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Why Your Understanding of Nutrition Is Probably Wrong with Dr. Gil Carvalho - E95
42 Plays18 days ago
Why is nutrition so confusing, even when we’re trying to do everything “right”? What if the problem isn’t a lack of discipline, but a misunderstanding of how nutrition actually works over time?
Learn why labeling foods as “good” or “bad” misses the bigger picture, and how focusing on patterns - not perfection - can transform your health.
In this episode, we explore the science of nutrition through a more nuanced lens, breaking down misinformation, individual variability, and the long-term impact of everyday choices. You’ll learn why most chronic diseases develop silently, how to think critically about nutrition science, the difference between population data and personal response, practical ways to personalise your diet, and how to build a sustainable approach to eating that actually works.
Gil Carvalho, MD PhD is a physician, research scientist, and science communicator. He has published research in the fields of behavior, nutrition, physiology and neuroscience. He is the founder of the YouTube channel Nutrition Made Simple, which is watched by over 500,000 people monthly. Dr. Carvalho trained as a medical doctor at the University of Lisbon, and later obtained a PhD in Biology from Caltech (California Institute of Technology).
“It's less about superfoods and poison and more about your overall dietary pattern.” - Dr. Gil Carvalho
In this episode you will learn:
- Why labeling foods “good” or “bad” ignores the bigger picture of diet and health.
- How science communication impacts public trust and the need for honesty in sharing research.
- What makes a food pattern healthy, focusing on balance and frequent intake of high quality foods.
- The three main types of scientific evidence used to assess diet and health risks.
- How to personalize nutrition advice by listening to your body and checking lab markers.
- Clear markers in blood work to track your progress and stay on top of health risks.
Resources
- Connect with Dr. Carvalho on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gilcarvalho.md/
- Watch his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@NutritionMadeSimple
This podcast was produced by the team at Zapods Podcast Agency:
https://www.zapods.com
Find the products, practices, and routines discussed on the Alively website:
https://alively.com
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
If we call something poison, it's tricky because one dose of poison can kill you, right, if it's high enough. But if you eat candy once in a while, that's not that big a deal. The problem is making these foods be staples of your diet, which unfortunately is what we see in the Western world world for the most part. is People eat too much of the low quality foods and not enough of the high quality foods.
00:00:24
Speaker
This is the Home of Healthspan podcast, where we profile health and wellness role models, sharing their stories and the tools, practices, and routines they use to live a lively life.
Meet Dr. Carvalho
00:00:38
Speaker
Dr. Carvalho, thank you so much for coming on the Home Healthspan today. Thank you for having Now, before we get into all your work, everything you do with your YouTube channel, Nutrition Made Simple, how would you describe yourself?
00:00:55
Speaker
I'm a lively research scientist turned science communicator, trying to help people navigate a confusing world of contradictory information, trying to bring reliable scientific information to their lives, trying to help them eat healthier, be healthier, and um get some clarity.
00:01:17
Speaker
That's an incredibly important and impactful role right now.
Trust in Science: Challenges and Solutions
00:01:23
Speaker
This actually is not where I thought I would start the question, but on that science communicator educator, i just think of over the past five or six years, the level of trust some people have with the scientific community, what's been shared, how it's shared, has really eroded in in a way that I haven't in my lifetime seen before. Typically, they were the experts who took what they said, that and it's looking very different these days.
00:01:52
Speaker
And so any a world where there is nuance, there is uncertainty, that's kind of how the scientific method works, What does that look like in terms of how you choose to communicate and what you choose to communicate? Yeah, it's a fantastic question. i I think the key is to try to be straightforward, try to be honest with people.
00:02:14
Speaker
ah If we infantilize the public and we tell them things that aren't true because we think they can't handle or oh, this is too complicated, let's not, that ends up backfiring. And I think that a lot of that was what led to this this problem of mistrust with, I think ah COVID and the pandemic was a big um catalysts in this this new new phase that we are in, where a lot of people, not everyone, but but yeah, there was a zeitgeist of mistrust because communication was not effective.
00:02:48
Speaker
ah Things were oversimplified or were um you know people were given kind of ah very brief versions of things that were that turned out to not be quite quite entirely true. And so people feel betrayed.
00:03:04
Speaker
um And I think that's understandable to ah to a degree. There's also, of course, the complication of during a pandemic with evolving science with a virus that's new. You obviously in the beginning don't know everything. So you're trying to give people what you know and then things might change in the future. And that's always difficult, especially in this environment of fear and you know have emotionally charged. But I think the best we can do is just be honest and say, here's, we have a lot of evidence for this, this over here is still fuzzy.
