Q&A with Dr. Greger 17

Hello, this is dr. Michael Greger coming to you live from my stationary treadmill. So I don’t make anybody seasick. Goal is to make people less sick, not more sick. But here I am to answer your questions as I do every month on the latest in evidence based nutrition and lifestyle medicine. For those of you unfamiliar with my work, every year I read through every issue of every english language nutrition journal in the world. So busy folks like you don’t have to. Then I compile the most interesting, most groundbreaking, most practical findings to new videos and articles I upload nearly every day to my nonprofit site, nutritionfacts.org. Everything on the website is free. There are no ads, no corporate sponsorship, strictly non-commercial, not selling anything. Just put up as a public service, as a labor of love, as a tribute to my grandmother, whose own life was saved with evidence-based nutrition.

It’s funny, I noticed I said english language nutrition journal. That’s no longer the case. Next year. Thanks to ai translation tools, it’s amazing. Now, literally with a click of the button, you can turn any pdf into any language you want, or at least any language I’ve needed to. And so no longer will nutrition facts will my work be restricted to english language journals. We used to I mean we have a we have a whole team international team of volunteers who have translated particularly uh articles of particular interest but sometimes you never know I mean so you know if there’s a particular study that I need to get translated I can get it translated but historically but I but I mean I couldn’t just scan through you know the the table of contents of every journal because I just couldn’t read the the titles, right? And I didn’t know what what I was missing. But no longer. Now I’m going to be able to tap into all the amazing, you know, studies written in german, you know, medical journals and dutch medical journals and all around the world. So very excited. Oh my god, it makes me want to go back and redo all the research I’ve done in the past. What have I been missing all this time? Ah this really came to a head. I’m working on new book, how not to hurt, on on lifestyle approaches to pain management. Oh, and I found some amazing study in some german medical journal on something we can do to help with trigeminal neuralgia, this horrible facial pain. And like one click, poof, pdf. I’m like, what have been doing all my life? All right, so if ai doesn’t kill us all, it’s going to be really helpful with my research.

All right, let’s get to your questions. First question is by aqua pumpkin with a name like aqua pumpkin. It’s got to be good. Hello doctor. Is there any real proof is there any real proof about the idea of not combining fruits with other foods (like grains) in a single meal? That the idea of not combining fruits with other foods like grains in a single meal? Ayurveda says to eat fruits alone. Not only is there no real proof, there’s no proof proof. Period. Real or unreal. There yeah you I mean and and you think about how does it make kind of evolutionary sense, biological sense that we’d have to somehow eat fruits different than you know anything else. Anyway they you know I’m constantly amazed by some of the tremendous wisdom in traditional medical systems. So for example, there was a recent nobel prize awarded for a discovery for the discovery of a of wormwood for malaria. So there there’s basically there’s a malaria treatment goes back thousands of years mentioned in ancient chinese medical texts and now it’s like still you one of the most popular uses in the world is derived from this particular plant. It’s like wow, how’d they know that? How’d they know back then? That’s amazing. All right. At the same time, you have things like in ayurveda where they where they were giving people heavy metals, literally mercury on purpose, lead on purpose. In fact, heavy metals, toxic heavy metals are used in many traditional medical systems around the world. Which we now know is just we’re poisoning people. So there’s tremendous wisdom, but you can’t know if whether the you know the the wisdom is wise or dangerous unless you put it to the test. That’s what we have science for. But it’s definitely worth going back to look at some of those traditional therapies to see if there’s actually anything there. Anyway, long-winded answer. Let me see if I can do quicker next time.

