Salt’s Impact: What Your BP Needs

Introduction and Guest Welcome 0:00

This is doctor talks. Real talk from real doctors. Only issues that matter to you most. Welcome back to Reversing Hypertension Naturally. And we are so excited today to really have one of the forefathers of eating a whole food plant based diet and just really embracing lifestyle medicine in the early days before it even had a name. Doctor Michael Klaper, how are you today? I'm just fine. Laurie, it's great to be with you and your viewers. Thank you. And today, we really wanted to hone in on a topic that I think most of us understand that salt can cause an issue, but even still, I even get some pushback sometimes with people who are hypertensive and still should be aware of the risks.

So I just wanted to kind of clarify some of the processes with you. If you wouldn't mind. In particular, when you think about, you know, salt in the hypertension link, how does excessive salt intake contribute to the development of hypertension? I that's, very important question. The answer can be a bit convoluted. And since we have time to speak at the summit, let me take a big, long wind up as a former ballplayer here. And, so, first of all, sodium, it's amazing. Atom. And it is an atom. It's one of the elements.

So that makes up, the universe. It makes up the core of the Earth. And we have a very primordial relationship with sodium. Of course, it's, sister atom chloride, makes up the, the milk. You. That is the liquid aspect of our cells. All our chemistry takes place in a watery medium, but it's not pure water. There's a lot of sodium in there. As I said, it's a primordial relationship we have. Because where did the sodium come from? Well, of course, if you believe in evolution, that life began in the sea.

When we developed into multi, multi, you know, cell organisms, and then eventually, made that epic trek onto land. We took the ocean with us, and, it's in the form of our blood circulation and,

How Salt Raises Blood Pressure 2:06

and the, the, the, intracellular liquid that's in all our cells. It's a salty, solution that we live in, that, we depend upon. And we've got a delicate relationship that it's, because of some of the remarkable properties. It has a solution of electricity, solution of, sodium chloride happens to be able to convey an electrical current. Well, that's wonderful, because we are electrical creatures. Our nerves of fire. Right? Electrical impulses are muscles, rule. Or electrical impulses. And it's the sodium that's in our cells on either side of our cell membrane that allow this electrical phenomenon to happen.

And we've got a delicate, relationship with sodium, like. Like Goldilocks. You can't have it. You know, some could have the soup too hot or too cold. We can't have too much sodium in ourselves. We can. Then the sodium can't be too concentrated. We would call from the inside if that happened, but it can't be too low either. We would, too much water would enter ourselves and we would cease to function. So we need to keep the sodium balance in our body, in our blood, in ourselves, and in a fairly narrow range, similar to the salinity of seawater, you know, and there's no coincidence of that.

So, over the eons, our body, what became our body, namely the organ known as kidneys and all organs have we they become very adept at regulating how much sodium is in our blood. It's the sort as the kidneys job, largely to determine how much sodium, to hold on to in our bloodstream, how much to let go of in the urine. And so the, the, our healthy kidneys are our safeguards of the right amount of sodium in our bloodstream. And, they do a pretty good job of it, because sodium out in the wild during ancient foraging days, a million years ago on the African, veld there, who we spent most of our days foraging for calories, digging up roots and tubers and energy and edible grasses and berries, etc., and occasional carcasses rotting in the sun.

I'm sure. But salt sodium was a fairly rare commodity. Not many plants have that much sodium in them. And and so we naturally ate a low sodium diet, and their kidneys had no problem excreting, these moderate amounts of sodium under your probably high blood pressure wasn't an issue, to our ancient Paleolithic ancestors. But welcome to the 21st century. We now use salt. Prof. Profligate Lee. The food manufacturers that understand how seductive salty foods can be. And, and so now, most, any processed food, if you read the label has some salt and sodium chloride, and whether it's the chips, the snack foods are obvious.

The, salty French fries at the fast food restaurant, but, cheese. You can't make cheese with those salt. That was unsalted, pretty bland stuff. And so the huge amounts of dairy products and these five cheese go, as the salt load and the restaurant meals, you the spaghetti sauce and the Italian restaurant, the, the soy sauce in the Asian restaurant. Tasty. But meanwhile, instead, that level of salt has come as yet. And now what do your kidneys do? With, with, after a meal, say, well, the amount of salt, sodium in the blood is going up.

