 This is Dr. Michael Greger coming to you live from my treadmill as I do nearly every month now to answer any questions you may have. Sorry, I'm starting late. We were having some technical difficulties. But glad I was finally able to get on. My big news, at least personal life, is moving to Virginia, rural Virginia out by Dulles in the Shenandoah National Park and Appalachian Trail and look beautiful. Be moving there next year. So back to the east coast if all goes well. But right now, coming to you from Seattle, happy to answer any questions you may have. For those who are unfamiliar with my work every year, I read through every issue of every English nutrition journal. So busy folks like you don't have to. The most interesting is groundbreaking, most practical findings, and new videos and articles I upload nearly every day to my nonprofit site nutritionfacts.org. Everything on the website is free. There are no ads, no corporate sponsorships, strictly non-commercial, not selling anything. Just put it up as a public service as a labor of love as a tribute to my grandmother whose own life was saved with evidence-based nutrition. Let us get to your questions. Okay. First question I have is, what's the problem with white potatoes for non-diabetics? Isn't the glycemic index and the high glycemic spike only conserved for diabetics and prediabetes? I think that's the advice of Frank Sacks. The problem with white potato and diabetics is amended analysis of all the studies done to date showing increased risk for diabetes, even for boiled or baked potatoes, even accounting for things like sour cream and salt and butter and all that stuff. So the problem is that it may increase your risk of getting diabetes. That's not diabetics getting more diabetes. That's people without diabetes increasing the risk of getting diabetes. And so that's why we would be concerned with presumably because if it's a high glycemic foods, you say, wait a second, why do we care about glycemic impact if we don't ourselves have prediabetes or diabetes? And we know from studies done with this, there's a drug that can basically turn foods from the high glycemic foods to low glycemic foods. And this is a drug that extends life, proving that indeed, even lower glycemic foods is healthier for you. When we eat high glycemic foods, even people with normal blood sugars are fasting, we get this exaggerated blood sugar spike. Our body releases so much insulin in response that we can actually drop down below fasting. And when we do, our body kind of freaks out and releases this fat into the blood, these triglycerides. And so you can do these studies looking at artery function within hours of consumption. And you can get, and most of the problems with saturated fat, but you can also get problems eating a variety of unhealthy foods, which includes high glycemic foods, which is basically mostly processed garbage like, you know, wonder bread. But there are a few high glycemic whole plant foods, including white potatoes. But there's lots of things you can do. If you saw my recent webinar, you can add vinegar, lemon juice, broccoli, lower glycemic impact. You can choose yellow potatoes, better than white purple potatoes, purple flesh potatoes, yellow flesh potatoes, better than the purple is better than yellow. Okay. G Light says hello. Hello, G. Chef Weas, oh, I'm sorry. I forgot you can click on the questions and show everybody. Okay. So, Chef Weas asks, given the CoQ10 benefits of eating dark green leaf vegetables, do you think there's also benefit for typical chlorophyll rich oils as a body moisturizer? No, so this is, right, this is a very high level question. For those who are familiar with this reaction, we think that the combination of chlorophyll with rays of sun that actually penetrate through our skin can react with the chlorophyll to basically regenerate CoQ10 within our bodies. But we don't need CoQ10 on the outside of our bodies. We don't have the inside of the body. So using chlorophyll rich oils would presumably not help anything. And chlorophyll rich oils, avocado and pumpkin seed oils are not chlorophyll rich, unless they're green, right? Chlorophyll is a green compound thanks to the magnesium. And so if it's not green, it's not chlorophyll. And even if it was chlorophyll, and you rub yourself with kale, it doesn't matter if you have CoQ10 on your skin as far as I'm aware. Okay. Anderson says hello. Hello. Uday says hi. Next on the list, is it bad? This is from BlacksDiz, smiley face kind of. Is it bad to eat the same foods every day as long as I'm getting all my nutrients? Well, it depends what kind of same foods. If you're eating a great diversity of foods, and you eat those same great diversity every day, fine, I would just be concerned that you would not be getting enough dietary diversity if you're eating the same kind of foods. But if you're eating tons of different