 So, welcome to the Dr. Gundry podcast. This is an exciting show planned for the new year and I couldn't have a really better guest. We've got an exciting roster of guests and we're starting off with the four-time, number one New York Times best-selling author of Grain Brain and many others, Dr. David Perlmutter. Two sons of different mothers, twin sons of different mothers was, I think was, was that a Dan Fogelberg album? I'm not sure. Actually, I think it was. So, you know, you've just released the fifth anniversary edition of Grain Brain and it's got the latest developments in scientific research and, you know, this was absolutely earth-shattering when it came out and you had your share of critics and you still have your share of critics. Gratefully. That's right and, you know, I like to keep my enemies close to me and, you know, I think are very useful because it actually, you don't want to keep eating the same Kool-Aid and drinking the same Kool-Aid and it really does make you, you know, think, are you actually on the right track. So what are the biggest changes that have happened in the five years since Grain Brain came out? Well, I'd say that even before changes, I think the bulk of the book has been really to the extent that the world has validated our messaging, that simple carbohydrates are bad for the brain, that we should eat more dietary good fat and that gluten represents a threat through the mechanism that we've just talked about, inflammation. So, you know, we proposed back then five years ago that people could be sensitive to gluten who did not have celiac disease, meaning there was such a thing as non-celiac gluten sensitivity. That was validated in 2017. In fact, Harvard researchers publishing in the Journal of the American Medical Association absolutely validated this notion of non-celiac gluten sensitivity and even beyond that made it very clear that people who react to gluten and don't have celiac disease can have manifestations afar apart from the gut, can involve the skin, the joints, and yes, even the brain, which is what we talked about back in 2013. And I was really kind of taken just two days ago on CNN News online how a dietitian again reaffirmed that if you don't have celiac disease, go ahead and eat all the wheat that you want because there's no danger in it whatsoever. And wheat is a threatening food, I might just follow up, not just because of the gluten issue, but also because it's powerfully challenging your system in terms of the carbohydrate load, which is what we don't want to do. And you know, the argument has always been, well, we've always eaten wheat, we've always eaten bread. Well, you know, for 99.6% of our time on this earth, we did not eat wheat, we did not eat bread. It's a brand new thing that just happened yesterday when we developed agriculture. So what has happened in the past five years that has gone into this revised edition has really been validation of the ideas that we put forth. Now the United States Dietary Advisory Committee totally supportive of the notion that it's not the fat, we know it never was the fat, it is the sugar. And when the US Dietary Advisory Committee comes around and makes that bit of a change, it's huge because now we have government supporting these ideas as well, which do fly in the face of industry. Industry right now, the sugar industry, for example, is really having a tizzy as it relates to their product because I think the word is out that sugar is not the best choice in terms of the human diet. That's what the science has said, that's what went into the new book and how exciting for us that it's been so validating. Beyond that, what didn't go into the first edition of Grain Brain was any information related to the human microbiome, the role that our gut bacteria are playing. And just to let your viewers know, Dr. Stephen Gundry has a new book coming out that really focuses on that in terms of longevity, very exciting manuscript to have the opportunity to read. You did a great job. Having said that, that sort of information enters into the new revised edition, especially in terms of the prescriptive. What can you do beyond cutting carbs, eating more dietary fiber and eating more dietary fat? What can you do to specifically nurture your gut bacteria now that we know how important that is in terms of health, longevity, and disease resistance? So what do you encounter? We should be eating whole grains, including wheat, because of its fiber content. Don't we need insoluble fiber for our gut microbiome? You are 100% correct. We do need fiber, but it is absolutely not what we're going to get from wheat. It's a huge leverage point, I think, for the wheat industry, the grain industry to say, oh, we're high in fiber. The reality is that that fiber is delivered in such a way that it is threatening. It's delivered along with a lot of carbohydrate that we don't need. It's delivered along with a lectin by the name of gluten that we've just been talking about. Interestingly, there was a study that came out last year that looked at cardiovascular risk for individuals on a gluten-free diet. It found that, in comparison to those not on a gluten-free diet, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, that those individuals who restricted gluten actually had a higher cardiovascular risk. Immediately, the media decided to spin that information and say, see, if you don't eat wheat, you're increasing your risk of cardiovascular disease. But in the conclusion to the study, the authors from Harvard actually said, you know, the reason this is is