 Question answers from Kelly McBruner on my recent IG post that read, if you can eat one bite for your taste buds and two bites for your gut buddies, you'll make great changes to your health with this small adjustment. What does this mean? Kelly asked. Can you please give us some examples of what this looks like in reality? Like, can I have pizza if I then eat two servings of veggies? Oh, we're negotiating Kelly. No, that's not what I meant. But good question. So let me give you an example from last night. I actually had some grilled radicchio that was wrapped with prosciutto and then had a little balsamic vinegar over the top. I was eating for my taste buds because quite frankly, I really liked the taste of prosciutto. And interestingly enough, prosciutto is an aged fermented ham. And I was getting a really great taste from the balsamic vinegar and the prosciutto. Now it just so happened to be wrapped in radicchio, which has a very bitter taste. I've become accustomed to bitterness, but that would probably not be the taste I was looking for. But radicchio is one of the best foods for my gut buddies. So I got a taste that my taste buds really enjoyed. But I also was using it as a way of getting what my gut buddies really wanted out of that meal. And so it was a win-win for me. It's the same way with most of the foods that we're eating. We really want to think of eating for our gut buddies first, but then give our taste buds something that we're interested in. For instance, one of the best ways to enjoy dark chocolate, and we'll get into that in a little bit, is put a square of dark chocolate in your mouth and let it melt in your mouth. You will actually get a prolonged pleasant taste experience. And in the process, you will swallow a whole bunch of very important polyphenols that actually give your gut buddies exactly what they need. So it's a win-win for your taste buds and your gut buddies. Now in terms of pizza, there are now pizza crusts that are available, that are lectin-free or lectin-light. One of them that I recommend is cappellos by the plain crust. And then put some, what I do is I buy, believe it or not, pesto from Costco, Kirkland brand, which uses basil from Laguria, Italy, where I hike all the time, and Parmesan cheese. And I use that as my topping. And then put some mozzarella cheese on it. I like to put arugula on top of it. And you've got yourself a great pizza that your mouth will like, I guarantee you. But it's going to deliver stuff that your gut buddies are going to like. So great question. From Ray Lentz on YouTube, Dr. Gundry, I see a lot of talk about walnut oil and its benefits. What's your take? Well, I'd much rather you have walnuts than walnut oil. A couple reasons for that. Certainly walnuts have lots of interesting polyphenols that have been shown in study after study to benefit your brain health and your heart health. The Predamed study in Spain really demonstrated this extremely well. Walnut oil, on the other hand, has a lot of the omega-6 fat linoleic acid. Yes, it does have the omega-3 fat linolynic acid. And I know those are tongue twisters and they sound almost identical. But walnut oil is actually one of the higher oils in linoleic acid. And you really don't want that as part of your diet. There are far better, safer oils out there. Olive oil is a better choice. My favorite, if you're really looking for a healthy oil, is perilla oil or sesame oil. So walnut oil is way down the list, but walnuts are great. And try to have a handful of walnuts every day. From Frank Palace on YouTube, have you reviewed Moringa? Well, no, we've actually never done a podcast on Moringa. Moringa is a fascinating polyphenol supplement. I used to take a lot of Moringa. It's kind of fallen out of my regimen at the moment. I may bring it back. I try to cycle through polyphenols because, quite frankly, our ancient ancestors, 250 different plants in species on a rotating basis. And some were available part of the year, other parts of the years. And I think it's a good idea to vary the polyphenol-based supplement you're using. And I certainly do that in my practice. From Jasmina Piskulik on YouTube, thanks for sharing your knowledge and please keep it coming. I'm kind of wondering, wouldn't it be possible to get rid of lectins and peanuts by pressure cooking them? Wouldn't it be great if it worked? Well, yes, pressure cooking will get rid of lectins and peanuts. Interestingly, I went to a medical school in the South at Georgia and lived in the South for quite a while. And boiled peanuts are an incredibly popular way of eating peanuts. So I researched how best to get rid of lectins and peanuts. And it's well known that they have them. It turns out that roasting increases the lectin content and the allergenicity of peanuts, whereas boiling actually lessens the lectin content, like boiling most lectin-containing foods. So great question. And so obviously there was some method to the Southern tradition of eating boiled peanuts rather than roasted peanuts. Great question. From Bill Cullen on YouTube, based on my recent video about peanuts. What about sunflower seed butter, Doc? Well, I've done a whole seed lecture on YouTube, but once again sunflower seeds are loaded with lectins, number one. And number two, unfortunately, they're very high in that short chain omega-6 linoleic