What We Can Learn From The Frontlines of COVID-19 that Can Help Keep Us Safe - With Dr. Ara Suppiah

Foreign. Welcome everybody. Eric Edmeads back here with another exciting episode of how to cope with, survive and thrive through these difficult times. Today my guest is another very good friend of mine, Dr. Ara. Dr. R and I met about two years ago for the first time at an event in Toronto and hit it off immediately, sharing some really similar ideas and values around nutrition, health and so forth. Since then, we've ventured off to Africa together a number of times. We've been out hunting with the Bushmen together. We shared a lot of adventures together. And here's what's really crazy is, as I pointed out with one of my previous guests, when you live the way I live and you meet all these incredible people, you just meet them and you become friends with them. But you know, incredible people don't often tell you how incredible they are. And then it's not until you send your research team out to go find out about them that you realize that you're here with like, you know, an incredible person. So I already knew you're incredible, but mostly that was because of your energy and sense of humor and just general stuff. But you know, you're doing some serious stuff out there. I mean, you're obviously your doctor, you're a surgeon, but you like, here's a little nugget that we pick up that you were awarded a merit space scholarship to study university at the or study medicine at the University of Liverpool. Which means, I don't know if I'm. It means you're smart, I mean, like really smart and you get things done. And now you're here working on the front lines. I mean, you're in the er. You know, as you said in our little chat the other day, the odds are you've been exposed or if you, if you've been exposed and you know, you're dealing with the reality of that. And so the very first thing that I really want to dig in with you is as somebody who is likely to be exposed, right? Because you see, in my world, there's many levels of defense that we take against this disease. There's the defense of social distancing, there's the defense of full on quarantine. There's the defense of washing your hands for at least 20, 30 seconds because you begin to realize that your hand is full of little cracks and crevices that need to be washed properly. There's the defensive symptoms, hand sanitizer, not touching your face. There's all those external offenses. But at the end of the day, for somebody like you, and frankly, the truth is you're just an early version of all of us. Because all the numbers are saying at some point most of us are going to face exposure. The question is, what do you do to take care of the last line of defense? How are you keeping yourself fit, healthy and strong so that if you are exposed, you stand the best chances of having the best experience?

Okay, So I mean, clearly in the hospital, when I go in there, I'm gowned up, right? I'm in a hazmat suit, I got a special mask. You know, we have two layers. We go into a room. It's you, Robin. Before you go in the room, you take everything off and you come out and all that kind of stuff. But before you know, there's a few things. I've created this ritual that I'm like non negotiable ritual that I do before every shift. Okay. So I make sure I get at least eight hours of solid sleep every night. Okay. Because that's like free medicine. And also, that is when you know absolutely without a shadow of a doubt. Hang on one second. Without a shadow of a doubt that your immune system is going to be boosted. Okay? Okay. So in order to do that though, I do this thing. I have a evening tea, really late at night, usually around 11 o'. Clock. And the last thing I do, I have this tea that's made with ginger turmeric. And then in there I put two different types of mushroom blends. I use reishi mushroom and chaga mushroom. And they're both in elixir form. So I drop it in there. I make this tea. It's got a coconut powder milk to the base of it. And so it's kind of nice. I drink that and then I have a cold shower. And usually I sleep around. My temperature in the room is around 68. I brought it down to 65. So I want to sleep super cold. And what I found is, interestingly enough, like I sleep really, really, really well. And so that's a non negotiable eight hours. I don't care what happens. Like I've told people, listen, I understand, but I got to look after myself. So no phones that time. Okay? Then in the morning, as soon as I wake up outdoors in the sun, shirt off, working out, but nothing heavy. Eric, this is what, you know, I want to get into people. It's not high intensity stuff.

You're not originally from Norway and you've been out in the sun so long that you've changed. You're just talking 10, 15 minutes a day, Correct?

Correct. Exactly. Yeah, you do. I look like I'm from Norway.

Well, I don't know how much sun exposure you're getting.

No, no, no. My point is, like, get sun even if you're from Norway. Right? 20 minutes of sun without any sunblock is not going to do you any harm. Like, listen to me, 20 minutes of sun without sunblock.

