Kind: captions
Language: en
That's one thing that we all fear as we
get older is that our brain's going to
kind of get dull or numb or we're
forgetful. Well, studies have shown that
is this really unique substance that
activates parts of our brain that keep
us really really sharp. And by the way,
the Surgeon General's report on, you
know, making, you know, cancer-causing,
that's not news. I mean, we've known
that for 50 years at least. Now, what
about diet soda? In a way, even worse.
And let me tell you why. that there is a
holy trinity as I call it of beverages.
three very very important beverages that
are good for you and those the Holy
Trinity
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[Applause]
is alcohol
uh has been part of human society ever
since we began growing grains going back
10,000 years. Okay. um whether it's
barley, whether it's honey, whether it's
you know and or whatever it is, people
have been making alcohol and it's been
part of our human tradition. It's you
alcohol is used to celebrate uh
weddings, funerals, birthdays, holidays,
major events, okay, significant major
events. And so you know my own personal
view and you know inform even though I'm
a scientist and a doctor is that you
know what let's not get too out of shape
about alcohol it is part of our humanity
but it's very important when you're
thinking about over the big picture the
functionality the functional health part
of it and we're all human you know like
you're going to get together for a
wedding have some champagne you're going
to actually have a holiday bar mitzvah
whatever it is you're going to do to
celebrate something I think it's okay
the Key is not to over consume alcohol.
And here's the reason why. Alcohol,
which is ethanol, ea is really the
chemical uh symbols for it. Okay, that
ethanol is toxic to every cell in your
body. It's toxic to your brain, toxic to
your heart, toxic to your nerves, toxic
to your liver. And in fact, our body has
developed some pretty sophisticated ways
to disperse the toxicity of the alcohol.
and our liver can burn it down, burn it
off, right? Um, uh, and we know we burn
it off and we even breathe it out, which
is what, you know, the breathalyzer is
all about if you get pulled over in the
side of the road. So, our body can
actually take care of it. If you
overconume once, you know, you're going
to feel it. Um, but then people get used
to it. And if you overconume over a long
period of time, that's when the toxicity
of the alcohol will really do a number
on you. Like really, really damage you.
So I think that again in the interest of
not making this black or white, alcohol
is a, you know, is either an angel or
the devil, let's just say alcohol is
part of humanity. I think it's perfectly
fine to use it in moderation to, you
know, at at events where you're
commemorating, celebrating something.
But always know that alcohol in any
form, the ethanol, is actually toxic. So
the more you have, the more toxins
you're actually consuming, even though
it's part of our culture. Now, what
about this whole issue about beer and
red wine? Well, actually, it turns out
that the beneficial aspects of beer and
red wine have nothing to do with the
alcohol itself. It has to do with what
makes red wine red, which is the
polyphenols that come from the
fermentation. So, if you removed all the
alcohol and just had a glass of
non-alcohol, dealcoholized red wine,
you'd get the benefits. And beer,
similarly, it's the hops in the beer,
the barley. Okay? uh that actually wind
up having the benefits. The polyphenols
that actually come off of it, the the
zanthummers are actually the chemicals
in beer. Remove all the alcohol, you'll
get the benefit. And when you once you
have the alcohol back, listen, you're
going to get a buzz from it. All right?
You're going to get all the things that
alcohol is supposed to do, including the
toxic aspect of it. So, to me, it's
really this is kind of a judgment thing.
I mean, look, it's like anything else
that you we do in life, you know, use
exercise good judgment. Um, you're
driving a car in the road, follow the
speed limit. Dangerous to speed, speed
kills. Every now and then you're went
late for meeting, you need to get in the
fast lane and you need to zip ahead. Use
your best judgment. That's kind of how I
approach the whole alcohol thing. And by
the way, the surgeon general's report
on, you know, making alcohol uh, you
know, cancer-causing, that's not news. I
mean, we've known that for 50 years at
least. All right. So, that's that's
putting into policy from a government
perspective. That's taking that
something that every medical doctor and
almost every life scientist has known
for the last five decades and just
making it part of public health. What
what do you make of like the surgeon the
the report saying that like moderation
didn't matter because that was the one
thing that stuck out to me that really
surprised me and it was very like
accentuated on the report. Well, you
know, I think that uh words
matter and I think that probably the
policy makers drafting that language
realize that they say alcohol can cause
cancer, but moderation is okay would
just give people an out to be able to
drink more. So, they sort of took a hard
line approach to it, saying that
moderation doesn't really matter. I
mean, look, moderation does matter, you
know. I mean, for sure it does. You
know, uh, smoking one cigarette is
different than smoking a 100 cigarettes.
