Greetings, SuperFriends!

Today, I’m joined by an internationally recognized nutrition expert, board certified family physician, New York Times bestselling author, and nutritional researcher Dr. Joel Fuhrman, who specializes in preventing and reversing disease through nutritional and natural methods. And yes, those are all one person.

You may know him from various shows as Dr. Oz, The Today Show, Good Morning America, and many more.

You may have read one of his multiple bestselling books, from Eat to Live, to Super Immunity, or The End of Diabetes. But that’s just a few. He’s also published The Eat to Live Cookbook, and The End of Dieting, all of which are bestsellers.

He’s also the father of “nutritarian” eating, and has a special equation for longevity in health, which he’ll be telling us about throughout the interview.

In this episode, we talk all thing nutrition, and Dr. Fuhrman presents a view that is somewhat contradictory to that of many of our previous guests.

Whether you subscribe to the “paleo” or “keto” ideologies that have come up so many times before in the show or not, it's a fascinating episode, and (as always) I leave it up to you to decide which thought leader you subscribe to.

If you enjoy it, please share your thoughts with me on Twitter @gosuperhuman, and if you haven’t already, please remember to leave us a review on iTunes or Stitcher.

This episode is brought to you by SuperLearner Academy – home of my exclusive masterclasses. Check out a free trial using the link above today!

In this episode, we discuss:

• How Dr. Joel Fuhrman got to where he is today – starting from being on the national figure skating team
• What are the 4 primary features of the “nutritarian” diet advocated by Dr. Joel Fuhrman?
• What is “toxic hunger” and how do we avoid it?
• Why does most dieting fail?
• Insulin, IGF-1, M-TOR, and other hormones: what do they do?
• What are Dr. Fuhrman's views on animal protein, grains, and sugars?
• Where does fruit fit into a nutritarian diet? How about potatoes?
• What are Dr. Fuhrman's views on “keto” or ketogenic dieting?
• Would the nutritarian diet be different if the world were free-range and grass-fed?
• What difficulties was Dr. Joel Fuhrman have with the paleo diet?
• What are the differences between Dr. Fuhrman's books?
• What seeds can lower blood pressure by 15 points and prevent breast cancer?
• How can you use food to actually extract “bad” fats from your body (surprising!)

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• The Nutritional Research Foundation
• Dr. Fuhrman's Books:
  • Eat to Live
  • The End of Dieting
  • The End of Diabetes
  • The End of Heart Disease (new)
  • Super Immunity
  • The Eat to Live Cookbook
• Dr. Fuhrman's Website

Favorite Quotes from Dr. Joel Fuhrman:

Transcript:

Introduction: Welcome to the Becoming SuperHuman Podcast. Where we interview extraordinary people to bring you the skills and strategies to overcome the impossible. And now here's your host, Jonathan Levi.

Jonathan Levi: This episode is brought to you by the Become a SuperLearner Masterclass. Know I've been telling you guys about the Masterclass for a few weeks now. So I'm actually just going to take a step back and let a good friend of mine, tell you guys about his opinion on the masterclass.

Nelson Dellis:  I am Nelson Dellis, four time USA, memory champion, and a huge fan of the SuperLearner Masterclass.

You know, when I started memory techniques years ago, you know, I wished that I had had all the resources that are available on this course. Jonathan does a great job teaching it. And it's a fantastic course and I highly recommend it. It'll take you just as far as I am without as much time that I have to put in.

So enjoy it, get into it and, uh, keep your memory active. 

Jonathan Levi: To learn more, to sign up for a free trial with no credit card required or to redeem an exclusive discount for podcast listeners only please visit jle.vi/learn or visit becomeasuperlearner.com.

Greeting, super friends and welcome to this week's show. Today I am joined by an internationally recognized nutrition expert, a board certified family physician, a New York Times bestselling author, and a nutritional researcher who specializes in preventing and reversing disease through nutritional and natural methods. And actually, those are all the same person.

You may know him from various TV shows on PBS. You may know him from the Dr. Oz show, the Today show, Good Morning America, or any of the other TV outlets that he's appeared on. You may have also read one of his, many best-selling books from Eat to Live to Super Immunity, The End of Diabetes, or any other popular nutrition book that he's written, including the Eat to Live cookbook,

The End of Dieting, all of these books that are bestsellers. So there's a high likelihood that you've read one of them, at least. I want to say that he's also the father of something called Nutriarian Eating. And he's developed a special equation for longevity and health, which he will be telling us all about throughout the interview.

In the interview, we really go into the nutritional regimen that he recommends. We compare it to some other nutritional regimens and some of the things he says can trick, contradict a lot of what other guests have said about paleo, about ketogenesis. I leave it up to you guys to listen, to do the research, to check out his books and decide what you think.

In any case, if you check out the blog post for this episode, you will find all of the research, all of the links that our guests mentions, and you can do the research for yourselves. So without any further ado, please let me introduce you to nutrition expert. Dr. Joel Fuhrman,

Dr. Fuhrman, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you here today. Thank you so much for making the time. Oh, thanks, Jonathan. My pleasure. Awesome. So. Dr. Fuhrman, I tried to do a little justice to your bio in the introduction, but I'm afraid I did fall short. So tell us a little bit about your career trajectory and how it is that you came to focus specifically on the nutritional aspects of health.

