RPM Tuesday Night Live: DCM and Raw Safety with NICCI CAMMACK

Brendan. We're here with Dr. Brendan Clark and Dr. Conor Brady, and we are Raw Pet Medics. We're delighted, that's absolutely delighted to be here. It's Tuesday, it's Tuesday the 11th of January. We're just getting our momentum for the year, and, uh, really, really pleased to see Rach, Mac, and Alison and Gemma. They're coming along. Guys, are you well?

I certainly am. Yeah, I, uh, if you might notice, I've got a little bit of a scratch on my nose. Can you see the scratch on the top of my nose? I can't point to the right place because—

have you been brawling?

I've already told you. I forgot I already told you. I was saving it. I thought the lads are going to love this, but I've already told you. So I have this, I have this new website I'm trying to get going. I need photographs, and I, I've been using the same photograph for the last 10 years— me with hair. And, uh, I just said, look, I've got—

we noticed—

I've got some modern photographs. So I, I had scheduled, scheduled I say schedules. Do you say schedules or schedules? I'm a schedule.

I say envelope.

Envelope. Okay. That's very posh.

Well, I say tomato.

Tomato. You definitely say tomato. Tomato. What do you say?

Do you say tomato?

Tomato. Like that.

There you go. Do you say bath or bath? Bath.

Bloody hell, lads, these are easy ones.

What about A-L-M-O-N-D? What do you say for A-L-M-O-N-D?

Almond.

Okay, you pronounce the L. Yeah, I say almond.

You do, yeah. It's like sometimes you don't pronounce your Rs over there sometimes. I can't think of examples all of a sudden, but hey, I'm aware I'm talking to a largely 90% English audience, so I should probably, yeah. So I had scheduled to see this photographer 3 times, and they're not cheap, you know. So this 3rd time anyway, the various things that happened and COVID-related, and then the 3rd time, let's go. And the night before, it's lashing rain, and I'm getting stuck in the rain trying to put the kids in the car, and they're not really going willingly, and I'm getting all flustered, and I turn around and I smack my nose off the boot of the car. So I was feeling very cheesed off. So it was quite swollen, but it looks back in normal shape now at the moment. But it's not fair. I just said, could he not edit it out? Is he not got some ways that I could just with my straightened teeth and put this out and take a few inches off. And he said, no, stop.

Yeah, just need to put some more foundation on, Conor.

Can you get rid of some of these wrinkles?

Not just the normal one that you always wear.

Yeah, I do have a light 7 days a week. Yeah, yeah, a bit more.

You know what's going to happen next time? So he's going to get to the next time it's booked and all of a sudden he's going to get chickenpox from his children.

Yeah. Well, look, guys, tell me, did either of you— do you weigh yourselves regularly, and did you put on any weight over Christmas?

Yes and yes.

You serious?

Yes, I'm afraid so. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I normally avoid carbs, and actually that is a good link into today's topic of obesity.

You do avoid carbs, you do.

And I find if I stop drinking wine and stop on the carbs, I will lose weight within about 3 days.

Yeah, Brian's doing the opposite, he's going for maximum carbs. We're the opposite ends of the spectrum, we're going to see how big we can grow Brian over 6 months and how much we can shrink me.

It's like that Go Large.

Yeah, 2 screens, supersize me. But yeah, I was surprised when I went and met you guys last time and that you, when you say you're off the carbs, you bloody mean it. Like, you don't, we were in this fancy restaurant, you didn't touch the dessert, and I'm like, oh yes. So, uh, You'd barely have a piece of bread. And even though the bread was absolutely divine, you barely touched it.

It was divine.

Wow, you don't eat carbs at all. That's quite a thing.

I do a lot of veggies, but I don't do carbs. And I'm not religious about it. I had a slice of bread today. So, you know, you need to keep under about 50 grams of grain carb per day. That's kind of the— that's Tim Noakes talks about that. Professor Tim Noakes. He's a guy to watch in South Africa. Refined carbs. Yeah. 50 grams, which is about 4 slices of Ryvita, I think is about 50 grams.

That's not bad. Okay. But it means no mashed potato, no rice, no, no sweet potato, no quinoa, no nothing that is starchy.

Yeah. If you— I mean, it's— but it's only if— I mean, when I was at school, we were taught— and here we go, we're going into the discussion already. We were taught if you eat fat, you will get fat. And that has been roundly thrown out of the scientific discussion. And it seems to be that it's carbs that do it because carbs bump up your insulin and your insulin makes your body think that you're going into a siege or going into the winter. And so to grab as many fatty acids and amino acids and pack them away as much as possible. And that's really as simple as that, isn't it?

So simple, isn't it? Yeah. The winter thing.

How it drives the one, the production of triglycerides, which is the big issue in the liver, but two, also how it as almost a growth promoter, tells your fat cells to start growing and actually deposit that fat and hold it for when times are leaner. But the other downside is the long-term issues of how you become insulin resistant. So actually it drives you to need more sugars and starches in your brain to take more of those. There's all sorts of issues with how hard it is then to to lose the fat once you've got into that progress. And then the other issues around the inflammatory changes that happen within your system when you start to become insulin resistant because of the increased glycolation of the cell membranes and stuff like that, which actually just compounds so many other problems.

Sorry, Nick. Yeah, I was just going to say the opposite end. So, Nick, what you're saying there, and you just touched on the winter thing, this was a normal part of our life. I mean, there's a reason sweet fruits give us the sugar that spiked our insulin, that packed on our fat before wintertime. So this was a normal thing we've been doing for millions of years. We pig out on this juicy fruit stuff and it helps us pack on a bit of fat for what is a leaner winter. Only now the difference is we have got access to that sweetie fruit in various forms. People think bread is not sugar, it's just pure sugar of a different form. Pasta, rice, it's all sugar to your body. And we have a 24/7, forget this, roll out of a cave and go try to find someone. It's like, I'm going to roll out, eat Cheerios in bed before I get up, and then you're eating carbs. So it's constantly hitting this insulin. So insulin has gone from being kind of useful to us to get us ready for winter to now it's our enemy. And Bren has just highlighted that when you get into that state, it is very interesting that the body struggles to forget. You know, it's like you teach it that this is the mode you're in. And the idea of calories in, calories out has gone out the window as well, just like the idea of eating fat. I mean, there are so many things that can affect obesity.

