What have just one lifestyle change could
help you avoid getting
cancer or diabetes or heart disease or high blood pressure? This one change could cut your risk of chronic disease and add years to your life. Well the simple solution to so many of these problems is to eat a healthy diet. In other words, one centered around whole plant Foods, welcome to the nutrition facts podcast. I'm your host. Dr. Michael Greger.
Today on the podcast. I answer a wide range of your questions on a recent episode of Facebook live. A few of our topics include the difference between the whole food plant-based diet and vegan diets and how to motivate yourself to reduce your intake of meat in July. Dr. Michael Greger coming to you live from my Dremel. As I do every month in. Let us go to the questions and see
what you have for me today.
Am I? All right. Fernando says, what is the ideal LDL ideal. LDL depends on whether or not you have been diagnosed with heart disease. If you have not a lifetime LDL, well, actually, a lifetime LDL under 100, should protect you from heart disease. However, if you didn't figure this out into middle age and you're in your ldls, too high.
Hi and you're trying to get it down to prevent heart disease. Then 70 would be the target. If you already have heart disease then the target draw in terms of secondary. Prevention of in the second Howard Tech drop sound like 30 to 50 or basically as low as possible. So wasting, could there be a harm of having cholesterol, too low, we didn't know until pcsk9 Inhibitors. Came out. We have these new biologic injectable drugs.
To draw people's cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, into the single digits, and still not seeing any problems with hormone manufacture, like testosterone estrogen, or any other issues that have piled on. So only benefit as you go lower and lower, but we don't most people should not need drugs to get their LDL down. They just need to cut out or cut down on the three things that increase one's cholesterol. And that is
It is saturated fat found mostly in animal fats, in Jump, trans fats, found almost exclusively. Now, an animal fat. Now that's been removed from the food supply, from partially hydrogenated oils, and third is dietary closer of comfortably and eggs. But throughout the animal kingdom, just do all that your cholesterol should drop, right down, add in a whole bunch of high fiber plant foods, which is a whole plant foods and you can push your cholesterol down even further. Yes.
Listen, even healthy. There are few Foods particular that may lower LP little a further. I think those are black cumin seed and flax seeds. Okay, this is from Heidi, new to plant, based mostly fruit it. Okay, trying to take vitamin B12, supplement. Absolutely, or even B12. Fortified Foods one of those two critically important for anyone eating a plant Center diet.
Even if you're not even if it's not strictly plant-based, critically important to do. Okay. Next up, Jacqueline says, what is the do? That's a good question. What is the difference between vegan and Whole Food plant-based diet. So, a vegan diet is defined as not eating animal products. And oftentimes also has other stipulations, like, not wearing the animal products, but from a strictly dietary point of view, no animal products, but that means,
You can live off of french fries, and beer, and cotton candy, and have a strictly vegan diet and have a horrible die. Right? Well, where is Whole Food plant-based diet is? It doesn't just say, what you don't eat. But actually says, we do, we do you actually eat vegetables. That's nice. So I'll go blind. Babies dying. One is trying to minimize the intake of meat, eggs, dairy, and junk, and maximize the intake of fruits vegetables, whole grains legumes, your beans, split peas, chickpeas and lentils. I'm not Caesar this price.
His mushrooms, basically, real food that grows out of the ground. These are our healthiest choices. Next up. We have Mike. What a good name. What do I think of Kate? Dr. Kadish Shanahan, fat burning fix, specifically, grass-fed be passed or I. Um, that's when you raise them, germ-free, pasture-raised meat and dairy. I have never heard of, dr. Chan.
And where the fat burn fix. What do I think of grass-fed beef or pasture raised meat? And dairy still has such a fat trans fats, cholesterol things. I just talked about that actually increase your LDL cholesterol. Number one, cause of I'm in the leading risk factor for the number one, cause of death in men and women now, is that better than eating bacon? It is better than processed meat. Yes, indeed, unprocessed red meat is healthier than process.
I mean so better than bacon, ham bologna sausage, but certainly not as good as eating some hummus. Next up Oz acts. How do I motivate myself to reduce my meat intake? Went to very small amounts to back to previous amount. So, okay. Well one can pin your personality. Things may work differently. One can educate yourself, continue to educate yourself.
One can control one's environment. And so if you just don't have meat in the house, it's easier to you know, it's just like not having junk in the house. I mean, it's easier not to eat cookies, when aren't cookies in the cupboard kind of thing. And and educating yourself about the various whether you care about your health, educate about health care about the environment. You can educate yourself about environmental, impacts care about pandemic risk. Your about, you know,
Animal issues, you know, you can kind of constantly, you know, barrage yourself with information. So you can live a life that is aligned with your values of, you know, wanting to have a healthy family and all that kind of stuff. Hopefully, that helps and you know, figure out like what are you getting out of that? Out of the meat? Just like the taste is it? The texture is that, you know, there are other things you could explore.