All right. I mean, that's obviously
true. So, I I think that if you're going
to, you know, listen, I I have many uh
friends and families and patients who
drink alcohol as part of social uh
custom. And when they ever ask me for
health advice, which you know, a lot of
people ask me for health advice, and
they and and they always bring up uh
maybe a little uh tenuously, they're a
little bit afraid of what I'm going to
say uh about alcohol, like they don't
want me to smack them in the face about
alcohol. You know, I always tell them,
you know, like, "What what about my what
about my wine? Do you mean I can't have
any wine?" I'm like, "No, you know what?
Listen, if there is something that's
important for you enough to enjoy a
glass of wine, life's for the living.
You know, you got to enjoy yourself a
little bit. Just recognize there's the
alcohol in the wine isn't good for you.
It's a toxin. And the more you drink,
the more toxic it's going to be. So,
exercise judgment. Be moderate. You
know, take care of yourself. Um, and I'm
not your daddy. You know, you're going
to do you're going to you're going to
make your own decisions just like
anything else. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think
that's really good. I mean, would
you like I don't know, Andrew Huberman
put like two two he had this whole talk
on alcohol that was like I don't know
has like 5 million views now and he was
like oh two drinks a week that's like
the max or something like that. Is there
when you talk about moderation like for
you is there like a number where it's
like if you're if you're exceeding this
much alcohol content in a week it's
probably any benefit that you're getting
from the the wine or the beer
independent of the alcohol is just going
to go out the window. You know, I I
think that that's a again this
individual
um uh it's an individual situation
because depending on your liver, if you
have certain enzymes that detoxify the
alcohol faster, if you're a fast
acetilator or slow acetilator, these are
terms that refer to how well your liver
detoxifies. um things like alcohol it's
going to make a big difference if you're
eating it with if you're drinking with
food no food whether you're having
liquor whether you're having wine you
know like I think that again you know um
I don't I can't give one number that
applies to everyone but I would say you
know there's many countries including
the Mediterranean countries where you
know supposedly the healthiest diets in
the world traditional ones they drink do
drink wine you know they drink wine with
meals with food, you know. Uh I think
that uh it's it's
um
uh it still does boil down to being
reasonable about what you what your
intake actually is. Yeah, that's good.
Yeah. I mean, I feel like there a lot of
people what they're actually weighing is
the social cost of not ever partaking in
it. Um, even if it's like, you know, and
that I feel like affects your longevity
in in in another way in the sense of
like at social gatherings or whatnot, if
I'm just like, and I understand with
people that are alcoholics, they're
completely avoid, but if people are just
like completely avoiding going to social
gatherings or whatnot, I'm not going to
drink.
Um, you know, what is the the social
benefit of even going out, I'm going to
go out to a wine bar and like have a
good time, whatever. Well, that's what
that's what I'm saying is that really uh
it's a social custom part of our
humanity. You know, we we talk about
health. We don't we sometimes just
forget about the humanity of things. You
know, we got to we got to we got to
live. We got to be we got to be human.
And and for me, even though I'm like a
you know, a a hardcore researcher and a
doctor and I focus on food as medicine
and health and prevention, you know, I I
I think it's it's okay to be human.
Yeah. Yeah. And and we have to address
that uh part of our our our makeup as
well because if you spend all your time
thinking about restriction, you know, it
it's that's also that's also un
unhealthy. The first thing I I I would
say that you should really really cut
down on is added sugar, especially when
it comes to soda. A single can of soda
has like 7 to n teaspoon of sugar. Way
too much sugar. that is going to trigger
inflammation into your body just by
metabolic overload and that is something
that if you cut down or cut out you're
immediately going to actually have less
inflammation in your body. Now, what
about diet soda? Non-caloric sweeteners
in a way even worse. And let me tell you
why. Even though you don't get the
calories with a diet soda, what we've
now discovered is that those
non-nutritive sweeteners are spartame,
sucralose, saccharine, you name it. The
whole shebang of these artificial
additives that taste sweet on the
tongue, they damage our gut microbiome.
They in fact they kill some of the back
good healthy bacteria. Now our
microbiome is these healthy bacteria
that we know live in our gut. We talk
about gut health. And when you damage
those bacteria, they can't do their job.
So what's the what's one of the most
important jobs of our gut microbiome?
Well, there's a lot of jobs they do, but
one of the most important is that when
the gut microbiome is doing its job,
it's releasing substances called
short-chain fatty acids. These are
postbiotics made by the gut bacteria.