Dr. Joel Fuhrman: Well, you know, the interesting part about my story is that I didn't come to focus on this over time as my career developed. I started with this decision to do this, even as a teenager, you know, in other words, I was, uh, on the world figure skating team for the United States. I was third in the world in pairs figure skating in their mid seventies.

I used excellent nutrition to better my stamina and performance. I was coaching ice skating became a coach that had world-class competitors. And I've worked with, you know, professional and Olympic athletes for many years. And my passion really was and what nutrition could do to prevent and reverse disease, especially reverse disease.

And I was expressing that passion and actually going back to school to take courses because when I was in my skating career, I was as a business and economics major in college. I wouldn't have any pre-med courses. So I decided to drop my career at that point, my family had a chain of 10 shoe stores in the New York Metropolitan area.

And I decided to go back to school full time to proceed to achieve my pre-medical requirements so I can go to medical school. So I went to medical school at the age of 29 with the specific intent of being a family physician with a specialty in nutritional medicine. 

Jonathan Levi: Excellent. And since then you've conducted most of your research around nutrition, correct?

Dr. Joel Fuhrman: That's right. I mean, I had 25 years in clinical practice in the field of nutritional medicine. And as my career progressed, I've devoted more energy and time to writing, speaking, and producing research. And today I'm the president of the Nutritional Research Foundation where we actually, it's a 501 C3 that raises money.

To support nutritional research projects, which we have launched some and are launching some really incredible projects with major universities and medical centers around the country to show that how powerful, you know, to help change the face of healthcare to show people how powerful nutrition can be to prevent and even treat mirror various diseases.

Jonathan Levi: Fantastic. I'm so glad to hear that because you know, we've talked in the episodes before about how I even at Berkeley just eight or 10 years ago, was in these nutrition classrooms and learning things, not that long ago that I found out later to be just blatantly wrong, or at least the evidence today seems to be blatantly wrong.

So I'm wondering what are some of the big takeaways that you've learned so far in your research and in those 25 years of clinical practice? 

Dr. Joel Fuhrman: Oh, wow. That's like a story of a book.

Jonathan Levi: That question you just asked me, but well, if according to your bio, it's the story of four or five books. 

Dr. Joel Fuhrman: Yeah. I've written eight books and I have my ninth book coming out this March, 2016 called the End of Heart Disease.

So I'm wow. And you know what, just to mention, which has been a very exciting part of my life is that I've had three successful PBS television shows here in the States. And I'm saying successful, not only because they've raised money to help sustain PBS. But also because literally millions of people's lives have been changed as a result of those ed shows on nutritional education.

Because, you know, I must get not just thousands of people who've recovered their health and reverse their high blood pressure or heart disease. We've gotten rid of their diabetes or lost 50 to a hundred pounds, but also thousands of responses from other medical professionals, other people who send me their results of their patients from recommending my books and my videos and things.

So that's been tremendously satisfying to see an impact on the population and actually the impact I've had on the medical profession in the United States has been tremendously rewarding to my career. That's wonderful. 

Jonathan Levi: And I have a feeling, I guess, what I was trying to get at with the prior question.

I have a feeling that your research hasn't shown the typical, you know, each or five servings of grains and avoid fats diet. Tell us a little bit about the type of diet that you advocate in your various books and that you've discovered through your research to be the most beneficial. 

Dr. Joel Fuhrman: Sure. And I gave it a name.

I call the diet style I recommend a Nutritarian Diet. I coined that word Nutritarian to represent a diet that's helpful and rich in nutrients because there's no other name that really, I didn't want to use my, you know, call it a person's name, like, uh, you know, a Dr. Smith's diet or a Dr. Fuhrman diet, because it's not solely of my design.

People have being healthy for years and years. I just wanted to give a descriptive term. So I used the word Nutritarian diet, and it has four primary features. Let me just describe the primary features. The first feature is that it's nutrient dense, meaning that it has a high nutrient level nutrient per calorie.

And by saying high in nutrients, per calories in the food choices, you're making means that you are getting the nutrients humans need. Without overeating calories to do so. In other words, there's a, you want to get nutrient concentration so you can keep your calories relatively low. And one of my strongest contributions to the world of nutritional science is my experience and the studies I've published and the information I've taught, showing that as a person increases the nutritional quality of their diet, especially with more antioxidants and phytochemicals, and as they get a food with a higher nutrient quality,

it mitigates their desire to overeat through many mechanisms, but we can talk about many of those mechanisms, whether it's volume in the stomach, but mostly through the fact that reducing what I call toxic hunger. In other words, there's a drive to overeat calories that comes from withdrawal from your poor quality, your diet, and most diets fail because people try to cut back on calories without improving the nutritional quality of their diet.

And they develop unrelenting cravings and desire to eat all the time. That's like telling the person to breathe less oxygen for, instead of breathing a 14 minute breather, 10 brief Smith, it can't always be gasping for air. And this person always wanting to eat more food is never satisfied and they're always wanting more food than they require.