It's crazy.

Easier.

Oh, and that whole thing of, yeah, that understanding that actually anybody has a set calorific rate just depending on their body size. You know, let's, let's face it here, you know, your brain uses, I think it's a third of all of your calories. But that is only that on the standard. However, as soon as you go into a fasting state, actually your body can reduce its overall calorific intake by a third without any problems. It goes— it can actually decrease it that dramatically. And this is why some people have real problems losing weight, because if they keep going into these sudden dives into starvation, the body closes down all the use of those calories to a point where it's only really your brain ticking over. And, and the amount of extra calories you use by getting on the treadmill you know, going out to the gym, you know, these gym memberships that go through the roof in January time. Actually, the overall calories you burn in those sessions is minuscule compared to your daily requirement. What you need to be looking at is the foods that drive your metabolism, you know, getting into those things.

And it's really, really interesting. Jason Fung wrote the wonderful book It's imperfect, but it's a really good place to start and it's very, very readable. Jason Fung, The Obesity Code. I would really jump into that. It's a very, very, very nice thing to read. And what he describes, some experiments that they did in the States, I think in the '60s, and they took, I don't know, 20, 30 students and they basically starved them. They took them from 2,500-3,000 calories a day, which is kind of standard, and they took them down to 1,200 or so calories to see, just to kind of prove the idea that if you starve the body— there you go, there's The Obesity Code by Jason Fung. He's a cancer— and he did Cancer Code as well. Bright, bright, bright boy. He's a nephrologist in the States but writes really, really well. And so they did this, and what they found is that when you starve the body, your thyroid slows down, your heart rate slows down, your basal metabolic rate slows down, so that initially you might lose a few pounds, but then your body slows down to cope with what it thinks is a starvation situation, which is very, very sensible if you think that our ancestors have done a thousand winters where they've had to get through on starvation rations. And so to slow the bus down when there's not a lot of fuel, it's an awful lot of— it's very wise.

It's like putting your phone on battery saving mode. And when you click it on battery saving mode, it knocks off the less important apps that are spinning around in the background all the time and just puts critical ones you want on. And then you can go into mega saving where it's like a dimmed down screen and like, you know, so your body has these settings. It's like, okay, you don't need to be doing that at the moment. You don't need to be doing that. We will keep this on at about an 80% rate and this on at a 70%. It's insane because it's been years. Just millions and millions of lives have given us this body that does this. But now we're living in this crazy alien environment where the rules have gone out the window and our body is struggling to catch up. And it's understanding those little processes that really shines a light on the whole thing. And the gut flora even is just so interesting, taking the gut flora from, from fat mice and putting them in skinny mice. And the skinny mice get fat. I mean, what? It's just, it goes on and on. I've actually got a few slides I wanted to show later, Ben, when we get to it, but talking about this insulin thing, because it's really interesting for people to understand the role of hormones and how powerful they are and how much you nearly don't have a choice when these things are flowing. Your body is going to respond to them. So that's why you need to control your food intake. Particular types of food that switch the hormones on, insulin in particular, because insulin, once it gets going, it's just, it's, it's doing one job and it's packing your fat stores, and that's what it does, you know. So anyway, I'll show those slides later.

Do you want to, do you want to go into that now? Yeah, while we're there.

Yeah, as I'm getting the slides ready, I want to say, guys, we're on patreon.com/rawpetmedics, price of a cup of tea or a cup of coffee or a pint if you like, or a bottle of wine in Bren's case. Absolutely, we would appreciate I appreciate it. It does help us.

That's why I'm in a dark cupboard tonight. Okay, I've been locked away after my birthday.

Yeah. Oh, it's your birthday, Brent? Oh geez, happy birthday. Sorry about that. I missed it. I'm very sorry. But yeah, so Raw Pet Medics on patreon.com would be great, guys, if you've done it. Thanks very much to everyone. We've got a lot of sponsors on there at the moment, and it really, really helps us to prepare and keep things in line. So thanks for that. If you can afford it, great. If you can't, no stress at all. Don't be worried.

And I'll tell you what, I am chasing this laboratory, but I think they must have been hit by COVID or something because I've written since the new year, I've written about 3 emails saying, guys, hello, we want to spend some money with you, and they're not getting back to me. So guys, we are on it. We are trying to forward those, the study of some kibbles and maybe some antibiotic resistance within kibbles, just so that we can all go on a learning journey about what the perils of feeding kibble.

We have some good ideas. We had a great meeting during the week there of things that we can do. So simple. We just need the lab to say, yeah, this, this, and this, give us a price. But unfortunately, we just need to find people to work with that these guys aren't doing. And Ben, can you let me share my screen there and just do 4, 4 slides?

Yeah, as soon as you're sharing, I'll start the video for it.

Oh, okay, cool. Uh, slideshow, boom.

There we go.

I am sharing.

Do you want to blow that up?

Yeah, we're just gonna—

have we ever shared slides like this before? This is cool.

There you go. This is tech.

My word. Here you go. This, uh, can you see that slide now? Yep, we're good. Go for it.

Go for it.

