Food's Role in Covid-19 - with Dr. Mark Hyman | The Empowering Neurologist EP. 95

Hello everyone, I'm Dr. David Perlmutter. Welcome again to The Empowered Neurologist. You know, one of the exciting things I get to do in this job hosting this program is I get to interact with people I've never met who've written good books or done great research or are doing great things in the clinic. Well, today is a little bit different. I'm going to be interviewing a good friend of mine for the past 20 years, Dr. Mark Hyman. Dr. Mark Hyman has a new book out called Food Fix and How to Save Our Health, Our Economy, Our Communities, and Our Planet One Bite at a Time. And I will admit that this recording is taking place in late March 2020. You know, normally we like to do these things evergreen, but I think that you're going to see in our interview that there are some powerful implications of what we eat in terms of what we see going on around the world. For example, in terms of immune function, in terms of susceptibility perhaps to having a worse outcome by virtue of the fact that people have underlying medical conditions that may in fact be brought on by the foods that people are eating. That's what Dr. Hyman is talking about. I think this may be his best book. As you know, he's written multiple New York Times bestsellers. We've talked to him many times in the past about his books, but, you know, this one really takes the notion of the foods we eat well beyond our waistlines and looks at the implications for us from a planetary perspective in terms of economy, in terms of jobs, and certainly in terms of health. Let me tell you a little bit about Dr. Mark Hyman. He is a practicing family physician, and he's an internationally recognized leader, speaker, educator, and certainly an advocate of what is called functional medicine. Maybe we'll have a chance to talk about that today. He's the founder and director of the UltraWellness Center. He is the head of the strategy and innovation part of the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine. And he is a, as mentioned, multiple, in this case, 13-time New York Times bestselling author and board president for clinical affairs for the Institute of functional medicine. He is the host of one of the leading health podcasts called The Doctor's Pharmacy. That's pharmacy with an F. I've been on that a couple of times. And he's a regular medical contributor to several television shows and networks, including CBS This Morning, Today, Good Morning America, The View, and CNN. He's also an advisor and guest co-host on The Dr. Oz Show. So we're going to jump right in and talk to Dr. Hyman About his new book, which is Food Fix, but also about some other ideas in terms of what we're seeing going on around us. So let's jump into our interview. Well, hello, Mark. How are you doing?

Hi, David. Well, you know, I'm doing like everybody's doing. I'm making the most of this really tough time and trying to figure out how to keep my cat from going crazy inside, although he's not completely quarantined. He goes outside. And I think, you know, we're trying to find the best way through this for ourselves, for our families, for our businesses, and everybody's coming together. And I think it's a unique moment where the entire human race is united in this common experience, which has been a really compelling thing. I think over the last decades we've seen more division and more opposition and more divisiveness in our society. You write about it in your book Brainwash, and I think this is a— Sort of a unique unifying experience that who knows what'll happen afterwards, but, uh, it may be some good.

Yeah. I have to tell you that, uh, I had this just wave yesterday of, of all things, gratitude. I mean, I don't think that I walked down my street like I did yesterday and felt such gratitude just for the moment. You know, we're always thinking about where we're going to go and this and that. And just, it really is forcing us to be in the moment. And, uh,

And

we're not running around, we're not on planes and doing all this stuff, right? We're home and doing what we need to do.

I took a long hour and a half walk this morning on this trail. There was not a single person. Um, and just enjoyed the quiet.

Yeah, it's really amazing. And all of a sudden it's forcing us into a place of reconnecting. Um, here's your book. And I have to tell you that, uh, You know, I got all my questions here that were prepared for me ahead of time, you know, weeks ago for this interview, but I think it's going to be a different interview. It has to be. And normally we do these, they're evergreen, we can show them at any point, but what is the date today? It's March 26th, 2020, and we've got to look at food kind of differently. And where I wanted to take our conversation is— What we're seeing in response to coronavirus is that people who have underlying medical conditions seem to be doing worse. Yes. And what is by and large the cause of these underlying medical conditions that are leading to a poor outcome?

