Speaker 1This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast instead of doom-scrolling? Smart move. Another smart move? Getting help from one of State Farm's 19,000 local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto. Bundling. Just another way to save with the personal price plan. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. Propel Fitness Water.
Speaker 2With Gatorade Electrolytes, zero sugar, and vitamins. Propel hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self. What propels you? Propel with Gatorade Electrolytes.
Speaker 3The true cause of heart disease is complex, but the bottom line is inflammation. Yes, you have plaque. That can cause narrowing of the arteries, but don't let that plaque crack. And if it cracks, a blood clot is going to form in it, and that is a heart attack. Calcium supplements increase cardiovascular risk. If someone takes calcium supplements,
Speaker 4should they be worried? Yes. Dr. Jamnatas is an award-winning cardiologist, international speaker, and a fasting expert.
Speaker 1He's on a mission to fix heart disease and inflammation, and it starts with a 36-hour fast.
Speaker 3LDL is a normal molecule that we all need. When the LDL becomes small and dense, now you have a dangerous situation. Now the question really is, what causes the small, dense LDL? Going on this low-fat streak that we did because we are, good people, we've listened to the recommendations, which were wrong, that have led to a lot of these problems. We are actually consuming 50% less red meat. What happened to coronary artery disease? It went high. Red meat is the most nutrient-dense food on the planet.
Speaker 5I want to talk about fasting. Can fasting help fix the heart? Absolutely, yes.
Speaker 3My personal experiences with my patients go even further. I mean, I had one patient that fasted 183 days. That patient went from a weight of 440 pounds to 200 pounds. Diabetes, gone. High blood pressure, gone. Joint pains, gone. I've heard about this 36-hour fast.
Speaker 5Is there a magic towards that? What does it do?
Speaker 3I love 36-hour fasts. So, there is magic to it. Now, what's even better than 36 hours is 48, and what's better than 48 is 72.
Speaker 5This is an exclusive interview with Dr. Jim Nardas. He's first in a couple of years, and he will talk about the true cause of heart disease and how a common supplement that you might be taking every day is increasing your risk of a heart attack or stroke by 20%. Now, if you're learning from and enjoying these free episodes, please take a moment to subscribe because we know that real food is medicine. And by this small act of subscribing, you can help share the message to millions of people that need to hear this truth. And now for the episode with Dr. Jim Nardas. Dr. Jim Nardas, welcome.
Speaker 3Thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 5Now, one of the biggest causes of death is cardiovascular risk, heart attacks, and strokes. And the fact is people try to find the perfect diet, but you can still have low insulin and be healthy, but still have a positive CAC score and therefore be at risk of a heart attack. And it's a very easy way to fix this. So today, Dr. Jim Nardas is going to share his 30 years of clinical experience. We're going to talk about what is the true cause of heart disease and why it's not just high insulin. We're going to talk about the perfect fast to fix heart disease and why you need to hack your vagus nerve to fix it. To fix heart disease and inflammation. So Dr. Jim Nardas, my first question, you've been a cardiologist for over 30 years. You've seen thousands of patients. What do you think is the biggest cause of heart disease?
Speaker 3The true cause of heart disease is complex, but the bottom line is inflammation. And inflammation has lots and lots of reasons why you have inflammation, but it comes down to inflammation. And inflammation has to be defined as a body's response to something that's abnormal. A body's response to threat, a body's response to illness. And there are so many things in modern life, modern life that's causing coronary artery disease. Because it all started only at the turn of the last century, because prior to that, people were doing autopsies. They never found coronary artery disease. This is a modern disease. It's a disease of the industrial age, and it all comes down to inflammation. And of course, we can talk about the different causes of the inflammation, but the bottom line is it's inflammation.
Speaker 5Absolutely. It seems like the main cause of the inflammation comes from insulin resistance. I do have some other causes here, which we'll talk about shortly. Can we touch upon insulin resistance and how that might cause heart disease and inflammation?
Speaker 3Absolutely. So with insulin resistance, you have a problem with glucose. When you eat something, your blood sugar goes up. But in insulin resistance, the insulin also goes up. It goes up so high because you're resistant to the effects of insulin. So the insulin level being so high causes a lot of problems. So insulin itself causes nitric oxide depletion. It causes vasoconstriction, smooth muscle proliferation. So all that's setting the patient up for hardening of the arteries. The glucose levels also go up, but not that much. But there's an underlying inflammation. And what that is, is excessive glucose, load onto the mitochondria. So the mitochondria, which are supposed to be metabolizing all that glucose, they get overwhelmed. And when they get overwhelmed, they produce a lot of stuff called reactive oxygen species. And it is this reactive oxygen species that sets up the inflammation. Anything that's going to increase your reactive oxygen species is inflammation in the body. So of course, there's lots of reasons for mitochondrial dysfunction. But one reason is, one big one is glucose. And that's why I look for insulin resistance. And that's why I chase blood sugar so much because sugar poisons your mitochondria, leads to inflammation, reactive oxygen species, that's going to lead to hardening of the arteries.
Speaker 5I think people are cluing onto the sugar and the processed food causing the inflammation and heart disease. There's also some other things which we're going to talk about causing some plaque buildup in the arteries. I do want to center on the plaque buildup in the arteries because you spoke about the plaque buildup in the arteries. You spoke about heart disease and coronary artery disease, which is the main type of heart disease. People might not know that there's other forms of heart disease, but CAD is the main type. That is plaque buildup in the arteries. Can you explain what is this plaque that you might be seeing in the arteries? What is it made up of?
Speaker 3- Yeah, great question, great question. So before I get into what's histologically inside the plaque, I want to explain some of the anatomy. So all your blood vessels are lined with this thing called the glycocalyx. So the glycocalyx is like tiny hair-like structures that protect the endothelium, which is the lining of the blood vessels. So the first thing that happens is that that has to be destroyed. It gets destroyed when your sugars are running high, when you have a lot of reactive oxygen species floating around the body because of mitochondrial dysfunction, toxicity. And this toxicity, we'll talk about coming from a leaky gut as well, heavy metals, chemicals in your body, they destroy this glycocalyx. So now the endothelial lining is exposed to blood and the endothelial lining gets activated. So it's because that glycocalyx is no longer there, it starts making these adhesion molecules. And these adhesion molecules are like Velcro that start growing out into the lumen. Now this Velcro-like structures, they grab, they grab the macrophages, which are your white cells. So what happens, the macrophages are full of foam, they are foam cells. And I'm gonna explain that to you because that's what's inside the plaque. And these macrophages are trying to get these damaged LDL particles out of the circulation and they get trapped. So now you can imagine these cells trapping these macrophages, which are white cells, and these white cells are full of this damaged LDL. And now they got to be taken out of the circulation. So they move in between the lining of the blood vessels and end up behind. And when they end up behind, that's the beginning of the plaque. Now these macrophages, they consume the damaged LDL, which is what is normally known as your bad cholesterol. So your normal cholesterol, your normal LDL, does not get picked up by the macrophages because the macrophages don't think that there's anything wrong with them. But these, in fact, you and I have plenty of it and we need to have plenty LDL, but it is the damaged LDL, what is known as small dense LDL. And these damaged LDL particles are what's picked up by the macrophages. And then they are carried to the lining and then in the lining, they get behind the lining because they have to be taken out of the circulation. And when enough of these macrophages accumulate over there, they die over there. And when they die, they liberate. They liberate this abnormal fat, which is the LDL, small dense LDL. And that's what you're seeing inside the plaque. Now, the T-cells and the B-cells and the immune system, they see all this bad LDL, damaged LDL inside the wall now, and they all conglomerate there. That is why a plaque will have plenty inflammatory cells, T-cells, B-cells, these macrophages. And this whole inflammatory milieu, so you'll see fat globulin, use? Abnormal LDL, small dense LDL. You'll see T cells, B cells, and they all make these chemokines and chemicals. And these chemicals will then eventually cause that plaque to rupture because they will make the lining thin. It's like a pimple that suddenly bursts. And now bingo, you have a plaque that has just ruptured and then a blood clot forms on it. Now, two things can happen to that blood clot. It can get covered over, or if a huge blood clot forms on it, it can seal off the artery and that's a heart attack. So the atherosclerotic process is a process whereby the damaged LDL particles, small dense particles, are being taken out of the system by the macrophages. And you have an endothelium, which has been activated by other things. That means they're ready to contract. And you have a blood clot. And you have a blood clot. And you take out these chemicals. And now you're getting this plaque formation. So plaque is actually a very complex thing, but it's the blood clotting ability that is also very important. That is why you need to look at two things. Yes, you have plaque that can cause narrowing of the arteries, but don't let that plaque crack because it'll crack if there's too much inflammation inside the plaque. And if it cracks, a blood clot is going to form in it. If a blood clot forms in it, you're going to get accelerated atherosclerosis, going to get a blood clot that is so big that it seals off the artery. And that basically is a
Speaker 5heart attack. I think people would not quite understand that plaque in the arteries because they know plaque in the arteries. They know that leads to a heart attack, leads to other cardiovascular events. But knowing how that happens and the formation that you just explained, small dense LDL being part of it, is good to understand. So it's not cholesterol, total cholesterol that we need to lower, small dense LDL and triglycerides. Absolutely right.