You know what they do? They lower your
inflammation all by themselves. Mother
nature's best non-steroidal
anti-inflammatory is actually in our
gut. Our gut is giving us like motin
plus all the time as long as we're
actually treating them well. But if you
poison the gut bacteria with artificial
sweeteners or emulsifiers, now we
realize like thickeners can also do the
same thing. Hey, you know what? they're
not happy. When they're not happy,
they're not doing their job. When
they're not doing their job, they're not
lowering inflammation. Now, your
inflammation levels go up. One thing you
could do with diet that is very simple
is to cut down or cut out sodas. Both
regular soda or diet soda is a simple
way of actually lowering inflammation in
your body. I'm a scientist. I'm also a
doctor. And I'm also a coffee lover. And
I also drink tea. And I get to ask this
question all the time because if you
talk to talk, do you walk to walk? Yeah,
I drink tea and I drink coffee.
Actually, I drink really strong coffee.
I like espresso. Now, let me tell you,
just like alcohol, when you actually
drink coffee, that caffeine is a brain
stimulant. Okay? It does activate our
brain. Our body will similarly react to
caffeine as a foreign substance in the
body to try to neutralize it and
deactivate it. So, to some extent, our
liver is also lowering caffeine levels
in our body. Caffeine also breaks down
on its own, but everyone's sensitivity
to caffeine is going to be different and
you can build up your sensitivity to
caffeine if you drink a lot of coffee as
well. I think this is that
individualization. I think that
everyone's got a different sensitivity
to caffeine. It also depends on what
what you've eaten before you actually
have a cup of coffee. These types of
complexities mean that if you like
coffee, the taste of coffee, try it out
and see if the caffeine actually hits
you in a way that's too much. All right?
But and and back down. You can back down
or get out. Or you could take the decaf
portion and then you get the taste
without the the mental zing. But I will
tell you something that you know like
with all this interest in longevity
today. Most people want to live with an
intact brain and be cognitively sharp,
right? That's one thing that we all fear
as we get older is that our brain's
going to kind of get dull or numb or
we're forgetful. Well, studies have
shown that caffeine is this really
unique substance that activates parts of
our brain that keep us really, really
sharp. Attention span really sharp. But
when I have my matcha in the morning and
I feel a little bit of energy in a good
way, I'm not robbing from my overall
energy levels like later in the day or
in the long term. No, you're not. I
mean, this is, you know, there's I think
there's way too much attention being
paid to the way people portray spikes
and crashes, but so like that doesn't
happen with caffeine. You're not going
to get a an energy spike and then an
energy crash when you drink your cup of
matcha. And you know, matcha is a really
actually relaxing tea to have. It can
actually make you brain sharp and it can
wake you up for sure, but actually is
also got a soothing kind of feel to you
like you can actually feel a little
calmer while being more alert at the
same time. It is true that if you take
apple cider vinegar straight and you do
it continuously, frequently, constantly,
day in and day out, week after week, you
will actually damage the enamel in your
teeth because it's strong stuff. I mean,
you know, think about it. Uh you can,
you know, ask your grandmother, she'll
tell you you can use vinegar to clean
stains off of a rug or a carpet or a
piece of leather, right? That's strong
stuff. But you you want to actually uh
dilute apple cider vinegar like those
three tablespoons or one tablespoon in a
glass of water. Uh and that dilution is
totally fine. I mean think about it. We
we drink lemon juice and lime juice uh
you know in water and it's totally fine.
Uh but but do dilute it in something uh
with with water is ideal rather than
have it straight. And if you have it
straight, if you happen to like to slug
it down straight, what I strongly
suggest you do is to drink water
afterwards, like drink a a glass of
water afterwards or rinse your mouth
out, you know, like just like you were
brushing your teeth just to wash away
the the acid from your mouth so it
doesn't actually degrade your enamel. As
a general rule, I always say eating the
whole fruit, the whole food is always
going to be better for you because you
get other uh uh nutrients,
micronutrients, and you get other you
get more of the dietary fiber, much more
actually if you eat the whole
pomegranate uh fruit. So, I encourage
people to eat the pomegranate fruit.
There's juice that's uh in in the fruit
but uh as well. So you'll get the
elagitanins for sure. Um the juice
itself to drink uh I caution people uh
when they're drinking pomegranate juice.
