Food is Information: An Interview with Dr. Christiane Northrup

Hi, this is Dr. Mark Hyman. Welcome to the Fat Summit.

Hey, Dr. Mark Hyman, how great it is to be here.

Hi, Dr. Northrup. So great. The Fat Summit is where we separate fat from fiction. And I'm thrilled to have you here. For those who don't know, Dr. Northrup, she's one of my idols. I read her book, Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom, years ago, and it really informed a lot of my thinking about women's health. that was great because I worked at Canyon Ranch where most of my patients were between 35 and 55. So without your book, I don't know if I would have made it through that. And it was great. And you're an OB-GYN doc, you are a former professor at the Maine Medical Center, you're a New York Times bestselling author, and your recent book, Goddess Never Age, is just fabulous. And you've really been a pioneer in thinking about women's health in a way no one else has really done. you've spoken about it, you've taught about it, you've empowered women, and you really have connected the dots between our mind, our body, our spirit, our emotions, and how it all matters, and really empower women with tools, knowledge, and skills to actually take care of themselves in meaningful ways and transform their health. And your new book is just all about how, you know, what we think of as aging really is abnormal aging, and we can really rethink how we look at the aging process. So it's fabulous. We're going to get into all of that. First, I want to start by asking you, welcome you, and asking you to talk about your own personal experience as a woman growing up in the era of the low-fat craze and as a doctor also dealing with that in women's health and what you found in terms of your own health and in the patients you saw in women's health.

Well, like all women, no, not all women, but a lot of women. I went on my first weight loss diet at about 12 or 13.

Oh.

Because I had a mother who was, you know, not anorexic or anything, but it's clear to me now, you know how when your parents get older, you can actually hear what the message is. Everywhere we go now, she talks about how heavy someone is, or they're heavy, or they're heavy. And so I know that that was a subliminal message. And when you reach puberty, For men and women, for boys and girls, there's usually a period of time when you gain some fat in order for your growth spurt to happen. Now, I don't know if I ever had that growth spurt, but I do know that there was a time when I knew the calorie count of every food known to humanity. Because back then we literally told people to count calories. And I was off and on weight loss diets for, I think it's safe to say 40 years. Now, what's interesting, and that's just to maintain what I consider a normal weight. A normal weight. So, and here's how it works. You know, you let it get away from you and then it creeps up and then you're back down. And, you know, so it's kind of what we would call weight management. But what things really got interesting When I began to work with Michio Kushi of the macrobiotic group down in Boston, and Michio, as some people know, was the founder of Erewhon Natural Foods. He was an absolute pioneer in the natural food movement. East West Journal is now Natural Health, but I was featured on the COVID of East West Journal. And the diet was brown rice, sea vegetables, regular root vegetables. and then these big old macrobiotic cookies. Now, what was interesting about the sugar, the sugar, many of the people smoked and drank alcohol, but under cover of darkness. Actually, the smoking they did freely. But it was all based on yin and yang. And I also, Mark, as you know, saw a lot of people heal cancer and all kinds of things with that diet because it was and is a whole food diet. Now, after about seven years on that and bringing up my kids on that, I mean, I had a daughter who said to me at age four, I once served Cornish game hen for Thanksgiving, really branching out.

And a little tiny, tiny, tiny turkey.

That's if you dove into it like a starving person. and said, I love this codfish. She literally did not know what it was. And then she told me at about the age of six, when I grow up, I'm not gonna be a vegetarian because her body knew that she needed more protein. And what was happening to me is I was gaining weight. My nails were starting to break. My hair was not so very good. And so I began to, and that's when the zone came out. Barry Sears, zone.

It was also on the fat summit with us too.

Yeah. Okay, great. So that's good. So then I began to add more protein and instantly that constant craving went away. And so my body became more balanced. But then I hit menopause. I called Bob Atkins. And, you know, here's so I wasn't losing weight, couldn't manage to lose weight, didn't know what to do, starving, didn't work. Atkins.

The calorie counting wasn't working out for you.

No, and then going on the Atkins, you know, 90% what he did for those of us who just couldn't lose weight, go on it like 90% fat, like just slather butter on everything.

Yeah.

Never lost a pound. Called him back and he says, well, you're menopausal. It's like, Bob, who do you think your patients are?

Right, right.

They're women. So I began to realize that there was something more to this. So it wasn't all fat and no carbs, but it wasn't all carbs and no fat.

Right.

And what I finally know now is it's all about insulin, isn't it? It's all about insulin and where you are on the spectrum of insulin resistance. And that's what this low fat dietary approach, we all remember Snackwell cookies, we do. Pimp-sin powder, stop the insanity. Let's eat a bathtub full of pasta. Well, what that does...

I used to eat huge amounts of pasta, yeah.

Yeah. What that does over time is your poor pancreas gets so tired because every time the blood sugar spikes from the carbs, you get the pancreatic cells pushing out insulin and over time they get tired and they can't do it anymore. So they've stored as much fat as they possibly can. The rest just stays in your blood as high blood sugar and then you get pre-diabetes, or diabetes, or metabolic syndrome. That's the long and short of it. Now, what I think most people don't realize is there is a continuum. So there are those people who can be on a high carbohydrate, complex carbohydrate diet, low fat, and lose weight. I'm not one of them.

