These Daily Habits Are Destroying Your Brain, Body & Life! (But You Can Reverse Them)

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Dr. Rangan Chatterjeehost

May 16, 20252h 8mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

120 min read · 24,398 words

0:00 – 1:26
Modern lifestyle as the root cause of most chronic illness
1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  I've been a medical doctor now for, you know, almost 20 years. And I can tell you that the bulk of what I see, I'd say probably 80% of what I see, is in some way driven by our collective modern lifestyles. And when we change our lifestyles in the, in the right way, I have seen so many of these so-called diseases disappear. That's what I managed to demonstrate on my BBC show that's being shown now in 70 countries around the world. I've shown things like Type 2 diabetes, um, you know, vanished within 30 days, a change that has proved sustainable two or three years later.
2. SPSpeaker
  Mm.
3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Uh, panic attacks, anxiety gone down by 70, 80% in just six weeks by making these changes. Chronic back pain for 30 years, right? Once we started addressing the cause, completely gone. Okay? And, and, and the list goes on. I realized that no matter who they were, no matter what the name of their disease was, you know what? When you make simple changes in four key areas to your lifestyle, it is amazing how many of those symptoms just start to vanish.
4. SPSpeaker
  You've said that this is the first generation being born now that has a shorter life expectancy than the generation before them, which is pretty terrifying.
5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah. You know, in the United States, and I think in the UK now as well, the current generation that are being born, you know, have got a lower life expectancy than any previous generation before them, or certainly in the, in, in our recent history.
6. SPSpeaker
  Mm.
1:26 – 3:41
Why life expectancy is falling: medicine built for acute problems, not chronic disease
1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  And that's pretty worrying, actually. You know, I've got two young kids at home myself, and, and that makes me worry is, what sort of world are they being born into? You know, are, are there now issues with health that are gonna mean they're gonna be less well off than the generation before them? And I think this, this really sort of plays into why there's such disillusionment at the moment with the way medicine is practiced. In the 20th century, right, even 30, 40 years ago, the bulk of what we were seeing as doctors, the bulk of what was coming in and people, what people were complaining of, were what we call acute problems. They responded very well to the sort of pharmaceutical model, the, the one pill for every ill model.
2. SPSpeaker
  Mm.
3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  So let's say you have a pneumonia, for example, okay? That's when modern medicine is brilliant. So a pneumonia, the overgrowth of a bug in your lung, right? You come in to see the doctor. The doctor says, "Yeah, this is the issue." Right? "I'm gonna give you a pill to get rid of that bug." And then within a week, within two weeks, you know, your, your problem's gone, right? The model of medicine we have now responds... You know, w- was set up in that era. What we're seeing today in the 21st century is chronic disease.
4. SPSpeaker
  Mm.
5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Whether it's Type 2 diabetes, okay? Which i- it's like a modern epidemic. Whether it's mental health problems, right? In, in the UK, right, one in four people in any given year are gonna have a mental health problem. Um, whether it's Alzheimer's disease, which, you know, as we're living longer, people are now worrying, you know. As I get older, you know, how am I gonna be? Am I gonna be able to function? Am I gonna be able to talk to my family, or I'm gonna start losing my brain health-
6. SPSpeaker
  Mm
7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... and my, my memory? Um, so these sort of conditions require a different approach, and that's why life expectancy is going down, because w- we're, w- we're not really well-equipped to tackle these problems, 'cause these problems don't respond to a one pill for every ill model. You've gotta change multiple things, right? You've gotta understand... And a lot of people still don't understand, including a lot of the profession, that these are conditions.
3:41 – 5:37
Epigenetics: genetic predisposition isn’t destiny
1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  There may be a genetic tendency, right? You may have a genetic predisposition.
2. SPSpeaker
  Mm.
3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  That is not your destiny, though. It doesn't mean you're gonna get that condition, right? We know there's a, um, the, the field is called epigenetics, uh, which is basically this whole idea that, you know, you're born with some genes. But your environment, how you live your life, that shapes and that determines whether those genes are switched on, if they're switched off-
4. SPSpeaker
  Mm
5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... how those genes are expressed. And that's a big shift, actually, and that's exciting, because that means that we've... In, in a huge part, we've got control over what happens to us. I think that's incredibly exciting. So we need to start teaching our children, we need to teach our doctors, we need to educate the public, we need to change the ethos in schools, in institutions, to, to sort of helping us foster a community where health is absolutely valued at the top. Because if it isn't, right, we're gonna struggle in our lives. So you know, I've, I've watched many of your, your, your videos, Tom, and, um, you know, when we talk about trying to make a difference, trying to live a meaningful and purposeful life, right? Health is an ingredient of that.
6. SPSpeaker
  Mm.
7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  When we feel better, we live more. So much of the time, the problems people are telling me about, the, the disagreements they're having, the family disharmony they're having, often it's 'cause they don't feel good.
8. SPSpeaker
  Right.
9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Right? They're putting the wrong things into their body, whether it's food. They're not sleeping enough. That's changing their hormones. That's making them moody. That's causing them to have tension with their children, with their partner, with their work colleagues.
10. SPSpeaker
  Mm.
11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  And it all starts to add up. A- and I've realized that often my training has taught me to suppress that downstream symptom, right, with a pill, without actually going upstream and figuring out, well, what's causing this in the first place?
12. SPSpeaker
  Mm.
5:37 – 7:26
Beyond diet: simplifying health into four lifestyle pillars
1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  A- and the approach I try and take on my TV show, with my patients, with my book, it's really about saying we've overcomplicated health, right? I wanna simplify it. And we've overly focused on one area. So obviously everyone talks about food when we talk about health, and food's important, right? But it's not the only thing. There are, there are other factors that I would say are equally important that even if you'd asked me five years ago-I wouldn't have known that.
2. SPSpeaker
  Mm.
3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  You know, five, six years ago, I thought it was all about food, right? But I've changed my mind now. You might be better off saying your diet is good enough.
4. SPSpeaker
  Right.
5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Maybe the fact that you're on Netflix or YouTube till 1:00 AM every night and you're only sleeping five hours a night, actually, if you go to bed one hour earlier, you will find you get more bang for your buck than trying to cut out a little bit more sugar in your diets.
6. SPSpeaker
  Yeah, one of the most interesting things about your approach is this whole notion of lifestyle over diet, as in it's, it's more important than that. And I thought, "Whoa, that's pretty radical." And five years ago I would've said the same thing. I was at the height of building Quest Nutrition. All... I, I thought the answer to everything was what you were eating 100%.
7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Me too. Me too.
8. SPSpeaker
  Right?
9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah.
10. SPSpeaker
  And then my wife ends up having this catastrophic problem with her microbiome, and it came on like that. It went from no sense of we have a problem to our life got put on hold for a year because she just couldn't eat, and she was malnutrition. It was... It really actually got scary at one point, and I thought, "My wife's diet is perfect, so clearly there's something going on here that I don't fully understand." Part of it was my definition of perfect was totally screwed up, and then the other part was that there are so many other lifestyle factors. Talk about this notion of the threshold effect, which I think is so important for people to understand.
7:26 – 9:08
The threshold effect: how cumulative stressors push us into illness
1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah, it's this idea that we've all got our personal threshold, okay? So the, the way I explain it, if you were in my clinic with me right now, and I pretty much go through this with every patient, I say, "Look, let's say you were born in perfect health here."
2. SPSpeaker
  Mm-hmm.
3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Right? We've got this sort of personal... We've got a threshold, right? So we can deal with multiple insults up to a point. So that could be, you know, poor diet, the fact that we don't move very much. We might have had a relationship breakup, which is a stress on our body. We may have a job we don't like, right? It's all building a s- building up, building up-
4. SPSpeaker
  Mm
5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... getting closer to our threshold. That's when they get sick, right? What I mean by that is often a patient will come in to see me and they'll say, "You know, Doc, I was fine. Everything was going fine, and then, you know, I changed my job. I don't like my new boss." And then, you know, they've, they come down with an autoimmune illness.
6. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Right? But when you go into their history, you see things were not fine at all. They... You know, we're very resilient as humans. We can deal with lots of stresses, right? But something is like the straw that breaks the camel's back.
8. SPSpeaker
  Mm-hmm.
9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  And, and you can sort of... You can find the last stressor that tips you up, that pushes you over, right? But when you've gone over your threshold, often it's not a case anymore of taking off that last stressor, right? Often you have to go back to basics-
10. SPSpeaker
  Mm
11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... and build from scratch again. It's like, you know, if we were juggling balls, I often say, you know, in your life when things get busy, you can juggle one ball, two balls, three balls, four balls, and then someone chucks a fifth one in.
12. SPSpeaker
  Mm.
13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  And what happens? Everything falls down. And, you know, w- we, we, we always look for what's that one thing that it is. Can I give you a case story?
14. SPSpeaker
  Yeah, of course.
9:08 – 13:55
Case study: Type 2 diabetes plateau—fix sleep and stress, not just carbs
1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Right? Right? This is, um, a very typical patient, uh, of mine, but this is a... It was a, it was a guy in his 50s. I think it's a 52-year-old guy, right? He's got type 2 diabetes. Now, he's a successful businessman. He's go, go, go all the time, right? He's, you know, working hard, working weekends. He's always on his email, right? And he got diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. So he saw on TV, uh, in the UK, he saw my BBC show, the first series, and he saw what I did with that type 2 diabetic patient. So he, uh, drastically reduced the refined and processed carbs in his diet.
2. SPSpeaker
  Mm.
3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Okay? And then he'd read some other blogs, and he really got obsessed with low carb. And he was getting some changes, right? His blood sugar was coming down, but then it plateaued, and he was getting frustrated because he kept reading more and more blogs. He kept lowering his carb intake, and, and he just wasn't getting anywhere. So he, he, you know, he ends up on my waiting list. He comes in to see me, and I remember going through everything with him and I thought to myself, "This is not a dietary issue anymore," right? Because he didn't realize, like many people don't, that your stress levels contribute to your blood sugar levels.
4. SPSpeaker
  Mm.