because people who go gluten-free tend to overall reduce their consumption of fiber. That said, you and I both know that nothing is worse for your health. It's the type of fiber. We want good fiber from fiber-rich prebiotic foods that can nurture our gut bacteria. When you go gluten-free, and you should, you really have to be cognizant of still making sure you get adequate amounts of dietary fiber, or you will, in fact, experience an increased risk for cardiovascular disease and other inflammatory disorders. I believe, though I don't have data just yet to indicate that, other things will be increased like Alzheimer's, diabetes, and probably even cancer. Yeah. I think you're right. One of the things I caution people is two things. Number one, just because you go gluten-free, most gluten-free foods actually make up with having more sugar in that product than the gluten alternative. And so you're actually eating a higher sugar-based diet in most of the packaged gluten-free. The other thing that was fascinating to me that I mentioned in the Plant Paradox, you can take a number of subjects who have biopsy-proven celiac disease, the gold standard, put them on a gluten-free diet for 16 months, re-biopsy them, and 70% of people on a gluten-free diet will still have celiac biopsy. And my opinion is that's because they're actually eating a very lectin-rich diet that just has been, the lectin-gluten's been removed. In fact, I've recently been looking at my gluten-sensitive people, and it's true. You can be gluten-sensitive without having celiac. And there's this myth that you can't have celiac without having the celiac genes. And where this myth came from is beyond my comprehension because I have a number of people with celiac disease that don't carry the genes. But lastly, the interesting thing is that these people, when we test them against corn, for instance, about 90% of people who are gluten-sensitive react identically to the corn lectins and the corn proteins. It's been shocking to me. And there's a really very straightforward mechanism that explains that. Because once you have breached the gates, in other words, once you've increased permeability by virtue of gluten exposure, etc., you allow other antigens then to make their way through the gut lining to be presented to the toll-like receptors on certain white blood cells that then initiate these sensitivity reactions. So it's very common then to see casein sensitivity, corn sensitivity, other forms of food intolerance or sensual allergic reaction or sensitivity in relation to individuals who have bona fide gluten issues. So again, it's all about what goes on at the level of that integrity of the gut lining, which plays a huge role, as a matter of fact, in inflammation throughout the body. And truly, even brain health is affected by permutations of this gut barrier. We have a new book coming out. It's for professionals. It's called The Microbiome in the Brain. I'm editing that book. And we have four Harvard researchers that are contributing. We have researchers from Oxford, MIT, UCLA, University of British Columbia, each contributing chapters. The state of the art relating the gut to the brain, which is certainly nothing that we learned in neurology camp, or I would bet in cardiology camp for you, but what a world it is that this notion of the body being integrated and having these relationships has now really become front and center and how great it is because it gives us so many more tools to treat issues that we can consider focusing on the gut wall integrity as a way to reduce that mechanism inflammation that is operant in Parkinson's, Lou Gehrig's disease, even Alzheimer's and autism. And when we see reports of fecal microbial transplants proving effective, published reports, University of Arizona, Harvard researchers in collaboration, in autism, fecal microbial transplant, and really having dramatic results, that is very encouraging and really helps to support our notion of this profound integration of seemingly disparate body parts. Yeah, we're truly a symbiotic organism and the more we realize how dependent we are for the denizens that live in our gut, in our mouth, on our skin, Dale Bredesen would say in our nose, the more we realize how much control they have over our fate, which is basically the longevity paradox that I come out with in March, the more we're realizing how little we knew about these single cell organisms that control much about us. That's right. And frankly, that's why it wasn't found in the first version of Grain Brain and it is incorporated now. It's not that it was a decision to omit it. It's just that five years ago, we didn't really know this stuff and then I wrote BrainMaker because it was so very, very exciting. But I'm very grateful for the follow-up on Grain Brain, the new version, the revised edition, now number one itself in Alzheimer's in America on Amazon. And it's great that people are really understanding that we don't have a treatment for this horrendous disease affecting 5.4 million Americans costing us $228 billion a year, costing us $1 trillion globally, and yet we know that it is significantly preventable. I mean, that's something that gets your arms around. Last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. Richard Kennedy published a meta-analysis, a review of other studies, 10 studies on the effectiveness of the currently marketed so-called Alzheimer's drug, which approached just about a billion dollars in sales here in America. And he found that these drugs, the colonesterase inhibitors and memantine, not only