Well, you're so right, David. I think this coronavirus pandemic is highlighting the underlying weaknesses in our Global health and our healthcare system. And in fact, the data from China is pretty stark. If you have heart disease, you're 10 times more likely to die. If you have diabetes, you're over 7%— no, 7 times more likely to die. So these are staggering numbers that are, for me, highlighting the fact that chronic disease— is a pandemic. It's been not well recognized as a threat, and yet it is the biggest threat right now globally to humanity because we're seeing probably 3/4 of the deaths on the planet caused by lifestyle and food preventable disease. 11 million people die every year. I think this is a conservative estimate, just from eating bad food, not eating enough good food. This is a Global Burden of Disease study, 195 countries. And 60% of our calories in America is ultra-processed food. And in terms of coronavirus, the reason we're seeing this increased susceptibility is because people are not well nourished.

Mm-hmm.

And in order to be resistant to the virus and to be able to recover from the virus, you need adequate nutrition. And the diet we have is mostly corn, wheat, and soy turned into all kinds of sizes, shapes, colors, tastes, and smells of extruded food-like substances that Shouldn't even be called food, that are incredibly nutrient poor and are leaving people overweight. If you're obese, you're almost 3 times as likely to die from coronavirus as you would be if you didn't have obesity. And yet we see that now in 42% of our population, 75% are overweight. I mean, it changes every year. I keep having to update my slides because the obesity rate keeps going like this. And if, if you look at the, the growth in coronavirus, it's like a hockey stick like this. Over, over weeks, right? Right. If you look at the growth of obesity and chronic disease, it's also a hockey stick, except it's been over 40 years. So really, it's almost like this frog in boiling water problem where if you put a frog in boiling water, it jumps out. If you slowly heat it up, it just stays there. And that's the difference between coronavirus. It's the frog jumping in boiling water. We're all on fire about it, but we need to be equally as on fire about the chronic disease epidemic. And we know that, for example, sugar suppresses immunity. We know that sugar feeds viruses, and that means starch as well. And you write a lot about this, David. And I just read an article this morning that salt, excess salt, which is found in processed foods— not the salt you put on your food, it's the salt that's added to your food by corporations— also suppresses your immunity. So we, we really have to face this, this fact that if we want to survive and thrive in this era of this pandemic, we need to focus on our health and our nutrition as a way of fortifying our own health and also reducing our risk of infection and reducing the risk of spreading it to our loved ones and our friends and family.

You know, one of the interesting findings that during this pandemic has been, at least once it got to America, I think a lot of people were surprised saying that, you know, at least 20, but perhaps more percent of people who are being hospitalized are relatively younger. In other words, between the ages of 20 and 54. And, you know, as I presented that in one of my podcasts, people were saying, how can that be? I mean, young people are healthy in America.

Sure.

Well, the reality is, as you well pointed out, that that's just not true, that America's young people are not healthy, that we have soaring rates Of obesity and overweight and even diabetes. So these underlying medical conditions that are prevalent in our so-called younger people are now manifesting in terms of poorer outcome as it relates to having this infection.

Well, think about it. If you know, if you, if you look at the data, 1 in 2 Americans has prediabetes or type 2 diabetes. 90% of them don't know it. So even if you're 30 or 40, you— if you have belly fat, you likely could be in that range of prediabetes, which is dramatically increasing your risk of, of having more severe complications from coronavirus.

You, um, in your book, you didn't pull any punches, and you mentioned how the food industry is actually preying upon young people. Really, they're just You know, they've got them in their gun sights. And tell us a little about that.

Well, you know, I just want to back up a little bit. You know, the food— the whole premise of Food Fix is that, you know, all of our problems are connected to the food system in some way or another, right? Our children's health and their obesity rates, ADD, their challenges in academic performance, obviously, as you mentioned, but also, you know, the chronic disease epidemic. Our economic burden—we are we are a serious doo doo right now. We just passed a two trillion dollar stimulus package. That money is money we don't have. It's debt, right? It's debt, and the debt we now have is twenty two. Maybe it's now twenty four trillion dollars. A lot of it has to do with chronic disease. So our economic system is is weakened by chronic disease. Climate—the number one cause of climate change—is our food system. The number one. source of environmental degradation is the food system and all the downstream consequences. Even national security, our kids are not able to be recruited for the military because they're unfit to fight. So, you've got all these issues. And the way that it's occurred to me is that as a physician sitting in my office for 30 years seeing patients, I realized that most of my patients' diseases are caused by food in some way or another, and they can be cured by food. And I'm like, well, what's the cause of the food? It's the food system. Well, what's the cause of the food system? It's our food policies. What's the cause of the food policies? It's the influence of the largest industry on the planet, which is the food industry. It's $15 trillion or 17% of the world economy. So then I'm like, okay, well, what are they doing? Well, they have a very coherent strategy that's multifaceted that is driving so much of these problems and not solving them. First, they fund nutrition research. They spend 12 times as much as the government, about $12 billion a year, on nutrition research. Studies like candy consumption increases weight loss in children. No joke. The reference is in my book. They fund professional societies like the American Heart Association, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, which receives 40% of its funding from the food industry. And co-ops their messaging such that Kraft Singles, which aren't even allowed to be called cheese because they're not 51% cheese, were named as a healthy food by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. How does that make sense? And then we see the American Heart Association saying Trix are a healthy breakfast cereal.

