 Hello, this is dr. Michael Greger coming to you live from my treadmill to answer any questions You may have I like I do every month. I just did a Facebook live 1 p.m. And And so if I didn't answer any questions, I hope you're back and hope to get to it at this time I did mention on the Facebook live. It just came out with our monthly newsletter today Which is free like everything else in nutrition facts that are if you're not subscribed go to nutrition fact that Or click subscribe and you won't miss it One of the things we did today is announced a flash sale for the next five days have all sorts of cool new merchandise new like shirts and stuff of course all money Proceeds we get from that all goes to support our non-profit work at nutrition facts that or 51c3 charity fueled all by your donations Right for those you are familiar in my work every year. I do every issue very English science education journal in the world So busy folks like you Don't have to I think about the most interesting most ground-back most practical finds new videos and articles every day I compile into new videos. I already said that On the latest in evidence-based nutrition all the most interesting practical findings You've heard the drill Normally, I just say all that to get the questions going on Facebook, but questions. There's already a long list of questions So I'm just gonna skip to the chase I'm gonna get right to your questions first questions from Melinda Not a question at all. It just says ie deprava vera I assumed she had a question before that and was trying to clarify But I think if you put a question on to early on on YouTube, it just cuts it off for whatever reason. So sorry but First full question I have is from automaton 111 saying anything food related that can improve the quality of my sleep No, he he or she knows about the pistachios and melatonin. Um, that's exciting I didn't know about pistachios and melatonin But yeah, have a video coming out about that very exciting unless I already came up with a video about that Um, I didn't think that was up yet. But anyway, um, I do have a video on keelie fruits um and sleep I forget what the control group was in that Um that study, uh, I don't type in sleep nutrition facts that are all my videos will come up I've yet to write my sleep chapter in my new book Um, I haven't finished 122,000 words out of the estimated 173,000 final manuscripts on about 70 done Uh, I haven't got to sleep yet though. But when I do, I'm sure I'll have all sorts of new exciting research Which I'll not only put in the book but translate into videos Later on so everyone can enjoy mc sebastian asked dearest dr. Greger Okay, please tell, um them about the best plant-based strategy for bad arthritis um Okay, so the question is what kind of arthritis do you have? um, uh You mentioned that there was a family history um, so, um Rumor, well, I guess it doesn't really matter rheumatoid arthritis osteoarthritis actually very similar diet seemed to help with both a diet packed with anti-inflammatory foods Um, it's a whole food plant-based diet. Um, we have a decent date on rheumatoid arthritis at least knee osteoarthritis um, there's not much on certain other types of Of arthritis like ankylosing spondylitis, but um, certainly can't hurt to use a nice healthy anti-inflammatory diet But as always you've got to treat the cause they're actually infectious causes Um that the that don't need diet. They need antibiotics Um, so you need to find out what's causing arthritis and hopefully try to um To treat the cause although a healthy diet will help Regardless with your life because it's a healthy diet Aline E-l-i-n-e-n asks what is the best strategy for going out birth control pill? Previously covered in very persistent acne after quitting usually that's um, um Temporary and should kind of equilibrate Um, or at least has been in my experience. It's not something that I'm looked into I do have some videos on treating acne. Um Like uh with barberries. I was just talking about in the other Uh on the other q&a Um, but yeah, I don't know if there's some protocol that would make that less likely um, luis mahan As how often do we need to replenish antioxidant levels? Because it makes sense to put some amylapowder in glass of water. I bring to bed and sip during the night um, you know, I have this really And what I found to be in a treating series of videos On like what's your RDA for antioxidants like what's your recommended daily allowance? I think it's the series of three videos where I talk about how the targets for men and women In terms of how may I and antioxidant units they should get every day and then I go through all the different foods All right. Well if we need to hit 15,000 or whatever how you gonna do it? Okay? Here's your oatmeal This is where you get to and then if you had a little cinnamon poof all of a sudden you're up to here And then you had this and then so check out those videos I bet if you tick just type in an antioxidant into Nutritionfacts.org we actually just updated our search engine Uh, not this month. I think last month. So, uh, it's really much nicer than it used to be Um, thank you Christy And