And they don't stick with the diet long-term because their biology is not right. And they're continuing to feel shaky, and weak and fatigued and headaching in the list they continually put food in their mouth. So the idea that you can obliterate toxic hunger, we move the cravings that lead to food addictions and correct cravings and addictive behavior

by focusing on nutrient quality is one of my major contributions, I think, to the field of nutritional science. So getting back to that first principle, and first principle is, which I often use that equation H equals N/C, just to physically represent it visually that your healthy life expectancy is proportional to the nutrient per calorie density of your diet throughout life.

And we should strive to eat foods that are high in nutrients, such as green vegetables and berries and flax seeds. And, you know, in other words, we should eat foods that are nutrient rich, as opposed to foods that are low-level in nutrients, such as oil and sugar and processed grains and white meat chicken.

The point is, is that colorful vegetables don't have 10 times the micronutrient counts compared to processed foods and animal products and oils. They have more to 50 to a hundred times as many micronutrients per calorie, and that conventional diets are dramatically and dangerously deficient in phytochemicals and antioxidants because of the populations in the modern world today eat less than 10% of calories from produce,

well in the general intake of food calories. So, you know, we can divide food into three categories, basically processed foods like sugars, white flours, oils, and things that come at it in boxes like, um, cakes and commercial baked goods and cookies and crackers and soft drinks. So one category is commercial produce and refined foods.

The second category would be produce as natural as possible. And the third category would be animal products. And what I'm saying is the combination between animal products and processed foods, because the processed foods about 55% of the animal product is about 30% of total calories that the produce percent is so low that almost all nutritional scientists worldwide today recognize that that low level of produce promotes cancer and heart disease and premature death.

Jonathan Levi: Right. It makes so much sense. I mean, we're eating tons of junk, which has meant to feed a lot of people, very cheaply, but you know, when they have to start putting vitamin D and they have to start putting iron into junk food, it really starts making you question. Like, isn't this stuff that for millions of years, homo sapiens have been getting somewhere.

And why are we needing to inject it into our robo foods 

Dr. Joel Fuhrman: now? Let me just say I have four basic principles of a nutritarian diet. I've just given you one of them. Should I quickly just go through a couple more? The second principle would be hormonal favorability, and it means that you don't want to eat foods that promote excess hormones that could drive cancer, cell proliferation, excess growth, or shortened people's life span. 

Especially when we drive up insulin and insulin growth factor one or IGF 1, because both those hormones and foods that drive up insulin IGF 1 also drive up, enter, which causes cellular replication and promotes cancer and increased cellular aging. As many of your listeners may know the foods that promote insulin are predominantly high-glycemic carbohydrates.

And aside from white potato, it's mostly the processed carbohydrates that wouldn't be seen in nature, such as white bread and white pasta and sugar. And I know they're concentrated sweets like maple syrup, honey, and apple juice and, you know, concentrated sweets. But we have to recognize that animal products and animal protein in particular, not animal fat, but animal protein is the primary driver of IGF 1 or insulin like growth factor one.

And we now have in various studies on long-term people eating diets higher in protein and lower in protein, measuring IGF one levels and various protein intake levels and the amount of cancer we get from those high protein levels. So the second principle is that we have to keep our consumption of animal products below a certain percent in our diet.

So as not to drive IGF one into unfavorable ranges that are cancer promoting. Not to drive and eat enough animal fat, that would promote estrogen and testosterone to unfavorable levels and not eat processed grains or so much processed carbohydrate that will drive insulin into unfavorable levels because these hormones, you know, these high-glycemic foods that push up insulin, even though they only stay in the bloodstream for a couple of hours, the higher level of insulin that's promoted as a result of a high glycemic food can stay in the bloodstream, elevated for many more hours than the glucose itself stays elevated.

So that's the second principle is having favorable hormone levels. The third principle is what I call CNA or Comprehensive Nutrient Adequacy. And that means what you started to refer to earlier, and that is not to be missing any things humans need in the right amounts. And in that same category. We're talking about not getting excess, that could be harmful and some supplemental ingredients give people dangerous excesses of things that could be harmful such as taking for the gas acid, which is synthetic made from petroleum that drives cellular replication promotes breast cancer and prostate cancer, or taking excessive amounts of vitamin D or excessive amounts of iron.

Or I'll have pro oxidation effects that could shorten life span. So even though we want to make sure that humans have all the nutrients we need, we don't want to just eat a lot of broccoli and kale and wild blueberries because we know our broccoli and kale and wild blueberries. We're going to be low in vitamin K2 and low in vitamin D and low in

B12, well then low in zinc and low, we're still going to be at some things we're low in and we want to hit those optimal levels of those nutrients that your diet may not achieve that optimally favorable level. And the last principle, which I just could mention briefly, which nobody could disagree with is that we went on avoid things that are toxic

or contain carcinogens or infectious agents that might be harmful to people. So we don't want to eat contaminated foods. In other words, things that have, um, toxic or carcinogens and a lot of the foods, people who do have toxins or carcinogens. The most, one that's easily recognizable might be the mercury and in swordfish or the dioxin or PCBs and farm raised salmon.