Yeah, no, it's true. We're all genetically so unique and different. I see that in my patients. There are some people who need very high fat diets to actually lose weight. and others that are eating more carbs and actually do fine. So, I think it's really individual. But within that context, you need good fats. You need good quality protein. You need the good carbohydrates.

Because what is fat? Fat is the building block for your hormones.

That's right. Let's talk about that.

All these women who would do the low-fat thing, like the big old low-fat muffin, and get more and more and more depressed.

Depressed, yeah.

Yeah.

So how does that work? How does fat affect your hormones?

Well, you need fat to build a hormone because a hormone is built from cholesterol. That is the building block of a hormone. So what have we done as doctors? You and I didn't, but the rest of them did. Tell everyone they need a statin drug to get their cholesterol down. And then, as you know, The American Heart Association has kept lowering what we consider a target. Okay. I just learned this from a doc friend of mine out at Kaiser in Denver. She said the number that we're never telling people is the number needed for benefit, the number needed to treat. Here's what she told me about statins. Twenty people need to be on statins for one person to get a benefit. 20.

It's actually worse than that, I think.

Is it worse?

Yeah, it's worse. I mean, I think the data is pretty frightening around statins and how they work. I'm going to pull up some data because it's pretty scary. I just was looking at it the other day. So yeah, the whole number needed to treat thing is a big issue because it means that you have to treat a lot of people to get a benefit. if you're taking an antibiotic for a bladder infection, the number needed to treat is like one or two. Maybe it's resistant to one antibiotic, but basically it works every time. And it works. But for statins, there's this group called the NNT group, and they have a website called theNNT.com, and you can look up all this data and all the research behind it. And what they found was that people who took statins for five years and had no pre-existing heart disease, like they had no heart disease that was documented, there were no lives saved at all. And only one in 104 people who took the statins were helped by preventing a heart attack. Like only one in 104 people and only one in 154 people were helped by preventing getting a stroke. So it means you have to treat 154 people to not get a stroke in one person.

And then got harmed.

Well, that's it. Then even worse, One in 10 had muscle pain and damage.

Oh!

And one in 50 developed diabetes. So you're not even, you know, coming out ahead in the end. You're actually creating more people with diabetes and you're saving from heart attacks.

What was the name of that website again?

It's called the NNT.com and it's really, it's like everybody should look at it. So even if you had heart disease, so like then the doctor's, well, you know, maybe you can argue, for, you know, we can't really convince people to take it if you've never had heart disease, but everybody's recommending it for that. That's called primary prevention. But for secondary prevention, which is if you actually have already had a heart attack or you have heart disease, well then they say, well it seems to have benefit. Well, what is that benefit? Well, only 1 in 83 people who actually had already had a heart attack didn't die, so that's only a 1.2% benefit. And only 1 in 39 were helped by preventing a fatal heart attack, which is about a 2.6% benefit. and that's not a great drug. And you're getting all these people who are harmed. So one in 10 got muscle damage and pain and one in 50 got diabetes. So it's really, it's not that great of a drug. And when they talk about the benefit, it's an absolute risk reduction of 3% to 2%, which sounds good, but it means, I mean, which sounds bad. When they talk about 30% reduction, that's what they're talking about. It's just a 3% to 2% reduction. It's all kind of a bunch of mumbo jumbo. And statins can help certain people. I'm not saying they're bad drugs, but they need to be using the right person at the right dose for the right reasons. So what happens when people have low-fat diets or have statins that they take, and how does that affect their hormones?

What happens is they become, they often become depressed, and they'll notice the difference in their nails and in their hair. Libido goes down. You know, so it's kind of like that awful thing where a woman has had breast cancer or ovarian cancer, and then she's on all the drugs for that. And when she says, But my quality of life sucks.

Right.

You know, and then the doctor says, yeah, but you're alive.

You're alive, right?

And it's kind of like, Are you kidding me?

Yeah.

And it's kind of like that thing, if someone believes they need a statin, which they're kind of convinced that they need by mainstream medicine, then they just think, well, this is the cost of not dying. But it's ridiculous. And it's interesting, Mark, that you've been saying this stuff about statins for a long time. I've been saying it, and it amazes me that so few people, when they're actually with their doctor, say, I'm not gonna take that. Right, no, no, I know.

People, they scare the pants off them. I mean, I have this problem all the time. I talk to people, I show them the results, I explain it all to them. They get off the statin, they go to the doctor, their cholesterol's up, they get back on it, they come back to me, it's like ping pong. And I'm like, I know. And then I try to explain to them. And what's interesting is we do a lot of testing of cholesterol using particle size. The statins really don't affect that. So they'll lower the total cholesterol and they'll lower the LDL cholesterol, and they may or may not affect the triglycerides or HDL, but they never affect the particles, which I thought is amazing to me because I thought it would. But what I see is that people are still eating carbs and sugar and their insulin resistance is high and they have very low HDL high triglycerides and they have these really, really dense amount of small particles, which is the ones that cause heart disease. And when you put people on high fat diets, that all goes away.