Not a very good thing as far as your kidneys go. Why? Because, again, the kidneys job is keep the salt constantly from getting too high. You don't want to pickle yourself from the inside there and by there, I mean the, the salt would draw water out of the cells and our cells would shrivel. What was the sodium atoms? Pull water to them. Wherever they are. And you would get an intracellular dehydration. If the salt concentration gets too high. So the kidneys sense that, salt concentration, blood's going up after a bag of extra large, extra large bag of fries, and, and two slices of pepperoni pizza.

There's a big salt load, you know, in the bloodstream. What are the kidneys do? Well, the quickest way to to lower the salt concentration is to dilute it out. And, So how do the kidneys do it? Well, they retain water. Message goes actually from the brain. We've also senses too much salt down to the kidneys and kidneys. You know, that that, that water you were going to excrete in the urine. Hold on to it. We need to, we need to dilute out this. All this salt in the bloodstream, that messenger molecules called antidiuretic hormone.

But it makes us retain water, and it works, and it lowers the salt concentration. Yay! We can live to eat another pretzel. But, but there's a price. Normally your body's pumping. Your heart's pumping around about eight pints of blood. Well, now you you're holding on to water that you would have excreted. Now you're now your heart's got to pump around nine pints of blood. And then the blood volume goes up. When you retain all that water, we'll ask any plumber what any extra volume does to the pressure in the pipes.

In any system, there is more fluid. It the pressure's going to go up. And so this is the change. And there's a long answer to your question. How does salt raise blood pressure? There's a number of mechanisms. But basically the soil kinds of tension goes up. The kidneys retain water to dilute it out. The extra volume is going to, raise the, the sodium, you're going to raise the blood pressure. But there's other mechanisms involving, the, the level of muscle tone in the arteries. We'll probably talk about those.

But in general, salt makes you retain fluid, raises blood pressure. It's fantastic in the pressure when you talk about pipes. Asking a plumber. When we moved into this home, we had to re pipe our home. It was. It's a 50 year old home because the pressure from outside was coming in at such a high volume, at such a high rate that it was destroying the pipes in the house, causing little leaks. Anyway, it's a very clear demonstration of how much too much pressure can be damaging. So, Yeah, absolutely.

So that's fantastic. So the next question I'd have for you is, so what is salt sensitivity in the context of hypertension? And how can one determine if they are actually salt sensitive. Right. Well, we're talking about blood pressure. And you don't want to watch how high pressure in the system. Why? Because after a while, it's hard on the pump. It's hard on the heart. And the heart starts to thicken eventually. Fail. So high sustained high blood pressure is hard on the, the heart, the congestive heart failure.

But it's hard on the kidneys as well. That high pressure slam into those delicate filter membranes in your kidneys. Heart after a heart beating and eventually damages the kidney, damages the eyes.

Salt Sensitivity and Blood Pressure Measurement 9:11

You start getting hemorrhage in the eyes of the system. It's not meant to run on to higher pressure like the, like the pipes and doctor marbles is how you see the pressure that you damage the system. So this this is why we're concerned about it. The, your question again. So I guess salt sensitivity because sensitivity instead of the salt and simple to resolve and don't have, like normotensive individuals may or may not be able to take salt in and not see, but I'm not sure if that's so true. But anyway, you tell me.

Yes. No. Views. Right. This usually is, those of us, you know, rotavirus, in that, and is not going to be any great surprise given any biological response in this in a, group of human beings, including the human population. You're going to get this, the statisticians tell us is this glorious bell shaped curve and most people are going to be in the middle. Most people will react, with an X amount of elevation of blood pressure to a salt load. But some folks no reaction at all, for their, for any number of reasons.

Their kidney function, their the tremendous elasticity of their, of their arteries, of maybe they're absorbed. So whatever it is, some people are the tail of the bell shaped curve out there who don't react much at all. But that, of course, of their opposite number is there's a bunch of people who, even with just moderate or small amounts of sodium, low, they get a very exaggerated response. And then they, after a salty meal, conservatively walk around a person or 220 over 110 for hours. And this is not a good idea.

Or they're just constantly due to their daily diet, walking around with pressures ones 65 over 95, day after day after day, and again over time. This is built up. But it causes damage. So, are you a hyper responder or not? Well, they're only one way to find out, of course. And, we get around, I guess subjective, accurate blood pressure measurement and, of all the things we do in medicine, we're measuring blood pressure is, one of the more inexact science is, it seems, when, what is done, is a, cuff is placed around the, a major artery, usually the brachial artery in the upper arm, and a stethoscope is placed, that artery as it emerges from the blood pressure cuff, the covers inflated to a higher pressure than the pressure that in that artery coming down the arm.