Right. Cheerios are heart-smart.

Well, Cheerios, you know, you could argue maybe, but the But the Cocoa Puffs, and Trix, and Froot Loops, I mean, what's gone on there?

I am truly now cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

And then, so you've got them infiltrating professional societies, which co-opts their recommendations. For example, the American Heart Association is funded heavily by the vegetable oil lobby, by the canola oil association, for example. So you've got that, and then you've got them influencing front groups that put out misinformation. So there are massive misinformation campaigns, like, for example, American Council on Science and Health, which sounds like a great, respectable organization, but they are the ones who say that pesticides, smoking, trans fats, and high fructose corn syrup are all fine for you, and they are the ones who spent $30 million to fight GMO labeling in California. Of course, they got their money from Monsanto and big ag and big food. No surprise. So you've got these front groups acting, and then groups like the Climate Smart Agriculture. Now, who's not for climate smart agriculture, right? It's funded by the fertilizer companies, which are one of the biggest contributors to climate change. And then you've got funding of science, you've got co-opting professional science, you've got front groups. Then they actually focus on minorities and advocacy groups like Feeding America, right? Because these are the groups that are focused on hunger. So for example, they prevent them from supporting making nutrition a value in the SNAP program. Right now, SNAP or food stamps, you can buy soda, junk food, and they oppose any guidelines to improve the quality of the food through food stamps because they don't want to stigmatize the poor. Well, on the board of these social advocacy groups are big food CEOs and executives. And then you've got, for example, these groups also funding the NAACP and the Hispanic Federation, which is why African Americans and Hispanics, who are most targeted and most susceptible to these diseases, are often opposed to what seems to be policies that would be in their benefit.

And whereby people like yourself are then looked upon as being opposed to

Yeah. Maybe. I don't know. I do actually— I actually gave a talk. People can Google it and go, Food Oppression Hyman, and it's a 10-minute talk I gave at the Harlem Riverside Church about our food as a system of oppression for the poor and the minorities.

Yes. And you talk about that in your book as well.

Yeah, for sure. And then, you know, so you've got all these different things, and then they focus on marketing. And this is more in answer to your question about children. You know, not only do they prey on minorities and the poor, and they do this through very specific targeted marketing. For example, the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy was really clear in its research that the amount of ads that African American and Hispanic kids see for soda and junk food far exceeds that of whites because they target them. But, but this food industry does really— they spend literally billions of dollars on marketing junk food to kids, kids who can't tell the difference until they're 9 years old between the show and a commercial.

Right.

And, and they, and they, and they know this. They even look at imaging of brain imaging of functional MRIs on little 2-year-olds to see what visual images of food will stimulate them the most. And this is why you get a 2-year-old who can barely talk or walk is actually able to name brand name foods and ask their parents to buy them in the grocery store. The amount of advertising in schools, you've got Coca-Cola banners in bathroom stalls, you've got it in gymnasiums, you've got them funding, quote, funding schools for their programs, but it allows them to infiltrate the schools with all these products that are harming these kids.

And then there's— Let me go back to the targeting of children with advertising. Chile has been— I mean, for those of our viewers who are thinking, well, that's just the way it is, can't do anything about it, let's walk through what happened in Chile and how effective that was.

Sure. Just one more point about this, because before I go on, there are 5 point— so advertising on television is one thing, and that's terrible. Kids see probably 4,000 to 10,000 ads on TV a year, but there were 5.4 billion ads on Facebook, billion with a B, ads directed at kids for junk food last year. I mean, it's just staggering. And in Chile, they were like, enough, right? But it was really a unique situation. It was a moment in time when the president of Chile was a pediatrician, a doctor, and the vice president of the Senate was a doctor. Michelle Bachelet and the Senate head, Dr. Girardi, who was the head of the Senate in charge of all the food. And they came up with a sweeping set of policy changes that have been implemented and extremely successful and a model for the rest of the world. The problem is, in this country, we are lacking the political will to protect our children. And then in Chile, what they did was they eliminated any advertising to children for any junk food or processed food between 6:00 in the morning And 10 at night. They eliminated all cartoon characters, so no more Tony the Tiger, Toucan Sam on Froot Loops. They're gone. Instead, they put on black octagon warnings if it has too much sugar.