So true. This is one of the things, you know, because I've been around for a while, I have my lipid profiles from over the years.

Yeah.

Well, when I was 35, my HDL was 35. Wow. That is like way too low.

Yes.

Now it's 75. And we were also teaching people, right, that there was nothing they could do about their HDL. It was just genetic and that you were stuck with it. No. a bunch of bullshit.

No, it's true. It's so true. I mean, I've had guys who had heart attacks and they were 50 years old and I put them on this approach of higher fat, good fats, olive oil, avocados, coconut oil, even saturated fats and their numbers got better off the medication compared to when they were on it. So their numbers are better actually without taking the statin by eating the right foods and their HDLs went up from 35 to 55 or 60. and their triglycerides came down from 300 to like 70. I mean, it was really astounding to see that. And I think there's a lot of people who have weight loss resistance because they haven't really dealt with this insulin issue and they're afraid of fat. And so it's confusing for people.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So you actually, you have to give it a shot.

Yeah.

You know, they have to try it. And they'll see, first thing that happens is, We know that what you eat affects your blood sugar for the entire day. I guess what I would say is what you've been saying for a long time is get your fasting insulin tested, get your fasting blood sugar tested, and your two-hour postprandial. Then remember that those things in normal regular labs across the country, the amounts that they tell you are normal are too high.

It's like if you were a Martian and landed in America, 70% of people people would be overweight. So the normal would be overweight, which is how we get our reference ranges. We look at the population, we go, what's the average? And we go, that's normal.

But it's actually a sick population to start with. So it's that difference between optimal and get by.

Same with the RDAs for nutrients, right? Yeah. And I think for people who want to try a higher fat diet and cut out the sugars and the refined flours, if they actually measure these particle size and their lipids and look at these numbers, it's a great way to see how your body responds. and your body will tell you it's the smartest organism on the planet, and it will tell you what works and what doesn't based on what you do with it. And you can listen to your doctor, but you rather listen to your body. Listen to your body and find out what it's telling you.

That's right. And one of the tests that you taught me about was the NMR liposcience laboratory and the test for particle size.

Yeah.

And that's really where you want to be. So I want everyone to know that you're like me. We've been in this a long time. You see what's coming. You can see the trend 10 years, sometimes 15, before it becomes mainstream. The fact that women are still being put on statins for cholesterols greater than 200, total cholesterol means just about nothing.

It's true. It's true. Let's talk a little bit about dieting for women because I think it's such a huge problem. Women go through the struggle of restricting themselves, depriving themselves, having a bad relationship with food. It becomes a big stress in their life. They're disconnected from pleasure around food. What I'm curious about is your experience as women have shifted their diets to be more inclusive of fat. and getting rid of the sugars and carbs, what happens to that whole dynamic?

There's a huge revelation that suddenly they're not starving. They're feeling good and their hair and their nails, it's all good.

Other thing, it's better than a facelift.

You remember when Nick Perricone came out with the wrinkle cure?

Wrinkle cure, yeah, of course.

And so Nick had the three-day diet of sockeye salmon, wild-caught sockeye salmon, and melon, and blueberries. And that was pretty much maybe some salad. And what happens to people is the inflammation, the cellular inflammation in their body, but where you can see it on Instantly decreases. You look younger, you're sleeping better because what we don't realize is all of those inflammatory chemicals from the high blood sugar create irritability in the brain and then you can't sleep. So what's the other thing that we need to do to look good? Sleep.

Right? Yes.

But when you're eating, high carbohydrate food or foods that become glucose quickly, anything that's refined, anything that's high fructose corn syrup, you're going to get those inflammatory chemicals throughout your body. And you and I know that cellular inflammation is the root cause of all chronic degenerative disease. So women actually believe, oh, well, I'm 50, so it's now normal to have high blood pressure. It's normal. to be diabetic, have arthritis, this is not a natural thing. You can get better, more flexible. I've gotten taller in the last year.

I love that.

Yeah. So it doesn't need to be this downhill slide, but you really, I love your, you've got to get together with the right kind of fats. But you're right, even saturated fat is okay. Taking a bad rap, saturating fat.

But it's- what's your perspective on that? Because everybody's like, Butter's gonna kill you. And others are, Butter's back. And like, people having Bulletproof Coffee, and it's like, what's happening? It's all confusing, right?

It is. It is. But again, you have to try it in your own body.

Yeah.

Yeah, it took me a while to learn how to make Bulletproof Coffee. Grass-fed butter, and then with my coconut oils and all that. Pretty fabulous stuff, I have to say. At first, I just put the dollop of butter in the coffee. Oh, that doesn't work.

You gotta watch the video.

That's right.

No, it's true. It's actually how I wrote my book, Eat Fat, Get Thin, was I actually would have one for breakfast and my brain would just pop on. It was like turning the light switch on. I'd be super alert, focused, and I have like five jobs. I run my practice. I'm running the director of the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine and the chairman of the Institute for Functional Medicine. I speak and teach all over and I have a family and I try to just do a lot of stuff. I don't have two years to sit and write a book. I have two weeks or I have a week here, a week there, a few days here and then I sit down, I got to work. I found that when I started my day with fat, it was unbelievable. When I have a bagel or something in the morning or if I have-.