And then the pressure is slowly released in the in the the person measuring pressure is listening to the first time in years that heard that blood surge through under that cuff. At that point, the pressure by definition in the artery is equal to whatever it was, reading on the cuff there. That's the systolic pressure. That's the highest pressure that the heart is mustering to, to, make that blood move through the system. This is how the blood pressure is measured. You then keep listening till the sound disappears.

That's the second number is the diastolic pressure. And this range ideally should be. No. The first number should be no higher than one 2130. In that area. That's the second numbers. When the arteries relax between beats, you want the pressure to drop down well below 90 and 82, preferably 72 lower. Yeah. There. So the split second the arteries get relaxed. So that's when the, the and what you're looking at these these are the peak in the trough of the pressure waves, that the arteries have to deal with as the heart is beating and you don't want them too high or too low for a reason? No.

Doctor. Marvelous pipes there. The, This is the sustained pressures, that are consistently high are, certainly going to, set you up for, you know, damage to the arteries. As far as measuring it properly, this really distorted. We are all told, most students are told the med school. Before you check anybody's blood pressure, be sure they've been sitting in a chair quietly for five count. Five minutes. Let the heart rate come down, that those arteries will actually get a baseline, but they're so often not what happen?

Everybody's in a hurry in the doctor's office, the nurse ushered in. Sit you down for the cuff on the arm. Oh 150 over 92 until you have high blood pressure. And, but all blood pressures go off just with physical activity. Just walking across the room, sitting in a doctor's office, generating and generating adrenaline. That's going to raise your blood pressure. So the the, blood pressures are notoriously inaccurate in the doctor's office. The best are done at home with your own blood pressure cuff.

Again, after you've been sitting quietly, either in bed or a chair for five minutes. Think yourself out in a nice summer day in a pasture, but blue skies and butterflies for five minutes before you hit that button there. Let that pressure come down and you'll get a fairly decent, reading. Do, readings are different in the morning than in the late afternoon after a full day of activity there? And you might notice the second pressure is higher or lower noted. Just write them down. But these are the numbers that your doctor really is interested in.

These are the more valid numbers for you. Because as you eat a whole food plant based diet and those arteries relax, the pressure comes down. If you're on blood pressure medications, maybe it's time to start, decreasing them or stopping them. And you'll know that pressure, because this is a go to, you know, you're standing up and get lightheaded. Your pressures 70 over 40. Pick up the phone or call your doctor's office and say I'm getting lightheaded, when I'm standing up. And here's the last. Your numbers.

Or do you think I might want to reduce my medication or maybe stop them? But this is how the process unfolds. So important. Those accurate numbers are important, to give to your doctor. There. That's how to get the best numbers. They're perfect. Yeah. No, I agree 100%. It's so important that they're monitoring at home so carefully and give very strict guidelines because not only do they do, but if someone else is eating the food that they're preparing, sometimes I call it positive collateral damage.

Basically, when people are eating these healthy foods and unbeknownst to them, that they are also going to get better, need monitoring of their medications. So it's really important the people around you to that are consuming these healthy foods. Which leads me to my next question. What are some of the recommendations for effectively reducing salt intake, like if someone is cooking or going out or traveling, like, what are your suggestions for people who are in different circumstances? Yes, well, as a recovering alcoholic myself, I've become very interested in this issue and I'm making an effort to entertain my tongue with non salty flavorings.

I love pickled umami flavorings there. And but there's too much salt as to why salt? So what to do? I've become a big fan of, squeezing lemon juice on my greens and my, and places where I wouldn't think, works on baked potatoes and sweet potatoes. They have strange places there. So you see where lemon juice can, can be entertaining? There's a whole world of balsamic vinegars. We've got quite a collection in our pantry, and, they they come in all flavors and shapes and sizes there. So try an assortment of those.