Always after me, Lucky Charms.

That's right, that's right. So they put on warning labels on the front of packages. So instead of having a health claim like, oh, this is good for you, it has extra fiber, but has, you know, 5 teaspoons of sugar, which you have to read on the back label, They actually say this is harmful, so warning labels like a cigarette packet. They also eliminated any bad food in schools. They eliminated infant formula marketing, and they put an 18% soda tax in. But what was interesting was the change in the marketing had far more impact than the soda tax, even though it was an 18% soda tax. And in this country, the food industry is severely opposed to any restrictions on marketing. And there's something called the First Amendment, or freedom of speech, which I believe is important, obviously, but I don't think it means that we can't protect our children because they are weak and vulnerable and they are not able to protect themselves, and we need to be, as adults, protecting them. And the malicious marketing of food to these kids is hooking them early and hooking them for life, and it's why we see now 1 in 3 kids born today will have diabetes in their lifetime, 1 in 3.

When we see the increasing incidence of things like diabetes, and autism, and certainly allergy, asthma, atopic disease, this is obviously not a genetic issue, or that incidence would remain static. Suddenly, the environment has changed, the biggest part, I think. is food and the quality of food beyond the sugar and the highly refined nature of our foods. So you also talk about so many of the chemicals that are found in our foods. And I want to talk about that. Have you— have you talked about that? I'm going to listen. But also how the FDA really isn't stepping up to protect us as we would think the FDA would do.

I mean, I've learned everything I know from you, David. So you got— I could interview you on this. So you're right. The FDA is asleep at the wheel here for a number of reasons. One, They allow so many ingredients in our food that are not allowed in most of the rest of the world. Like, for example, azodicarbonamide is a Subway mat ingredient— yoga mat, sorry, it's a yoga mat ingredient that's found in Subway bread. And it was outed by Vani Hari, a friend of ours, and they took it out. But in Singapore, if you're a food manufacturer and you use azodicarbonamide, which is a softener for bread, in your products, You go to jail for 15 years and you get a $450,000 fine. Okay? That's the stuff we allow in our food here. BHT and other butylated hydroxytoluene and chemicals and dyes and additives. We are not allowing the science to dictate what is safe or not safe in this country, and we're allowing industry to dictate it. And that's really—

Gee, who knew?

Yeah. Who knew? And then, of course, they allow antibiotics. Of the 37 million pounds of antibiotics in our food supply, and in our supply, 30 million is used for animals for growth or disease prevention. And then, of course, the food labeling is so confusing. On the food label, the ingredients are often so small you can't read them. They don't list the amount in percentage. So if the second ingredient is sugar, you don't know if it's 1% or 50% or 80%. And then they actually allow them to, for example, add multiple forms of sugar, because in order to put your ingredient on a label, the most abundant ingredient has to be listed first. But if you put in 5 forms of sugar, or you divide it up between 5 different forms of sugar, even though sugar is the most abundant thing in the food, it doesn't have to say that, right? So, they have like 4 different kinds of sugar. And if you have a PhD, maybe you can understand the food nutrition facts label, but it should be clear. Green, this is good for you. Eat with caution, red, this is going to kill you. Everybody should just know what it is when they pick up a food instead of being so confusing. In so many ways, the FDA is not protecting us.

Just as an aside, it's interesting that the same issues hold with respect to cosmetics in the comparison between what goes on in the United States versus Europe. I mean, the things that people are putting on their skins topically, which are absorbed, it's It's breathtaking. Again, we would think that the FDA would be there to protect us, but God forbid science would be validated.

That's right. Well, if people go to ewg.org, which I'm on the board of the Environmental Working Group, ewg.org, they can go to this app they have called Skin Deep, and you put in your cosmetics, or your shampoo, or whatever you're using, your body care products, it'll tell you how toxic they are, or if they're safe to use.

So what's the effect then of this mass production of these chemicals? What's the effect on the environment?