00:03:36
Speaker
And then when things change, say, here's new evidence. What we knew before changes in the light of this and try to explain that and try to explain also the ah behind the scenes, kind of when you when you pop the hood of the car, a little bit how it works.
00:03:54
Speaker
I think a lot of the the mistrust comes from not understanding the mechanics. And I take my share of blame and I put that on the the the shoulders of scientists and science communicators, because if we don't explain to people how science works, how we form scientific views, and why we say what we say,
00:04:13
Speaker
it's incredibly difficult. But if you don't inform, somebody else is going to fill that gap with lower quality information. And um and so I try to do a little bit of that, try to pepper throughout my videos and my content, a little bit of the the explanation of how science works.
Understanding Nutrition and Dietary Patterns
00:04:30
Speaker
Why is this study more reliable than that study? Why do we say this and not that? What level of confidence do we have with this thing and that thing? Not everything is black and white. And yeah, it's it's a harder message, but it does come across over time.
00:04:46
Speaker
Yeah. And I do. i I think it does take time. I mean, it was a conversation I was recently having with my daughter on the difference between lying and being wrong. Right? it's yeah You're proactively lying if you're sharing something you know is not true. But especially in science, we can say things we believe to be true at the time, but we were wrong. New evidence comes in and we we need to correct it.
00:05:08
Speaker
And it's just, I think, how we go about communicating the level of certainty we have and correcting that information. For me, it the skepticism started not in the health world, but the with fracking.
00:05:21
Speaker
I mean, they were so adamant fracking did not cause earthquakes. And then it seemed like overnight, they're like, oh, yeah, of course they do. and There was no sorry to all these people you said were crazy that didn't. believe I mean, so I got a little frustrated there. But I really, really like the the way you frame that.
00:05:39
Speaker
And you just close with and it's not so black and white. And and that's an area I would love to touch on where. There are a lot of times, especially as parents, and you're talking to your kids, they're good foods and bad foods.
00:05:53
Speaker
And i like that your approach is far more nuanced. There's not these blanket labels. And can you talk a little bit more about your thinking in that area? Yeah, I think with nutrition, you see the impact on health over the long run and over consistent intake of foods in a substantial amount.
00:06:12
Speaker
And so if we take, you know, candy or soda, foods that pretty much everybody accepts are not ideal staples of the diet, but that doesn't mean you can't have them ever.
00:06:24
Speaker
um If we call something poison, It's tricky because one dose of poison can kill you, right, if it's high enough. um But if you eat candy once in a while, that's not that's not that big a deal. The problem is making these foods be staples of your diet, which unfortunately is what we see in the Western world world for the most part.
00:06:45
Speaker
People eat too much of the the low quality foods and not enough of the high quality foods. But if your diet is primarily populated of health-promoting foods, and we can talk more about what that is, and if these less-than-ideal foods are occasional treats, I don't think that's a problem. and For some people, you got to know yourself too. Some people, um I'm okay not eating a candy almost ever. Like once a year, I'm fine. I don't have those those that those specific cravings, but some people do.
00:07:19
Speaker
And for some people having, you know, a piece of candy once a week might actually be a better strategy than trying to never have it and then go crazy and just... I go on a binge.
00:07:31
Speaker
So forming a strategy that works for you, but understanding that this all works for by um levels of intake and kind of how you're you're told, we talk about dietary patterns in nutrition.
00:07:42
Speaker
It's less about superfoods and poison and more about your overall dietary pattern. How does that picture look? At a highest level, the the advice I tend to give, I love to run it by you, is if you get roughly 800 grams of fresh plants,
00:07:59
Speaker
And a gram of protein for whether you say kilo or pound, if you do that as your base, you kind of eat whatever you want on the edge because you're going to be so full. You're not going to have that much of the other things anyway. And
Personalizing Nutrition Advice
00:08:12
Speaker
you're kind of going to cover your bases. is Am I wrong there? I guess I'm curious your take.
00:08:17
Speaker
I'm trying to think of the specific, you gave such such specific numbers that now I'm 800 grams of plants. Yeah. 800 grams would be like 1.75 pounds of fresh plants. So whether it's fruits, vegetables, just like fresh plants in there, and then roughly a gram of protein per pound, right? So you're 150 pounds, you have 150 grams of protein in there and you've had one in 1.75 pounds of plants.
00:08:44
Speaker
plants you're just not going to have much room, like go have an Oreo because you're not going to eat a whole bag of them. You're going to be pretty full. I think that's the right idea is to put the the big pieces in first.
