Modern WisdomHow America’s Healthcare System Keeps You Dependent - Calley Means
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,027 words- 0:00 – 4:28
Why is Modern Health So Broken?
- CWChris Williamson
Why is modern health so broken?
- CMCalley Means
The fundamental incentive that every single lever of healthcare makes more money when a child is sicker for longer periods of time. I mean, let's get out of conspiracy theories, let's get out of any conjecture. It just is a fundamental (laughs) statement of economic fact. I want everyone to assess this for themselves and everyone to think about this, but you look at insurance companies. People don't realize this, but the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, they set a 15% medical loss ratio, so insurance companies can only make a 15% profit margin, okay? But by law, they can raise premiums to get that 15%. So it was a big populist thing with Obamacare, it's like, "Why are, why are insurance companies making such high profit?" But when you put it that it's only 15% and they can raise prices to get that 15%, what does that incentivize? It incentivizes higher costs. What does that mean? It means more people getting sick. The insurance industry is directly, unimpeachably incentivized for more Americans to get sick. And what has happened since Obamacare? Uh, premiums have doubled in the past 10 years. So healthcare costs have been the highest driver of inflation, and I talked to... You know, on this journey, talking to many insurance executives, reach out, behind closed doors, they say it's absolutely obvious. Nobody's trying to be evil at those insurance companies, but when it comes between, you know, incentivizing exercise, incentivizing healthy eating, just kind of ignoring that and having more and more people get sick and paying out more and more costs, that's what they're incentivized to do. Obviously, pharmaceutical companies, 95% of medical spending, 95% of pharma sales are on chronic disease treatments, okay? So it's when you get heart disease, get kidney disease, get cancer, get these conditions that are lifetime management, they're lifetime management drugs. That's a beautiful invention because chronic disease that has to be managed, not cured, is recurring revenue. (laughs) So there hasn't been new antibiotic strains invented in the past 30 years because that's a pill that you take and get off. It's all about chronic disease management, so just fundamentally, uh, when insurance co- when, when a, a pharmaceutical company can get you on this chronic disease pharmaceutical treadmill, that's a profitable patient, and when it happens earlier and earlier and that kid gets sick but doesn't die, just suffers, that economically is a good thing. And, and this is y- why there's this devil's bargain where fundamentally, you know, nine out of 10 killers of Americans, the, the conditions that are torturing our lives are lifestyle related, and you have heart disease rates exploding among kids, you have cancer rates now exploding among kids, you have-
- CWChris Williamson
What do you mean when you say kids, under 18?
- CMCalley Means
Yeah, under 18. The New York Times recently... Pediatric cancer rates are at an all-time high this year in 2024. The New York Times recently did an article about this on the front page. It said, "Cancer rates are exploding among kids. Nobody knows why." (laughs) So the pharmaceutical industry isn't interested in why that's happening, and we know why it's happening. It's happening because of environmental factors, food, sedentary lifestyle. They are profiting from that, and, you know, j- just a good long-term patient is a healthy patient. So cancer rates have gone up among kids. Prescriptions of statins have doubled among high schoolers in just the past five years. We all know about antidepressants, they're prescribed like candy. So just, if you just think about it, what a pharmaceutical company wants, a healthy, thriving child that's exercising, that's eating healthy, that's in the sunlight, that's not a profitable patient. So that's the pharmaceutical interest.
- CWChris Williamson
Why are you focusing on kids?
- CMCalley Means
Well-
- CWChris Williamson
There's much more of the population that isn't a kid than is a kid.
- CMCalley Means
So (laughs) two reasons. I think what is unimpeachable about the kids argument is it takes away this thing I used to say a lot growing up, and, and still a conservative I consider myself, about personal responsibility, right? It's not a personal responsibility, free choice situation that we have an epidemic of heart disease, diabetes, obesity among children. Right now, uh, right now, 50% of teens are overweight or obese. It's, it's like 20% of six-year-olds. Like, like, the childhood obesity rate in Japan is 3%. So I'd like to talk about kids because I think obviously, you know, w- w- m- your listeners, many of us, people reading books, listening to podcasts, we're on a personal responsibility journey, (laughs) but there's something systemic happening.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CMCalley Means
And-
- CWChris Williamson
Are you... In a way, you're sort of using children as kind of a canary in the coal mine? They're a litmus test in one way of what is being imposed when personal responsibility is put to one side.
- CMCalley Means
Yeah, I don't think, I don't think parents are trying to mass poison their kids-
- CWChris Williamson
Right. That's-
- CMCalley Means
... but that is what's happened.
- CWChris Williamson
That's interesting. So just to kind
- 4:28 – 7:57
The Corrupt Hospital System
- CWChris Williamson
of reframe, 'cause I really want this episode with yourself to be a one-stop shop, m- m- selfishly for me, uh, but also for everybody that's listening, to understand when we hear chronic disease, chronic inflammation, metabolic health, e- e- environmental toxins, everything like that, to go through the full works of that, to understand the system behind the scenes and to hear your sort of proposal for what's going on. So it sounds like so far, uh, there are incentives amongst insurance companies because their profits are capped. If they're capped at 15%, then what that means is that you actually, it... 15% can grow.
- CMCalley Means
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
It's just not gonna grow as a proportion. So you need to make the entire pie bigger-
- CMCalley Means
The pie.
- CWChris Williamson
... so that the 15% of that increases. Okay. Also, when it comes to pharmaceutical companies, a chronically sick person is going to make you more money than somebody who you were able to nip in the bud early on. What's next as a part of this system?
- CMCalley Means
Just go through the healthcare stack. The next is the hospitals. Fundamentally, hospitals. And, and, and hospitals are the biggest employers of Americans in the country. Um, the healthcare industry is both the largest and fastest growing and most employed industry in the country, and most of those folks are at hospitals. So the fundamental incentive structure for a hospital to grow is interventions. That is how, you know, my friends from Harvard Business School, they go and become administrators and executives at hospitals. They are hired and fired based on how many beds they're filling and how many interventions they're doing, there's-
- CWChris Williamson
What's an intervention?
- CMCalley Means
... an intervention, coming in, getting a surgery, getting chronic disease treatment. You know, a lot of our friends have autoimmune conditions, Crohn's disease. The standard of care for Crohn's disease is going into an outpatient center once a month and getting, um, various, uh, IVs. You know, when we make our issues chronic, we talk a lot about obesity. Now the standard of care for obesity is lifetime Ozempic shots, lifetime SSRI prescriptions when you're depressed. When you have these situations, uh, where each chronic condition we can go through is treated as a lifetime management plan, that not only helps the pharmaceutical industry, which is prescribing those lifetime drugs, but it involves the patient coming in and getting continued care and continued management for conditions that often can be reversed. So you have a situation where you, when you have chronically sick patients, they're racking up pharmaceutical billings, but they're also racking up hospital charges. As my sister, Casey Means, who, you know, my co-author, Stanford Med School surgical resident, uh, it's called eat what you kill. I mean, that's what she's indoctrinated with at Stanford Med School and in residency. Uh, people's bonuses, their pay is based on how many interventions they prescribe. You know, my sister remembers, at Stanford Medical School, seeing folks in the oncology unit, the cancer unit- unit sobbing in the hallways because people with stage IV pancreatic cancer, uh, the attending surgeon said, "If they come in here with stage IV pancreatic cancer, they're getting cut open." Often, they're- they're gonna die anyway, that, you know, just statistically these interventions, these surgical procedures aren't even that effective. But when you have the power of the medical system, and you're gonna make a million dollars from going the surgical intervention route, even if it's ineffective, and make no money if you go, uh, the patient goes and enjoys their remaining time of life and goes on a, you know, more holistic journey, the doctor in that lab coat can... has a lot of power. And there's a clear economic incentive for them to s- prescribe that intervention path.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay, so
- 7:57 – 21:01
What’s the Motive for the Corruption?
