 The insane benefits of adding fish oil to your diet. Well, as most of you know, I'm always adding easy steps into your diet to better your health. Well, I've got another one for you today. I'm talking about fish oil. Fish oil is a great additive to your diet for a number of reasons. First, it's got some wonderful natural anti-inflammatory compounds. Second, fish oil actually sends signals to your brain that actually modulate your food intake. In other words, makes you eat less and you're less hungry. Talk about a great hack to not eat as much. Third, it can actually protect your skin from sun damage since it's rich in long chain omega-3 fats. Here may be the best reason. It turns out that fish consumption is also associated with an overall bigger brain size and a bigger hippocampus, the memory centers of our brain. And one particular town in Italy, a Ciroli, they eat anchovies, a very small fish rich in omega-3 fats for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And they have more centenarians, people over 100, per population than anywhere in the world. And one of the reasons we suspect is because of their significant little fish high in omega-3 fat. Now, my personal favorite reason for recommending fish oil is that the long chain omega-3 fats in fish oil allow for the speedy repair of your gut barrier. And as you know, as your gut barrier breaks down, so you break down. And as your gut barrier stays intact, you stay intact. So I like my gut barrier to stay intact. And what's fascinating is omega-3 fats actually repair your gut barrier and omega-3 fat consumption prevents the absorption of LPSs, those lipopolysaccharides that are cell walls of bacteria, from getting into your bloodstream in the first place. These guys actually cause energy draining inflammation. Now, I measure the omega-3 index in all patients who come to see me. The omega-3 index looks at the amount of two omega-3 fats, EPA and DHA, that are attached to red blood cells, which looks at approximately what you've been doing for two months prior to the test. And it's called the omega-3 index. Now, the problem is most of my patients, when I see them, are deficient in their omega-3 index. And most of my vegetarians and vegans are profoundly low on their omega-3 index. So what? Well, it turns out that people who have the highest omega-3 index have the biggest brains, seriously, and the biggest areas of memory they have a campus. Now, here's the bad news. People who have the lowest omega-3 index have the most shrunken brains and the smallest areas of memory. And one would think you would want a big brain and big areas of memory, I certainly do. So we also know that people who have the highest DHA in their brains, and your brain is about 70% fat, and half of the fat in your brain is DHA. So that's why you want so much DHA. Now, the only people I see in my practice who don't take supplemental fish oil are people who eat sardines or herring on a daily basis. So unless you're a Portuguese Southern Italian or Norwegian descent, you probably don't fit this profile. And you should supplement with fish oil. Now, how do you do that? First of all, you want to find a fish oil that's molecularly distilled. Yes, fish oil has a lot of nasty heavy metals in certain fish, although small fish usually don't have those heavy metals. But just in case molecular distillation means those toxins and heavy metals have been complexed out of the fish oil. Try to make sure your fish oil comes from small fish like sardines and anchovies or mendhen. My recommendation is when you're taking fish oil, aim for 1000 milligrams of DHA per day. Now, that's tricky, because what you see on the front of the bottle does not correlate with how much DHA is in there. You may see 1400 milligrams of omega-3s per capsule, and you go, great, that's what I need. I only have to take one, not so fast. You have to turn the bottle around and look at the label and look for the words DHA per capsule. Now, a lot of fish oil manufacturers will try to fool you, and you didn't look at the serving size, and the serving size may be two or three. So whatever you see down below for DHA, you've got to make sure that's per one capsule, or if it's for two or three, you got to divide that number to find out how much each capsule contains. And unfortunately, I see this all the time. I see that people are taking their fish oil, but have no idea that they're really looking for about 1000 milligrams of DHA per day. Now, why do I say that? Because when we put people on 1000 or more DHA per day, their omega-3 index will always be in the range that's considered normal. So that's where I got that number. Again, we measure this every day on everybody, every three months, so we know what works and what doesn't. I'm not conjecturing about this. Now, there are several good national brands that I recommend. Nature's bounty is good, but be careful. In general, you have to take four of their fish oil a day to reach 1000 milligrams. Omega via DHA 600 is a fairly small capsule that has 600 milligrams of DHA per capsule, so you only need two per day. My female patients quite frankly love it because of the