144: All Health Issues Begin in the Leaky Gut - with Dr. Steven Gundry

Fatigue is Not Your Fate

Fatigue is one of the most common complaints heard in doctor's offices across North America, from Atlanta to Vancouver.

This trend is scary because many doctors report an epidemic of fatigue affecting a disturbing number of millennials. Chronic tiredness is not something that only troubles older people. Folks in their thirties and even twenties struggle with low energy, and they don't know what to do as their careers - and life - suffer.

In this episode, Dr. Steven Gundry shares his scientific discoveries that help people get out of their low-energy funk.

For many years, Dr. Gundry was one of the best heart surgeons in America until his research convinced him to make a dramatic career change (some greedy health professionals might even call it a dumb career move.) He began focusing his cardiac practice on prevention instead of reacting to patient issues with surgery and drugs.

One example of this shared by Dr. Gundry was his conversion to vitamin therapy. Dr. Gundry would directly insert vitamins into a patient's artery to help clear the artery if it was clogged. This was, of course, an invasive procedure. Once he dove into researching the benefits of vitamin and mineral supplementation, Dr. Gundry realized his patients could be swallowing those same vitamins long before their arteries clogged up.

Along the way, Dr. Gundry's journey led him to the exciting field of the human microbiome. Today, he helps patients use diet and nutrition as a critical component for treating fatigue and all autoimmune disorders like arthritis, psoriasis, lupus, Crohn's, ulcerative colitis, and others.

It's not every day that we get to listen to a top cardiothoracic surgeon who is also a pioneer in nutrition. Dr. Gundry is the medical director at The International Heart and Lung Institute Center for Restorative Medicine.

He is also the author of multiple New York Times bestsellers, including The Plant Paradox, The Longevity Paradox: How to Die Young at a Ripe Old Age, and his new book The Energy Paradox: What to Do When Your Get-Up-and-Go Has Got Up and Gone.

Be sure to tune in if you deal with fatigue, exhaustion, brain fog, depression, anxiety, and low metabolism.

In this podcast, we cover:

• How one patient opened Dr. Gundry's eyes to the connection between diet and good health
• Why so many people today experience chronic fatigue
• Dr. Gundry's thoughts on our ability to extend our lifespan
• Signs of leaky gut syndrome, why it occurs, and what to do about it
• What is glyphosate, and why should you avoid it at all costs?
• Hypertension and diabetes link to leaky gut
• The health benefits of intermittent fasting
• Why Dr. Gundry is not a fan of fruit (surprising info)
• How a typical day looks for Dr. Gundry with his diet, eating habits, and exercise

"It never occurred to me to swallow the dumb things."

During the early years of his career as a cardio surgeon, Dr. Gundry was not the epitome of health - he was 75 pounds overweight. His running 30 miles per week and eating a low-fat diet wasn't making a difference. Dr. Gundry still had high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and insulin resistance.

One day, a patient arrived in his office that changed Dr. Gundry's medical destiny. The patient traveled the country, going from doctor to doctor, seeking help for clogged arteries. His initial prognosis was his arteriosclerosis was too far gone. The doctor told this man that he could not do an angiogram or bypass surgery. He was "inoperable."

During those six months of seeking a doctor for help, this patient - "Big Ed" - went on a radical diet and started taking a big pile of supplements.

At first, Dr. Gundry told Big Ed the same thing - "I cannot operate on you." However, Big Ed was persistent and convinced Dr. Gundry to give him another cardiac catheterization (a video of his heart.) Dr. Gundry agreed to this and was astonished by what he found - Big Ed had cleaned out 50 percent of the original blockages in his arteries!

In his college thesis, Dr. Gundry realized that Big Ed's diet was the same diet that Gundry wrote about. And some of the vitamins Big Ed was using were the same vitamins that Dr. Gundry would directly insert into the patient's veins to unclog them. "It never occurred to me to swallow the dumb things."

Putting himself on the same diet and vitamin regime as Big Ed, Dr. Gundry proceeded to lose 50 pounds his first year, then another 20 pounds, and he has kept this weight off for over 20 years.

"If someone calls me a snake oil salesman, I consider that a high honor."

After Dr. Gundry lost all that weight and radically changed his medical practice to focus on diet and supplementation, some people called him crazy. Others called Dr. Gundry a snake oil salesman - an old, derogatory term that essentially means "a quack."

Here is what Dr. Gundry says about snake oil accusations. "Some of my critics have called me a snake oil salesman. Now, I take that with the highest honor. Because it turns out that snake oil, unbeknownst to most people, has the highest amounts of omega-3 long-chain fatty acids. Higher than any other oil, including fish oil. Even Scientific American has written an article explaining that snake oil is not snake oil."

"Snake oil did work for treating inflammation. Unfortunately, most snake oil salesmen were not selling real, pure snake oil."

Now you know the history of the term "snake oil salesman" and why its usage today is not historically accurate - and therefore misused.