No, the bagel in the morning is you're eating the wallpaper at four. pastry in the morning thing or a bagel, it couldn't be worse. Your blood sugar goes up and then it plummets lower than when you woke up. And seriously, by four in the afternoon, you're starting your evening meal in front of the refrigerator.

Right, it's true.

Which goes till midnight. And I've been there, done that. And then you had the stresses of daily life.

So what's amazing with this, right, is that I'm sure you've seen this, is that that when you start eating this way, you shut off the hunger center in the brain. If you get enough fat, fat is actually what regulates your brain to not feel hungry. And when you eat sugar, even if you eat a lot of it, you will be hungry. I mean, you can eat a whole bag of cookies and still want another bag, right? That's correct. But you can't eat a whole stick of butter and want another stick of butter. You're going to feel full. And that's the shift that happens. And so you don't have to be white knuckling it the whole time, which women have done their whole lives. Like you said, you've been on a diet for 40 years and now you're not on a diet, you're just eating. That's correct.

And you're having more fun and you're enjoying your food more and the struggle is over. What else is interesting is I found some really amazing low glycemic snacks that are so satisfying. Medjool dates are my current... oh my God. Now I learned this from the medical medium, Anthony Williams. And he said fruit, he's got a whole chapter called Fear of fruit in his book. And he said that it's not what you think when it's whole fruit, organically grown fruit like berries and apples and so on. They're very satisfying. So for the first time in my life, you know, that I can announce publicly right here, I don't crave chocolate anymore.

Amazing. By eating...

Even though some nice dark chocolate is really good for you. But I don't crave it.

That's amazing. Because you're eating more fruit.

More fruit, but also more fat.

More fat, yeah. The fat, it's just amazing what it does.

It's unbelievable. So for me, that's avocado, coconut oil, olive oil, that kind of thing.

I interviewed Dr. Walter Willett, and he and David literally just published a study of, it was the first big meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials on low-fat versus high-fat diets that lasted a year or longer.

Nice.

53 studies, 68,000 people, and hands down, the high-fat diets won out for more weight loss and for better lipid profiles, which was kind of not surprising to me, but I think it's going to be surprising to a lot of people.

Well, how long you think that's going to take? Now, you know and I know. From the time you get new data, it takes 17 years.

Yeah, 17 years. It's like, if you're lucky, 17 years.

Yeah. So hopefully, you know, the very smart people who are watching us do not need to wait.

No, that's the whole point. You know, the great thing about the internet is we get to democratize information. And so, you know, where could you have before sat and listened to 30 experts and scientists having a conversation about fat and actually hearing the subtleties of the issues and learning about the research and hearing the controversies. It's pretty amazing. I think it's disrupting everything.

Yes, it's true. It's great fun.

Great. It's very fun. So talk to me more about the Goddess Never Age book, because I think you probably embedded in there a lot of your wisdom that you've accumulated over the years. Tell us about what that means, what you're recommending to people, how they need to think about aging differently. Right.

First of all, I learned from the work of Dr. Mario Martinez, who started the Biocognitive Institute. that beliefs are actually more potent than our genes. I did an interview recently with Vogue because they wanted me to talk to the issue of 28 year olds who were calling themselves old.

Oh.

Or, I know, you know, it's like, oh my God.

Ancient and you ancient.

You know, what's so great about, you know, when we've gone to medical school and so on, we don't even get rolling till 30. 30, that's when you finally start being an adult. And it sets us up in a wonderful way because we don't have those portals that other people have. But what he points out is that portals are fraught with meaning. So age 65 is fraught with the meaning of retired, obsolete. There's some data that New York policemen or policewomen are dead three years after they retire because if you are called to be a cop, Then the meaning you give working is you're saving lives, you're doing emergencies, you're protecting and serving, and then you're out to pasture.

So.

We have cultural portals that we learn. Martinus did a study of 700 or either 500 or 700 healthy centenarians all over the world in every different culture.

Yeah.

500 of them. Minimum.

That's a lot of old people.

And they had the same thing in common, no matter where they were, Mongolia or France. Number one, I love this, they hated being around old people. And what they meant by that was people who are complaining about their illnesses all the time, people who are complaining about their age, people who are always looking back, never looking forward. It's interesting, they don't go to doctors, the healthy centenarians. They just, when you ask them, when's the last time you went to a doctor? They say, well, my doctor's dead. And they practice the causes of health, which are... That's good.

That's a good way of putting it. Practice the causes of health.

Causes of health.

How do you cause health? That's a great question.

That's right. How do you cause health? They do rituals of pleasure. This is really important in the Goddesses Never Age book is rituals of pleasure. So let's say that you want a piece of chocolate cake. Now I'm going to New York soon and there is a restaurant across the street from my hotel that happens to have the best chocolate cake I've ever.

Eaten in my whole life, ever.

Now remember, I'm not eating that every day. But when I think about it, I think I need to go there and just be with that again, but in.

A way that is... Be one with your cake.