5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Your sleep quality contributes to your blood sugar levels. It's not just your diet. Even a diet is something we can... We get it, you know? We, we eat a bit of sugar. That's gonna put the sugar up in our blood. We get that. But we don't get, right, and there's some really good studies on this, that if you only sleep four to five hours a night for six nights, okay, you are 40% less good at managing your blood sugar, right?
6. SPSpeaker
  Wow.
7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  You become pre-diabetic after five to six days.
8. SPSpeaker
  Just from the lack of sleep.
9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Just from a lack of sleep. It's, it's incredible.
10. SPSpeaker
  Mm.
11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  When you start understanding that, you think, "Well, of course we need a more balanced, holistic approach to helping these people." So this, this chap, so what I did with him, I said, "Look, your diet is brill, okay?
12. SPSpeaker
  [laughs]
13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Arguably it's too good. Arguably you're, you're, you're almost... You're trying too hard now and it's stressing you out."
14. SPSpeaker
  Right.
15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  I said, "It's sleep and stress for you." So I, I talk about these four pillars, right? I talk about food, movement, sleep, and relaxation. That it's not about perfection in any one pillar-
16. SPSpeaker
  Mm
17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... but it's about balance across all four. This approach takes the pressure off people. It's not about the perfect diet or the perfect gym routine. It's about making sure your diet is good enough, making sure you're moving enough, making sure you're doing something for your sleep and something for your stress levels. It's, it's an approach that works in the short term, but it's also gonna be working six months down the line, 12 months down the line.
18. SPSpeaker
  Mm.
19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  So this, this chap with diabet- with type 2 diabetes, we came up with a, with a system. I said, "Look, ideally you'd have a 90-minute switch off before bed where you don't look at work emails, you don't go on your computer." He goes, "I can't do that. 90 minutes, no way." I said, "All right. What about 30 minutes?" So he goes, "Okay." So we started with 30 minutes, okay? We also, we agreed in the consultation, I spoke to him about meditation, okay? And he was a bit skeptical on meditation. I said, "Okay, look. Hear me out here. I tell you what. Let's get an app-Right? So we downloaded an app in the clinic, right? I said, "Okay, this is free. [laughs] Download this. All I want you to do is commit to five minutes a day. That's it." Okay? So all we agreed on was 30 minutes before bed, he'd switch off his computer and his tech and his work emails-
20. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Mm
21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... and he'd do five minutes meditation per day with this app. Okay? That was it. And he starts them, he comes back in four weeks and he said, "Okay, I'm already starting to f- [laughs] feel better." You know, he's sleeping better.
22. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Mm.
23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  He feels less anxious and stressed the whole time. So that was my way in. Then we got to increase it so it was an hour in the evening, okay? It was... He only stuck to five minutes meditation, but we then introduced something that I call the three, four, five breath. When you breathe in for three, you hold for four, and breathe out for five. And he did that a few times throughout the week. And bit by bit, he started to introduce these practices. He increased his carb intake, 'cause I said, "You're being too aggressive. You don't need to be that aggressive-
24. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Mm
25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... with your carbs." Okay? Six months later, the guy's blood sugar is no longer in the type two diabetic range.
26. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Wow.
27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Okay? So he puts his carbs up, he improves his sleep, he gets the stress levels down, and his blood sugar starts to come down. And that's why I'm so passionate, Tom, that when we take this rounded 360-degree approach to health, not only does it yield fantastic results, okay? But it's just... It feels more accessible, it feels more achievable for people.
28. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Mm.
29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Um, I've got countless more case studies like that, but that- that's, I think, rather counterintuitive because, you know, five, six years ago, I had... I was using that, what is called a low-carb approach, a lot with my patients.
30. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Mm.
13:55 – 17:09
Rethinking low-carb: blue zones, microbiome, and the Western context
1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Um, and again, I'm not a huge fan of the term low carb. I think the beaut- the beautiful thing about it is that it- it simplifies the concept so, you know, so clearly-
2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Mm
3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... that people get it. Um, but I think, you know, we have unfairly demonized fats for 30, 40 years. I, I worry we're gonna do the same, uh, with another food group-
4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah
5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... in the same way. And I think, you know, ultimately you, you look at these blue zones around the world, these areas around the world where people are... have got high rates of longevity, they're living to a ripe old age in good health, and you look at what they're doing. And I find it really interesting 'cause a lot of, a lot of them are having high-carb diets. Like, in Okinawa-
6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Mm
7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... in Japan, they're having an 80% carbohydrate diet.
8. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Oof.
9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  But the carbs are not the refined and processed carbs that we're having here in the West, right? They're, they're local sweet potatoes-
10. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Mm
11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... right? Which is very nourishing. You mentioned the gut microbiome. Sweet potatoes and those sort of colorful vegetables are fantastic for our gut's health. Absolutely fantastic. And I actually think that's what holds all the diets around the world which work well, right? I think the commonality is not the carb content or the fat content, the commonality is they're all, uh, a local, minimally processed food that nourishes our microbiome. That's what I think is the unifying factor. And, and the other thing, I think, when we look at these blue zones like Okinawa and we try and figure out, well, why are they, why are they doing so well? We're trying to figure out what is it in their diet that's the magic? But it ain't just the diet, it's the whole lifestyle, right?
12. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Mm.
13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  These guys have low stress levels. They sleep well, right? They're physically active every day. They prioritize community, right? That's why those guys are healthy.
14. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Mm.
15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Right? It's not just the one thing. And I think why is it that this low-carb approach seems to have such a fantastically beneficial role for so many people in the West? Well, I think what's going on here in the West, we are physically inactive, we are underslept, we're overstressed, we're having highly processed food, okay? Maybe it's in... And all those things make you insulin resistant, which is what actually leads to type 2 diabetes-
16. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Mm
17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... and is behind a lot of cases of obesity. Maybe it's in this environment, in our highly stressed out, underslept, Western environment, maybe it's in this environment that that low-carb approach has such a beneficial role. Maybe those guys, they stay under their threshold in a different way.
18. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Mm.
19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  They don't need to be as aggressive with their carbs, let's say, because they're, you know, they're getting all that sleep, they're getting their stress levels down. I think food is much more than fat versus carbs, but good health is much more than food, right?
20. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Wow. That's really strong. Yeah.
21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  I've always been interested as a doctor as to what works in real life, right? I, I love the research papers, I love the science, but I'm more interested in how do you convert that into real-life action for that person sitting in front of me.
22. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Mm.
17:09 – 19:33
Movement made practical: five-minute kitchen strength workouts
1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  And, and I can tell you, you know, one of, one of my, um, one, one, [laughs] one of the most popular things from this book is w- what I call the five-minute kitchen workouts, and this, this again came out of a need that I saw from my patients, right? So, you know, strength training is very much undervalued in society. You know, when we talk about activity and movement and exercise, right? We're always talking about, you know, walking more or, you know, doing more cardio w- and, and there's nothing wrong with that necessarily, but we neglect strength.
2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Right.
3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  And once we hit 30, right? Once we get above the age of 30, we can lose 3 to 5% of our muscle mass every decade.
4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Whoa.
5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  It can be even more above the age of 50. And, you know, your muscle mass independently predicts your mortality. It's one of the strongest factors to determine how well you're gonna be when you get older. So I was s- seeing all the research on this about five or six years ago, and I remember patients were coming in and I'd say to them, "Okay, guys, uh, you know, strength training's really important, you know, I want you to work out for about 30, 40 minutes three times a week, you know, maybe get to the gym if you can."And I thought, "Okay, right, I've told them. I've told them about the research." I come back six weeks later, I said, "Hey guys, how are you getting on?" "Hey, doc, you know, it's... I've been busy, you know, the gym's a bit expensive. It's not on the way back from work. I've not really done it much." I thought, "Okay, I'm clearly not giving them advice in a way that they feel is practical for them, that they feel they can do in the context of their lives. I've got to do something better." And in that, in that moment, in my consultation room, that five-minute kitchen workout was born. I said, "All right, I tell you what, let's forget about the gym, let's forget about gym memberships, forget about buying equipment. I'm gonna show you a workout you can do right here, right now, in your kitchen." I've got 20-year-old patients doing it. I've got 70-year-old patients doing it.
6. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  You can modify it for any ability level. And, you know, I find that by setting the bar low with people, right, and they achieve that, they feel good about themselves.
8. SPSpeaker
  Mm.
9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  They start to do more. It's about simple approaches that work in real life. Yeah, the science is all in there, but the science interests me, but it doesn't dictate what I do. I've got to convert that into what's gonna really help my patients. Real-life people with busy jobs, with busy lives, right, who want to be healthy.
19:33 – 28:20
Patterns from home visits: environment design, willpower limits, and eating together
1. SPSpeaker
  I want to talk about the show for a second. Because being with people, living with them for four to six weeks and getting in there, what are you seeing that are patterns of, um, I'll call it bad behavior, but I, I don't mean that in like the moral sense. I just mean it has an unintended consequence, um, that they may not even realize, and then what are some of the fixes that are the simple things? So like in the movement pillar, you've got that. Something simple they can do in the kitchen. Um, but what are things that you see over and over and over that people do wrong that have a really simple fix?