So they're talking about. Avoiding things that we know aren't known detrimental to humans as well. 

Jonathan Levi: Interesting. Okay. So I have a lot of follow-up questions on that. The first is it seems that every nutrition expert that we've had on the show agrees with so many of these principles, primarily that we need to be reducing sugar and kind of high-glycemic index, high-glycemic load foods.

So I wonder where you fall on the fruit spectrum because you know, fruits are very dense in minerals and vitamins. But they also come with a huge caloric load and specifically a pretty high load on insulin and blood sugar. 

Dr. Joel Fuhrman: Well, I mean, certainly I think that people should be eating fruit and they're linked to longevity and decreased rates of cancer.

And they're not generally high-glycemic from the given example. And we're talking about a reasonable amount of fruit, not recommending people eat a fruitarian diet or a raw food fruit based diet. I need to meet most of the diet from fruits. We're talking about having a fruit one or two fruits with a meal. Now because you have the glycemic effects of the meal and not eating an all fruit meal,

lessens the whole glycemic effect. Let me give an example. Most fruits run between five and eight in the glycemic index, whereas something like white potato and white flour run around 25 to 30. So we're talking about fruits have a much lower glycemic effect on the fiber and bioflavonoids and phenols blocks the intake of glucose and the speed at which enters the bloodstream.

In other words, even berries, which are relatively low in sugar and probably the most anti-cancer fruits you can eat. They have such a high level of polyphenols and anthocyanins that they actually promote the growth of bacteria in the gut that slow the absorption of glucose, not only from the berries themselves, but from other foods that have more glycemic effects in the same meal.

So you don't get the same effect on the glycemic effect in the bloodstream while the response and insulin response, because of how slow the sugars are fed into the bloodstream. When you eat things like blueberries, strawberries, or plum, you know, cherries, things like that. The polyphenols and fibers are so high.

Nevertheless, I don't recommend fruit juice, reading 10. I want people to watch the amount of dates and dried fruit they're eating and not overdo the fruit. 

Jonathan Levi: Absolutely. So does that mean you would kind of shy away from a more ketogenic diet? I know ketogenesis, especially in the kind of brain optimization niche has become very trendy and people are talking about, you know, going keto and limiting carbs to the absolute minimum.

What are your thoughts on that? 

Dr. Joel Fuhrman: Well, I basically think that that's a dangerous way to eat. No, and I think it's okay for people to have hypothesis, to have a hypothesis and to have theories. And it's okay if the people to write about their theories and to promote the reasons why they support it. But then we have to say, well, that's a theory.

Now let's look at the evidence and see what the evidence shows long-term. Keeping in mind that death and cancer can cause 15 to 20 years to start to see the data to be effective. So we can't look at a study of one or two or three years to see whether a diet style was healthy. We could look at some parameters like cholesterol and metabolic markers, but we really takes time to see the overall effects of a diet.

And so. At this point in human history, I think that theory has been disproven to be safe. It's been shown to be unsafe. And I can just mention out of the, let's say many hundreds of studies that have been done on it. Let's just mention three of the largest studies done right now. So we could see what the data shows, you know what I mean?

Just to get a rough idea of what the information shows. So let's say, so it started out in 2010, there was a study. But I think it followed 84,000 women and 44,000 men over a more than 20 year period that showed that people follow that diet over that long period of time had an overall 43% increased risk of death over the more than 20 year period

for those many thousands of people. Then in 2012, another study was published that followed 44,000 women only, for more than 20 years. And it ratcheted them into how closely they adhered to that high animal product, lower carbohydrate, ketone generating diet on a 1 to 20 scale. And they found that people in who adhered in the, as they adhere more closely to that type of diet, their death rate increased dramatically, so much so that if they were in the top sphere at the top fifth of people who follow that diet at that closely, they had a 60% increased risk of death over that 20 year period compared to

people who had a more vegetable, lower animal product. Wow. Assumptions. So a significant increased risk of death. And then in 2014, another study came out following 6,000 people on what they considered a high protein, low carbohydrate diet, and they had a seventy-five percent increased mortality. And they took people between the ages of 50 and 65 followed them for 18 years.

And they had an, uh, 75% increased mortality over that 18 year period. And those people in the high protein group were weren't on a ketogenic diet. And that study, they were eating a diet, what they considered high protein diet, which was only 30% of calories mammal products, but they compare them to the group following less than 10% of calories from animal products who had 60% lower risk of death over that 10 year period.

So what I'm saying is that, we see there's a, a continual and consistent graduation lined a gradient, a continual consistent gradient as animal products increased in the diet from 10 to 25 to 30% or more death rates go up accordingly as does diabetic parameters. Right. Us as well. We're talking about

instance of later life diabetes and not intermediate levels of measuring blood glucose and blood cholesterol and triglyceride levels, which is not the same thing as looking at a long-term effects on a dietary population. So we have to differentiate short-term blood parameters from longterm development of serious disease.

Jonathan Levi: Very, very true. And that's a really, really good point. I was actually going to ask and you already answered it. You know, how these studies are done and how you can assess. The message that I'm hearing is a very good one. I think makes so much senses. The middle ground is where you need to be. You can't have a high sugar diet, but you can't have a no sugar diet.