acid. As you know, some of my colleagues in complementary medicine warn about our overconsumption of linoleic acid that is present in most seed oils. So no, ditch the sunflower seed butter. I know it looks sexy, but it's really bad for you. From Hippo Homeschooler on Instagram, based on my recent post about shortening your window of eating. I have very bad adrenals. I feel like it's imperative I eat in the morning to cause less stress on them. What do you think? Well, most people who think they have bad adrenals, number one, don't. I measure cortisol levels in all my patients. And it's incredibly unusual for me to see adrenal fatigue. I may have seen it six times in 10,000 patients. It's that rare. Most people who think they have adrenal fatigue, as I've written about in my books, actually have adrenal resistance in their receptors for the cortisol hormone. And that's secondary to eating multiple small meals a day. So the best thing you can do to support your adrenals is to stop eating multiple small meals a day. Also, on the same IG post about time-restricted eating from, hey, Jamie Fish, have the benefits of shortening your eating window been studied on both men and women? Are there any variations of this practice based on your gender? Well, that's a great question. And I invited an expert on my podcast, Cynthia Thurlow, and she's on episode 247, where we go into this exact same question. And she and I both agree that one of the differences for men and women really apply to women of childbearing age, women who are actively lactating, or women who are actively trying to get pregnant. This is a time not to practice time-restricted eating. Your body has a unique sensing system of food availability. And if you're trying to get pregnant, if you're pregnant, or even if you're breastfeeding your baby, you want to have your body absolutely convinced that there is not a famine, that things are ripe for having a baby or growing a baby or feeding a baby. And this is not the time for time-restricted eating. From Ms. Hagsoni on Instagram, I'm extremely sensitive to melatonin supplements, even 0.5 milligrams. It gives me a headache. What does this mean? Many things. You may actually be sensitive to something additionally in that supplement, because quite frankly, you produce melatonin. And so you can't be sensitive to melatonin. Melatonin comes up every night, and I assure you it won't give you a headache. On the other hand, there may be one ingredient or another in that melatonin supplement. That's the problem. Here's my suggestion. Since pistachios have the highest concentration of melatonin of any food, let's do an experiment and have yourself a handful of raw or roasted pistachios before you go to bed. And let's see what happens. From Kim S, based on my recent YouTube video about the benefits of dark chocolate, I'm waiting for Dr. Gundry to address the recent concerns over high levels of heavy metals found in dark chocolate. Well, one of the things we can do is I recommend you watching my video with Katherine Arnston, energy bit lady, about the benefits of chlorella binding heavy metals and clearing out heavy metals. Yes, there are amounts of lead and cadmium in chocolate, just as there are amounts of lead and cadmium in kale. We've always known that chocolate has lead and cadmium in it. That's not a big surprise. And yet all of a sudden it seems like a big surprise. All of the health benefits of chocolate vastly outweigh the small amounts of lead and cadmium in these products. Now, what can you do about if you're worried about it? Well, the great news is that chlorella and activated charcoal bind heavy metals in your gut. And as you may know, heavy metals are excreted only during weight loss. Heavy metals stay in your fat cells until you do rapid weight loss when they're excreted as you use up fat. And those heavy metals are then dumped into bio from your liver because we don't have a way of detoxifying them and they're put into your gut. So the great way is you can bind them with chlorella or activated charcoal. And that's actually why I designed my product, Untox, which contains both of those ingredients. But the benefits of dark chocolate that doesn't have any milk in it, far outweigh the small amounts of heavy metals in chocolate. It's blown way out of proportion. From Phil Crossy on YouTube. What's that red drink you always have next to you? Phil, it's Vital Reds, my original signature product that started Gundry MD. And I never start my day without Vital Reds because it's chock full of polyphenols, friendly bacteria, thermogenic compounds, and the entire gamut of B vitamins for energy. Vital Reds. That's that red drink that you see every week. At Lectin Free Meals on Instagram says, how can I improve iron deficiency? Well, there's two in women. There are two major causes of iron deficiency. One is heavy menstrual periods. That's a hard one to fix. But what you really want to do is get high iron-containing foods in your diet, particularly the dark green leafy vegetables. The other option when you're eating dark green leafy vegetables is to take a vitamin C with every meal. Vitamin C absolutely improves iron absorption. And if you're a menstruating woman with anemia, it's okay to cook with a cast iron skillet. Please don't feed your husband with the cast iron skillet. I've seen many men