Be one with cake. It's the pleasure tasting every bite, because any woman who's been on a diet or who's been restricting fat and sugar forever will tell you she gets to the bottom of the carton of ice cream and she tasted just the first two bites. The rest was a food coma. So you need to be absolutely mindful the way you eat. So there are whole treatises on this, that the way you eat something, if you eat it very, you know, and you savor it. You don't want much. You really don't want much because you've signaled your body, I've had enough.

Yeah, mindful. I was talking to Deepak about this the other day because he wrote this book called Super Genes and talking about the super gene, which is your genes, your microbiome genes, which is a hundred times the amount of genes, and then your epigenome, which is this whole collection of control factors on your genes. So you've got this super gene and it actually listens to your thoughts and it actually registers information and changes which genes are turned on or off. Your gut flora genes, your own genes, your epigenome, all are actually literally listening to your thoughts and feelings. So if you're like, I'm gonna eat this cake and I'm gonna get fat and I'm gonna be sick, it's doing one thing. And if you're saying, oh my god, this is the best cake I ever had, I'm having like the most happy food orgasm I've ever had, like I'm.

So happy, then, you know, that changes everything, right? It changes everything. And since I don't crave it, I really, you know, in truth is, I don't care one way or another, except that it's so good. I think it's important to go there.

Pleasure is way underrated. I'm all about, listen, if eating healthy was not fun or pleasurable, I wouldn't do it because I am a glutton for pleasure and I love pleasure and I love to do things that are fun and that taste good and feel good. I don't want to be depriving myself or eating food that doesn't taste good. I'm the last guy that's going to do that.

Yeah, so what does pleasure do? It increases beta endorphin, serotonin, everything pleasurable increases the nitric oxide elaboration by the endothelial lining of all the cells in our bodies. And because nitric oxide is the uber neurotransmitter, it increases your level of all the stuff for which people are taking Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil. Viagra. Yes, Viagra, actually. That's the trick to Viagra.

Is it nitric oxide? Yeah.

One of the things don't you love about Viagra and Cialis is there's a black box warning for unilateral blindness because when the blood goes south so fast, it literally can glutch off the retinal little tiny arteries in the eyes. And you gotta admit that's a funny. It's a funny side effect.

As long as it's only one eye. That's exactly right.

I think, you know, the pleasure can be virtual Viagra. It's virtual Viagra and we know also a turned on woman is what turns on a man, assuming they're heterosexual.

That's right. Yeah, that's true. So what else can you share this about the book and what you found?

First of all, you and I both know that, and because you're working at the Cleveland Clinic, The difference between chronologic and biologic age. It's a massive difference. So you can have an 80 year old going on 50 and there's a lot of 30 year olds going on 80. Just from the way they talk. So I teach people about the cultural portals. Like don't let them... Oh, and don't.

Believe in the beliefs that I... Don't believe in them.

I mean, take a look at what you want to do is find The exception to the rule. Just find the exception. So for instance, I have them look at Meryl Streep, Dame Judi Dench, Helen Mirren. Let's look at Sophia Loren. Got a new lipstick line.

She must be in her 80s now, right?

Right. And Mario Martinez says, Don't give your age. And I think that's a really good idea. And here's why. We co-author each other's biology. So if I know that someone's 75 or 35 or whatever, I've already got a limiting belief about them that I learned from the culture. I've had women tell me that they've been told they're too young to have a job, that they look like they can't do it. I remember when I was a young doctor, a woman said to me, you,'re a doctor, you look like such a little nothing. You know, it's kind of like, and I've had men write to me, Should I lie on my dating profile because I'm really very young, but if I'm young biologically, if I put down my chronologic age, what will happen is the people who would be suitable for me are going to pass me over just because of that age. And he's right.

Right. That's true. I mean, I had an experience today. I'm in New York and I went for a run in Central Park. I went to yoga. came back and I don't really have like mirrors in my house, like a little mirror in the bathroom, but I don't like look at myself in the mirror, but there's these mirrors in the hotel and like I took out my clothes to get a shower and I'm like, oh, I was like, wow, if I look below the neck, I think my body looks fitter, stronger and leaner than it did 20 years ago when I was eating a low-fat diet and I was a little kind of pudgy around the middle and had, I don't have the muscular definition. It's unbelievable. And I'm 55 years old. I'm saying it. Maybe that's not a good thing, but it's like I was like, wow, that's pretty unbelievable. And I don't even work out that much. I'm busy. I run around the world. I've been in Abu Dhabi, Cleveland, New York, and LA all in the last week. And it's a rough life, but I feel good. And I'm amazed at actually what happens when you put in the right information in your body and a little bit of exercise on top of that. it's great. I had this, this one guy came to my recent public television filming. I know you've done a lot of that. And he, he was so great. He'd done my program. He was like a 50 fat diet, right? And he, he had been like a, like a long distance biker. So he was biking 200 miles in a day. And he showed, he showed a picture of himself on his bike, and he had this big fat gut, and then. He showed a picture, an after picture, where he actually did the program of a higher fat diet. He lost 40 pounds. So all that exercise, 200 miles a day, wasn't helping him.

I'm really glad you brought that up. You see women at the gym all the time, they're on the treadmill, they're dieting constantly, they never lose a pound. So this is another myth, calories in, calories out, burn more calories through exercise. It doesn't work if you don't have the diet right. It just doesn't work. It's true.

