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Flashback Friday: The Best Diet for Diabetes
"The Best Diet for Diabetes" There are all sorts of different scoring
systems to rate diet quality. My favorite, for its simplicity, is the
dietary phytochemical index: a fancy name for a simple concept. It's just the percentage of your calories
from whole plant foods, so 0 to 100. The average American diet
has a score of 12. Twelve out of a hundred; so, like on a
scale of one to ten, our diet is a one. You can split people up based on how they
score, and show how the higher you score the better your metabolic markers
when it comes to diabetes risk. There appears to be like this stepwise
drop in insulin resistance and insulin-producing beta-cell dysfunction
as you eat more and more plant-based.
And that highest group was
only scoring about 30, less than a third of their diet
was whole plant foods, but better than the lowest, which was
down around the standard American diet. No wonder diets centered around
plants, emphasizing legumes— beans, split peas,
chickpeas and lentils— whole grains, vegetables,
fruits, nuts and seeds, and discouraging most or all animal
products are especially potent in preventing type 2 diabetes, and as a little bonus has been associated
with much lower rates of obesity, hypertension, hyperlipidemia,
cardiovascular mortality, and cancer. And not just preventing type 2 diabetes
but treating it as well. A systematic review and meta-analysis
found that the consumption of vegetarian diets is associated
with improved blood sugar control, but how much improved?
Here's one of the latest trials. The effect of a strictly plant-based diet
centered around brown rice—it was done in Asia—versus the conventional
diabetic diet on blood sugar control of patients with type 2 diabetes:
a 12-week randomized clinical trial. For the diabetic control diet, they set
up food exchanges and calculated specific calorie and portion controls,
whereas on the plant-based diet people could eat much as they want;
that's one of the benefits.
The emphasis is on food
quality rather than quantity, and they still actually
lost more weight. But even after controlling for
the greater abdominal fat loss in the plant-based group,
they still won out. Of course, it only works
if you actually do it, but those that pretty much stuck
to the healthier diet dropped their A1c levels 0.9%, which is what you
get taking the leading diabetes drug, but of course only
with good side effects. Yeah, but would it work in
an underserved population? The impact of a plant-based diet support
program on mitigating type 2 diabetes in San Bernadino, the poorest
city of its size in California. A randomized controlled trial,
but not of a plant-based diet itself as the title suggests,
but of just an education program telling people about the benefits
of a plant-based diet for diabetes, and then it was up to them. And still got a significant improvement
in blood sugar control. Here are the numbers. Got a little better
in the control group, but way better in the plant-based
instruction and support group. And more plant-based diets
are not just effective in the prevention and management of
diabetes, but also its complications.
Check this out. One of the most devastating complications
of diabetes is kidney failure. This shows the decline in kidney
function in eight diabetics in the one or two years
before switching their diets. They all showed this steady,
inexorable decline on a fast track to complete
kidney failure and dialysis. But then they switched to a
special supplemented vegan diet, and their kidney decline
was stopped in its tracks. Imagine if they had switched
a year or two earlier! Most diabetics don't actually end up on
dialysis though because they die first. Cardiovascular disease is the major cause
of premature mortality among diabetics; that's why plant-based diets are perfect.
There is a general scientific consensus that the elements of a whole-foods
plant-based diet— legumes, whole grains, fruits,
vegetables, and nuts, with limited or no intake of processed
foods and animal products— are highly beneficial for preventing
and treating type 2 diabetes.
Equally important, plant-based
diets address the bigger picture by simultaneously treating cardiovascular
disease, our #1 killer, along with obesity, high blood
pressure, lowering inflammation, and we can throw cancer
into the mix too, our #2 killer. The bottom line is that the case
for using a plant-based diet to reduce the burden of diabetes
and improve overall health has never been stronger..
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
Update on Vegetarian Stroke Risk
"Update on Vegetarian Stroke Risk" Healthy plant-based diets
have been associated with lower all-cause mortality,
up to a 34 percent lower risk of death from any cause over an average
of an eight-year period, just being in the top
versus bottom quarter of healthy plant-based consumption. If sustained, that could translate
into more than four extra years of life. A meta-analysis of a dozen studies
prospectively following more than a half a million people
for up to 25 years similarly found significantly lower
heart disease and overall death rates among those eating more plant-based.
No surprise,
a systematic review concluded since plant-based diets
may arrest or even reverse our number one killer—
cardiovascular disease. Those eating wholly plant-based
tend to be significantly slimmer with lower LDL cholesterol, triglycerides,
blood sugars, blood pressures, significantly less inflammation,
and less carotid artery wall thickening (a sign of atherosclerosis measured
via ultrasound in the neck), as good as what you see
in endurance athletes who’ve run an average of 50,000 miles,
which is like twice around the globe. And changes in risk factors
can happen fast, as evidenced by results
from one to three-week ad libitum (eat-all-you-want)
plant-based “kickstart” programs.