I am thrilled to hear you saying this. I have been posting about this stuff, core wildfit principles around bolstering your. And we have this seven physical needs and one of them is sunlight. And I had a couple of no kidding on Twitter, medical doctors write to me and go, the sun is dangerous and you're telling people to go outside and get it. So of course, I immediately go and cite three different references that show that sun exposure is good for the immune system, aside from the fact that it's the best way to produce vitamin D. I'm so glad to hear you saying this.

Yeah, no, and again, I'm not saying go for two hours and don't do anything. That's not what I'm saying. Listen to me. I'm saying 20 minutes, 20 minutes of pure sunlight on your body will do wonders for you. And after that, if you want to go beyond that, if you're fair skin, if a history of sunburn, blue eyes, sure, put on sunblock. But at least for 20 minutes, get pure sunlight. Right.

And let me add, Ara, this is important because I've been making these comments quite a lot about getting sunlight and just getting some, you know, and other health principles. But the one thing about sunlight is many people are writing to me from, you know, Vancouver, Seattle, the entire United Kingdom, and they allege they don't have a sun. Now, they. I'm kidding. Of course they don't get the same level of sunlight. But what it's really important for people to recognize is in the same way that light does pass through the clouds, so does the very things that you're looking for from the sun. So going out in this, you may be looking outside and going, well, there's no sunlight. Well, if there's daylight, it's sunlight, so get outside.

Correct. You don't necessarily have to have a shadow. You know, even if there's clouds there, you're still getting sunlight. And to me, Eric, this is where I'm fundamentally different to a lot of people. I see sunlight as a nutrient, as an essential nutrient. I've seen what happens when people don't get sunlight and get very depressed and get ill and, you know, upper respiratory tract infections go up. I'VE seen that. So to me, it's an essential nutrient. 20 minutes, you know, 20 minutes, just pure sunlight. But the exercise I do there is also very light. And I have. When people say to me, like, how much exercise at this moment in time? You know, think about going to a gym, right? Like now you can't go to the gym because everything's closed. But if you walk into a gym and you come out of the gym and you feel good, that's the right amount. If you come out and you go, oh, my God, I have nothing left. I was a beast, I burnt out. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's a badge of honor. Okay, right now you want to do just enough exercise for about 45 minutes to an hour at the most, but not high intensity, that you feel drained. And the reason for that is. It's without any doubt, science has shown us, okay, after a period of very high intensity exercise, prolonged exercise for like, you know, hour and a half, two hours, your immune system goes down for about two hours immediately afterwards. That's why it's super important. It's critical to keep the kind of exercise that you're doing light and for about one hour at the most. And, you know, I try to incorporate other things like I play tennis or, you know, we'll do other stuff. Not just one kind of exercise. Movement more than exercise.

Yeah. All right, that's super good stuff. Now let's talk a little bit about, you know, people are, you know, people are trapped in their homes. There's, there's, you know, they're worried a little bit about, you know, food supply. Obviously, we've seen a little bit of hoarding and stuff like that. If you were sending your, you know, your good friend me out shopping, tell me, what would you avoid and what would you want to see in my shopping cart?

Okay, so this great question. So the things that I would absolutely want to see is color. Okay? I want to see greens, reds, dark purple, as many of those colors in raw forms.

Not on the cardboard. You're not talking about the cardboard box here?

No.

You're talking about.

No, I don't mean the print. I don't mean the ink. Okay? No, ink doesn't come. You had to go there, didn't you? Ink doesn't count. Okay, so broccoli, kale, spinach, beets. Beets are amazing right now. Okay. All those things, you know, bell peppers, those things. If it's so interesting to me, when I go to the supermarket, there's tons of those. And then all the pizza, the Deli meat, all of that's gone and there's just stacks of those things. And that's what I'm loading up on. Okay? So colorful vegetables absolutely must things to avoid. It's interesting. Right now in my supermarket, it's buy one, get one free of Haagen Dazs ice cream. Now, not anything against Haagen Dazs, but sugar right now is a. No, no. Absolute no. No. Infections thrive on high sugar content.

Okay, Ara, one more thing about that. Now, I actually had Dr. Greg Wells on the show earlier and he's a good friend of mine from Canada and he's actually a resp. Physiologist and we were talking about this stuff and I asked him about this and I don't know if you've seen it yet, but I saw references to viruses in the coronavirus family, colds and flus and stuff like that, apparently, particularly liking blood with blood sugar, with increased blood sugar. Have you seen any of this? Have you seen any of the research on that?

