Welcome to the fit vegan buddy podcast with your host Aaron could tell the vegan coach. The point of this podcast is to give you an in-depth but practical approach when it comes to losing weight being healthy or gaining muscle on a vegan or plant-based diet. We will have guests every single week to help clear up any confusion and make sure that you are 100% confident in your choice of your lifestyle. Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of that vegan body podcast. I'm here with. Dr. Jim and Newman. How are you? I'm very well. How are you doing? Good. Thanks. Thank you for joining me on a Monday Monday evening call you away from your kids and everything. It's my pleasure. Don't worry. They are supposed to be in bed. Although if one of them comes down and like, you know might take a two minute right now. Always I start with something fun and interesting about you. Rather than going straight into your story which probably you've told countless times to people. So I had two questions. I thought of the first one I wanted to kind of know about your email address Jim is Jim is a new man. I was like surely she's made this when she was like younger I'm actually is very boring because my name is Gemma Samantha Newman. So it's just when I when I I have to describe my email address to people and say Jenna's new man, and they kind of remember it but it's essentially just Gemma s Samantha Newman maybe a DOT or an underscore could go in there to like see if I've been that clever. It's fun, right? Okay, cool. So for people that don't know who you are what you do, I guess plant-based doctor I am. How did you I guess first decide that you wanted to get into medicine and how come the plant-based side of things because as we know there are many doctors and they're all different fields and they all decide on different things. So why have you decided to do what you do? Well is an excellent question and it's one that I've answered many times. But whenever I do answer it, it does come out slightly differently. So I suppose in order to answer the initial question. Why medicine That was always some kind of cooling for me. I remember actually her there was a time where our next door neighbor. She was elderly he fell over and outside our house and I just remember having this instinct to immediately want to go and help her and I'd ordered my mum to go and get some towels. Maybe I must have watched something on the tele where people got the so there was me rolling up some towels and trying to help Lady, press them on ahead where she was bleeding and my mum just stood there and I must have been about five and my mum at the time she is so young. She was probably about 24 and she just stood there looking a bit the new thinking. I don't know what to do. And I say God could know call an ambulance or something. I don't really remember exactly what happened at that time. But my mom is just he said, oh, wow, that was amazing why you should you should do that maybe when you're older and then I guess that was probably a first CD. I look back on it. I haven't told that story before and I think my role probably growing up was very much the caring role. I think towards my mum and towards my dad my dad suffered from quite severe mental health problems. And so I was not so much a caring role in a sense because I was so young, but it has opposed we're looking back on. It was really more of a sense of not feeling And I could help and wanting to and then being being that sort of support to my mum. And then that was what came naturally and couple then I suppose with a feeling of wanting to be able to support myself because there was there was a lot of financial struggle at that time and my dad had long periods way didn't work and my mum worked on a market stall and it was tricky in terms of making sure that we had meals on them. You know on the table, so I thought it was a combination really of wanting to make sure that we had enough money to be able to support ourselves but also to be able to care for people and to know their stories and I've always been a really quite a people person. So for me it was going to be general practice from the beginning because I love hearing people's stories and getting to know them and understanding why they tick and the idea of general practice was so appealing because you could get to know But if you get to know their children, you could get to know their birth story their siblings their parents their grandparents, and I've worked in the same practice now for probably let's think it's been about 11 years now and so I've had that opportunity. I've had that privilege of being able to get to know people from Cradle to grave and that really appealed to me. So that's the kind of medical story or I should also point out. My grandmother was a doctor. That probably an okay. Yeah, my father's mother. She was a very inspirational woman and she trained in medicine at a time when women were not really highly educated at all and she was able to achieve that and she was able to go and work in India and then she worked in South Africa and Australia so she was really inspirational. So those are the two probably the main things and with regard to plant-based nutrition. That was another kind of roundabout. You're basically I wanted to know more about how to help my patients. I was sensing over the years that I couldn't that despite giving them tablets and despite feeling as I was doing my best. There was a real social lifestyle societal aspect to it that I just didn't feel I was trained for is like my toolbox was half empty. I just couldn't help and that really frustrated me. So I thought well, how can I tell people about