.png)
The Wellness Blueprint: With Dr. Caleb Davis
Welcome to The Wellness Blueprint with Dr. Caleb Davis, where we uncover the secrets to living a long, active, and pain-free life. Hosted by Dr. Caleb Davis, an orthopedic surgeon and fitness enthusiast, this podcast is your ultimate guide to musculoskeletal health, injury prevention, and wellness.
Dr. Davis combines his expertise as a shoulder and elbow specialist with a passion for empowering people to take charge of their health. From deep dives into cutting-edge restorative medicine to practical tips on avoiding surgery and optimizing recovery, The Wellness Blueprint offers valuable insights for anyone seeking to preserve their body and thrive at every stage of life.
Join us each week for professional guidance, fascinating medical discussions, and actionable strategies that help you move better, feel stronger, and stay functional for years to come. Whether you're an athlete, a weekend warrior, or someone looking to age gracefully, The Wellness Blueprint provides the tools to design a healthier you.
The Wellness Blueprint: With Dr. Caleb Davis
Episode 12: Sweet Deception: The Addictive Trap Fueling the Obesity Epidemic
Can sugar actually fuel cancer growth, or is the real culprit lurking elsewhere on your plate? Join us as we unravel the complexities of dietary fat and sugar, along with their controversial histories. This episode reveals the fascinating story of the 1960s Sugar Research Foundation's influence on public perception by demonizing fat to downplay sugar's health risks and how these events have shaped modern dietary habits, often leading to an increase in sugar and carbohydrate consumption.
Our journey continues with an eye-opening discussion on carbohydrates and sugars found in everyday foods. From misleading food labels to the surprising sugar content in so-called healthy drinks, we leave no stone unturned. Discover how your body can produce glucose even in the absence of direct carbohydrate intake and learn the significance of essential nutrients your body can't synthesize. Dr. Caleb and Nicole offer practical, relatable advice on managing daily carbohydrate intake, empowering you to make informed choices that align with your health goals.
We take on the challenge of hyperpalatable foods and their undeniable role in skyrocketing obesity rates since the 1970s. Forget the outdated notion that obesity is simply about willpower—our exploration dives into the science of the "bliss point" and how the food industry exploits our innate reward systems. With humor and real-life anecdotes, we tackle broader societal challenges, such as the excess of easily accessible indulgences, and stress the importance of mindful eating and caloric awareness. Whether you're aiming for better health or fitness outcomes, our episode promises insights that inspire and motivate.
Instagram @WellnessblueprintPodcast
X @CalebDavisMD
TikTok @WellnessblueprintPodcast
Hey everybody and welcome back to the Wellness Blueprint with Dr Caleb Davis. I am your host, dr Caleb Davis, and as usual I am joined by the lovely and talented Nicole Davis as my co-host.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody.
Speaker 1:Nicole thanks again for being here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course.
Speaker 1:I had a really interesting time researching our topic today. I wanted to talk about does sugar feed cancer? Or maybe even just say, does sugar cause cancer? Because sugar is a pretty hot topic right now for good reason. But I think, as these things tend to go, when something grabs attention in the general population, maybe things are taken a little bit to an extreme, like sugar is the cause of all evil, and I think maybe the pendulum is swinging that way.
Speaker 2:Well, I feel like it's been that way for years.
Speaker 1:But when I started doing the show notes for this episode to find some studies and get some talking points and make sure all of my knowledge on this topic was up to date, I got into a lot of other interesting subjects as well, and I was going to talk about sugar causing cancer or at least feeding cancer cells, but ultimately for this episode, I decided to talk about protein as a macronutrient and different styles of diet, like keto versus calorie restriction, versus carnivore versus low carbohydrate, and I decided that we would do more of the cancer focus on next week's episode. So really, what happened is I did so much research on this that it could turn into two episodes, and they're both very interesting. We're going to go off into some other territories too, like calorie restriction and keto diets and intermittent fasting. Have you done a keto diet before?
Speaker 2:No, but it's not meant for people like me.
Speaker 1:Tell me more, Nicole.
Speaker 2:It's not meant for people who think that they can bend the rules.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right. Well, maybe we'll get into that more when we actually get to the keto diets. So before sugar was the big bad, what was before sugar?
Speaker 2:Red meat causes heart disease.
Speaker 1:Red meat's been one of them, but I'm trying to think more of a macronutrient.
Speaker 2:Oh, sorry. Okay, you mean specifically for cancer.
Speaker 1:Just everything, everything was blamed on this macronutrient Fat. Everyone, it was all fat yeah. Okay, this was a little bit before our time really. Yeah, that's true, you and I were both born in 89, so we're pretty young. So fat-free was a huge thing still when we were kids.
Speaker 2:We're pretty young. There are adults who have been born only in the 2000s. They've never even known in the 1900s. It's all relative.
Speaker 1:I think you look 20, so maybe that's what fools, me. Wow, okay, you look very, very young and useful and energetic and beautiful. So maybe that's what I forget sometimes.
Speaker 2:I feel like he's buttering me up for something buttered bad, for he's filled with fat.
Speaker 1:So in the 1960s they there are lots of research was being done on what food related causes might be contributing to chronic diseases and illnesses. This was a conspiracy theory once upon a time, but it's actually really more like documented fact now looking back.