For example, the results from the first
few hundred participants of the at-home
15-day Jumpstart program created by the nonprofit Rochester
Lifestyle Medicine Institute were recently published. On a whole food plant-based diet,
obese patients lost an average of 7 pounds without controlling portions
or counting calories or carbs. Diabetics saw their fasting blood sugars
drop 28 points. Those with LDL cholesterol
over 100 experienced a 33-point drop (comparable to some statin drugs), and hypertensive individuals
experienced a 17-point drop in systolic blood pressure,
which is better than drugs, and all within just two weeks! Studies dating back nearly 40 years
show those eating meat-free diets also have improved blood “rheology,”
meaning fluidity or flowability, which may play a role
in cardiovascular protection. Subsequent interventional studies putting
the cross-sectional findings to the test, show that switching people
to a plant-based diet can improve rheology measurements
within three to six weeks.
But might the blood of vegetarians flow
a bit too well, though? In 2019, a study of thousands
of British vegetarians called EPIC-Oxford found that they were at higher risk
of hemorrhagic (bleeding) stroke. They had such a lower risk
of heart disease that they still had less
cardiovascular disease overall (and a half dozen studies show no overall
increased risk of stroke mortality), but why the greater stroke incidence? I suggested it might be vitamin B12
deficiency, which can lead to excessive levels
of a stroke- associated metabolite called homocysteine
which is normally detoxified by B12.
This is thought to be the reason
why vitamin B12 supplementation can improve artery function
of vegetarians. Vitamin B12 supplements
or fortified foods are critical for anyone eating plant-based,
but my 12-part video series on vegetarians and stroke risk
triggered by the 2019 publication was all in vain. It turns out vegetarians don’t appear
to have higher stroke risk after all. In response to the EPIC-Oxford results,
researchers around the world scrambled to see if the findings
were merely a fluke. In 2020, UK Biobank, a massive study
following more than 400,000 volunteers, confirmed that vegetarians
had lower cardiovascular disease rates and importantly,
no increased incidence of stroke.
And two studies from Taiwan
found vegetarians had significantly
lower risk of stroke. Following tens of thousands
of vegetarians for up to ten years, they only had about half the stroke risk
compared to nonvegetarians (including a 64 percent lower risk
specifically of hemorrhagic stroke). By 2021, Harvard researchers
had finished and published their analyses of the 200,000+ participants
of the Nurses’ Health Study, the Nurses’ Health Study II, and the Health Professionals
Follow-Up Study. They too found no increased stroke risk
for vegetarians and indeed a decreased risk of stroke among those eating
healthy plant-based diets.
A meta-analysis putting all the studies
together found that indeed the EPIC-Oxford data appeared
to be a fluke after all, finding, if anything, a lower risk
of stroke in a subgroup analysis. A 2022 systematic review
concluded that vegetarian and low-animal product diets are associated with a significantly
lower risk of bleeding strokes, a significantly lower risk
of clotting strokes, and a significantly lower risk
of total strokes across the board..
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
HOW TO HEAL YOUR GUT ON A VEGAN DIET | best probiotic foods
Welcome back to RainbowPlantLife. Today I want to share with you some of the best foods to eat for a healthy gut.
Before we get to the specific foods let's talk about why your gut health
matters. Your gut health is so important to the rest of your body's overall
health. Chances are if you have a healthy gut you probably also have a healthy
body, but if you have poor gut health it might be the root cause behind some of
your other health problems, ranging from physical to mental health issues. So if
you find yourself getting sick frequently and you're not sure why, or
you have brain fog and trouble focusing, it might be because you have an
unhealthy gut. Your gut health is affected by a bunch of different factors
such as the environment, whether you are taking certain medications, and of course
your diet. And because it can be hard to control external factors like the
environment, the easiest way to heal your gut is to heal your diet.
When it comes
to diet, there are two main things I want to talk about. The first one is
probiotics. You might have heard of probiotics before. They are the healthy
gut bacteria that live in your gut microbiome. And foods that are rich in
probiotics tend to be fermented foods. And a food is fermented usually by
leaving it out on the counter for a long enough period of time that it's exposed
to bacteria and yeast.
Of course you can't ferment every single kind of food.
For instance you can't just leave a chicken out on your counter and hope
that after ten days it'll be fermented and good for you. It'll give you
Salmonella so don't try it. On the other hand, you can ferment lots of vegetables
and that's why it's great for a vegan diet.The second part of your diet that I
want to talk about is fiber. And dietary fiber acts as a food for those
probiotics, enabling them to grow. And the reason you want the healthy gut bacteria
to grow is because the more you have and the more diverse your bacteria, is the
healthier your gut, which means you're less likely to have chronic illnesses
and inflammation.