Yeah, yeah. It's actually well documented. It is a source of. It's no different than anything else. It's a source of energy. If you don't feed it, it's not going to live and then let alone the secondary bacteria that are thriving right now. So really what you want to do is cut down anything that is pure, like processed sugar. So I don't want to see any processed sugar in your car. Thirdly, I want to see fats, anything that's fatty, in particular, saturated fat and fats that are rich in omega 3. The reason is we are so high in omega 6 anyway from our lifestyle that omega 6 is pro inflammatory and you need omega 3 to balance that out. Okay? So heaven forbid if you do get sick and one of the this is what the coronavirus, the people in intensive care, this is what's going on with them. The virus gets to a high level in your system, it starts attacking your lungs and then your body creates this inflammatory cascade. It starts releasing all these chemicals which promote inflammation to combat the virus. But in return, it's hurting the body. So this high surge of inflammation, you can balance that down by taking omega 3. So saturated fats, omega 3 fats like fish oil, fatty fish, fatty meats, all of those things are really, really good right now. And also, don't forget, protein has been shown to mobilize the white blood count, the white blood cells from blood to tissue and to actually awaken them to pick up viruses and turns on the alarm system in the body. Protein does that particular branch chain amino acids, glutamine and cysteine.

Okay, so those are some, you know, fancy names. But what we're really saying here is you want to see a wide variety of fresh foods, whole foods. You want to see a variety of fatty things ranging from avocado to fish to, you know, to healthy, good quality meats and that kind of stuff. And what you don't really want to see is unpronounceable chemicals and additives and refined sugars and that kind of stuff. And I think that all makes a lot of sense. In fact, I want to share something with you because you're on the front lines. I don't know how much chance you're really having to read what's going on out there.

But.

What I'm sure you are aware of is that there appears to be a heavy age slant. Obviously, in terms of mortality. We're seeing that maybe one of the reasons that it hit Italy as hard as it did is because they have a very old population. But what I've been really fascinated by is now reports are coming out that suggest that it's not simply that it's going after the elderly, it's going after people who have one or two worst two significant health challenges at the same time. And I saw that happening and I thought to myself, well, that's interesting. I wonder how that'll play out in the US and today in the New York Times, I saw that America's hospitalization rates are including a lot more young people than a lot of the European countries. And I immediately, I mean, we are going to get so much data as a result of this. But one of the theories I have, which I imagine you would support, is we're going to get data at the end of this that tells us that obesity, smoking, alcohol abuse, type 2 diabetes, and other lifestyle diseases and injuries are definitely dangerous at this point. I mean, comment on that for me.

Okay, so that's actually, you know, it's. There were studies done in about 20 years ago in Sweden. Okay. And what they did was they started to look at what they realized was as you get older, you had a distinct immune profile signature. Okay.

Yeah.

The older people had that, but the younger people didn't have that. And so they started studying, seeing what were those effects, what were those biomarkers. Okay. And turns out that, you know, it's not just an age thing, it's your lifestyle thing. So a marathon runner had the same immune profile as an 80 year old. So it does not surprise me that, you know, we Think of age as just this number. Right. Or 23 year old. I'm fine. 83 year old. I'm not. No, not true. Biologically, you. A 23 year old could be a 65 year old. Right, Right. And so the virus doesn't know that. The virus just knows you're compromised. You can be a great host and I'm gonna go after you.

Yeah.

And then your body cannot fight it off. So this myth about it just being purely an age thing is not, not true. And I think I'm really worried we're gonna find that out. You know, I do, too.