with very high iron levels from a cast iron skillet. But if you're a menstruating woman, then that's a great trick. Now, if you're not a menstruating woman, we need to look for other reasons. One of the big hidden reasons that I see is chronic NSAID use. These things actually cause microscopic holes in the wall of your gut that leak small amounts of blood. Unfortunately, your gastroenterologist won't see it when he does an upper gastroscope or a colonoscope because it's in the wrong place. He won't see those. Stop those and many times we turn that around. Lastly, if you have a high insulin level, you may have colon polyps, which could be leaking blood. Easiest way to diagnose that is with colonoscopy, but that's kind of down the line. Okay, at chef Billy Riddle on Instagram says, can peanuts or cashews be prepared in any way to reduce their lectins? What about if they're pressure cooked or sprouted? Hey, that's a great question. It turns out one of the ways to most increase the lectin content of peanuts is to roast them. Interesting, huh? I just found a paper about that. It turns out that boiling peanuts or boiling cashews is actually one of the more effective ways at reducing the lectin contents. And surprisingly, boiled peanuts are actually quite popular in the South. And maybe that's where that tradition came from. Yes, you can pressure cook peanuts and cashews and reduce the lectin content, although they're not very interesting after that. Please do not sprout them. They actually increase the lectin content as most sprouting of grains as well. At Anna Trippie on Instagram says, what is it when you wake up and you feel heaviness in your eyes? Like you need to sleep more, but you can't because you're not tired. It feels sleepy, no headache, but my eyelids are like ready for us news. Well, this still could be sleep deprivation, particularly from sleep apnea. One of the first questions I have is, do you snore? But more importantly, does your partner tell you your snore? Most snores don't know they snore, but your partner will. If your partner says you snore, we've made the diagnosis already. That's the cause of that feeling is sleep apnea. And please get yourself asleep studying. Interestingly enough, we have a few of my patients who suffer from myasthenia gravis. And you're starting to see commercials for it on TV because there's a drug that treats it. But myasthenia gravis is a problem with the thymus gland, which is a gland that lives under your breastbone. Some people with myasthenia gravis, their first indication that something is wrong is that their eyelids feel very heavy and that it's almost hard to keep their eyelids open. My first recommendation is find out if you're a snore. Second thing, if you're not a snore, then consider a test for myasthenia gravis, which is actually easy to do. At human being nutrition on Instagram says, what causes a hairy tongue? I have tried to resolve it with an autoimmune diet, oil pulling, natural toothpaste, and oral probiotics. Can MTHFR cause it? Well, hairy tongue can actually be a normal phenomenon. And it sounds like you're one of these people who have tried everything you didn't mention tongue scraping. So if you haven't tried that, please do that. I've not seen an MTHFR mutation cause this. If it did, then 50% of Americans would have a hairy tongue because 50% of Americans have at least one mutation of the MTHFR genes. So no, hairy tongue can be actually a normal finding. At Healthy Ketosis Life on Instagram says, how can we tell if we have a brain blood flow problem and what increases brain blood flow? A true blood brain flow problem comes from a severe stenosis in either the carotid arteries, which come up the front of your neck, or the two vertebral arteries, which come up the back of your neck. In those cases, the warning signs are often what's called amaurosis few jacks. And simplistically, if you suddenly go blind in one eye or have something like a shade coming down your eye and then it lifts, that's amaurosis few jacks until proven otherwise. If in positional changes of your neck, particularly hyper flexion or hyper extension, you get dizzy or even blackout, then we need to look for a true blood flow problem in your neck. At Iceland Norway dash 27 on Instagram says, is it good for health to add MCT oil and coffee with coconut cream or milk? Well, yeah, I write a lot about adding MCT to your coffee with the proviso that you really want to make a coconut creamer, your creamer, not milk. Milk or cream will bind all the useful polyphenols that you want from that cup of coffee. So yeah, please add MCT oil to your coffee, preferably with a coconut base creamer, not a milk base creamer. At Carol Gahn's dash on Instagram says, my skin is very dry, especially in winter. How can I improve it? One of the biggest tricks that I learned from Sophia Loren is to please apply olive oil liberally to your skin, particularly in the winter. She believed, and I believe her, that her secret to her great skin was the fact that she applied olive oil to her skin several times a day. After your bath or shower, use it as you would a moisturizer. It will actually benefit your skin, whereas most moisturizers will actually dry out your skin. In fact, many moisturizer manufacturers put chemicals in their moisturizer that will guarantee you will need more and