Those help, two other things. There's a, there are salt substitutes, that have instead of sodium chloride are potassium chloride. And they work. And if and some people don't like the aftertaste, some people find it really tasty. So you might want to check out some salt substitutes, with the help of potassium chloride. But you can mix up your own, if you get on the internet and watch, homemade salt substitute recipe. Though there's dozens and dozens of them using all these wonderful herbs, black peppers and, Reggiano and time and all these things,

Reducing Salt with Flavorful Alternatives 17:08

you put them in with these little coffee grinders, rather, and it turns into a lovely powder to sprinkle on your, on your veggies there. So, look up some of the recipes, for homemade salt substitutes. And then finally, I'm a big fan. I have no stock in their company. I wish I did, but there's, my one of my favorites is called Benson's Table. Tasty. It's nutritional yeast with some dry herbs, but it tastes salty, but it has very little sodium. And so I'm a big fan of Benson's. No, I have no, I don't make anybody up for your sales of their product.

So these are things to do, and to really make an effort, and, and hold the restaurant eating to a minimum if you have to do restaurant food is usually pretty healthy. Do the best you can and, and enjoy the meal and, and have the extra salad the next day. Exactly, exactly. So which actually got me to the salt substitute. So when you were mentioning the potassium chloride, how is that helpful? And, you know, is is it how is the potassium sodium balance helpful? For example, soy miso, even though it has some sodium but it has more potassium might be an potential okay substitute in small amounts I don't know what.

What would you suggest? Oh, so much in that excellent question here. This, primordial, pairing of, of the sodium chloride makes a table salt and makes up the milieu of our, of our cells and the dissolved salt and. Well, there's another atom out in the wings here called potassium that has a similar, relationship with chloride. Potassium chloride, is and potassium is a very useful, atom in our circulatory system. Our heart muscle depends on normal potassium. All the relaxation of our of our artery walls depends on potassium.

And, one of the nice things about a plant based diet. Most plants are rich in potassium, but little extra often is beneficial as far as lowering blood pressure. It does have a, the property of, relaxing the artery walls. And so it also and, makes for an interesting soap substitute instead of sodium chloride and classic cables all, they pull out the sodium, put in the chloride of the potassium, atom. And so now it's potassium chloride, and it tastes fairly salty and, and, it gives you a little hint of potassium.

And also, again, it is substituted for the sodium. You might been eating, your popcorn or whatever. What it is regular salt. So, some potassium chloride is, is a very useful, type of, of, sort of, salt substitute. And again, may have benefits actually in lowering your blood pressure a bit, but all of these are used in tiny amounts here and become an artisanal little thing. So do you need, to create a salty sensation? And Doctor Marvelous mentioned to me. So, I'm a big me. So fan is fermented soybeans, to paste, that you can mix up into gravies and soups and sauces.

And I love the taste of miso, but classic miso are fairly rich in sodium. They've now been backing down the sodium content of many today's modern measles. And now that some of them even have, potassium based me. So, and yeah, I welcome that. Apparently, according to Doctor Gregor, miso in general, there's something else in the soybean paste that seems to prevent big rises in blood pressure, despite a bit of a sodium content there. But again, you know, a tablespoon of miso once a week, in a soup broth is probably not going to cause great.

Great, risk for cardiovascular system. But if you can get the lower sodium version of it, all the better. Fantastic. So because a lot of people switch over to these fancy sea salts, and there's still the high risk of high sodium as well. Correct. The absence of salt is salt, even if it comes from the crystal caves in the Himalayan. Is is still the salt is actually salt. Salt, at the end of the day, it's just this distress, the same. So then when we speak to, iodine because, you know, iodine is a really important, micronutrient and many, and they, you know, developed worlds, eat table salt that was iodized, which helped with thyroid function.

So any recommendations to kind of off a little bit of a change. But we'll come back onto the salt here in a minute. But for iodine consumption and making sure people are getting what they need. Yes. Doctor Barbara's touches on a, a true fact of physiology in medical history and, people who don't have enough iodine in their diet, develop a goiter and or thyroid gland as the thyroid is working overtime to produce those hormone without enough iodine. And, the, is very dramatic appearance of these folks.

And so you want to give your thyroid gland enough iodine? No question. Obviously the ocean water is full of iodine. And so the fish eaters get plenty by dying, but, we, we are friends of the fishes, and, Well, let them off the hook there. So where does the plant eater get? I should be in the soil, too. There is a soil or a will element, and, and organic farmers should be, I have, the ideal like, organic farmer, as they enrich their soils with mulches, researchers should be plowing back seaweed back into the soils there and really keep their soils iodine rich.