Speaker 2:So there was they all?
Speaker 1:no, not all, maybe some I still believe in bigfoot okay who is who's covering up bigfoot?
Speaker 2:I don't know but.
Speaker 1:And I want to believe is it part of big sugar? Are they covering up big foot?
Speaker 2:yes, it's a sugar coated. Sugar coated foot.
Speaker 1:It's giant this all got started back in the 60s there was an actual sugar research foundation and now it's just called the Sugar Association and this funded research in the 60s to downplay the health risks of sugar and shift focus to fat as a primary dietary culprit and problem.
Speaker 2:Question yeah, who funded the Sugar Institute?
Speaker 1:I imagine it was Big Sugar.
Speaker 2:Oh, we're gonna just do these super unbiased, oh yeah that's kind of the point.
Speaker 1:We talked more about big institutions funding research. This was back in the 60s. It wasn't as a hot topic to talk about to say, oh, the big industries are focusing on funding the Sugar Research Institute. But yes, exactly right. Different food companies and sugar companies were specifically paying off scientists. I'm not talking about, oh, we're going to fund research, no, they're just paying them off.
Speaker 2:So it's sort of like the older brother who's trying to pin all the problems on the younger brother, and they pay the third sibling and say, hey, just blame it on our middle brother, it's totally fine.
Speaker 1:I don't know what kind of weird family dynamic you had, but I can't relate to that. Well, I have two older brothers, so, yeah, so do I. My brother's just sad on me. The Sugar Research Foundation also paid off prominent Harvard scientists to produce reviews that minimize sugar's role in cardiovascular disease, and there are multiple papers published in prestigious, well-thought-of journals that emphasize fat as the problem, and this really really took hold. One particular study that you may be aware of is by a scientist named Ansel Keys, who I think you've actually read about a little bit. He wrote the Seven Countries Study.
Speaker 2:Oh that guy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so this was published in the 50s and 60s multiple studies on this topic.
Speaker 2:Is it the plantarian guy who believes in only eating plants, for the most part, and fish?
Speaker 1:I think some of his studies concluded that, or at least pointed to that. But these studies linked dietary fat intake to heart disease. But this study was later largely and widely criticized by critics saying that he cherry picked data to support a hypothesis that he went in with, and he ignored other countries and their data to just to support his conclusions that fat was bad. So in 1977, the US government's dietary goals for Americans were released. These goals for Americans were released and it advocated for reduced fat consumption and increased carbohydrate intake. If you take calories away from one, then you have to increase calories to another. This included sugar, which was pretty much directly shaped by lobbying from big sugar. And so these guidelines, with lots of public service announcements and different ad campaigns, shaped public's perception that fat was bad, and this really didn't shift until during our lifetime.
Speaker 2:I don't think it shifted for a lot of people who are maybe in the boomer generation.
Speaker 1:So imagine you have all these foods that have natural fats or added fats and you take them away so they're less palatable. So what are you going to do? You're going to put more sugar in them. You're going to make them sweeter. You have to make them palatable somehow. Everything was fat-free, low-fat, and then trans fats became a big thing and margarine became a big thing, because then it was like an artificial fat. No, then it was like a artificial fat no fat butter Right, but now trans fats are evil.
Speaker 1:The pendulum swings right. Most people are unanimously against trans fats now, and that's all well and good, but it took decades for us to start shifting away. And you're right, it's not even completely shifted away. There's still a lot of people who think dietary fat is the culprit. As most things in nature, though, there's a nuance. Too much fat's bad, too much sugar is bad, too much almost anything's bad, except maybe protein I'm just kidding. Too much protein is bad too.
Speaker 1:Some people believe that this shift from fat to sugar and us consuming so much more sugar was closely linked to obesity and diabetes epidemics that we're seeing today, and lowering fat and increasing sugar certainly didn't do us any favors. One of the big problems is that fat is actually a very energy dense food source and it's also very satiating. So if you take out all the fat and just pump things full of sugar, it's easy to consume those foods in high quantities. You're not getting much nutrients and you're not being satiated, so you want to eat more. I'm happy to say that we're on the upswing from that, but I think the consequences we're still reaping what we sowed decades ago and it's going to be really hard to turn away from that. Just a couple stats for us. Once we're talking about sugar, the average American consumes approximately 77 grams of sugar per day. I know that's hard to visualize, so that's about 19 teaspoons of sugar. That's just an average day.
Speaker 2:Teaspoons. Okay, I'm trying to imagine that.
Speaker 1:Just think of a spoon out of a silverware drawer and having almost 20 of those of sugar, just white grain sugar, way too much. So if you look at the American Heart Association's guidelines of how much sugar you should be eating, for men it's recommended no more than 36 grams, which is nine teaspoons, so that's 50% less, and for women it's no more than 25 grams, which is six teaspoons, so that's three times less of added sugar per day. So we're just talking about foods that have sugar, that are added, so we're not talking about natural sugars. We're just saying things like bread, pastries, sugary drinks, like soda.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but not all bread has added sugar.
Speaker 1:No, but a lot of modern manufactured American bread does.
Speaker 2:So packaged bread, yeah, but if you bake your own bread, oftentimes it does not have added sugar.
Speaker 1:Who do you work for?
Speaker 2:I work for the Italian Association, are you?