Allan says, “someone’s eating on a budget.” Ah, only has 100 bucks to spend on groceries each if someone is eating on a budget and has only $100 to spend on groceries for each week within a month, what are the main food items to buy? Week within a month. What are the main food items to buy? Oh, well, you know, there’s wonderful resources out there. One of my favorites called plant-based on a budget. Where I think they have like $4 a day eating. So, forget your $100. How about 28 bucks a week? And so I mean, think some of the healthiest foods are actually some of the cheapest foods like sweet potatoes. Oh my god. One of the healthiest foods on the planet. One of the cheapest foods. Red cabbage, dried beans and peas, lentils, right? I mean, literally dirt cheap. Oh my god. And you can make massive amounts of foods. You can bulk cook it like I do. What was I just oh, I was doing black soybeans yesterday because a tablespoon of black soybeans a day significantly decreases ldl cholesterol. That’s part of my oh, I got it here actually. In my book that came out in october on lowering ldl cholesterol with diet and that’s one of the natural approaches is a table single tablespoon of black soy beans a day. So you just batch cook a whole bunch and you put it in little silicone kind of baby food trays. Keep it in the freezer, pop it out, put it in any meal. I had run out, so I just made some more. I was going to make more of my bro, my probiotic mix of barley gats, oat gros, beluga lentils, and rye gros. Ah, but ran out of purple barley. And and ran out of lentils. I thought I had them. In fact, the online I look at my order history. I bought them. I just don’t know where they are. I searched through the pantry. Anyway, just bought some more lentils. But I will be making making that soon. Anyway, so but all super super cheap. Okay, wonderful.

Next up from alexander, thank you for your question. Is spermadine safe for is spermidine safe for endometriosis because this disease causes nodule-like growths that can resemble tumors in cancer? Endometriosis? Ah, I will know once I finish the endometriosis chapter. Certainly as a as a a pain condition, I’m going to be doing a chapter on that. I’m about 60% done of the book. Actually, I’m behind. Hopefully, I can meet deadline to get it out in December 2026. One of the chapters I have not yet done is endometriosis. I will let you know. I learn as much writing the books as anybody gets reading the books because I didn’t learn this in medical school, right? I mean, so I’m excited to learn along with y’all.

Okay, this is markhamm. Markham, not to be markham 8287, not to be confused, with markhamm 8286, who said, “do the nutritional benefits of cooking carrots and tomatoes do the nutritional benefits of cooking carrots and tomatoes decrease when they cool down? Decrease when they’re cooled down? Nutritional benefits good?” No. No. So they yeah, they when you cook carrots and tomatoes, you actually improve the bioavailability of those croenoid phytonutrients. So I think you get, if I remember correctly, like four times as many ba as much beta carotene in your bloodstream when you eat cooked carrots compared to the same amount of raw carrots. So you may have the same amount of food, but you have more of that nutrition in your bloodstream instead of just pooping it out because it’s more bioavailable. And same thing with tomatoes, cooked tomato products like tomato paste. Now a lot of tomato products are terrible. Like a lot of like jarred tomato sauces and stuff have sugar, have salt added, blah blah blah blah. Something like tomato paste or you know just just you know just stewed tomatoes or something with no added salt or anything super healthy and those processed those heated canned tomato products or jarred tomato products more bioavailable the lycopine more lycopine in your blood and it’s not going to do you any good if well actually I mean it can do your colon lining good if it makes all the way there but the rest of your body is on its own without the lycopine that wonderful red pigment in tomatoes so for example all been lycopine consumption associated with lower prostate cancer risk. The only way it’s going to get into your prostate is if actually makes it in your bloodstream. And so instead of eating raw tomatoes, if we cook tomatoes, then we get more of it. Now, am I saying don’t eat raw tomatoes? Of course not. But you know, there’s for those kind of raw foodist types out there who are like, “don’t cook. It’s bad. It like destroys things.” You whatever. Realize that many times you actually get more nutrition in cooked foods than raw carrots tomatoes are perfect idea but no you get the same bioil but whether they’re cold whether they’re hot you don’t have to eat them hot you can keep them you can cook them keep them in your fridge do whatever you want to do to them all right I’ll make a gaspacho speaking of cold food

Okay 6170 do you have any suggestions for how to reduce tinnitus? Do I have any suggestions for oh ah all right tinidis didn’t we just have a video on tingis if we didn’t one’s coming up very soon actually that’s one of the topics that I tasked our latest research scientist christine dennis to do because it was something that we didn’t have a video yet we hadn’t covered it I remember reviewing her work I forget exactly what we found out but there were definitely some things to try but I don’t think anything worked in the majority of patients so I think there were things like oh it works in 15% of the people but hey I mean if it’s just like doing some simple safe side effect free solution like oh try eating this food or whatever hey maybe you’re in the lucky 15%. So there are some things to try check out. So I would search for attent on nutrition specs right now. And if it’s not up it’s coming up soon. Oh I have a a stink bug just landed on me. That’s okay. Come on baby. Come on buddy. Okay. Now he’s in my car. Oh there he is. Okay. All right. Stink bug attack. It is the time of the year.

