hit that follow button so that you never miss an episode. As always, this and every episode is dedicated to my parents. Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., and Anne Crile Esselstyn. Thanks so much for listening.