Let's talk about the calorie myth, because that's a big one. an expert calorie counter. You maybe had an Olympic level. Oh, I was. Olympic level. And then it wasn't working out that great. So what is the problem with calories and calorie counting and are all calories the same?

All calories are different. And that is the biggest myth that continues to be perpetrated on the public that a calorie is a calorie is a calorie. It is not true. A fat calorie will be metabolized by the body entirely differently than one from white bread. And that brings us to what's more important, is the glycemic index. Yeah. Well, first of all, let me just say, if you count calories, here's what you're going to do. All right. You will save up your calories for the chocolate brownie. You'll just do it because that's the mindset of that.

That's right.

Right.

So you, you have the points, right? The points in food watchers, which really was independent of the quality of those calories.

Exactly. Exactly. So the deal is we save up for a treat. But here's the problem with the treat. The treat undermines your health. So you think, well, I've been good. That's the wonderful thing. I've been good all day. So now I get to be bad. It's insanity. It's insanity. So when you no longer count calories, this wonderful thing happens. You talk about the intelligence of the body. The body just naturally does what it's supposed to do and you eat according to your appetite and you get satiated in a normal way. Supposed to be going arving all the time. The bakery wafting out the Cinnabon in the airport.

It should be illegal.

It should be illegal because you get off the plane, what's happened, right?

I mean, I have to fight that when I walk by that. I know about all this and I feel like I'm getting kind of yanked over to the Cinnabon.

Well, because your cortisol and epinephrine are up just from being in the airport and traveling all around like you're doing. So when those stress hormones are up, it actually creates this whole metabolism in your body where you want sugar. What happens to our patients on steroids, prednisone and so on?

Crave sugar, can't stop eating.

Crave sugar constantly, Pop-Tarts. Even people who use a steroid inhaler will crave sugar. It's from those stress hormones. And we know that those stress hormones, even endogenous cortisol, is an independent risk factor for osteoporosis and seeds. And it's because it's making you crave the sugar.

Exactly.

So what you have to do, now how do you arm yourself at an airport? Like do you take big bags of almonds?

Oh yeah, I have a whole emergency food kit that I have with me all the time. I probably have an entire day's worth of food in my bag at all time. It's high density. high fat protein food. So it's macadamia nuts, it's packets of almond butter, it's packets of coconut butter, it's buffalo bison bars that are very high in fat and protein, and that'll get me through an emergency. So I don't have to be stuck in an airport or on an airplane and have pretzels or have a, you know, Cinnabon or whatever. I mean, it's challenging when you're traveling. There are some airports that are good, but it's tough. So I always I'm never in a food emergency. And it's tough when you don't plan ahead and don't think about it because you have to eat. Your blood sugar drops and you've got.

To eat and whatever's there, you're going to eat. Yeah, you are. And the other thing about women, we're always, we're the ones with the breasts, so we're the ones who are giving food to the families and all of that. So one thing I want to say to women is feed yourself first. It's like the oxygen thing coming down. in the airport and never a bunch of different meals for different people in your family. It's like we've become crazy about that. This is dinner. Hello, this is dinner.

I always say there were only two things on the menu at my house when my kids were going up, take it or leave it. That's good. There was no menu. There was no, it wasn't a restaurant. This is what was for dinner. And there was no, there was no kids menu. I mean, that's the whole crazy concept on top of that. And the whole calorie thing is interesting. If you were the Olympic world record holder in calorie counting, if you were off by 100 calories a day and even the best experts can't be within 100 calories. If you're off by 100 calories a day and you eat more than an extra 100 calories over 30 years, you're going to gain 30 pounds.

Yes.

So you can't actually regulate your calories by thinking about it or planning. You have to do it by eating the right foods that naturally regulate how much you eat. That's what fat does. Fat naturally regulates how much you eat. I talk a lot in the book about you can't really choose how much you eat because that's automatically governed by primitive signals. But you can choose what you eat. If you eat the right foods that are real, whole, fresh foods, low glycemic foods, full of the right fats, lots of fiber, everything takes care of itself. You don't have to think about it and measure it and worry about it. That's what's beautiful because when you eat sugar calories, the glycemic calories you talked about, they actually increase insulin, which makes you hungry, it slows your metabolism, it actually makes you store belly fat. It's a vicious cycle even if it's.

Exactly the same calorie as a fat calorie. Exactly. That's the thing. Also, are you finding that the time of day you eat matters? You remember all those studies where they'd show if you ate the same amount of calories First thing in the morning, lose weight.

Oh, yeah. I call it the Sumo Wrestler Diet. I wrote about it in my book, Ultra Metabolism 10 years ago. Because I saw this in my patients, they would like eat at night. They would not eat all day. They'd skip breakfast, maybe a salad for lunch, and then they would gorge at night, and then they'd go to bed, and they couldn't lose weight, and they felt bad. So, the Sumo Wrestlers, that's how they gain weight. They basically feed them right before they go to bed. They basically, in the morning, they wake up, exercise, have lunch and they take a nap. They wake up, exercise, big meal, go to sleep. And that's basically what they do to gain all the weight. And it works. That's what the Americans have done, is basically end, I call it, end load their calories in their day. And that drives this massive obesity epidemic.