And you'll find dietary fiber in fruits vegetables, whole grains
legumes, nuts, seeds. So basically if you're eating a vegan diet, particularly
a whole foods based vegan diet, you're gonna have no problem getting enough
fiber. So now that we've talked about probiotics, let's talk about foods that
contain probiotic. Of course you can take a probiotic supplement, but they can be
really expensive particularly the higher- end brands so if you want to heal your
gut through food only and save some money, here are some great plant-based
foods that are full of probiotics. A really rich source of probiotics is
sauerkraut, which is simply fermented cabbage. You might have had sauerkraut on a burger or hot dog before, and my favorite way is actually to pair it with
a kale salad and some creamy salad dressing and a bunch of nuts and seeds.
The combination of textures and flavors is really delicious. The next food on our
healthy gut list is kimchi. It's salted and fermented cabbage, usually Napa
cabbage and Korean radishes, and it's then flavored with chili powder and a
bunch of other seasonings. It's really delicious and like sauerkraut you can
make it at home and ferment it at home or you can buy it at the store. Typically I
pair kimchi with some Asian flavored food like ramen or rice, but you can put
it on a sandwich or burger or really anything.The next food on our list is
tempeh, which is whole fermented soy beans. I talked a lot about the
nutritional benefits of this superfood in an earlier video on "where do vegans get their protein from?" so if you want to check that out and learn more about
tempeh, I will link to that right here.
Our next source of probiotics are
plant-based yogurts and kefirs. You might have heard that traditional dairy
yogurt is a great source of probiotics and it is, but it's not the dairy that's
the source of probiotics. It's the live active cultures that are used to make
yogurt. So most plant-based yogurts and kefirs
are also going to have a high source of probiotics. These are two of my favorite
plant-based yogurts and kefirs. One is almond milk based the other is coconut
milk based. If you look at the ingredients on this,
you will see there are live active cultures in here. Just try to stick to
the unsweetened yogurts or yogurts that have a low amount of sugar because you
want to make sure that the bacteria in your gut is feasting on the probiotics,
not on the sugar. Next up on our probiotic list is miso.
Miso is a
traditional Japanese condiments and it's made of fermented soy beans. Of course
you've put miso in miso soup which you're served at Japanese restaurants, but I
also like to put miso in salad dressings, marinades and sauces. I actually put a
little bit of miso in my vegan cheese sauce because it adds that extra umami flavor. If you want to check out that recipe, I will link to that right
here.
Next up in our healthy gut list are olives. Once olives are soaked in brine,
which is a solution of water and salt, the healthy bacteria causes them to
ferment, making them a good source of probiotics. So if you love olives as much
as I do, take this as your excuse to eat as many as you want. Another salty
favorite of mine are pickles. You want to make sure though you're buying pickles
that have been pickled in salt water, not in vinegar.
If they've been pickled in
vinegar, they're not going to have the fermentation process. And they'll still be
delicious but you won't be getting any probiotics. Saltwater pickles are
typically sold in the refrigerated section and they might carry a label
that says "active cultures"and vinegar pickles are usually sold in the
shelf-stable aisle of the grocery store. Last but not least, my favorite source of
probiotics is kombucha. Kombucha is a black or green tea that's been
fermented by a colony of bacteria and yeast. And you can buy kombucha at the
store or you can make it at home. Now that we talked about foods that are rich in probiotics, I want to quickly talk about prebiotics. As I mentioned earlier,
probiotics are live microorganisms that need food in order to grow and flourish, and the food they eat usually comes in the form of dietary fiber, but it's also referred to as prebiotics.
Some of the best sources
of prebiotics are onions, garlic artichokes, asparagus, leeks, sweet
potatoes, bananas, legumes, whole grains. You get the point:
stuff that vegans would eat anyways. But I do want to mention two of my favorite
sources of prebiotics because it might surprise you that they're good for your
gut. If you're like me, you probably don't need any excuse to eat more chocolate,
but here's just another excuse. Chocolate is actually a prebiotic food because
when you eat chocolate, the healthy gut bacteria in your microbiome ferment the
compounds in cocoa. I don't know about you, but that certainly makes me feel
better about all the times I've eaten a dark chocolate bar in one sitting.
It happens all the time, like once a week, so I feel better now.