foods, you could eat those same tons of different foods every day. Okay. Nusar says, Oh, I'm Gregor. Stephanie, Stephanie is Oh, in fact, I'm looking at there's a whole bunch of beard comments. I'm going to skip the beard comments. Thank you. I'd say, you know, winter is coming. Oh, here we go. Peggy says, do I suggest people taking the vaccine or no? How sad is it that we know what the vaccine means without any context because we are living through a pandemic and will be unfortunate. I'm afraid for a few more years. And unless everybody gets vaccinated, so absolutely, I'm in favor of getting vaccinated for COVID-19. It has a safety and efficacy record beyond our wildest dreams. And anyone who is skeptical, all they have to do is look at the data. Now a year ago, it was be a legitimate stance to be like, look, these are new vaccines, we don't know what the risks and costs and benefits are. And so, you know, maybe I'm going to hold off until I know more. But oh my God, now, I mean, it seems like every week in the New England Journal, there's another study, these massive studies showing remarkable benefits, remarkable safety. No longer does anyone have a scientific leg to stand on when they are questioning the efficacy or safety of these vaccines. And so you are on the wrong side of history, I'm afraid, and currently the wrong side of the evidence. And that's just what the science is showing at this point. Okay, lots more hello's, hello to everybody. There's a acupuncture question. Are there health benefits? Not something I have looked into. I do have a series coming up with a thing on a new webinar, like a 10 video series on yoga talking about all the pros and cons of yoga. I mean, I can do a similar series on acupuncture if there's the interest. So keep asking that question if it's something you're interested in. And that helps guide my choices. There were so many people asking yoga questions all year. All right, I'll look at the yoga literature and see the go from there. All right. Next up on the list, Victor, would sulfur a fan be generated if cassiferous vegetables were cut in liquid via blender and smoothie absolutely unless of course you cooked it first, because cooking with the destroy the morocanase which produces the sulfur a fan but raw greens rock cruciferous in a blender, you could not possibly make more sulfur a fan because you are you couldn't chew that well as the blender does. All right, next up are real tattoos as data assassin. Not too safe. Not something I've looked at to be on the kind of hepatitis B concern, you know, a kind of bloodborne infection with dirty needles kind of thing. Oh, oh, oh, no, that's piercings. Yeah, not something I've looked into. I do have the henna videos for those who are interested in that that is something I've looked into. Okay, zj says, oh, there we go. This might yes I'm gonna I'm gonna crop I'm gonna do my full I'm gonna go full Amish. All right. Where are we? Okay, a lot of like, good luck on your move kind of questions. I'm looking for a question question. Oh, it looks like here's one on diabetes. AJ says, can blunt based diet help reverse diabetes in a thin individual? It can if you have type two diabetes. The kind of stereotypical thin diabetic, particularly thin young diabetic is as type one diabetes, which is caused by a lack of insulin rather than insulin resistance for which a diet can help. But someone who is has type one diabetes will always have type one diabetes, unless we find some cool stem cell technology or something to get the pancreas back up and working again. All right. Larry does reading foods have been chilled destroy reduced the resistance starts fantastic question, something I covered in the recent webinar. So, you know, eating potatoes. So we know that eating potato salad, for example, is healthier than eating, you know, baked potato because the chilling converts some of the starch into a resistant form resistant to digestion and a small intestine. So it makes it all the way down to our colon access a prebiotic for our good gut flora. And we're talking a 40% drop in glycemic index just chilling. But the question here, great question. And, you know, actually the same question that I had, well, wait a second, after you chill, can you reheat it? Like, what if I don't want cold potatoes? Right? Can I just chill and then read it? I take a big potato, put it in the fridge and then take it out and heat it back up again. And it turns out absolutely you can it doesn't de resist. The starch becomes resistant, it doesn't become unresistant. So absolutely, you can chill and reheat, then you can chill again, actually get a little more resistant starch. But you don't need to do multiple waves. But yeah, so eat hot potatoes. But just after they're chilled, I'm glad you brought that up because that's yet another way to decrease glycemic impact of white potatoes. Okay, now the questions