The question I have for you, Dr. Fuhrman is, how do we differentiate kind of the people eating the animal products in these studies are likely eating modern, big agriculture animal products that we all know are full of those toxins, you know, full of poisons, really. How do we differentiate the effect of that versus the effect of eating an animal product, which is really to say,

in a perfect world where we were all eating completely natural, healthy animals that were grass fed and all of that. Do you think the same effects would apply and the same kind of major downsides and risk of death would 

Dr. Joel Fuhrman: apply? I do think that's most likely. And I'll give you the reasons why, because the major factor, I think according to the most of the scientists involved in these studies and most of the data is the effect of animal protein, leucine, and a thianine on raising IGF 1 and stimulating M4 and also the heightens the insulin effects from eating carbohydrates.

In other words, more animal products have you a more insulin response to eating carbohydrates or less animal products means you lessen the animal product response to the carbohydrates you eat. But yes, I think that the data is not going to be affected by the type of animal products. But let me just say this, that a lot of the data was not done in areas like the United States.

We mostly commercially raised, factory farmed animal products. But in Australia where they eat more than 75 to 80% of grass fed natural animal products. And some of the countries studies Uruguay is the home of the Gaucho where all their animal products are naturally raised a grass fed and they have the highest cancer rates in the world

according to globalcancermap.com and not just Australia and Uruguay. But if we look at primitive cultures, eating high animal products, like the Mongols and the Horace study, and then, you know, we still find that, for example, looking at more ancient peoples, we found that those people eat more animal products.

You see a higher degree of heart disease compared to the Mongols, but other parts of China with more atherosclerosis of advancing degree, we see more nervous disorder and FL sclerosis. , which has cholesterol deposits in the eye. In other words, we don't just have the data. And from America, we have the data from around the world and we have data from various points in human history, and we see the same thing.

And what I'm saying to you right now is that I would say more than 95% of nutritional census worldwide agree on these three basic principles. And that is one. And I know that a lot of them are agreeing at least the two, maybe the third one, not so much in the paleo community, but the first two, I think we all agree on is that processed foods and processed carbohydrates have a biological effect

that's not normal for human species, except keep in mind that the paleo community and I could be wrong on this. But still seems to be recommending processed oils as being natural, which they're not. There are processed food. And we could talk about the biological differences, which are eating nuts and seeds and sesame seeds and flax seeds and coconut and walnuts compared to eating the oil derived from those foods, which I see as a process foods that changes the bile, the effect of the body's biology and how it handles it.

But nevertheless, so let me get to those three basics. One. We all had really have to eat more produce because to have lower cancer rates in a slimmer waistline and have longer health. Number two, we all agree that we have to reduce the amount of animal products that we are eating presently because the present consumption of animal approximate, every single meal in America at a rate of 30% of total calories is much higher than what's ideal for the human species and keeping that 30% figure is what was shown in these studies as being the high level

that's dangerous. Also that some paleo advocates have indicated 50 to 75% of intake from animal products, which we know is exceedingly dangerous and perhaps even irresponsible or, or you could say malpractice, dangerous advice. To last principles, obvious. The first one is more fruits and vegetables. The second one is less animal products and third one is not eating processed sugars and high-glycemic carbohydrates.

I think that we know that, some people have looked at studies and say, well, look at this, the fat's not so bad because they've eaten more processed carbohydrates in place and things even got worse. And yeah, and we're finding out that these refined carbohydrates may even be worse than animal products, but it doesn't make animal products good because perhaps it's the carbohydrates that works.

Sure. And the last thing is, you know, I know from my own personal experience that some people who like read or hear this information, they're still tricked. By thinking they're giving their kids fruits, you know, grape juice and they're giving their kids jelly and honey and natural, and like a person pulls out a loaf of bread instead of whole grain.

And I'm some, first of all, it says wheat flour. It's not whole grain. Number one. Second of all, the degree of flour is ground to such a fine degree, like a pastry flour that it's still high-glycemic. Number two, you know, in other words, look at the third ingredient, the third ingredient is a form of sugar in the product.

In other words, people still don't have the right information even to make the right choices that it's not just eating whole grains. It's also that the whole grains themselves shouldn't be overly ground. They should be as intact as possible or sprouted and not made to be consumed in their lower glycaemic forms as well.

Jonathan Levi: Sure. So you actually do advocate for eating grains and things like that. 

Dr. Joel Fuhrman: I don't think it's necessarily to people who exclude grains in their diet. I think that that intact whole grains, quinoa, wild rices, you know, wheat berries, things that are eaten in a conservative form, mostly water cooked and not burned through conformed acrylamides are over cooked and made into crackers are baked.

So I think that those foods can be eaten as part of a healthy diet. Yes. But not as the major source of calories. 

Jonathan Levi: Of course. Right. So where does kind of gluten fit in and is that a concern? 

Dr. Joel Fuhrman: I'm not saying that would be the right things for all people eat. There's a certain class of people that might be sensitive to those foods.

Jonathan Levi: Sure. So for the majority of the population, as far as you're concerned, gluten shouldn't be a major concern. 

Dr. Joel Fuhrman: Correct. 