what to eat? Maybe how I know how sleep can have an effect let's Let's think about more about how to help with the psychology of illness. And so that's really my curiosity that got, you know got me going in that field and I started out where most people start looking online and with nutrition. I didn't pay that much attention to start with. I just looked at the trends and what people were saying I'm so it was all about the low carb and cutting calories and calorie counting. So that's what I did for a while when I was trying to get fit and healthy and it worked in a little way because I did manage to leave. But of course as you and I both know you can lose weight in many ways and it doesn't necessarily have to be a healthy way. And so when I stumbled upon plant-based nutrition, that's when I realized that not only could you lose weight healthily but you could bring your lipid profiles down you could prevent or reverse many diseases and you could feel full and I realized how quickly I could get results from my patients as well and I'm talking within days people were starting to feel better and within weeks their parameters were changing. And so that just fueled me further. So then I wanted to talk to the world about it. And that's that's that's the summary and that's where you are today. That's where I am today talking to you. Was there a kind of aha moment where you was like, holy crap plant-based nutrition is the way to do this was there like a because obviously it through med school. You wouldn't have been taught much about nutrition. So was there a moment when you're like, holy crap, this is actually having a massive effect on people's lives the main aha. That I can remember is looking at an angio graphic image of the coronary arteries opening up what with plant-based nutrition so the work of Dean ornish back in the early 1990s that was published in major peer review journals and also the work of dr. Esselstyn. Dr. Caldwell esselstyn it inspirational man, and he would be able to deal with people end-stage heart failure and Stage heart disease and just for nutrition nothing to do with other lifestyle changes just Is what they put in their mouth he was able to show that they were able to reverse their coronary artery damage. These people whose arteries were completely fed up they were at end of life and he was able to help them reverse that and when you see images of the coronary arteries and how they're actually completely opened up. It was just remarkable and I knew from my previous research that stenting is completely useless unless you're in a acute events. Like I think the Cardiology needs to change quite significantly because There's an awful lot of evidence now to suggest that if you're standing an artery and it's not an acute MI. Basically someone's not having a heart attack or some sort of event there. And then it doesn't make any difference to long-term outcomes whatsoever. And so you think to yourself well what can make a difference and it was plant-based nutrition. And of course when I saw that that's that's what was really mind-blowing to me. And that's where I sort of kept on research and I thought how does this fit in with diabetes? And how does this fit in with insulin resistance? And how does this fit? In with inflammation in the body and how does this fit in with peripheral arteries? And what do they do? And and it just you know, it becomes a rabbit hole and the more you look into it the more you do that the more you understand that the evidence shows at least certainly 95% of the diet being Whole Food plant-based as is what I can definitely say the evidence shows huge support for so yeah, it's pretty remarkable. Yeah, and I guess speaking about the old school. his new school medical approaches Do you feel like there is a change that is happening. Now. Do you like I know that now in America doctors are getting more nutritional I guess education. Is that the same in the UK, but how do you think that's changing? How should it change so it definitely needs to is changing. I mean the American College of Lifestyle medicine has been around for a long time and recently in the last few years. We've got the British Society of Lifestyle medicine and interestingly the accreditation course. Is basically very similar to the a CLM accreditation. So and that does emphasize plant-based nutrition ultimately and then you've got the two Health Initiative over in the US and there are many people I think this side of the pond also part of the true Health Initiative. We've got the plant based health professionals, which I'm an Advisory Board member and that's a newish organization. That was set up by my friend. Dr. Shrink Assam who is a hematologist over here in the UK, and we've Got what else is going on with Greer and devising course content for a nutrition course at Winchester University and there's loads of initiatives to try to bring nutrition into medical schools. I'm doing a presentation for neutral tank in Sheffield on nutrition and mental health and I can see lots of other doctors are doing very similar things to try and bring nutrition and lifestyle measures back into the Consciousness, especially of medical students and they're actually Became anecdotally from colleagues of mine that I've been speaking to medical students. They a lot of them are really really Keen to understand this because I think they're beginning to realize before they even go into practice that just doing things the way we've always done them isn't going to work. The Western model is really good for certain things. No, I can talk highly of how antibiotics have changed the scene for a number of years and prevented an awful