The last prebiotic I want to talk to you about that might surprise you is red
wine. And you might have heard that red wine is good for your heart, but it's
also good for your gut. Like cocoa, red wine encourages the healthy gut bacteria
to grow in your gut. Of course I feel obligated to tell you to drink
responsibly and to not treat red wine as your sole source of prebiotics. Make sure
you also eat vegetables and all that stuff. So the next time you have a glass of
red wine and a piece of dark chocolate, or a few pieces of dark chocolate, give
yourself a pat on the back because you're doing your gut and your health a
big favor.
Well that does it for my video on foods to eat for a healthy gut. If you
found this video informative or helpful or learned something new, I would love it
if you hit that "thumbs up"button as well as that "subscribe" button so I know that
you're enjoying these videos. If you want to talk more about gut health, if you
have questions, leave me a comment below and I would love to talk to you.
Alright, I'll see you guys next week. Thanks for watching.
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
Plant-Based Bodybuilding
"Plant-Based Bodybuilding" We know excess cellular growth isn’t
so good when we’re fully grown adults, since budding tumors may end up being
the main beneficiaries of higher levels of circulating growth hormones. But in some circumstances, a little
extra growth is sought after, particularly for men in this
culture — though not exclusively. The growth hormone IGF-1 is the
reason some dogs look like this, and others like this. What about those who strive
to be the big dog? Yes, lower circulating levels of IGF-1
in vegans lowers cancer risk, but might that interfere with their
accumulation of muscle mass? There certainly are lots of
plant-based body builders, but maybe they’re the exception. To look like this, does one
have to risk looking like this? True or false: Lower IGF-1 levels
in vegans likely interferes with muscle accumulation. Is this fact, or is this fiction? Well, there’s a couple ways
you attack that question. For example, what’s the skeletal
muscle mass like in acromegaly? People afflicted with giantism — where
they have an IGF overload in the body. If IGF bulks up muscle, you’d think
they’d be musclebound; but no, they don’t have any more muscle,
on average, than anyone else.
What if you inject people with IGF-1? They injected women for a year, and
found no increase in lean body mass or grip, bench or leg press strength. What about men? Basically, same thing. They had about a dozen 22-year-olds
flex for 15 weeks under different hormonal milieus, and concluded that
elevations in ostensibly anabolic hormones, like IGF-1,
with resistance exercise, enhances neither training-induced
muscle bulk, nor strength. "Thus it seems that outside of
[genetically engineered mice or a cell culture dish or other
animal models] that the search for the true role of the growth
potential for IGF-1 in adult muscle hypertrophy is a vain one." So, although it’s never been
directly tested, probably fiction..
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
IQ of Vegetarian Children
"IQ of Vegetarian Children" Okay, so the bronze goes to
hormonal genital meat malformation. The silver goes to a study
on IQ and vegetarianism. First, let me share
a little background. We’ve known for
nearly 30 years that vegetarian children
test smarter than omnivorous kids. First shown in a
1980 study by Tufts University, the IQ of vegetarian children was found
to be about 16 points above average. And their “mental age” was a year
ahead of the rest of their classmates. Of all the veg kids,
the vegan kids appeared the smartest. The pediatricians and psychologists
knew the veg kids were bright, but the researchers noted
that they were puzzled that they were
so much superior. Which came first, though?
The chicken or the egg? Well, for the vegan kids,
neither, perhaps.
But were they smart
because they were vegetarians, and therefore getting
all that good nutrition— or did they become vegetarian
because they were so smart? Well, the mystery has
finally been solved—I guess. Those fantastic Brits followed
8,000 kids for 30 years. Measured their IQ at age 10,
then came back 20 years later and asked which of them had
become vegetarian during that time. Their findings? Higher scores for IQ
in childhood are associated with an increased likelihood
of being a vegetarian as an adult. Smart people
evidently eat vegetarian. They even quote Benjamin Franklin
saying vegetarian diets result in “greater clearness of head
and quicker comprehension.”.
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
The Efficacy and Safety of Creatine for High Homocysteine
"The Efficacy and Safety of Creatine
for High Homocysteine" The average blood levels
of homocysteine in men is about one and a half points
higher than in women. Maybe that's one of the reasons
why men tend to be at higher risk for cardiovascular disease. Women don't need to make
as much creatine as men since they tend to have
less muscle mass, and that may help explain the
gender gap in homocysteine levels. If you remember from my last video,
in the process of making creatine, your body produces homocysteine
as a by-product. So maybe for people with stubbornly high homocysteine
levels that don't sufficiently respond to B vitamins, perhaps creatine
supplementation may represent a practical strategy to draw homocysteine
levels down into the normal range.
It seemed to work in rats, but in humans,
it worked in one study, this one, but didn't seem to work in another
study, this one, or this one, and in this study homocysteine
levels were even driven up. So this whole suggestion that
taking creatine supplements would lower homocysteine
was called into question. But all those studies were done
in non-vegetarians, so they were effectively already supplementing
with creatine every day in the form of muscle meat, so they were basically just testing
higher versus lower supplementation. Those eating strictly plant-based
make all their creatine from scratch, so may be more sensitive
to an added creatine source, but there were never any studies
on creatine supplementation in vegans for homocysteine
lowering until now.