I just. Today was having a conversation with somebody that I care a great deal about. And, you know, we're having this whole discussion and I see them kind of almost sitting back on their high haunches that they're in their 20s and it really doesn't matter. And I'm just going to go eat a cheesecake and I, you know, again, I'm such a. My metaphor for all this is that the social distancing is like the moat. You know, washing your hands is like the wall and the fence and all that stuff, but at the end of the day, the safe room is the body you're in and your immune system and stuff. And wow, this stuff you're sharing, I think is really important for people to get. And by the way, I mean, listen. All right, here's one of the other things I think that in terms of reaction, we have everybody from hysteria to denial. And as far as I'm concerned, both are stupid. Hysteria has people stockpile shopping and being nasty to each other over toilet paper. And denial has dumbass spring breakers in Florida right now, dancing in clubs. I don't get it. But what I'm also aware of is that where you are on that spectrum, and even where that spectrum is shifts over time. And the example I use with Dr. Greg was I remember seeing Tim Ferriss petitioning the mayor to stop south by Southwest. And at that point I thought he was on the hysterical end of the spectrum. What that meant is I was actually on the denial end of the spectrum. And about four days later, I jumped over, and then people started treating me like I was on the hysterical end. And. And so I want to know from you, you're a doctor, you've thought a lot about this. You're on the front lines. Tell me you're, you know, in America right now. And by the way, our viewers are from everywhere, but the truth is, wherever you are in the world right now, how. I mean, social Distancing quarantine. How tightly do you feel like we should be paying attention to that?

You know, Eric, I'll tell you, like, honestly, when all of this started, my thoughts were just like most people. Like, come on, it's a flu. Like, stop making a big deal out of this. You know, I don't get flu. Like, I'll be fine. And then. Then I found out, like, it affects the elderly people. And then I'm like, I'm very healthy for Touchwood. And I said, you know, it's not going to affect me and all this kind of stuff, right? And then I saw two things. Two data. One was 50% of people in that Princess cruise ship tested positive with no symptoms. Okay? And the death rate in Italy was skyrocketing. So to me, at that point, I thought, wait, I think the virus. It's an RNA virus. It's not a DNA virus. RNA viruses are what we call unstable. They mutate very quickly. And I thought, oh, my God, it's mutating. And it's very smart. It's always going to find a way to survive. So I thought, well, maybe all my assumptions are wrong at this point. So then I started looking at it, right? And being an RNA virus, this is the other thing that. So let's say you and I, you know, I happen to carry the virus. I have no symptoms, right? And I, you know, I bro hug you, give you high five, whatever. You have a tiny bit of the virus right now, okay? You will have no symptoms, Eric. And the virus keeps replicating, replicating, replicating, replicating. And for about five to 10 days, you're carrying that virus with no symptoms. You're hugging people, you're profiling people. You're standing close enough. And then on day 10, the viral load, the amount of virus is high enough, it causes symptoms, it attacks your tissue. And then you say, I got a cough, blah, blah, blah. We test you, and you test positive. Well, that incubation period, 10 days, you spread that to someone else, and the same thing is going on. So this cascade is what is going to destroy all of us. So that's when I really thought, oh, my God. The only real measure here is to distance. You need six feet of separation. And then you yourself have to look after yourself. Clean everything, wipe it down. That's the only way to get this under control.

You know, Ara, what woke me up is exactly some of the things you're talking about is that when I started hearing about how long the incubation period was, I suddenly started thinking about why it is that Ebola isn't really all that dangerous. I mean, let's be clear, Ebola is incredibly dangerous. But why it isn't so dangerous from a pandemic perspective is that it has a super high infection rate and a super quick. It acts really quickly and it's really deadly. So that means we can watch it move as it goes through the population. If it's on 8th street in New York, you can watch it move to 9th street and 10th street the next day. So that means you have a chance to stop it. But of course, that's exactly been the problem. This one, it seems not so dangerous. It's not such a big deal. But the problem is the long incubation period and then the lack of lethality. So we don't even. There are people who, who have had just a cold this last week and for all they know, they've had it.

Yeah, correct. Yeah. And that's exactly the false sense of security it does. It gives you. And that incubation period, it's what makes this unique. You know, when you have flu and you get flu virus, like the next day you're sick, you know, you're pretty sick. There's no long incubation period. You know, the thing I can tell people is like chickenpox, you get, you kind of feel off and then the rash comes on. But you've already been exposing other people in that time. Well, this is, this is 10 days. That's why social distancing is.

Okay, so let's, let's, let's talk about a few things about that. So I believe that you are now completely on board with the idea that social distancing, self quarantining should be really seriously paid attention to that people should only be going out if they, if they must, for food, if they, if they're a first responder, you know, but otherwise they should be maintaining their distance from people. And even when they do go out, they should be washing their hands before, before interacting with their house again and cleaning surfaces. We should be taking it seriously. Agreed?