There's other ways to get iodine into the soil, but it should be coming in, you know, especially root vegetables that take up soil minerals. So carrots and onions and turnips and beets, should, you know,

Potassium, Miso, and Iodine Sources 22:48

should be good sources of iodine and healthy, you know, from healthy soils. But, might not be the just commercial vegetables and growing that iodine. Poor soil. You may need to, look for other sources of light. And so where else can you look for, one place is that where was mentioned? Is iodized salt. People were reading, back in the 1920s and 30s. They were eating so little, iodine containing foods, people gained a huge, goiter. So they started adding iodine, to table salt. And it did take care of the, that, the goiter problem.

So and I know salt is still around and it would play a useful role, to in the life of a vegan who was looking for an ideal source. I think there's, we'll we'll come back to that as far as how to use iodine. So there are other iodine sources. There are organic vegetables you can get. What? Com is that green vegetable in the, In the Japanese restaurants, the salads there, that and gobble that on your super salad a few times a week. We'll we'll give you the iodine you need. What commonly is another, sea vegetable.

Aram is another. See, as well. You can get these and you soak them and throw them into your super salad few times a week so you can get iodine. That way, if you're taking a vegan multivitamin, and many of us are sure we get to know zinc and vitamin D, well, on the label, most of them at 150 micrograms. Right? I, I think that's a that's a good place to get it as well. So finally, those other sources, the sea vegetables and the, and the, the multivitamin that mentioned, what about iodized salt? I'm all for it.

Because, it comes down to the issue of table salt or salt at the table. And I here today in this, in this low salt world and and not for invalid reason, people say, oh, we got rid of our soul triggers. I will never salt or food. Actually, that's the one place you've got control over the salt intake there at the Italian restaurant. Not that you could do that. It's already in the spaghetti shop, but at the table you can decide how much salt you should be cooking with it. You can add so much salt in boiling water you don't even taste it.

But salt, if you're going to use it, should be added at the table because very little salt on it lands on the surface of the veggies. So when you bite into the corn or potato, you get a big salty kid on your tongue for very little actual sodium. The salt crystals deliver the salty taste without or without teaspoons of salt being involved. So I don't have a problem with, with salt at the table. If it's done in proper amounts, like the toxicologists tell us, the dose makes the poison and we're talking about a pinch, literally, of salt on your veggies.

That's about an eighth of a teaspoon a little less to make the teaspoon and a pinch of your very the a pinch of salt on your on your veggies. Breakfast, lunch, dinner that the 3/8 of a teaspoon. The, the general recommendation is, you know, one teaspoon is about 20 500mg sodium, so it's less than that. But, and that's as much as you want to use because all you would really need to use, and that would give you about 50 micrograms of iodine, depending on the actual. So if you're going to use a pinch of salt, make it iodized.

You can get iodized sea salt actually as well. Your big sea salt and get it under bright eyes. So yes, if you're going to be using salt, hold it to a pinch and let it be iodized. And unless you've got runaway high or if you're, three medications for blood pressure and it's still tilted over one three, don't be putting a pinch of salt in your food and, and all good. But if you get your blood pressure isn't an issue for you, hold it to a pinch. And the older I know that makes complete sense. I have one of my newer patients.

This last week is on five pressure and still on control. Should not be my heart rate. Okay, so lemon juice for that. Yeah. Key, new to the previous world. And I'm really excited to see where she might go, but it was like she didn't even understand the medications, what they were for. She's like, well, the cardiologist prescribed them like, well, this is why. And so, break my heart. But anyway, I do want to say thank you, you know, for joining us today, everyone. And I hope you found this conversation insightful and engaging, as Doctor Clapper always is.

And if you're a summit purchaser, stay right here, because we're even about to dig a little bit deeper into the salt conversation. And if you're not, click on the button below or the site and get access to the rest of the conversation. Now, if you're watching this, thank you for being a valuable member of our community. And let's continue. Right. Just a few more questions. Doctor Clapper, and I really appreciate you. Staying with us and answering a few more questions. So excuse me. When we speak to, the amount of salt people should be, consuming and educating the public.

So what are some of the effective ways we can educate general public, our neighbors or our colleagues about the risk of high salt intake and its relation to hypertension? Where where should we begin? Or maybe, you know, speak to your, efforts to help educate, you know, young medical students about lifestyle medicine and a plant based diet especially. Oh, my. You know, how do we educate society to change this course? Like turning an ocean liner here? Because, again, the fast food industry has have been artistic in their ability to, to seduce, the public taste, towards, so I saw foods.