The other thing I want to talk about for a minute is grains.

Oh, yeah. Let's do that. Okay.

So here I was, you know, with Michio Kushi and everything was brown rice and whole grains and all of that. And then we found, you know, that's a really good good way to fatten not only cattle, but humans.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Tell me more about that. Because I think that people get confused about that, because the government's telling us to eat whole grains. You see whole grain cereals, you see, you know, rice crispy treats with whole grains. And you see, like, you know, I.

Didn'T even love it when Tom Brady came out against, you know, it's like go Tom, to love the New England Patriots. I'm sorry, but I work with Tom.

Great. And I emailed him and I said, Hey Tom, let's work together to bring all the celebrities together, all the sports icons, and let's take this on. Because it's time.

It is time.

And he's like, Yes. And I'm like, okay, let's do it.

That's good. And I know that the woman he's married to is all into it. She came to one of my lectures in Florida. And they're people who believe in health.

They do. Yeah.

Yeah, so anyway, the grain thing. I think some quinoa is okay, you know, the more ancient grains, Kamut, and there's another one, teff. But we know that the wheat in the United States has really been messed with in a big way. Bill, what is his name? Bill Davis, who wrote Wheat Belly. He shows you what the wheat used to look like in his PBS special. So these, you know, fields of waving grain. It was tall. Now it's this dwarf GMO thing, and it's got too much gluten and too much all kind of modified genetics in it. And so I think there are countries that will not even import American wheat anymore.

No, and in Europe they don't allow GMO wheat. That's why you can go to Italy or France and have wheat products and my patients who have gluten sensitivities actually don't seem to be bothered by them.

That's right. That's right.

It's very interesting.

Yeah. So therefore in the United States, I would avoid anything made with wheat.

Yeah.

And you know, because here's the problem. Even organic wheat, it's interesting as you get older, we seem to lose our tolerance for gluten in general, not everybody.

No, no. It's true. It's a big problem. And I think grains can be included in the diet, but they shouldn't be a staple. And I think there are some people who say, look, the Chinese ate and Japanese ate tons of rice and they were skinny, so why can't we eat rice? I'm like, well, yeah, but they also didn't have any processed food. They also lived in a very different environment. They had lots of exercise they did every day, just their normal activities, far more than we do. And they were able to tolerate more.

But it's not necessarily-- what's happening to them now, interesting. As they move into the cities, same diet, they're getting obese.

It's true. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. So, I think grains are a challenge. And I, in fact, as part of the Eat Fat, Get Thin program, for the first three weeks, I recommend people don't eat any grains and actually don't even eat beans because beans actually also can be irritating to some people. They all cause digestive problems as we know for many, but they also contain mineral binders and they also have lectins that may be inflammatory. So we actually take people off it just as a trial period to see what happens. And it's amazing. We did this, Chris, we had a 68% reduction in all symptoms from all diseases in 21 days. That means like migraines, joint pain, you know, irritable bowel, reflux, acne, you know, you name it, people got better because food is such a powerful drug. And when you take out the things that are inflammatory, you take out the foods that drive increased sugar and insulin in the blood, you add the right foods, the right fats, nutrient-dense food, the body really can repair in such a quick time. And that's, I think, what's the message of your book about aging, because it's really showing that at any age you can reverse that trajectory. and become biologically younger.

Now the other thing you did is wrote that great book, the Daniel Plan, because there is a real difference when you pardon the term, break bread in community. When you eat with others, the digestive process is much better.

So it's, I call it the love diet.

The love. Yes. And then the way things. Now, when Martinez did the study of the healthy centenarians, they all have a ritual of pleasure every day. That ritual can be a glass of scotch or whiskey. It could be a cigar. It can be some kind of sugar. But it's done in ritual format in community. It's not like, oh, I'm sneaking the chocolate bar in the closet. Right. And My husband won't bust me. It's a very different biochemistry.

It's true.

And that's important. And I think you can eat more widely when that, well, we all know when you're in love, right? When you're literally newly in love, many people lose weight.

Yeah.

Because they're getting pleasure from something else. That DMT rain and then it shuts down there. They're getting so much Feel good chemicals in the body. They don't need to get it through food.

It's true.

Well, I've always thought we should be looking at that as a thing.

That's why I try to fall in love every day. It helps me make a slim figure.

Exactly.

No, it's so true. And it's true. I mean, you know, what we did with the Daniel Plan was we got people to get healthy together and that they realized that getting healthy is a team sport. super hard to do on your own. And Rick Warren likes to say, everybody needs a buddy. So you got to find a buddy out there to do this with.

That's exactly right. And one of the things that I learned was Argentine Tango. So this is two people moving as one. And the learning curve is a little bit steep, but what happens when you.

Yeah, I've tried it, but it's not so easy.

