Reverse Chronic Disease Through Lifestyle Change

We challenge the healthcare status quo and illuminate the path to well-being through practical lifestyle modifications . We share insights from our upcoming book Lies . I Taught in Medical School .

Prepare to have your misconceptions and preconceptions about diet and chronic illness upturned as we dissect the myths and facts surrounding nutrition , from the perils of seed oils and grains to the balance of omega fatty acids . This conversation is a veritable tour de force of dietary enlightenment .

We confront the modern epidemic of obesity and diabetes with candid discussions on the inflammatory nature of our food choices . This is an empowering blueprint for anyone ready to take control of their health through informed lifestyle choices . I'm not suggesting that people just throw away their pills .

What I'm saying is there is an alternative to a lifetime of medications .

About 10 years ago I came down with four chronic diseases that were fairly common , but they were diseases that when I went to the healthcare system I was prescribed drugs for them prescription medicines , and I started those drugs and all what I realized , those diseases that I came down with were the same diseases my father came down with , but he was 90 years old

when he got them and he eventually died of them . I wasn't 90 years old , I still had two daughters who were just in elementary school and I realized , wow , something . I didn't want to be a casualty there .

I began looking at the science behind this and I realized there's a growing body of research that looks at chronic disease a little bit different way than I'd been taught and the way that I was teaching in medical school . That was that these chronic diseases I had gout , which is a type of arthritis . I had pre-diabetes , which is a glucose metabolism abnormality .

I had dyslipidemia , which is abnormal blood lipids . Basically , there were several diseases like that and they were treated by the healthcare system as separate diseases . I went in and that's the way they were handled . But the new research is showing that there's actually a common basis to them .

In other words , there are things like inflammation , insulin resistance and metabolic dysfunction that affects a large percentage of your population . That actually drives these diseases . The problem is and the fourth one I forgot to mention was hypertension , elevated blood pressure .

So , despite the fact that these seem like very different things you know , joint pain and hypertension or glucose abnormalities they're actually all driven by these common factors , these inflammatory factors . And what I realized is that what conventional medicine was doing was just treating the symptoms . So I got a blood pressure medicine .

It lowered my blood pressure , but it didn't change anything about the blood vessels that were causing the problem . The same thing with glucose I lowered my glucose but didn't change the underlying pre-diabetes . So what I began to find out as I studied more and more ?

There's growing evidence showing that you can reverse these metabolic factors , this insulin resistance and inflammation that I mentioned . But the interesting thing about it , there's not really a pill that works for those , and what works , though , is something even stronger , and that's lifestyle .

So what I did was I went on a program of changing my lifestyle and doing certain things , and , over time , basically , my blood pressure dropped . Everything went back to normal . My doctors couldn't believe it , they were shocked , and they eventually stopped my prescriptions because I didn't need them anymore .

And now that's where I am now , but there's a fundamental misunderstanding in medicine today still that a lot of the approach is still just to treat the symptoms of the disease rather than the root cause and the basic metabolic abnormality . I mean even a heart attack .

If someone goes in for a heart attack which is caused by not enough blood getting to the muscle of the heart , they will then either have an operation for a revascularization or a stent will be put in which just opens up the blood vessel , and everyone thinks , wow , they took care of my heart attack , which they did , in a sense , acutely , but it doesn't change

anything of the underlying mechanism of disease . That's still going on . In other words , the rest of your blood vessels are still getting worse , and you haven't really corrected the root cause , which , for that , is also inflammation and insulin resistance as well .

But it's actually fundamental to our health and really , metabolism glucose metabolism drives inflammation and drives the root cause for those four diseases I have , that I have , but also for other major diseases such as Alzheimer's disease , such as cancer , such as heart attack , such as stroke .

In fact , those are the main diseases that you and I and most people will eventually die of and they are driven to a large extent by these same metabolic factors .

Because I think a lot of people face that decision do I need to make some lifestyle changes or do I go down the medical route and just take medicine for the rest of my life ? But then there can be a lot of uncertainty and how to know which is the right approach . How did you kind of navigate that maze ?

If you have Alzheimer's disease , well , there is no treatment . But the point is I didn't give up modern medicine because if your blood pressure is elevated , you need a blood pressure medicine . If your glucose is elevated in diabetes , you need a medicine . So I'm not suggesting that people just throw away their pills .

What I'm saying is there is an alternative to a lifetime of medications , not for everyone , but for many of these chronic diseases these lifestyle changes can make a difference .

He said well , maybe you should exercise more and eat better and eat healthy and I go okay , everybody wants to eat healthy , but there's not even a consensus on what eating healthy is , and that you know , it's very difficult to navigate that . So I began reading the scientific literature as best I could .

I interpreted it the best I could , and then I made decisions based on what I read , what I thought was the truth . I applied it to myself , but then , when I started seeing results , I continued on with whether it was dietary , whether it was exercise , whether it was sleep , whether it was stress .

Those are the four main areas that I looked at as far as lifestyle , and I think for me those were the four fundamental areas that allowed me to get off these medicines and stay off these . Have these diseases treated With the nutrition .

What I found most useful and kind of the common theme that worked for me was to get rid of junk food , and junk food is sort of like saying don't eat junk food . It's like saying eat healthy . So the trick is how you define junk food and what you consider to be junk food .

And for me , what I found to be junk food and what was giving me these diseases in my diet , so that when I gave it up the diseases went away , were the way I recognized junk food .

I counsel the patients I work with is that well , first of all , most stores that we have most food in stores are junk food , and if it's like a 7-11 we have here in the United States or similar type fast food or convenient stores , almost all the food there is junk food .

So junk food I recognize is if it comes in a box and if it's brightly colored that's a sign , if it has a long ingredient list . But in particular , there are three things I look for in junk food to avoid . One is sugar and refined carbohydrates .

That refined carbohydrates is like bread starch , rice flour , all those things it drives inflammation , drives insulin resistance . So sugar and carbs . Second is oils and seed oils . Basically , healthy fats are very important . I mean , I grew up believing that saturated fat and butter were clogging my arteries and many of my colleagues still believe this .

But what I've come to realize , and more and more people are realizing that it's actually the carbohydrates all along that were causing the problems . So carbohydrates , then seed oils . We mentioned things like canola oil , vegetable industrial oils , things that the American Heart Association lists as heart healthy , and that's a whole story .

Other proteins that are present in grains . In a large percentage of people drive antibody reactions or inflammation to these things . So even if you don't have Frank's celiac disease , which is gluten intolerance , many of us still have inflammation that's driven by grains and cereals . So for me , I cut them out of my whole diet , even whole grains .

They weren't around 150 years ago , and somebody made the observation that most of the food we eat wasn't around 150 years ago , but most of the chronic diseases we die of weren't present in the numbers today that they were 150 years ago .

So the fact that it's a new , a new manufactured type of food is problematic , but then their scientific evidence shows that it's pro-inflammatory and actually drives inflammation , and inflammation drives insulin resistance and all those chronic diseases that I mentioned . If you are enjoying this program , please hit that subscribe button or , even better , leave a review .

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