You may have heard the expression knowledge is power. Well today we're going to give you more power to control your diet and lifestyle by giving you the facts. Welcome to the nutrition facts podcast. I'm your host dr. Michael Greger. Today, we have a special edition of nutrition facts Q&A where I answer a wide variety of your questions on YouTube. On a cornucopia of topics
enjoy. Let us get to your
Austin's first, one on the list is from Maria. Who says this, having dark circles, the eyes have anything to do with nutrition and he specific Foods. I don't think. So I'm that's just a pooling of blood. Not getting enough, sleep can do it. I don't think I don't think anything in your in nutrition, anything you eat is going to matter on that, in that case. All right, next up is from Nate. Hey, what would be the
Best way to get all your B vitamins in a complex without taking a supplement. You don't by eating food.
So eat some whole grains, you get all your B vitamins of course, with the exception of B12. So, you need to Whole Foods nail. My daily dozen you get everything you need with the exception of vitamin D. If you're not getting, I have adequate sunshine and vitamin B12, critically important for anyone eating a healthy diet. Next up, I'll Maria's back saying what about Artemisia can help fight covid-19. I very much doubt it's ever been put to the test, so,
I would not know next up from Ella. Hello mom has a mass in her seek him. That's part of the colon. She'd been sick and I didn't much. Yeah, try and help him pursue same plants. You should avoid
Well, most importantly, she she and I presume this is what's happening, and that's how they figured out yet. Imagine the cecum, they need to find out what is going on. So presumably she's gone in for a biopsy etc, etc, but I would certainly encourage her. She cannot treat the cause until she knows what indeed is going on. In terms of foods, you should avoid again, it would depend on what's going on. If there's some kind of structure if the mass is
Such that it's closing off part of the intestinal AB Outlet. Then she may want to stay, you know, she may not want any big, you know, raw, kale salads, or something, for fear of creating a fight obese or which is a massive under jested fibrous food, which normally most people I've to well enough, it just passes right through. You probably find actually does all sorts of good things, but if you have some kind of problem, so if you've had like intestinal surgery,
Surgery and it won't be some kind of structure, some kind of narrowing or mass something like this. You might have to be concerned about that. But again, most important thing, figure out what is going on. Next, up on the list friend, Cisco says will be the healthiest type of whole grain bread. Should I baked it myself. Okay, well, the problem with bread, the reason it's a yellow light, food processed, plant Foods because you require salt
Um, and we don't want to add salt to anything, but if you were going to do a bread, then the healthiest type of healthiest type of bread would be something like pumpernickle because actually has whole intact rye, berries, Rye Groats in there. So ideally that's how we should all our grains and whole intact form. So we berries are ripe berries or oat Groats, barley Groats, that's the best way. And so the fact that something like a Pumpernickel may have actually not just
All whole grains, but actually have some gross in there. That's the way to go. So, yeah. So ideally, we should deflower our diet, we shouldn't be far Foods, there's ways to make sprouted grain Breads, and you can also buy sprouted grains. That would be healthier. But best way to eat your grains isn't whole intact orm, but if we were going to buy a bread, you want to get the lowest.
At least be a hundred percent whole grain but again, and put something really healthy on it if you're gonna eat it. And next one is, what are my thoughts on air? Fryers from Stephanie, I've got one right there if I could I could probably twist the camera. But there now, instant pots is type of electric pressure cooker. Now has a model where has an air fryer attached? So you have to buy two things. I love my air fryer.
What do I use it for purple? Sweet, potato fries, takes purple, sweet potatoes. Spritz a little lime juice or vinegar or on them and then and then shake them with some blue cornmeal, and sage and and smoked paprika and garlic and onion powder. What else do I put in it? Some Chipotle powder and
Make some nutritional yeast. And then putting the air fire 10 minutes and it's turns off automatically and then dip them in a cell-free. Catch up and you are good to go. You can also also make some tempeh wings with them. You just take some tempeh and you can steam the microwave and then chop it up and oh, sweet it with, for the sweet potato fries. I microwaved toad is first, I'm so the soften side because then so then, yeah. So it's kind of pre cooked them in a microwave and then chop mob.
Dredge them are for him. You can also make the my Tempe Wings, same thing, Tempe chop it up when I'm used to, like a flax egg mixture. So you take ground flaxseed, you had water, I think it's like teaspoon of ground flaxseed, soon, half teaspoons water, mix it up, till it gets all mucusy, and then put the put the Tempe in that coke campaign, that then you dredge in the same kind of mixture anything.
You want to have like a nice batter consistency are from up, dip em, in some low sauce, hot sauce and you are good to go. Okay, hope I made everyone hungry next up, huh? Martin said should people with Hashimoto's. Oh no, you do not have to avoid cruciferous vegetables. Have to make sure if you have iodine deficiency hypothyroidism, that you get sufficient item because they're these gorgeous and the compounds and flax seeds cruciferous vegetables.