They took a bunch of vegans
who were not supplementing their diets with vitamin B12,
so some of their homocysteine levels were through the roof,
a few as high as 50 when the ideal is more like under 10,
but after taking some creatine for a few weeks all of their homocysteine
levels normalized. Before… …and after. Now they didn't really normalize,
which would have been under 10, but that's presumably because
they weren't taking any B12. Give vegetarians and vegans
vitamin B12 supplements, either daily dosing or once a week,
and their levels really normalize in a matter of months, but the
fact that even without B12, that you could bring down homocysteine
levels with creatine alone suggests— to me at least—that if your homocysteine
is elevated on a plant-based diet, meaning above 10, despite
taking B12 supplements, and eating greens and beans to get
enough folate, well then it may be worth experimenting with
supplementing with a gram of creatine for a few weeks and see if your
homocysteine levels come down.
Why one gram? That's approximately
how much nonvegetarians are not having to make themselves; that's how much
erased vegetarian discrepancies in blood and muscle, and how much has
been shown to be safe in the longer-term. How safe exactly is it? Well, one
can take a bit of comfort in the fact that it's one of the world's
best-selling dietary supplements, with literally billions of servings taken,
and the only consistently reported side effect has been weight gain,
presumed to be from water retention. The only serious side effects
appear to be among those with pre-existing kidney diseases taking
whopping doses like 20 grams a day. A concern was raised that creatine
could potentially form a carcinogen, known as N-nitrososarcosine,
when it hits the acid bath of the stomach, but when actually put to the test this
does not appear to be a problem. Bottomline, doses of up 3 grams
a day are unlikely to pose any risk provided high purity creatine is used, and as we all know dietary supplements
are not regulated by the FDA and may contain contaminants or not
actually contain what's on the label, contaminants generated during
the industrial production.
When researchers looked at 33
samples of creatine supplements made in the U.S. and Europe, they all did
actually contain creatine, which is nice, but about half exceeded the
maximum level recommended by food safety authorities
for at least one contaminant. The researchers recommend that
consumers give their preference to products obtained by producers
that ensure the highest quality control. Easier said than done. Because of the potential risks
I don't think people should be taking creatine supplements willy-nilly,
but the potential benefits may exceed the potential risks, if again, you're
on a healthy plant-based diet, taking B12 and your homocysteine
levels are still not under 10, I would suggest giving a gram a day of
creatine a try to see if it brings it down.
The reason I did this whole video
series all goes back to this study, which found that although the
overall cardiovascular disease risk is lower in vegetarians
and vegans combined, they appeared to be at slightly
higher stroke risk. I went through a list of potential causes, arrived
at elevated homocysteine, and the solution? A regular,
reliable source of vitamin B12. The cheapest, easiest method
that I personally use is one 2500 mcg chewable
tablet of cyanocobalamin. In fact you can just use
2000 mcg once a week, and cyanocobalamin is the
most stable source of B12.
Take that once a week. And then as I detailed in this video,
a back-up plan for those doing that and still having elevated
homocysteine, is an empirical trial of one gram a day of
creatine supplementation, which has been shown to improve
at least capillary blood flow in those who started out with
high homocysteine levels. The bottom line is that plant-based
diets appear to markedly reduce our risk of multiple
leading killer diseases— heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and
many common types of cancer— but an increased risk of stroke
may represent an Achilles heel. Nonetheless, they have the potential to
achieve a truly exceptional health span if they face this problem forthrightly
by restricting salt intake and taking other practical measures
that promote brain artery health.
Nonetheless, these considerations
do not justify nutritional nihilism. On balance, even strictly plant-based
diets offer such versatile protection to long-term health that they
remain highly recommendable. Most likely, the optimum strategy
is to eat plant-based, along with going out of the way
to eat particularly protective foods as I talked about before,
regular aerobic exercise, and most importantly
taking your vitamin B12. Oh, and try not to huff whipped
cream charged in canister gas..
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
How Plant-Based to Lower IGF-1?
“How Plant-Based to Lower IGF-1?” Just a few days of walking
and eating whole healthy plant foods, and our IGF-1 levels drop low enough
to reverse cancer cell growth. What if we stick with it? Going to some Pritikin spa and getting
healthy for two weeks is one thing, but what about long-term? Does your IGF-1 start to creep back up
to standard American diet levels again? No. Here’s after 11 days,
and it just gets better. People eating plant-based diets for 14
years have half the IGF-1 in their bodies, and more than twice the amount of
IGF-binding protein than those on the Standard American Diet. We know decreasing animal product
consumption decreases our IGF-1 levels, but how low do you got to go? How plant-based does our diet need to get? Well, let’s look at IGF-1 levels
in meat-eaters, versus vegetarians, versus vegans.