This, this guy, Taubes, Why We Get Fat, uh, he is the boss of the whole sugar kind of, uh, well, the boss, but he, he's written some brilliant stuff on carbohydrates explaining to you insulin 'Terms: The Obesity Crisis.' It's fantastic. I think every— it should be required reading for GPs so they understand what the hell they're talking about. And but he's got a cracking line that you need to wrap your noodle a bit over here. It's called, 'We don't get fat because we overeat, we overeat because we're getting fat.' And that's a killer line, and I love something like that. It's like a total conundrum. But to understand what he's talking about, he starts with this example of Wade, who did huge amounts of experiments on poor old black rats. And he— in the 1970s, Wade got these two groups of female rats. And on the left is a rat that she has her ovaries and she's allowed to feed ad lib as much as she likes on food presented to her daily. And on the right, the same type of rat is allowed feed ad lib as well, but this time she had her ovaries removed. Okay, they wanted to see what the effect of removing ovaries, the sex hormones, had on the weight gain in the rat. And as you might suspect, based on what we know from dogs, that the rat on the right, once she was allowed to feed ad lib, got quite fat without her sex hormones. And they thought, wow, there's a really important role of sex hormones here. What's going on? So they thought, okay, that was a bit simple, a bit simplistic. So Wade wanted to push the boat out a little bit. He said, okay, this time what we're going to do is we're going to have on the left a normal rat with her ovaries, allowed to feed ad lib again. And on the right, the rat with her ovaries removed, but this time she's on a strict diet where her calories are absolutely maintained to what she needs during the day. She didn't have an option to overeat. Okay, so that was quite simple. And what did you think happened? The rat went and got fat. And they said, well, how did you do that? Because we gave you strict calories. And just as Nick was alluding to, what she did was drop her activity levels. So these rats were living in Rat Park, they called it, and so they had access to mates and wheels and fun, and it was just a heaven place to live. But this time, when the rats in the Rat Park had their ovaries removed on a strict calorie intake, they decided not to exercise as much and they got lazy. And they got lazy to preserve calories to get fat. It was like the rats on the right were on a train to getting fat and the body was going to do whatever it takes to get there. Initially, she overate. And secondly, if you remove that option, she got lazy. So this is the first kind of inkling into what's going on. And he says this other great line: gluttony and sloth are effects of the drive to get fatter. So if you're a 12 and 13-year-old boy sitting around and he's lazy, it's not that he's being lazy, it's because he's growing and he's preserving calories. So it's fascinating insight. And that's exactly the example he used. He says, like, you know, you go see your nephew, he's 11 years old, and then you see him like 2 weeks later and he's 2 foot taller and you go, what the hell happened to you? And as Taubes explained, this kid, he's not growing because he's eating more. I mean, that kid is going to grow more no matter what. We've all got have enough access to food here in the Western world, it's not a big issue. He's eating more because he's growing. That kid was growing no matter what. And we know the reason that kid is growing is because of testosterone, um, and, and all the other associated sex hormones going on in the lad. Okay, we understand that. That's all he needed to share on the slides, guys, because people would say, okay, well, that's all to do with ovaries and sex hormones and testicles and stuff. And you go, well, yeah, it is, but as the lads have just explained to you there, The hormone we're talking about today is insulin. And so insulin, we have suddenly started injecting into our bodies unwittingly by eating sugar. So eating sugar, rapidly digested carbs, ultra-processed food, anything that's gone through a factory that's easy to digest, dry food, you know, that stuff in any form, overeating sugar, sweets, jellies, sugar in our coffee, sugar, sugar, sugar, high fructose corn syrup, that stuff gets into the blood. Rapid and it spikes insulin. And when you spike insulin, insulin is an anabolic hormone, it's a growth hormone. So what you're eating is way more than how much of that, you know, cabbage and Brussels sprouts you might be eating. So I just wanted to keep it very simple with those slides to explain about how they found out about all this kind of stuff. So you can get rid of my slides there, I don't need to show much more than that.

But one of the really interesting things that one of these guys, I'm not sure whether it was Dr. Taubes or Jason Fung was talking about back in the day when they first discovered insulin, they used to use it as a treatment for anorexia nervosa in young girls usually. And that's really interesting because what that proves is that if you bump up your blood insulin, through any means, whether it's lots of sweets or lots of bread or lots of pasta, or you inject it, you will increase your appetite, which will induce you to put on weight. So this is the— and this is also Mark Roberts in 2017 did the study where he looked at a group of raw-fed dogs who were on a kind of average fat intake, and he compared them with kibble-fed dogs who were on low fat kibble, and he looked at these two. And I would say to everybody listening, which of those two groups, either the normal raw-fed, you know which, what the answer is, but normal fat raw-fed or low-fat kibble, who had the highest blood fat, the highest blood fatty acid triglycerides? And the answer, of course, was that the dogs who were eating the real food with low grain carbohydrate, the real raw food, had low blood fatty acids, triglycerides, and the poor dogs eating low-fat kibble, which is, you know, probably 75% of the dogs in the UK, has high blood triglycerides, which in previous chats we've discussed as being linked with pancreatitis. The pancreas doesn't like being bathed in fat.

Constantly. Yeah, interesting.

Really interesting. And that was one of those things that really made me look at insulin in a whole different way.

It's very paradoxical.

What turned your mind from, would you say, guys, from the old paradigm, which was fat makes you fat, which kind of perversely makes sense, to carbs make you fat? When did you actually make that realization? Can you remember what was the study or what was the observation that made you go from the old paradigm to the new paradigm, which is carbohydrates and high insulin is the enemy of obesity, or the friend of obesity, the enemy of being slim and healthy and fat.