more because they actually end up drying your skin. Olive oil, a great way to go. At Modern Winter on Instagram says, Dr. G, what are your thoughts on iron corn flour? Well, iron corn is an ancient wheat, and wheat is wheat is wheat, no matter what kind of cute name we give it. Spell, same problem. Interesting fun fact, the famous Iceman of the Alps, a gentleman who was found frozen in the Italian Alps, dated at 5,000 years ago, was riddled with arthritis. And in his coat, his tunic, they found iron corn wheat grains that he was carrying around with him. Arliss Kurtz on Instagram says, can you explain how to properly pressure cook beans and advise me on how much beans I should consume for protein on a vegetarian diet? What are beans I should completely avoid? Well, that's a great question. Luckily, most modern pressure cookers have a bean setting for pressure cooking them. Alternatively, a lot of people are still afraid of the modern pressure cooker, like an Instant Pot. Luckily, there are two companies that make pressure cook beans. One is Eden, EDEN, and the other is Jovial, Jovial like a happy person. Both of them pressure cook their beans. Jovial goes the additional step of soaking their beans before they pressure cook them. So both are great options. My personal feeling is, particularly on a vegetarian diet, you're better off using lentils as your main legume source because lentils have the highest protein content and they have the least sugar content of any of the beans. And quite frankly, for many of my vegetarians and vegans who are relying on beans for their protein, the carbohydrate content in the beans often undermines their efforts for weight loss, for insulin resistance. Lastly, I know pea protein powders and other vegan protein powders are getting traction. Here's the problem. Lectins are proteins. Peas are loaded with lectins. So when you use pea protein powder, you're getting a whammy of lectins. The good news is that protein isolates of beans, soybeans, legumes, peas are now available and the protein isolate does not contain lectins. I talked about this in my most recent book, Unlocking the Keto Code. So if you want concentrated protein, read the label carefully and you can get pea protein isolate or other bean protein isolates and be safe and still get your plant-based protein. Okay, it's at Bulletproof Coconut on Instagram. Here's the question. Why are certain quest bars okay if they contain sodium, caseinate, almonds, and corn fiber? Okay, where to start? Quest bars way long time ago were really one of the first and only approved certain quest bars on our list of good foods. If you remember, and you probably don't, quest bars originally used a different fiber as part of their mix and then, quite frankly, from what I can tell, for economic reasons they changed to corn fiber and back then I got on the phone with them and said, what the heck are you guys doing? And again, I have no relationship with quest bars and they said, oh, well, guess what? It doesn't have any lectins in it and they were right. Corn fiber do not have lectins. Lectins are proteins and so corn fiber is a actual excellent soluble fiber. So that's why corn fiber is okay. Almonds, as you know, many people do react to the lectins in almonds and in fact in upcoming books I'm going to continue my warning that almonds are often in my trouble making autoimmune patients one of the most sensitive foods to avoid. A fun fact way back when the original program in my offices was called the matrix protocol and almonds of any kind were not allowed. We found through the years that about 90% plus of people will tolerate almonds, okay? And that's why certain foods with almonds, certain products with almonds make it on to our list. Same way with sodium caseinate. It turns out that when you modify these protein molecules that they no longer contain the troublesome lectins and unlocking the keto code I'm actually going to allow you to have pea protein isolate soy protein isolate pea protein hydrolysate and soy protein hydrolysate because there's recently been a paper which I cite that shows that the lectins are removed in those processes. Now hear me correctly that doesn't mean that peas are safe that doesn't mean that soy is safe that doesn't mean that beans are safe but these particular breaking down of these molecules makes them safe. So and the other thing is not all quest bars are even anywhere close to safe because half the quest quest bars contain sucralose. I have no idea why they do this again I don't tell them what to manufacture but I'm trying to give people an option that will most likely be safe for most people. I hope that answers the question and actually I'm going to jump to one on the kind of the same subject. Anonymous writes on your updated yes food lists in the energy paradox you say simple mills almond crackers are okay I'm confused they contain both sunflower seeds and sunflower oils which are your no foods why is this okay in your new book great question because we've gotten this question a lot when I was originally writing these okay lists simple mills actually didn't have their crackers but they had mixes for cookies and crackers that did not contain these ingredients and they were popular but a pain in the neck so when simple mills crackers came out we my wife and I have friends family over