Speaker 1:at the big bread lobby.
Speaker 2:Yes, I am. Yeah, we've been infiltrated.
Speaker 1:A lot of people believe that this excessive sugar intake maybe directly was linked to all of this shenanigans being done back in the 60s and 70s and we haven't reversed course yet. Can you tell me the difference between sugar and carbohydrates? I'm putting you on the spot here.
Speaker 2:I know, but we've talked about it a lot over the years.
Speaker 1:Carbohydrates essentially breaks down into sugar. That's right. Not all carbohydrates are sugar, but all sugars are carbohydrates.
Speaker 2:Sort of like whiskey and bourbon.
Speaker 1:Oh, you got me there, I don't you know I'm not an alcoholic, so I don't know.
Speaker 2:But we do live in Kentucky.
Speaker 1:All right, all right, I'll bite, I believe. Yes, I think bourbon has to be 50% corn, but bourbon is a type of whiskey, but not all whiskey is bourbon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it has to be 51%. You shame me. See 51% or higher Of corn.
Speaker 1:See 51% or higher Of corn. Yeah, okay, didn't I say at least 50%.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that's not specific enough.
Speaker 1:You know what? As a man, my body's a temple. Okay, you can get carbohydrates from other food sources. If you were to eat 20 grams of sugar, you're consuming 20 grams of carbohydrates, but if you were to eat a big bowl of pasta, you might be getting 60 grams of carbohydrates. You're not eat a big bowl of pasta. You might be getting 60 grams of carbohydrates. You're not eating a big bowl of sugar, but that breaks down into your body as sugar For all intents and purposes. If you're eating simple carbohydrates like breads and pastas, things that are refined, you should just consider that sugar. Nutritionists and biochemists are going to argue with me on that point, but just for the sake of simplicity, I would say that's the case.
Speaker 1:Now, if you start, getting the things that are dense in dietary fiber, then that becomes a different story because that's not all broken down into calories, like oatmeal, like well. There are certain sources of carbohydrates like oatmeal that have more insoluble fiber, meaning fiber that doesn't get broken down and stays in your gut and moves with your stool, so that doesn't actually contribute to a caloric intake.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, but just to be clear, this is plain oatmeal, not oatmeal that has added brown sugar. Oh, yeah, sure.
Speaker 1:Well, that's something you always have to consider too. So that's the funny thing about diet culture and food culture. Now Everything's labeled a health food and by no fault of anyone, they're given an advertisement that says oh, this is a health food, it's got fiber, it's good for your heart, it reduces cancer. They don't realize that they've had 10 teaspoons of brown sugar added to the oatmeal, and that's something sometimes people just don't think about.
Speaker 2:Right. Well, are we going to talk about the amount of added sugar in everyday drinks as well? I don't have those numbers right in front of me, but you can imagine that sugary soft drinks are Not just soft drinks either, it's like a lot of these. So I remember drinking this quote water, drink smart water, or something. Oh yeah, do you remember that?
Speaker 1:And Gatorade.
Speaker 2:Gatorade.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all of those things that people think of vitamin water.
Speaker 2:Vitamin water. That's what it was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all of these drinks that people consider healthy. Oh, gatorade vitamin water. It's healthy. It's got vitamins in the word. It's got tons of added sugar in it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Really, my message for the end of this episode is going to be that added sugar is really not the best choice for you, so you really shouldn't be consuming things with lots of added sugar. Very often, when you talk about carbohydrate, carbohydrates are things people need. That's gonna make some people angry. People who are the keto diets or the carnivore diet zealots will try to make this as basic as possible, without getting too much in the weeds. For the most part, most cells in the body and the brain run off of glucose, which is the most basic sugar molecule that you can get, and carbohydrates essentially break down into glucose and that's your body's main fuel source. Most of the time, if you're on a ketogenic diet or a low carb diet, your body can use other food as energy sources, like ketones hence the name keto diet but it doesn't generally eliminate glucose in your body 100%. Even if you're not feeding your body carbohydrates and glucose directly, your body can actually make carbohydrates on its own via a chemical process called gluconeogenesis.
Speaker 2:Ooh, say that one more time. Gluconeogenesis Ooh, nice Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's basically glucose. Neo is new and then Genesis creation, so your body can actually create.
Speaker 2:You got that out of the Bible, didn't you?
Speaker 1:I didn't make it up, so I can't tell you. I don't know, I didn't make that word up.
Speaker 1:So your body is remarkable at making things that you don't consume if it needs it. Have you ever heard of essential amino acids or essential fatty acids? That means those are amino acids and fats that your body cannot produce. When it says essential, it means you must eat them, you must consume them, Otherwise you can't get them, and they're vital for life. So those do exist, but a lot of amino acids and fats and carbohydrates can be formed by your body on their own, even in the absence of a food source. So you can eat protein and turn it into sugar. If you eat excessive protein and you don't have enough sugar, your body will make it on its own.
Speaker 1:That was probably a little bit in the weeds, but let's talk basics here. You can have a really low carbohydrate diet and you can survive that way. But in general the average American consumes probably around 300 grams of carbohydrates a day. Let's say we're assuming a 2000 calorie diet here. Most people should eat around 200 grams of carbohydrates a day and I've seen estimates as low as if you're a sedentary person who doesn't do a whole lot of activity, you can go as low as 100 grams of carbohydrates per day and maintain healthy glucose levels.