The aim of this study was to determine
whether a plant-based diet is associated with a lower circulating level of IGF-1,
compared with a meat-eating or lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet. And this is what they found. Only the vegans had
significantly lower levels. And the same relationship
found with IGF-1 binding capacity. Only the vegans were significantly
more able to bind up excess IGF-1 in their bloodstreams. This was a study on women. What about vegan men? They found the same thing. So, even though vegan men tend to have
significantly higher testosterone levels than both vegetarians and meat-eaters— which can be a risk factor
for prostate cancer, the reason plant-based diets appear to
reverse the progression of prostate cancer may be due to how low
their IGF-1 levels drop. So, more testosterone, but less cancer. The bottom line is that male or female, just eating vegetarian
did not seem to cut it.
It looks like to get a significant drop
in cancer-promoting growth hormone levels, one apparently has to eliminate
animal products altogether. The good news is that, given what we now know about IGF-1, we can predict that “a low-fat vegan diet
may be profoundly protective with respect to [for example] risk for
postmenopausal breast cancer.”.
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
Eating Plant-Based Saved Him From Surgery | Paul Chatlin Part 1 | Plant Power Stories
I had a 100% block in my right artery, two other arteries at 70%, I had a left bundle block,
a heart murmur, I had an enlarged heart with leaky valves, and sarcoidosis of the right side
of my heart muscle. I would sit there and say,
"God, if you get me out of this mess, I promise I will give something back
to this world." And it won't just be … you know like my self-improvement.
I want to do something good and big. I wake up one day … and I feel incredible pain in my chest. And they give the analogy of … it's like an elephant on your chest.
They were so right, I would sit there in bed, and I would just wait and breathe slowly and say,
"Something is really wrong." And it wasn't getting better,
in fact it was getting worse. I remember once going to some location, and I literally couldn't take
seven steps without stopping, and it was during the day
and my chest was really hurting and I'm like, "Oh man, something is really wrong.
I've got to go see the doctor." And they did every single test
other than a heart catheter and a heart biopsy. And the test results came
back and the cardiologist said to me, "Well, listen, we need to do a heart catheter
and a heart biopsy next, but the indicators are you may need
a heart transplant or bypass surgery." So, we're being wheeled in toward the surgical ward,
and he stops, he looks at me and says, "Hey, Paul, I've only done this for
two/one other patient in twenty years… Would you consider a nutrition change
instead of having bypass surgery today?" And I'm like, "Yes,
immediately, I'll do anything." Well, I didn't know what this meant.
I had never heard of whole-food, plant-based, I just knew I didn't have to have surgery today. Everything that was processed, all meat, dairy,
and oil was removed from my house that day. So, I went whole-food,
plant-based perfect that day. And now the journey just began. So, here I am two weeks into it.
I'm eating vegetables … that I never liked. And I'm like, okay, well, you can just ignore that and have bypass
surgery or you can just try and fill up, eat a lot of this, because I mean like … I never ate kale, I'd never even heard of kale.
It was iceberg lettuce, that was the big thing. 14 days in, I started saying,
"Wow, this isn't so bad." I'd follow the recipe…
I realized I was not a good cook. I went to Dr. Esselstyn's half-day seminar,
where they teach you how to cook. And I said,
"Oh my God, that's my mission." I was on that gurney, I promised the Lord I would
give something back, so here's what I'm going to do, I'm going to put a little ad in the paper, and I'm going to invite
anybody in the community … to come to my house … if they have any heart concerns.
And I only knew about heart … because that's what … I had heart disease.
I didn't know about diabetes or obesity or … anything else that would benefit
from whole-food, plant-based. So, we started having our meetings … and it kept growing,
and growing, and growing. When people have a problem with alcohol,
they go to AA. And the reason is they need
a support group … of like-minded people to get
through that moment or get through that day. We created that same model … with making a food change … because it is not just a food change,
it's a lifestyle change.
And we would just start having
more people and more people because … people were willing to consider nutrition
before pills and procedures … and they were not getting
the answer from their doctors. So, they came to our organization for those
answers and we had the experts talk to them. So, here we are today … at the Plant-Based
Nutrition Support Group, we're closing in on 6,000 members
in about four years. I feel great,
my cholesterol number is under 100, so I went from 347 to under 100. I have lost almost 70 pounds,
and I've kept it off. I'm now 60 years old
and I want to enjoy the next 20 years, 25 years. And I think by eating this way,
I am going to do it..
