You are what you eat

Edward Levitan, MD, ABIOM, IFMCP

And why does it really matter? Because like, I think about There are plenty of athletes, let’s say that can that are under 30 that can eat pasta all day and do pretty well. And what, what’s the problem with that? And we find that first of all that, that, that’s not sustainable and then there’s that whole piece of mouse versus what, how do you call, what’s your constitution versus a bull if you’re a bull.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

You can take anything thrown at you. If you’re a mouse like me, you kind of go off the rails with small diversions and excursions.

Edward Levitan, MD, ABIOM, IFMCP

Very much so, there are people that can eat whatever they want, smoke, stay up all night drink, they’ll be fine. They’re probably not listening to the, this is for the people with chronic disease that every little thing can throw them off and food is so, so vital because if you really are putting in junk, you get out junk.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Well, let me dive in here because when we talk about autoimmune disease, chronic illness, anything that throws you off in order to develop autoimmune disease, you need inflammation and inciting event and gut, a leaky gut. And we’re talking a lot about food because some of the foods we eat and some of the experiences we have can actually increase our experience of leaky gut. When what we mean by leaky gut is that the tight junctions in the gut, by the way, your gut from your mouth to your anus is one cell thick. It’s stuck together just like that just like that. And the tight junctions are stuck tightly together, two cells stuck together. And when you have a leaky gut, what happens is those cells create space between them. Now, on one side of this cellular membrane is your gut intestine and on the other side is your bloodstream. Basically. So when these open and you have an a permeable membrane, anything that’s in your gut that’s supposed to leave your body actually has the opportunity to go into your body. Your body goes nuts. It creates an immune response. It creates the body saying what is this? And then you get all jacked up and you can have that lead to autoimmune disease which nobody wants. Speaking of someone who has an autoimmune disease, nobody wants it can’t even give it away.

Edward Levitan, MD, ABIOM, IFMCP

Selling, selling disease for sale. But I wanna, actually, when you were talking, I want to talk. I was thinking about, we did a podcast with Dr. Joe Pizzorno who was the founder of last year, one of the foremost naturopathic universities. Yeah. So one thing that I forgot, I have to listen again what he was exactly saying the numbers and everything, but basically in the 1960s and 70s, they did, they did all the studies on food, and they had I think 20 or 30 essential vitamins, minerals, nutrients that human beings needed. They identified what they considered to be 20-30 essential, essential nature, what the scientists identified right at that technology. That’s all they can do. And they showed that that was a minimum to survive And then there’s.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Hold on The bare minimum, right? Like this, this is not, this is called minimum viable product, meaning you can get by on it. But you’re probably if you’re like me and you’re a little mouse and not a ball, you are not gonna thrive, you’re gonna survive. It’s different.

Edward Levitan, MD, ABIOM, IFMCP

And then in the by 2020s we know they’re, each plants have thousands, tens of thousands and sometimes twenties of thousands of different nutrients. And those are the things that make you thrive, not just survive. And it’s not good enough that you take just a piece of a piece of the pie. You can’t just eat fat so you can’t just eat sugars. You have to have the whole plant, the whole new nutrients and it matters.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

It does matter. And just a word about that. You know, I know a lot of us look at the food pyramid and I will say, you know, I’m not so sure that we want to be going by that. I think what we want to be going by is eat lots of vegetables, green leafy vegetables, cooked raw, whatever you can eat as much of those as you want, eat some starchy vegetables. So you can get the fiber and the carbs and then eat a smaller portion of flesh. If you, if you eat flesh or if you’re someone who doesn’t eat flesh, then lots of beans. But if you’re someone who’s eating mostly fats and sugars, that’s not at all where the our bodies are gonna thrive. So you want to look at your food like most of your plate is green and colorful with lots of phyto nutrients don’t cook. Took it to death. You can cook it but don’t cook it to death. And a lot of us, especially as we age need digestive support. Because what happens is as we get older, our stomach acid goes down as we get sick, our stomach acid goes down. As we get stressed, our stomach acid goes down. So all of these are reasons that we aren’t digesting and breaking down and then absorbing our food optimally.