It's not easy. It's not easy. It's well worth it if you can, and you're going all over the world, you could dance tango everywhere. They have tango in Finland in the middle of the winter in these wonderful fiery palaces. Anyhow, when you're dancing like that, it's as though you're creating the biochemistry of love with everyone you're dancing with, even strangers, because a tango is about a three-minute love affair. And you don't necessarily know the person and then you're on to the next. It's why it's so helpful for, you know, there are tango medical institutes in Buenos Aires. And for mental illness, for Parkinson's. But again, you're talking about ultra wellness. Deepak's talking about supergenes. We're always looking at the illness Let's live this way, and then you won't even get the illness.

It's true. I love the concept of causing health, because that's a very unique idea. I mean, we know we can cause disease by doing the wrong things, but by doing the right things, we can actually cause health. It's such an empowering concept.

Isn't it? Isn't it? Yeah, you're going to have to meet Dr. Mario Martinez because his book, the Mind-Body Code, is astounding. He's the Vatican's go-to person For stigma. For stigma. Yes.

Well, I plan on living to be at least 120, so hopefully we can do this again in 50 years. So great. Was there anything else you want to share with us, Christiane?

Oh, I just want to say, if you can, it's a really good idea to buy organic food because the fertilizers and the pesticides and all that do get into the food. And I call eating organic food is like breastfeeding from Mother Earth. That's good.

Well, I mean, that's good. I think it's important because actually a lot of toxins disrupt your hormones, which you've written a lot about. And they also, you know, contribute to obesity, diabetes, cancer, and even cognitive impairment, depression. So they're highly active in our bodies. The challenge is it's hard always to get organic food. And I am on the board of the Environmental Working Group, and they have a great guide called the Dirty Dozen, which are the dozen foods that are the most contaminated fruits and vegetables that you always want to buy organic. And they have the Clean 15, which are the 15 foods that are fruits and vegetables that are the least contaminated that you can buy safely if they're not organic, if you want to save some money. So I think it's really, you know, it's a good, it's a good, it's a good trick. And, and how can people find out more about your work and what you're doing and what are you up to next? What's exciting for you?

They can go to my website, drnorthrup.com, I've got a nice Facebook community, I'm over there every day, Instagram, Twitter, and I'm currently writing a book called Bringing Heaven to Earth, a simple guide to making your life work. And this is all the stuff that I really believe and have always believed, but as a doctor was not exactly the kind of thing that the Board of Registration and Medicine is interested in hearing. Oh, yeah, yeah. Far enough along now, so I don't care.

It doesn't matter what they say, right?

It doesn't matter anymore because it's clear the future is with us. And that's kind of a dinosaur now.

I think it's true. I think, you know, the people who make change in the world are people who tell the truth, even if it's uncomfortable or scary. And they all can't help themselves. Like, I can't help myself. You can't help yourself.

I can't. No.

When I got the job at Cleveland Clinic, I'm like, you don't want me here. I'm a troublemaker. I am going to say things that are disruptive, that are going to make people uncomfortable, that they're not going to agree with, and I'm not going to edit myself because life's too short and I don't really need this job, but I'm willing to make a change if you're willing to kind of stand up and say, yeah, this is what we're doing. So how's it going? It's unbelievable. unbelievable. People are coming out of the woodwork. I actually just met with a breast surgeon there who is studying the gut, the microbiome in the breast and breast cancer, which is there's actually bacteria in the breast tissue that actually may be linked to breast cancer. There's a prostate guy who's super into diet. He has an organic farm and he wants to do a study with me. We're doing a study on prostate cancer reversal through functional medicine. I talked to one of the top cardiologists there who's interested in looking at how we compare diets to look at health. We're reversing diabetes through studies. We're doing some amazing work and it's, it's, there are people who are like, this is voodoo, but there are more people who are, gee, this is really interesting. Let's, let's check it out. And they're the ones who are like, where have you been? What took you so long? And it's just an interesting collection of people, but it's, I mean, we are swamped. I mean, there's 1,150 people on our waiting list now for new patient appointments. It's unbelievable. We are growing at a rapid rate, hiring doctors, staff, and building a new space. They gave us the Primo space in the main building, and people are kind of upset about it because it's like, well, why did he get that? But I'm like, I don't know. I didn't ask for it. But they're realizing this is just the future.

Oh, that's exciting. That is so exciting. And you're right, finally, like the organic garden, he's safe now. He can come out of the closet. You're making it safe for all of these docs. Because, you know, you and I both know most people go into medical school because they're actual healers and they want to help.

That's right. That's right. It's like, it's true. It's like I've come out of the closet and all of a sudden, everybody can go, Hey, me too, me too, me too. And it's like, I just got an email from- You're gonna take the first move. It's amazing. This one guy emailed me today. He was the head of rheumatology. And he's like, I want to do this. Can we do this? And I'm so passionate about diet and the immune system. And I'm an immunologist. And I'm like, Yes, amazing. You know, because for years rheumatologists have been saying, you know, food has nothing to do with autoimmune disease.

I know.

It's just unbelievable. That's so great. Thank you, Chris. I love your work. Your new book, Goddesses Never Age is awesome. People should get it, read it. And also check out your website because there's a treasure trove of information. You have your weekly newsletter that I get every week and I really appreciate it. And you're always interviewing great people and doing great things and trying to bring collection of great information of people who need it. So thank you so much for what you do and being such a leader in this field.

Thank you, Mark. It's been a pleasure. Thanks.

Thanks.