so, um You should be able to find those those series of videos find exactly how much you need how to reach it And as you'll see in those videos, it's super easy to do it But you just have to eat really healthy foods So no, there's no reason you need to sip on some special glass of Amla water You can get all the antioxidants you need from foods If you eat healthy enough and those videos will help you do that MC Sebastian asks is five milligrams of melatonin supplement daily long-term safe Um, there's so much scientific evidence about benefits, but they're concerned that hormones are declining as the age do not Take melatonin supplements Um, why you say well Just trust me until the video the video is already I don't know I can look it up Um, let me see if it's in the this next batch of videos Um volume we're up to volume 43. Can you believe that? On 43. Yeah, here it is um, um Video 43 19 our melatonin supplements safe. All right, so where are we now? Oh, we are on Three so in 16 videos 16 videos from today our melatonin supplement safe So you can see all the data and why but spoiler cut to the chase don't take melatonin supplements You'll find out in 16 videos All right, uh hack sign 21 says please talk about niogen I've never heard of niogen can't talk about it hack sign 21 says or nad plus um Um, I I could talk about I presumably as a supplement um NAD plus is a nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, I think um It's uh the coenzyme in the body your body makes it. You don't need to eat it Um, no reason to accept it, but I bet the people that are trying to sell you nad plus have a different opinion Lewis mechon uh says is there any evidence eating in season foods is healthier? Um, or that like different ethnic groups are particularly suited for different foods and the answer is no um No, I guess and no So in season foods. Well, so they're maybe environmental benefits to you know buying locally in season but But if you just care about your health the fact that we can eat blueberries all year round without even having to get You'd eat probably fresh blueberries all year round. Um, so of course you can just eat them frozen Um, that's a wonderful thing about our modern world And that you know, I have to just live off of like turnips during the winter um and so Yeah, eat healthy foods all year round Period would be my take on that in terms of ethnic groups eating different foods I mean it's remarkable that around the world people eat vastly different diets um, but um, you know, uh, but the reason we know that people aren't somehow kind of uh Uh, their genetics have something to do with it is because of these migration studies where you take people I take someone lives in japan They move to san franciscan start eating living like a san franciscan and they start dying from all the san francisco diseases Um, and less of these so they you know, their prostate cancer rates shoot up if they're a man But their stomach cancer rates shoot down because all of a sudden they're not eating all this little salted fermented veggies um that they were um eating In japan anyway, so uh, uh, you know, we we're all humans and healthy food is healthy food Regardless of what kind of human you are Immune a bee Says what are the best ways to increase saliva? um Muna says talks about a dry mouth due to anxiety Um, and so the pureed foods liquids when I try the food I hold my breath since the life isn't breaking down can you help the bloat? Okay increase the love so what I would do um Is well, there's actually a condition there's a variety of conditions that can actually cause dry mouth um, and so uh, uh, there's Parts of the salivary glands there's actually not immune disease that can do it Seem to go to your doctor and find out what it is so you can treat the cause and if it is anxiety Then there's things you can do to treat anxiety. Um, so it's not about well. I'm just going to eat lots of wet food No, let's treat the cause find out what's causing the first place treat that so then you can eat any kind of health food you want um Okay, um a muna asks How to breathe when there's no air gets in due to stress Sounds like uh, like a panic attack Oh, yeah, it sounds like a panic attack. Well, you need to go Um get treated for panic attacks. Um, that's a horrible horrible sensation. Unfortunately, I don't think there's anything Uh, there's been no studies. I'm aware of on diet And panic attacks another one can imagine lifestyle interventions Um, something like stress management, uh, maybe meditation things like that things of which I am no expert And so I am not familiar with that literature, but hopefully On your physician can point you in the right direction Maria v asked top recommendation for vegan protein when trying to work out build muscle um trainers recommending protein shakes um, but Smart maria would prefer to avoid process. Can you imagine anything more processed than protein powder? It's like everything's been removed except the protein and then of course they add all sorts of crap in um And hope I'll visit Canada again. I'm coming up to toronto soon Um, uh, so anyway, uh, yeah, what's the best way to get vegan protein? I've