Speaker 3You hit it right on the head. You see, LDL is a normal molecule that we all need. When the LDL becomes small and dense, now you have a dangerous situation. Now the question really is what causes the small dense LDL? And the first premise that you talked about was blood sugar and glucose control. And it is the number one thing that destroys your LDL particles. So what happens is that the LDL particle gets glycated. Glycated means that the sugar molecules are going to be destroyed. So what happens is that the LDL particle gets glycated. The molecule attaches itself to it. So now obviously that LDL particle is not going to be the same because it's glycated, just like your hemoglobin gets glycated and you look at your hemoglobin A1c. So a glycated LDL molecule becomes a small dense molecule. A glycated molecule carries a different charge. So now the LDL can get oxidized, carries a positive charge on it, especially when it goes through the lungs. Now you have even more oxidation. Other things can also cause your small dense LDL. So now the LDL can get oxidized, carries a positive charge on it, especially when it goes through the lungs. So now the LDL can get oxidized, carries a positive charge on it, especially when it goes through the lungs. So now the LDL can get oxidized, carries a positive charge on it, and what are they? And I can go through those because there's about four different reasons why you can develop small dense LDL. Sure, you can go through that one. Absolutely. Oh, I love it because it's my favorite subject to talk about what damages your LDL particles. So besides glucose, the next thing that I've found is omega-6, which is vegetable seed oils. So vegetable seed oils, now you've got to understand that these are oils. These triglycerides and oils are found in LDL as well. So when you consume too much omega-6, they replace the normal triglycerides in the LDL and the LDL becomes a small dense damaged LDL because they're going to go on there and they're going to take up room there and they're going to displace the normal molecules that are on that LDL and omega-6 gets oxidized because it's polyunsaturated. So you have an oxidized small dense LDL particle. The next thing that I've noticed in my patients that can develop small dense LDL particles are when there's a lot of advanced glycation end products floating around in the bloodstream. And I'm going to explain that to you. These are basically toxins. When you've overheated your cooking your food, blacken them, when you really caused at high dry temperature. The combination of sugar, protein, and fat, very abnormal. Nature doesn't have it, but we have it. So you blacken the food and this will cause advanced glycation end products. These products get swiped up by the LDL molecule. And in doing so, the LDL displaces the cholesterol, becomes a small dense and takes on that advanced glycation end product. So it's in a way, the LDL is more important than the LDL. So that's the first thing that I want to talk about in this video. And the last thing that I want to talk about is the evolutionary immune system that is trying to clean up the bloodstream. And there's numerous data now suggesting that it is actually part of our evolutionary immune system. And it is designed to protect you and take these molecules out of circulation. Now that brings me to another big cause of small dense LDL is what I call lipopolysaccharides. Lipopolysaccharides are bacterial wall products. They're not the bacteria, but they're the wall product. And where do they come from? They come from the gut. So I used to literally poop with a gut, leaky gut theory. But as I did more and more research and working with my patients over the last 15 years on this aspect, I've realized that when lipopolysaccharides get into the bloodstream because of a permeability issue in the gut, then these LPS molecules get taken up by the LDL. And what do they become? They become small and dense. And these abnormal LDL particles that contain the LPS will be now floating around in your bloodstream. It will cause endothelial damage. It will cause glycocalyx to get damaged as well. And then, of course, the foam cells take them all up because they find all these abnormal LDL molecules floating around, these foam cells. And the foam cells can go and get behind the endothelium. And now you're getting plaque formation. And the more inflammation is in the plaque, the more unstable that plaque is, the more likely it's going to rupture, leading to progression of disease. So your calcium score, for example, goes up or will cause myocardial
Speaker 5infarction and death. I think that is so important. You outlined those three additional causes of plaque buildup or Smolden's LDL in the arteries leading to plaque buildup. Focusing on the last one, which is leaky gut. This is a really important one. It's a really important one. It's a really why healthy people with low insulin but a positive CAC score can get heart attacks or plaque buildup in the arteries leading to heart attacks. Because the gut is so integrated with the whole body and heart disease as well as disease. Could you just explain that, that permeability of the gut lining and the wall and how those, you called it LPS and endotoxemia, how that can travel to the body and affect your heart, affect your brain? Dr. Justin Marchegiani So the membrane,
Speaker 3whether they're in your gut or whether they're your blood-brain barrier or even the glycocalyx or the glycocalyx in your joints, they all can get leaky. And there are multiple reasons for the leakiness. Now in the gut, basically it's two things. Either you're really sensitive to a food that you're eating and that food is causing inflammation. So that obviously tears apart the cells that are lining your gut. So the gap junctions, the in-between, the tight junctions, they open up and they allow molecules from the gut to get into your circulation, going past those cells, right? So the cells are normally one layer thick only in your gut and they stack together and these tight junctions prevent all these things from getting through. If you have a food sensitivity problem, you can't get through. If you have a food sensitivity problem, you can't get through. So the gut bacteria, they will cause this junction to open up and then stuff can get through. Secondly, if you have the wrong bacteria in your gut, because the gut bacteria's job is to make sure that the integrity of the lining is not breached. So they encourage the growth of mucin. The mucin is that mucus that lines the inner lumen of the gut. And it also, is in constant touch with your own immune system. So the 70% of your immune system is in the gut on the other side, because this is the biggest threat to your health coming from the gut. So the immune system is in constant conversation with the bacteria in your gut. So if your bacterial population's not right, your immune system is going to be off-center. And a good immune, healthy immune system depends on a good bacterial population. Now remember, you have a hundred trillion bacteria in your gut. You're only probably composed of 30 trillion or 20 trillion cells at most. So these bacteria are a very fundamental part because they all have a But the total genetic load in all these four trillion bacteria that are floating around inside of genes, I should say, the four trillion genes that are in your gut, they interact moment to moment to everything that's going on. So if you eat something different, the bacteria will start making different chemicals for their digestion. That's why you can eat all these different things because we've outsourced a lot of the digestion to our bacteria. So the bacterial population is very important and we have decimated our bacterial population through various lifestyles that we've done. But if your gut bacteria is not right, you're not going to have integrity of your gut lining. And also your immune system is not going to be right. So remember one of the things that I said before is that the lining of your arteries have to be primed first. How? By destroying the glycocalyx. Well, a lot of that happens because of the immune system that releases all these chemicals and cytokines into the circulation. And that preps the wall now for exposure and what I call activation of the endothelium. And then along come the macrophages that are full of these other cells. And now you're going to get plaque formation. But it's very important to understand that your immunity, your immunity is dependent on the integrity of the immunity in your gut. There's numerous studies to show that your immune response is really set when you're quite young, when the microbiome is already set in. Numerous conditions are linked to having the wrong bacteria in your gut at a young age, which then can cause things like asthma and eczema and excessive allergies, for example, because you just don't have that right crosstalk between the immune system in the lining of your gut. So these gap junctions, they open up and stuff gets inside, including the lipopolysaccharides. But with it, intact food particles can get inside and other chemicals can get inside. Now your immune system has to deal with it first. So if the immune system doesn't have a handshake with those bacteria from when you were a baby, now they overreact. And when they overreact, they produce too many cytokines and you're in a state of inflammation. Also, these molecules first go to the liver, because after the gut, they go in the portal vein, they go to your liver. When they get to the liver, there they get processed. And these patients develop what is known as a fatty liver. So if you have a fatty liver, you need to be looking at the gut, because the gut is causing that fatty liver. When you have a fatty liver, you already have inflammation. And those inflammatory cells inside your liver are going to produce these cytokines, which are just going to float around all over your body, cause more inflammation everywhere else now. So you can actually have joint pains, because these chemicals will go and activate the lining of your joints and make them more susceptible to impregnation by lipopolysaccharides, for example, and other inflammatory molecules. So you start getting joint discomfort, or these things can even cross the blood-brain barrier. So lipopolysaccharides, actually, it's so weird, but some of these chemicals can actually cross the blood-brain barrier from the blood, because they got in, they get into the brain that way, and cause inflammation inside the brain. They can also go up the vagus nerve. And when they go up the vagus nerve, these particles have been found in the vagus nerve, going all the way up to the brain. So a lot of the patients who actually have a leaky gut can get fatty liver. Fatty liver then can cause insulin resistance in and of itself. It can cause coronary artery disease, because of the mechanisms I explained. It can cause mental fog in many patients, because it's a metabolic endotoxemia. Endo means blood, toxemia means poisoning. So after they eat, they may get extreme mental fog. Some of them get clear-cut personality disorders. They get anxiety, depression. And we now know depression is an inflammatory condition. So they're wondering, well, why am I so anxious? Why am I so depressed? It's because your brain is inflamed. And this has been very well documented. Same thing with joint problems. Many patients come to me and they say that, doc, we changed our diet. We did everything you're doing. And look, my joint pains because it's the same thing. You see what I'm saying? This is grassroots inflammation. You're looking at the source of the problem. Get rid of the inflammation. The source of that inflammation will have phenotypic manifestations in various parts of your body. You see, we all tend to think of each organ individually in and of itself to say that, okay, this is joint disease, or this is heart disease, or this is brain disease. But they have a common, underlying inflammatory source. And we must look for those and treat them. And we'll find that, lo and behold, almost everything else is getting better at the same time. So this has been very, very exciting that inflammation doesn't just affect the core. Look, the coronary arteries don't have a special type of inflammation. It all comes down to inflammation. And the way it will do it is a little bit different than the brain or the joints or the liver. But basically, it's inflammation.