It was one of the conferences that we did, and I think it was actually probably not 2017. I think Mark was talking about it before he actually published his study, wasn't he? Probably the year before at the RFVS conference. And we'd sort of gone into that because we were talking about pancreatitis and GI disease and a few other things. And, you know, this was being raised as a, you know, what are these drivers for obesity and, and everything. And I think because we were talking about pancreatitis, it was like, yeah, actually, you know, that whole thing about cholesterol levels, in people, is that truly because they're eating too much fats, too much cholesterols? And actually you suddenly get into the depths of stuff that's being talked about now. I mean, many of the books, the 40-odd books that we talked to you guys about last year, have in them those references towards those studies of saying, well, look, actually it's not the cholesterol levels particularly, it's those triglyceride levels and it's the type of triglycerides, you know, which density they are, that can become more damaging if you've got damaged vessels, i.e., you've got damaged cells because of glycation or some other issue that's going on that causes you to have plaques, for instance, and other problems there. And I think, so going back, I would say it's not actually been that long since I've gone down that, but it has been out there for quite some time that people have been talking about that, probably, you know, 20, 30 years. But you just don't, you know, pick up on everything. 20, 30 years ago, people in— well, 10 years ago, people in universities are still being taught that makes you fat.

Yeah, I would say there's still doctors out there that are pointing the finger at saturated fats and all sorts of things. I mean, I just heard a young guy say it in a coffee shop there. But, um, yeah, mine was kind of a couple of years before the wedding, uh, I got married in 2015, but a year before that, and I was trying to get in shape properly and the guy was just saying, look, you're working, you're not doing anything really. So I'll take you under my wing and we can do this plan and you've got to get your diet right. And he had really forced the whole kind of sugar thing. How's your sugar? I said, I've got a bit of a sweet tooth. And he goes, look, didn't everybody? But he said, look, this is the food you need to eat. He didn't criminalize carbs. He didn't say, look, if you're going to eat carbs, it has to be whole grain stuff and small amounts. Lean towards your veggies and your meat at the time. But he started pointing the finger at sugar and then, yeah, very rapidly. I remember at the time Michelle Obama was running a campaign and I'm probably going to mess this up a little bit. So sorry in advance, Michelle, if you're listening, which I suspect she is. I would say that she was running a campaign about kids should eat less sugar. So they love 3 words in America, eat less sugar. Everybody loves 3 words. There's a reason for it because we can't take in complex complicated messages anymore. So, you know, wear a mask, wash your hands, eat less sugar. So eat less sugar worked, and she was pushing that, and then her, um, her campaign swerved because that message is not a message that you will hear, uh, the US government pushing very readily, even though the, the amount of sugar consumption in America has gone through like 150 pounds of sugar a year each American is eating, or something colossal. And, um, that her message changed to move more, get out, move more or something like that. So she went from originally having the correct message, which is 90% of your weight gain is explained by the stuff you're putting in your face, to move more as if you can exercise your way out of a bad diet, which we know is impossible. The can of Coke, you're stuck, you know. So I remember that changing and thinking that was—

was that when it was sponsored by Coca-Cola?

Yeah, right.

Yeah. Like the whole, the whole kidney association, the obesity associations are sponsored by like Krispy Kremes and all this kind of stuff. They've all got money in the game. There's a reason for it. And also the same huge money groups own all the same multinationals. They own big sugar, they own pharmaceuticals. They want to sell more insulin. I know it sounds very dark and insidious, guys, but like the obesity crisis is solved with a swish of a pen. Put a massive sugar tax in, just create a huge sugar tax on cheap foods and whatnot. You know, we don't get these messages for a reason, and particularly in the US. So I heard that and I thought, wow, that's dark. When I looked into it then, and probably Nick at the time, you were probably pushing that sugar thing very hard. And I started reading the books.

Yeah, yeah. I'm getting very boring.

But it's interesting, you know, the final piece of the puzzle was how can we keep on getting fatter? You know, so, and one of the— Robert Lustig was the guy's name, Nick. I was trying to think of Professor Lustig, and he's the boss of all this. I had shared his video before on Facebook, guys, about the Skinny on Obesity. Really, really interesting 5-part free series on YouTube. Check it out. But he was the guy, his team are the guys that discovered that insulin actually tells the brain to stop producing leptin. Isn't that right? Or to stop being susceptible to leptin, or to turn off your receptors to leptin. It induces leptin resistance, essentially. Leptin is the compound that tells your brain it's had enough to switch it off, and insulin gets in the way of that message. So that was the final piece of the puzzle for him. For the sugar thing. The lesson for everybody would be eating less sugar, eating less carbs. And what we have in front of us is a bloody meat eater. You know, you can argue all day about how much plant matter this animal might eat out and about, but he certainly wouldn't eat a whole lot of fruit. And, you know, I'm gone, I'm back. So like the fact that the companies are feeding them huge amount of carbohydrates because they might be a source of energy, it's like, you know, Chocolate bars and Coca-Cola are sources of energy. It's idiotic to take that as a stance. Is there any science? And there bloody isn't. You look into the Small Animal Clinical Nutrition, 1,200 pages, this behemoth of a book, and there's just not a single long-term study thinking this is a good idea. You won't find one single study showing carbs are a benefit to a dog, only that there's no harm in 3-day studies and 6-day studies, you know, and It's just utter nonsense. So yeah, the science is very confused on this one, but we know what the answer is with dogs.

And it's complicated by people who have a vested interest. I have shown you guys, I have shown you this before. Hang on, let me just give you this. This is the book. If you want to see how hideous, vulgar, and terrifying. It's called Salt, Sugar, Fat. It's Penguin, so therefore it's well written, and it's by Michael Moss. And it just shows they would sell their grandmothers, you know, and I'm not even going to mention any corporations, but they will do absolutely anything to get you to eat more sugar. They they do not care. As long as you don't die with a Mars bar in your mouth, I think that they will be completely happy. So, and which is really, really shame, you know, that the Mars Corporation, for example, is that, you know, you could argue that they are contributing to massive, massive, massive amounts of disease in us human beings. So what are they doing to our dogs? And that you could say the same of Nestlé, for example. Yeah, they make all sorts of sugary nonsense, and then they get in with purina. And so, you know, they claim, and I'm sure they believe, that they are producing a food which is healthful, but actually half of their business model is producing food that is categorically ultra-processed and associated with heart disease in humans, heart disease, obesity, cancer, all these things, you know, and yet we believe them when they start talking about dog food. What's that about?