And again, when you bite into a buffalo and you will taste the salt, but it's loaded with into the cheese, the thick cheese pizza you don't taste. The salt is loaded with herbs. And, we will come to accept it as normal. And, so it's quite a, quite a habit to break. And of course, this is tied into the bigger issue. And the truth is, humanity and certainly the American public, needs to, as individuals and as a society, make a big evolution of our diet to plant based foods and to a plant based foods.

Being for every reason you can imagine, it would clean our arteries and our guts and, and reduce our chronic disease burden. But it would, we need so much less land to grow our food that the forest would come back. And as the trees grow, they take carbon dioxide out of the air and turn it into solid wood. And reverse global warming is the only smoke only tool we have. Most powerful tool. We have to reverse global warming. The lights are flashing humans who want to survive as individuals and you want to survive as a species.

Evolve your diet, your plant based ones. The era of animal eating is over. You know, that's the message that that humanity needs to hear. That's what, many of us in the plant based world are trying to convey. And I'm trying to get under the guise of to the young medical students, you want to heal your patients, or you just want to treat their chronic disease, and you want to heal your patients. Get them on a plant based diet, and you'll reverse the diseases you're spending all these hours treating here.

So I'm telling them, you know, for the sake of becoming better, more powerful physicians who can really heal disease to educate themselves and develop the plant based diet. But I'm also doing it because I know is a key, key passage that our, our noble profession has to go through.

Educating the Public and Medical Students 30:18

We are the medical profession, which is a major bottleneck preventing this this change to a plant based diet. Our society, you know, doctors don't mention nutrition. We don't, we don't talk about a real know anything about. We don't learn about. So nothing it said at the visit, when it's one the treatment that could actually save our patients and help to, save their own lives. They're free themselves and these diseases. But when you get a big medicine funded, you're going to see these people get healthier and they will save their own medical practices.

But, you know, we we we, we silence the conspiracy of silence. You know, no one says anything. So the patients remain obese and sick, and doctors are very frustrated and our societies have continued down towards bankruptcy from for medical debt when none of this has to be, changed to a plant based diet is essential. And it could be done. What if every doctor at every visit, at the end of the the. By the way, Joe. By the way, Mary, how's your plant based decor? I changed to a plant based diet six months ago.

Man, I feel great, How's yours going? To want to see Mr. Smith, a plant based dietitian down the hall, to talk about your diet. Will be glad to arrange it for you. What if every doctor said that it would really change the course of medicine? It would change the course of our society. So you're asking you about how do we get people to eat less soul, drive together, be less animals. Let's, let's, let's move to a plant based diet. So the two answers converge here. Sorry to go off on this tangent, but, you know, I I'm facing the same thing on a larger scale here as we both are.

So, what would it take, really, if, it would take educating the public, and I'll talk to read books like the, the, that food is, food is Climate by Glenn Mercer. A little book, 60 pages. You can read it in two hours. And a little education on the issue. Read a book called Comfortably Unaware by, Richard Lander, who makes it very clear that adopting a plant based diet is our only hope and our most powerful tool. So educate yourself. Well, then, you know, make your own change. But, for change in your own diet, set a good example for the people around you.

But then all of the elect people who will involve other. We got to break up the logjam in Congress through our young, progressive, legislator candidates. The farm bill is coming up. We don't want to give more of hundreds of billions of dollars, to animal industries that just keep the, the pollution going. So let's select lawmakers to, change the subsidies, that eliminate subsidies for health of broccoli farmers, help help farmers and ranchers transition to some other use of their land. You don't have to run cattle on the land, grow broccoli, grow fruit trees, grow hemp for him to let the forest come back to you and help these people.

Transition is all doable. But you're asking, what would it take? Education. So transformation legislation and, and then the it and then I get there'd be huge marketing machine geared up. What if we had sports celebrities and movie stars? Oh, I went plant based six months ago. And, I don't get that, you know, within the NBA, you know, you know what? If all these glamorous movie stars and on TV commercials and billboards, you know, you could change his, It's doable. All this is doable. So asking, you know, how can we get people to eat less salt?

You could do. Well, you could do a, you know, the salt interest wouldn't be happy, but you could start taking out billboards and TV commercials. And again, and he told the doctors, and there's been campaigns to educate doctors about the high salt, the risk of high salt. But with every doctor to revisit said, here's your salt intake, here's how to here's the low salt vegetables that you ought to be eating, etc.. And then again, in public, you know, public campaigns, it could be done. And but, you know, buyer beware.