Speaker 2:Can you explain like what? On average? Like a slice of bread. Do you know how many carbohydrates that would typically contain?
Speaker 1:I think your average slice of bread has about 12 grams of carbohydrates in it.
Speaker 2:I'm just trying to think of things that I enjoy eating every day. I had a bowl of oatmeal for lunch, I have a sandwich that's two slices of bread. For snack, maybe I have an apple, and then for dinner something like sweet potato mashed potatoes. I don't know what kind of carbohydrate count that comes out to.
Speaker 1:But if you're eating food from a grocery store, you're going to find that it's all labeled and obviously those labels aren't perfect. In this day and age you can get a pretty good idea. If you actually want to track your calories, there's lots of tools online. If it's processed food, it's always going to have a calorie count and a macronutrient breakdown to tell you how much protein, carbohydrates and fats are in it. And if you just go online, there's lots of websites where you can say, one apple medium-sized average carbohydrates, which is about 25 grams for an apple, and you also have to remember if you're eating that apple it's got some complex carbohydrates like fiber in it, so it may not actually have the same impact as a 12-gram of carbohydrate piece of bread does.
Speaker 2:Okay, but basically what I'm trying to get the point across is, if you have a sedentary lifestyle and you should realistically only be eating 100 grams of carbohydrates in a day, if one apple medium size is typically about 25 grams of carbs, you have a maximum of four apples you can eat that day. Now that you would eat four apples.
Speaker 1:I don't expect anyone to eat a hundred grams of carbohydrates in a day. By the way, that's I don't know that's really a super realistic goal. I'm just saying it's not entirely unreasonable. I think most people are probably going to go more for that 200 range if they wanted to shoot for something healthy, but most people are actually hitting 300, which is probably excessive, and a lot of those carbohydrates are probably coming from refined added sugars as well, so that's even worse.
Speaker 2:I would just think that the average person, unless they have gone through some sort of meal plan, nutrition plan or are aware of tracking macros for whatever reason or maybe they're doing Weight Watchers or something like that the idea of eating 100, 200, 300 grams of carbohydrates is out there. It would just be good to paint a picture of okay, if you have a bowl of cereal or a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, it's typically this many carbohydrates. If you have a sandwich for lunch, it's this. If you have a bowl of cereal or a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, it's typically this many carbohydrates. If you have a sandwich for lunch, it's this. If you have that bag of chips, it's this. So that's why I'm just trying to paint a picture.
Speaker 1:You know what my number one advice to any person who's trying to lose weight and diet is?
Speaker 2:Stick with it.
Speaker 1:No, no, I've asked you this on the podcast before. What's the first thing I tell people when they come to me and ask about weight loss advice? I don't know. Keep a food journal.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you've said that.
Speaker 1:Yes, keep a food journal, and by that I mean you write down what you ate, you do your best to at least estimate the portion sizes and you do your best to at least estimate the calories and macronutrients. So so you have an understanding of what you eat and what it is you're putting into your body, and you do that for a couple of weeks. A lot of people are really pay attention. Nicole's currently staring at her cat, who's tapping on the glass, trying to get into the studio.
Speaker 2:Because it's so cute, and for Lauren.
Speaker 1:I'll let him in Really. Yeah, nicole's got a happy cat who probably has diabetes, so now she's happy. Yes, he has not kept a food journal. The whole idea of the food journal is for exactly the reason you're talking about is, I think the average person has no perception or idea of what they're putting into their bodies, in terms of what they're eating. They just eat what is convenient or pleasurable, which is a normal, normal human decision making.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And they don't think about exactly what it is they're consuming, and they probably also maybe don't realize how often they're snacking in between meals either.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And so that's why I think that the food journal for a couple of weeks is probably the most valuable tool that I can give somebody to have an idea of what they're doing and where they're starting.
Speaker 2:And what you drink, because even if you have a coffee in the morning, if you're adding sugar to it or if you're adding a flavored coffee, creamer, coffee, yeah, that's gonna to include a fair amount of carbohydrates or sugar as well.
Speaker 1:That's right. There's a lot of stealthy calories out there, like you named a big one. So coffee creamer salad dressing is one of my favorites because it's filled with oil and fat. Like, for, every gram of protein or carbohydrate is four calories, but every gram of fat or oil is nine calories, so it's actually twice as calorically dense as your other macronutrients twice as calorically dense as your other macronutrients.
Speaker 1:One of my favorites to talk about is Chick-fil-A. Not to pick on Chick-fil-A they're great, they taste great, but I've looked at the calorie counts and macronutrients on their sauces. If you have one Chick-fil-A sauce, that's a massive amount of calories and so you're already accounting for the fried chicken you're eating. But then you're using one or two whole packets of sauce and you're really heavily increasing the amount of calories you're eating. And a lot of people don't even take into account the sauces they put on things.
Speaker 2:What about your Arby's special sauce, Dr Big Guy?
Speaker 1:I have never, ever eaten.
Speaker 2:Arby's in my life. That's a lie.