lot of deaths, but at the same time their overuse is now causing a huge issue of chronic disease and the same with things like if you have a car accident or if you have to have major surgery Western medicine can't be beaten but then in my opinion, but then when it comes to things like chronic diseases cancer heart disease our biggest Killers now then we just don't have a leg to stand on and that's why it's so important to bring us back to these basic lifestyle principles of eating plant-based. Getting enough sleep getting rid of stress as far as we can and moving our bodies. Yeah, and it's a really important point. And do you I guess interact with people that don't believe I'd like other doctors that don't believe in plant-based the plant based approach because to me kind of like when people say are you know red meat or saturated fat is bad for us and that will why does a doctor say decrease it when you've got hired this hide there's some got symptoms of heart disease surely that makes sense and Your head that it must be, you know, not ideal for us to consume. So do you interact with doctors that don't believe and what you believe and how does that kind of interaction go? Well, it's difficult. I I really dislike the diet Wars and I think that we tend to argue between us about what's healthy. And what's not. I think my personal opinion is that we are all biased we can't help it. We try not to I certainly try not to but we tend to respond to what we have tried personally and then we look for data that backs up our opinion and that's human nature. And so I would say that any Doctor Who advocates for red meat be it grass-fed or not and the advocates for whole foods that are not from plant origin have probably had some successes personally in terms of their health, but they they haven't read all the literature that I have or if they had they discounted it because it didn't fit with their Paradigm and that's unfortunately the way that the human brain works. We have to mention bias when we go into a study and the irony is that even when we know about the existence of bias, it can still be it can still affect the way we think about studies and how we look at them and I think a lot of doctors have been seduced by the idea that saturated fats have been Maligned over the years and I think if you look at the basic principles of what saturated fat does inside the body if you look at on a cellular level what it does, you can see that it's probably not beneficial in excess. If you look at the cellular mechanisms behind what happened with animal protein in the body, you can also see that in excess is going to be unhealthy no from population data that there is an increased risk of cancer heart disease in populations that have a lot of these saturated fats and meats so you can look at it on On every single level and every single pillar of evidence and you can see unfortunately that there are associations and direct causation that you can find but people believe what they have experienced. So ultimately I try to stay away from the argument because I think when over half the population eats ultra-processed foods manufactured foods that aren't in fact Foods at all, they are manufactured by food companies. These that don't contain fresh produce that don't contain Whole Foods. Then I think we have a much bigger problem than arguing over grass-fed beef because most people can't afford grass-fed beef. Most people can't afford organic chicken. Most people don't buy free-range eggs. They're all of these are more expensive and you know, when people are on the breadline, they're going to buy cheap foods and I think that is what we need to focus on we need to focus on the fact that many people in very poor environments are not able to afford these More Quality Meats and they will go for cheaper means which have worse Health outcomes again. So trying to get everybody to agree that if we could get more plants in people's bodies and and less of the rest then I think that's that's the uniting factor that we should look at. Yeah, for sure. So when you talk about saturated fat and excess and read me go animal proteins in excess, what is there like a definition of what that would look like? How much is too much? I think if you're looking at the optimal diet, it would be 95% plant base. If somebody was desperate to continue to eat meat or dairy products, then it should constitute no more than five percent of what they eat if they're going to be looking at Optimal Health which means that in an average week, if you're having three meals a day 7 days a week, you may be having one maybe two meat meals and hopefully that would be fish if you're going to have to do it but might I mean my personal preference would be a 100% whole food plant-based diet, but I see that that a lot of people feel that that's unattainable for them and I get it because I used to be like that steak was my favorite meal. I used to love Burgers. I couldn't get enough of them. It's what I'd always eat when I went out and so I guess it I completely get it why people think I can't do it. It's going to be boring. It's too extreme. But I mean, I think a lot of doctors have said, you know, what's more extreme eating more vegetables and whole grains and beans Legumes or having someone cut your chest open and put your leg in your heart. I don't know which one I'd father. Do you having a heart attack at 39 which is what my previous podcasts my podcast gets head. And I'm like that's pretty extreme. So, I mean my father died of a massive heart attack and he was he was in his 50s. He did he was driving and he had a little car accident. It wasn't a major car accident, but obviously his