Speaker 1This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast instead of doom scrolling? Smart move. Another smart move? Getting help from one of State Farm's 19,000 local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto. Bundling, just another way to save with the personal price plan. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by
Speaker 2state. Propel Fitness Water with Gatorade Electrolyte. Zero sugar and vitamins. Propel hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self. What propels you? Propel with Gatorade Electrolytes.
Speaker 5I think if people were to employ, first of all, people were to see all the content that you provide on YouTube, they'll understand the key understanding of inflammation as a center towards all disease. And if they employ these things that we're going to talk about shortly around things to lower the inflammation, very easy. You don't have to follow a specific diet or restriction or over exercise. It's actually simplifying your life and doing less and getting more healthy and lowering the inflammation. Two more things I wanted to cover before we get to the solutions. Possible causes of plaque buildup in the arteries. This is fascinating. You did a video about calcium supplements and K2 deficiency. I think people take calcium supplements, again, because of their joint pain, because of their joints, arthritis, et cetera. And they're told to take calcium. How can even one gram of calcium supplements contribute towards a cardiovascular risk of
Speaker 320%? Yeah. So numerous studies have been done. Calcium supplements, elemental calcium supplements, increase cardiovascular risk. And it's got to do with many factors. And of course, it hasn't been nailed down completely, but it's got to do with coagulation too, because in the coagulation process, you need calcium. So if you're taking calcium supplements, you're more likely to make a blood clot inside your artery at the site of the plaque rupture. So that's a big problem. Secondly, calcium supplements can, of course, increase intracellular calcium, which causes vasoconstriction, and it can increase your blood pressure as well. So I think there's some mechanism by which we know that calcium supplementation, elemental calcium supplementation, is detrimental. Also, remember that this calcium that you take orally doesn't get to where it really needs to go, because it's not calcium deficiency in your diet, because today's food is full of calcium, and we also fortify a lot of the foods with calcium. It's because you don't have the right hormones in your body, and you have too much inflammation in your body, so the calcium doesn't get to the right place it needs to go to. That's why you need vitamin K2, because we have such low levels of vitamin K2 these days. With our modern living and diets, we have very little vitamin K2 coming into our diet. And same thing with vitamin D. And it's a shame that so many people have vitamin D deficiencies. And they get it, by the way, not only because they're not getting enough sunshine, but they're not consuming enough vitamin D also, perhaps. But also, they get it because if the gut microbiome is dysfunctional, then those microbes can actually prevent you, prevent you actually from absorbing the vitamin D. So I've seen a lot of patients, when I look at the blood work, and the vitamin D levels are so low, but the moment we fix the gut through diet and lifestyle, the vitamin D levels come right back up again. If someone takes calcium supplements, should they be worried then? Yes. I tell patients, stop your calcium supplements. You want stronger bones, then this is what you do. You do resistance exercises, you take vitamin K2 supplements, and you take vitamin D supplements. Now, you will have stronger bones.
Speaker 5So with the K2 deficiency, that's coming from a low-fat diet. And the things we're going to talk about is to incorporate healthy fats. So the low-fat diet is leading to K2 deficiency, vitamin K2 actually binds to calcium. calcium to take it out of the bloodstream. This is the whole mechanism by which we have a double
Speaker 3edged sword here. Yes, absolutely. So vitamin K2 deficiency is happening because we went onto this bandwagon of low fat. So we went to low fat. We got deficiencies of A, D, E, and K. All of them are so important for your health. So I see an epidemic of this, A, D, E, K. They're all low because they're on low fat, this low fat, that. And therefore, these are fat soluble vitamins. Without fat, you're not going to absorb them into your body. So even if you're going to take the supplements, you take it with some food that has some fat because that's the vehicle by which they'll be absorbed into your body. Now take the vitamin B complexes, right? They are water soluble. So they don't require fat to be absorbed into your body. So when I give my patient a methylated B12 complex, for example, it gets absorbed. Right away through water. But A, D, E, K, it's fat. So going on this low fat streak that we did because we are good people. We've listened to the recommendations, which were wrong, that have led to a lot of these problems because this low fat diet is not the solution. Because when we got out from fats, we started eating carbs and sugars instead. Same thing. Same thing with red meat, for example. If you look at 1960s to now, we are actually consuming 50% less red meat. What happened to coronary artery disease? It went high. We cut down our fat intake tremendously because we got on low fat, this and that and the other. And we increased our carb intake instead. And what happened to coronary artery disease? It continued to rise and rise and rise. So this experiment that we did, as a nation and as a world, actually, is one of the greatest failures of modern medicine.
Speaker 5As Dr. Jamnatas mentions, the root cause of heart disease is inflammation. And later in the episode, we'll talk about the easy way that you can lower inflammation and fix your heart. And while heart health is very important, mental health is as important. And what I mean by mental health is things like anxiety, depression, brain fog. These are all signs that your body is inflamed. Now, I'm saying this from experience. You see, I suffered from a mental health disorder from a very young age. It wasn't something that I could talk about, not to my family, not to my friends. But what I found completely fixed me, along with a high fat carnivore lifestyle, was to understand my thoughts and my emotions through therapy. And my therapist gave me so many practical solutions, things like meditation, gratitude, diaphragmatic breathing, and this weird ice cube sensory activity. Basically, it redirects your focus. This has helped me so much. And that is why I have BetterHelp as a sponsor of this episode. Thank you so much for watching. I'll see you in the next episode. BetterHelp is on a mission to help you achieve your health goals, whether it's tackling anxiety, emotional stress, or even helping you achieve a goal that you've set for this year. And it's really easy to get started. All you have to do is fill out a questionnaire, and you'll be matched with a therapist in as little as a couple of days. One of the best things about BetterHelp is that if the first therapist doesn't feel quite right, you can easily switch to another one until you find someone you truly connect with. So if you feel that you're overwhelmed or you're struggling, you might want to consider therapy. Simply click on the link on the description of this episode, or just head to betterhelp.com forward slash primal podcast and get 10% off your first month of therapy. Let's just head on right now to the solutions. Because there's multiple causes of heart disease and inflammation. We can see that quite clearly. But what do we want in a really easy way to just fix everything? Again, subtraction, not addition. I want to talk about fasting. You are the fasting guru, the fasting doctor. Let's first ask the question around, can fasting help fix the heart? Can fasting help fix the heart? And if so, can fasting help fix the heart? And if so, can fasting help fix the heart? And if so, can fasting help fix the heart? And if so, can fasting help fix the
Speaker 3prevent heart disease? Absolutely. Yes. You see, look, I go to these conferences and we're all sitting there and somebody's talking about this mechanism of reducing heart disease. And another one says, well, this chemical pathway is really important. And somebody will say, and then I'll stand up and I'll say, and there's one thing that you can do that's going to touch every pathway, and that's fasting. So how does fasting do that? Well, when you're fast, fasting is one of the most anti-inflammatory things you can do. So if you measure your CRP levels today, and then you go on a three-day water fast and measure it three days later, your CRP level is going to be very low. CRP is one of those inflammatory molecules that you can actually measure. And it makes sense because I just said that 70 to 80% of your immune cells are in the gut. Well, if you're not taxing them anymore, because you're not putting food down there, then those immune cells are not going to be inflamed. They're not going to start producing more chemokines and cytokines and other obnoxious molecules in the body. And you're going to get less sticky gut at the same time. And you're giving your microbiome a chance to reset. Because remember, when you eat every few hours, then the microbiome that loves sugar is going to proliferate, and you're going to see a higher concentration in the gut of those particular species. And by the way, those are not the good species. So they will proliferate. But if you just go to an eight-hour fast or even a 10-hour fast, it changes your microbiome completely. So people don't understand that fasting not only affects the chemistry in your body, that is, your sugar levels are going to come down, your insulin levels are going to come down, and your insulin sensitivity is going to get better. You're going to get less leaky gut, which we already talked about. Also, your gut microbiome is going to reset. And there's a another one, and that's toxicity. So what do I mean by toxicity? So we now know that there's chemicals in our foods that should never get into our bloodstream. We also know there's heavy metals in our food that should never get into our bloodstream. How does nature prevent law of toxicities? I used to think that, oh, well, if it's in the food, it's going to get into the bloodstream. And I have learned that if you have a good microbiome, the good microbiome actually because it actually holds on to mercury, for example. So there's greater excretion of mercury and doesn't allow it to be absorbed into your body. So if you have a dysfunctional microbiome, you are more likely to allow the contaminants in our food and the heavy metals, for example, and other noxious chemicals, it's going to allow them to be absorbed because the bacteria would have taken care of them. And we know that the bacteria is capable of doing this. So you get more toxic buildup. As well. So I used to wonder about this, that my patients with the leaky gut have the highest levels of mercury, lead, and cadmium as well. And I'm thinking, how is this possible? And figured it out that it's also that our microbiome helps you to get rid of some of these toxins. So fasting has so many different aspects by which it really helps to reset the microbiome. And then, of course, also changes your body's entire response in metabolism. So let me explain that a little bit. So I already mentioned the gut. I mentioned the leaky gut, the bacteria, the sugar, the insulin, but there's much more to it than with fasting. And fasting sends a signal to the body that I better clean up my act here because in order for me to go out and get my next kill, I need to be a better specimen than I am right now. So the body actually prepares you and makes you even stronger. So the more fasting you do, your entire body metabolism changes. You all know about ketones because I'm always talking about the ketogenic diet. So ketones will kick in at a certain point, depending on what stage of your fasting you're in and how often you've been fasting. But the point is that you become ketogenic at some point. You start making ketones. And you and I are supposed to make ketones on a daily basis. But the way we live right now and eating every four to six hours, we never, ever make ketones. So what's the point of making ketones? But ketones are a signaling molecule in the body. Yes, they do provide you with energy, but ketones is a signaling chemical in your body that will make you into a better specimen. How? It increases brain-derived neurotropic factor. So we know that you're going to get more neuroplasticity. Your brain becomes more