Speaker 1:I'm not endorsing any particular fast food chain. Arby's is my dirty little road trip secret. Arby's is only for road trips, that's it. Arby's is only supposed to be eaten at 10 o'clock at night. When you're in the middle of Georgia, in the middle of nowhere, driving across the interstate, you keep that to yourself, I know all of your secrets.
Speaker 1:Not to get too much on a tangent, but when we talk about protein, protein is the most satiating macron on a tangent but when we talk about protein, protein is the most satiating macronutrient. So when you're eating protein, it actually tells your brain and your stomach that you're full more quickly than other macronutrients. So it's best to eat your protein before everything else in meals, and it's good to eat protein for every meal, especially in the morning. A lot of people just eat a bagel or a biscuit or something sweet in the morning. That's just carbohydrates, where it's not satiating, and eating something that's more dense in protein will definitely help curb that effect.
Speaker 1:Now we haven't even gotten into sugar causing cancer, but I knew that this was going to happen in this episode because there were so many interesting things to talk about. I want to talk about how food has shifted since the 70s. Everybody knows that obesity has been on the rise since the 60s and 70s. So there's all this debate on. Is obesity a willpower issue? Can you just not lose weight and keep weight off because you don't have enough willpower not to eat?
Speaker 2:I know that was a sentiment for a long time, but it is rather suspicious that a large majority of our population not just in our country but in other countries as well they struggle with this as well, as across all age groups. It's not just one particular generation, and originally I was thinking, oh yeah, that must be because parents are raising their children and their children are doing what the parents do. But I don't think that's necessarily it anymore.
Speaker 1:I used to fall into the camp of if you have willpower and you're disciplined, you'll be fit and trim forever and you'll never be fat, and I totally don't believe that anymore. Obviously, willpower and discipline can play a role. You can deny yourself and you can have a very structured diet, but really I think there's a lot of forces that are against us from eating healthy and being healthy, and there's a lot of stuff that's behind the curtain, manipulating and making it a lot harder. That's not to say that people make bad choices, but the thing that was really compelling to me is that do we just all magically become undisciplined with no willpower over the last five, six decades? Is that we're all just massively inferior to our predecessors? I don't think so. That brings us into a topic that I think I've hinted at in the past on this podcast, and that's hyperpalatability. Have you heard me use that phrase?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:What does it mean to you?
Speaker 2:It means that things taste extra extra good in like an unnecessarily unnatural way.
Speaker 1:Right. A simple way of defining hyperpalatable foods would be there's a specific combination of sugar, fat and sodium that increases the likelihood of consumption or overconsumption, I should say. And that would be fast food, candy bars, potato chips, processed snack food that you just cannot put down. You have that bag open in front of you and you just cannot stop eating it. It's almost a mindless. Just keep on putting it in your mouth.
Speaker 2:Once the top pops, the fun don't stop. I don't know. Pringles, pringles, yeah.
Speaker 1:There's not any Pringles in our house, so I guess that's a good thing that we don't know that phrase. Huh, it is. If you look at the food industry I'm talking about companies that are actually producing food. They actually have a term for something called the bliss point of food. They try to design food that has the optimal combination of flavors. Sweetness of food they try to design food that has the optimal combination of flavors. Sweetness we're talking about salt, fat ratio, even texture, like chewiness or crunchiness, and all of those things that are supposed to maximize your reward system and dopamine reaction in your brain to give you the most euphoria and bliss possible with food. That, to me, is very remarkable that there are teams of scientists who are working on trying to make your food essentially addictive. Now, I don't want to make that sound sinister. It's natural for a company to just try to make their product as desirable as possible. It's just a normal human drive. But I think it's come to create massive problems for us as a society.
Speaker 2:I can tell you that there are two different ice cream makers who pretty much make their ice cream irresistible to me. I shan't name names.
Speaker 1:We've already talked about Pringles and Arby's and Chick-fil-A, so I mean go for it.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, jenny's ice cream so delicious I can't help myself. And also Klumpy's ice cream, which is like a local ice cream place in Chattanooga Tennessee.
Speaker 1:Yeah, those are both good spots. Jenny's is probably pretty well known, but Columbia's is probably a little bit more local. Why wouldn't you try to make food as tasty as possible if you're trying to sell food to people? I don't know if there's some evil scientist in a lab tapping his fingers together.
Speaker 1:I think Mr Burns from the Simpsons Excellent. We were making this hyper palatable food. I don't know if there's that guy, but it certainly led to a point where what I've been telling people recently it's not that people are making the decision to be obese or suddenly no one has willpower. I think if we just eat naturally, meaning our natural inclination to eat, without any kind of serious thought or structure, will lead to obesity. The normal average person will get obese if they just eat on a whim, like what's advertised to them, what's presented to them, what's convenient, what's around them, the environment we all find ourselves in today will make us obese. One in three Americans are obese and one in three more Americans are overweight. Now. Those are shocking.
Speaker 2:So two-thirds of people are an unhealthy weight.
Speaker 1:Either overweight or obese.
Speaker 2:yes, oh goodness yeah.
Speaker 1:That's where we're at now. This is not a oh. There's just a select few people who are lazy slobs, who can't manage themselves. This is something far more than that. This is not what we were led to believe, and I think it has to do with this hyperpalatability. Again, I'm not assigning blame to anybody. I don't necessarily think that there's any evil intent there, but this is what's happened, and I think that this is the main driver of obesity and all this chronic health that we've been discussing on the podcast the last several months, like diabetes and heart disease and chronic inflammation.