cortisol levels shot up his coronary arteries probably went into Mm, and he had furred of arteries anyway, and you know, that was it that was the end of my dad and the same with my grandfather. So this and you're right these things affect so many of us and I don't think there's anybody in this country that doesn't have a relative that's died either of heart disease or cancer and and that's what a whole food plant-based diet can prevent. So that's why I'm so passionate but I supposed to answer your initial question. I think if someone is insisting that they can't live without meat And they'd probably be okay if they had it once or twice a week. Okay, cool and talking about these other doctors that you love having discussions with why do you think they felt like I give said there is a bias and you've read the research. I've probably read the keto research. I've read, you know observational studies and that cleaning. Why do you think that they still are I guess in favor of that way and I think the second part to this question is obviously like you said we go from a process diet to a diet that is of Whole Foods. Yes animal proteins that kind of thing even one that is ketogenic people are going to see results. They're going to lose weight and they look as might go down their blood sugar might go down and that kind of thing. Do you think that's exclusively because they've actually lost weight or is it because of the keto diet or because of I prime based diet Okay, so There's a few parts of the question. I think if we go in to talk about ketosis, you're absolutely right people lose weight. And so any method of losing weight improves Health in the short term because we know that obesity is one of the major risk factors for heart disease and cancer and the ketogenic diet cuts out junk. It cuts out sugary Foods. It cuts out refined flour. It cuts out a lot of the junk foods that people might already be be eating and it may also increase the amount of greens that they eat alongside their their their fat sources. So with ketogenic diets, I think the is a more extreme version of the low-carb diet. Basically, you probably know all this but it's a high-fat diet. So you want to be getting about 70 to 80 percent of your calories through fat and only moderate amounts of protein and I think this is where a lot of people who think that they're doing a ketogenic diet aren't really because there They're sort of stocking up on things like bacon, which has an awful lot of animal protein as well. And it's a very very low carbohydrate diet. So what it does is I mean, if you're in true ketosis, ideally be having daily measurements with the ketones in your urine to make sure that you're actually fat adapted. So the body uses sugar and it uses fat for fuel and it prefers to use sugar or glucose, especially the brain but if You put into a state of starvation, which is what the kids genic diet mimics. Then you're going to be using fat instead and that's where the brain then gets energy from. So you think we'll why do people wear people so keen on it. And again, I don't want to be the person that discounts people's personal experience. So when someone does well on ketoses it's probably because they've lost some weight initially you would lose a lot of water weight in the short term and if you haven't had what they call keto flu which is like, Tummy upsets and bad breath and constipation and aches and pains and brain fog once you've managed to get through that then, you know, you might be feeling pretty good because especially if you're diabetic, you have a flatline blood sugar because you're not having any sugars and then you've got a flat line insulin and then uh be one Caesar going down your average blood sugar. So you think you know, this is working fantastic, but there's a big but and I think the problem that people find with a kitchenette diet is that they're actually becoming more insulin resistant, but they just don't know it and so they think that they're doing well, but then the next time they try to test their body out by having a bowl of quinoa or or maybe you know, a bite of a banana their blood sugar's go through the roof and then they blame the Barna nothing all that was that was unfortunate. I won't have any bananas again, but actually what's happened is their insulin receptors are no longer working. They've been clogged up. Basically clogged up by the saturated fat and so doesn't matter how much insulin then you then make the sugar is stuck in the bloodstream. It doesn't get into the cells where it's needed. It doesn't go into the muscles doesn't go into the brain doesn't go anywhere else because it's stuck in the blood because your insulin receptors aren't working anymore. And as soon as you remove those saturated fats from the bloodstream of the junk food fats, then the insulin receptors are able to work again and the glucose from the bloodstream goes nicely into the cells and And no more high blood sugars. So you can get a flat line hba1c basically by cutting out the sugar but you still got the underlying problem. Will you cut out the saturated fat? And then you free up the insulin receptors and the warp hba1c is that way but you know, I think keto isn't going away. I think as people do get results with it, but I do worry about the long-term problems with it because It was it was developed. You always talk about the history of it at all. Yeah, I mean, I think I do know the history but was birthed. Are you covering it? So that people listening can understand history. Very nice on it was it was it came to came to usefulness back in the 1920s and there's a lot of children that had refractory epilepsy and they responded