are ineffective, but actually speed cognitive decline. Think about that. The very drugs that people are receiving as prescriptions to help them with their Alzheimer's is actually making them cognitively worse in comparison to if they didn't take it. It would be like selling somebody a blood pressure pill that raised the blood pressure or a drug to treat diabetes that actually raised blood sugar. And what's really breathtaking is no one's talking about it. It was published by the American Medical Association in their online publication. So it's an interesting world in terms of what makes the news and what doesn't make the news. And I think your mission, my mission has been, there's another side of the story here. We don't have a treatment for the disease, and yet it's preventable based upon what you, the consumer, choose to do. If you choose to be influenced by what you're seeing in media, which is basically designed to make you engage in some activity, then you have to be satisfied with what they're going to provide for you, what you will click basically. On the other hand, to be empowered by knowledge and read the books and listen to the podcast and then make a decision in our world, it would be lower your carbohydrate, lower your sugar, get physical exercise, pay attention to your quality of sleep, reduce stress, make connections with other people. Those are the keys to general health and certainly brain health and heart health as well. Yeah. You know, in my upcoming book, Speaking of Exercise, there's a phenomenal study in women, and women as you and I both know, get more Alzheimer's disease than men, which surprises most people, but unfortunately it's true. Women who have a regular exercise program beginning early in life have a 90% less incidence of developing Alzheimer's, and even if you carry the ApoE4 gene, you will, if you develop Alzheimer's, it will come about 13 years later than the control group. So I mean, simply starting an exercise program in early life or mid-life, like you say, is so prevents a currently untreatable disease. That's right. And not only is exercise in women able to offer them that incredible advantage, but even carrying what you mentioned, the so-called Alzheimer's gene, the ApoE4 allele, other research has demonstrated a significantly less accumulation in the brain of a toxic protein called beta-amyloid when measuring cardiovascular fitness. In other words, the more fit you are, the lower the level of this important, dangerous protein in the brain, beta-amyloid, even if you carry the ApoE4 allele. What is it telling us? But Alzheimer's is not primarily or exclusively a genetic condition. If mom had it, your risk is increased. If you carry the ApoE4 allele or have some of these MTHFR issues or have a high blood sugar or have a certain other genetic risk factors, obviously your risk is increased. But the biggest risk factors, and this is really very important, are modifiable. The biggest risk factors are higher blood sugar and sedentary, being sedentary. Those are the biggest risk factors of all with reference to a disease, Alzheimer's, for which there is no treatment. Bill Gates recently said that treatment without prevention is not sustainable. And John Kennedy said that the time to fix the roof is when the sun is shining. Obviously, the sun is pretty much shining for the viewers of this podcast. So what's the message? And that is get out and start your 20 to 25 minutes of aerobics every day. Resistance exercise, great as well. Cut your sugar, eat more appropriately, as both you and I have described in the information that we put out. So it's a holiday season or right after the holiday season where people are going to see this. She is probably going to go crazy. I guess Gail King on CBS said that she ate a jelly donut and forgive her because it's the holidays. How do you, is it okay to cheat? Give me an example. Do you ever cheat? Well, let me first say that your cells don't know that it's a holiday, your anniversary, birthday, Shavuas, Kwanzaa, you name it. Your cells don't know that. They never take a day off and just give up because it's a holiday. Nor do your gut bacteria for that matter, which outnumber your cells 10 to 1. They don't know that it's New Year's Eve. That's my birthday happens to be. They don't know that. So do I cheat? I am not perfect by any stretch of anyone's imagination. Could I exercise more? Yes. Do I ever miss a day and exercise? Of course I do when I travel. But I think two things. Number one, it's not worth beating yourself up over because by and large you're doing what you think is best and the best you can, but it doesn't support the notion of everything in moderation. I'm often offered that as a counter to my messaging. Well, doc, I believe in everything in moderation and I always say at a time like that, therefore, a little bit of crystal meth from time to time, a little sniffing of glue, hey, everything in moderation. So I don't believe it. I think we need to do our very best. I mean, when I was on the CBS this morning program several weeks ago, I guess when this airs, and the first slide they offered up to counter my argument about sugar was from the sugar industry saying, well, in moderation, decades of research show us that this is a good idea. No, it isn't. And nobody believes that. Why offer it up when I take my time to appear on your program and offer up the best information from my heart to yours just so you can be healthier and prevent disease? So I think the world, you take a deep breath and you smile and you continue doing what you and