I don't know. I don't know. I mean, it's— the insidiousness of it is usually hidden for most people, but that's just the way it is. Sorry, Nick, for not participating in that because I can hear your audio is coming through perfect, but it seems like me and you, Nick, are freezing now and again. It won't matter to the podcast. We don't need to make a big deal of it, but But this is, uh, sorry guys, I don't know why it's going on that way tonight. 62 euros a week, a month on my broadband. How much does broadband cost in England? Honest to God, I can't get good broadband. 62. Wow.

25 pounds a month. Fiber.

This is fiber. Honestly, God, it's like I have to wind up the computer to make it work.

It's just, it's paused, you know, a, a painful position.

Oh no, no, that's not fair.

That's hilarious.

That's not fair. So listen, anyway, okay, so listen, people have, people have some big dogs. I want to explain one thing about the, the— at the moment there's a graph of 1 to 9 that they have out there saying if your dog is, you know, number 5, he's the correct weight. And you get— you'll see it on the walls, vet clinics. Um, but level 1 is like dangerously skinny, kind of cancer skinny. You're gonna, you know, that's— it's probably not healthy and 2 is very, very skinny, we don't recommend it. 3 is kind of lean and 4 is pretty lean but not— and 5 is ideal and then 6, 7, 8, 9, you start getting really fat and obese. So that graph, while there's decent signs from the middle upwards up to overweight and obese where you don't want to be, there is zero signs to suggest a dog wouldn't be healthy or healthier at level 4 or 3 because dogs are animals that are supposed to be lean. These are long-distance running animals for the large part. Okay, you're going to name some funny breeds in the comments, I know, but most dogs are long-distance running animals, big nose for smelling out dead animals very, very far away. And so that's what they are, and they're supposed to be lean. They don't— they wouldn't have all this excess body fat on them. And so why wouldn't dogs— the longest living, healthiest societies in the world are the leanest. They will, on that scale, will be on 2 and 3. And, you know, images of these rural people on islands in Japan, they're still climbing lime trees and picking limes at 100 and stuff and running laps around a track that sort of stuff does not happen in Western society too easy, you know. And so being lean is a very, very healthy thing to do. This idea of a bell-shaped curve of normality for health, for weight, isn't ideal. If I was being asked, I would always say a very lean dog. I love a lean dog, and it's easy enough to do if you cut out the carbs and the sugar and the berries and the fruit and the bananas and the biscuits. Think about that Jack Russell, he's 7, 8 times smaller than you. Okay, 9, 10 times smaller. So one biscuit for you, when you give him that biscuit, that's 10 biscuits to him, you know. So we don't ever think that. We think, oh, he loves a Marietta or whatever biscuits you like to eat. Like, so those one sausage is like 7 or 8 sausages to him. So when you are trying to get your dogs lean, you need to move towards this whole keto buzz that you hear people talking about, which is simply meat and bone and fat. And stay with those ingredients. Anything with a picture, anything with a face, as you say, and leave off the carbs and the bits of porridge and the bikkies and stuff and the treats. He can have lean treats, but that's it. And also, where would you be on the, on the guide if a dog comes in to you guys and he's kind of big? What's the first kind of one or two tips? Is diet the first thing you go to?

Yeah, go raw. I would say go raw. And also treats. You can give as many treats as you like, more or less, but they've got to be just dried meaty type treats. No boneos, no toast, no corner of pizza on a Friday night, all that kind of thing. It's all you need. You don't need to stop giving treats, you just need to change the treats. Forget about frankfurters, forget about cheese, forget about Primula, and you know, it's the sugar and goodness knows what in all of those things. You just get dried, um, chopped up dried meat.

Make your own.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, very much so. Can I just put a bit of context with this just to say I found it very difficult to find figures for what the rate of obesity, of overweight and obesity in the UK, and the very latest last one that I could find was 2018. This is our friend Alex German, who is the Royal Cannon Professor of Small Animal Medicine at Liverpool University, a very nice chap as well actually.

Yeah.

His figures from January '18 from studies in '16 and '17 were that there were 65% of adult dogs in the UK were overweight and 9% were obese. This is 8 out of 9 or 9 out of 9 on the scale that Conor was just describing. So that means 74% in 2018 of dogs in the UK were either overweight or obese, and I would put money on that figure being even higher now. We're 4 years down the line, and I would put that figure at more like 80-85%. What do you reckon, guys?

Oh yeah, most dogs have a bit of weight on them, but most dogs are fed high carbohydrate food, so yeah, I would agree with that. If you, if you are eating cereal-based pet food, if you're feeding that to it, particularly to a meat eater who has no metabolic need of carbohydrates whatsoever, they are going to put on weight and they will be a bit tubby. And people think, oh, a little fat covering on his ribs. No, how's that?

And there is that social proof thing, you know, how many people on the park, if you go onto the park, they almost, if their dog is a normal good dog shape, people frown at them as if you're underfeeding your dog. Yeah, it's almost become that social thing of we expect dogs to be of a certain rounded figure, and it's just like, that's not necessarily a healthy position for these dogs to be in.

Yeah, yeah.

And I think, you know, I love, you know, diet, absolutely. I think mixing and matching the fasting, I think, actually helps, you know, the sort of equivalent to a 5:2 diet, or, you know, even the the, where you have a longer period in the day, I think also can be really helpful to try and keep those dogs in some sort of shape. So, you know, a bit of intermittent fasting, I think, doesn't go amiss in some of these cases.