Speaker 2:Well, we have a lot of excess of pleasure in our life's lives in general. I mean, you think about I'm just going to put that out there Like the average human being enjoys sexual relations, I would say it's always back to sex with you.
Speaker 2:But you think about the internet, and the majority of it is used for things like porn right, I don't have the exact statistics on that, but it's instantly accessible, it's hyper pleasurable and it's something that a lot of people get addicted to, and I think the same thing for food. We think about social media and the access of these platforms on our phones. People get addicted to that. They get addicted to video games, so anything that really drives up that dopamine center in our brain. We're going to find ourselves getting addicted.
Speaker 1:That word addicted is funny. There's a lot of baggage with it because people will say it's not a true chemical addiction. But let's just say for all intents and purposes it's a behavioral addiction. It's pleasurable. It's hard to break out of that cycle.
Speaker 1:What I will say, as always, I know I've said the pendulum swings multiple times this episode, but I do see people now going towards and saying it's not your fault that you're fat or not your fault that you're overweight. And I really want to avoid the majority of saying people are fat here. It's not my intention to tell people that you should be ashamed of yourself because you're overweight. You should feel less than because you're overweight. I have no desire to make that connection. I'm only trying to help people understand how they can have a more manageable, healthy weight so that they can be more happy and live longer, healthier, functional lives. That's the only reason I'm doing this. It's not to assign personal judgments or values on them.
Speaker 1:That, with that caveat being out of the way, I have seen people saying it's not your fault that you're overweight and sorry, going on the far end of the direction you have no responsibility, it's all the food industry's fault. I don't subscribe to that either you're listening to this podcast, you're listening to other podcasts and you're understanding the problem and the dilemma that we're in now. Now you got to do something about it. I'd encourage you to read what you're eating, understand what you're eating, put more efforts into eating whole foods and understand the calories and macronutrients that you're actually consuming. And understand that these companies are trying to manipulate you with advertising and the bliss points, and understand that you have to break the cycle. So once you have this information education in you, you have to do something with it because you're equipped with it. Before you could plead ignorance, but now you know, so it has been lifted.
Speaker 1:It's just a tool to fight what's admittedly a very difficult battle because of the arsenal that's against you. You're in for a rough road, but you can do it All right off my soapbox. By the way, I'm not immune to this either. Doing all this research and talking about it, I've had a grasp of all these concepts we're talking about today, prior to this. But studying it and actually looking at the literature especially about the food industry and their ways of making these bliss points and using visual cues and audio cues to try to stimulate that hunger response in you, it's pretty diabolic Now that we finally set up all this. We've talked about hyperpalatable foods. We've talked about sugar and we are understanding the problem that we're having. What always bugged me about people talking about sugar is macronutrients. You ever heard of people talking about calories in, calories out?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The idea that it doesn't matter. Let's say, you're given 1,500 calories to eat in a day and it doesn't matter where those calories come from, whether it's 1,500 calories worth of candy bars or 1,500 calories worth of meat, it is the calories in. Is what's going to promote the calories out, or something.
Speaker 1:Well, mostly it just means the calories. You did really well with that, but the calories in have to match the calories that you're burning. Whatever amount of energy you're burning for a day, if it's 1,500 calories, if you also eat 1,500 calories of no matter what the food is, then you're not going to gain weight. Or if you eat a little bit less than those calories you burn, you'll lose weight even if it's all from candy bars, and there's actually studies that show that's true. That's not a healthy way to live because you're not getting a lot of essential nutrients, especially protein and essential amino acids, but eating just candy bars. The other thing is you'll find that if you eat 10 candy bars in a day and hit your macronutrient allotment, you're going to be pretty hungry the rest of the day because you're not satiated and you're not having sustained slow burn energy that you can use.
Speaker 2:You're probably going to get scurvy too, yeah.
Speaker 1:You're probably going to get scurvy too. Yeah, you're going to have all sorts of vitamin nutritional deficiencies if you eat only candy bars to meet your macronutrients and you're going to have a pretty miserable existence. There's a lot of nuance to this, but if you talk to people who talk about calories and calories out there like sugar is not the devil, you can eat sugar. I think there's truth to that and there's a lot of studies that look at excess calories and cancer risk and I want to talk about some of those and some of the studies associated with caloric restriction in general, because I think this is super interesting.
Speaker 1:There is a human study that looked at this and it's called calorie, the calorie trial, and a lot of scientists have fun naming these studies so they're more memorable.
Speaker 1:So it was called the comprehensive assessment of long term Comprehensive Assessment of Long-Term Effects of Reducing Intake of Energy, if you turn that into an acronym C-A-L-E-R-I-E calorie. They took these people and tried to reduce their caloric intake by 25% over a long period of time. The average study participant was able to reduce up to 12% of caloric reduction. So they did not manage 25%. That's pretty intensive to keep up of caloric reduction. So they did not manage 25%. That's pretty intensive to keep up for a long time, and it did lead to decreased inflammation markers and improved metabolic health, and these participants maintained up to a 10% weight loss over a two-year period and reduced their risk factors for diabetes, heart disease and cancer. If you study this for 20, 30 years, you may see even more impressive statistics from that, but since it was only a couple of years, then the conclusions are limited, but I think that this study is still ongoing. They have different subsets of the study that they're still doing, I believe.
