I started looking at well what are like
the major causes of death like in the
United States for example if you look at
the major causes of death United States
cardiovascular disease number one cancer
is number two so most people that are
dying when they die they die of cancer
cardiovascular disease and then the
second most common thing that I have is
cancer and if you think about that and
studies have actually shown for
cardiovascular disease like eighty
percent of that is preventable by diet
so percent eighty percent so in the
context of cardiovascular disease and
this is where I started to really dive
into this you know heart health a decade
ago or so we were we were all told maybe
it's two decades by now I don't know
times flying we were all told that you
know to have good heart health
you need to decrease your saturated fat
intake right it's all cholesterol clogs
up your arteries and when you have
cholesterol clogging up your arteries
plaques form they rupture when they
rupture then this causes a clot to form
and then if the clot forms in an artery
to your heart you have a heart attack if
it forms in an artery to your brain you
have a stroke and we were bled to
believe this is all because of you know
the fat we eat and we know now that it's
much much more complicated than that and
in fact that thought like did a lot more
damage because then people started to
eat something called trans fats which
like did so much more damage than you
know eating regular fat and recently the
FDA thank God
like banned all trans fats and so we
have like very recently very recently
yeah how long do they sell trans fats
for I don't know but it's decade by
decade my mom I remember my mom buying
margarine I mean margarine is trans fats
oh yeah yes that's illegal now it's ill
they have three years to get it off the
shelves can't believe it's not butter
you're you I mean it's not butter
eat butter it's it's bad it causes your
cells to become really stiff which is
what happens when you age because of
damage so it's like aging in accelerated
time and it causes you know heart
disease all sorts of problems I mean so
bad but um
back to there cause the actual cause of
it of this cardiovascular disease it
actually I think comes down to gut
health I know I talk a lot about
micronutrients the importance of
vitamins and minerals and that also
plays a very important role in the way
you age and you and I have talked a lot
about this but I kind of wanted to touch
a little bit on this topic because I
think it's really important since you
know I know my parents generation it's
been really hard to de educate them and
like help have them relearn everything
they thought was bad and them understand
well everything you thought was bad
actually not bad and let me explain what
actually is bad no because it I want
them to be able to change their dietary
habits and be healthy so I think most
people that are educated in health know
that it's not just about cholesterol
they know well well it's LDL cholesterol
and it's not just LDL cholesterol it's
small dense particles right you've heard
that mm-hmm most most people that are in
the difference between HDL and LDL yeah
so you actually need cholesterol LDL
it's not actually cholesterol LDL is a
lipoprotein that transports cholesterol
it transports fatty acids and other
things but it's easy to think it's easy
to call LDL cholesterol because that's
what people think of as that like
calling the subway people know could it
transport
I mean well kind of but one of the major
things it's transporting is cholesterol
okay so I think it's easier actually to
yeah if you just say LDL people are like
what's that but if you say LDL
cholesterol I think you're like okay
well like oh yeah I've heard of that you
know so I just I think it's better to
talk about it like that so people can
relate so the LDL cholesterol transports
cholesterol so LDL cholesterol
transports cholesterol to your cells to
your cells and your liver to your cells
in your you know kidney to your cells in
your muscle and it does that because
every cell in your body needs
cholesterol it's part of the membrane of
the cell which is essential for the way
the cell functions anytime you damage
your cell anytime you're making you're
making a new cell guess what it needs
cholesterol you go out you go to the gym
you work really hard you got some damage
you need cholesterol to repair that
damage so LDL brings the cholesterol to
your cells once it gets to your cell
then something cuts it off like a little
piece of the cholesterol gets cuts off
cut off the LDL and then the LDL goes
back to the liver and it's recycled so
that's in a normal situation so what
happens is an HDL does what HDL does is
HDL brings the cholesterol from your
cells or from your arteries if it's
built up and it just rips it off and
brings it back to the liver so it's like
it's basically taking cholesterol away
from yourselves away from you know your
your arteries the things that are built
up in your arteries and your veins
so it's removing that and bringing it to
the liver so HDL is really important if
you have too much of the bad type of
cholesterol which is the small dense and
and what let me explain what small dense
is because I'm sure most people have no
clue what that means it's like I said
when LDL cholesterol is going to your
cell to repair damage a little piece of
it gets cleaved off and it's like okay
here's a little piece of cholesterol
here you go
and now the LDL that's left is smaller
because it donated some of that
cholesterol to your cell to repair so
now it's smaller what happens is though
if you have unhealthy gut and we could
talk about what causes that but if you
have an unhealthy gut most of the back
so there's like over 100 trillion
bacteria in your gut and they're there
because they're metabolizing the food
you eat making them into fatty acids and
you know proteins amino acids things
like that they're breaking this down
number yeah 100 trillion they're also
making vitamins and minerals nice more
people more than there have been people
in the world ever
just on trillion yeah just two in one
body one body well you also have the
highest concentration of immune cells in
your gut most people when I ask them
where do you think you have the highest
concentration immune cells they're like
oh your thymus or your basket in your in
your blood you know nope in your gut the
highest concentration of immune cells
are in your gut and the reason for that
is because your gut is actually exposed
to the external environment so every
time you eat food from the environment
your your gut sees it so if there's
something pathogenic there you need to
have that immune response to make sure
it's not going to take you out right so
there's a lot of immune cells in your
gut well there
separated by what's called the gut
barrier and when that becomes