to people Janet diet and interestingly. A lot of people don't realize that I think probably one of the mechanisms why that worked is because why it still works would be for children that don't respond to medication is because of the link with the microbiome though. They did these studies on her ass and what they found was that they when they induce to kitchenette diet on rats who who had epilepsy they had also induced. It's really cruel the stuff, but they were able to establish that if the rats didn't have a command see a species in their guts if they were given She will take to kill off all the bacteria in their guts that they didn't respond to ketogenic diet anymore. So I think that there is a complicated interplay between the types of bacteria that we cultivate in our small and large intestine, especially the large intestine and our response to different diets and conversely the things that we put in our mouths can then alter our microbiome and alter our long-term Health, but with a keys genic diet, you've got the risks of kidney stones. You've got the risk of pancreatitis atherosclerosis off. Osteopenia cardiomyopathy and there's five case studies of children who had to stay on true. He didn't it diets because of their epilepsy that also had deaths as a result of their kids genic diet. So this is not something to be taken lightly definitely not something to do long-term. And yeah, I think I worry that people who who have been duped into doing it for a period of six months maybe a year end up finding that when they come off it their insulin problems are worse than when they Damn, yeah, that's exactly what I've learned as well about diabetes. And that kind of thing is you can treat the symptom we can treat the cause and treating the symptom is ketogenic between the cause is decrease your saturated fat basically and other things exercise lose weight process stuff. What's interesting as well about ketogenic diet people talk about the there's something called a pgce when Alpha pathway which basically makes your Your mitochondria more active and people talk about the benefits of ketosis for this. So your mitochondria the PowerHouse of the cell. They're more than just the PowerHouse of the cell, but they are an ancient kind of bacterial species that combined with the cell and allow for multicellular organisms. So they're pretty integral to life and they can they can get lazy and when they get lazy they can't multiply properly and they don't sort of kill off the ones that are not working and the idea behind why some people Slim quite well to ketosis is because that that state of mimic starvation activates those P GC 1 Alpha pathway, which then causes these mitochondria to eat up the ones that don't work and multiply to make more good young mitochondria, and there's loads of them that can live in the cell. It's not just one. I don't know if you saw biology textbooks when you were younger. You may remember you remembering you're making me remember my my Bachelor of Science, but again all that You might have a picture of maybe one mitochondria or might but you know, you can actually have hundreds in a cell or not. And so yeah that pathway the PDC whatever pathway that can also be stimulated by many other mechanisms. So you've got time restricted feeding where you only eat within a certain time window each day. Say 8 hours 10 hours 12 hours or you've got intermittent fasting or you've got things like cold plunges or in terms. Food, you've got things like curcumin from turmeric you've got Crescent in which is a really good compound from certain vegetables and even massage actually could potentially activate this PD to another pathway. So there are many other ways in which to stimulate your mitochondria to work properly. And in the long term, we know that saturated fat actually can inhibit mitochondrial function so I don't see ketosis as being a anything more than a short-term fix for anyone even people who are proponents have to cycle in and out of it because your body just cannot live in this induced starvation State and I think a lot of people don't even get into ketosis. They just have a low carbs. Like you said o carb high fat moderate protein diet and they still think that that is kind of healthy and to me whenever I get the question about vegan keto or vegan. Die I'm kind of like well, I know which foods make us healthy and know which foods protect us against diseases and by trying to be in a vegan Quito State your kind of decreasing those whole grains those beans legumes. And that kind of thing. Is that kind of your view on if somebody was trying to attempt a vegan ketosis kind of state. How would you kind of advised? I think it's probably healthier than having one that's meat heavy because you're excluding. the sources of I mean, for example, if you want to meet heavy keto diet, you're going to have excess animal proteins in excess my finding excess leucine which you know is associated with cellular aging with with the propagation of cancer cells, you've got excess aren't lien which causes you to create these gut bugs in your stomach that can eat carnitine and thus cause an inflammatory toxin you've got neu5gc which is another Compounding meat you've got the nitrites if you've got processed meat which are also cancer-causing. So you're removing all of that, which is beneficial. I would say clearly but you're right whole grains and legumes beans lentils chickpeas are the Cornerstone of every long-lived population on this planet. So if you're aiming to cut them out in the long term and just have things like coconut oil and olive oil than and avocados and nuts and seeds and you're really an olives you're