I do every day and that is trying our very best to get out the message as we see it. And people need to understand that what you say and what I say is absolutely going to change week to week, year to year. Why? Because the science changes and we do our darndest to stay on top of that science so that when things are a little bit different from Dr. Gundry three years from now, that's a good thing. We should embrace that and not criticize it because we continue to learn things. No, that's absolutely right. People say, well, your message in the Planned Paradox was different than Dr. Gundry's diet evolution. What happened? And that was 10 years. Evolution is what happened. It was evolution. And I said, guess what? I learned a whole bunch of things I didn't know. And I'm honest enough to say, I was wrong or I made a mistake and here's why and here's the new information and good for you. There's a lot of new information in your new book that wasn't there five years ago. There's always things online criticizing we who are outliers. And one of them is, gee, Dr. Promutter just told us that we should be on a low-fat diet. Well, yeah, that was 18 years ago. And I would bet that you did the same thing. That's the best that science had to offer. Was that a low-fat diet was appropriate in line with the Ornish diet that we should keep our fat really, really low and even pritikin? Well, we now know otherwise. We now know that dietary fat is a gift and that is in line with this other research study that has shown that good dietary fat is good for the human body. And that's a study that's been going on for about two million years. And it's still going on. It's still an ongoing study and it works. Well, yeah, I've been very impressed with the study out of Spain that you're well aware of where they took 65-year-old people and followed them for four years with three versions of the Mediterranean diet. The first version, they had to use a liter of olive oil per week and they actually had to return their empty bottle to the clinic and get a new one. The second group had to have the equivalent calories of walnuts and the third group had a low-fat Mediterranean diet. And the initial part of the study was to look at memory. And lo and behold, the olive oil group and the walnut group not only had preserved memory but actually had improved memory at the end of four years. Whereas the low-fat group as expected actually had memory decline during those four years. That's right. That was called the Predomet study, P-R-E-D, I-M-E-D. And it basically showed that Mediterranean diet is good but adding more fat and the leader of the pack was the one leader of olive oil was even better and not just better but much better with a further 40% reduction even in risk for cognitive decline. So I drink a liter of olive oil about each week. It's not that much, I put it on everything. And one thing I think that's very important is now that people have heard that, they go out to dinner, they're gonna say, bring me some olive oil to put on my salad or whatever. Bad idea. You don't wanna ever ask for olive oil at a restaurant unless it is this Michelin five-star and you can see the bottle. Because the stuff that passes for olive oil at restaurants is typically 51% olive oil and then 49% something else, typically canola oil. So you definitely wanna steer away from that. My wife and I go so far as to bring a small bottle of olive oil to the restaurant. No big deal, nobody seems to reject because it's not like we're bringing our own wine in which case they wanna upcharge you. But that said, we bring olive oil. Traveling is difficult, but you buy it when you get there and then you use it. Olive oil is really very, very important and it is pure fat. So we are dramatically adding dreaded fat calories to our diets and we're doing it because it's going to help us live a longer and healthier life, who knew? Yeah, and interestingly enough, the olive oil group actually lost weight over those four years, drinking a liter of olive oil per week. So so much for the theory that fat causes weight gain. So speaking- Well, it's unfortunate that being fat and eating fat share the name and it's anything but synonymous. Increasing your blood sugar, increasing your consumption of sugar and carbohydrates is associated with gaining weight and even increased risk of mortality. An interesting study was published in the Journal of the Lancet in 2015 and this is a study that involved 18 countries and five continents and demonstrated during the course of the study that those individuals whose diets were at the highest range of carbohydrates had about a 28% increased risk of dying of mortality during the study, whereas those whose diets favored dietary fat had a 23% reduced risk of dying and even saturated, the dreaded saturated fat higher levels of consumption in this comprehensive study was associated with a 20% reduction in risk of becoming dead. So that's pretty profound published in the Lancet, which is one of our most well-respected peer-reviewed journals, but it's hard for that to compete with sound bites that say, I'm gonna have the muffin or the glazed donut because I like it. So you and I attract almost the same critics and a lot of them are the no fat of folks like Ornish, like Michael Greger, like Esselstyn, like D. Colin Campbell and his son. So what do you say to those naysayers that say, no, no, no, no, no, the only evidence is that no fat is the only way to go. And a high carbohydrate diet. I would say two things. First of all, always good to have a discussion rather than writing