Okay, next up, are there any studies on shaving creams/gels and ingredients to avoid? Markhamm. Oh, markham is back. Any studies on shaving creams, gels, and ingredients to avoid. Oh, that’s interesting. I have not looked into shaving creams. I’ve done stuff I’ve done videos on toothpaste. There’s some stuff in toothpaste you might want to avoid. Some skin cream stuff, but have not done that’s a good question. I don’t know if there’s much research. Oh, I’ve done mouthwashes. I don’t remember running across anything, but I’ll keep an eye out and let you know.

All right, next up. This is from video thousand nights. What do you think of no salt, oil, sugar, and flour? Too restrictive or not? What do I think of no salt, no oil, no sugar or flour? I assume that means flour. Too restrictive or not? No. Wonderful. Yeah, we shouldn’t be adding added salt added, right? We should get all our nutrients from whole food sources. So whole food sources of fat, not oil. Whole food sources of sugar like fruit, sweet potatoes, and whole food sources of fat like nuts, seeds, avocados. And instead of flour, instead of powdering our grains, we should eat gros. Or at least whole grains. So yeah, I love it. Do it. Go for it. Keep up the good work.

All right, alexander is back. This I say I eat about 150 g of nuts and seeds every day, especially walnuts, almonds, and flax seeds. Is this too much? I guess if you get up early, put all your questions in, you have more chance of getting them answered. That’s awesome. Okay. Okay. Alexander eats 150 grams of nuts and seeds a day, especially walnut, almonds, flax seeds. We do love walnuts probably healthiest nuts. Although, yeah, flax seeds probably the healthiest seeds. So, you’re doing great. Is this too much? 150 Grams. I you you know us us americans and our bad metrics. How much is 150 gram? So, let me see. An ounce is what? 28.35. And so one, two, three, six ounces or something. I don’t know. The only downside of eating too many nuts. Is uh consumes about oxalate kidney stones. So you don’t want to eat more than a cup of nuts at a time. I don’t think 150 grams would be a cup. But yeah, nuts and seeds super healthy. Go for it.

Is it wise to buy vegan shampoo? Is it wise to buy vegan shampoo? Asks allan. I for what purpose? I mean, I don’t know. I mean, I well, I haven’t done shaving cream videos and I haven’t done shampoo videos. So, maybe there’s stuff in shampoo that’s bad for you, but our skin is pretty good about keeping out bad stuff. So like in fact someone just contacted me today asking about coconut oil on the skin whether like using as massage oil could be bad because coconut oil has a saturated fats what if it gets into your bloodstream and that only happens in infants. All right. So, you don’t want to, you know, massage infants with coconut oil because sensory effects actually get into their bloodstream. But, adult skin, in fact, even past infant skin, it doesn’t get through. And so you can slather yourself with lard, with tallow, with, you know, crisco, hydrogenated trans fats, doesn’t matter. So presumably, no matter what was in the shampoo, unless maybe there’s something that gets in your eyes that’s bad, but it should not get inside of you. So, so yeah. So, if you want to to wash your hair in fuagra, then you don’t have to worry about you know, I don’t know, none nothing to worry about from a health standpoint as far as I know.