Jonathan Levi: Fair enough. You actually touched on a point that I wanted to ask, which is what is the role of nutritional variability? I mean, we all have a different gut flora. We have different blood types.

We have different genetic makeups. I mean, as good nutrition, good nutrition across the board, or do different people have different needs. 

Dr. Joel Fuhrman: Well, both those things are true. What you just said. I mean, in other words, good nutrition is good nutrition across the board. But however, but if you fine tune these guidelines, I've been giving over the last half hour, let's say there are individual differences that necessitate some mild differences from person to person.

Like we just mentioned with gluten, but some people need more B12. Some people are very poor generators of Omega three fatty acids, like EPA and DHA. Like we did a recent study where we, and I'm saying we did it. I was involved with the study, but not as a co-investigator, but in any case, they filed a 166 vegans and they track their omega-3 on the EPA and DHA and Omega three index finding out that about 60% were marginally insufficient and about 30% were dramatically deficient or insufficient in Omega three.

But the interesting part of the study, was that those people that were deficient didn't correlate with the amount of short chain ALA or from flax seeds and walnuts and green vegetables. In other words, people trying to take more ALA, so the body can fabricate its own EPA and DHA didn't necessarily work suggesting that the differences were more genetically determined as opposed to being dietarily determined.

So, yes, there's a strong difference in the amount of, let's say DPA and DHA, especially DHA that's converted by our own conversion enzymes from person to person. And some people need higher levels of DHA supplements are very low level and some people may need none. However, when we supplemented those people and continue the study, we found that almost every person that was deficient was able to become sufficient with a low dose supplement of about 200 milligrams a day.

We, some people didn't need three, four or five cramps official a day, a small dose with, two of a 150 to 200 was sufficient to make those people that were taking none back to sufficiency, but the point I'm making here is even some people having no EPA and DHA had sufficient levels, you know, so there are some individual differences there. C12 absorption can vary dramatically from person to person.

We know that people could have decreased assimilation of certain nutrients and this iron levels can vary considerably from person to person, their ability to utilize iron. So as there are certain things we have to watch for vitamin D can vary considerably, not just based on skin coloration and exposure to the sun, but also on genetic factors and converting vitamin D.

So things like that can vary, but let me say this, even those people who don't thrive, let's say on a vegan diets and even those people who require a little higher amount of animal products in their diet. Then another person who may thrive with a vegan diet, even they should restrict their animal product consumption and only consume a small amount because you're not going to have a person needing 30%, 20%, 40% or 80% animal proximity diets to thrive.

Even the people that require some cook with a well-designed diet, with a consumption of nuts and seeds and beans, and, you know, with all that other sources and greens, other sources of proteins in their diet can get by with a lesser amount of animal product rather than a larger amount. So I'm saying there's a limited variance between person to person.

It doesn't mean that some people are high meeting people and other people are vegan and some people are going to be, do a healthier. So it's still going to be unhealthy for every person due to diet. Where the majority of calories come from animal products. Okay. 

Jonathan Levi: I'm still trying to come to terms as you know, someone who's been so diehard paleo for the last, almost two years

now. I'm trying to come to terms with the limiting meat consumption. I'm happy that you said it's, you know, around 10% of calories from meat consumption, correct? That's correct. I mean that affords me some sardines once in a while, an occasional steak. It's just not every meal is coming from animal protein or animal sources.

Dr. Joel Fuhrman: That's correct. And keep in mind that I'm saying within that, like there's genetic differences we're talking about here where some people might be eating a diet style. That would be 10 to 15% or 10 to 20, then that would be preventative, but wouldn't be maximal and wouldn't give them disease reversal.

They'd have to drop a low 10% and some individuals may have to drop a low 5% to get disease reversal. To melt away atherosclerosis, to drop their weight, you know, in order to have maximum anti-cancer effects. So within that range of the low numbers would that zero to 15% in that range, there's probably genetic differences that some people are going to require a diet that's maybe more restrictive than others would that said.

I think that that for general population guidelines, we should see animal products like a condiment where you don't eat it at every meal. If you have it one day, you probably could do a day without it the next day, or you're using it as a flavoring. And it's just a few ounces. A day is probably ideal for, to maximize longevity and then a general population.

Jonathan Levi: Fair enough. And, you know, I noticed you don't differentiate between animal products, such as dairy and eggs versus animal products, such as animal meat. Is there a kind of a hierarchy there and a preference of what should and should not be eaten? 

Dr. Joel Fuhrman: Well that's a tough question. And the reason why that's a tough question has to do with the pollution in the modern world.

Like even polar bears are becoming sterile, due to PCBs and dioxins in the seals, and you know, the Antartica, we're talking about that. What I'm saying right now, even wild fish is not completely free of pollutes. It's much lower in pollutants than commercially raised fish. Commercially salmon might have more than 10 times its acid and PCB levels of wild salmon.