agile. Your reflexes get faster. Your... Your visual acuity also improves. So all this beat in. Then it's a signaling molecule also to your bone marrow, for example, where you will now make more stem cells and new cells that are going to be coming on because the longer you have fasted, the body will then make these stem cells that will go out. So your entire immune system also resets itself. See? So there are so many benefits to fasting that the longer you fast, you're going to get even more and more benefits. And all these benefits come together. And we call it hormesis. Hormesis is a stress that doesn't kill you and makes us better specimen. And you're supposed to be. It's not like you torture yourself in fasting. You are actually doing what your body was actually designed to do. You were designed to fast. You supposed to be eating so frequently because in nature, the way man evolves evolved over millions and millions and millions and millions of years, he didn't have food availability in a refrigerator or in the car or even in the elevator. I mean, we didn't have that. And sometimes you would have one meal and not have a meal for another whole day or maybe even two days. And it is that biochemistry, it is that physiology that we have inherited because our genetic material has not changed that fast. But along came the industrial age. And with the industrial age, we brought in a whole new way of eating, a whole new frequency of eating, a whole new eating processed foods, garbage food, dead food, food that is not really fit for the definition of food because it's dead, completely dead, man-made stuff that once you eat it, it's going to have detrimental effects on your body. So all the processed foods. I talk about these a lot on my one, absolutely no fiber, right? Processed foods have no fiber because that's what makes it processed. Who's the fiber for? It's not for me. The fiber is for my bacteria. So guess what? I've just starved out my bacteria because they have nothing to eat. So what do they start eating? They start eating my mucus lining of my own gut and cause me to become more leaky. So by eating a low fiber diet, processed food. I've just created leaky gut. Now, does that make any sense? Why would I want to do that when I'm supposed to be eating for myself? I can't digest the fiber. The fiber is for my bacteria. And then, so I took out the fiber. Next, what I did, I added preservatives. Now, wait a second. Nature didn't have those preservatives. She got all these colorings. You got emulsifiers. You've got chemical names that you can't even pronounce. And they're in there. Look, if there's a food label on it, that's a warning signal. That's a warning label. It's not a food label. It's a warning label. Don't even eat it because it's going to have chemicals in it. Now, these chemicals, what do they do? Who's going to handle those chemicals? Let's say you get an artificial sweetener in it. I can't digest it. My body can't digest it, but my bacteria can. So what you've just done is alter the bacterial population in your gut because certain bacteria can't digest it. Certain bacteria can eat those things. They can eat those colorings as well. So my bacterial population changed. I've already decimated them by not eating fiber. And now on top of it, I'm giving them chemicals, which only they can. You know, these bacteria can just about do anything. I mean, we can use the bacteria to go out to the Gulf of Mexico and eat up all that oil. I mean, you can really do plastics. By the way, plastics. Who's eating all those plastics in your body? Your bacteria are trying to digest a lot of those plastics as well. But in doing so, their population changes too. So we can see how we have just created a lifestyle and an eating style and frequency of eating and eating all the wrong things that have destroyed the fundamentals of the number one area that causes inflammation in your body and that's your gut. So as a cardiologist, I'm so obsessed with the gut. Never used to be. Because to me, it was all about putting in a stent and just fix the heart. The source of the problem is the gut. Gut will cause a lot of the problems. So watching what you eat, how often you eat, and is this real food or not? Does it really contain natural ingredients in it? Look, nature has had millions of years of experimentation to see what works and doesn't work. And we, in 120 years of industrialization, think that our body's going to adapt to this new food? Yeah, we will. We will adapt to all this bad food. We will. But it's going to take us maybe another million years. So if we hang out for another million years, you'll be able to digest all this garbage. Yeah, sure, you can do all that. But it'll take us a million because our genes don't change that frequently. But I tell you one thing that does change, and this is very interesting, is your epigenetics. Now, this is going to really scare you. Okay, so you're ready for this one. So let's say that a mom, a mom-to-be, eats a lot of this type of food and she becomes obese and she has insulin resistance. Now her epigenetics changes, how she handles her physiology changes. So epigenetics means that the genome itself doesn't change, but turning on and off those genes, epi means on top of the genes, how that changes. So in epigenetics, you're turning on and turning off genes. So I turn on my genes in a certain situation. It's my epigenetic adaptation to what's in my environment now. But the weird thing is when that mom, when that lady becomes a mom and now, and by the way, men are not exempt because even their epigenetics do pass on. So what happens that those epigenetic changes are passed on to not one generation, not two, but three generations. That means that if the mom developed insulin resistance because of her lifestyle, that child is going to have insulin resistance and that child's child could also have insulin resistance. Now that's called transgenerational epigenetic changes or coming because we are out of touch with our environment. We are out of touch with how we should be living on this planet with this planet. This planet, within this planet, not just anti-inflammatory diet and food, but even our environment, you know, what you breathe in, the water that you drink, or even the temperatures, but also the clothing or whether you have plastics all over your skin and whether you're using plasticizers on your skin and chemicals that are getting into your skin as well. Everything affects the human body. We are, part of our environment. We cannot escape it.
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Speaker 5It's interesting when you talk about the gut microbiome because the gut microbiome actually changes every 15 minutes depending on your exposure on the outside as well as what you eat. So it's not just what you eat. I think people just think, how can I take this supplement, this fermented vegetable, to help my gut microbiome? It is a holistic big picture. Getting back to fasting, people, they want to try to fast. I, and they want us to start. First question for you. I've heard about this 36-hour fast. Is there a magic towards that? What does it do?
Speaker 3I love 36-hour fasts. So there is magic to it. Yes, there is. Because see, for the average person, after you fasted for about 12 hours, the glycogen stores are all gone from your muscles and from your liver. So then, you start getting some gluconeogenesis, but the ketones will not kick in for about 20 hours, 24 hours. So if that's the case, if I want some degree of ketogenesis, and you can test for this simply by taking those ketone sticks and just testing your urine and say, oh my gosh, I'm making some ketones over here. This is fantastic. You will make ketones after 24 hours. Now you make a little bit before 24 hours, but that's, that's not going to help you as much as becoming really ketotic, really producing. So 36 hours. So the average person will make good quantities of the ketones at 36 hours. Now what's even better than 36 hours is 48, and what's better than 48 is 72. So most of my patients will notice that at around 32 to 34 hours, they're actually feeling great. And then they break their fast. And I tell them, look, if you're feeling great, just keep going because you want more ketones. So 36 hours is a magic point. But if you really want to make a dent on your metabolism, if you really want to get rid of insulin resistance, because as long as your insulin is high, you'll never lose an ounce in weight. You cannot lose weight if your insulin level is high because insulin's job is to put everything into storage. You want to get that insulin level down, you have to fast. You have to fast more. And everybody's metabolically not as adaptable. Some are adaptable very easily. Like for example, I only eat once a day. So I know I make ketones by about 14 hours. I'm already spilling ketones. Other people, they're going to have to fast for 36 hours before they make ketones. But the more often they do that, then the earlier they're going to start making ketones. But once you get into ketones, you really feel good because ketones are a clean energy source that can be used by the brain as well. And then by 72 hours, About 60% to 70% of the energy even in your brain is being utilized from these ketones. So I say that if you really want to get the benefit, depending what your goals are, of course, then the longer the fasting you do, the better. So the more inflamed you are, the more inflamed you are, meaning that you've got coronary artery disease, you have a fatty liver, you're overweight, your insulin levels are really high, the more toxic you are, the more gut symptoms you have, the more fasting, the longer the fasting you really need to do. Now, I never advise people to do prolonged fasting if they are pregnant or they already have terminal illnesses, they're extremely thin and they're emaciated. Of course, that's very different. But for most patients, you can easily do a 72-hour fast and you feel better. Once the ketones kick in, the hunger seems to be better. Energy level seems to be higher. Your brain is on fire. You can think more clearly. And you don't feel fatigued. And you even sleep better. You even sleep better. So I think that 36 hours is magic. 72 is really a very good sweet point. And of course, my personal experiences with my patients go even further. I mean, I had one patient that fasted 183 days, but that patient went from a weight of 440 pounds to 200 pounds. Diabetes, gone. High blood pressure, gone. Joint pains, gone. And when you fast this way, the skin also retracts at the same time, unlike when you just purely go on other modalities of weight loss. And the guy looked like a million bucks. He looked so good. So we do that under supervision. So what I do is, of course, I see them. I check the electrolytes. And I give them clues on how to do prolonged fasting. And I help them get through this, especially the ones who are in the beginning phases. Like I give them electrolytes to drink. I might give them MCT oil. I'll tell them how much water to drink, black tea, black coffee, even sometimes bone broth if I really have to, even though that does break your fast a little bit. But if I really want them to do more prolonged fasting and get used to it, it's amazing. And of course, it does also get rid of your psychological addiction to food. Because remember now, we eat a lot. Oftentimes, not because our body is hungry and wants to. It's just because you're addicted. You're addicted because these carbs go to that dopamine center in the brain, the reward center. So you keep craving those carbs. So you want to eat again. And secondly, you have your Pavlovian reflex where you want to eat because it's 1 o'clock. You've got to eat now. You psychologically, you just have to eat. So when you do this fasting, it breaks your addiction cycle. See, there's so many benefits to fasting. So people talk about the psychological benefits. I say, look, you fast. It's just like taking an. Alcoholic and putting him in a room and taking away all his bottles. And for three days, he's not going to have any alcohol. And then he's going to walk out of the room ready to go and solve the world's mysteries. He's so good. He's back to his normal self. So same way we got to do with us. We are junkies. All of us. We've become junkies because we addicted to our carbs. We addicted to this lifestyle. I got to eat now. And it's a vicious cycle. We got to break out of it. You got to have metabolic flexibility. You got to have mental flexibility, too. We cannot be slaves to this. And this indoctrination from from advertising and lifestyle. You got to break away from this. This is not what we were supposed to do. You know, one day you find food. The next day, you're not going to find the food. We got to be flexible. We got to get back to that.