are going so fast, I just kind of click randomly. Normally that happens right away, but I was like six minutes late. And again, I apologize for that. Do do seaweed from pool? Oh, I see from pools, not the ocean contain item. I was thinking from pools, if you got seaweed in your pools, you are not cleaning your pool well enough. So like, oh, like, I guess like a pond, are we thinking? That's a good question. I Yeah, I wouldn't be, I wouldn't eat pond scum, because I'd be concerned about some, you know, a toxin producing algae. So yeah, let's stick to seaweed from the sea, seaweed as opposed to pondweed. Unless you can get a really nice, safe form. August says, I am a dietetic student. Yay, is there any way I can help? Oh, that is super sweet. You could go on to if you go on nutrition facts.org at the bottom is a little volunteer link. And you can help out that way. That'd be wonderful. And you can also direct your fellow students to this body of work as resource. And, you know, for the benefit of all. And so you're in a wonderful position to affect so many lives, because each one of them will talk to thousands of patients in their professional lives. Okay, CJ is back. Oh, answering somebody else. What else do we have? That may be answering somebody else as well. Okay, Lewis says, does the binding properties of fiber inhibit nutrient absorption? Oh, that's interesting. So it depends what nutrient we're talking about. Yes, there are some nutrients that are that are inhibited by fiber. So the same property that allows fiber to kind of go on to heavy metals and flush them out can also go on on to minerals that are important. But fiber rich foods tend to be whole foods unprocessed foods. And so they have so much nutrition that overall you get more nutrition. But yes, indeed, there is some inhibition of nutrient absorption. But sometimes as nutrients we don't want, like excess calories, excess fat. So for example, using a high, you know, if you eat a high fiber diet and then chug some oil, you actually absorb less oil calories when you're eating that fiber, because it kind of ferries them through your body have a whole fiber chapter where I go into detail in how not to diet. Okay, Lily asks, what diet can I recommend for a for tummy trimmer? I assume you mean for just losing that visceral fat around your waist. My chapter on that too, I would recommend book how not to diet get from your local public library. It is a book that I wrote specifically for you for someone who's interested in losing weight, particularly the most dangerous type of fat, not the superficial jiggly fat under your skin, which is relatively metabolically benign, but the visceral fat infiltrating and enveloping your internal organs. That's the dangerous stuff increases inflammation, etc. And the reason why people with obesity is lives are cut so short. And so yep, check out the book. I hope you will enjoy it. Okay, Vegan Games asks, what was your reaction to Gojiman's response video to my seabo video? I did not watch it, but I did have a volunteer. I'll watch it just to make sure that I didn't get anything wrong. And they didn't find, because obviously, if I got anything wrong, I'd correct it and be eternally grateful to Gojiman. But evidently, there was no, there was nothing factually incorrect. And so nothing, nothing to correct. If I'm wrong, let me know and I'll look into it. Okay, BLK says, question mark, question mark, question mark, question mark, question mark. My BMI is 23. Okay, that's the perfect but waistline. Oh, yeah, a couple more inches than half my height. Ah, yes. So should you lose inches in the belly area? Yes. So, yeah, so BMI is, we should use as an indicator of weight status, both BMI plus some sort of measurement of our, of our waist. And so here, waist circumference, trying to make sure it's less than half your height. And so it does sound like you have too much visual fat, which is not what we like. And so I would indeed encourage you to, to lose the good. The good news is that visual fat is the first is your body knows it's the dangerous fat, so that is the first fat you will lose. Yeah. All right, what do I recommend for high cortisol? Well, I mean, you could make sure, you know, I have Cushing syndrome, which is a disease, high cortisol disease. But if you're just talking about the kind of high levels of stress hormones in general, I've got bunches of videos on that, I've all chapter about it in how not to diet. And it's predominantly, oh, there's a whole bunch of things you can do. But the reducing ones that take animal protein will is certainly one of them. Dr. Greer, what is my opinion on you? Oh, I was just talking about yoga. So I've got a whole long series of videos coming up about yoga. It's very complicated. So there's no simple answer. Why? Because there's like, you know, 100 different types of yoga. And, and, and, and different