blogs that castigates somebody who doesn't share your perspective, which has been done by several of the people that you've mentioned. But I would say that we've got to embrace the diet of our ancestors, which was higher in fat. I think that Dr. Campbell's work, the China study, made some very important good points. One of the things he really emphasized was a relationship between increased risk for colorectal cancer and consumption of red meat. And I think he was absolutely correct in making that information known because I think it's very real. Because by and large, red meat is a horrendously awful food that I would never touch. Do I eat grass-fed, organically raised red meat? I do, from time to time. But typical factory farm red meat is something that we should all avoid based upon how those animals are treated, the foods that they eat, and the drugs to which they are exposed. Now, as far as Michael Greiger goes in terms of how not to die, that was his book, I would indicate that, you know, and I've had the opportunity on stage to debate him. And I would say that he does make some points that going more for a plant-based diet, or in his case exclusively, I think there are a lot of upsides to that. And I would say that moving forward, I am validating the notion of a diet that is mostly plant-based is really a good one. But if a person chooses to add some wild fish, a free-range chicken, grass-fed beef to that diet, I'm not pointing any fingers. But I think there's a lot of merit to the notion of favoring plant-based foods with the understanding that you still gotta make sure you get plenty of dietary fat. So adding that liter of olive oil, for example, with the understanding that you have to be very careful of being sure you're getting adequate amounts of vitamin D on a plant-based diet and vitamin B12 as well. So, you know, I think everybody has something very important quite literally to bring to the table and I recently did a podcast with a chiropractor named John Dooyard who wrote a book indicating that we should be eating wheat and more gluten-containing foods. His contention was, do that, but do it seasonally as that would mimic our ancestors. And as it turns out, I've known him for probably 20 years. I love the guy and I always have and I told him that. And he had his position, and you know my position on gluten. And yet we had this incredible, respectful dialogue when one person was talking, the other person would listen. And we concluded with making our points. We posted the blog, the podcast. And what was incredible was the commentary that we had very little to do with what we said, but had everything to do with the fact that we at least listened to each other and respected each other's positions, which is so darn rare in this day and age of soundbites and the aggression that we're seeing between people of different political parties, for example, and people that have different agendas. We've lost this ability to communicate and therefore learn from others, which is a prefrontal cortex type of activity as opposed to behaving from the amygdala where we suddenly respond negatively and impulsively and that person's wrong end of story. We have to reconnect to the prefrontal cortex. It'll make us more understanding, more empathetic, more compassionate and more able to understand the long-term consequences of the actions that we choose to pursue today. Absolutely right. You know, buried deep within the plant paradox and the longevity paradox is actually a high plant fat vegan manifesto and I, like you, think that we should have steer people towards a plant-based diet, eliminating gluten in my opinion and other lectins. In fact, I tell people that the only purpose of food is to get olive oil in your mouth, but now my current saying is I want you to eat like a gorilla who lives in Italy and just eat a lot of leaves with olive oil and you'll be fine. You know, look at the elephant. Look at the, you mentioned the gorilla and look at the amount of musk. Oh, if I don't eat, if I just eat plants, I'm going to be, my muscles are gonna atrophy. Well, that's not reality. I mean, you do have to have dietary protein, but I think most Americans dramatically overdo that part of the equation, which really feeds in quite literally to raising blood sugar through gluconeogenesis and also increases activity of certain pathways. We call one the mTOR pathway, whereby we really are threatening our free radical status, our antioxidant status and the amplification of gene pathways that really are not doing us any good. So, you know, you and I differ. There's no question about it. You have a, you know, a strong emphasis on lectins. I have, I think it's important, I think less so, but look at us. I mean, did I not just write of an extremely supportive blurb for your next book? Because, you know, by and large, I think you're out there really doing some great stuff. And again, we don't agree on everything. There are no humans walking the earth who can agree on everything. And that's the way it is. My plea is that people be able to engage each other with respect. And it's so lacking today. And, you know, as you know that television program that I was recently on on CBS, I was just there to give their audience information about what they can do to improve their health and be a little bit more resistant to Alzheimer's because we don't have treatment. And yet, you know, they found that to be threatening to the sugar industry and on and on. And that's not the agenda. I would be delighted to have a conference and to converse with higher