Yes.

Okay, that leads to my next question that we've had a lot of people ask. When I announced that I was going to be doing an episode with you is let's imagine that somebody. Because there are still people traveling right now, you know, there are still people moving from place to place. Let's imagine that I had to get on a plane, let's say, and go somewhere. And then I needed to be with my family. I wouldn't want to go from the plane to my family. And my policy three weeks ago would have been, well, if I'm not seeing any of my elderly members of my family, what do I care about? I now have a very different view. I don't want to be part of the spread, so I want to separate myself from my family. How long do I need to separate myself from my family before, without. Without having a test before I can give myself the all clear.

Okay, so the answer right now is two weeks because of the incubation period, right? You want to give it two weeks. If, for two weeks you have no symptoms, then chances are you're pretty good. And also, if you. In two weeks, even if you had symptoms and you were a carrier by two weeks, the virus has died.

Right. So pretty much healthy for two weeks, sick for two weeks, you're going to come out the other side and be relatively safe to be around people again.

Yes. Yeah.

All right, let's talk about something else, because, you know, you and I had an awkward conversation the other day about families and stuff, you know, and I really appreciated your feedback, and I gave that feedback, and it was really, really helpful. One of the things that's going on right now is the divorce rate in China is apparently spiking. Parents are being forced into proximity with their children for the first time. For the first time, people are beginning to realize how valuable schools and teachers are. Shonda Rhimes now believes that all teachers should be billionaires. And I tend to agree with her. But in the meantime, one of the things that concerns me for people is, let's say a husband and wife that are at different ends of the spectrum, you know, that don't agree with the severity here. So, you know, let's say the husband's like, oh, the kids can go play with the other kids at the playground during this thing. And the mother's like, hell, no. Or the one's going, oh, of course they can go to spring break and whatever, and the other one's not. I mean, obviously the advice is, no, they shouldn't be doing that stuff. But do you have any advice for how the concerned parent can make a co. You know, a cohesive, an effective argument to the not so concerned parent?

I think the way to do that is, you know, a lot of them, it's lack of the understanding, right? If they understand that there is an incubation period where they can actually be spreading the virus. And when people, like when I explained that to them, they go, well, I have no symptoms. I feel great. I'll go, you could be having the virus. And you could be. There's something called shedding. You know, you give it to other people. That is when they go, oh, okay. And then when you say to them, listen, elderly people. If one of the elderly people gets sick and they've been in contact with one of us who's passed it on to them and they lose their lives, that's going to be on our hands, you know, because it's not that we don't know this anymore. We know this. If you know this and then you act on it and you are willingly okay to spread it to elderly people or someone who's immunocompromised or diabetic or someone like. And right now, looking at not even the elderly, Eric, like what we said, what about someone who's young, who's getting shots for, you know, arthritis, or someone who's just not living healthily, biologically 50 years old, and they get it and then they end up dead. Why would that be okay?

You know, I saw a tweet yesterday from Evangel. What's her name? Evangeline Lilly. You know, the actress from, I think, Lost. I don't know what else since, but I had to write about that. I did, like, just a quick little tweet. But basically what she wrote was, my freedom is my choice and I'm responsible for my own health. And if I want to go out and do stuff, then that's up to me. Me. And, you know, basically saying she doesn't care about the guidelines and what have you. And I, you know, it's funny, I don't like that in our population that we rely so heavily on celebrity opinion. I think it's laughable. It is really laughable. But I think that celebrities, certainly at her level, they really need to pay attention to the social significance of what they say. Because on, you know, she's now done something. And by the way, I used to have a bit of a crush on her. My hashtag for that one was Crushover babe. Like, I was like, no, that's just not responsible thinking, I'm taking it back. But she, you know, not only is she going to potentially go out and endanger people and just become a carrier, but because she has a voice, she's giving strength. There are people that are on that are down doing their spring bake thing, feeling better about what they're doing because of what she posted.

I know. I will tell them this, okay? Tuesday this week, like, four days ago, I saw someone who was so sick with pneumonia that I had to put in hospital, you know, I want them to come and I want her to come and say to that person, it doesn't matter. Come and say to that person, it doesn't matter. Yeah, person who did nothing, you know. You know, I have the same argument I had someone hit me up and say, you know, there are more people die of car accidents. We don't shut down businesses and all that for that. Why is this any different? You know? And I said, well, it's not okay to allow 200,000 people just to die.