Edward Levitan, MD, ABIOM, IFMCP

I remember actually Dr. Jeff Bland, who’s the father of functional medicine probably was on our podcast. It was like one of those transformational experiences where we’re like, we’re with Jeff Bland now. That was amazing. And I’m actually thinking of like many years ago when he talked about the difference between organic and non organic food and the way he spoke about it really made sense. So if you look at the vitamins and minerals between organic and non organic food, they’re essentially the same. So when, when people ask about vitamins, minerals, yeah, they’re about the same organic, non organic. It’s not a big deal. What, what the difference is is with organic foods that are not protected. They have to protect themselves, protected by glyphosate, pesticides and other herbicides and petrochemical compounds. So they have to fight against all the insects and everything else, fight for the life. So they produce phyto nutrients. And when you look at the content of phytonutrients between organic and non organic, that’s where the magic is. And we know all those nutrients are directly signaling ourselves. That’s the amazing part is there’s nothing, all the reds and the greens and the, they’re all different signal molecules to ourselves to, to have a non inflammatory response, as opposed to a healthy response, healthy aging, as opposed to the sugars and everything else and processed carbs that have inflammatory response.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Well, let’s dive into that a little more red because when you refer to the process, carbs and the sugars, you know, you’re not just getting the process carb, you’re getting the processed carb and the concentrated form of the glyphosate and other herbicides that it was sprayed with a be the sugars, especially if they have high fructose corn syrup in it. You’re getting the sugar that is pro inflammatory. You’re also getting the glyphosate that’s been concentrated and guess what? You’re getting a little dose of mercury because in order to make high fructose corn syrup, you need mercury and that transmits into the food. So you’re getting pro inflammatory sources, right? You’re getting pro inflammatory sources of not just foods that aren’t helpful but are directly harmful to you. So when we say you are what you eat, what we’re really talking about is these foods are can either transform you or thank you. That’s from an inflammatory standpoint. We glossed over the gut permeability. But I think we’ve mentioned elsewhere that if you have one or both of the genes for gluten sensitivity, which is on the H L A subtype D Q two or D Q eight. Anyone even if you don’t have celiac, if you eat gluten, you’re opening up. Remember earlier in the talk, we talk about the tight junctions. You’re opening up these tight junctions and allowing foods to come through your gut into your bloodstream, foods, toxins, pests, pesticides, metals, you name it, it’s coming through and into your bloodstream. So you’re creating your own, essentially leaky gut by ingesting gluten. So if you’re someone with an autoimmune disease or chronic disease, that’s something we highly recommend that people consider doing is stop eating gluten. Because if you are genetically prone, you’re creating your own incidents of leak, you got just from eating and that’s why we say you are what you eat. So it’s really important to give your body the opportunity to heal. And it can sometimes take a few months to really notice a difference which sounds like forever, but you’ll notice something within a few weeks.

Edward Levitan, MD, ABIOM, IFMCP

We can’t skip over and we’ve talked about this before, but we have to not, we have to emphasize, I think the microbiome because they have, I forgot, is it 100 times more genes than in our body? And there’s 10 times of them than there are cells in our body. So they give us a lot of the genetics. They actually help us if you feed them right. They actually give us vitamins, minerals. They, they just, they, they eat and they give us vitamins and nutrients, they give us serotonin. Yeah. So, it’s, it’s so important now, if you give them herbicides and pesticides, you can kill them all.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Well, you’re going to kill the good guys. Actually don’t kill the bad guys. You kill the good guys because the good bacteria do have the interruption of the pathway that glyphosate interrupts and that makes them unable to make their core needed amino acids. But if you, but then the bad bacteria, you know, the salmonella, they’re psyched because the good guys have gone away, they’re no longer inhibiting them. So, glyphosate directly impacts the microbiome because it’s actually it’s actually an antibiotic. And so it will alter the microbiome. So when you talk about the microbiome, it’s really important to give it the best materials. You know, you wouldn’t make a car from dirt. You can’t make a beautifully functioning microbiome from food that doesn’t give your body and microbiome what it needs.

Edward Levitan, MD, ABIOM, IFMCP

And so we talked about the, and we can’t forget about the fiber and the pre biotics because you have to feed your microbiome and you have to poop every day. And both those things are good with the fiber every day, every day. So making sure that you’re feeding all your the microbiome with high quality food, with high quality fiber, giving a variety of food, hopefully food that’s in season, your body. That’s the other thing that we haven’t really talked about because if you’re eating, if you’re in a cold climate and you eat a lot of salads and we, and you’re eating a lot of cold foods. Probably not the best for your digestion.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

It’s important to eat with the seasons, meaning don’t do a cold juice fast in the middle of winter, you do do it as the earth starts to warm up, you can do a super fast bone broth soup, bone broth fast in the winter. And in the summertime, you would do your juice fast or the season start to go from winter into spring in the world wakes up, wake your body up too.

Edward Levitan, MD, ABIOM, IFMCP

And just watch also with transitions because between seasons, between winter and spring, sometimes the body acts up and you want to just, you’re gonna do something. You want to be mindful, all the things, all the tools, all the techniques that we give you a lot of our speakers give you maybe want to be mindful. What’s right for your body and what’s right for the season and sometimes even is the right time of month. I know that sounds weird but the moon cycle does change things.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

And your hormone cycle if you’re still having them. 

Edward Levitan, MD, ABIOM, IFMCP

Yeah, we gotta be really mindful of what we put on our body when the timing of it obviously, with the intermittent fasting, we want to give our body a break sometimes because the microbiome needs a break. Our gut needs a break. So doing a longer fast is always, not always actually a good idea.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

But do this also do this in conjunction with the functional nutritionist. Don’t go it alone. You are not an island, do not go it alone. Okay. There’s tons of resources. We’re here to help you. There’s tons of ways to support your body and transitioning through this. And today we’re really going to take a deep dive into how the body cleans itself and the impact of sugar and the impact of glyphosate and what it’s doing, it’s one of my pet peeve.

Edward Levitan, MD, ABIOM, IFMCP

And how to clean up and Keto and how that affects the body. And there’s just some really, really cool things that are up for today and really make sure that you listen and get as much as you can because there’s some amazing speakers.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

You can always go back to it too. I mean, we’ve really found that we do podcasts and we can’t always get everything from our speakers in one go. We have to go back and listen to it because there’s so much information packed into every day. So this is the reason to go back to it. Listen to it again. So dive in, have an amazing day. We’re here for you and we will see you again tomorrow.