Okay. Larry sheerer 6527 asks what is the typical dose of seaweed/iodine per week for average sized humans? Says that their wife and I hope plant-based for some time. Wonderful. Oh, thanks to me. That’s wonderful. I hope everything’s going great. What’s the typical dose of dose every week for average t average sized humans? Oh so I’m actually well so we so presumably this is asking about iodine. So the healthiest iodine source are sea vegetables like doul or arma or allaria or nori. And and so we’re trying to think some of the milder seaweeds which are easier for kind of typical western pallets. And so yeah, dol is this kind of purple powder that you can sprinkle on stuff. And so I have a video talking about how much dose you would take to get the 150 micrograms of iodine one needs every day. You don’t have to take it every day because your body kind of stores it up. But that’s kind of the target. Particularly important for pregnant women. And so yeah, check out the video. Just type in iodine or seaweed or dol and it should pop right up on nutritionfacts.org. I do a lot of nori. I’ve been obsessed recently with seaweed with sushi salad. I mean, because I love, one of my favorite things to bring to a potluck when people ask me like, “what’s your like what are you really good at making or whatever?” I always bring sushi to a potluck because I just I love making sushi. And but it’s such a pain. It’s so makes the kitchen great. I mean, I don’t know. It’s it’s it’s it’s a lot of work. But sushi salad, oh my god. So you just throw it all in a thing, rip up some nori and the sprinkle some some tahini on top. In fact, I found these squeeze bottles of tahini. Lifechanging. Amazing. Actually more expensive than just buying it regular, but I’m willing to pay the price. And you think, wait a second, how could tahini be in a squeeze ball? Doesn’t it like solidify? I don’t know how they do it, whatever magic they use. But it’s just one ingredient, right? Sesame seeds. But you can just drizzle it on stuff and h anyway. So ah I make yeah. All right. Make myself hungry. I’m going to have to to anyway, so all right. I’m off topic, but I remember I think one or two sheets of nori a day gets you your daily iodine dose. There’s lots of ways you get it. You can even do it my I mean how I get it when I’m not sushi salad obsessed is is in my monthly portfolio plus powder batch. And you’re like, “what are you talking about?” It’s in the it’s in my cholesterol lowering book lowering book. Where I talk about all the things that can lower your cholesterol. And all the kind of pills, powder, potions. And since I’m doing, sprinkling that on my food all day, every day, I can add a certain amount of kelp, which you normally wouldn’t want to do because it’s too much iodine, but a tiny amount of kelp in a month batch, get all the iodine you need, and so it’s easy thing. Don’t have to worry about it. Anyway, so you can check that out if you want to go that route. Unless you love the taste of seaweed, in which case, go for it. All what’s your take on the fasting-mimicking diet especially compared with other fasting protocols? Right. Data is oh, I love this title. Data is beautiful. Officially and it is all right.

All right. Owl emoji, what is my take? Oh, fasting mimicking diets. Great. Yeah. So, in how not to diet, go to local public library, check it out in how not to diet. I have the largest chapter is actually on intermittent fasting. Talk about all the different types. Talk about fasting mimicking diets, 52 fasting, alternate day fasting, you know, timerestricted feeding on down the list. And talk about the benefits of fasting mimicking diets, but talk about how you don’t have to pay for the prolong, whatever. You can actually do a healthier version. You know, basically mimicking the same thing. Basically, you’re trying to drop igf-1, so you’re cutting out animal protein. But look, you don’t need to buy some expensive herbal teas and, you know, soup powder. You can just eat, you know, above ground vegetables and blah blah blah. There’s ways you so, I talk about in the video, so check it out. Well, I don’t know if I talk about in the video. I definitely talk about in the book. So check that out. Right.

Next up, okay, hari krishna to you, too. Katie cox says, “what are my thoughts on fermented dairy?” Well, actually, the thoughts on fermented dairy? Fermentation of dairy may help on two fronts. Lowering branch chain amino acid content as well as eating up some of the galactose which is one of the reasons why milk consumption is associated with increased risk of premature death, hip fracture, blah blah blah in these swedish studies and overall mortality in a meta analysis of all milk drinking studies. So wait a second, why would milk drinkers live shorter lives? Well, we think it’s the galactose. In fact, that’s how you that’s the that’s one of the laboratory models of aging in animals. You give them galactose and you get all the same, you know, organ system breakdown, cognitive dysfunction, bone loss, etc. That you get typically see in aging. And even though we are better at detoxifying galactose than rodents, the question is are we doing it efficiently enough not to suffer similar fates? And so but so in that study in the famous the original swedish study that started off the um the whole question about about milk drinking shortening one’s lifespan. They found that that was only for non-fermented milk. So the there was some I forget what they call it some soured milk drink that’s very popular in sweden. And there was not an association between hip fracture early mortality and that and they’re like ah see it’s the glactose. The glactose gets eaten up by the fermenting bugs and so therefore there’s less of a problem. So if you’re going to do dairy presumably fermented would be better.