size. Carlson's Elite Gems can be swallowed, or if you're not into swallowing these fish oil capsules, you can actually chew them and then swallow the capsule. And again, a lot of my female patients like this option. Kirkland Signature Fish Oil, 1200 milligram enteric-coated, won't give you fish burps, which is good, but it's got to have the blue label, not the yellow label. And I see a lot of patients using the yellow label, and quite frankly, there's very little available DHA in the yellow label Kirkland. Now, if you're a vegan, no problem, there are plenty of algae-derived DHA, EPA, and DPA capsules. I personally like the Thrive Culinary brand. Now, either way, aim to take 1000 milligrams of DHA per day. Now, I recommend you take a fish oil capsule with every meal, or better yet, mixed flavored cod liver oil into your food. Now, don't wrinkle your nose. Believe it or not, modern cod liver oil has no fishy taste or no fishy smell. I love Carlson's Lemon and Orange flavors, and it's great to mix in with olive oil or perilla oil on your salad dressings or even on your vegetables. In fact, I have frequently served guests a salad in my home that's been made with half Carlson's Fish Oil, the lemon flavor, and they tell me what a great salad this is. What are you using? And I tell them cod liver oil, and they try to spit it out. It doesn't taste fishy, and it's an easy way, particularly with your kids, to get fish oil cod liver oil into them, and their brains will benefit. Study after study shows that the more DHA in a child's diet, the better they will do in school, and believe it or not, the better emotional stability they'll have. So, whatever way suits your lifestyle and routine, get fish oil into your diet. Really, the benefits are not to be missed out on, and it's a really easy step to take towards getting your health on track. First things first, let's get this straight. Not all seed oil is bad to cook with. Not all seed oils are bad to use. What we're talking about bad seed oils, we're really addressing an Omega-6 short chain fatty acid called linoleic acid. Now, linoleic acid is the primary fat, even though it's called an acid, it's a fat in a great number of seed oils. And what we've learned through the years is that even though linoleic acid is an essential fatty acid, that means we have to have it in our diet, we don't manufacture it, and believe it or not, it's an important component of our mitochondria and our cell wall. We have to have some. Unfortunately, we don't need much, and it's the excess of linoleic acid in our diet that has been attributed to a lot of mischief. Now, one of the things we now know is that linoleic acid is converted into what are called aldehydes. Now, aldehydes are compounds that, among other things, stiffen our blood vessels, stiffen our cell membranes, and many people have heard about formaldehyde, which is an aldehyde. And what is formaldehyde? It's embalming fluid, and having worked with formaldehyde for most of my life, formaldehyde makes tissues stiff. So the last thing you want is to use oils that stiffen your tissues. So every time you use these sorts of vegetable oils, you're embalming yourself. Sound like a good idea? So many seed oils are really bad for you. Now, corn oil. Corn oil is loaded with linoleic acid. Now, many people hear the word canola oil, and they think, I don't know why, that canola oil is corn oil. Now, it may be because one of the major brands of corn oil that was very popular is called mazolla oil. And a lot of my patients, a lot of you on my websites, think when I'm saying canola oil is pretty safe, you think I'm saying mazolla, and nothing could be further from the truth. It turns out that organic canola oil has actually a great deal of a very friendly omega-3 fat called linoleic acid. It does have some linoleic acid, but the ratio is actually fantastic. Now, the problem with canola oil and why it's been off of my list up until the last book is that most canola oil is sprayed with Roundup glyphosate, but we now are finding small producers of organic canola oil, and it's perfectly safe. It's not my number one oil, but you're okay to use organic canola oil. It's not mazolla corn oil. Now, grape seed oil. Let's be clear about this. Grape seed extract are polyphenols that are taken from grape seeds and grape skin, and they have some amazing health-promoting qualities, but grape seed oil that's pressed out of the grape seed has none of those benefits, and it's mostly that omega-6 fat linoleic acid. Now, someone wrote in that long ago grape seed oil was safe on my list, and quite frankly, I think it was in my original book, Dr. Gundry's Diet Evolution, and if you've been following my career, you know that when I learn something that's important for you to know, I will change my stance, and there's a lot of docs out there who, regardless of the information, regardless of the studies, they will never change their stance. So, grape seed oil is not friendly to you, and I do not recommend it. Same with cotton seed oil. Now, how about peanut oil? Peanut oil is used for deep fat frying, and it's very stable, and it doesn't smoke. It's probably the worst