This episode is compelling - full of breakthrough knowledge from an M.D. who opened his mind to new information mid-career. This dramatically shifted his practice to functional medicine - someone who helps patients address root causes, not just use drugs to manage symptoms and recommend surgery whenever possible.

Dr. Gundry is a different type of heart doctor - perfect for people fed up with allopathic care that leads to nowhere.

Start feeling better by listening to the wisdom of Dr. Gundry!

Episode Resources:

Check out more about Dr. Steven Gundry: bioptimizers.com/DrGundry Dr. Gundry's new book: The Energy Paradox: What to Do When Your Get-Up-and-Go Has Got Up and Gone Find Dr. Gundry's wellness products at GundryMD.com Dr. Steven Gundry on Facebook Dr. Steven Gundry on Instagram Dr. Steven Gundry on YouTube

Read The Episode Transcript:

Wade Lightheart: Three two, one good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. It's Wade T Lightheart from BiOptimizers with another edition of the awesome health podcast. And today we have a living legend that is going to join us, Dr. Steven Gundry. And we're going to talk about the gut microbiome, mitochondrial health linking the immune system malfunctions to the mental and physical symptoms of fatigue, including exhaustion, brain fog, depression, anxiety, and low metabolism. We're going to be talking about some cool things. Why you might feel fatigue or the people around you. We're going to talk about the mitochondrial rush hour. And of course his latest book, the energy paradox. If you haven't heard of Dr. Steven Gundry, before he is one of the world's top cardiothoracic surgeons in a pioneer in nutrition, as well as a medical director of the international heart and lung Institute center for restorative medicine, he has spent the last 16 years studying the microbiome and now helps patients use diet and nutrition as a key form of treatment. Wade Lightheart: He is an author of many New York times bestselling books, including the plant paradox, the plant paradox, cookbooks, the longevity paradox, how to die young at a ripe old age, and we'll release the energy paradox what to do when you get up and go has gone up and gone. Of course, that just happened. And not that just happened that we lost our gut up and we got to the gut up and gone, but he just published that book in March of this year. He is also the founder of Gundry MD align of wellness products and supplements Dr. Gundry, welcome to the show. Dr. Steven Gundry: Hey, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. But see, I Wade Lightheart: Love the fact that as a thoracic heart surgeon, you've got into nutrition. One of my dear and close friends. I don't know if you're know him. His name is Dr. [inaudible], who Was as a cardiac surgeon. I think he was part of the Harvard team that put the first stent in the body. And I was just hanging out with him last week. And what's interesting. He was sharing with me. I think he's now at around 80 years old of how he started a garden and he's been eating all these vegetables all the time. Has it helped them drop 60 pounds? And so he decided he would open another wound healing clinic. And I think it's always great when we have people in the acute therapy and the surgery component, which Western medicine leads the world in also adding a responsibility side around, you know, what we need from diet and care of the body. How did you originally come to that place in your own practice and work? Dr. Steven Gundry: Well, back in actually towards the late nineties, I very famous heart surgeon, chairman of heart surgery at Loma university, school of medicine, kind of down the block from where you are. And I am I was famous for operating on people that nobody else wanted to operate on. Too difficult, blah, blah, blah. And I was sent a gentleman from Miami, Florida, Miami beach, who was 48 years old, a big fat guy. I call him big ed and all my books. And he had inoperable coronary artery disease. You couldn't put stents in them. You couldn't do bypasses. Cause there wasn't any place to land. And people like him would go around the country to various centers, looking for idiots, like myself, to operate on them and everywhere he went I won't name the names cause I have them. They're, they're very obvious. Dr. Steven Gundry: Everybody turned them down and he spent about six months doing this and he wound up in my office and he brought the angiogram, the cardiac catheterization of his heart from Miami six months previous. And I looked at the catheterization and I said, look, you know, everybody's right. I can't help you. They can't help you. There's nothing could be done. And he said, well, you know, hold on a second. I've been on a diet for the last six months. I lost 45 pounds and I went to a health food store and I bought all these supplements and he literally brought in a giant shopping bag of them and I'm going, you know, well, you know, good for you for losing all that weight, but it's not going to do anything in your heart. And I know what you did with all those supplements. You made expensive urine, which I affirmed believe back then. Dr. Steven Gundry: I don't obviously know, but he said, well, come on, you know, I've come all this way. What would it hurt to get another card cardiac catheterization movie of my heart? Okay. So in six months time, this guy cleaned out 50% of the blockages in his coronary arteries. They were, they were gone now. Not only I never heard of that happening it, you know, it's physically impossible. So I, I go what'd, you do tell me about this diet you did. And let me look at these supplements. So I had the benefit back in the dark ages of education at Yale university to design my own major. And I had a special major called human evolutionary and social biology, where I basically had a thesis that you could take a great ape change, its food supply, change its environment, and predict you'd have a human being when you finish. Dr. Steven Gundry: Then I actually defended my thesis and got an honors and then I gave it to my parents and became a famous heart surgeon. And so as big as it's telling me as diet, I'm going, Whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. That's you know, the ancient human diet that I described my thesis now what's pointed is I was 75 pounds overweight. I was running 30 miles a week going to the gym one hour a day, eating a healthy, low fat diet. And I had high cholesterol, high blood pressure, insulin resistance, you name it. I had it. And I put myself on this diet. I called my parents, but you still have it. And they said, Oh yeah. So I lost 50 pounds my first year and another 20 that I've kept off for over 20 years now. But what's interesting is when I looked at his supplements, lo and behold, he was taking supplements that I was using to protect the heart during heart surgery and heart transplantation for which I was actually very famous and it never. So I was putting them down the veins and arteries and it never occurred to me to swallow the dumb things. Dr. Steven Gundry: So I started following a bunch of supplements and I started teaching my patients who I had, who I operated on, how to avoid me in the future. And lo and behold changes in their cholesterol happened, changes in their blood pressure, happened. Their diabetes went away, et cetera. And so after about a year of doing this at Loma Linda I said, Oh my gosh, you know, I've got this all wrong. I shouldn't be operating on people and then teach them how to eat. I should teach them how to eat and then I'll probably never have to operate on them. Now that's a terrible career move as a heart surgeon. I mean, just, just one of the dumbest things, you know, I ever did, but I literally resigned my position. And I said, yeah, Ooh. And I set up a clinic in Palm Springs. Dr. Steven Gundry: And I also now have one in Santa Barbara where I treated every patient as kind of my personal research project and said, look here's certain foods. I want you to eat her certain foods. I don't want you to eat. I want you to go to Costco or trader Joe's and buy some supplements there. Wasn't Amazon way back then. And let's see what happens. And I want to draw blood on you every three months, you know, Medicare insurance will pay for it. And let's see. And I started publishing these papers. Actually just before I got on the phone with you, I was writing an abstract for the American heart association on one of one of my discoveries anyway, so kind of the rest is history. Then my most famous book was the plant paradox. So about four years ago now were kind of up ended that maybe plants didn't like us as much as we all thought that certain plants might have it in for us. And, you know, that's followed with the most recent book, which is the energy paradox. So there you go. Wade Lightheart: It's a, it's a great and unique story. I guess the, the, the S the second question related to that was what was the response by your, in the profession when you're making a break from, you know, an, an ex extremely respected heart surgeon, you get that at the highest credential backgrounds, Ivy league, and now you are a quote unquote, I could imagine the derogatory nature, but now you're a supplement salesman and a dietary advocate. What was the, what was that like the fashionably, was there some people that supported you or some people thought you had lost your mind? Dr. Steven Gundry: Well a little of both. Certainly when I lost all my weight and I was still going to cardiothoracic surgery meetings. The first question on everybody's mind is, you know, what kind of cancer are you suffering from? And you know, good news, I wasn't suffering from cancer. I just lost the weight I was supposed to lose. And some of, some of my critics have called me a snake oil salesman. Now I actually, I take that with the highest honor. It turns out that snake oil, unbeknownst to these people as actually the highest amounts of omega-3 long chain, Omega three fatty acids of, of any oil, including fish oil and the, you know, even, even scientific American has written an article that, you know, snake oil is not snake oil, Speaker 3: So great. Dr. Steven Gundry: And you know, so if someone wants to call me a snake oil salesman, I consider that a very high honor. Now snake oil actually really did work for inflammation. And so unfortunately most snake oil eventually was not sink oil that was sold. That's of course, where the term comes from, but snake oil work because it worked. And so there you go Wade Lightheart: W I love the historical aspects and the humor that you instill in that I think, you know, with your latest book, the energy paradox that you've come out with you're introducing some new concepts that people might not have understand. Can you kind of illustrate maybe some of the things, and I think we'll probably get into it here is why so many people are feeling this exhaustion and chronic fatigue today. Dr. Steven Gundry: Yeah. When I actually first started what I call restorative medicine, some people call it functional medicine. So when I did this 20 plus years ago now and I started seeing regular patients who didn't need heart surgery, there's there's codes. We use called ICD 10 codes that we have to put down to bill. And I was finding that at least 50% of the patients I was seeing had fatigue and malaise as a code. And that is exactly what it sounds like. And I was actually pressed that many people I was seeing for other reasons, for heart disease, for diabetes. One of the main driving factors was fatigue and malaise. And in the process of teaching them out to eat and getting them some supplements they they're fatigued. Malays went away, magically disappeared magically. And so I started, I, I wasn't planning to write this book but a couple of years ago when they're just pre COVID, I was heading into orange County, South of LA to do a PBS fundraiser thing that I was doing, which I like to do. Dr. Steven Gundry: And we were going to do a little pitch on PBS, and this person was going to interview me and I got a call on the cell phone that says so-and-so isn't going to be able to make it in today. She just doesn't have it in her. And I'm going no something wrong. They said, no, you know, she's just exhausted. She doesn't have it enter, and you don't worry, we'll get somebody