 Okay, so polyphenols protect plants from damage. Now years ago we used to think that polyphenols were primarily anti-oxidants. And for years and years and years we measured the polyphenol content by what was called an ORAC rating, O-R-A-C. That's the Oxygen Radical Absorbing Capacity and looked at whether these compounds could actually absorb free radicals. And for years and years and years this was the standard by which we judged polyphenol content. Unfortunately, it turns out that these compounds, when we swallow them, are not doing that at all. And so if you hear people say that the reason to get polyphenols into your diet is that they are anti-oxidants, number one don't believe them, and number two that's not how they work. And I'm really excited when you see my new book you'll actually see exactly the power of polyphenols and it has nothing to do with their ability to absorb free radicals or as anti-oxidants. That their power is actually far more important. And one of the most recent findings is that polyphenols are actually prebiotics. In other words, if you remember prebiotics are what your friendly bacteria, the probiotics like to eat. So first and foremost, whoever says that polyphenols are the plant defense system against being eaten and that polyphenols because of that are extremely damaging to your health, baseball doesn't know what they're talking about. Number two, that's not how polyphenols work for the plant and they're not a defense system of the plant. That's what lectins are for, that's what phytates are for, not polyphenol. The second thing is people who say polyphenols are bad for you actually don't realize that polyphenols feed friendly bacteria. There's a host of evidence that you'll see in my upcoming book about the incredible benefit of polyphenols in actually changing the gut microbiome for the better. Our listeners who don't know about vitamin D in the prostate, can you tell us what you talk about in the book? Yeah, well the interesting thing is they have identified vitamin D receptors on the prostate cells, which like most other cells in the body, vitamin D has so many far ranging effects. So they have shown in studies that men that are vitamin D deficient are more likely to have BPH or prostate enlargement. Now we've known for a long time as with other cancers, men who are vitamin D deficient are more likely to get prostate cancer. There's many reasons for this, vitamin D helps to control inflammation, vitamin D is directly involved in cell division, cell replication, vitamin D is directly involved in how well your immune system is functioning, your good immune cells which are constantly gobbling up cancer cells, circulating throughout the body and other mechanisms as well. So vitamin D ties directly into prostate health and as I'm sure you do, it's always shocking how many men and women we see in the clinic who have vitamin D deficiency even here in Southern California, it's just very very common and of course more common in other areas and they have done studies and men who have enlarged prostate, it is more common in men in northern latitudes for example where they're not getting as much sunshine in vitamin D but it's even common in areas like ours. Yeah in my clinics, 80% of my initial patients are vitamin D deficient and people are shocked. I mean you're in Southern California and how can that be? But unfortunately most of our patients are wearing sunscreen, people are not going out as much outside as people assume we all do and yeah it's even in Southern California we have vitamin D deficiency, severe. Yeah and that's true and there have been some good population studies with blood vitamin D levels and a man's risk of prostate cancer and depending which study you look at let's just say you know most labs use a range of about 30 to 100 units in these studies the most protective level was generally above 41, some show above 44, around 50 so I think it's critical for you know providing you serious conditions like prostate cancer or other cancers even prostate enlargement know what your vitamin D level is and get it optimized. So I guess one of the things that a guy who's listening to this or the wife of the guy listening to this can you or the husband of the guy listening to this can you actually shrink a prostate by changing diet by getting your vitamin D level up by getting insulin resistance get taken care of and supplements and so that's a big subject but can it be reversed? Well it's a good question certainly we can definitively say that when you follow the integrative or natural protocols the diet improvements targeted nutritional supplements losing weight improving that insulin resistance you know addressing nutritional deficiencies certainly it's been very well shown you can improve your symptoms so you the most common issues are the urinary symptoms so you can definitely improve those especially from that mild to moderate category of prostate enlargement which is which is most men so that part we know for a fact but recent research which I talk about in the book they actually have done some studies for example with the common herb supplemental when used at the right concentration of dose they did show a mild decrease in prostate size based on ultrasound studies before and after so yes you can to some degree now I wouldn't you know exaggerate it it's not like if your prostate is 50 percent larger than what it should you're going to shrink it by 50% but yes studies have shown using ultrasound you can mildly decrease the size of the prostate with these nutritional approaches. So you mentioned you know just a minute ago about you know all of the published studies on the the health benefits of algae and because algae really isn't you know high on people's lists of you know oh I need algae for my health give me a get give our listeners kind of a rundown of you know okay what what the heck are the health benefits besides okay. Sure so as I mentioned there's two algae the first one we're going to talk about is spirulina it's