If you need salmon, certainly only wild, but that's why I'm saying when you eat a smaller amount. You're going to benefit in many ways, and you're not going to exceed the levels of toxins and pollutants that you would if you ate the higher amounts as well. So even though eggs are usually a cleaner source of protein, they have other factors that make them more negative because they're excess cholesterol has some negative effects on diabetic parameters, such as insulin sensitivity and people who were overweight. So each food has its pros and con like red meats are higher in iron and higher in other factors that promote bad bacterial growth in the guts and dairy promotes IGF 1 even more because it has a balance of amino acids that makes it so growth promoting and it stimulates mTOR.

So I think it's just simpler instead of me going into. No, the one animal products is a little better than this feature, but another random products better on that feature. And I'm just saying, well, let's just keep, it's just simpler. Eat them minimally and you to keep them as clean as possible, as natural as possible.

And don't need just one type. If you gonna eat some, even though even low amounts vary a little bit. So you're not getting just one repeated of one toxin, let's say, and, and also keep it to relatively low levels in your diet. 

Jonathan Levi: Fair enough. All right. I'm trying to wrap my head around this. I think I might miss bacon and steaks, but, uh, yeah, I'm warming to the idea.

I mean, you had me with the common sense of eating more produce is something that every single guest we've talked to has said that whether they're talking about ketogenic diets, paleo diets, or otherwise, that seems to be the common thread. And then everything above that seems to be details. Dr. Fuhrman, I wanted to ask you to give us a little bit of a tour because you have written eight books.

I'm not sure where to tell our audience to start if they want to learn more. So tell us a little bit about each of your books and you know, why it is that the message is spread out over eight different books and how they differ and where might be a good starting point. 

Dr. Joel Fuhrman: Yeah, well certainly my best selling book that I'm most known for is Eat to Live, which was published in,

I think 2004 and revised in 2011. So that's my bestselling book. It's a general weight loss and health book that gives a lot of information. Since that time I've written a book called The End of Dieting, which is more updated with even more modern research about dieting. And I'm trying to give people more information about the emotional side of overeating and how that emotional and how, why people fail on diets and marry together.

My science about food addiction, how to remove food addictions, how it intertwines with people's emotional, addictive type behaviors, to help them better adhere to a healthy diet for the rest of their life. And I've bounced in various fads and, you know, losing and gained the weight back. So those books, The End of Diet, and Eat to Live the general population of overweight people looking to lose weight, looking to stay on a diet and trying to get them consistent with getting benefits, maintaining those benefits for the rest of their life.

And then I wrote some other books called, Super Immunity, which discusses really, I wanted to call that book, you know, something about not getting cancer and beating a winning cancer, but it's really about super immunity is about those superfoods and how to design a diet to mass will detect against cancer and also gives more information about how to keep your immune system strong, to not get infection and how to deal with autoimmune conditions.

And that's one of my favorite books is Super Immunity. And then I wrote a book called The End of Diabetes, which narrows the diet down and makes it specific for diabetics to make it most diabetically favorable. But also it talks a lot about the dangers of using diabetic medication and conventional medical care and why that usually leads to bad outcomes.

And even with a type one, they overuse insulin instead of relying on diet to control their blood sugars. And the overuse of insulin is so deadly increasing the risk of heart disease and cancer. So it doesn't just deal with type two. Type two, it enables them to get totally well. And I have published a pilot study, which showed that,

90% of the type two diabetics were able to become non-diabetic following that program. But the point is, is that when people follow this program, the vast majority of diabetics wouldn't be not diabetic anymore. Wow. So that's The End of Diabetes. And then I have a book that's coming out in March of 2016 and I've been working on the last two years called The End of Heart Disease.

And that's my biggest book and it's my ninth book. And the reason it's so large is not because it has so much more information about nutrition it's because it has so much information about, conventional medical care and how the drugs lead to advancements, calcifications, arrhythmias, acceleration of cancer rates.

It goes through all the negatives with conventional medical care. And that is an important part of the puzzle to motivate people, to change their diet. Because when people falsely believe that a drug is their answer to lower their cholesterol, to lower their blood pressure and to lower their blood glucose and think they can take drugs as permission slips to even help him for the rest of their life.

I'm making it very clear that you tried in order to protect yourself against heart disease and to live a long life. You have to have a normal blood pressure without medication. And you have to have a normal cholesterol without medication, and you have to have a normal blood glucose without medication, and you have to have a normal body weight, a normal exercise tolerance that unless you can achieve these healthy parameters, normally you're going to be at high risk.

Jonathan Levi: So is that where you would recommend people begin with the most recent book?

Dr. Joel Fuhrman: If they're just overweight looking to lose weight and diet, then The End of Diet would be appropriate. If they're diabetic, The End of Diabetes, if they're certainly my most recent book, The End of Heart Disease, I really think that book is a must read by everybody because you know what?

90% of America eventually gets on blood pressure medications. They may not be on it when they're 50, but by 65 or 70, they're on them that all Americans on the American diet develop heart disease. And there's so much critical information. I think people must read. So I really feel that that's a must read book, The End of Heart Disease.

Jonathan Levi: Fantastic. And I want to point out to our audience, by the way, that by the time this episode comes out, it will actually be the first week of sales of The End of Heart Disease. So we will have a link to that in the podcast blog episode for everyone to check out.

Dr. Joel Fuhrman: And you know, Jonathan, I'm also an advocate of people eating nuts and seeds.