Get them moving. Exercise on its own, Alex Gemmon has said, only will impact only 5%, i.e., not very much. I'm not sure how he measures that, but it gives you the idea that you— they say in human medicine you can't You can't outrun a bad diet.

Definitely not. They say about 10%, but it does knock off your stress levels and it does tell your brain that this is the sort of environment I'm in at the moment. So if you're running and all that, well then this body fat is not going to help you. So we're going to start. So there's a lot of processes. It does help. It helps reduce your stress. Stress keeps the pounds on and all sorts of stuff keeps you. So yeah, it's not so much about shedding the calories as setting your body up. So that cardio exercise, even long walks, you know, stick on a podcast and a brisk walk that does as good as a jog. It's getting the brain set up, but it is all about calories. I'm not gonna have a go at Alex German live on air. I would say he is your friend, but I would say that he's probably a spokesman for carbohydrate feeding to pets, and I would very strongly disagree with that approach. I don't think that— as someone said, it's about GL, glycemic load. Don't forget, if you're choosing veggies, to choose low glycemic load. What that person means by that is is not the starchy stuff, not potatoes, sweet potatoes, peas, and carrots. Low glycemic load, which means essentially the least amount of starch, the least amount of sugar. And what ingredient has the least amount of sugar on the planet? Meat. So that's why we know meat— meat is down that end of the glycemic load because it doesn't contain sugar. So that's why we know it works to shed weight. Like, I remember that—

although there is one element to that just to be aware of. Yeah, if you overload protein especially poor quality protein that may have been corrupted by processing, the body converts that through a pathway into glucose. Yeah, so it's neoglucogenesis, and that's— that stimulates insulin. So you actually go into— so you've got to be quite careful that you don't just go raw food and make it a really rich, high protein diet and actually risk coming away from being ketogenic, which is where you can get some improvements in reducing that insulin resistance and improving the reduction in insulin levels naturally occurring. So there is that one element I would say with, with raw, be careful that you're not going to pure protein sourcing. Chicken breast type.

Chuck a bit of fat, chuck a bit of fat in there.

That's it. That's all.

Most meat comes with fat.

Okay, so is it a bit of fat that helps with that then? So it's just don't go turkey breast diet type thing? Yeah, of course. Okay, yeah, that's good advice. And so what else, guys? Like, you know, we've got a— you've got, you know, eating right, eat— go into a raw diet and reduce the carbs. As Brian was saying there, think about fasting. Getting your feeding done within 6-8 hours is probably a good idea. That's intermittent fasting and giving the body 16-18 hours off of that. That's that's going to be useful. Some exercise. And so, you know, particularly older dogs, when you say I've got to get the weight off this older dog, I would look at that older dog as being under quite a lot of stress for the last few years, and those joints would be seized up. And I would say that dog could do with lots of things beyond supplements. Maybe before you start any sort of like coming home, I feel so guilty, let's get the throwing arm with my big fat lab. I mean, that's how you're going to snap tendons and ligaments. I was thinking, would maybe a bit, a little bit of acupuncture, a bit of hydrotherapy to ease the dog back into moving and getting the joints opened up and stuff Do you guys recommend much of that?

Certainly trying to control any inflammatory processes, and there's a number of herbs and stuff which will help that, and that helps generally with the body and how things are happening right the way through the gut and also influences what happens with that microbiome. You touched on microbiome and the importance of that earlier on because that also will have an influence. I think there's a couple of things that are being highlighted here about how long can you stay on low starch diet? Forever, I think, is the other thing to that. And the other question that you asked, Banjo Banjo, whoever you are, about how long can you stay on keto diets? Do you cycle? I mean, Nick, you're a good one on that, I would think.

I would. Okay, so for keto, I think it's quite difficult to get a dog into ketosis and keep them in ketosis. In, in, at the Keto Pet Sanctuary in Texas they work really hard. They're taking bloods twice a week in order to keep them up into a ketogenic diet. But essentially what they do is they get lots of meat, bone, and they put a dab of coconut oil in there as well, and also one or two sprouts as a kind of proportion of the bowl. That's how— if you go to Keto Pet Sanctuary, you'll be able to see they will actually— you can create a ketogenic diet for your dog. I don't think most dogs need If they've got cancer, I would go there because I think it's very, very helpful for the body. If they— if you need to lose some weight, I think, and that would be for pretty much long term. If they— if you wanted to drop some weight, you'd go keto, get the weight off, and then maybe bring in some, some more veggies a little bit down the line in order to get a balance once you've reached a nice weight. There are other reasons why you might go keto. For example, if you've got epilepsy, in which case you may be having to go keto for a long, a long period. But if the dog is healthy and well, then why not? I've got a Dalmatian who's been eating Welsh lamb and nothing else for the last 6, 7 years. That's it. That's the only thing he can tolerate because otherwise his skin flares or his gut flares. That's it. We tried and we know because we tried absolutely everything. So you can have quite restricted diet. I wouldn't advise it, but you can together with your vet look into those things or look at the Keto Pet Sanctuary yourself.

Yeah, that lamb and rabbit, make sure you have it, keep an eye on the taurine there because lamb diet on its own, lamb and rabbit, that's the taurine warnings, isn't it? Lamb and rabbit ones could be because the ultra-processed version, but it's one thing. Michelle called up a great point there and she said, guys, what about hypothyroidism? How prevalent is that, and is that something— how do people tweak that? Maybe I'm looking at something else here.

Well, what do you reckon?

Well, again, it's an, you know, one of the inflammatory processes that leads towards the immune-mediated diseases, and we know that for dogs it's hypothyroidism, which is an attack by the body on the thyroid, and that generally is what is reducing. So it is an inflammatory process So again, you reduce that inflammation. I'm going to touch on some herbs for anti-inflammatory properties because that's been asked a bit on the right-hand side. Nick's probably got a few as well, but I would definitely say thyroid. Yes, I think quite prevalent. There's a great book Nick advocates around, The Thyroid Epidemic from Jean Dodds. Have a read of that if you haven't come across it already. Certainly there is an influence there, but whether it's primary or secondary, and then the secondary effects of having a low thyroid lead towards this, is another issue, I think.