Speaker 5So it's interesting when you talk about fasting, because people talk about 16, 8, 18, 6. I can easily do an 18 hour fast. I've never done. What is it? Three day water fast, which you also say just drinking water during those three days. So your biggest success story with your patient was 100 days, 108 days. You wouldn't advocate for people just to do that. How would somebody just start this if they're thinking, oh, my God, this doctor is saying do this. I can't do it. How do you just start to even get to this 36 hours?
Speaker 3Yeah. So this is what I do. Most people are eating three times a day. So I say, OK, can you skip one meal? OK. I'm going to skip lunch or breakfast or dinner. OK, fine. So you skip one meal a day and do that for about a week, a week and a half. Just just just skip one meal. I don't I don't care about the timings. Just skip one meal. Then after that's done for about two weeks, then I say, OK, now take these two meals and have two meals. But within six hours of each other, see if you can squeeze them a little bit closer, because when they're only eating two meals, sometimes do 12 hours apart. So I say, OK, just bring that little. So maybe you'll go to not 18, six, but you may go to 16, eight. So you're still fasting for 16 hours. So the best way to get 16 hours is to actually fast through the night because you're already fasting. And then in the morning, just skip that breakfast. So many people say, well, you shouldn't skip breakfast is the best meal of the day. Most importantly, that's not true. That's absolutely not true. So just wait till the next meal, which is going to be at noontime. And then have your breakfast. Have your dinner in the evening. Do that for two weeks. Once they've done 18, six for about two to three weeks, you see, I don't just jump them into it. You've got to do that for two to three weeks at least. Now the body's getting used to that physiology of 18 hours of fasting. And I bet you they're already beginning to make a little bit more ketones and they're beginning to get out of this addiction as well. The addiction that I just talked about, right? So the cravings are going to go down. Cravings are going to go down. The compulsive eating is going to go down. Then I tell them, OK, now this week. Two days a week. Just skip one of those meals. So you're going to go to what is known as OMAD, which is one meal a day, maybe Tuesday and Thursdays and choose the days that you know you're going to be very busy. So I got a really busy schedule. I'm just going to eat one meal a day on these two days. Now you've done that for another two weeks or so. So now you've done OMAD two days a week. And then the rest of the time you've been eating two meals and you're pretty happy. Then you go to OMAD five days a week. For two weeks. So now that's pretty much what I do, right? I'm OMAD five days a week. And then on weekends, I'll have two meals. I'll do that. Now, once I've done that for a couple of weeks to then do the three day water fast is so much easier. It's so much easier because you don't want to get into this gap. So let me explain the gap to you. So when your glucose is all utilized, let's say by about 12 hours and you haven't made ketones for 20, 24 hours in between, you can get what is known as keto flu, where there's your body just doesn't have an energy source. It doesn't know how to tap into your fats. Why? Because your insulin levels are still high. See, insulin level has to come down so that the fat stores can be opened up. So your insulin levels are still high. You can't access the fat. You've used up all your glycogen. You're going to feel lousy. You're not going to have an energy source. And that's exactly what you feel like. You feel really run down. So we must avoid keto flu. And if I get keto flu, my patients are not going to hold on to that fasting program. They're going to fall off the bandwagon. They'll say, forget this. This is not for me. So you've got to kind of build up the metabolic flexibility. So my glucose is gone. My fats kick in. And you've got to do that gradually. Because look, this is years and years of conditioning that you've developed. You've got to get out of this years and years. So it has to happen gradually. Don't think that, oh, yeah, I heard this video, and I'm just not going to eat for the next four days. Because you will go into keto flu. You will feel really lousy. And then you, of course, will be sending me an email that, Dr. J, I felt terrible. But look, it's common sense to understand the physiology of this, especially when I explain it this way, that you've got to let your ketones kick in. You've got to get that insulin level to come down. You've got to let that insulin level come down. And the big benefit is that when you then do it, because your insulin levels went down so low, that next meal that you're going to have would have produced normally a lot of insulin. Well, now you're only going to produce a little because you're insulin sensitive. So what happens when you're insulin sensitive? You only produce a little bit of insulin for the same meal. Therefore, that same meal, which would have made you gain a pound or two, now you don't gain a pound or two. So it's so forgiving when you do that three-day, water fast, and then go back to eating, perhaps, perhaps, some of the things that you used to do before. You'll notice that you don't gain as much weight as you would have otherwise, because that three-day water fast changed your sensitivity to insulin. That's why the body was more forgiving to you, because the insulin levels came down. And the biggest physiological benefit that I see from this type of fasting, three-day water fast, five-day water fast, seven-day water fast, is your insulin levels come way, way down. You've got to get that insulin level down. Insulin, look, insulin is a bad boy. It'll cause fatty liver. It'll cause weight gain. It'll cause high blood pressure. It'll cause smooth muscle proliferation. It'll promote atherosclerosis. And it can also promote some cancers. I measure insulin levels on just about every patient that walks through my front door. And the way this happened, I'll just digress a little bit, and I'll tell you what happened. These coronary patients were coming to me and I was denting them fixing their arteries, and they would all come back with more disease. Eight months later or two years later, they got new disease, new blockage. My stent's open, but they got new blockages. And I would say, why? Why did this happen? And I would measure the hemoglobin A1c, and they were normal. But when I started measuring insulin levels, I found a whole new ballgame. I found that the insulin levels were really high. And I started doing glucose tolerance tests. And I had a grant from a company that gave me these strips that I could actually measure these things in my office. And I found that almost all of them had insulin resistance. And it was this silent insulin resistance that was driving atherosclerosis. Because sugar, insulin, inflammation drives the atherosclerotic process. And the moment I changed the diet, the lifestyle, diet and lifestyle, you have to change the lifestyle. How often you eat, then exercise. Why bother doing exercise? Well, we did teach them how to do exercises too. And I have a special recommendation for exercises. How they sleep. Sleep is so important for atherosclerosis. So how you sleep at night, very important. How you exercise at night, very, very important, right? And then more recently, I've been talking about what you want to talk about, which is the vagus nervous. Well, which we can touch upon. So I touch on all these different things to try to knock off this inflammation in the body and improve the outcomes.