else. And this was a millennial. And so we did the thing, but the fact that a millennial is calling in that they just didn't have it in them to come into work today, really struck a chord. And I said, you know why is this person totally depleted with energy? And I realized that, you know, God was making people regain their energy through my program. So I figured, you know, I better write a book about this, so it to answer your question. Dr. Steven Gundry: One of the things I start with in the book is a fascinating study that was done by Duke university researchers. And I've actually had them on my podcast, the Dr. Gundry podcast and what they wanted to do. It was actually an interesting hypothesis. They went and studied. The HODs is in Tanzania. They were one of the last Hunter gatherer tribes on earth. And they they've been extensively studied, and they're incredibly fit. They're skinny, they're healthy. They don't have any chronic diseases. The men walk eight to 10 miles a day in search of game. The women walk four to five miles, digging up tubers, gathering berries, getting honey and their preposition. Their hypothesis was we should compare the energy expenditure with these people who were moving around constantly with desk workers as sedentary desk workers here in America. And boy, are we going to find a big difference? Dr. Steven Gundry: Well, lo and behold, they found that the energy expenditure of these walk unhealthy Hodges was exactly the same as the energy expenditure of all these people sitting at their desks. And when in research, when we have a hypothesis and the results don't meet the hypothesis, we're actually supposed to throw the hypothesis out, but some of us don't do that. So their conclusion was, well, everybody, no matter what has the exact same level of energy expenditure. And it doesn't matter if you're walking 10 miles a day, or is it an at your desk you're going to expend the same amount of energy now, quite frankly, that doesn't pass the sniff test. And so in my practice, when I would see someone with low energy we would see all these markers of inflammation, such as HS, CRP. Fibrinogen, myeloperoxidase a lot of auto-immune markers. And we would see, and I've actually published papers that as we healed leaky gut, and hopefully we'll get into that, that these markers of inflammation subsided became normal and people's energy return. Dr. Steven Gundry: So what was happening was that when you have inflammation, inflammation takes huge amounts of energy. And you literally have, if you will, the fire of inflammation and we actually take energy away from muscles, we take energy away from the brain to fuel the troops, our immune system, that's producing this inflammation. And what I think these researchers at Duke were actually seeing was the Hahn's was we're using a lot of energy walking around, but they had absolutely no inflammation, but the people sitting at the desk, they were having huge energy expenditures, but it was going towards inflammation. And I think that that's, you know, the huge wake up call that, of course we're exhausted. Of course our brain is foggy. Of course our muscles. We don't want to go do anything because all of our energy is devoted to this fire of inflammation. Wade Lightheart: So to summarize that it would seem that in the case of these Hunter gatherers, they're using up their energy from, you know, living life. Well, the people in the deaths are using up their energy, just trying to, to recover from the damage that they're doing. So they're both expended aging energy. But one's on trying to recover from the, the issues that you're seeing and the other one's just out doing their, doing their day that's, that's a profound statement. And, and which makes me kind of wonder, cause there's a, there's a conundrum that has been presented through science and philosophy. And some people saying that we, you know, you're, you have a certain amount of breaths in you and you are going to die. And the other philosophy says that we can do these things to extend life. And then I heard another researcher by the name of Dr. Wade Lightheart: David Hawkins says, well, the reason that you remember to take your vitamins and minerals is because you are you're divinely, ordained to live to the X numbers a day is not the other way around. What's your take on that whole story. Cause I I'm kind of resigned myself while we can't necessarily, we can't necessarily ensure that we're going to live a long time, but we certainly can make sure that we live a high quality life. What's your iterations on that? Do you think that we can extend our lives or that we can certainly improve the quality of our lives? Dr. Steven Gundry: Yeah, both actually Dave Asprey and I like to have a little ongoing battle. Dave is significantly younger than me and he's playing to live to 180 and I say that one 50 is the new 100. So I, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm going to arrive at one 50 before Dave does and then I'll wait for him. But so, but not to be cute. So the, the original rate of living hypothesis, which you mentioned was actually postulated back in the 1920s and no matter how you define it, you only have so many heartbeats. You, you, that's one of them, you will eventually die from reactive oxygen species destroying your mitochondria and the longevity paradox. There's actually really exciting information that our health span, how many years we're going to live healthy. And our lifespan is directly correlated to the integrity of the wall of our gut. Dr. Steven Gundry: And as long as the integrity of the wall of our gut is intact, then we will continue to do well and live well into our early hundreds at the very least. And that you can predict aging by looking at leaky gut. And certainly that's, that's been shown over and over again. Recently there is a researcher at the NIH where I was also a fellow for many years by the name of Dr. Dachabo and Dr. The Cabo I talk about the Cabo is mice in the energy paradox. And I think his discoveries are really exciting. And answer, answer your question in another way. So there were two so calorie restriction has been proven to extend lifespan