2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  So I'd say a few things. Yeah, food was, food was a big one, there's no question. You know, when you open people's cupboards, you open their drawers, and you see what's in there. You see the naughty drawers, and you see the stuff that's in there. And then you also not only look at what's in there, which is basically all the highly processed food, it's all the sugary treats-
3. SPSpeaker
  Mm
4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... that live inside the house, right? But it's then as you're looking there, you see the family dynamic. You see like the wife, "Oh, you know, that's not mine. That's hi- he always brings that, and I tell him not to bring that in." He goes, "No, no." The, the husband's like, "No, no, that's not the case at all. I bring these in because you like them."
5. SPSpeaker
  [laughs]
6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Right? You see that in every house. So there's obviously this dynamic there. Um, you know, who's responsible for it? You know, everyone's putting the blame-
7. SPSpeaker
  Mm
8. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... without realizing it, on other people. "It's not me, it's, you know, I'm doing it for the family."
9. SPSpeaker
  Right.
10. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  So I find that quite interesting. So one of the fixes there is to control the environment you can control. Right? If you're trying to make healthy, let's say, food choices, right, don't keep that stuff in your house. Right? So I say to them, "When you walk outside your front door these days, you are having to exercise your willpower every step of the way." You go to a gas station, right, and you go to pay, you're walking past all the chocolates, all the bags of chips.
11. SPSpeaker
  Mm.
12. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Everything, right? You're having to exert your willpower there. If you want to buy coffee in a coffee shop, right, you stand in line, you order, you, you're walking past the muffins, the pastries, the croissants. You're constantly having to use the willpower when you step outside your house. I'm saying don't use it inside your house. Right? If you're serious about making those choices and you want a sugary treat, you know what? Have it. Once a week, once every two weeks when you go out and meet your buddies and you sit in a cafe and have it, have it there. Don't bring it in your house, because what will happen is that you will come back tired, you'll come back stressed one day from work, you'll feel a bit low, and you will start gorging on what's in the house. You know? A few months ago, I came... I was going through a very stressful time at work, and all kinds of things were going on. And I was sitting at home in the evening with my wife, and I thought, "You know, I fancy something sweet." But I, I looked in the cupboards. There was nuts, there was olives. I was like, "You know, I don't feel like those." You know, "I want something sweet."
13. SPSpeaker
  Mm.
14. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  But there was nothing there. And you know what? 10 minutes later, that craving goes.
15. SPSpeaker
  Right.
16. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  It's what I call an itchy mouth, right?
17. SPSpeaker
  [laughs]
18. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  I'm not hungry, it's just, you know, I fancy something to put in my mouth.
19. SPSpeaker
  Mm.
20. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  So, you know, controlling the environment you can control, I think it's a very important thing that I taught all of those families to do. And they really, although they were resistant at first, they really saw the benefit.
21. SPSpeaker
  All right, two things I want to dive a little deeper there. So number one, do you ever get into the psychology of like, "Oh, I got this for you." "No, you got it for you. What are you talking about?" Do you ever just like put a finger on it and say, "Hey, let's talk about what's driving that?"
22. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah, absolutely. And more, more these days than I even used to do, because I've realized that people have got very powerful emotional attachments as to why they do certain things. I'm gonna tell you about the very first day I ever filmed for this documentary series, right? This is the first family. This is... I, I rock up to this town called Shrewsbury in the UK, and, you know, a little bit nervous 'cause I'm, there's a camera crew that's gonna watch me-
23. SPSpeaker
  Yeah
24. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... be a doctor and try and help these guys, right? First time I've done that. And I meet the family, lovely family, that's been struggling with their health, whole variety of health issues. And they... I said, "Guys, what would you typically eat?" Right? So the, the father says to the gu- says to the family, "Hey guys, you know, just the usual tonight?" They said, "Yeah, Dad, just the usual, please." He says, "Come on, doc, come with me." So I go, sit in the car, right? We drive 15 minutes out of town to go to a McDonald's drive-through. On the way there, the guy says to me, he says, "Doc, you know what? I know this stuff isn't good for us, and it's really, really embarrassing for me to actually be taking you here, but this is what we do."
25. SPSpeaker
  Mm.
26. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Right? And I don't think I quite got it back then, but I've reflected on this a lot since then, which is these guys knew that these weren't healthy choices. He knew that. But it's only when this third party comes in, someone who's got no emotional, uh, attachment to this family, he starts to feel really guilty, and he feels-You know, he feels he has to apologize to me for the choices he's making-
27. SPSpeaker
  Mm
28. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... which he, which first of all, he doesn't need to apologize. But I found that really interesting. What's going on there? Why do people make choices that, you know, are not serving them? Why?
29. SPSpeaker
  Why do you think they do it, for real?
30. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Because I think those choices, you know, I think those choices on some level nourish them. You know, they, they, if they're lacking something in some aspects of their life, they're getting... That they're feeding their reward pathways. You know, so many people will eat to make themselves feel better. You know?
28:20 – 41:02
Emotions, inflammation, and social context: forgiveness, status, and meaning
1. SPSpeaker
  There's a really interesting study that, um, it looked at sort of these five major personality types. So they are kind of roughly divided into, like, openness to experience, conscientiousness, extrovertedness, agreeableness, and neuroticism. So in psychology terms, they're kind of ways that we can be categorized based on our personality. Um, and each of these personality types have specific immunological features, and one of the most interesting thing is that, um, some of them are more likely to be pro-inflammatory and have higher levels of C-reactive protein, which is a marker in the blood for, for inflammation. Um, and things like being neurotic and, um, being, uh, sort of less introverted, it can affect the inflammation in our body. It's because, I guess, we're all very different. We're all on a sort of spectrum of different personalities, but that's evolved from maybe different roles you might play within a community, um, and then what your exposure to different infections might be or your risk of getting injured. Um, things like anger is known to prime the body for, um, for becoming damaged because maybe anger preceded violence. And throughout our evolution, we've like, "Okay, if you're angry, something might happen that might damage you, so we need to prime parts of our immune system to prepare for that."
2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  You mention anger, and it's something I wrote about. I feel passion five is the importance of forgiveness.
3. SPSpeaker
  Mm-hmm.
4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  There is good research on forgiveness.
5. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  A guy called Fred Luskin has done the Stanford University, I think, forgiveness trial or research. The, I can't remember the exact name.
7. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
8. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  His research is incredible, and I, I shared in my last book a story about one of my patients who had high blood pressure, and which again, you know, to, to, to make it relevant to our conversation, you know, high blood pressure is a chronic-
9. SPSpeaker
  Mm-hmm
10. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... non-communicable illness that, you know, will have chronic inflammation-
11. SPSpeaker
  Yeah
12. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... playing a role-
13. SPSpeaker
  Yeah
14. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... in some wayAnd you know what? She had changed her lifestyle. I was, you know, I was doing the stuff I try and, uh, talk about, food and movement and sleep. You know what? It wasn't budging.
15. SPSpeaker
  Mm-hmm.
16. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  And it was to do with, um, you know, basically her, um, her husband of many years had cheated on her-
17. SPSpeaker
  Yeah
18. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... and they had split up. And it was only once she started practicing forgiveness-
19. SPSpeaker
  Mm-hmm
20. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... right, that her blood pressure started going down. It-
21. SPSpeaker
  Wow
22. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... it was incredible. And so, and that's a, like that's an anecdotal story from my clinic-
23. SPSpeaker
  Yeah
24. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... but, uh, it really, I think it does stand, uh, firm-
25. SPSpeaker
  Mm-hmm
26. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... and consistent with the research that is out there in terms of if you're holding onto resentment-
27. SPSpeaker
  Yeah
28. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... and anger, that will influence your biology-
29. SPSpeaker
  Yeah
30. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... and your immune system.
41:02 – 48:26
Conditioning calm: rituals, senses, and building stress-resilient routines
1. SPSpeaker
  Yeah. That, this is a, it's really interesting, actually. So this was, um, data that was generated in the 1980s. There were some scientists who were trying to disprove research that had come out of Russia around that time about conditioning. So the classical example of conditioning is Pavlov's dogs. Um, most people will be aware of that. But there, these experiments they had done where they, they had looked to try and condition the immune system. And so the scientists were like, "This, this can't be right." Uh, you know, "We, we're gonna redo the experiments much more stringently and, um, see i- if it's is really what it makes out to be. Can you condition your immune system with various rituals and routines?" And what they did was they, they used an animal, uh, model experiment, and they gave the, the animals a s- a sweet solution to drink. And, uh, one group got the sweet solution that also had a particular chemical inside it that would modulate antibody responses. So they could measure the antibody responses in the blood and see, um, if, uh, that there was an effect hap- happening. Some kind of readout, tangible piece of data that they could observe. Um, so the mice were given these, this sugar solution with this chemical for a period of time, and after a while when they just gave the sugar solution on its own, they got the same effect happening to the immune system. So it's kind of like a placebo effect.
2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Wow.
3. SPSpeaker
  It's like y- you expect something, the mouse expected this effect to take place in its body on some kind of subconscious level-Because, uh, it was so used to that happening that the, it, the effect happened anyway even without the chemical presence to actually cause the modulation to the immune system. And people have been scratching around to try and understand the mechanism, and I think the best we've come up with is the, the placebo effect. Like, it's, i- it's... There's some part of us that we don't quite understand that embodies things, and w- when there's a, a response expected, that the biology changes. And we can start to pair things together. So what you were referring to in the book is, like, the kind of little stress-relieving rituals, like, f- you know, playing your favorite music whilst you're doing something like taking a, a nice bath or, uh, having a s- particular scent being in the room-
4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah
5. SPSpeaker
  ... while you're doing something else. And eventually then you just can play that music and you start to feel the same relaxed feeling that you do when you're in a nice warm bath, even without taking the bath.