Speaker 5That is a perfect segue to the vagus nerve. You mentioned the insulin resistance. On the podcast, I always talk about foods, lowering the carbohydrates, increasing your healthy fats and red meat. But as you mentioned, there's other things that we have to think about. Fasting, it's subtraction, it's not addition. So going without eating, and then when you do eat, eat nutrient-dense foods. After we talk about the vagus nerves, I want to talk about foods to eat because people need clarity on that. Vagus nerve. Now, vagus nerve is something that I think people do not know about. Dr. J, what is the vagus nerve
Speaker 3and why should we care? So I never cared about the vagus nerve. And now I'm so, so excited about the vagus nerve for multiple reasons. So I'll just dive right into it. So the vagus nerve is the largest nerve in the body. The largest nerve in the body. Vagus means vagabond because it wanders around. So it's the 10th cranial nerve, comes out from the head, goes to the larynx, even the facial muscles, goes to the eyes as well, then comes down to your larynx, your bronchus, your lungs, then your heart, and then comes through the diaphragm and then into your gut. And in the gut, it supplies just about everything that's below your diaphragm in the gut. And it is a two-way system that sends signals from the brain to those organs and also gets feedback from those organs as to what's going on. So it's a two-way system that sends signals from the brain to those organs and also gets feedback from those organs as to what's going on. So it's a two-way system that sends signals from the brain to those organs and also gets feedback from those organs as to what's going on. Okay, so I want to know what's going on in the small bowel. Well, how's that signal going to get to my brain so that my brain can alter its outcome? It's going to be via that vagus nerve. So the vagus nerve is extremely important. The vagus nerve also is the parasympathetic nerve. What's that got to do with all this? Well, let me explain. You have two systems in the autonomic nervous system. You have your sympathetic system and you have your parasympathetic system. Sympathetic is fight, fright, flight, right? So that's stress. So cortisol's go up, adrenaline levels go up, and norepinephrine levels go up, and it gets you ready for fighting or flying away or running and basically getting out of danger, right? But immediately after that, you get your parasympathetic, like kicks in automatically. And the parasympathetic is the rest, relaxation, reproduction, restoration. So there's a yin and a yang. Well, guess what? Today's life, we just have too much yin. We just have no yang. Why? Because life is constantly moment to moment stress. So there's always the sympathetic all the time. So that's not only from psychological stress, but physiological stress. Because remember I told you, you eat sugary foods, you eat contaminated foods, you eat foods with all these coverings and preservatives, and you're eating too frequently. You're constantly stimulating the sympathetic nervous system. You see, even eating too frequently is stressful to the body. Eating is not a parasympathetic. Digestion is. But when you eat the wrong foods and eat too frequently, you get sympathetic activation. So we're getting too much sympathetic activation because of our lifestyle in terms of our psyche and the way we live. Also, we're getting too much sympathetic because we don't get enough sleep. Also, we're getting too much sympathetic activation because of our body, which we talked about this afternoon, all of the causes of inflammation. So we are so bound into sympathetic mode all the time. Where's the parasympathetic? More sympathetic you have, you need more parasympathetic. So normally, after you ran away from the saber-toothed tiger with your sympathetic stimulation and everything, now you sit and you breathe normal. You relax, you take those nice expirations and your muscles are all now relaxed, and the parasympathetic kicks in. And whatever damage that you did during your sympathetic drive right now, it starts repairing that. It starts sending blood back to the gut again to say, hey, okay, okay, okay, the danger's over. I can start digesting my food again. Oh, I need to start repairing my systems again. So the parasympathetic slows the heart rate down again, brings the blood pressure down again. Sheer stress in blood vessels gets better. More vasodilation occurs. So all those things. We need that. So because we live in a stressful life physiologically and psychologically, we're not getting enough parasympathetic. So as a result, I cannot increase your parasympathetic, but I can hack your vagus nerve. So what got me into this was understanding why meditation works. And meditation, why would meditation work? Because when you do those breathing exercises, in meditation, where you breathe in to the count of four and breathe out to the count of eight, you're actually stimulating your vagus nerve. And I said to myself, no wonder they tell us to take a breath in and then prolonged expiration. Because in the prolonged expiration, you're stimulating the vagus nerve. So you're hacking the vagus nerve into doing that. And today, we need to do that more than before. It's not that as a living soul, you're supposed to be doing this for survival. No, it's because of our lifestyle today. It's because we're inflamed that we need more parasympathetic. And the best way to do that is actually to use these vagus nerve hacks, which are on my video. So I love those hacks because I think that really does help. And the meditation part of it was very helpful to me as well, because it allowed me to learn. What am I doing in silence? Okay. So the vagus nerve, I understand through my breathing exercise, but in my silence, what am I really doing when I'm silent? And it all came down to stress, not physiological, but psychological stress reduction. And the question was how? So in my research, I found out that when you sit quietly and you're just concentrating only on your breathing, for example, a thought comes and then your attention normally goes to that thought. And then from that to another thought, to another thought, doesn't it? But this way, when you come back to your breathing, that ability to take your attention, your attention away from that thought and come back to where you want it, which is, let's say your breathing, that ability trains you to put your attention where you want to put it. So what? So what? It means that in day-to-day life, the quality of a life will be better. So what? So what? It means that in day-to-day life, the quality of a life will be better. So what? So what? It means that in day-to-day life, the quality of a life will be better. So what? So what? It means that in day-to-day life, the quality of a life will be better. Because you can control where you put your attention. So you'll stop neurosing about the future because you can take your thoughts and bring them into this moment. And you can stop neurosing about the past or reliving the past. And because you will come back to this moment, you are training yourself to have your attention come now to what's happening right now. And that ability to get away from the past, get away from the future, gives you present moment awareness does huge amounts for your stress management. So all these executives come to me, for example, and I teach them this technique. And they love it because it brings down their stress levels. And with it, I see that the heart-to-heart variability, the vagus nerve function gets better, that the blood pressures get better, that the physiological markers can also improve, such as blood pressure and heart rate variability. And also, when you do this, your gut bacteria changes. Did you know stress changes your gut bacteria? Your gut bacterial population. So when you de-stress and you do these vagal exercises, the populations of your bacteria in your gut changes. So you're right that food changes every minute to minute what you're eating. Your gut bacteria changes. Well, even every thought, every thought and emotion that you're having actually changes your gut microbiome. It's just mind-blowing that we have this amazing pharmacy in our gut that responds to not only the physiological stresses that you're actually seeing chemistry, but also the chemistry of your mind, your thoughts, because they all change your chemistry as well. So I found that meditation and vagal exercises have to be an integral part of modern man's living because we're living in this industrialized lifestyle and it's just so important. We just miss that. We're living in a sympathetic world and we need to get out of that sympathetic mode. We need to get back more parasympathetic. And this is my way of bringing it back into. So that's why I'm working so hard. I'm putting the vagus nerve on the map.
Speaker 1This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast instead of doom scrolling? Smart move. Another smart move? Getting help from one of State Farm's 19,000 local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto. Bundling, just another way to save with the personal price plan. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the company. Customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.
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Speaker 5I love that. I mean, your video about the hacks on the vagus nerve to stimulate it was fantastic. I've got a list here of how people can hack the vagus nerve and let's go through it one by one. But it's important to know that it's not just about the vagus nerve. It's about the vagus nerve. It's important to increase your vagal tone. So when you have a higher sympathetic nervous system or tone, you're going to have a lower vagal tone. You want to increase the vagal tone to increase the parasympathetic. Relax, restore, rejuvenate. I have some tips here. Again, coming from your video, I'm going to link your YouTube channel in the description of this episode so that people can just look at all your episodes because this is where I got all the information from. You are a wealth and a burst of absolutely brilliant information. You are a wealth and a burst of absolutely brilliant information. Hack number one to stimulate your vagus nerve is eye massages, gentle ones, eye massages. Yes, absolutely. Because the vagus nerve has
Speaker 3endings that go to the eye. So when you do a gentle eye massage, it actually goes back because it's two-way street. It goes to your vagus nerve. Absolutely. Easy. Okay. Next one is look left to right. Oh, yeah. No, who would have thought that? Actually, it's looking left to right with your eyes rather than with your head. So it's like looking to the left, looking to the right. And I don't know if you see some of these ancient dance modes that you see like in South India, and it's all these eye movements. And I can't help but to think that there is some connection and it does stimulate the vagus nerve. And I tried it myself and I do find it does relax me. I feel
Speaker 5better. I mean, I think that's a good alternative. Some people find meditation and just sitting quietly a bit confronting and challenging. So if they could do these other activities, can also help calm them down. The next one, hack number three, ice pack on your neck for five
Speaker 3minutes. Oh, yes. Because the vagus nerve is right here next to your carotid. Okay. So if you feel your carotid right next to it is the vagus nerve. And if you put an ice pack next to it like that, just for a few minutes on the left, a few minutes on the right, and then just alternate. So you totally do about, let's say 10, 15 minutes. It really sends a signal up that vagus nerve and you do increase vagal tone. You can do it yourself. You'll notice your pulse will go down. And this is machines that you can actually buy or even handheld devices can look at your heart rate variability. So I'm just going to tell you what heart rate variability is. Heart rate variability is that as you breathe in and out, your pulse rate actually increases just a little bit and then decreases just a little bit. So your pulse rate actually is not static. It's not like 60 beats per minute on the clock, like a metronome. It's not. It's 57, 58, and then 60. 61, 62. So there is a variation and that is a sign of good vagal tone. So if you want to know whether your vagus nerve is shot, where you have too much adrenaline in your body, you don't have enough, just do your heart rate variability. It's an easy test to buy and do yourself with these little handheld machines. So heart rate variability increases and it has been linked to survival in patients, in cardiovascular patients. Heart rate variability is a predictor of total survival. Total survival. I mean, it's so strong. Athletes have a lot of heart rate variability and they do live longer. They are there because they have trained their vagus nerve as well. So we need heart rate variability. So yes, hack your vagus nerve. You have to work on your vagus nerve.
Speaker 5Okay. Next one is eat more omega-3s. We'll talk about that more when we talk about what to eat. Humming. That is very good for to increase nitric oxide.
Speaker 3It's amazing. Humming. Humming. That vibration, the vibration is felt and transmitted to your vagus nerve. So it does increase vagal tones. Humming. Singing. Singing. Same thing. Singing and humming. Because if you think about it, those deep breaths that you're taking in and out in your lungs and you're catching that high note, that's all vagus nerve stimulation because there's vagus in your lungs. Lots of them. Take a deep breath in and out and you'll find that your heart rate variability suddenly changes because all those vagus nerve endings are being stimulated with inspiration and expiration. Okay. Laughing also does the same thing. Oh, laughing is so important. It does not only the lungs, but it's also the belly itself because you're sending these pulsations and most of the vagus nerve actually ends up in your gut. So it's like giving that vagus nerve a jolly giving that vagus nerve a great massage. So I love laughing. Laughing clubs are great. You should open up a laughing club and have these people come in and just laugh for no reason. See, I'm so happy. Laughing is so important. Laugh at anything. Laugh. The more you laugh, the better. You'll live longer.