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
Type 1 Diabetes Treatment: A Plant-Based Diet
"Type 1 Diabetes Treatment:
A Plant-Based Diet" The brand-new International Journal
of Disease Reversal and Prevention had its share of typical plant-
based miraculous disease reversals. After having not one but two
heart attacks within two months, a whole food, plant-based diet
and no more chest pain, controlling his cholesterol,
blood pressure, and blood sugars while losing 50 pounds as
a neat little side-bonus. Yet the numbers don’t capture the
transformation, the resurrection from feeling like a “dead man walking”
to getting his life back. I already discussed the cases of
autoimmune inflammatory disease reversal, the psoriasis, the lupus,
nephritis (kidney inflammation); and speaking of autoimmune-
diseases-we-didn’t-think- we-could-do-anything-
about, type 1 diabetes.
In contrast to type 2 diabetes,
which is a lifestyle disease that can be prevented and reversed
with a healthy enough diet and lifestyle, type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune
disease in which your body attacks your own pancreas, killing off
your insulin-producing cells condemning you to a
life of insulin injections— unless, perhaps, you
catch it early enough. Maybe if we can switch people early
enough to a healthy enough diet, we can reverse the course by
blunting that autoimmune inflammation.
Now, we know patients with type 1
may be able to reduce insulin requirements and achieve better
blood sugar control with healthier diets. For example, randomize children
and teens to a nutritional intervention in which they boost the whole
plant food density of their diet, meaning eating more whole grains,
whole fruit, vegetables, legumes (which are beans, split peas, chickpeas,
and lentils), nuts, and seeds. And the more whole plant foods,
the better the blood sugar control. The fact that more whole
fruits was associated with better blood sugar control has
important clinical implications for nutrition education in
those struggling with type 1. We should be educating them
on the benefits of fruit intake and allaying “erroneous concerns that
fruit may adversely affect blood sugar". But this case series went beyond just
proposing better control of the symptom of diabetes—high blood sugars—but
better control of the disease itself, suggesting the anti-inflammatory
effects of whole healthy plant foods may slow or prevent further destruction
of the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas, if the dietary
intervention is initiated early enough.
Where are they getting this
from? Check it out. One patient who began a vegetable-
rich diet at age three immediately following diagnosis of type 1
diabetes, but three years later still has yet to require insulin
therapy, while experiencing a steady decline in autoantibody levels,
markers of insulin cell destruction. Another child, who didn’t start
eating healthier until several months after diagnosis, maintains a
low dose of insulin with good control. And even if the insulin-producing
cells have been utterly destroyed, type 1 diabetics can still enjoy
dramatically reduced insulin requirements and reduced inflammation and
reduced cardiovascular risk, which is the #1 cause of death for
type 1 diabetics over the age of 30.
Type 1’s have 11 to 14 times the risk
of death from cardiovascular disease compared to the general population,
and it’s already the #1 killer among the public, so it’s like
11 to 14 times more important for type 1 diabetics to be on
the only diet and lifestyle program ever proven to reverse heart
disease in the majority of patients— one centered around whole plant foods. And the fact that it may also
help control the disease itself is just sugar-free icing on the cake. All this exciting new research was
just from the first issue of the journal! As a bonus there’s a companion
publication called the Disease Reversal and Prevention Digest,
a companion publication to the International Journal of
Disease Reversal and Prevention for the lay public with the
belief I wholeheartedly share that everyone has a right
to understand the science that could impact their health. And so, you can go behind the
scenes and hear directly from the author of the lupus series,
with bonus interviews from luminaries like Dean Ornish, practical
tips from dietitians on making the transition towards a healthier
diet, complete with recipes. The second issue continued
to feature practical tips like how to eat plant-based on
a budget, what Dr.
Klaper is doing to educate medical students, what
Audrey Sanchez from Balanced is doing to help change school lunches,
and if you think that’s hard, Dr. Ostfeld got healthy foods
served in a hospital. What a concept! And, what magazine would be
complete without an article to improve your sex life. Now, while the journal itself is
free, downloadable at IJDRP.org, the companion digest, available
at diseasereversaldigest.com, carries a subscription fee, but I,
for one, am a proud subscriber..
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
Is Keto an Effective Cancer Fighting Diet?
"Is Keto an Effective
Cancer-Fighting Diet?" Blood sugar, also known
as blood glucose, is the universal go-to fuel for
the cells throughout our bodies. Our brain burns through a
quarter pound of sugar a day, it’s preferred metabolic fuel. Our body can break down proteins
and make glucose from scratch, but most comes from our diet in
the form of sugars and starches. If we stop eating carbohydrates,
or stop eating altogether, most of our cells switch
over to burning fat, but fat has difficulty getting
through the blood-brain barrier.