really kind of limiting yourself and having that kind of Elimination Diet I think is clearly not the way to go long-term again, perhaps somebody wants to do it for short term weight loss if they want to do it for short term weight loss and they feel like they can cope and that's what they would enjoy then go for it. But any more than a few months then you're going to be looking at potentially reducing your overall longevity. You mentioned listen and I know that soil into Miami beans are high Lucy and so is that have the same effect on the body if it's coming from a plant Source versus an animal source. So soybeans I think have an unfair reputation leucine from animal sources as been shown to propagate cancer cells and font cellular aging and I think that the genestein from from soy is actually quite detective for the body. It's been associated with a reduced risk of cancer and the phytoestrogens within Sawyer also have been associated with reduced risk of breast cancer reduced hormonal flushes increased bone strength, which is something that people go on about how you need Dairy for calcium and actual fact all I can tell you about a study. I read the recently they measure the bone mineral density of perimenopausal women and they had a control group. Who just had their normal diet followed them for a couple of years. They had a group that had a cup of soy milk a day and they had a hope that were given a progestogen cream and they wanted to see which one's had the best bone mineral density after a couple of years and what they discovered was that the group Who had who had nothing here with a control group as you might expect their bone mineral density went down the group that has the progesterone cream as you may expect. They have some protection their bone density did not go down as much. But the soy milk drinking group had increased bone mineral density. So I'm I think that's a pretty remarkable study. But basically, yeah, I don't see the same effects playing out with soy hmm. It's very interesting because yeah, like you said we need Dairy to have strong bones and yet the countries are the nation's that contain the most dairy or consume the most eerie and linked with the highest rates of osteoporosis. What do you put that down too? Because I know we have this The Sting that you know, when our bodies acidic when we have animal protein the calcium needs to kind of neutralized and buffer the acidity is that the mechanism that is doing that or you're not really sure you're right, I think I've been the hip fracture rates do tend to be higher in countries that consume more Dairy and it seems like quite a bit of a paradox because you've always been told you need calcium from milk, I mean the Harvard nurses study follows gosh I think around 70,000 women over the course of nearly 20 years and I know that's epidemiological data and you can't prove causation. But there was absolutely no protection from bone fracture in those groups of women. And then there was a Swedish study as well of of a hundred thousand people and they followed them for 20 years and what they discovered was that there was a strong correlation between those that had the most Dairy and those that had increased mortality. To increase heart disease increase cancer risk and in women, there was an increased fracture risk in that population and they didn't find the same pattern with yogurt. So there's potentially a link with galactose there because the galactose sugars in Dairy are fermented in in yogurt. And so yogurt contains far less of those. So I think that you could postulate there that That the galactose because you know from Lab studies if you look at galactose and what it does to cells in the lab, you can see that it causes premature aging of the cells in lab animals, it can cause increased oxidative stress. And so if you're removing some of that galactose from the dairy in the form of yogurt, then perhaps that might be one mechanism by which is more protective. So I'll just turn my just doing peeping over there. So yeah, I think I think we We can get more bioavailable calcium from plant sources. Ultimately. I think I read that you can absorb around 50 or more than 50% of the calcium from plant sources compared to 30% from Derry. Yeah, that's brand certain parts though. Kale Swiss chard and Pok Choy with the top top three absolutely and there's loads of other things. I mean, I don't think of a list on top of my head. You got beans beans got sesame. me Seasons almonds squash Brazil nuts Coconuts salary dates apricots, you know, there's just there's loads of sources of calcium. So as long as you're mindful of it and you're making sure you've got a nice variety of plant Foods then I don't think how seems anything to worry about. Yeah that's already a now plant-based milk anyway, because it's fortified with it. So there yes, I'm having actually there is one thing you might need to look at and that's iodine because there's people say that with with cows smoke the reason that it contains iodine has because of the idea they used to to cleanse the milk fats that they collect the cow's milk in. So if you're not getting ideas from that source, which doesn't sound particularly appealing to then you want to make sure you're getting it from somewhere else. So just think about iodine if you're on a plant-based diet, so you get iodine from Nori sheet that you use to wrap Sushi. You can get them just in nowadays you can get them in the supermarket. Crackers. Yeah little crackers you can nibble on those you can get kelp but I think you have to be a little bit careful with Cal supplements because the you can either have too much. Yeah. And you want to make sure