Speaker 5I wonder when was the last time, if someone's watching this, when was the last time that they had a really good laugh? Because it just doesn't really happen these days. I mean, I laugh, like I serious on here, but I like to take life easy. And it seems like with these hacks, it's just movement, laughing, relaxation, singing, doing more of the things that we're meant to do as humans. The last one is intense exercise. Again, what we're meant to do as humans.
Speaker 3Yes. Yes. We're supposed to do all this because food was not supposed to come so easily. Okay. I mean, all we do nowadays is take four paces and then the right hand grabs a handle, pulls it towards us and galore of food. Right. It's, that's unnatural. You're not supposed to do that. So if you work out before you actually feed yourself, that's the way it's supposed to be. And of course, after food, you should also do some work because now wherever you are, you need to come home. So that's a walking after meals decreases your, your glucose levels. And because it pushes it into the, into the muscles where your glute four receptors are all now opened up. So all that glucose is sucked into the muscles. So you got to exercise. You got to exercise before, food and after food. It's so important.
Speaker 5Absolutely. Last thing I want to talk about is what to eat. As opposed to prescribing to diets, because people like to talk about ketogenic diet, carnivore diet, low carb, paleo, Mediterranean. How many diets are there? Let's understand what to eat. Nutrient density. The first thing to ask you as a cardiologist, why is red meat important?
Speaker 3Red meat is the most nutrient dense food on the planet. So if you don't eat red meat for religious reasons or because of, you know, you don't eat red meat for religious reasons, you don't eat red meat for ethical reasons. That's fine. But, but the fact is the fact that red meat is the most nutrient dense meat that there is. Now we got to make sure that our red meat is well-sourced, right? And so I like organic red meat and you know, red meat has all the vitamins and has fats in it as well. The fat that naturally come in the meat itself. So that's different from other fats. So vegetable seed oils, for example, those are manufactured. In this huge factory that looks like a, like an oil refinery, because it is a oil refinery. In fact, you know, if they took that odor and put it back into the vegetable oils, you wouldn't even touch it. It smells so bad. So it's so processed and it has hexane and all sorts of other chemicals in it as well. And it's all omega-6, but no. So I always tell my patients that look, the fats that naturally come in the meat is fine. So there's nothing wrong with red meat at all. It's got lots of protein also in it and it has some carbs, but very little carbs in it. So I have no problem. Now as a cardiologist, I know that my LDLs will go up, but we already talked about it. It's not the LDL. It's the bad, small, dense LDL. And the small, dense LDL are created by inflammation. So let's say you come back to me after changing your diet and your LDL has gone up a little bit, but I do the advanced lipid panel and my small, dense particles are not there. My particle sizes are greater than 220 angstroms, for example. They're nice and big, fluffy LDL particles, but my LDL went up by 40 points. I don't even worry about it. And not only that, I've been following them for years and years and years because ultimately I've got to keep them out of my cath lab, right? And they're all different. I also follow the calcium scores and I find that the calcium scores plateau. They don't increase. So changing, Now, where you're including red meat, for example, is not as bad. people think. Now, there is a type of meat that I'm a little concerned about, which is chicken and some other farm fish, because they are fed corn. See, they only have one stomach. So their omega-6 contents tends to be a little bit high. With red meat, it's very interesting that these cows have four stomachs. And for some reason, even though they're eating corn, when you measure the fat content in omega-6 in the meat, it's not particularly, it's slightly higher. So you like grass-finished, but the grass-finished meat is better for other reasons. It's not omega-6. Yes, it'll have more omega-3 in it, but it'll have more nutrients in it because it's coming from grass. And so that's why I really like that a lot. So yeah, I have no problem with red meat at all.
Speaker 5Well, I thought I'd ask that as a cardiologist, as a heart doctor. Any person watching is going to ask a heart doctor and they're going to say, do not have red meat. So that's why I want you to say that. I mean, you are just saying it, but red meat is so important because people are eating the chicken. People are eating... Eating the white fish, they're hungry and they go eat the processed foods and the carbohydrates. That's what happens.
Speaker 3You are absolutely right. And the fish has a lot, if it's farm-raised, it's still going to have mercury and other chemicals and less omega-3 in it as well. Very little omega-3 in the farm fish instead of the fish that's actually eating the algae out there in the oceans. So you've got to source your food right. I like fish. I like chicken. I like red meat as well. I have no problems with it, but I also like vegetables with it. So they must eat some vegetables with it. So why do we eat vegetables? Because I look at vegetables as a kind of medicinal food because they're going to have a lot of phytochemicals in it, phytonutrients in it. They're going to have good fiber. The fiber is for who? For my bacteria. See, I'm eating for my bacteria, so I'm going to get the fiber from them. But by the way, meats also have fiber. People think it doesn't, but it does. What do you think all the cartilage is made of? What do you think the tendons are made of? They all have cartilage filled with fiber. They eat fiber in red meat as well. But I do... I do enjoy the phytonutrients that are in plants as well. So I like cruciferous vegetables because they do have anti-inflammatory effects. So they have anti-inflammatory and they turn on the NRF2 factors. So you get more endogenous antioxidant effects when you eat cruciferous vegetables. So cruciferous vegetables, very, very important. And then all the different colors that you can find in the plant kingdom give you different phytonutrients. And those are extremely important for us. And many of them are very, very important for us. Not only for us. Now, this is going to surprise you. It's good for my bacteria. So the phytonutrients... Oh, yeah, it's very good for me. No, it's good for my bacteria. Because the phytonutrients were actually manufactured by bacteria in the soil and then got absorbed into the plant. From the plant, it got into me, goes straight to my gut, and feeds the microbiome over here in my gut. So you see, phytonutrients also have a huge role because... Because of bacteria. Because when the phytonutrients are consumed by the good bacteria in my gut, they produce postbiotics. And the postbiotics are chemicals which are from their metabolism. And those chemicals are very good for me, such as short-chain fatty acids. So you see, if you take care of your bacteria by giving them phytonutrients and giving them fiber, they will reward you with all these other things. So when it comes to nutrition, you need to understand something very important. Almost 50% of the micronutrients in your blood as a human are not something that you manufactured or metabolized, and it's in your blood. It's actually what the bacteria made and released into your gut, and then you absorbed it. And now it's floating around inside you. Now, to me, when I read all those studies, I was dumbfounded. I said, you meant to say that they are the ones that are responsible for all these wonderful chemicals that are floating around inside me and giving me this complex human metabolism? And the answer is yes, because I only have 23,000 genes. We outsourced a lot of this to our bacteria. That is why what you eat is so important, because you're going to alter the microbial population in your gut. And you have to have an all-around good diet so that the bacteria can live, your endothelial cells can work better, your end-time metabolism works better. And when you don't do that, you're not going to get minerals. That's why you have to eat what is nutrient-dense food and vegetables. You have to eat both. The vegetables have to be the complex carbohydrates, the green leafy vegetables, the cruciferous vegetables, and the various colors. And you have to add spices, spices to everything. So whenever possible, whether it's dried or whether it's fresh, just you've got to add them. You've just got to add them, because those are all medicinal. They're medicinal. For example, cilantro. When you put cilantro on top of your lamb chops, for example, I'm just giving you an example, right? The cilantro is actually a chelating agent. It actually binds toxins and comes out of your system. So it's, it's really a chemistry bringing everything together. And our, our ancient cooks knew which spices go with what and in what combination. And, and that's great. So I'm not saying that just go out and take a piece of meat and just put it in your plate. No, cook it right and cook it with all the various things and the spices. The spices are extremely important as well as the vegetables.
Speaker 5You are just so passionate about the food that you're talking about. It's amazing. I mean, that, you know, you as a cardiologist can talk about this beautiful food and nutrient density that we can get. Just to note on the vegetables, some people on the carnivore diet don't have vegetables. But this is talking about eating whole unprocessed foods. And as you said, a little bit of vegetables, but we're told to eat this much vegetables and no meat and people just eat processed foods. And just to give people clarity and context, this is where our health problems are coming from. If people can tolerate vegetables, because I know there's different people in my audience out there, some carnivores, some vegetables, some vegetables, some vegetables, carnivore, low-carb, ketogenic, maybe paleo. The vegetables are very small amounts. And again, as Dr. J is saying, it's to feed your microbiome and your gut bacteria. Also meat and red meat feeds your gut bacteria. Just interesting to note that. Next one, and it's the last one. Oh no, second last one is fruit. As a heart doctor, is an apple a day keep the doctor away?