6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah. You know, it makes me think about, you know, if your home is or has been a stressful place-
7. SPSpeaker
  Mm-hmm
8. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... then, you know, that, it kind of works that you may come into that and y- your body may start to almost-
9. SPSpeaker
  Yeah
10. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... the immune system might sense that and go, "Okay-
11. SPSpeaker
  Yeah
12. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... this is a stressful place," and, and react even if nothing stressful happens.
13. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
14. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  But then you could also flip it and... You know, I'm a huge fan of ritual and sort of daily-
15. SPSpeaker
  Mm-hmm
16. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... practices that even if they only take five minutes-
17. SPSpeaker
  Yeah
18. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... they can be very powerful. And I think when I hear that, I think of a morning routine, and I think what if someone, you know, can design their ideal morning routine. Let's say c- let's say it was five, 10 minutes.
19. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
20. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  You know? A bit of maybe a minute or two of breathing.
21. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
22. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Um, you know, three or four minutes of some light movement practice.
23. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
24. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  And then let's say five minutes of reading a positive book.
25. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
26. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  For example, I mean, that's, you know, I, I, in The Stress Solution I write about the three Ms of a morning routine; mindfulness, movement, and mindsets.
27. SPSpeaker
  Mm-hmm.
28. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  I think you can create one that lasts an hour. You can create one that lasts five minutes. But the point I'm trying to make is if someone started doing that in the same room, let's say they lit a candle-
29. SPSpeaker
  Yeah
30. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... in the room, did that, that even on a day when they're a little bit busy or they haven't quite, they can't quite switch off-
48:26 – 1:00:54
Food as medicine at scale: phytochemicals and the ‘Pegan’ framework
1. SPSpeaker
  Science has allowed us to dive into what are the components in food and how do they interact with our biology in ways that we've never really understood. And it turns out, you know, we know that what's in food, right? It's protein, fat, fiber, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals, and that's true, but that's not all that's in there. It's, uh, it, it's all this other stuff that turns out is really important. It may not be causing an acute deficiency disease like scurvy, but if you don't have enough of these m-... powerful medicines and food over your lifetime, your own biology doesn't work quite well. And, and for example, y- you know, when you get grass-fed animals, they're, they can forage on 100 different plants, and they eat this plant to get this phytochemical and this medicine. They eat this plant to get this nutrient. And over time, they, they really are able to modulate their health through a robust array of a wide variety of different plant foods. It turns out there's 25,000, 25,000-plus molecules in food that are medicines, these phytochemicals. And The Rockefeller Foundation is spending, I think, $200 million [laughs] trying to map out the periodic table of food, of phytochemicals, and how they interact with our biology. And, and the, and, and the concepts of these chemicals in our biology is really quite interesting. I, I call it symbiotic phytoadaptation, which is a big mouthful, but essentially it means that we've evolved symbiotically with these plants and have adapted our biology to use their compounds for our own benefit, which is, you know, we do this all the time. We, we, you know, we take a vitamin from vitamin C from an orange. We don't make vitamin C, so we use it for our benefit. Well, it turns out that, you know, if you want your detoxification system to work well, you need certain classes of compounds in broccoli family called glucosinolates and sulforaphanes. It turns out if you want to clean up your mitochondria and recycle all the old parts so you have healthy aging, you might need a compound that comes from pomegranate called urolithin A. Or maybe if you wanna, you know, regulate your gut and have a, a, a, no, no damage to the barrier and that can lead to autoimmune disease, heart disease, cancer, and you want to grow a bacteria called akkermansia, that bug likes certain things like cranberry, pomegranate, and green tea. [laughs] Or, or maybe, uh, you know, you have, um, these zombie cells running around from your white blood cells that have been damaged from s- uh, various kinds of insults over years and, and they're causing aging, and maybe if you eat these, these phytochemicals, there's over 132 phytochemicals from this buckwheat that Jeffrey Bland has dis- got rediscovered, uh, that are... Some are 100 times more potent than any other food source. And you eat these, it kills the zombie cells, these phytochemicals. So the question is, how do we begin to incorporate all these principles into upgrading our biology and, and healing disease?
2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah. I mean, just hearing all those powerful compounds that exist within foods, you know, it's mind-blowing really. I'm sure we're gonna discover more. There's plenty- probably plenty out there we don't even know yet. We don't even know the names, what they do.
3. SPSpeaker
  Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  But, but that time is coming. But, you know, I, I think about this concept food is medicine, and philosophically, I think in a culture where 80% of what we see is driven by our collective modern lifestyles, I kinda feel philosophically as doctors, I feel unless we give it the same priority and call it medicine-
5. SPSpeaker
  Yeah
6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... it's not gonna have that same impact, right, with our patients. So we prioritize the drugs and say, "Oh, uh, we've gotta give it-
7. SPSpeaker
  Yeah
8. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... that, that weight." But then culturally, I feel, well, hold on a minute. Well, I grew up in an Asian family, in an Indian family, where we grow up with the concept of food is medicine. You know, if we're, if we're not doing so well or we've got a cold or something, our mom might give us more food with turmeric in. And, um, you know, with the South American cultures where they talk about the concepts of food is medicine. So I, I kind of find, I find there's a slight arrogance when we try and say food is not medicine, and it almost... There's almost this kind of, um, attitude of, oh, you know, we, we now in Western medicine, we figured this out. In 2021, we figured out actually that food-
9. SPSpeaker
  Mm-hmm
10. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... is not medicine. Okay, great. I'll go and tell my grandparents that and everyone else who's done all that research for years.
11. SPSpeaker
  [laughs]
12. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Do you know what I mean? I kinda feel, I feel-
13. SPSpeaker
  Yeah
14. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... it's a no-brainer.
15. SPSpeaker
  Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty striking. Um, the, you know, the, um... There's a quote from R.D. Laing, who was a psychiatrist back in the '60s, said, "Scientists can't see the way they see with their way of seeing." In other, in other words, paradigms are really hard to break. When you're a doctor and you're saying, "Well, eat better and exercise more," or, "Eat less and exercise more," and it doesn't work, you go, "Well, well, nutrition doesn't really work." [laughs] But that's not really helpful. [laughs] That's the same as I saying, "Why don't you just, uh, fly to, fly to London?" Well, how do I fly there? Do I need a plane? Like, [laughs] how do I get there? Do I swim? You know, like [laughs] ... And, and what's, what's really striking is that, is that most doctors don't know how to apply food as medicine. So if, if, if you have a headache and I would say, "Well, I'm gonna give you, like, one milligram of aspirin," you think it's gonna work? [laughs] Right? It's like you need 600 milligrams of aspirin to get your headache to go away. So we say, "Well, you know, food didn't work." Uh, well, it didn't work because you didn't know the right medicine, which w- foods to use. You didn't know the dose. [laughs] You didn't know the frequency. You know, like, it, it's really sophisticated. That's why the pecan diet isn't really like a fixed diet. It's really a set of principles that allows you to sort of eat in a way that meets your dietary preferences and cultural preferences, but also, um, helps you to figure out which are the foods in each category that you should be eating that have the most medicine, and what are the principles that we might wanna learn about personalized nutrition or how to eat like a regenitarian, which we can talk about. [laughs] Or how to eat for your mood or longevity, or how to feed your kids, or how to eat in a way that's affordable. So it's a really practical guide. Uh, it's sort of one of those things you can kinda refer back to over and over again-
16. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah
17. SPSpeaker
  ... to see exactly, you know, what's the, the, uh, digestible bit. It's sort of, sort of like little snacks of [laughs] information that allow you to really get the point and, and follow through on it. Um, there's a t- ton of theory I've written about before and the science, but this, this is, there's a lot of science in it, but it's really a very, very practical book.
18. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah. Uh, and on, on the book, I, I agree. It's, it's a really good, uh, digestible read for people who want to learn more about foods, the various properties in different foods, and the various principles. And as you say, it's kind of... It's called a pecan diet, but it's kinda not really a diet in the conventional-
19. SPSpeaker
  No
20. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... term, right? It's the, the way we think about diets.
21. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
22. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  It's really not that. As you say, it's 21 foundational principles, which franklyAre gonna be helpful for so many of us
23. SPSpeaker
  Yeah. I mean, that, that's sort of the joke of it all. That's like when we're in these different diet wars and diet camps, we're all fighting with each other, and I... That's how the, this whole name came. I was sitting on a panel with a vegan cardiologist and a sort of a militant paleo doctor, and they were fighting. And I'm like, "Hey, if you're paleo and you're vegan, I must be pegan." Everybody cracked up [laughs] and I thought, "Okay, well, there's something here." And I went home and thought about it as I was flying home, and I was like, "Wait a minute. They're, they're identical." They're exactly the same principles except for one, which is where you get your protein, which is animals or grains and beans. Otherwise, no dairy, no sugar, no processed food, whole foods, vegetables, good fats. You know, all the same principles except, uh, except that one. And, and then the truth is they have far more in common with each other than the traditional American diet. And so I began to sort of realize w- maybe we can all come together with, with, uh, a movement that actually helps to, you know, crystallize what we do know and, and then personalize it, and that's really the whole point of the pegan diet. It's sort of an un-diet. It says, wait a minute, if you're focusing on... I mean, the traditional American diet, yes, that's, that's an easy sort of win. Uh, but even if you're, you know, keto or vegan, I mean, how do you be a healthy vegan? I see, I see people run into trouble with that all the time. And so, you know, I talk about how to do that in the book. So I think it's really, uh, kind of a fun little, uh, sort of kaleidoscope. And a- actually, someone, someone, someone [laughs] has said to me after, said, "Dr. Hyman, there's no chapter on weight loss." And I said, "That's right." I said, "There's no chapter on weight loss because I never tell patients to lose weight." I just don't. I, I, I don't actually think it works, and I don't think it's helpful advice. [laughs] And I think what I teach them is how their body works, how to work with it, and the weight loss is automatic. I don't, I don't say star- starve yourself, restrict calories. I say, "Eat these foods. Don't eat these foods. This is really what is gonna help you thrive," and people just have the most amazing results. I mean, literally 100 pounds, 50 pounds, 75 pounds. It's really pretty amazing, but it's never, it was never a goal. And I, I, I think, uh, you know, it was sort of shocking to people that it was a book on diet with no, no, no mention of weight loss, [laughs] but that's how it goes.
24. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah, no, absolutely. So there are all these principles in the book. I wanna sort of dive into some of them. Uh, and you mentioned eat like a regenitarian, and I think that would be... I think it would be a good place to go into. Um, l- before we do that though, Mark, can we just sort of set out the, the foundations of the pegan diet? You know, uh, you, you sort of touched on a few of those principles. So for people who are coming to your work for the first time and are trying to understand, well, you know, what is the component, you know, is it paleo? Is it vegan? You know, what is it? What are the sort of foods that you're recommending? How would you sort of simplify the concept for them?
25. SPSpeaker
  Yeah. It's, it's really pretty easy. I mean, it, it, I, it's embarrassingly easy actually 'cause it's, it's, uh, it's like people aren't gonna really a, be able to sort of disagree with anything [laughs] because it's all pretty common sense and straightforward. So the first thing is, you know, really use your food as your pharmacy. So when you are eating, think of what you're eating as medicine. Are you eating a french fry that's fried in rancid oils that's, you know, got 14 different ingredients in it, uh, that is gonna kind of fry your arteries and, you know, cause all kinds of problems, or are you gonna eat, let's say, a wild blueberry, and it has all sorts of phytochemicals and so forth? So how, how do you, how do you begin to sort of think of food as your medicine? The second is you wanna eat a lot of medicine, so eat the rainbow, which is essentially all the colors in plant foods are where all the benefits are. So the more deeper, darker colors and pigments, that's where all the phytochemicals are. And also think about your diet as mostly [laughs] vegetables. Like it should be 75% non-starchy veggies, which is, like, uh, really what the majority of your plate should be with a little side of protein. Um, when you're picking any kind of category of food, whether it's beans or grains or nuts and seeds, um, it's important to understand which ones in each category are the best. For example, peanuts might have aflatoxin, which you wanna stay away from or be careful where you source it or, you know, you probably don't wanna eat a lot of the gluten in grains here, but if you're having heirloom grains like rye or maybe heirloom wheats, that might be okay because they're less inflammatory and so forth. Or maybe you have gluten issues and you shouldn't eat it at all. Um, or which beans are the best beans or which, which seeds are the best seeds and so forth. And then, uh, I have a, a whole section there on, on, uh, you know, meat, which is I think a little shocking for people, but it's talking about how to eat your meat as medicine. Um, and, and some of the research on this is just stunning that, that, that these, uh, grass-fed animals have high phytochemical contents, just like plants, and have all these health benefits. [laughs] So we're, we're learning more about it. This is out of Duke. Um, so whether you're eating any kind of protein, how do you pick the best eggs or chicken? How do you, how do you understand, uh, what are the right fats to eat? How do you think about dairy, which is, you know, really, uh, often a big problem, and it's, and the m- modern cows we have are pretty harmful. And then there's some, you know, just guidelines on how to eat in a way that's good for you, but not only good for you, but good for the planet and good for society, like eat like a regenitarian or, you know, think about, uh, sugar is fine, but it's like a recreational drug, [laughs] or, you know, how do you, uh, personalize your nutrition or detox or, uh, eat for your gut or eat for longevity or mood or, or how do you afford what you're, what you're doing in a way that actually is, makes it doable? 'Cause it doesn't have to be expensive. So it really guides people through a way of thinking about food that it, it will last them as a roadmap for their life.
26. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  You mentioned meats there, and you mentioned phytonutrients. So let's just-
27. SPSpeaker
  [laughs]
28. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Let's just start off explaining what phytonutrients are, and then I agree that, that, that section on meat is really fascinating, and, you know, meat has become one of these controversial items as well. And one thing I do know, Mark, like myself, you're very respectful of people's individual choices, their ethics, and how they choose to live and, and their cultural beliefs. So yeah, just walk me through phytochemicals, but then also let's then go from that into meat and how meat potentially might be medicine for some people.
1:00:54 – 1:09:49
The meat controversy: quality, ethics, and regenerative agriculture
1. SPSpeaker
  Yeah, for sure. I mean, before we get down in the weeds, I just, I just wanna say that, you know, I, I... my personal goal is to live healthy and vibrant, to be 120 at least. So I, I don't wanna eat a meat or anything else if it's gonna hurt me. So I, I took the time to really dive into all the research. I locked myself away for a week with, you know, a stack of scientific papers, you know, four feet high, and went through it all, and these are the... I mean, there's 100,000 papers online on meat on the National Library of Medicine. But if you, if you define the major ones, you can find, you know, what is it saying, what is it not saying? And really, there were three issues. One was, um, moral and ethical, um, and, and the other is in, it's climate, environment, and the last is health. And so they're all kind of smushed together, right? So if you wanna be saving the planet, if you wanna be healthy, and you want to do the right thing morally and ethically, you should be a vegan. And e- and everybody should be a vegan because that kinda deals with all that. But unfortunately, it's not so simple. [chuckles] Um, and, and, and, you know, kinda getting back to, like, what is meat, uh, and, and phytochemicals, it, it, it also sort of speaks to the theme of the book, which is meat is not meat is not meat, right? If you're eating a feedlot cow, it's different than eating wild elk in terms of your health, the wellbeing of the animal, you know, the, the effect on the environment and climate. So people need to understand that quality matters in every aspect of what you're eating, and that's the whole premise of the pegan diet, is how do you pick quality in each area? So in terms of meat, you know, most of the meat that's eaten and consumed, and even that we have done research on, is feedlot industrial meat, which is fed all kinds of weird garbage, uh, [chuckles] and is, is really full of, of, uh, hormones, antibiotics, uh, it's mostly corn. But wild, wild or grass-finished animals, uh, can forage on hundreds of different plants, each with medicinal properties, and those chemicals from the plants, these phytochemicals, we call them phytonutrients or phytochemicals, phyto means plant, they get absorbed and they, they start to become part of these animals' tissue. And you eat them, you actually can get, for example, for example, goat milk, if the goats are foraging on different shrubs, uh, you can have the same level of catechins, which is the powerful anti-cancer, antioxidant, detoxifying compound in green tea, as green tea. [chuckles] So, so it's like drinking green tea when you're drinking goat's milk that's fed on certain bushes. That's just an example. But we're learning more and more about, about these powerful medicinal properties and then how it affects your biology. And if you look at kangaroo meat versus feedlot meat, in a study in Australia, they found that when they eat the feedlot meat, same portion, they got inflammation. When they eat the kangaroo meat, their biology was totally different. They actually reduced the inflammation. So that's kinda striking to me when you see, you know, eating identical amounts of food, kangaroo, feedlot, profoundly different effects on biology.
2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  On that mark, in the, in the spirit of the book, which is, um, you know, pegan bringing in, you know, paleo and vegan and where the s- where the sort of similarities are-
3. SPSpeaker
  Yeah
4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... and where do we all agree, I think one thing we can all agree on, no matter what side you sit on, on, and the dietary wars potentially, is that factory farming is a bad thing. Would you agree with that?
5. SPSpeaker
  I mean, listen, you know, the, [chuckles] the, the moral ethical issues really have to do a lot around that. But, you know, factory farming is, is an abomination. It's bad for the cows and the animals that are raised in these confined animal feeding operations. It's bad for the environment. I mean, uh, just Tyson chicken alone is the second biggest polluter in the United States after US Steel, I think. [laughs] It's like-
6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Wow
7. SPSpeaker
  ... and the health of the animals is the moral ethical issues. Uh, and, uh, y- and the health of the meat that it produces or lack thereof. So I think, you know, it's, it's sort of a triple whammy for, for the planet, for the animals, and for humans, and it should be banned, and there's no question about that. And I do, I do think that there's, uh, evidence that, uh, it's moving in this right direction, that there's a bill produced by, I think, um, a couple of senators who, who put forth the idea that we should get rid of regen- get rid of factory farming by 2040, which is now 20 years from now. So I, I think we're, we're heading there. Um, but I think, yeah, it's an abomination and we should never eat factory farming. [chuckles] So I think the other consideration around me- eating animals is what is the effect on the ecology and climate? And I think we know that factory farming is a huge contributor, that traditional farming and, i- is, is probably the number one contributor to climate change when you add in deforestation, soil erosion, factory farming the animals, food waste, transportation, refrigeration, all of it end to end, probably half of all climate change. And, and so the question is, you know, um, is it, is it all animals that will do that? And I think that there's a whole movement of regenerative agriculture, which sort of focused on a really simple idea, which is not the cow, it's the how, right? So [chuckles] it's not, it's not the fact that you're actually raising animals, it's how you're doing it. And the truth is that, that most of the land we, we now farm is used to grow food for animals, um, about 70%, and, and it is soy and corn, all this sort of stuff that we feed them that's highly, uh, different than their normal diet, which is grass. And it creates all sorts of secondary problems, changes the quality of the meat, and so forth. But the, but the way we grow these foods actually destroys the soil, uses up tons of water from irrigation. It causes an collapse of ecosystems and biodiversity because of use of pesticides and herbicides. It, the nitrogen fertilizer runs off into the rivers and streams and oceans and kills hundreds of thousands of tons of fish every year. So we, we really have this sort of destructive agricultural system that, that is u- often used to produce food for animals. And then that, that's just a bad idea, 'cause the way we grow it is the number one cause of climate change and how we do that. So I think we need to sort of change what's happening with the animals and put them back where they belong, which is on rangeland. And 40% of our land of agriculture is, "Oh, we should just grow vegetables." Well, you can't. 40% is, is not, uh, suitable for growing crops. It's only suitable for grazing. So what do you do with that? Well, you have to put animals on it. Turns out that they will build soil, they'll conserve water, they'll, they'll reduce it or eliminate the need for pesticides, herbicides, [clears throat] and they willdraw down carbon out of the atmosphere because the soil gets built, uh, and it produces better quality and, and even more scalable than, than traditional agriculture right now for, for animals. So we have this potential, and everybody's talking about it. There's movies like Kiss the Ground, there's books on it, there's, there's conversations that are happening in Washington, DC now about it. So I th- I think we're, we're on the precipice of sort of a, a real sea change around thinking about how we grow food in a way that's regenerative. And, and, and meat has gotta be a key part of that. You can't have an ecosystem on a farm that actually builds soil without actually having, uh, uh, animals poop and pee and, you know, put their saliva on the grass, which makes it grow. It's, like, actually a growth factor for the grass. So we wanna keep building roots and building soil, and, and that's really through the, the kind of reuse of animals rotating through a farm ecosystem. So I th- I think we have to sort of think about all these pieces. Now, the last piece is health. So, um, if people are [laughs] thinking, "Oh, well, meat's gonna kill me, I don't wanna eat it, it causes heart disease and cancer," pretty much you can go and find any study that, you know, supports any belief that you have, and you can ignore all the rest. But when you look at the totality of the evidence and you look at the kind of ways of what studies were done, you know, I d- I, I'm not convinced that meat is bad for you. In fact, you know, there are many large reviews recently that, that sort of refuted that idea and, and looked at all the data. And when it turns out when, when a lot of the studies were done on meat, they were population studies, they looked at groups of people over time. They really can't prove cause and effect. They say, "Well, what did you eat for the last 30 years? Oh, you ate more meat than this guy? Okay, you had more heart attacks, it's probably the meat." But you can't prove that. It doesn't create proof, and, and it may be something else, right? When you look at the habits of the meat eaters in those studies, 'cause this was done when we were told meat was bad. So if you ate meat, you, you were basically somebody who probably didn't care about their health, [laughs] right?
8. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
9. SPSpeaker
  So yes, it was true. You smoke more, drank more, ate less fruits and veggies, more processed food, more sugar, w- you know, didn't exercise, so c- didn't take your vitamins. So of course you had more, more disease. Was it the meat or was it all the other stuff? So... And then when they looked, like as I mentioned, when they looked at people who shopped at health food stores, um, who both were, were eating healthy food, some ate meat in the context of a whole foods diet, others just didn't. And there was the same reduction in death in both groups by half. And when you look at cultures like the Maasai, you know, who live on milk and meat, they live very long, they're very healthy. But they also do something really interesting, was they actually... It's not even necessarily how you, how you raise the animals, it's maybe how you prepare the meat. If you're, for example, if you're cooking it on a high char grilling, that's probably not good. The slow cooking with tons of spices, those spices have phytochemicals that alter any kind of harmful reactions that can happen from cooking meat. So there's, there's a lot of, uh, incredible science around how we actually can include meat as a healthful part of our diet. In fact, probably for most of us, we probably need to, especially as we age, 'cause it's very difficult to build muscle without adequate protein. [upbeat music]
1:09:49 – 1:21:07
Breath and cold exposure: Wim Hof on controlling stress and immune responses
1. SPSpeaker
  Cause and effect of disease is inflammation. Infection, inflammation, it's all caused by, uh, uh, inflammation. Inflammatory markers. And we have shown people being injected after a couple of days, and this was after 16,000 people taking the same experimental model with an injection of a E. coli bacteria, becoming sick for three to six hours. Now, suddenly I trained a group of people within a couple of days. They took the injection, and after 16,000 people who became sick, suddenly 12 people exposed in the, into the same experimental model were able to nullify the reaction caused by the E. coli bacteria on the immune system. They did not became sick. And then they found out that these guys, through blood samples, so there is no speculation about it, had a control over the autonomic nervous system, over the immune system, uh, far more than was stated in science. And I'm trying to tell that, uh, through science and through publications in the best of papers in the world, and try to get it to the people. And I think these podcasts like we do right now is the way to get there to the people-
2. SPSpeaker
  Yeah
3. SPSpeaker
  ... to the listeners.
4. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
5. SPSpeaker
  Disease and mood, feeling happy, it's your choice.
6. SPSpeaker
  Wim, you've taken a group who've had this injection, but I think a few years ago I read about when you did it for the first time. I think from recollection, you were injected with lipopolysaccharide, or LPS-
7. SPSpeaker
  Yes
8. SPSpeaker
  ... which is this, this endotoxin.
9. SPSpeaker
  Yes.
10. SPSpeaker
  And I know as a doctor they've... You know, I've seen the studies, I've seen the trials. If somebody gets injected with that, they typically will go into septic shock. They'll drop their blood pressure, they'll become very unwell. But you managed to not get sick by controlling your immune system. So I'd love to hear about that because you were injected with it. What happened? Did you feel something? Did you feel yourself starting to get sick? Did you breathe in preparation of that? Or once you felt it, were you able to then control that? I'd love to, I'd love to-
11. SPSpeaker
  Yes
12. SPSpeaker
  ... understand that. It's so interesting to me that you had this endotoxin in your vein, but you didn't get sick.
13. SPSpeaker
  Yes, exactly. So when, uh, the professor injected me, he said-
14. SPSpeaker
  Yeah
15. SPSpeaker
  ... "Oh, but it takes an hour before it's really working." I said, "No, it is being injected now. Now I'm going to start. I'm just going to try... I, I do my best." That's what I said. I was for sure determined to succeed in my attempt to show that the immune system, the innate immune system, and the specific immune system both can be activated at will, influenced at will.So the innate, uh, immune system, for example, get it down, and the specific immune system, get it on. So specific solutions at the core, at the start of things happen. So what I did, I started my breathing exercises. When he injected me, I began to start. [inhales] [exhales] You see how simple it is? [inhales] Determined, my mind was not out there. My mind was in the breath, in the biochemistry. Neurology influences the biochemistry. That's, that's, uh, a lo- uh, it's logic. So I was into the breathing, and then when normally the polysaccharide had to have its influence, you know? Where like, uh, uncontrolled shivering, headaches, uh, fever, uh, all-over agony, backaches, muscle aches, uh, things, uh, e- even vomiting. Uh, uh, all that can happen. Uh, for sure that it happens a lot. Uh, nothing happened. Nothing hap- uh, they came to me, they said, "Yeah, it's now at its peak." I said, but before they told me, I asked them, "Uh, when is it co- going to happen?" And then he said, "Uh, yeah, actually it is now at its peak." I said, "Yeah, I, I, I do not really feel something." So-
16. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  So can, can I, can I ask, so, so basically, let's say a week before you were practicing your own breathing techniques at home, right? Was this just like you being in the hospital and you're just practicing as per usual? Yes, you're getting injected-
17. SPSpeaker
  Yes
18. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... but you didn't feel anything. You, you, you could be-
19. SPSpeaker
  Exactly
20. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... you could be in your own bedroom doing the same thing-
21. SPSpeaker
  Exactly
22. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... right?
23. SPSpeaker
  So there, there I go and say everybody is able to do this. And yes, directly afterwards they said because they saw, uh, such a low, uh, cytokine release, the cytokine storm was less than a breeze. I, it, I felt good. I felt, and I, a- at a certain moment I let the breathing go, and a little bit came to me. A little bit, but, uh, but I, I did not do... I, I had won. I had done. I had shown what br-
24. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah
25. SPSpeaker
  ... uh, uh, breathing techniques are able to do together with your determination, your, your being here in the now. Here and now you have neurology. When I say you're, you're, I don't know if you have two children, yes or no? But-
26. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  I do. Two children, yeah.
27. SPSpeaker
  Yes. So, uh, uh, i- if I say, I, if I would say, "Your children is, are in danger," you know, uh, for real, so then you would be full of epinephrine, adrenaline, and run like a animal to, to where Cha- where are they? Where are they? Where are they? And find out, and all that barely in control. Now, that is what happened at that moment. The epinephrine got so high, it went higher in the blood and they compared it to another study where in people wa- uh, jumped for the first time into a, uh, bu- bungee jump. They took the blood of those people, and the level of adrenaline by, uh, uh, within the people lying there on the bed was higher than the people going for the first time into a bungee jump. You see?
28. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah.
29. SPSpeaker
  That is what we do with these breathing techniques. We enter consciously into the depth of our brain, the brain stem. Into the brain stem, and, uh, thus the adrenal axis is being, uh, activated. It resets the body, and then suddenly the immune system is much more alert, and it is able to handle bacill- and virus and, and, a- and bacteria in any kind, because that's the nature of ours. Only we alienated from our own brain. We- they say we have 16% control within our own brain. It's like you have a house, and only 16% of your own house are able to be accessed by you. The rest is of the government or by the people in power. I don't know who, but it is 100%, my friend. Uh, Ch- Rangan, my friend, Rangan, it is 100%. 100%, and that means we are able to tap into our emotional, uh, areas of the brain, into our, uh, opioids, into our cannabinoids, uh, endorphins, serotonins, adrenal axis. Anything that is within our brain is ours to be commanded by, by us. I, I think nature has it built in. A happy person doesn't make war. A happy person is not into thieving or taking what is not his. A happy person is, like, radiating positive energy all the time, and he is happy, and that's where he wants to stay. Only we did not know how to get there, and now we found these ways.
30. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah.
1:21:07 – 1:35:05
Cold showers as hormetic training: vascular health, mood, and ‘the cold is a mirror’
1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  And, and what I, what I really love about breathwork per se is it's free, right? It's not something that people have to spend a lot of money on. It's something that the richest in society and the poorest in society have access to, and I think that's really, really exciting. Now, Wim, if we go to some specifics, there seems to be two broad arms to your method, breathing and cold, and I wonder if we can start with cold. I, this morning, because I was interviewing you today, I thought, "Hey, if I'm not gonna have a cold shower today, on the day that I'm interviewing Wim-
2. SPSpeaker
  [laughs]
3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... when am I gonna do it," right?
4. SPSpeaker
  [laughs]
5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Um, and you mentioned my kids before. Actually beforehand when I told them today I was interviewing you, my son was like, "Daddy, you, you're actually interviewing The Iceman today?" I said, "Yeah, I am darling, I am," and he was really excited. He said, "Do you know he's in the Guinness Book of Records?"
6. SPSpeaker
  You see, the new generation, I see a lot of the new generation already knowing me, and they love it. They love it. They need direction.
7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah.
8. SPSpeaker
  So, uh, uh, about the cold, uh, what I always say, a cold shower a day keeps the doctor away. Now I know why you were in there for 45 minutes. [laughs]
9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  [laughs] Exactly. I was-
10. SPSpeaker
  [laughs]
11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... I was, I was holding my breath.
12. SPSpeaker
  [laughs] Yeah.
13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  [laughs] No, but-
14. SPSpeaker
  Holy moly. Oh, what's going to happen? [laughs]
15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  But cold, right?
16. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  So people... So look, I think-
18. SPSpeaker
  Yeah
19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... there's gonna be people listening to this who have-
20. SPSpeaker
  Yes
21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... heard about, uh, the amazing things you've done. They'll be interested, and I wanna make sure we make it super practical so they think after this, "Actually, you know what? I could do something." So if we talk about the cold, right? You are a big fan of cold immersion, and you always recommend... Certainly I've, I've read an early copy of your book, which is really, really good. It's really interesting.