been beans, right? Anyone who doesn't know how to get protein on a plant-based diet doesn't know beans Lagons beans, puppies, chickpeas, lentils those are protein superstars the plant kingdom Of course there's protein in whole grains and that's these other things, but um, yeah So eat look put some lentil sprouts in your shake instead of Protein powder that's just an industry that's trying to bulk you out of money And there's even uh, you have videos on contaminants and protein powder and stuff. Yeah your gut feeling to be like Why do I want protein process crap? When I just want to eat healthy Is a good one all right mc. Sebastian is back asking is It's true that vegan women shouldn't have cellulite My sister's been eating whole food plant based for years and cellulite does not go to weight even with exercise and regular regularly, she's desperate I think I only have one video on cellulite. I cellulite is basically a kind of a made-up word um by the beauty industry to make people feel bad about their body so they bought a lot of products um, but uh Um, I do I forget what the video if you type in cellulite didn't affect their order to pop right up, but I yeah, I I I don't remember there being any kind of a magic bullet solution for that kind of dimpled fat appearance um a A vegan doctor, that's the person's youtube handle says hi doctor greater another plant-based doctor Ah from the uk. I was just speaking to channel for the bbc before this thing Uh, can you kindly summarize the link between obesity and cancer? Oh, all right. There's actually a number of obesity related cancers um, uh, so breast cancer is classic example, um, and uh, I wonder if I've ever done a video on obesity and cancer You know, I'm actually going to do I'll have a section of the books so the new books about weight loss I have a consequences chapter talking about the whole, uh, you know, obesity paradox and all sorts of things Um, and we'll talk about the cancer connection That is one of the reasons why we don't want to become obese because it increases our risk for a number of uh, leading cancers A jason m asks, what's the best barley? Um, what a great question. I love practical questions. The best barley is a whole intact barley group So pearl barley is actually a partially refined food um, so The the purling process removes kind of the outer hole. So we want just called hold barley Um, and in fact if you want the best of the best, I would recommend getting purple barley That's the kind I use in my prebiotic mix In fact, I just had that for lunch. I don't know what I have for lunch So what I make uh using electric pressure cooker just to make things easy is I put one part black beluga lentils These little round lentils Um, uh, the black um purple hold purple barley Whole oat groats. So like steel cut oats, but not cut. So the whole oak groats before they cut them um And rye berries So that's basically a rye groat a whole rye groat That's it. Um, and uh And then, uh, you know, uh, cook that all together and then use that as the base for whatever So I can make savory dishes with it. I can do sweet So today I did sweet I had all this wonderful fruit from our community support agriculture product And so I had, you know, melons and peaches and so I was like, oh, I'll make some Chocolaty. So I did that prebiotic mix with some cocoa powder and some date syrup Um, which is of course a whole plant food. It's not syrup. It's just dates blended with water basically. Um And oh and walnuts and flax seeds and pumpkin seeds Um and fresh mint from the garden chocolate mint from the garden um And then all those fresh fruit. Oh wonderful fantastic. So, um, that's not just whole grains Those are intact whole grains which are even mouthier. I have a chapter on that as well So anyway, hold purple barley would be my answer to your question a little longer question answer than I bet you bargained for But there you go MC Sebastian is back saying please dr. Gregor. What are the best foods to kill? He'll be back to pylori. How long does it take big hug from spain? Hello spain, um I would I would recommend taking the standard and about cocktail for each pylori It's a serious enough thing to not mess around although they're very well. Maybe alternative ways to knock it off but the kind of the standard cocktail is so effective and So relatively safe that I would just do that if I were If I were infected, uh jason m. What is too much spice? Ginger roast my cloak cinnamon. How much too much onla? Oh, okay How much is too much spice? Um, I'm gonna have a ginger video coming up. I don't think it's up yet. Um Talking about uh, I was it was some amazing Benefit to ginger. I don't remember what it was. Um, and I was like there has to be some downside Like is there ever any side of legs or some people that shouldn't be eating ginger? um, and so I looked and there's I found something called Uh, uh, jamaica ginger paralysis. I said ginger paralysis That doesn't sound good and so it was like I don't know 1931 or something all these like thousands of people getting paralyzed turns out it was prohibition Maybe I got the year wrong. But anyway, it was prohibition So people were