And for example, I mean, most people aren't aware that studies that show that flax seeds, just a couple of tablespoons of seeds a day, lowers blood pressure, you know, more than drugs, you know, can lower blood pressure. I think it's 15 points compared to most drugs lower at about 10 points. Now the study, I just published in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, which followed about 400 people following a Nutritarian diet.

Their average blood pressure drop was 26 millimeters of mercury. Which is more blood pressure drop than I think any study ever done. It was just dramatic drops in blood pressure, whether they were on medication, whether they were on no medication, would they stop their medication? It still showed tremendous drop in blood pressure effects

so people wouldn't require blood pressure medications anymore. But what I'm saying right now is that flax seeds and chia seeds, these ligaments have been shown dramatic effects against breast cancer too, and prostate cancer. One study showed that, women who had breast cancer followed for 10 years, eating a third of a milligram of lignan a day from seeds had a 71% lower risk of mortality from cancer over that 10 year period.

And one teaspoon of flax seeds gives you seven milligrams compared to, and that study only sort of third of a milligram, and the people already had cancer. We know that something is more effective. The earlier in the disease pathology process, you take it. And these are real people already had cancers, still show protective effects, but in any case, You know, walnuts, pistachio nuts,

you know, I'm a strong advocate of people getting their, most of their fat from natural plant foods, as opposed to using the oil from that food. You know, so I'm not recommending walnut oil or flax seed oil. I'm recommending flax seeds and walnuts instead. And I teach people and I showed them recipes, how to make desserts and how to make salad dressings using the whole nutter seed blended into the dressing, as opposed to just mixing oil and vinegar.

I'll mix them like tomato sauce or tomato paste with mayonnaise and oil and balsamic vinegar or whatever you're mixing. I would make a dressing with, you know, tomato sauce and tomato paste with almonds and sunflower seeds and fig vinegar and a fig, or I would make an orange cashew dressing with sesame seeds and cashews blended with some, you know, blood orange vinegar, a white wine vinegar garden, Nia navel orange.

In other words, I'm going to use salad dressings with the whole food because when you take the sterols and the stanols and all those beneficial fibers, you get different biological effects. Indigestion and assimilation. Then if you would take the oil out of the food. For example, a large degree of those calories, the fat calories faster was at the toilet bowl, eating nuts and seeds and increases stool fat.

Like when you eat walnuts and let's say pistachio nuts and almonds, you increase stool fat. And when that fat in the stool is analyzed, there's more saturated fat in the stool. And there wasn't an understood see to begin with because it sucks saturated fats and LDL cholesterol out of the body causing like an ion exchange system where more bad fats come out and good fats come in was, he was just took the oil from those foods.

You wouldn't have any of that have beneficial effects. And the oil would have been absorbed in three to five minutes instead of being absorbed in two to three hours where the body converted for energy instead of storing it from fat and all the studies. And, and you could say, well, you know, I'm trying to talk about differentiate between theory.

And fact that in theory is okay, there's nothing wrong with theory, but then we have to look at evidence and what the preponderance of evidence shows and the preponderance of evidence shows that when people reduce oil, calories, or animal fat calories and in, in their place, get more fat calories from whole nuts and seeds, they have lower rates of cancer,longer life span and low rates of heart disease. 

Jonathan Levi: Wow. So I think that's a great note to end on and a lot of information for our audience to chew on. Dr. Fuhrman, if they want to learn more about you or get in contact with you, maybe on social media or via your website, where should we send our audience members today?

Dr. Joel Fuhrman: Well, thank you. My website is drfuhrman.com, D R F U H R M A N.com, which obviously a lot of information there for people to learn. And then I also, you know, have a Facebook page. People can look up, but that's mostly on Facebook. You get people from all over the place, making crazy comments and stuff. We'll post some interesting things on there a couple of times a week, but. I guess the website is the best place to start. 

Jonathan Levi: Fantastic. And we'll link that up also on the blog post so that people don't have to try and catch the spelling and stuff like that. Dr. Fuhrman, I want to thank you so much for coming in today and enlightening us with your decades of wisdom and knowledge from your research and from all your writing. It was really a pleasure to chat. 

Oh,  thanks Jonathan. Same here. I enjoyed speaking to you today. 

Jonathan Levi: All right. So let's do keep in touch.

Dr. Joel Fuhrman: That's terrific. Take care. 

Jonathan Levi: All right Superfriends, that's it for this week's episode, we hope you really, really enjoyed it and learn a ton of applicable stuff that can help you go out there and overcome the impossible.

If so, please do us a favor and leave us a review on iTunes or Stitcher, or however you found this podcast. In addition to that, we are. Always looking for great guest posts on the blog or awesome guests right here on the podcast. So if you know somebody or you are somebody, or you have thought of somebody who would be a great fit for the show or for our blog, please reach out to us either on Twitter or by email our email is info@becomingasuperhuman.com. Thanks so much. 

Closing: Thanks for tuning in to the Becoming Superhuman Podcast. For more great skills and strategies, or for links to any of the resources mentioned in this episode, visit www.becomingasuperhuman.com/podcast. We'll see you next time.