Caveat emptor in Utah. Beware. Caveat Utah. Now, either beware there's hidden sodium and in processed foods, you know, if it's if it comes in a package or a box is probably got salt in it. The things you can identify like growing in the garden. There's a tomato, there's a cucumber. They probably don't have a lot of salt, you know. So whole foods are always going to be on an island of safety. You know, if you're if, the consultant takes an issue, you keep the food on your plate to recognizable vegetables.

Are foods that, you can call by name. And, you know, you'll probably be okay. Yeah. I always liked, there is I can't I don't recall who actually came up with it, but the saying of if you can read the ingredients on a can in your grandmother would recognize the ingredients, you're probably okay. But if not, you put it back. So you need a chemical. Another guest? Yeah, I agree, that's a good one. If you need a chemistry PhD to decipher exactly what's going on. Oh, you do what you did right? Exactly.

So I, I love to, share further your work that you're doing with medical science. Can you tell us a little bit about it and how maybe people can get involved if they're interested? Sure. The sad truth is they're screaming from us. There's every angle of medicine, but the powers that be just don't want to listen to it is if the vast majority of patients that we are seeing in the hospitals and the clinics and private practice offices and that they're due to some weird and wonderful infectious disease, the majority of them are sitting in front of us overweight, hypertensive, diabetic, atherosclerotic, and inflamed from what they're eating from the standard Western diet.

They're pouring through their bloodstream every four hours for bacon and eggs for breakfast and a cheeseburger for lunch, and a fried chicken for dinner and the ice cream for dessert. That's the toxic food stream that's causing all this inflammation and organ dysfunction. And you get these folks on a whole food plant based diet, and they get leaner and healthier. The diseases reverse, the inflammation subsides, their joints start working. It's a magical transformation. And every doctor needs to know about this, especially every young doctor, really needs to understand the power of plant based nutrition.

And I realize that there's a there's an acupuncture point in the system there. If I can reach the medical students before farmaco sclerosis gets into their brains and they think that drugs and surgery are the only treatment for these, these illnesses, it's the food change that and, and you'll change. You'll save the patient's life. And I'm thinking this is such an important career changing because it's somebody should be telling the medical students that somebody should tell them that. And little voice that my shoulders is about you die.

And I realized that the best use of my talents at this point in my career is to go to the medical students and say, listen, the there's these diseases that high blood pressure, diabetes collect or these are not etiology unknown. It's the food. Generally there's other lifestyle issues, but it's largely the food. And so I say I give them the lecture I wish someone had given me 50 years ago called what I Wish I Learned in Medical School about nutrition. It's on my website, and, to give this message to them and tear down the curtain of etiology unknown, and empower them to, to give you the resources to educate themselves about how to become more be aware of plant based nutrition once they get out of, out of medical school into practice where they can practice medicine like they know it should be, should be practiced.

So I've been reaching the students with this message. We've established a nonprofit, initiative called Moving Medicine Forward, that helps me deliver this, this message to medical students across the country. If people would like to, learn more about what we're doing and, preferably, supporting this, it takes money to run websites and buy plane tickets, etc.. Go to movingmedforward.com movingmedforward.com and as reward for sitting through my, discourse here at 30, I will look forward to Doctor Marbas.

The four page handout, my healthy, healthy living, healthy body plan, handout that I give to all my new patients about what to eat and how to how to live a healthy day there. And, so, just, the Doctor Marbas will make that available to you, but check out moving that forward. You'll you'll understand what we're doing, and we could sure use your help. So thanks for letting me talk about it. Yeah. No, I think that's fabulous. I, I love that you're still passionate after all these years. You know, a lot of people that are there to go and sit on the beach and and relax, you know, but you're still making changes and still pushing forward.

And it's important that we all do in on all aspects of our career. So we appreciate you. So thank you. Thank you I it's the least I can do for this profession. You have been so wonderful to me. It's the least I can I over to our sacred calling here. So thanks for letting me get the word out. No, absolutely. We definitely appreciate it. So thanks everyone for listening and we'll see you in the next conversation. Thank you for tuning in to Doctor Talks. We hope today's episode has enlightened and inspired you on your path to optimal health.

Each day is a new opportunity to make choices that empower your wellbeing. For more insights and strategies, subscribe to our podcast and visit our website w ww dot. Doctor Talksport.com. Stay connected. Stay healthy and join us next time on Doctor Talks. Real talks from real doctors on the issues that matter to you most.