in all models, tested from worms to fruit flies, to mice. It's the one Speaker 4: Common element of longevity, right? One commonality. Yes. Correct. Dr. Steven Gundry: And it was tested in rhesus monkeys by two groups of one at the university of Wisconsin and one at the NIH, the national institutes of aging, and they used different diets, but they had a calorie restriction of about 25 to 30%. Now what's interesting is one group, both groups showed that health span was dramatically improved. These monkeys were youngsters, as long as they lived, one group actually showed that the monkeys lived longer in the calorie restriction group. The other group didn't find it. And there's been arguments back and forth why that is I've argued. Other people argued that the one group of monkeys that didn't live very long had more protein in their diet. And so people fight back and forth. The Cabo says, and you know, I got a different idea and it's brilliant. He says, I think when you don't have a lot to eat and your food is set out for you, then you're probably going to eat your food really quickly. Dr. Steven Gundry: And there's going to be a considerable period of time every day, where you're not eating. And I have a feeling, it's the fact that these guys were fasting longer every day, that made the big difference, not the fact that the head limited calories. So he said, I'm going to design an experiment with a bunch of mice, 300, and I'm going to divide them into two competing groups. One's going to get the university of Wisconsin food, the other group's going to get the NIH food. And we're going to have three groups in each set. One's going to eat a full ration every day and we're going to set it out and they're going to eat 24 hours, mice eat mainly at night. The other groups we're going to set out their food at three o'clock in the afternoon. One, group's going to be 25% calorie restricted. Dr. Steven Gundry: And the other group is going to get a full day's ration, but it's going to come late in the afternoon. And we're going to follow these mice low and behold first, all they found that only the mice that got either calorie restricted or the full supply at three o'clock had metabolic flexibility. That means their mitochondria could use glucose as a fuel or free fatty acids as a fuel. They can make the switch back and forth, which is incredibly important. Some people know this as insulin resistance. Some people know this as prediabetes, but metabolic flexibility is incredibly important. The regular all-day munchers in either group had no metabolic flexibility. They couldn't make a switch between burning glucose or fat that's number one, number two, the calorie restricted mice in each group lived about 25% longer, just like all the other experiments. And interestingly enough, it didn't matter whether they were a high protein group or kind of a high fat group and didn't matter. Dr. Steven Gundry: But the most exciting part of the research is the folks who got a full day's ration, but ate at three o'clock in the afternoon. They only ate for about 10 to 12 hours. So the rest of the time they were fasting, they lived 11% longer than the mice that got the full day's ration, but ate all day now for you and I that's a 10 year increase in lifespan. Wow. Wow. And what's really cool. Is the tie the time controlled eating mice, the 3:00 PM feeding mice in either group had no amyloid formation in any of their tissues and amyloid auto strike a little belt you know, that's highly associated with Alzheimer's and cognitive decline. They didn't produce it. So the longest shorter, the takeaway is it's probably not the sorts of foods that you're reading, but it's the timing of the eating and compressing your eating window. That makes all the difference in how you're going to do Wade Lightheart: Amazing. There's a couple of pieces. I think that is really pertinent that we can kind of unpack in that. And that is why that is. And is it because of this leaky gut component and that the, a lot of the damage that is over continuous eating is creating a problem as opposed to the restriction. That would be my suspicion, but can you unpack your definition of leaky gut and why the variance relative? Cause you kind of insinuated that. And I just want to flush that out a little bit deeper for our listeners. Dr. Steven Gundry: Yeah. So if you had asked me 15 years ago, what I thought about leaky gut, I probably would have told you it was pseudoscience. But number one, we have now easily obtained blood blood tests. Thanks dude, Dr. Alessio Fasano. Who's now at Harvard who discovered that lectins. One of my favorite subjects in gluten happens to be a lectin is a major cause of leaky gut. And he showed that you could produce gaps between the cells of our intestines simply by introducing gluten in, into animals and humans. And you could show that this caused inflammation and cause more damage. So Hippocrates twenty-five hundred years ago said all disease begins in the gut and then the guy was right. He didn't have our sophisticated tests. Dr. Fasano was recently published a paper that says that title is all disease begins in a leaky gut. Dr. Steven Gundry: And I absolutely completely agree with him. So leaky gut, and I talk a lot about it in the energy paradox, where it comes from, what we can do. Your listeners should know that the lining of our intestines is only one cell thick and it's the same surface area as a tennis court. So when we're watching the French open or the Wimbleton, it's that surface area inside of us, I mean, huge. And it's only one cell thick. And so it's if you will, a design flaw, it's a good design flaw because we got to absorb everything through that. But these guys are actually held together. I'm old enough to remember a game called red Rover red Rover. I Wade Lightheart: Played that game myself. Yes, it's Dr. Steven Gundry: Now banned from school is today too dangerous. Speaker 5: You believe that? I mean, that's Wade Lightheart: Some of my most fun time is the Rover red Rover sun over and you just Speaker 5: It's right. They hold you back. It was a lot Dr. Steven Gundry: Of fun. It was actually a lot of fun. And of