- CWChris Williamson
I always get stick for this-
- CMCalley Means
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... on the internet, so I'm ready to get stick for it again.
- CMCalley Means
Good.
- CWChris Williamson
I always default to non-conspiracism.
- CMCalley Means
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
I'm- I'm very sort of non-conspiratorial, and it sounds at the moment, so far, like, uh, the insurance companies, uh, both want to purposefully drive up the price of everybody's healthcare so that they can make profits, regardless of the thing that they're supposed to be able to provide, which is access to, uh, e- easy healthcare. That the pharmaceutical companies also are not in the business of creating drugs to make people's lives better; they're exclusively in it for the nefarious purpose of trying to maximize profits, which means making sub-quality drugs which require dependency for diseases that are only detected after someone's got there. And then, the people that all of us know, every single person listening to this knows somebody who's a nurse or who's a doctor or who's a surgeon or who's a whatever, uh, these people are also complicit, fully complicit. They're on board. They're trying to... They're giving people surgeries that they don't need. They're prescribing them drugs that they don't need. They're not suggesting them solutions that would be better for that. To me, I know people that are doctors, and I know that they don't think like that, all of them, at least my friends. Now, I have a very small (laughs) , very small cohort. It's like five people that are doctors in America, and maybe like another five in the UK. How... l- uh, sort of square that circle to me.
- CMCalley Means
Yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Just how sort of and how cancerous are the systems, and is it bad actors? Is it just incentives? Is it people putting profits over principles? What's- what's the motive here?
- CMCalley Means
I- I loved your conversation with Ben Shapiro about really being skeptical of conspiracy theories, and I was actually thinking a lot about our conversation. It's a core point and argument I wanna make to you, wanna make to listeners. Y- y- you should be very skeptical of conspiracy theories, but we also need to be skeptical when the largest industry of the coun- country has certain economic incentives, and assuming that systemically everyone within that system is going against the economic incentives structured by that industry.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CMCalley Means
Again, the core point, let's get out of the motivations, 100%. Doctors are amazing people. I think what's tragic, and what Casey talks about in the book, is that she joins Stanford Med School, right? She did not join to oversee sick patients. Every doctor at Stanford Med School and other med schools, right? There's easier ways to make money than trying to sabotage the American people. So what happens? We ca- take the best and the brightest, we put them in the medical system. We saddled them with thou- hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. Now, if you do ask any doctor that's thinking, they will acknowledge patients under their care are not getting better, right? What Casey did is she looked around, and she's doing surgery, surgery after surgery after surgery. She's doing head and neck surgery, and people are so inflamed in their sinuses that every day, multiple times a day, she's cutting open their sinuses, they're passed out, and taking out the remnants of their inflammation. Now she, again, president of her class, top of her class, Stanford Med School, NIH research, she's, uh, 11 years into, uh, surgical residency, and she for the first time, for the first time, it occurred to her, why is that patient getting inflammation? She- she- she- she- she never asked that question. She had an out-of-body experience, and then she looked at the patients' charts. Every single patient she was doing inflammation surgery on had at least, uh, six other comorbidities, right? More- more than six on average. So they were seeing the endocrinologist for the diabetes. They were seeing the cardiologist for heart issues. They were inevitably depressed. They had had kidney issues. They had all these separate issues, and she not once had spoken to another doctor in those systems. So she started asking, is the... are these things interconnected? She actually started speaking to a patient she did sinusitis surgery on who had a migraine, and she asked, "Okay, well, I read on PubMed that might be your migraine and even your inflammation is tied to food." She was reprimanded by her attending surgeon. Her attending surgeon said, "Don't be a pussy. You didn't go to dietary, uh, diet school and nutrition school. Let the nutritionists handle that. They didn't go to medical school." Serious medicine is cutting people open. Serious medicine is issuing prescription. The first day of Stanford Med School, right, Philip Pizzo, the former dean of Stanford Med School, lectured the students, and he said, "The American patients are lazy. The American patients are gonna be sedentary. They're gonna eat their Big Macs. They're gonna eat their big- drink their Big Gulps, and we are here to clean up the mess." That idea is indoctrinated into doctors. So we have a medical s-
- CWChris Williamson
It sounds to me, to push back there, it sounds to me like they are...... there to clean up the mess, that it isn't the job of a surgeon to tell somebody who's 400 pounds, "You should go back five years and fucking change your diet."
- CMCalley Means
This gets to your first question, and I think this is really the answer. You have to look at what a system incentivizes people to do, not what people say or even what people's motivations are. This is the genius of our healthcare system is that every single person has plausible deniability, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Wow.
- CMCalley Means
So the dean of Stanford Medical School, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, uh, I'm not a nutritionist. That's not my..." But then who should be in charge of talking about why people get sick? Maybe the NIH? Maybe the FDA? Well, the former head of the FDA is now on the board of Pfizer, and the FDA is 75% funded by the pharmaceutical industry. Um, sh- maybe it should be the media? The media, the mainstream media is 50% funded by the pharmaceutical industry and doesn't say a word about it. So, so, so the question is who is the gatekeeper? You're totally right, and that is exactly what d- you know, senior, senior people in the academic world told me, and they, they very aggressively tell me that. I've gotten called and screamed at by top administrators and doctors at Tufts Nutrition School, at Harvard, at Stanford. I've been threatened, right? They say it's not our problem, but why... What has created this toxic stew where Americans are getting so sick? Why are Americans dying seven years earlier than the Japanese? Why are Americans 80%... You talk about kids. Obviously, that's the canary in the coal mine. 80% of Americans (laughs) right now are overweight or obese. As Casey says, if you were obese in the United States 100 years ago, you were in the circus. There were case reports written about it, it was so rare, so something astronomical is happening but-
- CWChris Williamson
Now, uh, now you're more than half of the population.
- CMCalley Means
Now it's, now, now if you're a thin kid in high school, it's weird, right? Used to drive by a bus stop and see a bunch of kids... You know, in the 1960s, there was one fat kid who was, that was the weird one. Now it's weird to see a thin kid.
- CWChris Williamson
I mean, even if you look at South Park, you know, you have one fatso-
- CMCalley Means
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... as they call him.
- CMCalley Means
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
And then the rest of the kids are a normal size.
- CMCalley Means
Right, and that's th- not how it is in high schools right now. I mean, every single... So, so, so, so, so the, the, the exploring who has plausible deniability is the key thing. I, you know... Again, a lot of my kind of view is informed by, I, I liken a lot of, like, to Stanford Med- or excuse me, to Harvard Business School where I went. You've got a lot of good people. You've got a lot of very, uh, I would say smart, high horsepower people. Uh, 85% of the class goes, works for food companies. I have friends that work at Pepsi. I have friends that work for Pfizer, right? They go and some of them are doctors, MDs too. It's like we are taking really good people and putting them in these industries that have co-opted our regulatory institutions and are fundamentally as economic-centered, their business model's predicated on Americans being addicted, Americans being in fear-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CMCalley Means
... Americans being fatter or Americans being sicker or Americans being more depressed and, frankly, Americans being more infertile. So, um, that's the problem with the system that Casey realized, why she spoke out, radicalized me, helped me put the pieces together. Nobody has responsibility for the health of Americans. That's the problem. The, nobody in the system.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Eventually, the buck stops with, "Well, we don't know. Like, maybe that guy." And then he goes, "Well, no, it's that guy."