compromised which we can talk about in a
minute what happens is your immune cells
start to kill bacteria in your gut and
this releases something that's part of
the bacterial membrane called endotoxin
endotoxin then gets into your
bloodstream and guess what it binds to
LDL cholesterol and the reason why it
binds to it is there's these docking
sites on the cholesterol the LDL
cholesterol that soak it up like a
sponge so anytime you're inflamed you
actually increase your LDL production so
you actually make more LDL cholesterol
and which is why it's important anytime
you get a blood lipid panel done from a
doctor do it more than once because if
you add some stressful event the night
before something crazy you're inflamed
you were sick your LDL cholesterol is
going to be through the roof and you
know it's just not going to be an
accurate picture it's a snapshot of
what's going on in your life at that
time so so should you get several over
the course of a few days to get a
baseline yes you should get several like
you know if you had something stressful
happening wait till you're chilled out
and then to another test you know like
give it some time a couple weeks and
again is it all real stress or could it
be like rollercoaster stress like if you
went on a crazy rollercoaster does that
change your LDL levels like that kind of
like artificial stress if you're if it's
stressed you out enough likely hour of
Terror like yeah like if you really like
we're terrified if you're terrified yeah
it might actually that might cause
enough inflammation to to do that so
your your cholesterol the reason your
body does that is because the endotoxin
that's released it's very damaging and
it can I mean endotoxin being released
in the system when you have enough of it
it can cause sepsis and death so your
body has this response mechanism of
soaking up that endotoxin the
cholesterol so it doesn't damage your
tissues it doesn't damage your organs
the problem is that when that endotoxin
binds that cholesterol that LDL
cholesterol that we just talked about
that was donating a piece of cholesterol
to your cells so it's smaller it binds
on the same docking sites that that LDL
cholesterol uses to go back to the liver
and go to your circulation
so then what happens is you're screwed
because now that LDL cholesterol that's
smaller has all this endotoxin there it
can't go back to the liver it's stuck in
your circulation and guess what
endotoxin is like a signal for your
immune cells where it's like hey I'm a
foreign invader come attack me so now
it's stuck in your circulation your
immune cells are seeing this signal of
endotoxin it's stuck to cholesterol but
it's not bacteria it's cholesterol so
they come and they try to kill it but
they can't kill it because it's not a
live bacteria it's your cholesterol with
its endotoxin bound to it they secrete
all these pro-inflammatory cytokines
which recruit more and then you get this
beginning of a plaque or what it's
called a foam cell which is a bunch of
immune cells stuck to this LDL particle
so it's now small dense because it's got
all the stuff and it's stuck there in
your circulation so really if we look at
the big picture of things you know
saturated fat which does increase LDL
cholesterol isn't such a bad thing
unless you are under chronic
inflammation
you know chronic inflammation at the
level of the gut so what causes that
well if you think about your gut and the
bacterial cells that are there and the
immune cells that are there and how
they're being separated by this it's
really it's called mucin so your gut
cells secrete something called mucin and
it looks like mucus I mean it looks like
snot it's like viscous and gross anyone
that's had like inflammatory bowel
disease and they've had like beast-like
problems and there they can excrete it
to their feces it's like all slimy
that's mucin that's your gut barrier
like coming out and that's not good so
the mucin that's secreted by your gut
cells is very very important because
it's separating your immune cells from
your bacteria so that you don't your
immune cells aren't going crazy causing
this whole inflammatory cascade and
releasing endotoxin but in order for
your gut cells to make mucin they
require energy and your gut likes energy
in this in this form of something called
short chain fatty acids which are
basically generated from fermentable
fibers like vegetables fruits shower
coats sauerkraut mushrooms have it
these fermentable fibers get fermented
by what's called commensal bacteria in
your gut which are the good type of
bacteria typically because they make
these short chain fatty-acids and when
they make them lactate butyrate
propionate acetate those are the short
chain fatty acids that sixty to ninety
percent of that goes right to the gut
epithelial cells and it fuels them to
make mucin so your gut cells love it
when those short chain fatty acids come
in because they're going to crank out
more musin and they're going to make
sure that got barriers strong they're
going to make sure that it's not
breaking down that your immune cells not
coming in contact with bacteria when
you're not feeding it the right thing so
if you're eating a lot of refined
carbohydrates refined sugars
what happens is there's a bunch of other
bacteria in your gut that don't eat
short-chain or don't eat ferment these
fibers they like to take the sugar in
and they take the sugar in and they're
over growing so they're basically
talk.you pieing space in your gut that
the commensal bacteria that usually are
making the good stuff would occupy so
it's like well if you have bad stuff
here that's less room for the good stuff
right the other thing that's happening
is that there's actually and this was
shown very recently to blew my mind
there's actually insulin resistance
going on in the low at the level of the
gut so the more sugar you eat your gut
cells begin to not respond so that sugar
and so they're getting starved of energy
because now they can't take the sugar up
into the cell to make newson because
they're not responding they're become
they're not making insulin to be able to
do that and so now your gut cells are
starving when they're starving they
start breaking down mucin and you start
to have inflammation so really the key
to good at good gut health is to not eat
these refined carbohydrates these
refined sugars and to try to eat more of
the good fermentable types of fiber like
vegetables and fruits i mean these are
early barley whole oats also have it and
also mushrooms mushrooms have a type of
it called beta glucans that are really
when you eat oats and you cover the oats
and brown sugar what happens there yeah
that's not a good thing so refined sugar
yeah the refined sugars not good
but the thing that's super up my
oatmeal we're on to Patrick do you put
brown sugar in your own love it so
anyway you did dad