considered a blue green algae because it has two pigments in it one blue one called phycocyanin and a green one which is called chlorophyll which most people know about so what is algae known the spirulina known for it's known for satisfying your hunger and giving you energy mentally and physically how does it do that spirulina has the highest concentration of protein in the world ours is 64% protein that's just to compare with animal protein that's about three times the amount of protein is found in animal protein and that's why the United Nations actually endorses it as the world answer to world hunger because of this high protein importantly all that proteins already in amino acid form so your body doesn't have to work to get access to it and it's loaded with B vitamins which convert the aminos into energy it's loaded with iron that carries oxygen which gives you energy it's loaded with essential fatty acids like omega three that helps with your brain thought it's known as a vasodilator that opens up your blood vessels so your nutrients and your oxygen can flow better to your muscles and your brain and so so that's why athletes we work with NHL teams Olympic teams runners triathletes who use it to give them energy and it doesn't upset their stomach because of course there's no caffeine chemicals or sugar or lectins or oxalates so spirulina is a very energizing algae both physically and mentally but I know we're going to talk a little bit about intermittent fasting the other great thing about spirulina is because it's so rich in protein and essential fatty acids it satisfies your hunger and there is no there are no carbs so it's great for intermittent fasting or if you're on a keto diet because it does not decrease your ketones or increase your glucose and this has been studied and documented so a lot of people use it for intermittent fasting you might have four or five or five or ten tablets in the morning doesn't break your fast at all but you're not hungry you're not tired and it gives you all the nutritional value that you need anyways so you can really you can eliminate a lot of those fake supplements you might be taking by the way there's only one calorie per tablet so if you take five or ten tablets for ten calories you can have your hunger satisfy for hours and you know and get all the other nutrients there's 40 other vitamins and minerals in it so what I don't know anything that can do that so it's a great meal replacement for assisting you with weight loss intermittent fasting and as I mentioned it gives you the energy so most people take the spirulina which we call energy bits in the morning in the afternoon when you're tired you get a slump or before a workout so let me let me stop you there you mentioned blue green algae and on the internet you look up blue green algae and you see these sites that say oh my gosh blue green algae is lethal and don't come near it and it'll kill you what say you well that's why at the very beginning I pointed out that algae grows everywhere and if it comes from the ocean or the lakes or the streams or your swimming pool it's toxic so yes the blue green algae in your ocean and is going to be toxic because it's in a in a it's wild in the in the environment it is not toxic when it's harvested like we do in fresh uh in fresh triple filtered spring mountain water and we're probably the only company that I know in the United States that does three third party lab tests at an FDA approved lab because we sell our our algae tablets both on our website energybits.com but mostly through doctors um functional medicine longevity centers and they need to see that there are no toxins in our algae so we do third party lab tests we even do a third set to prove there's no myco mytotoxins in there so so we are totally buttoned up not every company is but we certainly are but that's why if you go on the internet and you see stuff about toxic blue algae I can promise you it's relating to algae that's grown in the ocean or somewhere wild. Do you have any do you have any go-to foods years ago when I started studying people's food habits people in general uh actually have five main dishes or main meals that they just repeat over and over and over again and so you got any go-to things that you know just repeat all all the time yeah that's that's really true uh I'd have to say that cassava flour flatbread is my go-to even when I'm not planning that that's going to be breakfast or lunch it just is and when you have some sort of spread I can show you if you check out my youtube I can show you a brazil nut sour cream a vegan sour cream with brazil nuts that you can spread on there or maybe just do the olive oil and balsamic vinegar and it's so good and it's so easy that I eat every day. Wow oh you're making me hungry we're we're going to pause here we're going to be right back I'm I'm going to go to his youtube channel I'm going to find out and make it oh okay what we're back no awesome here we are we're just joking all right everybody talks about b12 and vegans what say you okay so I supplement that stuff uh with plant paradox uh if you are as sensitive as I am uh what you want to do is get the capsule and open it up into some cranberry juice and yeah don't just take the contents not the capsule and I supplement it it's that simple I think there's a little bit in mushrooms and uh to be perfectly honest I I you know some of your past guests including you talk about having a biodiversity in your gut um with the microbiome and I every now and again I'll do the shellfish thing I'll do the halibut thing uh just to make sure that I'm healthy in my stomach I don't want to be running into IBS because there's only one type of bacteria in there or it's just not working for me so uh yes I do I do cheat on veganism every now and again and I'm totally comfortable set before you go I just wanted to remind you that you can find the show on iTunes Google Play Stitcher or wherever you get your podcast because I'm Dr. Gundry and I'm always looking out for you