- CMCalley Means
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
And then they say, "No, it's that guy." And you just keep on bouncing it.
- CMCalley Means
Well, what they, and what they say and what they indoctrinate and what they say at the top of their lungs is that it falls on the American people, right? So, so what everyone's saying is that, "Well, the American people are getting fat. The American people are eating themselves to death." But the problem is that in America, we rightfully have trust of the medical system.
- 21:01 – 25:06
Biggest Current Issues in Healthcare
- CWChris Williamson
some terms.
- CMCalley Means
Please.
- CWChris Williamson
Talk to me, uh, from a healthcare perspective, the biggest issues. You know, you've mentioned obesity, you've mentioned a few, like inflammation and stuff like that. Um, I wanna know, first off, biggest issues in healthcare from a high level perspective.
- CMCalley Means
Well, I don't mean to dispute the premise of the question, but I think, I think that question is really important to, to get right. I'd reframe it slightly. What the medical system wants you to do is answer that question in particular silos. They want, "Oh, it's heart disease. That's the number one killer," or, "It's diabetes, that's, that's, that's a big issue," or, "It's depression." The mission we're on-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- CMCalley Means
(laughs) ... like, the, the, the one medical point Casey and I are trying to explain is that all of these chronic conditions are branches of one tree. It's a lie that Casey graduates from Stanford Med School and she chooses between 42 specialties. That's what doctors have to do right now. They choose 42 specialties. Okay? So we've siloed the body into neurology, into the skin, right, into dermatology, into the head and neck surgery, right, into cardiology, into brain surgery. So, so, so a doctor chooses, like, one narrow part of the body, and then there's 82 subspecialties. So the dean I mentioned, uh... Excuse me, so the dean was Philip Pizzo and then Lloyd Minor is the current dean of Stanford Med School. He was a head and neck surgeon like my sister, but he's the paradigm of great medicine 'cause he did a fellowship and he focused on two millimeters of the body. He actually, he focused his entire career on, like, one little part of the nose (laughs) . And that's the, that's the h- highest echelon of medicine, the more specialized you can be. And that's super profitable. As I said, you look at the notes and they've seen, you know, a patient's seen nine different doctors. The average American dies having seen 18 specialists, individual specialists, in their entire life. So this siloing of disease and this question of, like, "Well, is it a heart disease or..." No. We are being besieged by chronic disease. So let me just say it again. 90% of medical costs and nine out of ten killers of Americans are preventable, and often reversible, uh, lifestyle conditions. So the obvious ones are heart disease and diabetes. Okay? But diabetes is not a silo. Diabetes is an arbitrary point of blood sugar dysregulation. Okay? It's arbitrary. It doesn't actually mean anything medically. It's just if your blood sugar's at a certain point, you've got diabetes. Blood sugar dysregulation, which more than 50% of the country has, is a root of many other things. It's highly tied to many forms of cancer. Breast cancer is highly tied to blood sugar dysregulation, so it's, it's exploded in the past generation. If you don't have prediabetes or diabetes, you have a very low chance of getting bre- breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, many other forms of cancer. So that's connected, it's not just one silo. Um, a- a- and if you change our diet, and these completely reversible and preventable conditions, you could take heart disease, diabetes rates down to zero. But then you get to some less obvious ones. You get to the Alzheimer's. Alzheimer's is now called type 3 diabetes. If you do not have prediabetes or diabetes, you have a very low chance of getting Alzheimer's. Alzheimer's in our brain is part of our body. D- uh, diabetes, prediabetes, blood sugar dysregulations are cells having problems creating energy. 20% of the energy is created in our brain. It's not some siloed thing. So if, if this energy dysregulation-... from our environment, from our food, from our sedentary lifestyles. Our cells not functioning correctly is showing up in other parts of body. It shows up in the brain. So if you're diabetic, for instance, you have four times higher chance of getting depression or committing suicide. You know, our brain is connected to the rest of our body. So all of these things, kidney disease, upper respiratory defe- uh, infections, even COVID. COVID, it's come out very clearly, I- it was like four comorbidities the average person that died of COVID had. I mean, it's- it's almost a definitive statement you can make. If you or five metabolic biomarkers were in normal range, and that's HDL, triglycerides, blood sugar, blood pressure, and waistline. If those five biomarkers that define metabolic dysfunction were in a normal range, you had an almost 0% chance of dying of COVID, no matter what age you are. So all these things are connected and that point is obfuscated by the medical system. It's a huge problem.
- 25:06 – 35:00
What is Chronic Disease?
- CMCalley Means
- CWChris Williamson
You mentioned that these are lots of branches on a single tree.
- CMCalley Means
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
What would be the trunk of the tree?
- CMCalley Means
Metabolic dysfunction.
- CWChris Williamson
Metabolic dysfunction?
- CMCalley Means
Metabolic dysfunction.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. So defining some terms. Chronic disease, chronic inflammation, metabolic health. What are they?
- CMCalley Means
Chronic disease is something that will not kill you right away, is how I define it. Chron- if you have a infection, if you have, you know, a- a- a- a- a major acute cardi- uh, cardiac issue where you need surgery, if you have a complicated childbirth, if you have a inflamed appendix, the medical system is a miracle. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
That's acute.
- CMCalley Means
Go to the medical system. So the way to think about it is if something has a chance of killing you or your child imminently, rush to the hospital, give the doctor the benefit of the doubt. Peter Attia, the first graph in his book, talks about acute and infectious conditions. Okay? That is 100% the contributors, uh, advancements in acute- acute infection to the doubling of life expectancy we always hear about. So you'll have people come on and they'll say, "Well, the medical system, you know, there's problems, but it's a miracle. We doubled life expectancy the past 100 years." He takes out chronic conditions, right? The, it's contributed nothing to life expectancy. And that's 95%, 90% to 95% of medical spending. It's all acute and infectious disease management. That's where medical miracle... If we think of a medical miracle, we're probably thinking of something that's an acute surgical or pharmaceutical intervention like, like antibiotics. So if something is gonna kill you right away, if your child is like, has a infection, go to the doctor. Now, acute, ex- excuse me, with chronic, let's think about what's happening. I- I'll always take it to kids, 'cause I think it's- it's- it's- it's hallucinating to the rest of the, uh, the adults. But high cholesterol, what happens? Oh, you gotta go on a statin. It's risky if you don't go on a statin. The kid's a little bit sad, you gotta go on an SSRI, right? The kid's a little fidgety, gotta go on Adderall. You know, the kid, um, has high blood sugar, right? Metformin. And now, now the American Academy of Pediatrics is saying that if a child is overweight, overweight 50% of 12 year olds, that it's Ozempic. Like, that- that's the guidelines. It's the medical guidelines. It's not wait and see.
- CWChris Williamson
So has this been released as a press announcement any-
- CMCalley Means
Big press announcement from the American Academy of Pediatrics about eight months ago. The American Academy of Pediatrics, which sets the standard of care, which is endowed by Congress to set the standard of care for pediatrics. It's 90 for... Again, not conspiratorial, just- just facts. Is 90% funded by the pharmaceutical industry. This Danish company, Novo Nordisk, which makes Ozempic, the ninth most valuable company in the world, is a huge funder of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which came out with a press release, it can be Googled, where it says, "Don't wait and see. Wait and see is out the window. Emergency, quick, aggressive interventions when that 12 year old's overweight is what the standard of care is."