Speaker 2:Gotcha. I just keep thinking how important it is to eat food that is grown from the earth naturally. But then the nihilistic part of me is like like yeah, except we've destroyed the earth and we have all these chemicals and toxins leaking in and destroying our plants and everything.
Speaker 1:And that reminds me of the instagram reel I sent you the other day where this guy's yes drinking from a bottle of water and it's like you can't drink from that.
Speaker 1:It's made of plastics. And then instead he like starts pouring water from his tap into the filters like that's got lead in it. You can't drink that. He's like you know, like every single thing is gonna kill you, which, yeah, I really related to and laughed, because I'm so much in this world that it seems like you can't do anything right and everything. You're gonna die no matter what you do, which which is true yeah, I mean, I guess that is true yeah, but let's not get nihilistic.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'll try now. Just give me some Jenny's ice cream, that'll help.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, I guess it'll kill you faster. Jenny's is going to sue us for this episode.
Speaker 2:I mean, I am telling you they have the best ice cream ever.
Speaker 1:Jenny, I love you. Yeah, no, seriously, keep making your delicious poison, jenny, keep on going it.
Speaker 2:Okay, it's really quite good. Yeah, I'm not trying to say they have a mad scientist. I'm just saying their food's so good that I want to eat it all the time.
Speaker 1:I think most people understand that if they eat more calories than they burn, they're going to gain weight, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:There's multiple studies, like the one in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2003, which linked to just excessive calories. They lead to weight gain, accumulation of visceral fat. This promotes inflammation and metabolic dysfunction like diabetes and hypertension and other metabolic disorders. Visceral fat, specifically fat around the organs of your abdomen inside, increase insulin and insulin-like growth factor, which can fuel cancer cell growth. As we said before, obesity in general is linked to an association with increased risk of 13 different types of cancer. So it's just excessive calories in general, whether you have a low carb diet or whatever it is, can lead to these health risks. So just because you're eating low carb doesn't necessarily mean you're in the clear if you're exceeding your daily caloric allotment. Everyone knows eating too many calories is going to cause health problems, but maybe they don't understand the risks and profound problems that they may face with excessive calories.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it just seems like a far away problem. Yeah, like, oh, I will eventually become obese or and that will eventually lead to heart disease or diabetes type two, and maybe eventually someday I'll have my leg chopped off. But it doesn't seem like a right now problem.
Speaker 1:Do you often think about that? You're going to have your leg cut off if you eat Jenny's ice cream.
Speaker 2:No, no, I do not. I only brought that up because of our episode we did on diabetes a couple weeks ago.
Speaker 1:When we're talking about excessive calories. I do want to just break that number down a little bit. It's estimated that the average American adult consumes up to 3,800 calories per day 3,800.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, don't all the nutrients say, based on an assumed 2,000 calorie diet 2,000 to 2,500 is the assumed normal caloric intake. So we're eating almost twice as much, almost twice as much Average on a daily basis.
Speaker 1:Ruh-roh, that's right. Well, two out of three people are overweight, right, essentially, ruh-roh, that's right.
Speaker 2:Well, two out of three people are overweight, right, essentially, yeah, so I mean including myself, unfortunately, but I'm working on it.
Speaker 1:Again, no judgment, no pejoratives here. We're just talking about a problem that a lot of Americans are facing yeah, and not just Americans either. It's a worldwide problem. Yeah, I bring that up because I want to talk about and establish that we are having a huge problem with excessive calories, and it's not something that's slowing down or getting better on its own. What happens if we cut back on our calories? You ask the normal person what happens if you cut back on your calories? What will happen?
Speaker 2:I'll be hungry, maybe a little bit hangry cranky.
Speaker 1:A little bit.
Speaker 2:But my body will eventually adjust. It might take a little bit of time, I might feel a little bit of time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I might feel a little bit tired. I guess, if we're looking, let's look at specifically at cancer, because everything you said is true some people have energy deficits, some people get angry or hangry, as you like to say, but you're gonna lose weight if you restrict calories. Now there's a lot of nuance to that and how you decide to do it and if you can maintain it over time and yeah, you don't want to yo-yo and does your body adjust to your caloric deficit and does your daily caloric expenditure match your deficit at some point?
Speaker 1:and nor do you want to overly restrict your calories, like yeah somebody who has an eating disorder all of these things are true and I'm not going to get into all that on this episode. So I wanted to wrap this up with a pitch for protein, and everyone knows that you should eat protein right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but the source of protein is debated if you're vegan or vegetarian.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's not get into that too much. I'm not going to hate on vegans and vegetarians and if that's a diet that works for them and they have good results from it, I'm not going to hate on too much. I am going to say that protein is an excellent macronutrient. It's satiating, so it makes you full. It has a thermic effect, which means that when you digest that food, your body actually burns more calories digesting and metabolizing protein than it does carbohydrates and fat. So we call that the thermic effect of food. So if you compare a calorie from protein to a calorie of carbohydrate, it's not truly the same thing, because your body's having to do more work by producing and utilizing that protein. Protein is digested more slowly than carbohydrates, so it takes longer to break down, it makes you feel fuller for longer and it also helps stabilize blood sugar. So eating protein actually slows the absorption of carbohydrates and prevents blood sugar spikes and crashes, and it helps to keep a better regulated blood glucose level in general when you eat protein with it. Protein also stimulates the release of satiety hormones. So it's not just eating protein that makes you feel full. There are actual hormonal signals that go along with it. There is a hormone called peptide YY, which reduces your appetite. There is a hormone called glucagon-like peptide, or we'll call it GLP, that enhances that full feeling and slows down your gastric emptying, meaning your stomach stays full for longer, and it also reduces a hormone called ghrelin, which stimulates hunger. There are a number of different pathways protein uses to make us feel full and stay full for longer.