00:08:55
Speaker
the The foods that are health promoting should be in there first. And then whatever room is left for the less desirable things. I think because youll you'll probably find that some people can still overdo the the junk.
00:09:09
Speaker
ah but Also because those foods more craveable and easier to overconsume, right? But yeah, I think it's absolutely the the right idea to to start out by prioritizing foods that are going to push the right buttons.
00:09:24
Speaker
You touched on it as well on the different levels or qualities of data and information that we need to assess and weigh when we're looking at what we should eat or what we should avoid or how we should balance things out.
00:09:38
Speaker
Can you, for those less familiar with RCTs and observational studies, like just kind of take us through a an introductory course on that? Yeah. So if we're simplifying, there's basically three levels of evidence. that there's There's more. like there's you know Anecdotes are a level of evidence, but a very low level.
00:09:58
Speaker
And then there's other studies. But ah the three levels that we really consider ah as forming part of the the the puzzle that leads us to a conclusion in science are, you said RCTs for people who are listening yeah who may not know what that is, randomized control trials.
00:10:16
Speaker
Basically, you take a group of people, you split them randomly into two groups or more, and you assign a treatment. So the strength there is you're splitting them splitting them randomly. There's no bias in that allocation of the treatment.
00:10:27
Speaker
And then obviously you follow them for some time and you and you record the results. That is ah the highest level, the the gold standard of of experimental science, the the randomized trial.
00:10:40
Speaker
And you try to conduct that if you can. You can't always do that for smoking, for example. You know, different reasons, sometimes ethical reasons or practical reasons where you can't do a randomized trial, where you can't do a long enough trial.
00:10:56
Speaker
So there's other two other pillars. The other is observational evidence. Basically, you're looking for ah a statistical relationship between a behavior and an outcome.
00:11:08
Speaker
So it might be smokers and lung cancer. You're looking for that relationship. Is it there? If not, is is it not? What's the magnitude? And then of course, smokers might also exercise less and eat worse and be more overweight. And what you're going to try to do is different ah statistical devices, but one is to adjust for those confounders, sort of remove them from the equation, see if the relationship still survives.
00:11:36
Speaker
Another one is to try to find a group, for example, of smokers that are not overweight, right? So that's another experimental device where you try to separate these things. and you And you run all these tests, you're basically raising the bar every time and asking, does it still survive?
00:11:54
Speaker
Does the effect still survive? And your confidence gradually goes up that the effect, this is probably a cause and effect. And the third pillar is is mechanistic. So usually experiments in lab animals or test tubes or Petri dish, where you're essentially asking the question, how does this thing cause that thing? How does smoking cause lung cancer?
00:12:16
Speaker
And you might puff smoke on a mouse or you might use what you know um one component of tobacco on cells and see what biochemical pathways get activated.
00:12:30
Speaker
And that becomes a clue for how this might have that effect in a human being. So those are kind of the three pieces of the puzzle that you then fit together and see what is your overall level of confidence.
00:12:43
Speaker
Okay, there are two very different questions that i kind of want to ask and double click there. One is specific when it comes to nutrition. Maybe it applies to others, but on randomized control trials, where just recently I've been researching more on the ketogenic diet.
00:13:02
Speaker
And the, some the studies are saying, look, it's not a panacea, but what we see is for whatever this condition or this thing is, there are 20 to 25% of people who are super responders, right? This 25, it just completely changes for them.
00:13:18
Speaker
And then there's this group in the middle, maybe 60% and there's 20, it does nothing. It's actually worse. Like their lipids, drag goes right everything goes off the chart and like, it's terrible. And at an average level, you say, oh, no, it doesn't have an effect, right? So it's not good, it's not this, but it's more individualized than that.
00:13:37
Speaker
And so how how do you parse this when somebody's out, well, what should I be eating? You're like, I don't know, who are you? you know what What is the right for you? how How do you parse this kind of data?
00:13:49
Speaker
Yeah, it's the right question. Basically, how do you personalize? How do you go from population level data to to the individual? It's not always a simple question, but one, the first level answer is what you were touching on, which is if you have data for a specific subpopulations.
00:14:06
Speaker
ah So I don't know exactly what you were referring to, but you know, with with lipids and and food, there's many examples. So for example, people ask about eggs. If I eat eggs, does my cholesterol go up?
00:14:19
Speaker
In average, when you look at a population, the effect is modest. It's real, but it's it's small. But then when you look at it at subpopulations, there's a huge variability.