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. Chronic inflammation.
- CMCalley Means
Um, chronic inflammation is, um, is- is our body's reaction to a foreign invader. Inflammation can be good, right? Inflammation is actually our body's response to something foreign in our body. It's- it's an evolutionary, very beneficial thing. But why are we chronically inflamed, right? We are ingesting things through our food and through our environment that we aren't evolutionarily made to have in our bodies. Our bodies, for whatever reason, the majority of Americans think that there's something foreign inside us that they need to be reacting to. So you've had guests on and we talk and y' know, have all these dietary debates, right? You know, is there the right, you know, human randomized control study on seed oils, on the food colorings, on all these chemicals we have in our food? Now, I- I think there's a real place for that. But we've taken leave of our common sense a little bit, I think. Seed oils did not exist in this world 100 years ago. They are a highly processed, manufactured ingredient, right? They are in our food because it's cheap and descendants of John D. Rockefeller, after finding a way to create this product as engine lubricant, figured they could make more money by putting it in the American diet as a cheaper oil. Okay?
- CWChris Williamson
I'm yet to see-
- CMCalley Means
Not conspiratorial, just the facts.
- CWChris Williamson
That's true, but I'm yet to see any studies, and I- I avoid seed oils also.
- CMCalley Means
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
I'm yet to see a single study that says that the consumption of seed oils as a seed oil is actually related to any negative health outcomes.
- CMCalley Means
You're playing on a terrible... Y- when you start looking for the studies of whether it's the dyes in our food, of whether it's the seed oils, of whether it's the highly processed grains splay- sprayed with glyphosate, where there's not a study in the United States definitively that says that's bad, but people that spray glyphosate in our crops need to wear hazmat suits.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CMCalley Means
And it's literally a herbicide that kills any organism that it touches. You- you get into a situation where just on the chronic inflammation front, let's just use common sense here, which we've been completely divorced from, uh you know, i- in our medical discussion. Whatever it is, we are just- just by definition, putting items in our body that did not exist throughout human evolutionary, you know, history.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CMCalley Means
Right? The foundation of our diet, I talk about this a lot. The three things that make up healthy processed food are refined sugar, which is a new invention in the past 100 years, highly processed grains, which are not grains. They're taking the fiber off, they're, you know, basically Franken-foods. And then seed oils, which- which just-Again, not getting into any peer-reviewed study, is a new invention, right, that's highly, highly processed. They have to use bleach and other things to make it. These foods are going in our bodies, among many other environmental toxins, and causing our bodies to react with chronic inflammation and be in a constant state of stress. Like, if you get into this thing, it's getting into the same thing with the 42 specialties. It's getting into the same thing of like, "Okay. No, no, no, it- it's- it's not the sugar. It's this. It's not the glyphosate. It's this." That's the game we try to get podcasters to talk about while working for the food industry. Like, that's why we create so many studies. Like, I think it's very important, of course, to be evidence-based, but the purpose of studies is PR.
- CWChris Williamson
Right. So you're saying that even if you're looking at the evidence-based community, that can only be downstream from what evidence is available, and the evidence which is available is based on the studies that have been conducted. And the studies that have been conducted are going to be incentivized or paid for or focused on by people who have incentives for that particular area to be looked at.
- CMCalley Means
The Atlantic magazine, when we did our testimony to the Senate with- with health leaders last week, ran an article calling us the woo-woo caucus and attacking us for not being science and evidence-backed by saying glyphosate might be a problem, right? The Atlantic is th- the billionaire owner, you know, the guy who started The Atlantic made his money from pharma, and it's- it's heavily funded by the pharmaceutical industry, right? They use the fact that the FDA to this day says glyphosate, which is a herbicide sprayed on our crops from China often, um, again, that's- that kills every organism on sight, that that- there's not evidence to say that that's harmful for the US diet. So you have this study saying that. You have the media prompting that. You have the- th- the people that should be kind of the referees and protectors of kids and protectors of us, the government, the media, other referees, they're actually referees for the industry that's paying them. Pharma, let's not forget, right, owns the regulatory agencies, pays 75% of the FDA as we talked about, but is also five times more higher political donator than the oil industry, by far the largest. They are the largest literal payer of politicians themselves. So you have all the referees basically saying you're anti-science using the rigged scientific studies. Now, I'm not saying there shouldn't be any, like, evidence-based, um, work. Although, I would argue that if you fire every single nutrition researcher in the country, uh, literally, and replace it...
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- CMCalley Means
No, I- I'm not joking. If you- if you fire a- and cut... I'm- I'm actually not being hyperbolic. If you- if you fire every single nutrition advisor, uh, in the country and all- and all funding whatsoever for nutrition research and have a principle that we should re- we should lower our percentage of ultra-processed food consumption from 70% to 20%, it would radically just unleash human capital in this country and unleash health. Um, another thing we should consider doing is firing every single nutrition advisor and all funding for nutrition studies and just adopt France's guidelines. If you want to be evidence-based, the French live six years longer. Are we lazier than the French? (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) What a day.
- 35:00 – 42:41
America’s Challenges Vs Europe’s
- CWChris Williamson
of times, you've sort of compared America specifically to other countries, to France, to Japan. What is uniquely happening in America? I- Is it food and drugs and the quality of the municipal water, or is it something else? What's the comparison between Europe and Europe's food and better environment, envirome, and air quality and environmental toxins versus everyone else?
- CMCalley Means
Yeah. So- so what are the components of metabolic health? It's multifactorial, 100%, but food is really important. Food, we 3D print ourselves and 3D print our bodies out of food. So you've gotta start with food. And what is happening to our food? We have a much higher percentage consumption of ultra-processed food in America as a starter than Europe and Japan and every other developed country. We're at 70% for kids. And again, like, and you have folks on that I really respect, come on, "Oh, let's not demonize any particular food," and sure, you can get into nuance, but I go back to, what is ultra-processed food? Ultra-processed food is addiction instruments created by the cigarette industry. We all have to just understand that. So if we're gonna talk about facts, let's just understand that the cigarette industry was the largest food producer in the 1990s.
- CWChris Williamson
Can you create that lineage for me, top to bottom?
- CMCalley Means
Yeah. So in the 1980s, Philip Morris and R. J. Reynolds were two of the 10 most valuable companies in the world, cigarette addiction, dopamine is really good business. So it wasn't Google and Microsoft in the '80s, it was cigarette companies. So the surgeon general, way too late, had some courage and said, "Cigarette smoking is bad," for the first time in the 1980s. So they had the largest cash piles in human history, the history of capitalism. They had high balance sheets, high cash piles. And as they saw the writing on the wall that cigarettes were declining, they started strategically buying food companies. So they- the biggest M&A deals in the 1980s, the three biggest M&A deals when, you know, the 1980s Wall Street kind of all this M&A activity, the three biggest deals in human history up until 1990 were cigarette companies buying food companies. It was, uh, R. J. Reynolds buying Nabisco and then Cr- uh, excuse me, uh, Philip Morris bought Kraft and US Foods, which was a big conglomerate.
- CWChris Williamson
Just for the people who aren't so business pilled, uh, what's downstream from some of those big companies, more brands that people might actually recognize?