Well, I mean, you know, the agricultural chemicals are the things that I worry so much about. And there's pesticides, there's herbicides, there's fertilizer. The most— 2 of the most concerning are the fertilizer and the glyphosate, which is the herbicide. Pesticides also, but here's the problem with fertilizer. One, it consumes 2% of the world's global energy supply to make fertilizer. We produce 400 billion pounds. It's one of the most energy-intensive things we do. And when we produce it, we use fracking gas, so natural gas from fracking, which produces about 40% to 50% more methane than conventional oil wells. And methane is a greenhouse gas that is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide. So it's worse than cow burps and all that, if you're worried about that. If you're fertilizing your soybeans for your Impossible Burger, or your— oh, you don't fertilize those because they have nitrogen, but— or you fertilize your corn for your corn junk food, you're actually contributing to climate change. Then you put it on the soil, it turns into nitrous oxide. Which is 300 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. And then it kills the soil life, the microbiology of the soil, which is like your microbiome. So our microbiome and the soil microbiome are very interrelated. And when you kill the soil microbiome, the plants can't get the nutrients, it becomes dirt, and it actually isn't able to be used to grow food very well anymore. And then it runs off into the rivers, lakes, and streams and pollutes the rivers and causes these algal blooms because the fertilizer is agnostic. It'll fertilize algae or it'll fertilize corn. And then that kills off all the oxygen, sucks out all the oxygen from the waterways, which then kills in the Gulf of Mexico alone, 212,000 metric tons of fish every year. And there are 400 dead zones around the world like this that feed half a billion people. And are the size of Europe. So we really have a global problem just on that one problem. And then you've got the herbicides. So 70% of the agricultural chemicals used is glyphosate, or Roundup. There's been over 3 billion pounds used just in America since it was introduced in the '70s. And it's an herbicide. It's basically a weed killer. But it's used on everything. It's on 70 different crops. Even things that aren't GMO crops like wheat, because it desiccates the wheat at harvest, makes it easier to get the kernels out, and it's in all our wheat products. I mean, there's more glyphosate in your Cheerios than there is vitamin D or B12, which they add to the Cheerios. So we have all these— and the problem with glyphosate is it's so damaging to the microbiome of the soil. And it's so damaging to your microbiome, which you write so much about, David, and glyphosate is one of the most noxious things. In one Impossible Burger, which is a GMO soy burger, there's 110 times as much glyphosate as is required to kill off your microbiome. So I—

Yeah, and for our viewers, I would go back to the interview I did with Dr. Stephanie Seneff, a lot of information there. The original patent for glyphosate from Monsanto was for its use as an antibiotic. The fact that it is so disruptive towards our microbiome and people are getting things like cancer, et cetera, is certainly not surprising. Yeah. It takes me back to the immune system and where we are today as you and I are having this virtual conversation. We would say that the best defense is a good offense in terms of coronavirus. Well, we don't have anything offensive. We don't have any weapons to combat coronavirus as yet. There's some things that people are discussing and things in the pipeline, but the best thing we can do is shore up our defenses, i.e., our immune system.

Hmm.

For people whose immune systems are compromised by virtue of the foods that they have been eating, What would your suggestions be right now from a food perspective to change things and help to reinvigorate and maybe even rejuvenate immune function?