He's in other healthy foods that can interfere with the uptake of iodine, but that's only problem for people with marginal iodine status. You just have to get invited on. Next question, is from Elm Indra. What if your land sought to obtain or iodine? Well, I die salts. Good source of iodine but it's same time. A bad source of my time because it has salt in it and sodium which is the worst thing about Humanity's diet. According to the global burden of disease study killing more people than
My then, anything else in our diet, the other four, things that are killing us and Humanities dad is inadequate. Fruit consumption in a token, vegetable consumption, inadequate, not and seeks assumption, and inadequate whole grain consumption, but to the only. So those are all things are not getting enough of, but the only thing we're in the top five are getting too much of is sodium. So if you are going to put table salt, use iodized,
Salt, not natural, sea salt, not Himalayan, bullshit solve, just Uzziah died. So, ideally shouldn't use iodized, shouldn't you salt? It all and you should get your iodine from the healthy source which is sea vegetables. Like Nori sheets. You can chew on as a snag. Sprinkle some will call my arm a or dose on Foods and find a way to incorporate sea vegetables into your diet is healthy. So
Lots of other wonderful trace minerals as well. All right, Jim asks, I'm from North Carolina, Optimum amount of black cumin seeds daily or not. Depends what you're trying to do, right? Black cumin seeds have all sorts of benefits and it's different doses for those benefits. In terms of weight loss, I believe the recommendation and how not to die. It was a quarter teaspoon a day, which if you don't like the taste, you can fit into two like veggie caps zero.
Our veggie caps. I'm just taking like a pill form, but but it's kind of like black pepper. If you like tasted like probably like love, tasted like him. And you just grind it in a black pepper grinder on to your Foods Rose. That's the name. One of my dogs. Why are the last 10 pounds? So hard to lose of? Wow, I've lost 112 pounds. Congratulations Rose. Thanks so much is because to me that's very sweet. That's fantastic, it's not because I'm
It's because of you you kick total tush and I'm happy to be a source of information and potentially motivation but it's, you did it fantastic? Okay, last time pounds, um, well, you are typically, the reason people slow down is because then they start eating more like they used to eat, which led them to gain so much weight in the first place.
So people actually start. So, the reason people kind of plateau on diets is actually, slowly going off their diet, even if it getting loose weight, but if you're continuing to eat healthy, then you're slowing down. Well, you just maybe reaching that kind of that balance point which your ins unhealthy diet match your out, in which case you should be at a healthy weight, if you're not a healthy way.
Then you need to even healthier and and so some people, most people I missed the average BMI people eating plant-based is perfect, right down. We want it to be but it's a bell curve such that some people fall on either side, same thing with blood pressure and cholesterol, average cholesterol, average blood pressure. Those eating plant-based absolutely perfect optimal just where we want to be, but it's bilker. Some
Doing better. Some people don't even have to eat that healthy and Nail Perfection. Other people have to do even more and so it's just eating Foods in as whole a form as possible and you may have to lower calorie density or not lose any weight, at all. If you are already done the BMI that you should be at.
Laura. Oh I need my mom. I've been playing bass for seven years but oh well, there's never been under 70 had a heart, CT scan and she assumed zero very good. That's a coronary artery. And coronary calcium, coronary artery, calcium score, what was Zero, meaning that they didn't find any evidence of kind of old calcified plaque? Do I still need to worry about your LDL level? Yes, because you met your arteries, may look good now but they may not look good in the future.
We should continue to try to eat as healthy as possible to driver LDL down. You should wait a second. I'm telling you I'm eating plant-based. I'm not eating the trans fats, saturated fats, and dietary cholesterol. The increase your LDL cholesterol. Okay. Well the next step is to then add foods that actively draw cholesterol from the system. Like the portfolio, diet food, so just Google portfolio died. And it's like adding future diet, like viscous soluble fiber foods like sliming Foods, okra oatmeal eggplant, those kind of things, pull cholesterol from the body,
Lie to get you down to a primary prevention, Target of 70 for your LDL cholesterol. Do you still have to worry about it? Yes, you still have to worry about it. Everybody does? We all got to get it down? Oh, another thing is, if you haven't reach your target weight, Having excess abdominal obesity, that visceral fat, can increase your LDL cholesterol, reverse, what you eat, because you are, you have that fat flooding into your bloodstream, spilling over from your fat cells,
Even if none of it's going into your mouth and that can increase your LDL cholesterol. So and you can get your car thyroid tested to have an underactive thyroid gland, that can increase your cholesterol drugs to what you eat. So there's some secondary or non dietary causes of hypercholesterolemia in addition usually it's just need to eat healthier. Okay. Rhonda saying very little blood pressure. You still need to avoid salt and the oh God, fantastic question salt does also show horrible things to your body.
Besides raise your blood pressure, that's the biggest concern. Raise your blood pressure, also increase risk for stomach cancer and that's a bad thing. So yes you still need to avoid salt even though your blood pressure is good. And there's some people who sold actually doesn't affect their blood pressure. They still need to avoid cell because it hurts your arteries in other ways. Well, fantastic question though. Okay, whoo rest with her. What is my advice? So for ADHD what do you say about lysine Arginine against herpes?