- CMCalley Means
Almost every single brand that we know-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- CMCalley Means
... has, has disaggregated from US Foods, which is like every brand we c- You, you know, you've got those viral charts where it shows like four companies-
- CWChris Williamson
Disney is one of those. Disney, Disney owns every-
- CMCalley Means
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... show that you watch.
- CMCalley Means
Yeah, yeah. So there's these viral charts going around where it's like five companies and like, it's like thousands of sub brands.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CMCalley Means
This is those brands, those three companies. So they, they were all owned and, and, and, and in the 1990s by cigarette companies. And R. J. Reynolds and Philip Morris were the two largest food producers in the world. So this wasn't like some... You know, when you talked about don't demonize food, I'm absolutely demonizing ultra-processed food. These- This food was created by the cigarette industry, literally. And what happened when the cigarette industry bought these food companies, they shifted their scientists from the cigarette department to the food department. And when I say weaponized, I'm not being conspiratorial and I'm not being hyperbolic. They put the world's highest paid scientists that they had employed at their companies and asked, "How do we make this food more addictive?" They're not trying to kill people, right? They're probably going home and thinking they're doing good things. They're making palatable great food. They're creating cheaper calories for lower income Americans. They're providing joy, right? They're making Dunkaroos and all these (laughs) , all these fun things, and cereal that's really fun. So, so, so, again, the plausible deniability, but that's what they did. They weren't trying to make things healthy. And then they... What were they good at, the cigarette companies? They were good at the addiction. So they did that, and then they were good at lobbying. The 1980s was way too late for the, you know, surgeon general to come out. They, they delayed that 20 years. They used the same playbook that they're still using today. They bought off the USDA and created the food pyramid. The food pyramid was the deadliest document, I believe, in American history, the thing in 1992 that said that we should have carbs and basically processed food and sugar at the base of the pyramid. And that meat was kind of this niche thing and fruits and vegetables were up here, whereas it was carbs and processed food. And my parents and all the parents in the '90s growing, raising kids thought they were doing good things for getting their kids, you know, the crackers and low fat crap.
- CWChris Williamson
What's the truth behind the story of how that food pyramid was created, who did it, why it happened?
- CMCalley Means
The cigarette industry funded research at Harvard from the Sugar Research Council. They, they created the Sugar Research Council, and the Sugar Research Council, they didn't even hide the name.
- CWChris Williamson
Sounds like the Gay Research Council.
- CMCalley Means
Yeah. Yeah. (laughs) Now it's like, now it's like at least they hide it a little bit. It's like the, you know, Health Nutrition Freedom Council. No, it was the Sugar Research Council. So the Sugar Research Council was the chief donor to the Harvard Nutrition School. (laughs) So the Harvard, the chief nutritionist at Harvard created reports in the 1980s saying sugar doesn't cause obesity and is a key important, uh, part of a child's energy balance, and that, that added sugar is actually a really good thing. So the foundational research, everyone can Google this, the foundational research of the food pyramid was researched from Harvard. Look at the report down at the who's funding it, the Sugar Research Council funded it. So-
- CWChris Williamson
It's like a human centipede of what goes in and-
- CMCalley Means
This is not complicated. I mean, I worked, you know, years later for the food industry, but we know that people... What, what, what higher, what higher level do we have than a report from Harvard? Like, what higher level do we have than a report from the I- uh, excuse me, from the NIH?
- CWChris Williamson
So this is something that I was interested to ask you, which is, I understand how the system can be rigged, about how incentives behind the scenes, about profit motives, and so on and so forth. But it, it seems very much that it's not simply that ultra-processed food's very palatable, that there is both a top-down, uh, swaying of the wind, but there's also a bottom-up culture of the way that people eat beyond this is simply very, very, uh, healthy. And that's one of the injections, that's one of the ways that you can bottom up rig the culture as opposed to just rigging the system through education.
- CMCalley Means
Mm-hmm. Right.
- CWChris Williamson
Incorrect education.
- CMCalley Means
Yeah, I get really sad, um, about, you know, thinking people kind of decry American culture and say the Italians and the French have a better food culture. I mean, this is where I really, really try to make a clear point, which is that our culture is defined by our policies often. And, um, you know, when we have completely co-opted our, you know, dietary guidelines to say ultra-processed food and sugar and carbs are really good, you know, Americans listen to that. And, you know, in the 1990, right, to 2000, you know, the 10 years since the food pyramid, our consumption of carbs as a percentage of our diet went up 20%. So I think we actually did have a relatively good culture in America in the '70s, '80s. Like I, I joke, it would be healthier if the cigarette companies went back to making cigarettes.
- CWChris Williamson
Cigarettes.
- CMCalley Means
Like, like, like, like, like, I think we were kind of a thri- You look at like, you look at like, you know, the videos from the '70s and the '60s, like Americans were good-looking people. We were like, we were like really, really on point. I think we, I think our culture-
- CWChris Williamson
That's because everyone was smoking, they didn't have any time to eat.
- CMCalley Means
I mean, I mean, I don't think smoking's great, but like, you know, there was something better happening back then. We didn't had much lower rates of cancer. (laughs) Like the surgeon general report was all... I'm not endorsing smoking, but like this, we got it all wrong. Like the surgeon general report came out on smoking to reduce cancer. Can't... Like, I tweeted the graph recently. It's like 8X increase per capita in cancer in the United States. It's exploding.
- CWChris Williamson
It's so hilarious.
- CMCalley Means
Yeah.
- 42:41 – 51:10
The General Diet of Low-Income Households
- CWChris Williamson
is a lower income family's food and health education like now?
- CMCalley Means
Yeah. So we have a, we have a, I think it, I think, is the most criminal policy and kind of dynamic in America, what we do to poor people in this country. And our systems that feed and then medicate poor people is, are completely co-opted. So let's look at a lower income family. So 15% of Americans, low income Americans, are on SNAP, food stamps, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Um, we are the only country in the world where this, you know, nutrition program can go to sugary drinks. So 10% of SNAP, 10% of this program, which is the main source of nutrition for lower income people, 15% of the country, goes to soda. Um, so I do not think coke should be banned. I think most drugs should be legal, right? I think that cigarettes should be legal, right? I enjoy, you know, beers, you know, and, and drinks, what- whatever. Like it should all be legal. But we subsidize, we send $10 billion a year from the US Treasury to soda companies from food stamps and-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CMCalley Means
... tell moms that are depending on that program that, you know, this is nutritious and-
- CWChris Williamson
With, with that, who tells the moms that it's nutritious?
- CMCalley Means
Well, the mo- a single mom working hard, lower income would assume the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program could go to food that's not gonna poison her kid. There's no nutritional value from soda.
- CWChris Williamson
Right. Because you can spend... So you, you... I've... Immigrant to this country-
- CMCalley Means
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... also massive idiot. Can you just explain what food stamps are and how it works?
- CMCalley Means
Yeah. It's like a card that lower income folks get to help them buy food.
- CWChris Williamson
Like a credit card?
- CMCalley Means
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, but it's only valid at certain stores-
- CMCalley Means
For certain inventory.
- CWChris Williamson
... for certain things.