Absolutely. I was pulling up this article I just printed out today, which I spilled some coffee on. It's called Diet and Immune Function. And I think there's so much literature about the role of this. So we do talk a lot about the bad foods, the ultra-processed foods, but we don't talk enough about the protective foods, the foods that actually protect us against disease. It's not just bad food and then food. It's bad food and protective foods. And there are so many protective foods out there. And I think, you know, for the first— the first simplest thing to do in this time for people who are listening is don't succumb to the idea that this is a time to stay home and eat comfort foods and eat junk food and eat packaged food. This is a time you're at home. You can cook. You can make real food. You can nourish yourselves and your families. And you can learn skills that are going to carry you forward to a very healthy future. So, that's really important. And use real ingredients. And I went shopping recently. My ex-wife is not doing very well, so I brought her $500 worth of food from Walmart, which was just all whole food. There was even organic stuff in there, and there was no processed food, and there was enough food for months for her to eat. So, I think the idea that it has to be expensive or difficult isn't true. You want to eat really nutrient-dense food because the nutrients like zinc and vitamin A and vitamin D and omega-3 fats and vitamin C, these come from really nutrient-dense foods, whether it's omega-3-containing fish or whether it's mushrooms that have vitamin D, which also have basically protective things for your immune system, or whether it's the phytochemicals that are antioxidants that are anti-inflammatory, things like turmeric. Rosemary, ginger, garlic— these are really great foods to include. Onions with quercetin— these are really known to help benefit and boost the immune system. Also making sure you take care of your gut, which again, David, you've talked so much about. But fermented foods and prebiotic foods and probiotic foods— these are really important for us to be eating now because our gut microbiome is critical for regulating our immune system. So it's really the same old advice we've been given forever. which is eat a nutrient-dense diet, eat a plant-rich diet, eat good quality protein, eat lots of omega-3 fats, eat lots of spices, eat lots of colors, get rid of the starch and sugar. I mean, it's just the same advice because it works for everything. And it might— you know, David, you, you gave a lecture many years ago, and, and I'm like, you're like, there isn't a diet that's gonna cure heart disease but give you cancer, and another diet that's gonna give you cancer but it's gonna cure dementia, or diet that's gonna cure dementia but it's gonna give you diabetes. It's like There is a way of eating that's going to help all these things. And I think it was one of the most insightful things I ever heard you say. And I think it's really true. And it's the same thing for your immune system.

Well, you know, as far as your book goes, Food Fix, you have a copy. So do I. I'd like that our viewers would read this, but with— through the lens of their current situation.

Yes.

And then we, you know, later on when everything is resolving, then we can start to think about What are the other implications of our whole food system? What are the flaws in SNAP and in food stamps, et cetera? All of these things we talked about, advertising to children.

Yes.

We talked about that in terms of their online experiences. But I think right now, in terms of the relationship between chronic degenerative disease, underlying disease, and bad outcome from coronavirus, I think if people are reading your book With that in mind, it's a home run for them because, as you mentioned, this is how we rejuvenate our body.

The book isn't called Food Apocalypse, it's called Food Fix, right? Right. It's really about the solutions in there, what to eat and how we need to change our policies. And I'm working on that in Washington with a whole campaign team. And we're really, how do we help people through this coronavirus epidemic understand that chronic disease is such a threat? That it is something we need to deal with and that we can do it together.

We're seeing a lot of irrationality, impulsivity, fear on the part of people's behavior right now. And interestingly, you call attention in your book to that, the relationship between the foods people are generally eating and these issues. Where do we go with that?

Well, yeah, of course. The brain and the body are connected. And as you've taught me, David, there's— you're not a brain and a body, there's just one system. And we know that the food that we're eating is having incredibly harmful effects on mood, depression, anxiety, violence, divisive behavior, conflict, suicide, homicide. And we're like, how does food connect to all that, right? But turns out the data is there. If you look, for example, at prisoners in prison who have committed violent crime and who are continuing to commit violent crime in prison, if you swap out bad food for a healthy diet, violent crime goes down by 56%. And if you add a multivitamin, because they're all nutritionally deficient, it goes down by another— up to 80%. In kids and juvenile delinquents, 3,000 kids studied, they did the same kind of study where they gave them healthy food. They found dramatic reductions in the use of restraints, like 75%, 100% reductions in suicide. I mean, suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death in this population, and yet, you know, we're able to dramatically reduce it just giving them healthy food. Sugar and starch increase cortisol, adrenaline, the stress hormones. So if you're feeling stressed, the worst thing you can do is eat more foods that produce a stress response in your body, in addition to suppressing your immune system. So it's really incredible when you look at the data on this. When you see kids and their behavior, and their ADD, and their oppositional behavior, it's just so obvious when you start to change diets how much of an impact that has.

It's interesting, you mentioned a moment ago that people are holed up in their homes and reaching for comfort foods because they, for whatever reason, they think they need comfort. But this is when you need to think about your diet perhaps more than ever. Because now you're being challenged and this is when you need your best defense.

That's right. Yeah. The best offense is a good defense. Exactly. And I think, you know, people don't understand that, that you can dramatically reduce your risk of getting sick, dramatically reduce your risk of having bad outcomes by taking care of your body and making it as resilient as possible. So food is medicine is number 1, 2, and 3. And then there's exercise is medicine. Sleep is medicine. Stress reduction is medicine. So meditation, I've been meditating every day, doing yoga. You know, I just, there's all kinds of online courses I'm seeing. All my yoga classes I used to go to are now offering online classes. My wife just is working out with her trainer doing a virtual training session. So there's a lot of ways to actually help people through this, through home care and self-care. But you've got to make sure you're eating well, sleeping, exercising, dealing with Calming down. Don't be on a— we'll call it doom surfing, which is—

Doom surfing.