That are healthier with the same text taste texture. Whatever is doing, just like one recipe, you really love it end. Well, maybe we can swap that out. Um, there's all sorts of wonderful resources online for people to do that. Worst comes to worst. There are, you know, plant-based Meats on the market. Now, certainly better than animal-based means not as good as, you know, eating beans or something, but certainly 0
Poster, all usually less saturated fat, no trans fats. So and actually has a lot of fiber. So certainly healthier and can give you those the same kind of tastes and textures that you grew up with, on your transition towards eating, a diet, centered around whole plant foods, which would really be ideal. Next question. Maria says, I have 0 constant post nasal drip. Oh, had for years. Been hopeful blood.
Still, since May still have it. What am I doing wrong? Well, some post nasal drip can be an allergic, have an allergic component could be dust, could be dander, could be, you know, pollen that kind of thing. And so you can for example try and air filter like a HEPA filter at night in your in the room that you sleep and that can come take some allergens out of the air and that may
they help give that a try. Okay. Next up. Jason says, what do I think about Dave? Asprey says, lot of stuff, but I'm ctul recommends, eating fats. Don't, I've never heard of Dave. Asprey eating fats isn't like just drinking oil or spoonfuls of lard or something. I mean, I encourage people to eat fats in whole plant foods, like avocados, nuts and seeds and things, but yeah.
I wouldn't recommend using isolated fats if indeed. That's what Dave is saying. Okay, next up. Pelican not Pelican 1 through 6, but Pelican 7 says this is a typical question that I'm having a lot of trouble finding proper Clarity for, okay, the something that's in season legumes and mortar was a little salt, but you don't so glad it was, but you do have to cook legumes, but you wouldn't want to add salt.
It has nothing to do with phytic acid. We get way too much salt and indeed. Hypertension is the leading cause of death on planet Earth. So don't worry about smoking that the seeds. Don't add salt to anything. If you can help it and you don't need to soak your Legos, but you do need to cook them. Oh, unless you want to sprout them. You can Sprout lentils, some, some legumes. You can Sprout started, lentils, are a wonderful healthy snack and super easy. Anybody sound asthma. Yes. I got videos on both preventing and treating asthma.
Typically have to do with increasing fruit and vegetable consumption. There's actually studies where they took. People reduce the fruit and vegetable consumption and increase your fruit and vegetables. Something randomized to each group and those increase fruit and vegetable consumption. If I remember correctly, significant lower asthma exacerbation rates, but what's interesting about? This study is the group randomized to Loaf and vegetable consumption was like the average food Rush consumption of the American public. So it's like putting people in the lovran vegetable group.
It did so poorly in the study that was just like the average professional group. So definitely we want to increase our fruits and vegetables. Whether that's because of an anti-inflammatory effect or an antioxidant effect, who knows, who cares? Eat more fruits and vegetables. For to decrease one's risk. Also, high fiber foods, they butyrate short chain fatty acid, produced from all prebiotics, like fibers Justin starts when we eat things, like whole grains and legumes converted by our good gut Flora.
Or into the short chain fatty acids, like butyrate, which are absorbed through our system, circulate through our body, have anti-inflammatory effects, including within the Airways, which should help with asthma Matt's. It's what we think about supplementing with EPA only not. These have cardiovascular risk, reducing effects seen in the reduce it trial long as well. I could go through the whole long story. But basically, this is so. But the bottom line is that, you know, randomized controlled trials for the randomize people to fish oil, have found no benefit little or no benefit for
Cardiovascular disease until Don Todd on. And also, in this new producer draw came out and which tried just the EPA instead of EPA and DHA. Means the typical mix in fish oil and found a significant reduction. Now, if you've course, if you throw it in with all the other field trials, it washes out and there's actually no benefit, but they're saying, well, no, but this is kind of a special formulation, or lease, the, the pharmaceutical
Beneath that produces. This stuff says this is a special formulation. It turns out. It may have been the placebo-controlled that they chose. They of course funded the study. They chose mineral oil as the placebo control as opposed to another trial that recently came out, use corn oil as a control, which you better control. Because neutral where's mineral oil? Actually increased CRP C-reactive protein, increase inflammation, increased LDL cholesterol.
All. And so this is a classic big Pharma drug industry trick, where they choose as the comparator something, they know is to be inferior. So their new fancy drove looks better and so they choose mineral to make it so. So we don't exactly know how much just the pure ePSXe. Helping people. There are more space on the way, but no, I would not take EPA or DHA for cardiovascular disease, prevention. However,
PA me, and he's helped with cognitive function later in life, which is why I recommend people consider it. Okay. What is the best way to get sufficient, zinc? Everyone, to a chronic deficiency and had to supplement. I'm curious how you got diagnosed, chronic deficiency. It's really hard to actually measure sync status. But if that were the case, then you don't need something. That was thinking, zinc. Rich foods, the reason why.