Next up, what is the best way to stop what is the best way to stop hunger for someone who can’t tell when they are full? Hunger for someone who can’t tell when they’re full? What’s the way? What’s the best way to stop hunger? Well, I mean, so are you saying you’re full and still hungry? I mean, hunger. Yeah, I I’m not sure exactly how to answer this question. I mean there’s also there’s all sorts of things you can do to suppress appetite, suppress cravings. You I talk about thyloids, my book on ompic last year, talk about all the ways you can boost your lp1 and that helps with that. But I don’t know if that’s actually going to answer your question and I’m just not exactly sure. If you want to restate your question, maybe I will get to it in this session.

All right, raj 1660 says ldl down from 147 to 118. Is it true hdl can be too low? If so, what’s best to raise it? Congratulations with diet. Fantastic. Ah, love it. Doctor says ldl is fine. Hdl too low. Your doctor needs to pick up a medical journal. We haven’t for god probably eight years considered hdl to be a causal risk factor, low ldl, low hdl to be a causal risk factor for heart disease. And so I mean it’s quite possible your doctor went to medical school. Well, I mean, even who knows what they’re teaching medical school these days. Things take so long to make it into medical practice. But if you look at all the kind of consensus statements from all the, you know, the american heart association, cardiology, the, you know, the acc guidelines, american college of cardiology, hdl is no longer considered cause risk factor. I have videos about that. It’s in some like coconut oil video where I talk about hdl and how you know it’s it’s it’s associated with having low hdl is associated with higher risk of heart disease but there’s not cause and effect. So it’s like you know having lots of ashtrays in your house is associated with with uh high rates of lung cancer but it’s not actually the ashrays that are doing it. That’s just a the non-causal risk factor. And actually the true cause is the is the smoking. If you don’t smoke and just have a lot of asteris, you’re totally fine. And same thing if you have low ldl and no matter what your hdl is, it doesn’t matter. Is it true hdl can be too low? In fact, there’s even studies with really high hl in the bio bank, latest bio bank analysis, extremely high hl being associated with high risk, but again, no idea if it’s causal. How do we know? We do these mandelian randomization studies where people at birth are randomized based on what sperm meets what egg to have higher or lower just genetically predicted um set points for cholesterol. Such that we can see oh if people live their whole lives with high ldl does that matter or low ldl and in turn and turns out the there’s these so-called longevity syndromes where people are just naturally gifted to be born with low ldl regardless of what they eat throughout their lives in effect proving or at least one one one important piece of evidence proving that having low ldl is protective indeed we have all sorts of studies with surgically and apheresis and drugs that lower ldl and significantly lowering rates of cardiovascular disease and death. But but so that’s how we know high ldl is bad, low ldl is good. But when you do those same analyses with hdl, so if you do drugs to lower your h to excuse me, raise your hdl, what happens? You actually die more. The drugs are pulled from the market. And and and similarly if you’re born with a high hdl just just naturally you’re actually not protected. If you’re born with low hdl you’re not at increased risk showing that there’s no cause and effect relationship. Don’t worry about your hdl. Bottom line. Don’t worry about hdl. Worry about your ldl. And I’m so glad it’s down to 118. Although I’d like to see it even lower than that.

Okay. Why does human breast milk contain so much saturated fat? What stage does saturated fat start to become a concern for young children? Mr. Danny agogo says, “why does human breast milk contain so much saturated fat? What stage does saturated fat start to become a concern for young children?” You know, saturated fat is actually a is kind of a catch-all term for a whole bunch of different kind of mild. There’s all sorts of saturated fatty acids and they’re all kind of classed under saturated fat. So, there’s, you know, moristic acid, palmitic acid, and you know kind of on down the wrist. In fact, even short- chain fatty acids like butyrate which is actually this beneficial molecule created when you digest fiber, it’s technically a saturated fat, although it only has good benefits. So, we talk about saturated fats. We’re talking about these longchain saturated fats like pulmitic acid which found predominantly in in meat and dairy but also in junk food and that do indeed increase one’s risk of heart disease. But the the the the the the saturated fat in breast milk is not harmful. In fact it has been finely tuned throughout millions of years of primate evolution to be the perfect food for our babies. And in fact even has fiber technically. It has these these these these carbohydrates that we actually can’t digest. You’re like, “wait a second. Why would the mother go all, you know, you go through all this trouble to make things that the baby can’t digest?” Guess who can digest it? The good gut bugs in their gut. And so it’s amazing like the mom is feeding the good gut bugs. It’s so cool. Anyway, anyway, she’ll be like, “yeah, but why why is there fiber?” Because it helps.