- CMCalley Means
And that inventory is dictated by the nutrition guidelines. And because the USDA nutrition guidelines, and this is all multifactorial, but the, the food stamp program goes by the USDA nutrition guidelines, okay, which is like the main nutrition guidelines for the country that set the standards for a lot of other government programs.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CMCalley Means
Working for the food industry, okay, so the nutrition guidelines are pretty important. Okay, let's get to the nutrition advisors. The 20 people that make nutrition guidelines are outside experts from Harvard and Tufts Nutrition School and Stanford. 19 of the 20 advisors on the US Nutrition Guidelines Committee are paid for by food and or pharma companies, processed food companies. So the nutrition guidelines today say that a two-year-old, that up to 10% of their diet can be added sugar perfectly healthy. It also just released a report saying that ultra-processed food, there's no evidence that it's bad for kids and a child's diet can be 93% ultra-processed food and perfectly healthy.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- CMCalley Means
So, so, so that goes... So, so, so if you're a mom and you're struggling to make ends meet and you have a government program where your kid has a card and you have a card and you're shopping for your family, we are allowed to have an opinion on not poisoning the American people in this country. But because the science is rigged and these companies got to the scientists, the, the, the program for lower income people is subsidizing 10% soda and then 70% of food stamps, SNAP, goes to ultra-processed food. So, you know, it's, it's just crazy rules. I was recently... We're partnering with the CEO of and, and founders of Sweetgreen, which is a great company, you know, making healthy food, grass-fed steak, you know, fast. That's not available on food stamps, but McDonald's is.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CMCalley Means
So, so you just have very... You have wild rules.
- CWChris Williamson
Calorie for calorie, you would be, uh, running behind with going to sw- I love me some food.
- CMCalley Means
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I absolutely love it. But, uh, I wonder, I- I'm trying to play devil's advocate here despite not eating much of this.
- CMCalley Means
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, I'm trying to wonder about, uh, calorie density, uh, ease of access to the food. You're a busy mom. Uh, do you have time from scratch? It's, you know, with the sweet potato and I'll, I'll get the potato peeler out and we'll throw those in with some organic olive oil, oregano can go in.
- CMCalley Means
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
You know? Um, I, the, the soda example is so perfect because it's so evidently pointless, um-
- CMCalley Means
Right. Right. It has no satiety. Yeah.
- 51:10 – 55:11
How American Ingredients Impact the Gut
- CWChris Williamson
you know, I've been starting to talk a little bit more about this on the show. The last eight months or so have been the worst for my health in my entire life, uh, and a big chunk of that has been gut health related. Now, I know a number of friends who have got partners, uh, Mark Manson's wife I think was born in Mexico. She came over here, a bunch of her other Mexican friends ended up, uh, getting into relationships or marrying Americans. Within two years, all of them have got SIBO and H. pylori overgrowth, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, uh, and I look at this laundry list of gut dysbiosis stuff that I've had to deal with this year that I'm still dealing with, with candida, with li- round worm, with liver fluke, with fucking H. pylori, with SIBO, with all of this other stuff which then turns into chronic inflammation, then you're like, "Okay, well maybe EBV is gonna be kicked off, and then what about the environmental toxins?" So on and so forth. And this, two years ago, to me, would have been one of those, "All right, Chris, you know, I, I can see that you've gone fully American now that you're even using the talking points about the food and stuff." I'm like, "Look, I'm a, a really good case study because I was a Petri dish that had never had digestive issues, ever once in the UK." Not exactly, I mean, I'm a bro, my turnover of calories is very high, I eat at stupid times, I eat too much, I have lots of protein, I do eat processed food 'cause I've got a sweet tooth, but even that, I have the same diet-
- CMCalley Means
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... country to country. I just have a new country. So I have new constituent parts to my diet. So I understand that it might seem like I'm grilling you so far today, but the reason that I'm doing that, I think is to hopefully try and have real firm proof to people who would have been as skeptical as I was. Meanwhile, the guy that would have been that person being super skeptical is sat here going, "I'm, the last six months have just been a combination of low mood, brain fog and going to bed at 8:00 PM."
- CMCalley Means
I mean, you, as you're talking, right, it's just like, how much more warning signs do we need to see? Like, I, I, I have a bunch of friends, um, women who, who joke, they go to Europe for the summer and their, uh, boobs shrink. Um, that's like a known thing, like we have so much endocrine or disrupting chemicals in our food that like people experience dynamics like that when they go to Europe. In the United States, kids are hitting puberty years earlier than Europe. (laughs) The puberty rate, the average puberty age wh- where a woman hits puberty in the United States has gone down years in the past generation. Like-
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, so you think that there's some endocrine disruptors-
- CMCalley Means
Of course.
- CWChris Williamson
... that are causing big titties and early puberty?
- CMCalley Means
There's wild sexual dysfunction and, and, and, and, uh, hormone dysfunction happening to kids. I mean, look at what's happening to infertility, like, like, and there's demonstrably just chemicals in our food, when all you have to do is look, you know, at the, at the testimony. Um, Vani Hari, she goes by Food Babe on Instagram, and she has the most powerful graphics I've ever seen, which just make the point so politically well and so succinctly. It just shows the foods and the ingredients between the US-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. I've seen these graphics before.
- CMCalley Means
... and, and Europe. And, and they completely-
- CWChris Williamson
This is the one that kicked off that Kellogg's thing with Canada, right?
- CMCalley Means
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so they make, Kellogg's makes the Canadian version of Froot Loops in the United States.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- CMCalley Means
And they make, they make the Canadian version, and because these artificial dyes, which have no reason to be in foods, are petroleum based, are highly linked to ADD and other neurological issues for kids, demonstrably, are basically phased out of every single other developed country, a- and developing countries.They, they, they, they color them with watermelon. They color them with carrot juice. Here, it's-
- CWChris Williamson
Beetroot.
- CMCalley Means
Yeah, yeah. Here, it's, it's, it's petroleum-based. So they make the different ingredients and then ship them across the border. So, so even getting, you know... Before we even get to, like... You know, e- e-... Ultra-processed food is a shorthand for this weaponization. And, and, and I think we're not gonna get there unless we really fundamentally, not just look at, like, micro variables, but say, "What are they doing differently in, in Europe?" And Europe isn't perfect, but, like, there's more respect for food.
- CWChris Williamson
Can we talk about
- 55:11 – 1:01:35
Can We Trust Our Water & Air?
- CWChris Williamson
water?
- CMCalley Means
Yeah. I mean, you go to the EWG database, um-
- CWChris Williamson
EWG?
- CMCalley Means
... Environmental Working Group, and you can type in your exact address and see what's in our water. I mean, I would just ask everyone to think about how competent the government is on, you know, various, uh, metrics and various services, and then tr- ask if you trust how they're making our water. I mean, it is an absolute-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- CMCalley Means
... um, is an absolute disaster. And I think, um, you know, I, I think it's an urgent national priority. I mean, our, our company, um, TruMed, you know, steers HSA dollars. We write medical notes for, uh, medical interventions that are root cause that are, that are science-backed. Um, and we are writing thousands of prescriptions for water filters, because if you look at, you know, what's fueling our cells, fueling our body, it's toxic food and toxic water. And, you know, i- if we... I wanna actually tie this water point back to what you asked about a single mom or a lower income mom being able to afford healthy food. That's not the free market at work. The fact that it's hard for lower income people not to poison themselves is a total just abdication and moral blind spot of public policy.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- CMCalley Means
We spend $4.5 trillion on healthcare. There's nothing cheaper we could do for our budget in the United States than not poison our population (laughs) , right? That's causing dramatic economic dislocations. Human capital is being decimated. 33% of young adults are now pre-diabetic. If somebody's diabetic by the time they're 30, they're gonna die 15 years earlier than, than a normal person. We are causing devastation to our human capital and budget. The number one driver of problems, I would argue, in this country is that we're poisoning our population. So there's nothing cheaper that we could possibly do. And what our whole thrust is, from a public policy standpoint, is not look at, as Casey was told, as dietary interventions in food as these, and water, as these kind of fringe issues. Like, it's, it's an urgent medical necessity with that $4.5 trillion we already spend on healthcare to get our water clean and to get toxins out of our food. That would j- that would just cure everything. It would be very disruptive, though, for the existing players in the system.