00:14:30
Speaker
Some people can eat 20 eggs, their cholesterol doesn't budge. Others eat a couple of eggs. Their cholesterol goes up a hundred points. And so there's hyper responders and hyporesponders and all this, this jazz.
00:14:44
Speaker
So from still population data, you can get an idea of individual vari variability, and you can even understand what the mechanisms are. Sometimes we have an understanding, a molecular understanding of that.
00:14:58
Speaker
It might be, intestinal receptors and things like that, that determine how much cholesterol is absorbed, that explain the effect. And then at the individual level, so for example, side effects of a medication, any any prescription medication or even supplements has potential side effects.
00:15:20
Speaker
How do you know someone is going to experience that? You you really don't ah before you try. ah Even with supplements, even with foods, um food intolerances, right? Celiac disease, lactose intolerance. These are so these are all individual differences.
00:15:35
Speaker
For some of these things, there are there are tests, there are lab tests so you can that you can run. And there's also a factor of of family history. If your family all has a certain trait, there's a probability that you'll have it as well. But at the end of the day, there's absolutely a place for just individual tailoring of things.
00:15:55
Speaker
And so, you know, just because peanuts, studies say that peanuts are healthy for most people for population level, they might not be right for me. I might have a peanut allergy.
00:16:06
Speaker
And that goes for a lot of things of it with diet and lifestyle. So you have to find... a recipe that works for you, that fits your individual susceptibilities and intolerances, and ideally marry that with the the overall patterns that we get from, for the populations, but doesn't need to be so granular that, oh, broccoli is supposed to be good, but hate broccoli.
00:16:31
Speaker
Don't eat broccoli then, eat some other green or eat some other thing that is health promoting, right? Personalized for you, still within the the general theme. That I would like to click on a little more on, you know, my my daughter's 10 and my conversation with her when it comes to food is there's not good or bad. Like like you say, it's fuel.
00:16:53
Speaker
And so the best way to kind of understand it and watching my niece is the same. How do you feel when you consume it 30 minutes later, an hour later?
00:17:04
Speaker
And whether it's an allergy, right? She's allergic to pineapple. So we don't even see what she feels because we we see her break out. Like, okay, you don't, you don't do that. But yeah. Okay. You're enjoying this candy right now, but do you notice 60 minutes later, every single time you do it, you're in a bad mood, right? This is...
00:17:21
Speaker
This is a cycle we go through every time. yeah And so just trying to, and it's one thing for 10 year old, but we're we're adults and we have a hard time with this. yeah You know, I did not, until I started working on a glucose monitor, did not understand the crash after the sugar spike. I had no idea. Why am I so tired? Why do I fall asleep after lunch? Any of this until had a glucose monitor.
00:17:41
Speaker
What is your advice to people to the kind of practical, how to implement, right? If it does is personalized, how do you operationalize this in a life? Yeah, it's it's tough um because if you can if you can feel a difference, like the examples you were giving, then it becomes easier. becomes easier to understand this food might feel good right now, but I feel i feel terrible later.
00:18:05
Speaker
That's easier to accept. It's harder if you don't feel anything. And with a lot of things, unfortunately, with a lot of foods and lifestyle and smoking and exercise, a lot of these things, we don't necessarily feel it in the short term.
00:18:19
Speaker
It's long-term that the consequences come. And my own example is I don't feel much, if I can eat a McDonald's meal or eat a salad, and I don't feel a great difference over a few hours or a day.
00:18:35
Speaker
I've had many different diets over my life and I just i just don't feel much much difference. But I see the difference in the lab work, and I see the difference over months in how my body looks,
00:18:47
Speaker
And I know from data in millions of people that they have different impacts. So there is a level there of knowing the impact more long-term and and making that decision.
00:19:04
Speaker
It's much harder with a child to ask them to strategize for 10 years from now. Might not be realistic, but... Yeah, I guess it really depends on whether the person feels a difference or not. it is a difficult kind conversation, even with ah with an adult.
00:19:20
Speaker
And sometimes they feel better with the food that we have concerns in the long run. That's a really difficult conversation. um yeah So, ah yeah, I think you just convey the information and and you let people make their own choices.
00:19:34
Speaker
Yeah, I actually, i want to ask a question on that. the The feel better with diets that may have long-term consequences and the fact you touched on, hey, I've had a different diets all through the years. So, you know, anywhere from the standard American diet to carnivore to whole food plant-based to ketogenic and...
00:19:53
Speaker
For example, someone who might feel great on a ketogenic diet, but their lab work goes berserk, right? They just can't process it the same way. Or someone who feels great on carnivore, but...