Anyway, okay. Next up. Okay. A double should metabolically at-risk individuals (pre-diabetics) be concerned with glucose spikes from healthy whole food plant-based meals? Integral. Oh, interesting. Should metabolically atrich individuals like pre-diabetics be concerned with glucose spikes from healthy whole plant-based meals like leafside sweet bowls? So what we care about is so the reason why we look at something like hemoglobin a1c as a measure of long-term blood sugar control is what matters is I mean normally after a meal blood sugar is supposed to go up. It goes up and then it gets distributed to all your tissues. We don’t want to spike too high because we don’t want it then for our body to overreact and we actually dip below the our baseline blood sugar levels and then release triglycerides in our blood which have negative consequences. And so so as long as we don’t have that hypoglycemic dip afterwards and as long as overall over time averaged over months our blood sugar levels are aren’t too high we don’t have to worry about and so you can do that with a hemoglobin a1c which is you know um what you how you would get diagnosed with pre-diabetes for example and if you did need to lower your blood sugars, most critical thing is decreasing saturated fat intake, which is what is impairing your body’s ability to respond naturally to insulin. And and that some of that fat may be coming from your visceral fat. So just abdominal obesity can lead to that regardless of what you eat. So weight loss, decreasing intake saturated fat and refined carbs, you know, the the the flowered grains, even if they’re whole grains, the particle size just allows for unnaturally rapid digestion and can spike your blood sugar so high that you do actually get that hypoglycemic dip and get the triglycerides in your blood, which is a bad thing. I would not expect that to happen with something like leaf cyclic. It’s all whole foods.

Hello. Anyone from south florida? Probably. I’m actually from south florida. Born in miami, north miami. When using the u-prevent site, if one is from the us are we in a low risk to high risk area? Carol car carol carl newman. When using oh, you prevent. Yes. If one is from the us, are we in a low-risk area or a high-risisk area? You are in a high-risisk area. Okay. I love this question though. You prevent. So, ud-prevent.com, I believe, is the website. This is my favorite. Risk calculator. You want to find out if you should be on statin drugs, you go to u-prevent.com. Now, you have to actually check a box saying you’re a medical professional. If you’re not a medical professional and you are not comfortable lying and saying you’re a medical professional by checking that box, they’re doing it just for presumably legal reasons. Then there are other calculators from the american heart association, blah blah blah. They’re all free, but they’re not as good. So, I recommend udesh prevent. And and one of the things it asks you is, are you in a high-risisk country or a low-risisk country? If you’re in the us, you are in a high-risisk country.

Oh my god, we’re almost out of time. Ah, a but perfect transition. Haley bay says, “got my updated book.” New 10 year anniversary edition of how not to die and they’re talking about this updated book. Tada. The 10th anniversary updated how not to die. Can you believe it’s been 10 years? And they read it and are making better choices. And so if you still are trying to find gifts for people in your life that you love, I came out with three books this year. In fact, I even have a little all right, 10year anniversary book is out. I just came out like last week. Just got published. Very excited. I have the the cholesterol book came out in october. And my third book that was published this year was the how not to age cookbook, which came out in april, I believe. And I have three books coming out next year. So there’ll be lots of easy stocking stuffer action. And finally, please keep the nonprofit consider donating to nutritionfacts.org for your end-of-year giving 51c3 organization nutritionfacts.org in mind for your endofear giving if you are, a us citizen. And in some countries, you can get a taxdeductible donation by supporting us. That’s how we do it. We don’t accept money from corporations or sponsorships or kickbacks or any of that stuff. It’s like a wikipedia model where everything’s free, but if just one,000 people kicks in a few bucks, we have everything we need to pay our staff and keep everything going. And so, looking forward to another great year of, putting out content that will help make you and your family healthier. And, if you can help us do that, I would appreciate it. Thanks so much, everybody. And if I don’t see you, happy new year!