drinking ginger extract, you know, like villanelle extract with ginger extract So it was a way to get alcohol legally, right? And so like the mob Was well, like oh ginger extract is selling like crazy and but ginger is expensive So they use some varnish compounds like some ginger flavored varnish compound to make fake ginger extract um to make more profit And so people were drinking varnish and got paralyzed all this so it wasn't actually ginger It was it was actually if they used ginger and being fine, but no so bottom line don't drink varnish Um, so yeah, no, I don't know of any upper limit for ginger or rosemary clove clove is powerful stuff. How much could you eat of that cinnamon? um as long uh, there is an upper limit for cinnamon. In fact, it's uh Pretty low upper limit if we're talking about cassia cinnamon cinnamon so-called Chinese cinnamon um, but if we're talking about real cinnamon um, meaning ceylon cinnamon it should actually say ceylon on the package if it doesn't it's probably cassia and then you don't have to worry about it. Um, but uh cassia cinnamon um has too much of a of a liver toxin compound called kumarin um, uh, and so I think the adult Maxim dose rattles like a teaspoon. I mean that's like total doable and then for like kids like a quarter teaspoon and like you could like yeah, anyway, so you don't want to mess around Uh, but basically it's unlimited if you get the right kind of cinnamon I have videos about that if you have any questions too much amla Um, other than being really nasty tasting. Um, amla is high in oxalate. So I mean You wouldn't want to eat too many fruit Amla fruit, but they just taste so nasty. That's probably not a problem Um, similar to star fruit. You can actually shut down your kidneys if you eat too many star fruit So don't eat too many star fruit and I have a video on that as well Um, uh an old video boy That was years and years ago probably a decade ago. All right Uh, Conrado K asks can sufficient DHA levels be achieved through flax seeds Without supplementing Um, that is a good question. That is an unanswered uh question So, uh for a background for people who aren't such great nutrition nerds like Conrado K Um, uh, there are short chain make three fatty acids found in whole healthy platforms like Black seeds and walnuts and a little bit in dark green leafy vegetables and hemp seeds Um, and our body can take those short chain fatty acids called alpha linoleic acid and elongate them into the long chain fatty acids The so-called marine fatty acids like epa and dha which you find fish fats um And uh, so You can make epa dha the question is can you make enough for optimal health? Particularly if you're pregnant and you're actually making enough for two people um and I am Concern enough about the cognitive um Potential cognitive detriment of having insufficient on dha particularly later in life, particularly in men um that I uh encourage people to consider supplementing with preformed um epa dha in and you can retro convert from dha to epa so you can just take dha if you want um from um A pollutant free sources meaning algae or yeast based sources rather than fish which is too contaminated in terms of mercury and Some of the things you cannot uh distill out of fish oil Some of the other toxic pollutants And so then you can get preformed dha and still good to take e-flexi it's for their uh cancer benefits from lignans et cetera, but um So the answer to the question is maybe but kind of as an insurance policy I encourage people to get preformed until we know different and if you're like wait a second. What evidence do you have to support that? I lay it out Um, I'm just typing dha and nutrition facts that organ I give you and then you will know as much as I do And I've taken that body of research and decided that there's evidence enough for me to do it My family to start doing but you can look at the same evidence be like no way I'm not going to do that until we have strong evidence. Um, that's it would be a legitimate conclusion as well Halora shumpert as is p cost purely insulin resistance um p cause Causes as a symptom or sign insulin resistance if so ba ba ba If so when I was at normal by the way in athletics so i are 15 or anything. Okay Yeah, so p cost is not purely insulin resistant. Those are One is kind of a sign of the other So that's like saying is influenza fever purely fever. Well, no fever is a sign that you may have influenza but So anything you can do about p cost that's an important thing. Yes, and I have videos about p cost just type in pc os Nutrition facts that are work and videos will pop up relatively new videos and for a while I did not have any videos about um, uh, natural Uh treatments for p cost And until there was science that popped up and I was excited to do those videos because I know they were that was a question I got a lot all right Grace Ask can you share any findings about? Coffee enemas. I absolutely can't don't do them Um, and you say why type in coffee enema into facts.org and And it'll pop right up Laura bonia As is it known? Whether any plant foods or supplements used by vegans veto vitamin d or linked hpb HPB what is what is hpb? HPB