Speaker 3An apple a day will keep the doctor away. It has pectin, it has good fiber in it, but an apple, a day. We tend to eat too much fruit and fruit are only supposed to be consumed in the fall when you're about to go into habitation and you never go into habitation. So what's the point? I mean, it changes your metabolism completely. Fructose puts you into storage mode. You have a high fructose. And by the way, so sugar, sugar is 50% glucose, 50% fructose. Fructose changes your metabolism completely. You're going to storage mode. You got a fatty liver, you do insulin resistance. I'm not too fond of fruits. I think that fruits are overrated in general. And we eat too much fruits. It's unnatural, especially fruits that are not in season. Nowadays, we can have fruits from any part of the world coming in here. And there is a difference between eating fruit that is in season and small amount of it, not to gorge on it, versus eating foods that are out of season. And we can go into the science of this. It's a little complicated. It talks about the photon energy particles and the sun and what the wavelengths are that are preserved in the food versus what's going on in you right now. And there's an imbalance. And we can talk about those types of things. But bottom line is that if you start in season, don't eat it. And if you're going to eat fruit, eat one piece at most and eat it whole. Don't juice it either. So that's the other thing. I don't juice my food because I want to eat my fruits. I don't want to drink my fruits because then the onslaught of all those calories all at one time going into my gut, my poor gut says that I got to get rid of all the sugar quickly and produce a whole bunch of insulin. And that insulin comes in and then three hours later, I'm famished again. And just too much insulin being produced. I don't like that. Plus, when you put something in a machine, and machines were only invented 100 years ago, right? I mean, before that, we don't have juices, we don't have all these things. You're supposed to masticate your food. Masticated food. If you eat it and put it into your plate again and take a look at it, that's what the food is supposed to look like. Not that smoothie. Now you've whipped up all those fibers that are in the food and these beautiful fibers, which are protecting you in your glycemic index because the fiber reduces the exposure of those calories to your body so you don't overproduce all your insulin and other hormones, right? And it slowly digests as it's going down. That fiber's gone. You've just cut them out into zillions of little pieces. How unnatural is that? It's extremely unnatural. That is why I've never been in favor of taking those machines and just slicing everything into it and then eating it. It's just not natural. You'd rather just eat the fruit itself. Now, when you do that, you'll also realize that if you take all those things that you're putting into your juicer, if you ate them, I bet you, you can eat half of them. I bet you'll eat half of them and then leave the rest behind and say, I can't eat all that stuff. So you rather do that, just eat the apple or eat one orange, but not an apple and an orange and a banana. When would you eat three fruits? Just think about it. The only time you'll eat three fruits at one time is if you put it into a machine and you wrap it all up and now you drink it all down in one shot. That's unnatural, totally unnatural, not the way the body was supposed to work.
Speaker 5It makes sense. So on a given plate, if we have lots of the red meat and the fat in the meat, don't have to add again lots of fat because this is something else that we're seeing, people just eating lots of fat. So again, red meat, the nutrient-dense meats, and then you add a bit of vegetables if you could tolerate them, fruit from time to time in season, very, very simple template. Last question about plaque. Now, I have a question about soft plaque and hard plaque because it's the calcified hard plaque that leads to heart attacks. So how does soft plaque form and how does that lead to hard plaque? Actually, just a slight correction there.
Speaker 3It's soft plaque that is more likely to rupture. And cause a blood clot forming on it, and then that causes the heart attack. But the calcified plaque predict heart attacks also. Why? Because the more calcified plaque you have, the more soft plaque you're also going to have. So on average, 25% of the plaque is calcified and 75% is actually non-calcified. Within the non-calcified plaques, on a CT scan, if you look at plaque analysis, there's what is known as very low attenuation plaquing. That's plaque that is so full of inflammatory cells that on the CT scan, it almost looks black and they can look at, the CT scan actually looks at that and says, yeah, that's a low attenuation plaque. That predicts more the likelihood that that plaque is going to rupture. And if it does rupture, it's going to cause a localized blood clot or complete occlusion of that artery. So yes, you are absolutely right that plaques can rupture. The calcified ones are more stable. The non-calcified fatty ones, which especially the low attenuation ones are bad. The soft plaque will become hard plaque if you don't take care of it. So soft plaques can regress. That's the important thing. Calcified plaques are not likely to regress. Once you have a calcium score of, let's say, 200, it'll come down to, let's say, 180 or 190 if you do make these changes in your life. But it's never going to go from 200 to zero. It's just not going to happen. It's not going to happen. The calcium will never disappear. It's in the wall. It's going to be there, right? And it's the non-calcified plaque, the fatty plaques that you get, your diet can change that completely because those got there because of damaged LDL. So if you change your lifestyle and your small dense LDL levels disappear and your plaques will reflect that, that the plaque volume of soft plaque actually gets better. And we can track that with a CT scan. So that's very important. So that's why I said, look, if you want to get your soft plaques down, get rid of your small dense LDL. To get rid of small dense LDL, you need an anti-inflammatory lifestyle, anti-inflammatory environment, which we haven't even talked about the environment. We haven't even talked about lifestyle itself as well. But of course we're talking, concentrating on diet today. So diet is very important and the vagus nerve. So, so, so that's important.
Speaker 5So when you do a CAC score. Doesn't that test hard plaque? And then how do you test for soft plaque?
Speaker 3Soft plaque is done on a CT angiogram. Your calcium score will not give you a soft plaque. It'll only give you hard plaque. So when I see hard plaque and the calcium score is, let's say 200 or 300 or whatever, I know that there's soft plaque also, but I can't comment on it. All I can say is that this is a combination and I'm giving you the calcium score right now. Then if I want to impact on your soft plaque, let's look at your advanced lipid panel. Let's look at your CRP. Let's look at your particle sizes. Let's look at all the other inflammatory markers in your body, like interleukin six or tumor necrosis factor. And then we basically run through it. And from that, I imply that if I get rid of all this inflammation, your soft plaques are going to stay stable and they're not going to progress and become calcified, nor are they going to rupture and be up to mischief. Okay. So if I want to see soft plaque in my patient, then I'll order a CAC score. That's CT angiogram. So when you order a CT angiogram, you have to inject dye. So you inject contrast into the IV. The contrast goes into the coronary arteries. You see the lumen, the inside of it. So you can tell how much narrowed the artery. So the plaque, is it causing narrowing in the artery or is it just sitting in the walls? Right? So it could be just sitting in the wall. There's lots of calcium, but it's sitting in the walls. It's not actually causing any luminal narrowings. And then AI, AI, this is where AI comes in. AI takes that artery. Okay. And straightens it all out. And then it analyzes the, what we call the attenuation, attenuation factors. I mean, it means it's looking at the density of the plaques. So calcium, pure white, stands out. Oh yeah. All this white, white calcium over here. And then you have soft plaque, which is kind of gray. And then the black one is a real bad kind of plaque. So it quantitates it. So AI then gives you a volume. It actually quantifies in this artery. You have 27 cubic millimeters of soft plaque or this artery or that artery. And then this attenuation, more than 4% of your soft plaque is very, very low attenuation plaquing. The black stuff puts you into high risk. So when I see that, I really have to hone in on their diet. And then I give them certain supplements as well because they fall into a very high risk. So I'm very aggressive with those patients. So yes, soft plaque is important. It costs money. Insurance doesn't want to pay for soft plaque analysis. So it's an out-of-pocket expense. So for those who are motivated, they do do that. It does cost a lot of money. Soft plaque analysis together with a CT angel will run anywhere between $1,200 and $1,500.
Speaker 5But if people just do the techniques that you mentioned, that is going to take care of the soft plaque anyway. Fasting. Good diet. Vagus nerve hacks. Again, looking over your environment and just a healthy lifestyle. This is what I tell people.
Speaker 3I say, listen, there's no doubt that you have soft plaque also. And I can image that for you. And it's going to cost a lot of money. You should be doing all this stuff anyway because it's going to help that soft plaque. It's going to help your brain. It's going to help your eyes. It's going to help your kidneys. It's going to help your joints. And most importantly, it's going to improve the quality of life. Even just the way you're thinking, your energy, your animation, everything's going to change. Just change your lifestyle, change your environment, change your diet. And start with diet. Diet is the most important thing. Then, of course, we talk about the other things too, like hacking your vagus nerve or whatever. But I think that, yeah, the diet has to be the first thing that changes. Has to. And it's in your control.
Speaker 5Brilliant.
Speaker 3Well, Dr. J, if people want to see you more and find you, where can they see you? Online, I'm at two places. One is called Aristotle Education. And Aristotle Education is my private clinic. And then I have my regular cardiology practice where it's called Cardiovascular Interventions. So on YouTube also it's Cardiovascular Interventions, Dr. Gymnast. And my office is in Orlando, Florida because that's where I work out of.
Speaker 5So are you still seeing patients?
Speaker 3Oh, yes. In fact, this morning I did an angioplasty in the hospital. I come here. I do consultations. I'm seeing patients. I run back to the hospital to see patients. So I'm just a regular, regular cardiologist.
Speaker 5Oh, no, you are far more than a regular cardiologist. You are a brilliant, I mean, speaker, author, just genuine from the heart. And honestly, it's such a pleasure to connect with you and for you to share this information to my audience. So thank you so much.
Speaker 3I want to thank you and I look forward to talking to you again.
Speaker 5Thank you for joining me today on this episode with Dr. Gymnast. If you'd like to know more information about how to fix heart disease, and inflammation naturally, just head to the link in the description of this episode, how to reverse heart disease, open that up, and you'll see all the information there about heart disease and how to start fasting. Now, if you're learning from and enjoying these free episodes, please take a moment to subscribe. You can also find me on other social media accounts. I'm on Instagram and on Twitter under the name of The Primal Podcast. Now, if you love this episode, you'll also enjoy another episode I did with Dr. Stephanie Venn-Watson. We talk about the true cause of insulin resistance. We talk about the true cause of insulin resistance. Dr. Stephanie Venn-Watson will discuss C15 deficiency, a saturated fatty acid that we are mostly deficient in. She'll talk about how this is actually connected to fatty liver disease, high blood glucose, and also insulin resistance, and the easy foods and the easy way that you can fix it. Finally, thank you for your interest in Root Cause Healing.
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Speaker 5And I'll see you next week.
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