I meant, for example, have lower zinc levels in women is for the opposite reason that women have tend to have lower iron levels because they lose iron every month and men use zinc, lose zinc in every Seminole Mission, I think is found in semen to protect the sperm and in found, it all seeds. Not just semen and so it can found in not just nothing sees what you see needs. But also beans which are botanically seeds as well.
Whole grains, what are whole grains, their seeds, the the you know, anything you put in the ground turns into a plant. That's a seed, botanically. So these are the foods pack, the lots of think, because and sink has this quality that helps with with kind of reproduction and growth. So that's that's that's where you should get your zinc from shouldn't need to supplement. Okay, Peter Rabbit, our Plastics Plastics and chewing gum, certain for humans health.
I didn't know there was plastic and chewing gum. I don't think it's plastic enjoying gum. If there was be concern, you don't need plastic, but I guess. Is this a question? Is the gum base and chewing gum bad. I would not worry about the gum base and not sure we're talking about about Plastics. My izaki fan, 100 says, healthy sodium intake for endurance athletes. What about treating hypotension salt intake?
You do not have to go out anyway, to add salt to your diet, or you shouldn't have to and we should not treat anything but symptomatic, hypotension. So people if you'd like, oh my God, my blood pressure is low. Well, that's actually good. We won basically lower the better without becoming symptomatic. We just kind of like iron stores. We want to have our, you know, Iron as low as possible, but without causing symptoms are dropping hemoglobin. Okay, Tom dunnock says,
Dangers of glyphosate sin organically, Gomes of which have been reported. Well, so organically Woods by Liggins by definition by the 2002 us. They are getting sent shouldn't have any glyphosate Cinema. But if there's some kind of cross contamination, we don't even know if there's adverse effects of glyphosate sin, you know, you know, conventional soybeans for something, for example, which is where you find the, presumably the highest levels. That's the Roundup pesticide. And we just simply don't have any human data.
Okay, what do we got next? We got Karyn, the Santa cobalamin, reduce potassium levels in the blood. Not that I know of and cannot imagine a mechanism by, which that would happen. That is my preferred form of vitamin B12 for supplementation. Doc be gone. Hope you're not talking about me. What do you think about a teaspoon of organic? Flax seed, oil on organic popcorn? So the herbs and spices stick to it. I also spray apple cider vinegar on, it doesn't then do it.
Works for me. I think I use malt vinegar. Same thing. What do I think about teaspoon of flexible? Unnecessary. If you want your stuff to stick to it, you can use it just kind of water-based stuff. You can Spritz anything you want on it. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, unnecessary. This is what I would say to that Lewis says, does the high content makes six in walnuts? There's really not high content make six and walnuts in it.
With the absorption of the mega three, there's also a person. Walnuts. I'm under the impression. They share the same pathway absorption not exactly, not absorption. But same pathway in terms of elongation with an enzyme called Delta, 60 saturates, the ratio of omega-3 and omega-6 ones is actually excellent. Certainly the highest 3 to 6 ratio of any knots, although some like flaxseed be better. So, I mean, the only thing about Mega 6, we're not exactly sure.
Sure. How impactful this is. Well, we should probably stay away from Maggie six, Rich oils, which are like the junky stuff you find and junk food, which is kind of seed oil. Corn oil, safflower sunflower oil and so just stay away from country sources that you probably have to worry about your mega 6 ratio in whole healthy foods. Okay? And went for Swiffer, says 80 grams. My protein today comes from soy, is I gotta be a problem. There. I, well, the 80 grams.
Protein may be a problem. Unless you are absolutely humongous. We really only need pointed grants for healthy ground kilogram of body weight. Although look your way 100 kg, right? What does that 240 pounds? I'm like that. Don't you 20lb ideal body weight? Not mention body weight. Oh, yeah. I mean, presumably the only way you're doing that is by taking soy protein supplements, which I would not recommend, I wouldn't recommend any
Protein supplements. In fact, I think what's going to come out of my how not to age book on longevity is approaching restriction, may actually be one of the secrets, although I'm still working on it. Don't take my word for it until all the research is done.
Okay, man of constant sorrow. That sounds depressing. How do I treat IBS? Oh, I I think vomiting when eating under stress, I wouldn't consider that an irritable bowel syndrome issue. Well, I would not even under stress. Yeah, and I would yeah and I would you know, make sure you don't have like some kind of esophageal stricture or something that is not a normal. Symptom people should
Maria says, how come my husband? Got covid-19 n't. He's a carnivore died, and I the plant-based diet, but sometimes I eat seafood. There's only one study that on plant-based diets and covid which did not find any difference in prevalence rates, but just a difference in severity. So people who eat plant-based may have less of your courses of covid, but did not have, but it was not measuring the chance of getting cold in first place.
He's the reason that your husband got covid and you didn't is because either they got, you got the exposure, a larger dose, or he didn't have the whatever immune capacity that you had. Hopefully those are that was a breakthrough infection that and hopefully you are both vaccinated to do some particularly to reduce your risk of getting infected first place, but most importantly,
induce your risk of a severe course, we would love it if you could share with us your
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