But our brain has this constant
massive need for fuel, one organ accounting for up
to half of our energy needs. Without it, the lights
go out…permanently. To make that much
sugar from scratch, our body would
need to break down about a half pound
of protein a day. That means we’d cannibalize ourselves
to death within two weeks, but people can fast for months. The answer to the puzzle
was discovered in 1967. Harvard researchers
famously stuck catheters into the brains of obese
subjects who had been fasting for over a month and
discovered that ketones had replaced glucose as the
preferred fuel for the brain. Your liver can turn
fat into ketones, which can then breach
the blood-brain barrier and sustain your brain if you’re
not getting enough carbohydrates.
Switching fuels has such
an effect on brain activity that it has been used to
treat epilepsy since antiquity. The prescription of
fasting for the treatment of epileptic seizures
dates back to Hippocrates. In the Bible, Jesus
seems to have concurred. To this day it’s
unclear why switching from blood sugar to ketones
as a primary fuel source has such a dampening effect
on brain overactivity. How long can you fast though? To prolong the fasting therapy,
in 1921 a distinguished physician scientist at the Mayo
Clinic suggested trying what he called a “ketogenic diet,” a high-fat diet designed to be
so deficient in carbohydrates it could effectively
mimic the fasting state. “Remarkable improvement”
was noted the first time it was put to the test—efficacy
that was later confirmed in randomized, controlled, trials. Ketogenic diets started to
fall out of favor in 1938 with the discovery of
the anti-seizure drug which would become known as Dilantin, but ketogenic diets are still in use today as a third- or fourth-line treatment for drug-refractory epilepsy in children. Oddly, the success of ketogenic
diets against pediatric epilepsy seems to get conflated
by “keto diet” proponents into suggesting a ketogenic
diet is beneficial for everyone.
But you know what else sometimes
works for intractable epilepsy? Brain surgery. But I don't hear people
at the gym clamoring to get their skulls sawed open. Since when do medical therapies translate into healthy lifestyle choices? Scrambling brain activity
with electroshock therapy can be helpful in some
cases of major depression. So what…pass the electrodes? Ketogenic diets are
also being tested to see if they can slow the growth
of certain brain tumors. Even if it works, you know what else can help slow cancer growth? Chemotherapy. So why go keto when you
can just go chemo? Promoters of ketogenic diets for cancer, paid for by so-called
“ketone technology” companies that will send you salted
caramel bone broth powder for a hundred bucks a pound. Or companies that
market ketogenic meals report “extraordinary” anecdotal
responses in some cancer patients, but more concrete
evidence is simply lacking. Even the theoretical underpinnings
may be questionable. You know, a common refrain
is that “cancer feeds on sugar.” But all cells feed on sugar. Advocating ketogenic diets for cancer
is like saying Hitler breathed air— so let’s boycott oxygen.
Cancer can feed on ketones too. Ketones have been found to
fuel human breast cancer growth and drive metastases in
an experimental model, more than doubling tumor growth. Some have even speculated
that may be why breast cancer often metastasizes to the liver, the main site of ketone production. If you drip ketones
on breast cancer cells in a petri dish directly, the
genes that get turned on and off make for a much
more aggressive cancer, associated with a significantly lower five-year survival in
breast cancer patients. Researchers are even considering
designing ketone-blocking drugs to prevent further cancer growth
by halting ketone production. And think about what eating a
ketogenic diet might entail. High animal fat intake may
increase the mortality risk among breast cancer survivors
and potentially play a role in its development in the first
place through oxidative stress, hormone disruption, or inflammation.
Men, too. A strong association has been found between saturated fat intake
and prostate cancer progression. Those in the top
third of consumption of these kinds of
fat-rich animal foods appeared to triple their risk
of dying from prostate cancer. Not necessarily fat in general—
no difference in breast cancer death rates based
on total fat intake— but saturated fat intake
may negatively impact breast cancer survival,
a 50 percent increased risk of dying from breast cancer. There’s a reason the official
American Cancer Society and American Society of Clinical Oncology
Breast Cancer Survivorship Care Guidelines recommend a dietary pattern
for breast cancer patients that’s essentially the
opposite of a ketogenic diet: “high in vegetables, fruits,
whole grains, and legumes, meaning beans, split peas,
chickpeas and lentils, and low in saturated fats.” So far, not a single
clinical study has shown a measurable benefit
from a ketogenic diet for any human cancer.
There are currently at least
a dozen trials underway, however, and the hope is that at least
some cancer types will respond. Still, even then that
wouldn’t serve as a basis for recommending ketogenic diets
for the general population any more than recommending
everyone go out and get radiation, surgery, and chemo for kicks..
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