I think what people don't understand. It's really funny. I, like, just on one level, I'm amazed by the media because of course, here's one good thing. I think some good things are going to come out of this. And I think one good thing that came out of this is that finally the US Government and other governments around the world are going to recognize that type 2 diabetes is itself an epidemic of epic proportions. And they're going to realize in the statistics afterward that it was a major problem here. So I think we're going to see some good come out of that. But in the meantime, that the math that people are using, like I was a smart ass in the first couple weeks where I wrote, well, if the media covered diabetes, type 2 diabetes, deaths and suffering in proportion to how much they're covering coronavirus, we wouldn't even know there was a coronavirus. And that, sadly is still true, even though we now understand the coronavirus is really serious. So I think that we, what people aren't realizing when they say this thing of the car accidents is okay, I'll give you the math. Around the world, three and a half thousand people die every day in car accidents. And so far, 12,000 people have died from coronavirus, which means that there are more people alive today because of coronavirus than died. If you want to get cynical, if.

You want to get a look at that.

Car accidents don't double in frequency every four days.

Correct.

You know, and that's, I think, what people are missing.

Yeah. No, and then also the other thing is, you know, car accidents, the numbers are like, they're also separated. This is very concentrated.

Yeah.

And you know, car accidents, death is one thing. Like, I don't want to sound cynical about this and don't want to sound careless, but death is one thing. We get these patients, we have to fight for their lives, put them on ventilators, try to do everything we can.

On a limited number of ventilators. Right?

Yes. Yeah. In the whole of United States, there are Hundred thousand ventilators. The numbers that I saw from CDC projection is crazy. It's between 200,000 and 1.7 million people who might need to be on a ventilator, okay? And that's happening too fast. It's too concentrated, and that will destroy the system. And that's why it's callous, you know, and it's easy for people to say, you know, I don't care about this, but come to the hospital and put.

Someone on a ventilator and watch it actually happening. Ara, one of the things that I've always liked about you from the first minute we met, is that, first of all, anybody who's willing to go to medical school, in my opinion, is just about at the point of saintly. I mean, the kind of hours that you guys put in, the expense of the education. Oh, except for the scholarship bunnies. But anyway, I'm kidding.

I'm kidding.

But the effort and commitment that goes into becoming a doctor is unbelievable. The challenge, of course, is that our doctors in the Western world are not required to study nutrition to become a medical doctor, which I think is, frankly, a borderline criminal. But you were never okay with that. If I remember correctly, you wrote a book called Lose Weight and Feel Great Forever. In other words, you were early on the. You wrote that, I don't know, four or five years ago, Seven years, eight.

Years ago, Seven years ago.

You were definitely early in the sense of being a medical doctor, saying, wait a second now. A lot of the stuff that you face on a day by day basis is either preventable or much more treatable. If somebody's healthy, that must be. I guess you're a bit of a pioneer in that sense. And I guess that's still part of the big message right now is like, people, really, you. By working with top sports people, I mean, your clients are some of the most well known and famous golfers and tennis players around the world, which means you're seeing people at the peak performance level routinely. But I know the thing you and I have been talking about so much the last couple years is what. What's going on with our teenagers, particularly in America.

Correct, Correct. You know, and again, look, medical school is five years. It's brutal. It's really hard. And we come out as experts in studying pathology and pharmacology. Right? We have. That's how much time it takes to study that. So we are really good at diagnosing something and giving a prescription to fix that problem. Okay. And that's great. But what happens after that? So you know? Yes. If you have pneumonia, you had appendicitis. You had appendicitis. We have to take your appendix out before it bursts and gets really.

Just so everybody knows. Sorry, Ara. Just so everybody knows, there are a few people in my life that have had the chance to save my life. There's four or five people that have saved my life over the years, literally. And Ara is one of the people. Because only a month ago, in the middle of the bush, I came out of the bush to pick Ara up because I was already in. I came out of the bush to pick Ara up and bring him into the bush with me so we could go and visit with the Hadza people. And while out of the bush, I started experiencing stomach pains. And Ara gave me a stomach exam and ordered me to go and get a CT scan.