00:20:07
Speaker
you know Dr. Greger or the China study, others are saying, oh, no, no, no. like You should have no animal protein in your diet. It's bad. but How do you think about and weigh these different diets? it can be Obviously, this is why you created the channel. You can understand how it's very confusing for a layperson.
00:20:25
Speaker
This is good. This is bad. what what am I supposed to do? It's really difficult, but i I think understanding short-term versus long-term is one part of the puzzle that helps. um and often what What I sometimes see people ah giving me feedback. So I'll make a video about heart disease and I'll explain, look, this is what we see consistently with these foods, risk of heart disease goes up with these foods, risk of heart disease goes down. We see that in the observational, we see that in randomized trials that look at outcomes. We see that in randomized trials that look at markers, like it it's all aligned.
00:21:00
Speaker
And so it's dangerous to have too much of this and it's ah more prudent to have a mix or and have more of it And someone will say in the comments, you know, that all of that science must be wrong because I'm eating all the foods that you said are bad and I feel great.
00:21:17
Speaker
This is very common on social media. okay And so I think explaining this this difference that it's entirely possible for me to feel great right now and be at risk of heart disease in the in the long run or any chronic disease for that matter.
00:21:32
Speaker
A lot of these diseases build what we call subclinically They don't give you a warning sign. Heart disease, plaque accumulates in the arteries. It doesn't give you a warning sign until very late in the game.
00:21:45
Speaker
Same for cancer, same for insulin resistance and diabetes. There are some signs, but often people sometimes are full on diabetic and they don't know. They have never been diagnosed.
00:21:57
Speaker
And then you measure their glucose, it's through the roof. Sometimes the first sign that you have heart disease is a heart attack. Sometimes the the first time you have cancer, is it's so grown it's it's it's grown so much, it's spread already, it's metastasized.
00:22:11
Speaker
And you're already having problems with the metastasis somewhere else. But the the the root of the cancer just grew. you know and And so this is a concern, and and i think it's important to understand this difference.
00:22:24
Speaker
A disease could be developing and not necessarily give you a warning sign. Now that doesn't mean that you're going to ignore the short term.
00:22:34
Speaker
How you feel short term is absolutely essential. And yes, if you felt worse before and you started started feeling better, in all likelihood something got better. Yeah. Yeah. You achieved some improvement.
00:22:47
Speaker
It just doesn't mean that everything is under control. There could be problems going on under the surface, right? So
The Role of Anecdotes in Science
00:22:55
Speaker
I think the, the epiphany here is yes,
00:23:00
Speaker
Pay attention to how you feel. Absolutely. That's that's essential. It just doesn't give you the entire puzzle. Or another way that I like to put it is listen to your body, but your body speaks multiple languages.
00:23:14
Speaker
How you feel is one language. Blood work that's through the roof is another. That's still your body talking to you. If your blood pressure is super high or your cholesterol or your glucose level is through the roof, even if you don't feel it, that's still your body talking to you.
00:23:30
Speaker
So listen to all of it. I was just having a conversation with someone who was asking about kind of supplement stack, with the things I take and everything. And i did a ah dry January, not dry from alcohol. I don't drink alcohol, but dry from all my supplements. So I just cut everything out for a month.
00:23:46
Speaker
And ah saying you know I didn't do the blood work just set into December and then also beginning of February to see the difference in it. So all I could really see is what did I feel or see differently um from it. And the only thing I noticed was taking out creatine, I seemed to shrink over the course of the month. That was the only thing I really noticed. And I felt like I had the same level of energy and you know slept the same you know compared month on month. i have my whoop data. So it's...
00:24:16
Speaker
If you don't have access to the data, it's there, your body's throwing off the data. If you've got the blood work, it would be there. You said that this is a the common thing you see on social media of, well, okay, the data says this, but it must be wrong because I feel this way when I do this. or Are there specific areas? The one that jumps out of me is say carnivore, where people won look like it cured, I had all these issues and it went away once I went on carnivore.
00:24:44
Speaker
is Is that a fair illustration of an area where this is true? like could Could you give a specific illustration of, hey, look, here's what all the data is saying. This is not the right thing or a good thing at a population level. But people come back with, well, I did it and I feel great, so it must be wrong.
00:24:59
Speaker
Yeah, it happens a lot um with I'm eating all this butter and I feel great, so the science must be wrong. Or... ah you guys are saying seed oils are not that bad, but I remove seed oils from my diet. I feel much better.