acronym Oh high blood pressure, um uh Uh Nope Not that I know of a b12 vitamin d should not give you high blood pressure Uh, if hpb is Uh, is referring to something else. Please let me know and I'll address it Adam a wants to play asks several products on mark claim to have new To be new tropics that promote brain functions. There are any research to back up these claims If the claims are made by the product manufacturers Probably not but uh, you know, uh, you know what you have to do is demand the science They shouldn't just make claims. They should, uh, present you with evidence to support it Uh, pure view scientific literature ideally from independent sources So they didn't pay for the literature and that's how you that's how you determine anything as critically important Life or death important as what to feed yourself or your family. All right Four minutes left Kyle bowler asks, I know my recommendation by hibiscus tea only four glasses Um, uh, meaning that's my the limit on because of manganese. I believe but doesn't depend on the number of tea bags Yes, so i'm talking about four tea bags worth of Uh, so four tea bags worth. Yes um Yes, so could someone regularly drink more hibiscus tea if you're only using four tea bags? Yes If you make really weak dilute you could drink gallons of the stuff Um, it's just the amount of uh, the manganese that comes out of the bags So manganese is a trace mineral which you need Um, and hibiscus is filled with so much goodness But can you have a little too much of a good thing potentially? Um, and I have a video about this if you're interested in but basically I said, yeah I probably don't want to drink more than four glasses a day But right that's based on the amount of hibiscus not the amount of water you add So you don't want to drink two Two glasses more than two glasses of double strength for tea bag tea. You know what I mean? Okay, grace nelson asks What are some of the best companies to purchase spices and herbs from many on amazon claim to be organic organic? But uh, are they simply green washing? What suppliers do I trust that is a fantastic question? And the answer is who the heck knows? On that's the problem um, there are some uh There are there's very little kind of independent testing There's a there's a for-profit company called consumer lab that does some testing on herbs and spices Basically, what they do is they make sure that what they actually they like look for the number of insect parts Which is kind of a You know a proxy for contamination poor handling in terms of storage They can look for some kind of active ingredients But uh, yeah Unfortunately, it's like supplements. Yeah, it's very hard to know if you're getting what you're actually ordering You I mean you can ask for independent testing from them you can be like, you know prove to me that I don't know and fortunately it's very difficult. It's very frustrating to do um, and so until The until there's evidence to suggest otherwise. I purchased whatever's cheapest Because I have no evidence to push me in any other direction typically um Maria V asks, what's my opinion on ketogenic diets? um, I um that's uh a Uh topic I'm going to hold webinar on actually a webinar including fasting intermittent fasting time restricted feeding and the ketogenic diets and water only fasting um, and so stay tuned for that there's a tremendous literature and I just want to put it all on so it'll be a series of probably 20 videos or something I'll pack it all into one webinar and uh, so stay tuned for that Um, oh, I don't recommend it and I'll tell you why Um in the webinar or in the videos that'll be free, of course on nutrition facts the Lord Risa Faye asks, hi doctor Do I know if onions or garlic cause bo not breath but body order specifically? Yeah, I think so I bet If you eat a lot of garlic I mean the reason when you eat garlic you get garlic breath Is not because there's like not only because there's residue of garlic in your mouth But actually the garlic compounds get absorbed into your bloodstream and then are Find a way to your lungs and actually exhale Through your breath through your lungs And that's why explains why you can you know, trade that there's a study treating childhood pneumonia with With with garlic as an adjunct I would still treat childhood pneumonia with uh, antibiotics but showed benefits from using garlic as an adjunct because these garlic compounds actually Circulate throughout your entire body actually get a tail through the lungs so you can get a garlic enema Again, something I would not recommend You get a garlic enema and end up with garlic breath again because it's coming out of your lungs not just your mouth um, so presumably if it's coming out if it's going throughout your body I I don't know if you sniff somebody's skin if you could tell they just say garlic It's very possible. Um, you will have to do a test And let me know and on that note Um time is up for the month, but thank you so much everyone for your questions I'm looking forward to next months q&a And I'll have links to those on my next newsletter, which you can sign up at nutrition facts.org Have a wonderful month everyone