Where you're constantly glued to the news and listening to all the terrible stuff. Give yourself an hour a day, get caught up on what's happening, and go about your life and start to use this time as a spiritual practice, as a journey of self-care. Because I mean, think about it. There's nobody going to McDonald's right now. America's health is going to improve, right? I mean, I mean, less people are eating, buying all the junk food, but all the crap people go out and eat all the time, people have to cook and eat at home now, which is a whole new thing for people. 50% of meals are eaten out of the home, and now everybody's eating at home, right? So it's actually maybe there's a silver lining here of teaching people that yes, I can do this. Yes, I can feel better. Yes, I can actually take care of me and my family in a way that It's actually easier than I thought by cooking and eating real food.

We had a repairman in our home several months ago, and there is a section of the town— I live in Naples— that's very highfalutin. And he said that he has been to many of the houses there, and the kitchens have never been used.

Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, the appliances have never even been used. It's pretty breathtaking. Let me close with asking you this question. Are you taking any nutritional supplements right now?

I am.

Well, maybe you could share with us what you normally take and what changes you've made lately in an attempt to confront the situation that we're

in. Normally, I do take a range of things. I've had a number of chronic illnesses myself. I've had mold toxicity, mercury poisoning. I've had all sorts of gut issues. And I'm really healthy, knock wood, right now, because I know what to do. But I do take multivitamin, fish oil, vitamin D. I take some mitochondrial support. I take NAD. I take CoQ10, lipoic acid. And then I take some other stuff. I take turmeric as an anti-inflammatory, curcumin, really important anti-inflammatory. I also take probiotics. I do a gut shake every day, which is pretty Prebiotic, probiotics, polyphenols, cranberry, pomegranate, acacia fiber that I learned about from you, David. And, uh, you know, I just put it all in a little shake and drink it up, keep my gut healthy. Uh, and, uh, and I think, you know, there are other things that are immune tonics you can take. For example, zinc, as well as things like quercetin and, uh, some of these Chinese mushroom extracts. There's controversy about that, but I think they're still okay. So I think there's a lot of potential for getting, getting a good nutritional support for you. You don't have to go crazy. You don't take everything. There's a lot of people pushing all kinds of stuff. I think for sure there's a lot of just sensible stuff out there that we can do. You

know, it's funny, at the end of the day, though, we— our paths are somewhat divergent. I'm probably doing just about, you know, about 80 to 90% of what you just mentioned. You know, we attended— you and I both attended an interesting lecture by our colleague, Dr. Jeffrey Bland, a couple months back in New York, and he was talking about senolytics and the notion of natural products that can help our bodies rid themselves of senescent or dysfunctional immune regulator— immune cells. Yeah. And one of the ones that's really gotten a lot of interesting press lately is one called fisetin, F-I-S-E-T-E-I-N, made from strawberries. So, I've added that to my regimen because I think right now, It'd be good to get rid of the deadwood and then repopulate with some healthy immune cells until we hear about another product that may be coming in the future. We don't know. The other thing that I think is really intriguing is the idea of fasting in terms of amping up immune function. Certainly not recommending that for everybody, but it's certainly worth exploring. It sounds like you're taking all the good stuff. Yeah.

Try it.

My friend, I wish you well. Let's talk offline as well. You know that I love you and respect you, and I appreciate our time together.

Thank you, David. Thanks for having me on your show. And everybody listening, stay safe, stay well, take care of yourselves. This is not a time to indulge in bad habits, but to find new ones and cook, because that is going to save your life.

All right, we'll talk soon.

All right.

Bye-bye. Well, that was a great interview. Uh, Mark's doing all the things. I, I really respect him. As many of you know, for many, many years we've worked together, and, uh, we will see it through. Uh, we'll see it through this as well. And again, what is his message? His message is that food is our most powerful ally here in terms of our defense, in terms of bolstering our immune system, which we so desperately need right now. So again, the great book you probably have time to read now, it is Food Fix. Let's see if you can see that. And by Dr. Mark Hyman, terrific guy. So thank you for joining me. I'm Dr. David Perlmutter, and I'll be back soon. See you then.