22. SPSpeaker
  Thank you.
23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Um, and you say that everyone sh- would benefit from taking a cold shower every day. Why is the cold so powerful?
24. SPSpeaker
  K- the cold, uh, without a doubt, very directly, very effectively, very strongly, uh, is able to tackle out, uh, the biggest health problem in the world, which is the cardiovascular related diseases. And, uh, we have a, a, a, a, this, the, the organ, uh, which is called, uh, our skin, and we never expose it to natural elements. And it is built to be able to sti- to be, uh, uh, uh, to be stimulated. The electroreceptors, thermoreceptors, they are all in the surface of our skin that, uh, directly goes, when we take a cold shower, like an electrical jolt through our spine to our, uh, the deepest part of our brain, the brain stem. It's being alive. Oh, yeah, the shocking experience that you are surviving. That is a great way to not only give a jolt to, uh, say an electroshock, uh, to your brain. For d- people who are into depression, this is great. You just take the cold shower and you d- uh, d- uh, depression is going to be depressed. So that, that is one. The other thing is, uh, we got, all of us, we have 100,000 kilometers, like, uh, 70,000 miles of vascular little channels. Capillaries, arteries and veins. 100, more, like 100,000 kilometers. That is a lot. That is like two and a half times the world is in each and every one of us. They contain millions of little muscles, and they help the blood flow going through, but not if it is in a condition after we have lived, l- been living with clothes all the time, which is a destimulative behavior and which makes the muscle tone go low. And who has got to compensate for that? That is our heart.Our heart is pumping more than it should. It's pumping more because it tries to get the blood flow full of oxygen, the nutrients, and the vitamins to the cells, and it is not able to do that. You weaken yourself because you are in stress, and that stress, that, uh, uh, creates oxidative, uh, stress, uh, uh, through, uh, the continuous presence of cortisol. And that is when the heart rate goes up. That is normally done when there is danger to pump the glucose through the body. And the adrenaline, that is when there is danger. Now it is danger because we have a weak condition within our vascular system. Maybe not when you are young still, but when you are 30, 35, 40, it begins really to wear out. A cold shower stimulates all the vascular, uh, muscle tone and, thus, the blood flow will go better to the cells. Heart rate goes down with 20 to 30 beats a minute, 24 hours a day, and the energy is being fed the energy processes. The metabolic, uh, uh, mitochondrial processes are being fed with all the oxygen, nutrients, vitamins, all what is needed. You get plenty of energy. So when you take a cold shower a day, it does not only keep the doctor away, as the saying. Also, the doctor is doing it. And [clears throat] it... because it is great. It's like a vac- vaccination, a natural vaccination, where you make your body the way nature meant it to be, with a great blood flow which doesn't know inhibition, fears, blockages, sclerosis, or anything like that because it's flowing. There is no cortisol, no oxidative stress going on. This is the way nature meant it to be. Everybody in the world should take the damn beautiful cold shower a day. It is not difficult, and the investment is by far the outcome.
25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah.
26. SPSpeaker
  You get so much more energy and so much more peace because the stress will go out of your body.
27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  We can think of muscles, right? Everyone understands muscles, and they know if you go to the gym and work your muscles, they will grow stronger. So as you were describing that about cold showers, I'm thinking we live these comfortable lives. We have temperature-controlled houses. If we go out, we don't want to feel hot, we don't want to feel cold. We put on our jackets and our fleeces. So our blood vessels are never, in some way you could say, are never been exposed to those sort of extremes, where our body then responds and adapts. And I guess having that cold shower is an intentional way of providing, I guess like a, a helpful dose of stress to the, to the vascular system, which will cause it to, to grow back stronger. Is that, is that a fair analogy?
28. SPSpeaker
  Uh, absolutely. Absolutely. Uh, the blood flow is going to be better. The muscle tone is going to be better. The heart rate goes absolutely down. Uh, uh, absence of, uh, cortisol presence, thus oxidative, uh, stress. And, uh, yeah, sleep is better. Anything is better. The hormonal system is be... uh, the endocrine system is being fed a lot better. It's all about the blood flow. The blood flow is everywhere in our body, only we cover up our bodies and, thus, actually we suffocate our body. We, uh... it's breathing. The, the, the body needs to breathe, and the cold shower does it. It compensates for our covering up the rest of the day, and we get great, uh, amounts of energy back.
29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  If someone's listening to this and thinking, "Okay, Wim, I see what you're saying. But I, I can't take it. I, I, I, you know, I get cold a lot, you know. I, I... it's too cold for me", what would you say to that person?
30. SPSpeaker
  For the people who have, uh, uh, low energy because, uh, uh, when it's cold they feel sensitive, it's because the maintenance of their body, uh, is at work, uh, at that moment, and it takes all the energy at that moment to maintain a normal, uh, uh, uh, a core body temperature. And for the rest, they feel like shivering because there's no energy left. Take the cold shower. I know this for thousands of people with problems with the cold, having low energy levels and, uh, being sick lot of times because of the lowering energy. It's, uh, i- it's a low alertness of the i- immune system. After taking the cold showers, suddenly they burst with a lot more, uh, uh, energy. They don't become sick anymore, and it's all logical-
1:35:05 – 1:57:00
Microbiome–immune education and immunometabolism: why timing and fiber matter
1. SPSpeaker
  Gut bugs, the microbiota, at the interface of your digestion and the rest of your body are one of the key educators of the immune system. And again, this is something that's probably exploded in the field of, of immunology-
2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah
3. SPSpeaker
  ... in the last 10, 15 years. If you do not... So if you take a, an experimental, uh, animal model where the animals have a, a reduced or a minimal, um, collection of good bacteria in their gut, their immune system doesn't develop, and they're very impaired in how they can respond and heal. Um, and even things like, you know, protection from cancer, because our immune system's the main cancer surveillance system. So these bugs are helping to educate and teach and mature our immune system, and this happens potentially in utero, before we're born, but, uh, predominantly when we enter the world because we go from a relatively sterile... There is some evidence that there may be some-
4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah
5. SPSpeaker
  ... bugs in the placenta. Uh, but we go into this hugely germy world, and suddenly our immune system has to cope with that because, you know, it, it's, uh, um, it's got all these receptors on it to, to detect pathogens as being problematic. So it has to learn to tolerate those because, you know, most of the bugs around us are safe and harmless, and we need them 'cause they're helping us.
6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  A- and that's actually how the immune system develops, isn't it?
7. SPSpeaker
  Mm-hmm.
8. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  It is by exposure-
9. SPSpeaker
  Mm-hmm
10. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... to the environment around it-
11. SPSpeaker
  Exactly
12. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... to the bugs around it to sort of give it that sort of ongoing education-
13. SPSpeaker
  Yeah
14. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... so it starts to learn, "Oh, I respond to this."
15. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
16. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  "I don't need to respond to that."
17. SPSpeaker
  Exactly.
18. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Um-
19. SPSpeaker
  I often say that, you know, the immune system's made. It's not born. There's maybe a percentage in the genetics that we inherit, but then it's made. It's built throughout our life, and it changes throughout our life. So-
20. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  That's a lovely idea.
21. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
22. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  It's made, not born. We can, we can build, and we can sort of develop it-
23. SPSpeaker
  Mm-hmm
24. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... the way we want to if we give it the right-
25. SPSpeaker
  If we... Yeah
26. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... inputs
27. SPSpeaker
  ... inputs. Yeah. And I, I often think about the inputs as a way to shape the immune system, and I was trying... I was working on a talk the other day, and I was trying to make a slide of all the inputs, some that we can control, some that we can't, that, that are shaping our immune system from birth, and then it, it s- this became a really busy, messy slide [laughs] because there was too much to put on there. But yeah, a, a lot of it happens in childhood, and in some ways I find that quite daunting as a mother, and you think, "Well-"You know, there's this sort of first three years, I would say, is when y- you're being colonized by all these good bacteria, and there's huge changes going on in the immune system during that time.
28. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah.
29. SPSpeaker
  Um, and there's this sort of interaction happening. These bacteria, they help protect the gut barrier to keep it very nice and, and tight, and stop any bacteria going into the body, because they're only good bacteria if they're in the right location. So they're not meant to cross over the gut and enter our body-
30. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah
1:57:00 – 2:05:29
Metabolic health, COVID outcomes, and behavior change through community
1. SPSpeaker
  The reason in America we're overwhelmed by COVID is 'cause we're metabolically so unhealthy. 88% of Americans have poor metabolic health, which means that they're, like, in the spectrum of prediabetes, which means they have belly fat, which means they have inflammation. And so when the COVID lands on them, it's almost nine out of 10 Americans, they're m- like a sitting duck. And so it's like putting gasoline on a fire, and all of a sudden you get this cytokine storm that ends up killing people. And, and, and wherever you are on that spectrum, we know that the poor metabolic health is a driver, uh, for, for, for really bad outcomes. With that said, people don't understand that within a very short time, a couple of weeks maybe, you can really radically reverse your meta- poor metabolic health, and I'll just give you a quick example. You know, we had a type, type, uh, two diabetic on insulin for 10 years, heart failure, angina, liver, kidneys failing. I mean, just she was a mess. She was, uh... had a body mass index of 43, which, you know, normal is under 25. Over 30 is obese. She was in the severely obese category. Uh, 65 years old and, um, taking insulin every day and tons of medications. Uh, within three days of changing her diet, like three days, she was off her insulin completely. Within three months, she was off all her medications, and her metabolic parameters were all normal in blood sugar, cholesterol, blood pressure, everything, kidneys, liver, [laughs] lung. And so it doesn't... It might take 30 years to get there. It can be very quick to get back. And even if you don't lose all the weight, I mean, if you're, for example, a gastric bypass patient, uh, and you have diabetes, you get your gastric bypass, within a week or so, your, your diabetes is gone. Uh, you're, you're still very overweight 'cause it takes a little longer to lose weight, but, uh, your diabetes is gone. So your metabolic health, level of inflammation, all can change very quickly in response to your diet. So I wouldn't feel discouraged if you have issues. I would double down on eating what we've talked about today on the show, the pegan diet or just a similar whole foods philosophy approach and, and, and, and it'll have a profound effect on your immune system.
2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  I just wanted to touch on y- one of the principles is around habit change, one of the chapters, which is-
3. SPSpeaker
  Mm-hmm
4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... uh, super interesting, and there's a few things-
5. SPSpeaker
  Mm-hmm