Should I have top 5 symptoms of hypothyroidism?

Oh, now, so mostly we would consider lethargy, weight gain, slow heart rate, heat controls and stuff. Yeah, just, you know, that sort of side of things. However, we now know that actually some behavioral issues, so some anxiety increases, therefore some dogs can get a little bit more edgy around it. There are some breeds which will actually lose weight, strangely enough. So it's really difficult to just pigeonhole hypothyroidism into just one set of symptoms, I think. I think the general thing people would look at is weight gain, skin disease, having a lower appetite yet still gaining weight, feeling quite cold, and slow heart rate.

Yeah, okay, that's good.

I totally agree with you there, Brent. Yeah, there's a few I like very, very simple guidelines, and one would be if you've got a dog and it's eating a fraction of what any other dog of that size, and they're still not losing weight, I think you've got to think about hypothyroidism. And the other thing that I always say to people is if the disease process you're looking at does not make sense, and you've been to the vet, you know, 3, 4 times, and that everybody's scratching their heads going, God blimey, what's happening here? Whether it's skin or gut or weight or whatever it might be, if it doesn't make sense, just make sure you know where that thyroid is. The book is an absolute essential for anybody with dogs, The Canine Thyroid Epidemic, yeah, by Dr. Jean Dodds. J-E-A-N, Jean Dodds. It's, it's an absolute game changer. And she says 40% of aggressive dogs in the U— in the USA are hypothyroid. Yeah, you think they're all sluggish and fat? They ain't. They can be nervy, skinny, and aggressive. So anything can be hypothyroid, and that's my guidelines.

Some of the supplements here, guys, it's after quarter to here, so let's get to this. We mentioned we wanted to say some natural anti-inflammatory kind of herbs, right? So you're obese, you're trying to lose weight, you need some help. I wanted to highlight one thing. It was a great study France of big drinkers in France. So people borderline alcoholics, they got 400 of them and they fed 200 of them broad spectrum probiotics and they slashed their drinking by like, you know, a huge amount, let's say half in 30 days. And what these probiotics were targeting was, they were trying to eliminate the sweet tooth in our head, which is actually our gut flora saying, get sugar, get sugar, get sugar. We think we really want that beer or we really want that glass of red wine, which we do. It's got a nice kind of opiate-like effect, but actually it's got a lot of sugar in there as well. So a lot of the huge drinkers could actually be really addicted to the sugar that a beer definitely gives you. And so it switched off that sweet tooth. And I thought, getting back to taking the, the good flora from fat mice and putting them in skinny mice, the skinny mice get fat. So your gut flora is a huge thing. So like a cheeky little use of probiotic might be— Yeah.

And that's, you know, therefore you sort of lean on to then Candidiasis. So this is where you'll get Candida plaques and things like that. We know that people are driven to taking sugars because those plaques feed into the system and tell the body you need to take on more sugar to feed those yeasts within the system. So this is where the gut starts to drive what you want to do, give you those hormonal influences. And that leads on to a few things. So apple cider vinegar can be really great in those circumstances. Adding that into the diet can again help to adjust the gut flora. Somebody's already mentioned about bone broths and the improvements in gut flora that that can give. There are some things certainly with regards to the stuff we talked about last week, actually, that Nikki Kamak's getting into at the Georgia State University. And I'm not going to try and say the word again, but looking at the metabolites that come out and working out what is going on with the hormones. And there's so many hormones that we're still just getting into understanding how they interact with the system that could be acting a little bit like insulin growth factor, you know. And there's the other things with regards to, you know, why we're thinking thyroid, but yet suddenly thyroid isn't affected some other hormones may be being released by those gut flora or indeed elsewhere in the body that we just don't know enough about how that works to work it out just yet. So many hormonal things that can be really hard to understand and find out and are generally way down the list but need to be investigated if you've got persistent weight gain even though you've got minuscule amounts of food going in, etc. So have a look at—

I would say talk to your vet, talk to your vet, and if you're not making progress, then maybe ask if you, if you could see somebody who does have that, that broad metabolic approach. I would say that would be a very good— boys, last minute, last minute.

Julie Langley's a great question here. What about a dog that's on meds? That increase their appetite, makes them extra hungry. Epileptic meds this dog is on. I have a lab struggling and he needs to lose weight, but he's on epileptic meds. That's a good question.

I'd say look after that liver, really get some, get the schizandras, the bupleurums, the milk thistles, the dandelions, really look after that liver. Your friend Lustig Dr. Conor Brady, he says look after the liver, nurture the gut. That's his— he's written a book called Metabolical, which is one of my favorites, where he takes a machine gun to the medical establishment, the food medical establishment, and he says look after your liver, nurture the gut. Those are his two top, top—

maybe CBD could come into it if the dog's on a nice lean diet already, Julian, raw fed is the the best you can do. It's the lean meat, a bit of fat and bone, as we said.

Is it ketogenic? You know, ketogenic will actually also improve, you know, the epilepsy side of things. That's been proven. You know, RBC did studies on that. So, you know, just really looking at trying to actually satiate them with fats and protein and keep off the carbs can actually also help help in those circumstances.

CBD and MCT, MCT oil, which is turbocharged coconut oil.

You mentioned anti-inflammatory herbs, Brent, spit them out there. Yeah, so two people asked them.

Oh yeah, yeah, so, so, you know, we've got a few things like turmeric, you know, you've got your things like the frankincense, which is boswellia. Those are some really good anti-inflammatory herbs, you know, just to help with movement and reduce general inflammation in the body. I think you like quercetin and a few things like that that's out there. Lots of bits like that. Nick, you've got any other additions in that?