Uh first you don't need very much to
grow acromancia and get good uh mucus
from your colon. You only need one cup,
one small fluid cup. All right, that's
not very much. It's like two shot
glasses. Boom. Boom. And you're done for
the day. All right. This is not about
drinking a big tall smoothie, you know,
of of pomegranate juice. It's very
sweet. You can overload on your sugar on
there. So, I encourage people to stick
with like just one cup max if you're
doing the juice. The second thing with
the juice is that be very careful of the
provenence or the origins of the juice
and what's put in it because, you know,
pomegranate juice um you squeeze it from
a pomegranate, okay? It's pure juice and
there are makers of pure pomegranate
juice. On the other hand, many
commercial uh brands of pomegranate
juice will have other things added to
it. You do not want added sugar. You
don't want other additives. You don't
want any artificial coloring or
flavoring or anything else. So, you
know, if you if you're going to drink
the juice because you have difficulty
eating the whole fruit, um don't drink
very much of it. One cup a day is more
than enough. Uh and even that's a pretty
hefty sugar load. All right. Uh, so you
want to be careful about not doing more
than that. You're not doing this to
satisfy your thirst. You're not drinking
pomegranate juice for hydration. You're
drinking it specifically to get those
polyphenols that actually create your
help your colon secrete the mucus so
that your acromancy can grow.
Oh, that's a great tip. Thank you for
that. You spoke about hydration and
you've written a whole chapter in your
new book as well. And I know you love
your coffee because I see it in all of
your lives. I see it in your Instagram
and your books that you have you go
through a couple of cups of coffee and
green tea in a day. I would love for you
to talk about your research on black
coffee. You know, you've written so much
about, you know, brown fat, white fat
when it comes to black coffee, the the
health of the liver. I would love for
you to talk about coffee because people
again are fearful of coffee and we
encourage them to be fearful of coffee
that has all the added sugars and the
flavors and the whipped creams and all
of that stuff. But when we're talking
about plain good quality black coffee, I
would love for you to share your
research on that. And how much can we
like a man?
Yeah. Yeah, that's a great question. So,
let me just say that I I wrote a chapter
in Eat to Beat Your Diet, my book on
metabolism and and healthy eating uh uh
and losing body fat. uh because uh
people are always asking me questions
about like which what's a good beverage
to drink uh and as it turns out the
research my research shows that there is
a holy trinity as I call it of beverages
holy trinity three very very important
beverages that are good for you uh and
not bad for you okay and those holy
trinity is water clean water
uh ideally clean water that comes from
uh you know a clean source and not from
a plastic bottle. So many people now uh
you know are beginning to move away
quickly from the plastic water bottles
that are sold everywhere. You go on
vacation, you know, uh it's a hot
weather like I'm sure it is in India and
like where do you go? You go to the to
the person selling some cold water
naturally out of a plastic bottle.
Number one, the bottle plastic bottle is
bad for the planet. All right, that
plastic does not get recycled. Plastic
bottles with good quality water turn
that water into bad quality water
because it the plastic bottles are cheap
and they shed
microlastics. All right? And those
microplastics get everywhere. These
microplastics have now been discovered
to be in our blood. They've been
discovered in the atheroscerotic plaques
that narrow uh your blood vessels for in
cardiovascular disease. In fact, a study
in Italy uh showed last year that people
who have microlastics studying studying
like embedded in the plaques that are
narrowing their arteries in their neck
compared to the people who don't have
plastic in their arteries that those
with plastic in their plaques have a
four-fold increase in having a fatal
heart attack or stroke. Now, um, it's a
correlation, but it's a scary one. And
now we're beginning to realize we you
can do a blood test and even detect
microplastics in normal blood. We can
detect microplastics in the human brain.
That's a research study that came out
recently. They found plastic in
testicles. They found plastic in the
human penis. Urologists who are doing
penal implants have found it in the
tissue. And they've also found plastic
in human semen as well. So look, we
can't ignore this anymore. If you're
going to actually drink water, which is
really health healthy for you, helps you
actually lose uh visceral fat. Get it,
make sure that you're getting the
cleanest possible source, not in
plastic. Second, tea. Tea also made with
water. So be careful about the plastic
it's stored in. Um like iced tea or
whatever. Uh a tea is really really good
for you. green tea, matcha tea, black
tea, fermented teas, all good for you
because of the polyphenols. Um, as long
as you don't add milk to it, dairy,
dairy will trap the polyphenols. So,
when you drink it, you're actually
missing out like the the bubble of the
saturated fat around polyphenols gets
flushed through your system. You miss
the opportunity to absorb it into your
bloodstream. All right? And coffee is a
third of the Holy Trinity. Coffee,
listen, coffee is a plant-based
beverage. comes from the coffee bean.