studies, you know, just do postures and say that's yoga. Other studies to have no postures just breathing call that yoga. Others have no breathing, no postures, but, you know, some other, what was the other, you know, there's like laughing yoga. And like, so it's very difficult to make a kind of a summary judgment. So I go through all the conditions that yoga has been tried against all the different types of yoga and come out with it's basically like my cannabis series. I think where it's like, is cannabis good or bad? Or like, for what? What are you talking about? Basically, well, it's good for this is bad for this. So same thing with yoga. So no easy answer for that. Reiki sounds totally kooky to me, kind of like homeopathy. Doesn't mean it doesn't work, but it doesn't work better than placebo because that's what it is placebo. So it could be tremendously effective, but not more effective than doing nothing. But, you know, nothing in a placebo sense. Okay, Randy. Just four question marks. Two allergies, please. Can you personally allergic to only certain varieties of sweet potatoes? You know, while I would be questioning, I have never met anyone allergic to sweet potatoes. In fact, sweet potatoes are one of the two foods basically tapioca sweet potatoes and water like the three things pretty much no one's allergic to, but that's an overstatement. You can pretty much be allergic to anything. But I would presume if you were truly allergic to sweet potatoes, you'd be allergic to all sweet potatoes. But there are things that people call sweet potatoes actually not sweet potatoes. So but I if you're truly allergic to I would stay away from the whole family. But like you can get an actual yam, not a sweet potato yam, that's not sweet potatoes, all sorts of other kind of tubers and roots you could use instead. But that would be said, sweet potatoes are so good for you. Okay, Omar says I eat a lot. And I'm not losing weight, but eating Oh, healthy plant based diet, which I do to reduce my calorie intake for a year until I lose all the extra weight. I have got a book for you how not to diet I would go to the second half of the book where I talk about my 21 tweaks. So that's for someone you're eating a healthy diet. How do you celebrate weight loss? But on that, I have 21 suggestions for you. And actually, those suggestions are all part of the daily dozen app. If you switch over to weight loss mode, it'll give you those lists of tweaks as well. Okay. Can a pro can a person be allergic to sesame seeds, but not react to a recipe with sesame oil in it? Well, yeah, presumably, if you're allergic to some pro sesame protein that somehow extracted out, then that would make sense. But if you were truly allergic to sesame, I would recommend you stay away from all sesame. Sesame in all its forms. Thoughts on ingesting hyaluronic acid and collagen supplements. I don't think I've looked into that the collagen supplements just seems crazy to me. Yeah, so collagen, people like to talk about incomplete proteins, there's really only one incomplete protein in the food supply, meaning the only protein that you literally couldn't live off you die of protein deficiency, if that's all you ate, and that's collagen, that's that's gelatin, that's Jell-O, that's, um, it's all the same thing. Critically missing essential amino acid, you know, all plant food, all plant proteins are complete, have all essential amino acids, but the collagen, but people don't even take collagen for that. But I haven't seen any data supporting its use, although I haven't done a deep dive. If there's anything out there that you found, there's a good, uh, randomized, controlled, double-blonde, super-controlled trial on the collagen showing the benefit, I'll do a video about it. Okay, Hakuna says, can iodine and salt to grade disappear? There's a note of this on my salt bag. Oh, interesting. Um, uh, yeah, so, you know, um, iodine is a, uh, is an element that can, that can, uh, vaporize, but not the type of added iodine. So like sea salt. So sea salt, they think, oh, see, that's where there's a lot of iodine. No, just the good iodine kind of evaporates away, but the type of iodine that's added, um, to, uh, that's added to salt, to iodine salt, um, shouldn't grade. Um, uh, and it's a reliable source of iodine, but that's not the best source of iodine because you have the sodium with it. Best source of iodine would be sea vegetable. So like two sheets of nori every day, just chew on them like snacks, dark green, you're snacking on dark green leaf and vegetable, super healthy, get all the iodine you need. And unfortunately, I have to run out to my next interview again, sorry for cutting a six minute short by starting so late. Um, uh, we had password problems. I will make sure that does not happen in the future. Have a wonderful month, everyone. Uh, stay safe, be kind, eat your vegetables and get vaccinated.