Yes, ordered. Because you wouldn't go.

I saw. It's just pain. And we got there and. And an hour and a half later, I'm on the operating table, awake, watching them cut my appendix out. And if that had not happened and we'd been in the bush the next day, I might not be here hosting the show right now. But more than that, Ara, and sorry for cutting your flow. I just want to say this. Thank God I don't have to deal with that now. Thank God I don't have to go to some hospital now and need an emergency appendicitis when there's this, you know, thing going on.

Yeah, no. Hundred percent under.

So I so interrupted your flow. You were.

No, no, no, no. I know. Just give an example. Like, let's say, let's say someone has appendicitis or as pneumonia, we have to put the antibiotic there and control the situation right now. Okay. But then the person goes home. Okay. And my question is, I was always fascinated by, like, why did the healthy person get pneumonia in the first place? And that's where medicine, medical school training doesn't help me. Right. Because that's not what we are trained to do. We're trying to fix the problem right now. Okay. That's why I learned functional medicine, because when you work with athletes and you want to make them better, you got to understand the whole system. So I started looking at a holistic approach. And one of the key things that I realized is when you get, you know, when you get a top class athlete and they say, you know, make me better, it's very difficult. Like a Ferrari, right. It's maxed out to get the Ferrari to go faster. There's only a few small Things you can touch because you can actually mess with them, make them go down very quickly. Yeah. Nutrition. Getting nutrition. Right and fueling. Right was where I looked at it. Right. And at the same time, you know, as I started growing this, you know, I had an awakening moment and I thought, you know, when I'm dead, like I, what do I want to be remembered for? You know. And I thought, there's a problem on planet Earth right now. There are many problems, but one of it is I saw more and more children and teenagers who were overweight. And that really bothered me because, you know, if you look at the tribal system, right, Kids come up and then the parents nurture them, the elders nurture them. And then as the, as you know, and then this, this group here, the elders are looked after by the sons and daughters and then they pass and then these people become the elders and then the kids are now looking after them. So it's passed on. And this is the first time in, in, in our, in human race that we are having deaths in, in children faster than the parents.

Yeah. They're saying that we're now facing a generation of parents that will outlive.

Yeah. And I'm not okay with that, you know. And when I looked at it, yes, childhood obesity is multi pronged, right. That they are toxic with a lot of chemical exposure, they're not moving as much. But if I could pick one thing, a low hanging fruit, I would change the diet. Someone asked me recently, they said, you know, if you won the lottery, what would you do? And I said I would go and buy every vending machine in every school in America and the world if I could. And then I'll subsidize the school money to put real food in, you know, because that's where. And that's why we connected, you and I. You know, I think there is a lack of information and motivation and struggle and really a seduction by the food industry that contaminates people. And we really can make a difference there. And that's why I started really getting into nutrition.

You know, I was having this thought that I wanted to share with you is one of the ways that the population has finally been woken up to the severity of the coronavirus issue is when they began comparing graphs. There was somebody who wrote a phenomenal article on medium that's now been shared 40 million times. And he showed that if you, only if you look at the worldwide graph, it's one way, but if you break out China and you take China out and then you start looking, you start to See that Italy is following the same trend as China, us. And that's when people started to go, oh, crap. We think Greg today, Greg Wells, he was like a friend of his, asked him where we were in this whole thing. Like, where are we in this whole thing? Say it's a basketball game.

Where are we?

Are we at halftime? And Greg says, no, the players are meeting each other. That's where we are in this whole thing. And now I want to take that back to our conversation now about obesity and that sort of stuff. What about that graph? Now, the trouble is that that graph's moving more slowly. This one's moving on a day by day basis. So people are freaked out. But if we look at the burden on the healthcare system of obesity and type 2 diabetes, if you look at that graph, in 20 years, I mean, we're already in trouble. We're already at a point where I remember reading that some governmental report said that the Obamacare system was going to save the federal government about $10 billion a year. But, you know, that sounds like a lot of money because most of us can't even appreciate 1 billion, never mind 10. But diabetes costs America right now $260 billion a year. So $10 billion a year saved by Obamacare is literally, well, not literally, but figuratively a drop in the bucket. So I think one of the things we need to be looking at is those graphs, now that people understand how important graphs are to show exponential growth. Because, Ari, as you know, in the 70s, almost nobody under 40 had type 2 diabetes. And when I went to school, I remember there were, in 12 years of school, there were two, quote, I'm sorry for the politically incorrect language, but this is from the 70s, there were two fat kids in our school. I still remember their names. I still remember who they were. But now it's the thin kids that are getting teased. Here's what I'm asking you. You and I have talked about this a long time, but let's get really clear. When this is said and done, when this is said and done, let's get out there and let's make a difference, specifically for teens and kids, because it's our generation's responsibility to fix it. I've had so many people saying, no, they're the ones eating. Nope. We're the ones that stimulated those food manufacturers. We're the ones that allowed those laws to be written. Let's do something about it.