Okay, so any issue, I think exercise, very effect as effective as drugs in reducing ADHD symptoms, problem is temporary. So you got to like, you know, put some spurts of exercise throughout the day but that was the only kind of Lifestyle medicine invention that I've seen. But that was a while ago, there might be more out there. I will keep an eye out and then what about lysine Arginine ratios for herpes outbreaks. I know people take lacing supplements when they have
Outbreaks of like a cold sore but does it actually work? That's something I've not looked into but I'm sure there's lots of science around there if you type in Cochran Co chra any and lysine, it's probably all you have to put in into PubMed. There will likely be a Cochrane review on the use of Lysine for herpes outbreaks. That's kind of a evidence-based Center that puts out. Used to be kind of
Gold standard for evidence-based medicine. They've lost a little credibility recently but the still good source for material for a. You know if you're not going to dive deep you just want kind of spoiler. Alert latest thought answer. Okay. Maria is back saying she buys tea bags because I want to have it all as Whole Foods. I open the bags, drink the tea, uh, eat the leaves, great, I
Jesus. Okay to drink, not to consume this content. What awesome questions. Yeah, do want to be careful about green tea sourced from China only relatively recently. Did they get rid of leaded gasoline? And so there's a lot of lead in the soil and the tea plantations in China. Not a problem. If you're just brewing tea because the to the lead stays in the leaves did not that's not leach into the water very effectively.
So if you're just brewing your tea, it may not be an issue, but if you're actually eating leaves, meaning, your drink matcha tea, which is powdered green tea, leaves, or putting your tea in a smoothie or what you sounds like you're doing here then indeed, I would encourage you to get your green tea from Japan, great question. I love all these high-level questions because most of the day, you know, I put on my interviews and onto one day every month, I call my Ketchup Day. And so, most of the day,
Today, I'm spending, you know, with just like mainstream, you know, outlets and they're like, um, tell me our apples, any good or something. Like, you know, this is really basic basic questions, so it's great to come on these qas because I get like The Graduate level questions. Okay. Hottie asked, what to get a what-what. So I think the question is, I have arthritis. I'm on steroids to suppress my immune system, so it sounds like it's an autoimmune or inflammatory.
Arthritis. So maybe something like rheumatoid, I would find out from your doctor. If you don't know what kind of arthritis you have, I know, for example, for rheumatoid arthritis, there are interventions that have been proven as effectively as corticosteroids, so hopefully, you will be able to have your doctor wean yourself off of them. Not good to be on them long term or even short term frankly but they can be absolute Miracle drugs if nothing else helps. Okay.
7i no one asks you have any advice for IH? Liver inflammation. So, I stand for autoimmune, I don't know. I'm certainly very swish, having died, six months ago, liver inflammation. So oatmeal coffee isn't a number of things. A decrease liver inflammation, but we want to treat the cause and I'm not sure what, what condition you are referring to.
And so, so, and whether or not there are some kind of Lifestyle intervention that can treat the underlying, cause because that's obviously the ideal, okay, man. Mango asked, give some greetings from Germany. That's very sweet. So, how much Foxy's is too much Flex these and answering that question? Talking about the cyanide content, that's the limiting factor.
It's a fascinating story. I forget what the final upper limit is. But my certainly, my daily does recommendation for tablespoon a day is fine. Okay. Intuitive eating thoughts. Ask salamandra. I've looked a little bad when I was trying how not to die. I looked at the intuitive eating stuff and I was not impressed with literature. Just didn't seem to have a much of a basis in science. I mean the whole concept is kind
Let your body, you know, let your body guide you which in many ways is useful, but your body was not made for the modern world, your body, your brain, your biology was finely tuned in to be for us to be perfect cave people and unfortunately and or fortunately, depending on your depending on your perspective. Now there's things like donuts
It's on. There were no, don't inspect into our cravings for calories, our cravings, for salt and sugar, and oil, country sources of calories, and sodium kept us alive back then because there's no KFC on the Savannah. And so craving for every little scrap of salt, kept us alive. Now those that same biology is killing us. I'm and so if we listen to our bodies, we would just be eating bigs tubs of ice cream and frosting all day long.
It should not be a good thing for us. Okay, Mickey ass. If I hover rather be a my 2425 with over bumpers. Try following, the daily dozen is, if you child to strive to get a better be mine with the set point Theory, Force too much restriction to make that happen. Okay, well, okay, so that is. So that's kept technically, that's a normal BMI but
Not an ideal on BMI now, we met, we don't have data on people of actually eating healthy who follow that BMI. We do have data showing the people that that a lower BMI is indeed better in terms of longevity and disease risk. But these were people even kind of regular diets. And the question is if you're eating healthy does really kind of matter and until we know more I'm going to say yes. And we really should try to get
Our BMI isn't optimal range just like we should get a cluster on top of a range and blood pressure. An optimal range until we know more. And so yes I think you should continue to strive and that would be continuing to, you know, making sure we're cutting out processed foods and lowering the calorie density of our diet and eating closer to what we might have in a in the times for above.
Where the processed food industry was born. And so it's all sorts of satiety tips and all my 21 tweets and stuff. So do the daily dozen you still. Not there. Then I on the app. You switch over to weight loss mode and you try to incorporate some of those 21 tweaks to drive, body, fat loss. Even further.
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