- CWChris Williamson
What, uh, contribu- uh, contribution do you think there is when you look at air, when we're talking about environmental toxins? Uh, you know, I drive through Austin, and I see all of these new build properties. And you guys, for some reason, decide to build your houses made out of fucking timber, and the timber is exposed to water. When it rains, it's not covered over, and then the water's wet and it's hot, and it gets wet and hot, and that means that it gets moldy. And then you build a house around it, and the skeleton of the house is imbued with mold. And then the house gets cold and hot because of AC and because of heating, uh, and then air pollution. Uh, there are lots of big heads to sort of chop off with regards to this. How big is the head of the more sort of airborne environmental toxins, that, that area of what we're discussing?
- CMCalley Means
High level and drilling down to that, I would not trade living today for any other time. Modern society is amazing. But the large point we're trying to make, and I think the point of this conversation, is that there's a toxic stew we are living in, which is a result of our modern society and not being clear about the health benefits and how that's impacting ourselves. And I think we've really, you know, gotten away from nature. When I think about all the environmental toxins in our air, um, I, I, you know, I think about how we've just disrespected crop cycles and have mono cropping and how soil is, as I said, 70% less nutrient dense. So, you know, in our personal care products and our air, I, I think environmentalists have really done the world a disservice. It's not about, like, the specific measurement of carbon capture. Like, our environment is being poisoned. We're trying to out-hack nature with the materials we use to build, with our farming practices, with what we're putting in the air. Um, it's becoming unsustainable. Um, and, um, and I think, you know, what I would argue for, um, is realizing that, and then looking at the $4.5 trillion we spend and seeing ameliorating some of these drawbacks in modern society as part of the healthcare budget.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- CMCalley Means
Um, I, I... You know, it's not about, it's not about over-regulation or having a nanny state, but it all gets to me of, like, we just need clinical from the top, from the NIH, from the FDA. This is getting a little bit in the policy, but this is how my brain works. We just need to have scientific reports on why these things are happening. Like, everything right now, and I really, I really mean everything, like the NIH, 90% of funding goes to researching pharmaceutical cures, accepting all of this poisoning of our cells as a given. Like, there's no, there's no government research happening to, like, these issues of our mold. I mean, mold, that's still considered pseudoscience, right, about, you know, toxins in our building supplies, about our personal care products.
- CWChris Williamson
My white blood cell count tries to disagree.
- CMCalley Means
Yeah, yeah. Th- No, and, and, and I, I know people whose lives have been d- destroyed by, by mold. I mean, th- these things are all pseudoscience because th- you know, again, is it evil people? No, but the NIH has been totally co-opted, and we're not studying these things. So, to me, y- you know, we need to just know the truth. And if I could snap my fingers, uh, o- on a, on one policy, one of the first things I'd do is steer the NIH and steer-... all federal, um, research grants away from R&D for marginal cures, accepting, you know, basically throwing up our hands at the problem, and really deep research on why we're getting sick. Because before we get into any- any policies about, you know, uh, banning or altering how homes are made, you know, what's in our air, if you have a report for... This is what our enemies have- have learned. If you have a report saying, you know, sugar doesn't cause obesity or whatever it is, that's the highest level of trust. So we need to get conflicts out of that. And then I think that's upstream of all policy. But there's... It- it's- it's obvious that we have to get back to, you know, this is the root cause. Um, I- I'd put food, I'd put the sedentary lifestyle of Americans high- higher probably. You know, 70% of Americans aren't eligible to join the military because they're so sedentary, you know. But- but right below that, you know, the- the toxins in our air and water is- is a big deal.
- CWChris Williamson
Getting into
- 1:01:35 – 1:07:02
Study Says We’re Exercising Too Much
- CWChris Williamson
that, didn't some health body recently say that people were exercising too much?
- CMCalley Means
(laughs) I mean, you can't make it up. Um, you had a report, um, funded by, uh, the USDA recently and the University of Michigan saying that it was dangerous to farm in your backyard. Um, you've had Time Magazine saying exercise is an example of white supremacy. You- you had a recent article in a major publication saying it's right wing for, uh, for people to be attractive and, uh, and fit (laughs) . Um, you've had government guidance saying that it's danger- yeah. The- there was government guidance saying it's dangerous for elderly Americans to be exercising too much, that it might hurt their heart, when really the... Like, as Peter Attia and others say, that one of the chief causes of- of death is- is- is frailty of our muscles. Our muscles are a huge important organ for our hormones, um, and- and- and- and have to be preserved. So we're getting bizarre world advice.
- CWChris Williamson
But what do the... When it comes to that... So I understand-
- CMCalley Means
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... there's incentives to sell food to people, there's incentives for the disease to keep going. This seems... The... Especially the movement, the exercise, sedentary nature side, this seems more upstream. This seems even more, more, more upstream. You know what I mean? What's going on there? Who are the antagonists of exercise?
- CMCalley Means
Well, okay, so let's just, let's just get out of the conspiracy, just go back to the framework, and we always gotta go back to the framework. So what type of patient is profitable for the healthcare industry? A profitable patient is ingesting environmental toxins, is using poor hormone-disrupting personal care products, is eating ultra-processed food, is in fear and not questioning the medical system, and they're sedentary. Like, the most important, you know... one of the most im- you know, powerful dynamics you can have, you know, to ensure that you're gonna live a more tortured life with more chronic diseases is to be sedentary. So, you know, as we talk about in the book, exercise to me is- is kind of a... it's kind of annoying. Like, like exercise, the fact that we have to do it is- is another result of our modern life. Like, we didn't used to have gyms and used to be super thin. Like we have, uh, incentives for a super sedentary environment, but the fact that this hasn't been called out, that getting m- moving at least 180 minutes a week, getting your heart rate up is existential to disease prevention and reversal, um, you know, is a blind spot in the medical system. I mean, I just go to the incentives. It's like, it's not a, you know, evil body saying that, you know, we need to prevent Americans from exercising, but at Stanford Med School it's seen as a fringe situation. I- I- I've talked to people at major insurers. You know, every insurer now has this like exercise incentive. It's all window dressing. They're not actually paying out of insurance for gyms. And I've talked to insurance executives who say, "Yes, it is bad for us if people exercise because they're gonna get healthier." So it's just like, are they being evil? No. Is... Are insurance companies incentivizing exercise? No.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CMCalley Means
Like- like the healthcare system is not emphasizing this, and then of course it's in a small lifestyle budget. This is where, you know, Justin Myers and I, uh, and our company TruMed, this is like the entire point of our company is that, is that it's just not clinically accurate. Like- like- like it's a free country, people are gonna make mistakes, people aren't all gonna do the right thing, but if you have high cholesterol and the doctor across the table says you have a 70% chance of getting heart disease and dying an average of eight years younger and you're not gonna be able to walk your daughter down the aisle unless you exercise for 180 minutes a week with some strength training, um, and here's a letter of medical cessy recommending this that allows you to use insurance money to, uh, propel that exercise regimen, people will listen. Like there's this whole idea that people just shrug their shoulders and like don't wanna exercise. It's like if that was the emphasis from Harvard Med School, from the NIH, from the FDA, if that was the clinical guidelines, if that was what was repeated, w-... I look around, people listen to doctors. Like most kids are vaxxed on the schedule, 72 shots. People listen to the food pyramid as I said, our diet changed, people listened to the surgeon general, smoking rates plummeted. Like- like we listen to doctors. So I- I just think it's just clinically inaccurate that exercise is kind of seen as this fringe thing, um, and the fact that it's- it- it is, is- is- is- is an example of the incentives.