ups in the sugar industry. Tell me what you've got. Talk to me about your research that shows we should be eating more sugar. I'd love to see that research. I can promise you I've done the work and looked at the research and I've not been impressed by any of it. So if you're holding something back by all means, produce it. But that should be the gold standard for the recommendations we make for the betterment of others. Not because we're concerned about the bottom line. Yeah, you're right. There's unfortunately most of our information we get from big pharma, big food, big agriculture and big chemical. And it trickle, it pervades our media. It pervades most of our medical schools as you and I both know. And there's just gotta be, I think, it has to be a grassroots effort. Individuals have to do it. It's happening, you know, people like yourself, that's grassroots writing these books, doing these podcasts. But, you know, are we to believe that really good choices for our health are having our foods sprayed with glyphosate, with Roundup, eating a lot of sugar, using artificial sweeteners, avoiding dietary fat? Are we to believe that? Well, that's what, you know, major forces are at work to try to convince us are the right choices to make and it's not true. Yesterday, was it day before yesterday, I had to connect in Charlotte, North Carolina to get back to my home. And during my stay in the terminal, it was breathtaking to look at what Americans look like now. And I can assure you it's not in a good way, from a health perspective. And importantly, a lot of it isn't the fault of the individual. It's the messaging that they are getting that is working its way into their decision making process that diet drinks are better than sugar sweetened drinks. You shouldn't drink any of them if you wanna remain a thin and resist having diabetes. Artificial sweeteners increase your risk of obesity and diabetes. Not cause Dr. Promoters saying it on your show today, that's what the best scientific literature is telling us. A study of over 70,000 women in France demonstrates that. And that sugar is okay in moderation. Well, you know what? That's not in your interest. It's in the interest of people who are trying to sell sugar and genetically modified food. No, it's not good for you. So people say, well, the only reason that you and I say these things is because we're selling something. Not selling a thing here. This is information that we put out, hopefully that people will embrace and then be able to make informed decisions with reference to their lifestyle choices. Yeah, you and I put out podcasts that are absolutely free that have no commercial interest telling people how to eat. And, you know, suggesting, you know, here's how to cook something even. And so yeah, it's, we're trying to get the message out. And I love your comment about moderation. Dale Bredesen, who wrote The End of Alzheimer's and I were at the Harvard MIT neuroscience conference a year ago. And one of the professors stood up and he says, well, don't you think that we should practice everything in moderation? And I said, well, that's fine. If you want moderate dementia and moderate heart disease and moderate arthritis, please go right ahead because that's what you're going to get. It's true. And again, it's a convenient soundbite that people latch onto that has absolutely no meaning. Again, everything in moderation is okay if you want to still have dramatic risk for these diseases, I mean, face it. Your risk of Alzheimer's is 50-50 if you live to be age 85. That's a flip of a coin. And we can do better. We can absolutely do better. You know, Dr. Bredesen is fond of saying we all know a cancer survivor but we don't know an Alzheimer's survivor. And I think the best way to be an Alzheimer's survivor is to not even play the game, not even be diagnosed with the disease. In other words, let's focus on prevention as it relates to Alzheimer's. We fully understand what are the risk factors. That's why we write these books. That's why this new revised edition of Grain Brain is number one in Alzheimer's today because people recognize we have no treatment and yet it is preventable. And I think that this is information that is not convenient. It's an inconvenient truth because people don't want to make these dietary changes because people just love in an addictive way their sugar and their high carbohydrate breakfast. So it takes some cognitive engagement to make these changes if you want to increase your odds that you will remain cognitively intact in your 70s, in your 80s, in your 90s. Yeah, I do not want to end up in my later years drooling in my bowl of oatmeal at the chronic care facility. And I know your father suffered from this. My father had Parkinson's dementia and he lived to 91, but his last year or so was not a good year for him. And I would say that as it relates to even Parkinson's prevention, what we now know, what has just been published is just in fact this past week is an incredible study that now has demonstrated that children with ADHD who receive stimulant medications may have as much as a nine fold increased risk down the line for developing Parkinson's disease as an adult. I read that study last night and that's pretty breathtaking. We also know that Parkinson's is dramatically related to the gut that we store particular proteins in the gut that can then ultimately make their way to the brain. Interesting to note that people who have had an appendectomy have about a 20% reduced risk for Parkinson's. I'm not advocating that everybody go out and have an