course, you know, there's usually a big guy who pulled his knee up and the girls screamed and it was a lot of fun. Anyhow. So these cells are, are locked arm and arm like red Rover red Rover. And what happens is you can actually break those cross arms and there's a space and gap that occurs and proteins can leak through bacteria, can leak through and actually particles of food that would normally have been digested into smaller particles now leak through. And what's fascinating is 80% of all of our immune cells, our white blood cells line our gut, 80% of them. Why? Because quite frankly, that's where the mischief is going to come through. And so we, you know, when you have leaky gut you, you, you start inflammation and you start these white blood cells you know, using up a huge amount of energy. Dr. Steven Gundry: And the other scary thing we now know is is that if you have leaky gut, your immune cells in your gut, send a message up to your brain that, Hey guys, some bad actors are loose and you better protect yourselves. And there's a bunch of body guards in our brain called microglial cells. They are literally the, the secret service agents of our neurons. And they actually begin creating inflammation in the brain, getting ready for these attackers that they think are coming. And sadly, we now know that if you have leaky gut, you probably have leaky brain and we can measure leaky brain on blood test. So, you know, it's no wonder that. I mean, I see, I see young women in their twenties who have brain fog now, you know, and it's one thing, you know, to say, okay, he's 80 years old. And you know, he doesn't remember things very well or, eh, that's one thing about a 25 year old with brain fog. You know, it's like, Holy cow, what's what's going on here. And so when we look at these individuals and you know, kind of all their regular tests at the doctor's office are fine and people go, it's all in your head. Well, guess what it is in your head. Because you've got leaky brain and you've got neuroinflammation and I write about this and the energy paradox and how it's connected. Wade Lightheart: This is a powerful statement because we see so many people struggling with cognitive capabilities. There's a lot of evidence of cognitive load and then sitting in a sedentary lifestyle, staring into computer screens and, and the inflammatory response. But we can go into this leaky gut. And I believe there was a paper just recently released out of Harvard that says, suggested that virtually everybody has a certain percentage of leaky gut. Yeah. That's just paper. Yeah. So what causes leaky gut? I guess so. And, and how might someone avoid or minimize leaky gut? Cause that would be the first thing. Like I think it was Susan powder said one day, stop the insanity. So like how do we first and foremost stop the damage. Dr. Steven Gundry: Yeah. So that's a great question. And so I talk about in the energy paradox, the seven energy disruptors, and one of the things, first thing people ought to know is you the idea that eating an anti-inflammatory diet or taking anti-inflammatory supplements or throwing some tumor Groot in your smoothie, you and I live in California, and that's the equivalent of fighting one of our forest fires with a garden hose, quite frankly. So what you have to do is stop the insanity. You have to stop the compounds that are actually causing leaky gut. So I've devoted my current career into teaching people about lectins in foods. And these are plant proteins that Dr. Fasano has proven cause leaky gut and gluten happens to be one of those compounds. There is a similar compound in oats that reacts cross reacts with gluten, about 70% of my patients who are gluten sensitive, react to the proteins in corn with this same reaction the nightshade family, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants potatoes are part of these culprits peanuts and cashews have some really nasty electrons. Dr. Steven Gundry: So we get these things out of people's diets. Number two, probably equally as important is broad spectrum antibiotics. A broad spectrum antibiotics are not only used by us and given to us like candy by well-meaning physicians, but they're given to almost all of our animals and animal feedlots. And those antibiotic residuals are in the meats that we eat and they antibiotics. We didn't realize kill off our microbiome. And my, the microbiome in and of itself is actually our first defense against leaky gut. And we now know that the microbiome actually eats some of these troublemaking lectins, but probably equally importantly, they actually tell our immune system that, Hey, we've got you covered, we've got the bad actors. They're going to meet us first. And you guys, if you're cops go have a cigarette and a donut, and we've got this and our immune system actually calms down and I've published in papers of once we seal leaky gut, we've had about 90% of people, their immune system no longer reacts to, for instance, gluten it doesn't, it's not interested in it anymore. Dr. Steven Gundry: So we can really retrain that. So antibiotics are way up there. Glyphosate Roundup was patented as an antibiotic. It was not patented as a weed killer and glyphosate in and of itself will destroy our microbiome. But even more scary, glyphosate has been shown by itself to cause leaky gut and glyphosate is everywhere. It used to be used on GMO crops, but now glyphosate is sprayed on almost all conventional crops prior to harvesting, to dry the crop out and make it easier to harvest it's. If you look it's in all of our out products, all of our wheat products, it's in California wines, almost all California wines have glyphosate because it was sprayed on weeds between the fields. So the idea that, you know, we can eat, you know, whole foods and be safe. Glyphosate is everywhere. I recently ran a glyphosate level on a woman who actually owns a farm in Montana and she's glyphosate level is one of the highest I've ever seen. And she, and I said, you know, you know, you've been exposed to glyphosate. Oh, she said, Oh yeah, you know, we, we Speaker 3: Not only sprayed on the fields, you know, we carry it on our backs. Dr. Steven