for you. It turns out that peanut oil contains a peanut lectin, and there's very good studies on multiple monkey species who are given peanut oil with and without the lectin. The monkeys who were given peanut oil with the lectin developed atherosclerosis, and quite frankly, monkeys don't get atherosclerosis, but these did giving them peanut oil. When they gave them the peanut oil without the lectin, the lectin was removed, they didn't develop atherosclerosis. You'll learn in my new book, The Mechanism that How This Happened, the lectin actually attached to the inside surface of their blood vessels, and they attacked their blood vessels. So, keep it away from you. Peanut oils in lots of foods, especially fast foods, because they use it for deep fat frying, so beware. Safflower oil. Now, safflower oil is also very heavy in omega-6 fats. Recently, safflower oil has been genetically bred to have more oleic acid, which is the mono-unsaturated fat in olive oil. But, beware, just because there's more oleic acid than normal, safflower oil and sunflower oil still is predominantly the omega-6 polyunsaturated fat that we're warning against. So, don't be confused. You can't make a silk purse out of a sowsere. Soy oil, soybean oil is loaded with lectins, and the vast majority of soy in this country is sprayed with glyphosate, and that glyphosate roundup will be present in their oil. Same with sunflower oil, same issue. Now, you'll see sometimes sunflower lecithin in supplements. Sunflower lecithin is not sunflower oil. It's an emollient that sometimes we have to use to make something stick together. It is not a huge contributor to much of anything. So, what are the oils that you can cook with? Well, sesame oil, non-toasted sesame oil, is great. My personal favorite is perilla oil. Perilla oil is the oil of Korea and much of China. Perilla oil is almost all alpha-linolenic acid, ALA, and the health benefits of ALA are just spectacular. Non-gmo canola oil is great. You can't cook with flaxseed oil, but flaxseed oil is also loaded with ALA. Now, is it important for a smoke point for choosing an oil? Not at all. Olive oil has a low smoke point, but in fact, olive oil is the least oxidizable oil that you can cook with, and so smoke point is not a deal in choosing an oil. And just because an oil is smoking doesn't mean that it's oxidizing. Oxidized oil is a rancid oil, and that's the problem. Now, remember, if you're looking at an ingredient and you're looking at the oil and the oil content, most likely the package you're looking at is a highly processed food with ground up grains or even ground up lectin-free products that are being cooked in that oil. What's worrisome is, you may say, oh, this is done with olive oil, or oh, this is done with avocado oil, and so that's safe. But look at the total carbohydrates in that package. I see many wise consumers who look at the oil and say, oh, that's good oil, that's coconut oil, or that's olive oil, or that's avocado oil, and that's good for me, without reading the carbohydrate content. And they're eating a very high carbohydrate food while looking at the oil, and that's not the problem for most of us. Finally, if you're eating a process or ultra-processed foods, the odds are you're eating a terrible oil that is omega-6 that's going to contribute to inflammation and, quite frankly, is going to embalm you slowly, and that's not what you want. All right, here in America we love convenience, and we also love breakfast, unfortunately. What's the definition of hot, filling, convenient breakfast? Well, oatmeal. Sure, it may be delicious, easy to make, and you might even think it's good for you. I get it. We've been taught to think this, but unfortunately that could not be further from the truth. In fact, oatmeal is one of the worst foods that you can put in your body. Oats used to make oatmeal are loaded with lectins, which can poke holes in your gut lining and cause serious health issues down the line. My oldest daughter is an elite horsewoman, and she assures me that the only purpose of oats is to make horses fat for the winter. And I couldn't agree with her more. Back when we needed to get fat for the winter, oats were fairly useful, and oats absolutely makes you get fat for the winter. And if that's not enough to stop you, I've got plenty more reasons. Interestingly enough, the ancient Egyptians actually ate a lot of oats, but analysis of thousands of Egyptian mummified remains has revealed that the health status of those odors wasn't very good. They often died overweight with clogged arteries. Their teeth were decayed from a diet high in grains, which are full of simple sugar, and were worn down to the gums by grinding these grains with their teeth. In fact, other mummies have suggested that some of the Egyptian queens died with diabetes. Now there's a study that I've alluded to in my earlier books of children and orphanages in England at the turn of the century who were fed oats as their daily food. These children had dramatic dental carries, and of course in those days, there was no option for dental work. But an interesting study, half of these children, their oats were