appendectomy, but at least maybe the take home message today is at least maybe reconsider giving your kid an ADHD drug or taking that type of stimulant medication yourself. Yeah. All right, well, we've got to wrap it up. What happens on my podcast? I answer an audience question before we finally say goodbye to you. So if you'll just stay with me for a second, we'll finish up. So the audience question is from Farida Sultana and she asks, past your raised eggs, how do you have them, boiled, scrambled, half boiled or raw? Great question. So I actually only have past your raised eggs in the United States from a farmer in Santa Barbara who answered the question correctly when I met her at the farmer's market, what do you feed your chickens? And she looked at me quizzically and she said, I don't feed them anything, they work for me, they're farm animals, they go out in my forest, she has orchards, and they eat the bugs. And in the persimmon season, you should see their yolks because they are bright orange. They are eating the bugs in the persimmons. So I don't feed them anything. I said, great, I want to buy from you. So I tend to eat those sorts of pastured eggs. If you find pastured eggs that the chickens are not fed corn and soybeans, and we can now find those, please get that. Most of the eggs I eat quite frankly are in Italy in the south of France, where I know the farmers at the farmer's market and the yolks are so unbelievably orange, they almost hurt your eyes to look at them. And I have them poached and I put them in a bowl and I pour about an inch of olive oil in the bowl and I put some salt and pepper and stir it up and I have basically egg and olive oil soup for breakfast. What say you? Well first, I think that your viewers have to just embrace the notion that you are listening to a cardiologist, an interventional cardiologist, tell you how he eats his eggs, which is really not what we would have heard a few years ago. I mean, we were told that if we ate eggs, then the world would come to an end. And to this day, I would indicate that on menus at the restaurant, when you're at a hotel, look at the menu and you'll still see the egg white omelet. Oh yeah. Why would that be? Well, because you don't want to have the yolk because it has terrible things in it, including cholesterol. Well, that doesn't make any sense. Eggs are a wonderful food. I tend to scramble, but I like soft boiled, I like hard boiled. When I travel, I think it's great. And like you, I use a lot of olive oil on my eggs. I generally, if I'm gonna make eggs, I will also saute some spinach, onions, and mushrooms at the same time and make an omelet, which gives me even a bigger excuse for the addition of olive oil. My secret ingredient is truffle salt. I love truffle salt on my eggs. I do eat salt, I eat it every day. I want a powerfully ketogenic diet, in which case it's quite clear that I need added salt, added magnesium, added potassium. So that's my meal, and that typically occurs around two or three in the afternoon. Yeah, that's a good point. I tell my patients, if they're gonna eat eggs, to have basically a four yolk and one white omelet and have a lot of mushrooms and onions and spinach in that omelet. And they look at me crazy. And I've actually gotten chefs to make it for me when I'm traveling and they look at me, wait a minute, you mean you want an egg white omelet? I said, no, no, I want an egg yolk omelet. And they, yeah, the yolk's the beneficial part. The white is animal protein. I mean, here you have a wonderful source of cholesterol, which is so wonderful to have in the diet. And again, this is a neurologist speaking with a cardiologist, and look where the narrative has come in just a few short years as really supported by our most well-respected research. So we're making progress. We're making great progress. Each time we light that single candle, and I think the outreach is fantastic. Great. Well, thanks again for joining me. It's always a pleasure to see you. How can my audience find you and the book? Well, the book is everywhere. It's on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, local bookstores. You can, and again, that's the revised edition of Grain Brain. My website, oddly enough, is drperlmutter.com. That's drperlmutter.com, where my free newsletter is provided, or a subscription for that. And it's great. And oh, thank you. And I do Twitter and Instagram. That's David Perlmutter as well. Facebook is David PerlmutterMD. And all those fancy things that people do these days to get their message out. All right. Thanks a lot. I appreciate you having me. Good to see you. Bye-bye. So thanks for joining me on the Dr. Gundry podcast. If you're doing the Plant Paradox 30-Day Challenge, I want to send you some encouragement. I'm going to do it as well because I want to have a 30-day challenge every now and then. And you know, I know it's tough when you're making a lifestyle change. But stick to it. It's going to be worth it. You're doing a great thing for your health as we've just been talking on this podcast. And trust me, your body, and probably most importantly from what you've heard today, your brain is going to appreciate it and it's going to reward you for years to come. If you don't know about the challenge, head to drgundry.com for more information. And you're going to find this podcast, I hope, really enlightening. And I'll see you at the challenge, which is ongoing right now. So thanks for listening to the Dr. Gundry podcast because I am Dr. Stephen Gundry and I'm always looking out for you. And today, your brain.