00:25:12
Speaker
So the science must be wrong or vegetables are supposed to be good for you, but I'm eating less vegetables and I, and I feel better. I have less bloating. Yeah. It happens in a lot of different areas. Okay. And I think the explanations might be slightly different, but the, the, the, the common theme there is that there might be something that you might have ah an individual susceptibility or there might be more than one factor in the mix.
00:25:39
Speaker
For example, with seed oils, usually when when somebody says, I remove the seed oils, what they mean is they removed a lot of ultra-processed foods that contain seed oils. So they removed a lot of snacks, they removed a lot of what else has seed oil, like all these ultra-processed packaged foods that have a lot of refined carbohydrates often as well, and snacks and cookies and whatnot.
00:26:01
Speaker
And they say, well, i lost weight and i my my skin improved and I feel better. Yeah, but lots of things change. I i wouldn't depend on seed oils when we have trials where you just change the seed oils and either nothing gets no nothing changes or sometimes you see improvements.
00:26:17
Speaker
So it's this difficulty reconciling real life, an anecdote that we feel in our bodies with this scientific experiment that can feel distant or kind of abstract.
00:26:32
Speaker
And if I understand it that's been the complaint on a lot of the whole food plant-based diet studies saying, hey, look, this is much healthier. It was saying, well, people who are on the, because these are observational, typically people who are doing that. They do more yoga. They're more affluent. They're more educated. They have all these other markers for longevity. And so...
00:26:53
Speaker
you're not just changing the food they're consuming, you're you're changing the entire persona and lifestyle. And I guess that's what you're saying on the flip side, on the the seed oils of like, you didn't just take the seed oils, you took a lot of other negative externalities that you were consuming that have changed ah the entire landscape or architecture.
00:27:12
Speaker
What is your take on that? So you said you've done many different diets, you're a science educator. What is your approach personally to nutrition now?
Critique of Food Guides
00:27:22
Speaker
Personally?
00:27:23
Speaker
Yes. I eat a modified Mediterranean diet. So, okay um, which I think is, is Mediterranean in general. And we're talking about traditional Mediterranean, not whatever people are eating in Greece nowadays, which might be completely different. But what we say traditional Mediterranean is, uh, if you, if you Google Mediterranean diet, you see this this image of, uh, some salmon with some vegetables and some olive oil. And that's what we're in science, what we call the traditional Mediterranean diet.
00:27:51
Speaker
um So I had a mod modified version of that with some personalizations, but the root is that. And that is what we have the most evidence for. It doesn't necessarily mean it's the best diet period.
00:28:05
Speaker
It's something that we have ah a ton of evidence. It's been tested a lot. A lot of long trials use this diet formulation. It's also very tasty, right? Yeah.
00:28:17
Speaker
like but it's But I've learned that this is so variable. Some people love it, some people hate it And it's also all ah nutrition is an acquired taste anyway, right? So um things that I love now, I didn't necessarily love 10 20 years ago. so But yeah, that's what I personally do. But I don't talk that much about my personal choices in the videos.
00:28:42
Speaker
I'll occasionally make one where I show it so people don't think I'm hiding something. But most of the videos are about what do we know? What do we know about nutrition so that you can apply it to you? Because it might not be, you know, what works for me. It might be a slightly different recipe. So I try to talk about information that is applicable to your life.
00:29:01
Speaker
That makes sense. you You just talked about Googling and pulling up an image. And so I do want to ask about an image. Not that long ago, we came out with a new inverted food pyramid.
00:29:13
Speaker
And I'm curious, kind of your assessment and take on this new food pyramid that we've just put out. My take, and I made a video about it, is that the the image didn't match the the guidelines that they wrote.
00:29:25
Speaker
And the reason is that what I said in the video, and I think later I've talked to people who were in the committee who pretty pretty much confirmed this, is they were made by different people. So the the written document, which is a a five or six page long document, not that long, and it goes over, okay, here's the best fats, here's the best this, these are the foods we recommend, these are the source of protein, goes over all that, right?
00:29:50
Speaker
That document is is not bad. That document is scientifically pretty acceptable. There's some there's some issues here and there, but overall, um it's fairly accurate.
00:30:03
Speaker
The image feels like an image made from something different. So there's a strong, strong, clear emphasis on red meats, large chunks of red meat right at the top,
00:30:16
Speaker
that is not reflected in the writing and is not really supported by scientific evidence in general. That sort of emphasis. ah Plant proteins they put tiny towards the bottom.
00:30:30
Speaker
So yeah lots of nutrition scientists have pointed out all of this, and I think there's been almost a unanimous view that some things they got right. ah They focused on whole foods. So avoiding ultra processed foods, avoiding refined carbohydrates.