taken away, and they were given fish oil in the form of cod liver oil, and their gruel was changed to other grains that we'll talk about in a minute. Those children actually reversed their dental carries. So every time you put that bowl of oatmeal in front of your kids, think about that the next time you're going to the dentist. Now are there options for people who just have to have that healthy warm bowl of breakfast cereal? Yeah, both millet and sorghum are hauls and have no lectins. And there's even a type of millet called fornio, which if you cook it tastes almost identical to cream of wheat. So you'll get that breakfast mouthfeel that you're looking for without the harmful lectins. Now it gets worse than that. Even gluten-free oats have proteins that cross react with gluten. And so many of my patients unfortunately have been eating gluten-free, but they've been eating gluten-free oats. And when we take those gluten-free oats away from them along with other lectin-containing foods, their leaky gut and their autoimmune issues resolve. Now just remember, gluten-free does not mean lectin-free. Give me another example. 70% of my patients who are sensitive to gluten react to oats and corn as if they were gluten, even though they say gluten-free. The other thing to realize is so many of our oat products are predigested to make you be able to cook them in 30 seconds and not water. And when we predigest these oats, they basically are a bowl of sugar and that's the last thing you want. Now you might be listening to this right now and you've already decided that you still want your oatmeal. I get it. Something that we thought was healthy for so long can be hard to give up. But there's one more huge issue with oats and oatmeal. Our oats are sprayed with chemicals and I'm not sure you actually want to eat chemicals. Consumer Reports, the environmental working group, have analyzed oats in our breakfast food, oats in our granola, oats in our oat bars, and have found very high disturbing levels of glyphosate in almost all oats in the United States. That's Roundup. Now why don't we want Roundup? Turns out Roundup is a recognized carcinogen by both the World Health Organization and other environmental agencies. Why you would purposely want to eat a carcinogen for breakfast is hard to believe. Secondly, there is another chemical that I talk about in my upcoming book that is banned as an agricultural herbicide in the United States but is still used on oats in the United States even though it's banned to make oat stalks not grow as high as normal. Now why would you want to do that? It turns out that oat stalks get very spindly and wind can actually blow over that oat stalk and that ruins the crop. So cleverly you can spray oats with this herbicide and make them not grow as high. Sounds brilliant from an economic standpoint. The problem is this chemical is also a known carcinogen. Now it was banned by the EPA as not allowed to be used but during the recent previous presidential administration the EPA was told to loosen that allowance and new studies by the environmental working group has shown that all of our oats in the United States have up to 400 times the allowable allowance of this herbicide including some of our favorite old-fashioned oatmeal. So if you want chemicals in your breakfast, cancer causing it chemicals in your breakfast then please have a healthy bowl of oatmeal but wait there's more not only does glyphosate cause cancer but glyphosate is now a known disrupter of gut law integrity and glyphosate also kills off the serotonin producing bacteria in your gut. So if you want to get depressed, if you want to get anxious, if you want to expose yourself to cancer causing chemicals all for the sake of having your healthy bowl of oatmeal quite frankly there's nothing I can do probably to stop you except please try a healthy alternative like millet or sorghum or the tiny millet fornia. Let me just reiterate there was a 23 year long study done in California tracking glyphosate levels in our bodies the amount of glyphosate with each year has been dramatically increasing in our bodies it affects our energy levels it causes leaky gut it strips the micronutrients from the food you eat and if that isn't bad enough it actually suppresses an enzyme you need to have adequate vitamin D levels in your body. So millet, fornia, sorghum if you want to add a sweetener to these foods please use allulose allulose is a natural sugar that was first discovered in figs it's now being produced get it from non-gmo allulose sources if you want to increase the fun in your breakfast add some cocoa nibs chop out some healthy nuts like walnuts or macadamias or pistachio put it in fornia put it in sorghum put it in millet and please please please take your oatmeal away from you and your kids you'll be doing everybody a favor and we'll stop poisoning ourselves in one simple step. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Dr. Gundry podcast make sure to check out the next one here. Believe it or not two and a half eggs per day will meet your entire protein requirements for 24 hours so if this is how you want to get your protein fine