and they really like to have gundry approved cheeses and we went searching high and low for something close enough that most of the ingredients were gundry improved and the ingredients that weren't going to be approved were way down the list and we arrived at simple mills crackers do we sit around and munch on them no we do not do I ask my patients to sit around and munch on them no I do not but as crackers go they're one of the safest within reason that you can find and that's why they appeared on the list but in the unlocking the keto code they disappear from the list because quite honestly so many of these foods still have huge amounts of carbohydrates and it's the carbohydrate content of these foods that throw so many people off and so I guess you'll be glad to know in the next book simple mills crackers didn't make the cut okay uh based on my raw mushroom soup recipe I posted on instagram at notafraidyofiftys I thought mushrooms were worth more nutritional value when cooked a bit and not eaten raw is this true or false and on the same instagram post at Megan Mahidi asks doesn't the bioavailability of mushrooms go up when they're cooked so let's answer both there are clearly some people that do react to raw mushrooms and in fact when we do food sensitivity testing on my troublesome patients a white mushrooms show up actually quite a bit as a sensitive food to be aware of the cooking process does if you will detoxify these mushrooms but I can tell you that in Italy raw mushroom carpaccio is an incredibly popular dish in almost all parts of Italy and porcini mushrooms are prized to be eating raw having said that my good friend chef Jimmy Schmidt who has won three James Beard award really does think that the nutritional value of mushrooms goes up when you cook them and you'll notice in lots of my recipes there are plenty of cooked mushrooms so kind of uh take your choice you're going to get huge amounts of benefit by getting mushrooms in your diet for so many reasons that I elaborate on in all the books so however you want to eat your mushrooms uh eat them oh by the way the benefit of cooking mushrooms is mushrooms are mostly water and I want to get a lot of mushrooms in you so if you cook mushrooms surprise surprise they shrink and you can actually eat a whole lot more mushrooms when they're cooked down eliminating the water so there's maybe one reason to do it okay at le kisses on instagram says just finished reading energy paradox if you're fasting through lunch and only eating dinner when is it a good time to take your vitamins for better absorption I read that vitamin D is better taken in the afternoon but not close to bed okay so uh Dr. Hollick who's the famous professor at Boston University who's kind of the the vitamin D guru was as far as I know one of the first to prove that vitamin D even though it is a quote fat soluble vitamin is equally well absorbed without fat so you do not have to take fat soluble vitamins with fat particularly vitamin D to be absorbed so quite frankly it's okay to take them at any time uh I'm not aware of not taking vitamin D close to bed I will tell you that the B vitamins the quote energy vitamins probably shouldn't be taken near bed because as the name implies we've certainly had patients get energized right before they go to bed and probably that's the last thing you want to do in terms of taking vitamins on an empty stomach I I just completed a four-day water fast and I took my vitamins on an empty stomach I've done that on all my previous water fast as you know half the year I only eat one meal a day and I take my vitamins on an empty stomach in the morning and quite frankly I've gotten I guess used to them on an empty stomach just as a proviso B vitamins in general bother women's stomach much more than they bother men so if you're taking a multi B it's probably best to eat it with food so those are the provisos great question at Dr Matthew David on Instagram does citrus bioflavonoid bergamot actually lower cholesterol the answer is absolutely I use citrus bioflavonoid bergamot in some of my patients who are more concerned or their doctors are more concerned with their elevated cholesterol than I am and we've seen actually dramatic reductions in LDL cholesterol with a citrus bergamot and I combine it quite frankly with sugar cane based polycosin all and when you're buying polycosin all please look for the words sugar cane based most of them are not sugar cane based those two in combination have seen we've seen some dramatic reductions so great question I don't talk about that because that's something I use in my practice but it's a it's a good trick okay Sarah to furrow on Instagram this this question comes from a recent Instagram picture of a plate of eggs I posted I said I don't eat a lot of eggs so we got a lot of questions about this statement Sarah asks is it bad to eat eggs every day okay um if if anybody has read my books particularly the longevity paradox but also the plant paradox you know that as a general rule the less animal protein that I can eat or convince you to eat I see in my practice dramatic reductions in a blood marker that we routinely measure called insulin like growth factor one IGF one that correlates actually very strongly with health span lifespan lessening the risk of cancer and one of the there's three factors