Gundry: You know, we we'll spray anything with Clive say it's harmless and I'm going maybe we ought to rethink that. Yeah. Wow. The other thing that's really important to realize is that non-steroidal, anti-inflammatories, INSEAD's like ibuprofen Aleve, Advil are absolute swallowing, a hand grenade in terms of causing holes to appear in the lining of your intestines. And I'm not just saying that out of conjecture, it turns out that the drug companies, when these were introduced back in the 1970s, new, this there's published papers about it. In fact, these were considered so dangerous that they were prescription only, and you could only take them for two weeks because they were so dangerous because of it. And now of course, you know, people chew them like candy. We have, you know, children's Advil and just one of these things will create craters in the lining of your gut. And we just, again take them like candy. Wade Lightheart: Wow. So it's safe to say that anybody listening to this podcast would have a certain amount of damage to some varying degree. Correct. Is there and epigenetic sensitivity, like in other words, some people are more sensitive to other foods and others, and then the other thing that I would come to would be how do we determine that for an individual diet? And then the third piece would be, how do we repair set damage? Yeah. So Dr. Steven Gundry: About 80% of my practice now is auto-immune diseases where people kind of what kind of been all over the country or world looking for help. And they end up in my clinic and we have a, Wade Lightheart: Well, your definition of an auto-immune disease. How would you classify it? Dr. Steven Gundry: So I mean, right now, the kind of standard autoimmune diseases, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, lupus, erythemia ptosis Sjogren's syndrome, dry eye, dry mouth Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis. But we're beginning to realize that simple things like coronary artery disease may absolutely be an autoimmune disease, simple things like plain old arthritis may be an autoimmune disease and the better and more sophisticated the tests we have of how the immune system attacks proteins that are native to us. I'm convinced that we'll probably realize that Apocrypha is, was right, that all diseases beginning of the gut, including all, all of these quote, natural processes of aging. So I publish a paper that 94% of people who follow the plant paradox program have remission of their autoimmune disease within a year. And that's, that's kind of held the course. We it's the rare person that we can't get rid of their autoimmune disease. Hashimoto's thyroiditis Kelly Clarkson is the most dramatic example. She never met me. I've met her subsequently, but she never met me. Somebody gave her the plant paradox book. She had Hashimoto's thyroiditis was on thyroid medication and she followed the book, Russia motos resolved. She lost 36 pounds. She got off of her medication and that's a very typical story Wade Lightheart: And very impressive. So you're saying just from the dietary changes by stopping the inflammatory agents, correct. Body will naturally repair it. Is there any ways of accelerating that process or timelines? Cause you're looking at, I mean, we're dealing with severe auto immune disease. That's obviously the farthest end of the spectrum. Correct. however, well, so I hate that word, but yeah. So there is, there's Dr. Steven Gundry: Clearly a genetic tendency to an auto immune disease. It's not as strong as most people think it can absolutely be overcome. So you're not, you know, you're not going to be a lifelong, Oh, you know, this is something I'm going to have to take this immunosuppressive drug that I use for our transplants, you know, to, to treat the heartbreak of psoriasis. You know, whenever I see these patients and I see them all the time on these immunosuppressant drugs, you know first thing I do is I, I say, I didn't put a heart transplant in you. I didn't put a kidney transplant in you. What are you doing on a transplant drug? And they go, what are you talking about? I said, these are transplant drugs. They're they tell your immune system to, you know, go away. And why do you want your immune system to go away? What you want to do is retrain your immune system to not get so crazy. Let me, let me give you an example that I use in the book. 95% of us are born with an immunoglobulin, a preformed antibody to the peanut lectin. So 95% of us are born with that. It's genetic. And yet when I was growing up and I suspect when you were growing up, nobody had a peanut allergy. I mean, we had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at people are eating peanuts Wade Lightheart: On airplane. I roasted planters, peanuts, all that sort of eat that stuff like it's candy and Dr. Steven Gundry: Nobody was carrying epi pins to school. Right, right. Now we literally kids are carrying epi pens to school. And if there's peanut dust in the air somewhere, some kid's going to have an anaphylactic shock. What happened well long ago before broad spectrum antibiotics before all of this crazy foods that we've been eating, we had a great microbiome. We had no leaky gut. And now of course our immune system is on high alert, 24 hours a day. And they see an innocent little peanut antigen and they go, Oh my gosh, you know, we've got an antibody against that, you know, attack. And so what was an innocent little problem now has become this life-threatening condition all because our microbiome is changed. Our leaky gut is changed and our immune system is on hyper alert. And the COVID cytokine storm is the perfect example of that. The people who got into trouble are the people who had pre-existing conditions and those pre-existing conditions, even like hypertension like diabetes, we now know underlies leaky gut, and that's just a sign of leaky gut, Wade Lightheart: Very clear and succinct. So I want to kind of go to your statement earlier, which is one 50 is the new Hunter and then con kind of cross correlating it with this story of leaky gut and then I guess, restricted eating. So how, how have you postulated based on your experience