00:30:46
Speaker
They were even more emphatic about that than in previous editions, which everybody pretty much agrees is is good. the main criticism has has been the image doesn't match the text.
00:30:58
Speaker
And so I think it was the image matches more maybe the text the ideology behind the whole Maha movement, whereas the text was closer to the science.
00:31:09
Speaker
And
Navigating Nutrition Misinformation
00:31:10
Speaker
that's, I'd love to ask more about that, right? Being in the social media world, kind of influencer world, there's some education of getting good information out there. And there's some education on inoculating from becoming susceptible to bad information.
00:31:27
Speaker
And I guess, do you have advice for someone listening, sees clips on Instagram or YouTube or elsewhere to be able to kind of have a better BS detector on, Hey, this is something that's credible and and worth following up or, well, this is person shilling an idea or trying to get clicks or shilling a product even.
00:31:49
Speaker
Yeah, there's definitely some some telltale signs if it's a a message that's trying to push emotional buttons rather than give you information. So instead of showing you evidence of harm of a food, it's just yelling that this is poison and this is going to kill you. This is killing everyone.
00:32:05
Speaker
This type of thing. It's conspiracy theories in general. If it's used as the the main vehicle of to convince you instead of showing you scientific evidence, I go with the conspiracy theory.
00:32:19
Speaker
This food is bad for you. All scientists are saying it's good. Yeah, because they're all getting paid by XYZ industry. And back in, Ancel Keys got paid by this and that.
00:32:30
Speaker
If that's the whole crux of your argument, I get suspicious that the evidence doesn't back up what you're saying. I'm not saying that some conspiracies can't be real, they can. But if you if what you're saying is based on evidence, you should have evidence to show.
00:32:44
Speaker
And if all you have is emotion and the conspiracy, I worry that there's nothing else there. So that's one. The other is like, ah as we were talking types of evidence, coming up with anecdotes instead of more believable evidence,
00:33:01
Speaker
um Typically, like everybody's wrong and I got the answer. That's 99% of the time is is nonsense. All scientists are wrong. I alone with my Wi-Fi connection figured it out. And I'm going to tell you, and by the way, the the solution is to buy my supplement. I mean, the odds are almost zero that that person is some Newton level genius that nobody else can see the truth.
00:33:26
Speaker
Yeah, that type of thing is, it i think at the end of the day, it's not that hard to see. I think sometimes people want to believe that you know butter is good for me because I love eating butter. So that would be great.
00:33:41
Speaker
And also if something matches my personal experience or my personal preference, it's it's easier to believe. I think and that that's probably somewhat where my question on what do you do nutrition-wise came from. Because I think it's someone like the liver king, right? Where you're out, you're pushing these ideas as I'm living, it but you're not actually doing it yourself, right? You're doing something different behind the scenes from what you're pushing to get views and clicks and followers.
00:34:08
Speaker
And so I think that's where, yeah, what you, me personally do is not as relevant, but I i think it does give a level of credence for a watcher or a listener to say, yeah you know, I, I buy that more. If he's truly doing this, it's different than, yeah. I, example I give, you know, both my parents were physicians and have friends, very, very overweight physicians prescribing GLP wants to everybody, anybody and everybody.
00:34:34
Speaker
Well, are you doing it like, Oh God, I'm not putting that in my body. Yeah. okay like that's That seems odd. You're saying it's this miracle drug, but you're not using it. I find that concerning. um And so it just it raises question marks for me.
00:34:48
Speaker
Right. Yeah. And that that's why i decided to show one or two videos like what I eat, because people ask if you don't show, they assume you're hiding something. um But yeah, at the end of the day, I mean, you you could deceive people if you wanted, right? You could just show a diet that you're not eating. Yeah.
00:35:06
Speaker
I guess my, my, what I try to alert my viewers to is like, worry less about trusting someone and worry less about the who and more about the what. What is the evidence that this person has to show? What is the evidence behind the ideas?
00:35:23
Speaker
At the end of the day, there's no one influencer that has answers that nobody else has. Right. Because if it's, if it's coming from, something that has been shown and replicated, other people have seen it.
00:35:35
Speaker
There's no way that one guy has figured out the whole puzzle and nobody else, everybody else is dumb. Just this one guy on TikTok is the genius. Come on. ah There's better ways to communicate. Some people are better at communicating. Sure.
00:35:46
Speaker
um And, and emphasizing different things. Absolutely. But I would always be careful with, This thing yeah you've been lied to. This is such a common one.