The bean grows on a tree. Uh the tree,
you know, the origin of coffee goes back
more than 4,000 years. In fact, it's so
goes so far back in human history that
we can't even identify an origin story.
So, coffee was consumed before recorded
history. All right, that's how far back
it goes. We think it started in
Ethiopia, that area that we call
Ethiopia today. Um uh and they're beans
that actually grow uh berries that
actually grow on a low-lying shrub tree.
Pick those uh dry them roast them. And
inside this the seed of this berry, the
coffee berry, you wind up having
polyphenols, lots of polyphenols, cafeic
acid, chlorogenic acid. These are some
of the natural bioactives I found.
Chlorogenic acid helps you burn harmful
body fat. So, drinking coffee actually
revs up your metabolism and helps you
burn fat. So long as you don't put dairy
fat in it, which is saturated fat, and
so long as you don't actually put sugar
in it, like you don't want to add sugar
to coffee, even though it's popular
because then you're adding calories and
you're, you know, adding, you know,
you're taking some fat away. You're
adding you're growing some fat net,
you're not going to be making progress
on it. And you definitely don't want to
be putting artificial sweeteners in it
because, you know, people say, "Well,
let me just use a non-caloric sweetener
for my coffee." Wrong move. And again,
this is recent discoveries have shown
that these artificial sweeteners
actually don't get absorbed as calories.
So, you're right. They don't increase
your blood sugar by themselves, but
ironically, they actually poison the gut
microbiome. They cause your gut to be
unhealthy. They kill healthy bacteria.
And now your insulin sensitivity doesn't
work as well and your blood lipids don't
work as well. So people who drink a lot
of beverages with artificial sweeteners,
guess what? Their blood sugars actually
rise despite the fact they're not
drinking actual sugar. And their
inflammatory levels rise because their
gut microbiome is sick. And their blood
lipids rise as well because the gut
microbiome helps to lower lipids. So
everything that you wanted to do with by
drinking coffee gets reversed by putting
artificial sweetener. So don't do that.
So water, tea, coffee, the holy trinity.
You know, I I I go back to the things
that I encounter I I make for myself
every single day or I make sure that I'm
putting it into my diet every single
day, which is the benefits of coffee,
benefits of tea, and keeping it
elemental, meaning simple,
unadulterated, like none of the crazy
drive-thru stuff uh with flavorings. But
yeah, I mean the more data I look at
coffee or tea, I'm saying, "Oh, you
know, this actually makes sense." And
it's quite impressive that it also
improves the cognitive function in
people who are older. It improves muscle
strength uh and performance in people uh
as they get older as well. Like, you
know, I haven't really been able to poke
any holes or, you know, even as kicking
the tires about coffee and tea. So, it
makes me double down on, you know, the
pleasure I already get out of drinking
coffee. I usually drink coffee in the
morning and I'll drink tea in the
evening. How many cups of tea would you
have in a day? And what's your favorite
kinds? I like green tea. Uh, but I also
like ulong tea. I like jasmine tea.
Jasmine tea is just green tea with
jasmine flowers in it. Um, and in my
last book, I, you know, one of the
things I wrote about is that it's a myth
that you only have the green only green
tea is actually healthy. Um it turns out
that black teas are also healthy and
they also have um theophlavins and other
bioactives that are also beneficial that
can help your metabolism. All right. And
then the fermented teas which is taking
tea to a ultra extreme where it's black
and it's fermented. It becomes a
probiotic tea. Wow. Cool. I can actually
drink tea that's also probiotic. So I
think I've expanded as I'm going through
my research now. I'm I'm I'm deepening
my appreciation of the benefits of both
tea and coffee. I'm also thinking about
drinking matcha more. I I en I enjoy
matcha anyway. It's a little bit more
work to actually, you know, cuz it's
powder, you got to dissolve it and, you
know, you got to store it in a certain
way. But honestly, matcha contains the
fiber, 100% of the fiber of the tea
leaf. Good for the gut microbiome, gut,
brain. you know, I'm thinking about
aging, longevity and aging and cognitive
health. Like, okay, maybe I should do
some matcha now as well. So, yeah, these
are the I mean, it's a good question.
Like, honestly, these are the day-to-day
things as I'm researching and learning
and thinking about and writing. I'm also
encountering, you know, I mean, like I'm
not writing science fiction. I'm writing
about science fact. Hey, if you like
that video, then you're going to love
this one. Check it out.