Speaker 1:A study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2005 found that increasing dietary protein from 15% to 30% of total calories significantly reduced the overall caloric intake and resulted in weight loss.
Speaker 1:And then other research has consistently shown that protein is more effective at reducing hunger and promoting satiety compared to carbohydrates and fats. And then there's also numerous studies in terms of high protein diets that have indicated that high protein diets help with weight loss and maintenance because of satiety and reducing your caloric consumption. So my biggest takeaway from that is I would shoot for 40 to 50 grams of protein with every meal and definitely try to get protein at breakfast. Obviously, those numbers vary depending on what your caloric needs are and what your protein at breakfast. Obviously, those numbers vary depending on what your caloric needs are and what your protein needs are, but as a larger active male, I definitely try to get more protein in every meal. It makes me feel full for longer, makes me not want to snack on things, and also has an increased thermic effect and stabilizes my blood sugar, so I don't have energy crashes throughout the day. Nicole, how much protein do you get in your meals?
Speaker 2:If I'm following, let's say, like an average meal plan, I'm getting about 1500 calories for the day, and it's 75 grams of carbs, 135 grams of protein, 82 grams of fat. And so the breakdown for breakfast would be 30 grams of protein, 24 grams of fat, 15 grams of carbs. Lunch would be 19 grams of carbs, 47 grams of protein, 20 grams of fat. A snack 24 grams of carbs, 3 grams of protein, 2 grams of fat. Dinner 16 carbs, 55 protein, 36 fat.
Speaker 1:So you're getting a lot of protein, and I think that's great. And if you're a larger male, you may need even more protein than that, especially if you're physically active.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's definitely a tip from my coach is like for Thanksgiving he suggested eat all of your protein and vegetables first and then you'll have less desire to snack on the other stuff because you'll be more full quickly.
Speaker 1:I think that's great advice.
Speaker 2:I mean you gave that advice earlier too.
Speaker 1:Oh, did I.
Speaker 2:You did.
Speaker 1:How about that? Were you listening?
Speaker 2:I was listening, yeah.
Speaker 1:Excellent, excellent. I'm proud of you.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:I think everyone knows about protein. Everyone knows it's good, but maybe people don't understand exactly what it's doing for you and how much you should get, and it can be a struggle to get that much. It's a lot of food and you'll find that if you try to hit 30 to 40 grams of protein in every meal, that could be a struggle. Yeah, and you can't just go to a restaurant and do that, because protein is expensive, so they're not just going to give you large amounts of protein in your food, especially fast food.
Speaker 2:Well, unless you go to a place like Texas State, brazil, or one of those Brazilian Like a.
Speaker 1:Brazilian steakhouse, yeah, then you could probably hit 80 grams of protein in a meal. I know I can, but it's funny, though, going back to the evil food industry, that they mark oh, this food is great for protein. And then it's peanut butter, which is loaded with fat and sometimes even sugar believe it or not and doesn't actually have that much protein. They can say whatever they want, and they're tricking you and they're trying to mislead you and they're trying to just get you to buy their stuff, and they don't really care about your health. It's not that they want you to die, they just don't care about what they're saying. They just want to make the food the most desirable to you as they possibly can food the most desirable to you as they possibly can.
Speaker 1:Try to educate yourself and understand what it is you're putting in your body, and I think that can go a long way for people, and I know that, after researching this study, I think I'm actually going to try some fasting, maybe a day or two, and see how what that does for me, and also I've toyed with the idea of caloric restrictions myself, because I've sort of been in a maintenance phase for a long time now, so I've actually considered cutting back. It's a good thing we changed the name of the podcast, because I'm going to be Dr Small Guy if I go too long. Oh man.
Speaker 1:I think that pretty much wraps it up. I hope that we didn't get too much into the weeds on these topics. I had a really great time researching the subject and talking about it with Nicole and with you all. I hope that there's some actionable things that you can take in your life and change your diet a little bit and have a better understanding of what it is that you're eating. Moving forward, try to consider how you can get more protein in your diet and, out of all the diet strategies that we talked about today, what might be the best fit for you. And consider focusing on macronutrients that focus on lower carbohydrates than the average population. And consider calculating your basal metabolic rate and caloric needs for the day.
Speaker 2:Mostly be mindful when eating and when buying food and then eating your food.
Speaker 1:So go out there and keep a food journal, be humble, be happy, be healthy, go do some squats, go eat some protein. The list keeps going on and on. No-transcript, no-transcript, caleb Davis. You can also find me on x at Dr Caleb Davis. We also have our website drcalebdaviscom for updates, behind the scenes content and more. Thanks for listening.