00:35:57
Speaker
They're lying to you about this. They don't want you to know. You've been lied to your whole life. This thing you've heard your entire life is wrong. Scientists are all corrupt.
00:36:10
Speaker
These conspiracies are almost always nonsense. um At the same time, it's complicated because you do want to be open-minded. But I think it's it's we change our mind when the evidence justifies.
00:36:24
Speaker
so John Mayer Keynes. Yeah, things can change. if the If the science was wrong before, great, but let's see the new evidence and then we'll change our minds. and Not because industry X, Y, Z, or this guy sounds like this or like that. you're You're just going to be like a leaf in the wind every day.
00:36:41
Speaker
You're going to go in different direction than a new, another charismatic guy pops up. Now you're going to go over there and you're, you're harming your body through all these, these fads. And by the time you wise it up, it's like, what have I been doing these all these years?
00:36:53
Speaker
Yeah. Make these decisions based on something more solid because at the end of the day, it's it's your life. And I guess that that's where
Conclusion and Gratitude
00:37:00
Speaker
I kind of like to take us back for the end on this right?
00:37:04
Speaker
right So the 80% of, look, here's RCTs, here's the data, here's where it's going. And that's going to get you 80% there probably, and or maybe 90%. And then there's the fringe of the personalization component of, okay, well, that may work at the population level, but there's something different about my biology or yeah what I'm able to do that I need to stay an open-minded about. And so at a high level, what is that 80?
00:37:33
Speaker
And then what are the markers, whether it's what they should look for in blood work or anything else to just double check sanity check on that other 10 20?
00:37:44
Speaker
Yeah, so very high level. what What we see consistently is best for most people at a population level are, we talked about traditional Mediterranean diets. So diets rich in unprocessed ah foods, mostly non-refined carbohydrates, not ultra processed foods, not kind of junk foods, unsaturated fats. So it might be your fatty fish, your olive oil, um olives themselves, nuts and seeds.
00:38:09
Speaker
this type of thing, avocados, ah fruits and vegetables, mostly unprocessed or things that are lightly processed. Fermented dairy is good too. ah Lean meats are okay too. So poultry, it's okay to have some red meat. That's not a problem, but it's it's the amount and the type and the the fattiness.
00:38:29
Speaker
And then as you were saying, how do I know if it's working for me? At the end of the day, go buy your blood work. Like that's that's the safest way to do to go about it. um Best markers out there, blood pressure, body weight, just kind of looking in the mirror, how much body fat are you carrying?
00:38:49
Speaker
Glucose levels are better than gluc glucose levels is a hemoglobin A1C, glycated hemoglobin, gives you a three month average, less um perturbed by daily fluctuations.
00:39:01
Speaker
And then cardiovascular, you got ApoB is the best marker. A lot of people don't have that. There's an easier way to do it. It's just non-HDL cholesterol. So your in your basic lipid panel, you take your total cholesterol, subtract HDL.
00:39:17
Speaker
What's left is your non-HDL. That's sort of your ApoB. So it's a measure. It's an estimate of the number of particles in your blood that can get stuck in the wall and cause plaque.
00:39:28
Speaker
And what's your what's your target there? For non HDL, ideally you wanna be under 100 milligrams per deciliter. ah Under 130 is a good start, but under 100 is better.
00:39:43
Speaker
ApoB, it depends also on the the risk level of the individual. If you're if you're a healthy person, under 90 is pretty good. But if you have high risk of heart disease, if you've already had a heart attack or something like that, then you want even lower, you want even stricter.
00:40:00
Speaker
There's other things too. HOMA-IR is a measure of insulin resistance. That's useful. Although it tracks largely with body weight. um If you're a little overweight, that goes up. If you lose weight, that improves.
00:40:12
Speaker
Those are kind of ah but the high level markers there. Yeah. Thank you so much. i mean, Dr. Covalho, this is the area of nutrition and diets and fads and all of that. I mean, it is the religion of the health world, right? You don't see the same. I mean, there's religion in CrossFit or whatever. You kind of get the cults, but the level of religious wars when it comes to this space, I've just never seen seen anything so bloody.
00:40:38
Speaker
ah And so thank you for all you do to help make it more accessible and understandable for me and all our listeners and and all your viewers on Nutrition Made Simple. So thank you. Thank you for your work.
00:40:54
Speaker
Thank you for having me and for spreading the word. Thank you for joining us on today's episode of the Home of Healthspan podcast. And remember, you can always find the products, practices, and routines mentioned by today's guests, as well as many other healthspan role models on Alively.com.
00:41:09
Speaker
Enjoy a lively day.