- CWChris Williamson
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- 1:07:02 – 1:21:15
Calley’s Thoughts on Ozempic
- CWChris Williamson
to me about your thoughts on Ozempic.
- CMCalley Means
(laughs) So Ozempic is a case study of the problems and the- these dynamics at work. So let me just give a quick, like... And let's just think about this as, like, kind of a societal, like, example, uh, uh, an example of the largest societal issue. So... And it ties a lot of what we talked about together. So there is an epidemic, I'm gonna go to kids, of childhood obesity. So 12-year-olds, 50% are overweight or obese. Unprecedented. Every parent with a kid can tell you, they walk into a classroom, something wrong is happening. That is not because of an Ozempic deficiency, right? That, as we talked about, is... That obesity epidemic is one branch on the tree that's also leading to the mental health crisis among children. 40% of high schoolers qualify as having a mental health disorder. You know, the diabetes, the cardiology issues, all the issues that kids are seeing all at once. This year, in 2024, is the highest rate of heart disease, diabetes, obesity, autoimmune conditions, cancer, kidney disease, and almost every other chronic condition among kids this year, and adults. So, so, so the fact... So, so that's the problem. So let's just assess the problem, okay? So the... We should be asking, what's the solution for that problem? The solution, at some point in time, needs to be that we need to reverse this metabolically destructive environment for adults and kids.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- CMCalley Means
That we need to start attacking the toxins, start attacking the food, start being bold and clear-headed about that, and not just continuing to drug the problem. We need to view the data and the science and realize that there's never been a chronic disease pharmaceutical treatment in American history that's lowered rates of the chronic disease that it's trying to treat. Statins have led to more heart disease. Metformin has led to more diabetes. SSRIs have led to more depression. Increased rates of cancer drugs have led to more cancer. People can think about it and fact-check in the comments. I cannot-
- CWChris Williamson
You're not saying that that's causal. You're saying that these...
- CMCalley Means
I actually am saying it's causal 'cause it's a moral hazard. The fact that when a kid has high cholesterol, they're told, "You're doing something. You're taking action. You're reversing this with a statin." The American Diabetes Association, until 2018 when they were shamed on this, advised that if you took diabetes medication, you could eat whatever you want. The, the, the, the...
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- CMCalley Means
They said that, the American Diabetes Association. They still... The American Diabetes Association still doesn't definitively link sugar consumption to diabetes. So, no, I think it's very causal. I think the fact-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- CMCalley Means
... that we have been lied to in the past 40 years and that... It, it, it's not... It's not like this is, this is a small... The, the, the statins, right? For the past 30 years, it's not this is, like, something, but you need to really rigorously work on your lifestyle habits. It's like, "My uncle was on Lestan. Oh, I'm, I'm gonna eat my burger." And it's like, it's literally sold as a tool, and Ozempic's sold as a tool. Ozempic's not being paired with lifestyle interventions. It's being paired as the magic cure. You can get Ozempic right now in a couple clicks online. This is n- th- this is a lie to say this is-
- CWChris Williamson
Hims has got their own version-
- CMCalley Means
Yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... et cetera, et cetera.
- CMCalley Means
So, so, so, so, so I think it's very causal, and I think this, this, this road of seeing every one of those micro issues, well, every one of those branches as a siloed condition and then, you know, drugging it with a very incremental pill-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- CMCalley Means
... has been a failure. So Ozempic is the greatest example so far of this, where it's if somebody's 300 pounds, extremely diabetic, I... Talk, talk to your doctor about that. I'm concerned about the median child. I'm concerned about what to do... And the median adult.
- CWChris Williamson
I thought the median child was obese.
- CMCalley Means
Exactly. I'm concerned about that median chi- Uh, not, not the morbidly obese diabetic LDP person, but the average child in this country-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- CMCalley Means
... is Ozempic the correct intervention for them? Because that's what's being argued. And weeks ago, I went to Congress. I met with 40 members of Congress. I sat across from the person who introduced a bill to cover Ozempic on Medicare. That is $1,600 per American per month. Medicare is for elderly Americans, so 80% of Medicare patients are eligible for Ozempic. This bill, the second it's signed, will open up a floodgate where any single person that's eligible, 80% of people who are overweight or obese on Medicare, can get this on Hims with one click and get it government-funded, okay? The second a drug is approved for Medicare, this is why N- Novo Nordisk is arguing so well, much for the bill, it goes to Medicaid. 'Cause why would somebody, why would old people be entitled to a drug, but not poor people? This is a game. So the bill puts it on Medicare 'cause these old people need their Ozempic, and then it immediately goes to Medicaid. And then on Medicaid, they're pushing it on six-year-olds. The American Academy of Pediatrics, as I mentioned, that's saying it's good for 12-year-olds, they're now doing research on six years old because if it's, the drug works for adults, why not for kids? So-
- CWChris Williamson
Given that downstream from obesity and metabolic dysfunction, there are lots of problems, if Ozempic comes in and reduces those problems, would that not be a net positive?
- CMCalley Means
Is not the correct societal intervention for obesity. If just, let's use common sense, and we're getting divorced from our common sense, I think, with the Ozempic debate. If we start jabbing the majority of Americans with a lifetime injection that causes so much gut dysfunction, our body tricks itself into not eating, it's liquified anorexia. It's, it's a liquid crash diet.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- CMCalley Means
And those people are continuing to be sedentary and continuing to eat ultra-processed crap. Are we going to see reduced comorbidities and re- and improved health over the next 30 years?
- CWChris Williamson
That's an interesting question. I guess it depends on how much weight contributes to most of the problems downstream.
- CMCalley Means
I mean, you dig into the drug itself, there's huge problems. The drug causes so many side effects that 50% of people that have insurance for it go off of it within six months.
- CWChris Williamson
Really?
- CMCalley Means
So it cau- The drug is gut dysfunction, right? Our gut is connected to the rest of our body, right? You've seen this. You've talked about this.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CMCalley Means
The drug tricks our gut into not wanting to eat. It's like jamming GLP-1, which is, which our body produces to, to cue satiety, it's jamming, like, thousands and thousands of times more than we're normally made to... And it... So, so, so, so it's been approved for kids based on a 64-week study. It's a lifetime injection. You've got all these different comorbidities or, and, and side effects. I've said this, people can fact-check me, by my count, Ozempic actually is the h- most pronounced side effects of any mass drug ever approved in American history. More than 50% of people have to stop using it through, due to vomiting, due to intense, um, gastrointestinal issues. Uh, there's a black box warning for thyroid cancer, which I can tell you, it's very hard to get a black box warning. Uh, the FDA is totally co-opted by pharma, and that's a very, very serious warning. So if that's already on there, there's a, it's th- the iceberg of other things-
Episode duration: 2:03:21
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