I would go with echinacea, good old echinacea. Astragalus. Yeah, if you're struggling, you need astragalus. That's a, a goodie. Also withania. You know, most herbs are anti-inflammatory, most herbs are antioxidant. But there are some that are just a bit stronger in that department. So I think that's a nice list.

And for some, some of you guys out there that are really worried about, well, is it just straight herbs, how do you get dosings and things like that, there are some brands out there. Your vets now will generally have access to a lot of the NutriVet products, a lot of the VetPro products, which actually have pre-dosed these herbs within them because they're starting to understand that actually and you know, they can be really useful across the board for their anti-inflammatory properties.

And jack up your omega-3, it's a fabulous natural anti-inflammatory for the body. Yes, oils up the joints, and you want to lose the weight slowly. You're not trying to starve the weight off the dog. Your dog doesn't have to eat less food, he just has to eat smarter. So you don't have to have this tiny meal that, you know, we'll start— we'll give the dog the same amount of carbohydrates because that's important, this light dry food, and we'll just give them a tiny amount of it. The poor Labrador Labrador can distend the stomach, he needs 10% of his body weight. So a 40-kilo overweight lab, he needs 4 kilos of food, 3 kilos. And so like, that would just be— you're giving him a handful of these tiny carbohydrate nuts. So that's not the way it has to be. Big dogs can have nice big meals, but they're clever and leaner, timed better, a few supplements, a bit of exercise, the anti-inflammatory herbs, the bit of hydrotherapy maybe, or acupuncture to get the joints moving. And all that stuff will help. And gradual weight loss, because if you do the sudden weight loss, you get the problem Bren said at the start, which is the body does not forget and says, I'm going to get that back on me as quick as I can. You know, that's why these crash diets result in weight gain after. You need to— it's a complete change of lifestyle is what you need. And cutting out the carbs and sugar, it's not just granulated sugar, it's honey, it's fruit, it's bread, it's spaghetti, it's pasta, it's rice, it's white starchy, even peas and carrots for a while. Starchy, the nice tasty things, guys, unfortunately, um, for us, uh, that they're those things that have to change a little bit. And it gets easier then once you get rid of that sweet gut flora and you get a good flora that craves the good food, then you start getting this little serotonin hit for eating good quality food. It becomes easy to stay healthy once you've broken the back of it, but those first couple of weeks, it's a pure addiction, guys, and it is hardcore to break. I tried to give up, I went back on my e-cigarette for about 3 weeks before Christmas, 4 weeks before Christmas, so I had that, I had my increase in drinking, which I like to do in December time, November, let's face it, maybe October, and I started eating loads of junk food, good. And the freight— and on January 1st I said, right, I'm getting rid of it all, okay? And I've broken one of them. What one did I break? Sugar. Day 2, I ate a whole big fudge that was like a family bar of sugar and fat, and I ate it nearly crying. Oh no, but I've been good on everything else, but the sugar is killing me. I'm doing pretty good at the moment, but holy gods, like, if I wasn't back in the gym, I'd be, I'd be, I'd be in trouble. So anyway, Jesus, guys, it's 5 to 8 here, um, What have we got next week, Nick? Tell us about next week.

We've got Patrick Halford. Patrick Halford is— Holden? Holden? Is it Holden?

Patrick Holden? Holden, is it?

Holden. Patrick Holden. Patrick Halford is the Institute of Optimal Nutrition, I think.

Oh, we're interviewing the wrong guy then.

Patrick Holden.

All of those arrangements, quickly cancel him.

He's the main guy at the Sustainability Food Trust, so he's talking about about how do we feed ourselves in the future? How do we feed our kids? How do we feed our dogs in the future sustainably? And the answer is that it is possible to have really fantastic mixed farms and to eat meat in the future. We don't all need to eat Impossible Burgers. In fact, I think that that is the antithesis of the future of food. It's not ultra-processed food. It's getting back to how we've been eating—surprise, surprise—for the last 6,000 years. Good agriculture. Modern agriculture is not great, but he's going to be telling us how we can make it sustainable for the, for generations to come. And I'm really excited.

So important to have, to have him.

Patrick Holden. Patrick Holden.

Yeah, I think the next stick that the raw industry is going to be beaten with after the hazardous microbiology passes— and it'll pass because it's just ridiculous— so it'll pass, but the next thing will be carbon, and it will be— the pressure will come on raw feeders who are feeding pure meat to their dogs. And as this move comes to feeding more vegetarian diets to what are meat eaters, which I strongly don't recommend you do, the pressure will come on, and that's the next thing. So we need to get smart and understand that actually it's the farming methods, as Nick said. This interview next week, guys, should be really, really good. It's an eye-opener for anyone that thinks there was absolutely no way for bees in the planet. Actually, they probably play a very critical role in regenerating our soils, sucking in carbon from the atmosphere. And you're like, what? I thought it was the opposite. Yes, that's what we have been sold as a pup. But it's very interesting, guys. I strongly recommend this one. Nick is right, this is one of the most fascinating subjects out there at the moment because it's so relevant. Climate change, that's a real catastrophe. That's a real dilemma we need to sort out and move on from current Drama.

So, so guys, that advert is going out on Facebook after today, tonight's show, uh, so please share it with friends that are interested in that, um, environmental stuff. Uh, hopefully they'll enjoy what they hear next week and we'll get out there as much as possible. Cool. Thanks for your attention. Um, it's been great to see you all. Sorry about the couple of freezing guys below me that, uh, I I don't know, it's, it's one of those glitches tonight. Um, but there we go, it happens. Um, you know, thanks for all of you guys who are donating to, uh, Patreon. You know, the stuff down the bottom. Um, and we look forward to seeing you next Tuesday, 7 o'clock.

Cheerio! Great to chew the fat with you guys. Thank