in your research, how we could potentially extend our life, essentially, you're saying 50% from the upper ceiling potentially. And even if it's some derivative of that, I think that's great. And especially if it's a high quality existence, I think that's better. So based on all this, I would love to see how you've postulated this process or this theory. And then what are the mechanics that people can engage in to kind of move towards that direction? Dr. Steven Gundry: A great question. It turns out I'm just this week putting to bed, my next book, which is actually addressing your question and it doesn't even have a title yet. We're still debating the title. It turns out that with each, with each book, the longevity paradox really prompted my interest in, you know, keeping the wall of the in TAC. And one of the things that I really delve into in the energy paradox is one of the ways of keeping that wall intact is to the, and you alluded to it the less time we spend digesting the less work that our intestinal track has to do the less exposure to potential mischievous foods that our intestinal tract has to deal with. Then the less damage to the intestinal track period and the longer we have for the gut wall to actually rest the longer it has to repair itself. Dr. Steven Gundry: So, and I, I think Cabo, you know, prove that one of the other things that I alluded to in the energy paradox, which I think is very exciting is an Italian athletes study a battalion cyclists. And the purpose of the study was to actually look at time controlled, eating time, restricted eating. So they took these athletes and they gave them the exact same food to eat, and they divided them into two groups. They, one group had to eat all their food within a 12 hour time span. They ate breakfast eight o'clock in the morning. They had lunch at one o'clock in the afternoon, and they had finished dinner by eight o'clock, 12 hour eating span. The other group had breakfast break fast at one o'clock in the afternoon, they had lunch at four o'clock in the afternoon, and then they had to finish dinner by eight o'clock. Dr. Steven Gundry: So about a seven hour eating window, about a 17 hour fasting window. So what they found was both athletes had identical performance. They had identical muscle mass, the athletes that constricted their eating window lost weight. The other group did not lose any weight and the most exciting thing. There's a marker. The best marker we have of aging is insulin like growth factor IGF one. And it's, it's a good stand in for how activated or inactivated M Torres the memory only on target of rapamycin. And by the way, back in the dark ages, we researched rapamycin in transplant. And that's actually how we found this correlation, but, that's another story. So these guys, the guys who limited their eating window, their IGF one plummeted by like 50 points, which is dramatic. So the exciting thing, and it's very much like to Cabo said, look, you eat, you can eat a lot of food, but if you compress that time period all sorts of really cool things happen and the new book that's, it's not out yet, it'll be out March of 2022. We'll show you why that happened. And if I told you now, you know, I'd have to kill you. Wade Lightheart: That's great. We'll get you back and specific to that. Now, one of the interesting things, and I'm just going to counter that in an aspect for what I would say, longevity eating versus say the cosmetic in a fitness industry, which if you look at say a fitness competitors, bodybuilders people, fitness enthusiasts, oftentimes they're breaking up their dietary meals over say somewhere between four and six meals a day over an extended period of time, small little mini meals to kind of string out their stable, their blood sugar, keep their caloric restriction down to hit a cosmetic goal. However, would you say that may be counteractive to living longer? Yes. Got it. Okay. Parent now is caloric restriction as good for getting into your cosmetic ideal conditioning. So, so what I'm trying to balance is people's desire to look a certain way versus be a certain way. Long-Term. How have you looked into that? Or is that just like, yeah, I, Dr. Steven Gundry: I still, I mean, calorie restriction is still, you know, the number way to extend lifespan, right? The problem is it's, it's nearly impossible to pull off for an extended period of time. There is the calorie restriction society of America and there's been there is, that's funny, of course. Yeah. And they've been extensively studied by St. Louis university. And I'll give you a actually initially thing I've talked about in the longevity paradox. So they got these guys who are calorie restricted, and they asked them to go on a V vegan calorie, restricted diets, same calories, but just eliminate all animal protein. And interestingly enough, they looked at IGF one and low and behold when they went from a calorie restricted diet that included protein to eliminating animal protein, their IGF ones dropped quite dramatically. So I think there's more here than just restricting calories. Dr. Steven Gundry: I think there's a lot of acid tricks that you can use to fool Lam tore sensors. And I write about that in the longevity paradox. There, you know, if there's a trick, I think I know it, but I'm always discovering a new trick thanks to my patients. So, but for instance, you can take pigs and put them on a [inaudible] restricted diet with signing is much more prevalent in animal proteins than plant proteins. And these pigs eating the same amount of calories on a marathon running restricted diet will live about 50% longer than pigs that aren't on a methoding restricted diet. So there's lots of ways to skin a cat. Wade Lightheart: Right. I want to kind of go back to original topic that we opened up in never kind of flushed out. And that is the mitochondrial rush hour that about, can you talk a little bit about what that is and what your most latest research is discovering? Yeah. Dr. Steven Gundry: So mitochondria are the energy producing organelles in almost all of ourselves. They're not in red blood cells, but that's another story. And these guys have the job of ta