Yeah, it's not their fault. Like, honestly, it's not their fault. I mean, we as adults, we know, like, you know, when you see a child eating those foods, it's not their fault. And you know, the parents, I do believe they are doing the best they can, but they're uninformed and they are, they are victims of. It's not okay. It's not okay to put that kind of food in children's hands. It's not okay. That should not be allowed. But that's a battle I will fight with you every single day. And that's what I want my legacy to be. It's not about, you know, the Olympic medalist or whoever I work with. That's all fun and good, but I became a doctor for a reason. Like, I want to leave the world better than I found it. And the area that I want to focus on in childhood obesity, get them moving, get them eating right. Like that would make so much of a difference to us.

So let's do this right now. Let's think about this. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the weight of the average American is steadily going up every day right now. People are sitting at home, they're not moving so much. They went to their comfort foods. I'm only saying that based on what I've seen from grocery stores, that the frozen pizzas are gone and the donuts are gone, but the produce is still.

There in a lot of places all day. Yeah. There's no bread.

Yeah. So here's the message that I think you and I want to share with parents right now is that if you've got kids at home, you know, this is definitely a time to make sure that they're moving and eating well and not allowing themselves, their health to slide. Never mind the fact that that helps them relative to the virus. But we want them coming out of this healthy as well, correct?

Yeah. And, you know, here's what I'll tell everyone. Like, listen, every hour, get out and move. Take your kids out. If you want to sit down in front of tv, you want to sit on iPad, do your stuff, fine. But every hour, get your kids, go out and move. Just, you don't have to think about exercise. Kids don't exercise. Kids move, just move. You know, make it a game, do whatever you want. And then every day try one thing, one new vegetable that you've not tried before, or just have one piece of fruit that you not had before. Something along those lines, you know, speaking.

Of this movement thing, I mean, look, you and I just did our week long stay with the Bushmen, and, and I know that you understood theoretically what you're agreeing to but what it ended up being was, I think, significantly more demanding than you had had known it could be.

Oh, way hard. And, Eric, I will tell you, listen, for all those people out there, I had the privilege. And those guys move so fast.

They move far. They move fast, and they move regularly. The point that I'm really making is nobody has to remind them once an hour to get up and move around. Because. Because they don't have food storage and they don't have delivery systems and so on. They have to move around. But we have to remember those are the conditions that our bodies evolved through. So our bodies are relying. There are services, there are things that the body does that require you to move in order for your body to do them correctly. Including digestion.

Correct? Hundred percent.

So we got to get out and move.

You sit up and, you know, that's another thing. Like, it's really important. Once you have an evening meal move, it'll help your digestion. It helps lymphatic flow to help replenish the whole lymphatic and immune system. I told you, exercise is one of the easiest ways to get your immune system primed to combat viruses. So, yes. And again, I want to get people away from this idea of exercise. If there's one thing I learned wholeheartedly from the most majestic athletes I spent my time with, that was the Hadza tribe, thanks to you, it was that they moved. And they did. Speed, strength, endurance, agility, you know, great hand, eye coordination, everything. But they never thought about going to the gym or exercising or doing lunges or just move. Just move.

Yeah. No, I'm so. I really appreciate your common sense view of this stuff and your commitment to it. I really appreciate you making the time to come and share with people, especially as you're working. So, I mean, most of us are sitting home. You're out there working every day out in the front lines. Your. Your time here is unbelievably appreciated, and.

I thank you for having me.

Grateful for you to come on the show. Thank you.

Sa.