that in general influence this number going down and that is less sugars less animal protein and cheese is an animal protein eggs are an animal protein and more intermittent fasting more time restricted eating so those are the three factors and we've done fun experiments with our patients asking them to manipulate one or more of these factors and in fact have shown that insulin like growth factor goes down I've had some patients give up animal protein for six weeks and their insulin like growth factor will plummet 50 60 points and believe me that's a lot so I don't say don't eat eggs lightly I do eat eggs as you could see I was eating eggs and I believe when you're eating them they should be a vehicle to get olive oil into your mouth and that's why that those two eggs were more olive oil than eggs you'll also notice on my good food list that I ask you to eat primarily the yolks and throw the whites away in fact I ask you to give them to your dog your dog will think you're a fabulous person so no it's not bad to eat eggs every day but two and a half eggs will meet most people's protein requirement for 24 hours so if you want to get your animal protein requirement from them or get your entire protein requirement go ahead and have a couple eggs a day but make sure they're pastured raised or omega-3 eggs and they're pretty easy to find or go to Italy and France and get the real thing but great question this was a the instagram lit up after I posted that picture on twitter at baby chief one asks how do we tell if your supplements are okay to take with supplements we're already taking to check with interactions so as you know I take go 120 supplements in the morning 80 supplements at night a number of them obviously are my products I also take a number of supplements that are not my products I really do not worry nor have I seen interaction between supplements that I take of mine and others I recommend supplements to my patients that are not mine as most of you know I do not sell my supplements in either of my offices I send people to Costco or Trader Joe's or Amazon Walmart to get their supplements one proviso that I would say there is certainly a suggestion with a supplement that I do recommend called longjevenics which is a resveratrol based supplement that vitamin c probably shouldn't be taken near the time that you take longjevenics but that's about the only thing I worry about okay on Instagram Nicole Malzorowski I think I got it asks I want to go to one of your wellness retreats where do I get info on this well we're we're working on a wellness retreat right now if you missed our retreat at pause up a few months ago if you missed the dinner wellness retreat I did last week in Montecito we will let you know on Instagram when it's coming all right from Matthew five nine nine one eight one one zero on Twitter if you're trying to add calories to your diet as an athlete what's the best source of sugar I'm burnt out on honey bananas and maple syrup what about agave well first of all as an athlete you do not need sugar that's one of the great myths out there in my upcoming book unlocking the keto code I'm going to go into a lot more on why being in ketosis may not in fact improve athletic performance but may actually be detrimental to athletic performance on the other hand agave is unfortunately agave syrup is pure fructose and if you want to interfere with mitochondrial function that's one of the word that's one of the best choices to screw up your mitochondrial function that I talk about in the energy paradox you're much better off with loading up on long-acting carbohydrates if you like to use carbohydrates and by that I mean yam sweet potatoes hikima yuka artichokes are really great ways of loading up on slowly digestive carbohydrates from LF boba on twitter do you know if there are any lectin free toppings found at boba shops some examples are boba aloe vera and grass jelly I know that leachy jelly red bean green bean purple rice mochi are all no-go's thanks well I quite frankly have never had a boba and don't plan to have a boba soon here's one of the problems with boba those little balls are in general made out of tapioca starch but they're actually soaked in sugar and if you read carefully in for instance the energy paradox there's a problem that maybe I've created in saying that there are certain starches that are safe that is lectin free but that doesn't make them a safe starch in terms of the amount of simple carbohydrates they contain and I can tell you from my practice that there are so many people who read the yes food lists that are lectin free and see for instance like cassava flour or tapioca flour and think that you are unlimited in the amounts of those products that you can eat and you always have to be careful that these are still fairly simple carbohydrates and so many of my patients will gain weight their triglycerides will go up I have some people who are having these products that are now pre-diabetic insulin resistant and they don't get it because they're eating lectin free products but that doesn't stop you from being an informed consumer about how many carbohydrates you're actually having in these products so be careful out there Anand from Instagram says I am 26 have a nodule and suffering from hypothyroid I heard sorghum wasn't great for thyroid issues and you