6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... in there I really liked, but one of the things that you wrote was friend power is more important than willpower. And you shared how, at the Cleveland Clinic, how you guys use groups and how powerful that can be. And so, you know, for people listening who have tried to change before, struggle to do it by themselves, I think this could be quite-
7. SPSpeaker
  Mm
8. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... a helpful tip for them, right?
9. SPSpeaker
  Absolutely. I mean, I think, you know, um, for years I, I studied the minutia of functional medicine. I was sort of a nerd about the biochemistry, the genomics, the physiology, the microbiome, and I just wanted to know every little aspect of our cellular functioning and bio- all this sort of nerdy stuff. And I was really good at getting people healthy if they did what I tell them to [laughs] . But often, you know, we know in medicine that half of people don't fill the prescriptions they get, and, uh, half that do don't take them. So, you know, the doctor writes a prescription for a statin, 25% of the people take it, and 75% don't. So that's not a good odds, and I think in, in medicine and nutrition and what we're doing, it's maybe even harder. So, uh, you know, I, I had this epiphany a number of years ago, well over 10 years ago, um, when I went to Haiti and met Paul Farmer, who, um, was able to deal with TB and AIDS, uh, in one of the worst places in terms of healthcare and poverty in the world, Haiti, not by better drugs or surgery or technology, but just by the power of community. He called it accompaniment, and he trained, uh, thousands of community health workers to help each other, accompany each other to health, and make sure they took their medications. 'Cause we know how to cure TB and AIDS or potentially treat them using the right cocktails of medications, but these people didn't have a watch. They didn't have running water. They didn't have often a place to be. I mean, so it was dealing with a lot of these, these, these fundamental we call structural violence issues, the social, economic, and political conditions that drive disease. We see that in this country, you know, with food swamps and food deserts. I'm sure it's like that in the UK too. And I think we, we have a tremendous, um, uh, sort of deficit of understanding how, how we really create an environment that, that supports people to h- health. And so the big epiphany for me was, okay, I know how to change biology, but I'm gonna fail unless I understand how to change behavior. And so, so I realized w- at the same time when Paul was treating infectious disease using this pa- this model, I was like, wait a minute. Um, I, I said, wait a minute. You know, chronic disease is also contagious, right? Obesity is also contagious. You're far more likely to be overweight if your friend, friend's overweight than if your family's overweight. We know that, that your social threads affect you or maybe more imp- your genetic threads in determining your health outcomes. We, we just know this from the science. So if that's true, you know, if your, if your bad behavior, uh, it goes along with, with, uh, you know, bad habits. In other words, if all your friends are, you know, eating at McDonald's and smoking and drinking beer and having Coca-Cola, you're probably gonna be doing the same thing. But if all your friends are, you know, drinking green juices and going to yoga, well, you might be doing that. [laughs] So, so there's a tremendous amount of peer pressure that, that we all are subjected to because we're social animals. Uh, it's how we, that's how we live. We have to be social or else we would die as humans. We would just... We're not, we're not like a, a wild, you know, lion that can roam around by himself or whatever and just eat whatever he wants. [laughs] Like, we're, we're dependent on each other. And so what we know is that, that it's much more effective to use friend power, uh, than, than to use, uh, willpower, uh, and when you wanna change behavior, uh, and particularly for chronic disease. So, so I k- I kinda had this experiment that we did with this church in Southern California where we got 15,000 people to sign up for a six-week... healthy living program, a sort of faith-based wellness program, and it was striking what happened. People just did so well. They lost over the course of a year, they lost a quarter of a million pounds, probably like, I don't know how many stone that is, but it's a lot of weight. And I think we, we, we saw that the power of, of these community-based solutions was so massive. Uh, and it wasn't even an expert. They, they had these groups that they had in the church that were met every week to support each other. So they would meet in six to eight, uh, uh, people, and it would have these, these little learning sessions, and we just sub- sort of substituted in the curriculum for the healthy living. And they support each other, they encourage each other, they held each other accountable. They had Jogging for Jesus, you know, [laughs] and like all kinds of stuff that they did, uh, to actually do stuff together. Um, and that was really, was an insight for me that I was like, "Wait a minute, this is how we have to change medicine." And so at Cleveland Clinic, we're doing the same thing, and we're about to publish our data in the British Medical Journal actually, uh, soon, uh, where we, we show that, that the, the group visits, the community support, uh, was more effective than one-on-one visits with a functional medicine doctor, which were more effective than with a traditional doctor. So we've got some interesting data about the power of this model to really, to accelerate change in terms of the speed of recovery and getting better, but also the adherence and the, the level of change. So I, I'm excited about using this model, and we're trying to scale this up around the country and, and, and use this power of community. I call it Love is Medicine. So food is medicine. Uh, love is also medicine.
10. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah, I love it, Mark. Mark, you, you've just... You know, you're someone who has been dedicated to the cause of empowering and inspiring people, both patients and physicians, all over the world for so many years. I, I can't imagine what it's been like for you. You know, I'm sure you've faced all kinds of opposition at various times but, you know, you're driven in that mission and, you know, it's, it's fantastic to see. It's very inspiring. I know for many, um, you know, for many of my colleagues or myself, we see what you have been doing and how you have paved the way for many of us to start-
11. SPSpeaker
  Mm-hmm
12. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... spreading our messages. I wanna publicly acknowledge you for that and say thank you.
13. SPSpeaker
  Thank you.
14. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Um, and just to finish off, Mark, you know, it's, as I say, it's, The Peak and Know is a brilliant book. I think it really helps to simplify nutrition for people. Uh, some really, some core principles there. Um, I always love to leave my listeners with some actionable tips. So we, we covered a lot of ground today, um, phytonutrients, we covered the climate, regenerative farming, kids, all kinds of things. But just to bring it all down for people at the end, this is called Feel Better Live More. When we feel better in ourselves, we get more out of life. What are some of your top tips for people listening to the show right now?
2:05:29 – 2:08:49
Closing practical rules: eat real food, prioritize plants, and keep it enjoyable
1. SPSpeaker
  Well, I try to synthesize this at the end of the book and, you know, sort of getting started and it's, it's just some simple things that are easy to remember. First, when you're going to eat something, ask yourself a simple question: Did God make this or did man make it? If you don't believe in God, is it a nature made? So did God make an avocado? Yeah. Did he make a Twinkie? No. [laughs] If, if, if, if God made it, you can eat it. If nature made it, you could eat it. But if man made it, you probably don't [laughs] wanna eat it, right? Second is, is a similar idea, is, you know, try not to eat food with labels. So if it has a label, make sure you read very carefully what the ingredients are. If it's broccoli, it just says broccoli. If it's a piece of chicken, it's chicken. If it's an egg, it's an egg. If it's an almond, it's an almond. It doesn't have a, a label or nutrition facts. And so most of the food I like to eat is without labels. Now sometimes, you know, if you wanna buy a package of nuts, it might say a label on it, and then it has your little [laughs] nutrition facts on it. It might say salt or something, or if you buy a can of sardines, it might say olive oil and sardines and salt. That's okay. But just try to avoid foods with labels. S- The next, the next kind of principle is i- if you don't have it in your kitchen cupboard or you can't pronounce it, you probably won't wanna eat it, right? So if, do you have a, a jar of butylated hydroxytoluene in your cupboard that you sprinkle on your stir fries? Probably not. But it's otherwise known as BHT, banned in most of Europe, but available here in the United States, and it's a, it's a carcinogenic, uh, preservative. [laughs] So you don't wanna eat that stuff. Also, when you go shopping, don't go down the middle of the aisles. Uh, stick around the outside where there's just real food, vegetables, and the produce, and the dairy and the meat section. Uh, if you're eating, just focus on plants. Like, I, I always focus on two or three servings of, of plant dishes at each meal, whether it's just served asparagus or mushrooms or salad. So last night I had beets, we had mushrooms, I had salad, um, and we had sweet potato. So we had like four, four vegetable dishes and, you know, a small piece of, of, of meat on the side, so that's why meat is a condiment or a condi-meat. Um, and fat is so important. So remember to eat good fats, olive oil, avocados are my favorite. Um, but there's other good fats, too. Uh, make sure you eat a lot of phytonutrients. You wanna pick your medicines and your food, so, like, learn about some of the colors and what they have, and try to eat like the rainbow as a way of getting phytochemicals. It's an easy thing to do. Uh, and, you know, enjoy nuts and seeds, and, and, and certain beans are fine. Uh, so I just... And enjoy your food. I mean, it's just gotta be fun and delicious and pleasureful. So I wouldn't really, um, get crazy about following a particular thing. I don't, I don't count ca- calories. I don't count carb grams, fat grams, protein grams. I don't, I don't think of any of that. I just think about what I eat. If you fi- focus on what you eat and quality, you don't have to worry about how much you eat, literally. I mean, I could eat, you know, a giant bowl of salad till I couldn't move, and nothing would happen, right? So I think, I think you can, you can find out what your natural rhythm is in your biology by just getting on real food and then, and then actually just focusing on quality. And if you focus on quality, all the rest takes care of itself, diseases, weight, metabolism, all that.
2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah. Love it, Mark. [upbeat music] If you enjoyed that conversation, I think you are going to love the one that I had with Professor Tim Spector all about foods. It's right there, so give it a click and let me know what you think.
3. SPSpeaker
  If you snack a couple of hours before a meal, your metabolic response to that meal is poorer than if you didn't snack.
4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Okay. Just say that again, 'cause I think that's really important

Episode duration: 2:08:49

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Modern lifestyle as the root cause of most chronic illness

Why life expectancy is falling: medicine built for acute problems, not chronic disease

Epigenetics: genetic predisposition isn’t destiny

Beyond diet: simplifying health into four lifestyle pillars

The threshold effect: how cumulative stressors push us into illness

Case study: Type 2 diabetes plateau—fix sleep and stress, not just carbs

Rethinking low-carb: blue zones, microbiome, and the Western context

Movement made practical: five-minute kitchen strength workouts

Patterns from home visits: environment design, willpower limits, and eating together

Emotions, inflammation, and social context: forgiveness, status, and meaning

Conditioning calm: rituals, senses, and building stress-resilient routines

Food as medicine at scale: phytochemicals and the ‘Pegan’ framework

The meat controversy: quality, ethics, and regenerative agriculture

Breath and cold exposure: Wim Hof on controlling stress and immune responses

Cold showers as hormetic training: vascular health, mood, and ‘the cold is a mirror’

Microbiome–immune education and immunometabolism: why timing and fiber matter

Metabolic health, COVID outcomes, and behavior change through community

Closing practical rules: eat real food, prioritize plants, and keep it enjoyable

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