also recommend iodized salt but I've heard from thyroid experts that iodized salt is the worst for us can you please help me understand boy these are really great common internet myths and well-meaning physician myths first of all believe it or not the first internet myth was that millet was terrible for your thyroid and now there's a sorghum internet myth I can tell you that cultures in Africa and India have been consuming sorghum and millet as their primary grain since before recorded time and nobody's suffering from goiter and hypothyroidism so no these do not cause thyroid issues iodized salt is the single most important ingredient you can add to your diet to reverse non Hashimoto's low thyroid we have an epidemic of low thyroid in this country because we have switched from iodized salt to pink salt and sea salt the federal government mandated in the early 1900s adding iodine to salt because we had an epidemic of hypothyroidism and goiter as people moved from the coast into the Midwest and West where there was no iodine in freshwater fish our ancestors got iodine from eating ocean fish and oceans shellfish and it literally saved millions of lives in the early 1900s and 23 countries still mandate adding iodine to salt for that purpose now you don't go buy iodized table salt there are now multiple companies that make iodized sea salt and you can find them in a number of grocery stores now you can find them on amazon i try every iodized salt there is there are more and more every year you would not believe the look of amazement on my patient's face after i add iodized salt to their diet and recheck their thyroid stimulating hormone their thyroid you hormone that tells your thyroid to make hormone and watch it plummet just with the addition of iodine back into their diet if you don't want to get iodine go buy some spirulina and start taking spirulina tablets that'll do the trick as well but iodized sea salt is so easy to get and it'll make a huge difference now having said that you may be hypothyroid from Hashimoto's thyroiditis and if that's the case please please follow the recommendations in the plant paradox yes and no list and as you know about 90% of people who follow those recommendations will reverse their Hashimoto's thyroiditis and publish data from me at the american heart association so great question though okay uh Anand from instagram says what do you say about the recent study on pub med that says plant lectins or potent potent inhibitors of covid talk about a paradox well talk about a paradox as they say in vegas and i will paraphrase what happens in a test tube stays in a test tube so an in vitro study of looking at whether lectins can bind to a cell and block covid from binding has absolutely positively nothing to do what happens in a living animal that swallows lectins and is exposed to covid in fact the lectins will make your gut wall leaky which will increase your inflammation and increase your cytokine storm so if that's what you want to do please swallow lectin containing foods during covid but if you want to prevent a cytokine storm please stop making holes in your gut these patients with pre-existing conditions have a leaky gut and that's why they're so sensitive to getting sick from covid remember that's why in all of my product promotion all the information you get about products we show you human studies that form the basis for why we're asking you to take our product or why we formulated the product the way we did we don't base it on test tube studies what goes on in a test tube stays in a test tube pearl volita on twitter asks what would you recommend for people who are allergic to salicylates there is a growing number of people who are allergic to aspirin well it turns out that salicylates are in a lot of foods and you can find the list of salicylate containing foods just on any website but what i found with my salicylate sensitive patients is that it's actually leaky gut that is contributing to their sensitivity and when we seal their leaky gut their sensitivities go away one fun fact about salicylates is that there are potential anti-inflammatory compounds in fish oil which are called resolvins but you have to have a tiny amount of salicylic acid salicylates to activate turning fish oil into resolvins and without a small amount of these salicylates you won't convert fish oil into resolvins so that's why i like patients to consider taking white willow bark i drink white willow bark tea is part of my tea regimen every day or an enteric coated baby aspirin which will give you a microscopic dose of salicylic acid once it's absorbed and but more importantly once you figure out fixing leaky gut and that involves getting lectins out of your diet most of these conditions resolve and it's actually exciting to watch uh the luke hills from instagram asks are slippery elm and cacao powder keto well yeah so slippery elm is actually in my formula of total restore it's useful for increasing the mucus layer on the wall of our gut uh cacao powder um that's ground up cocoa beans there's nothing inherently either keto or non keto about these they don't really have virtually any carbohydrates so alone those are perfectly fine more amazing episodes just like this one watch now believe or not even five to ten pounds will make a tremendous difference on your blood pressure