you've got enough selenium. So Brazil nuts are brilliant because you can get selenium from those as well. But if you're not sure, you know, because we do live in very nutrient depleted soils these days, you know, the environment is not what it used to be like you could potentially get enough iodine for a potato if it's grown in a mineral-rich soil glass of milk or something like that. But if you don't I just recommend to my clients just every now and then has some ID I die salt. On your food. Yeah. Yeah, that works. I mean, it's salt table salt in the UK isn't iodized, but you can get it and it's I've bought some seems a big words. Yeah. I was quite nice about it is if you were to sprinkle that on it does give it a somewhat eggy flavor to things if you miss if you're one of these people that Miss eggs, so yeah option go. I want to backtrack a little bit and I didn't talk about this before but correlation and causation. A lot of people would say are the debts studied. And prove anything because it doesn't show causation. It just shows a relationship or a positive correlation between those two is I kind of feel like that is the way that we as humans have used a lot of our research like no one's going to try and test for pregnancy or lung cancer by finding a study that actually causes lung cancer or that kind of thing. Would you say that? I mean we kind of just need to accept that correlation might be the best that we can do with research for long-term studies. I think long-term epidemiological studies are important if they weren't important they wouldn't exist. We have to look for patterns and I think once you start looking for patterns, it's a good idea to then follow those patterns and see if you can find your hypothesis being supported when you look at a cellular level and the beauty of a lot of the plant based research, is that when You look at these correlations. So for example, when I talk about the correlations in the Harvard nurses health studies or the Swedish study I mentioned or even I mean even the Physicians Health they okay, let's take prostate cancer as an example. So you've got the Physicians health study. They followed nearly 22,000 people over nearly 30 years and what they found was that if you had two and a half servings of dairy a day versus if you had less than half a serving. Get a much higher risk of getting prostate cancer or at least there was a there was a correlation between the incidence of prostate cancer and the increasing consumption of dairy. So you think well, okay that doesn't prove anything, but then you look at what happens under the microscope and you realize that prostate cancer is strongly linked to igf-1 and to casein protein casein protein comes from dairy igf-1 insulin-like growth. To one is found in milk. And when you eat meat you make igf-1 insulin-like growth factor 1 and you can see that when you put these things in a laboratory setting they stimulate cancer growth. So what frustrates me when people say it doesn't prove anything is that if someone could show me that a plant-based diet causes cancer cells to proliferate then you know, I'm all ears but no one has managed to find that because the evidence does not exist. So what I like to look at is the totality of evidence, I like to look at every kind of pillar of evidence. You've got epidemiological data. It is useful, but you can also look at what happens inside the cell you can look at what happens in randomized controlled trials crossover trials and then you start to pick up all the pieces together and then you can observe that your hypothesis works and that's why I think plant-based nutrition is superior because there are many ways in which you can prove that it is a Logical hypothesis. Yeah, I think that's true. It's like a fun study shows something that doesn't mean too much. But if there's hundreds of studies that have been done different ways showing the same thing, then that's obviously that kind of means something great. Yeah because you have to look at the totality. I mean that I think they did over 7,000 studies to prove that spoke to be correlated with poorer outcomes and increased cancer risk, but they've never done a randomized controlled trial to Prove it that's not done. But the technology of the evidence that smoking is harmful and smoking caused cancer and it's nice you can ignore the evidence until you're blue in the face or you could just run. Stop smoking. Yeah, I do the same thing applies to this really there are so many potential mechanisms for the harm. So I mean people get very emotional about me. I think that's the other problem meat meat has been been associated with being rich. It's been associated with with with being able to afford a kind of food that you know, the masses don't afford and so there's a big emotional attachment to it. It tastes good to people and I think I think they struggle to find they struggle to look at it. Logically, I think and I was the same I used to have an emotional attachment and didn't think I could live without it, but I That's what a lot of scientists do unfortunately and it's what a lot of people do so it's a tough one. But if you just keep looking at the science, then it does hold up. Unfortunately. Yeah, and some of that science which I to me is kind of like to prove that a plant-based diet is long-term healthy as the Blue Zone groups. I'm trying to get the the author of the booze own research on my podcast and until I get him. What do you think is the main main key points that we can pull from that research now obviously there's five bruise owns four of them have a plant-based diet that's 95% plants. One of them has all plants and how does that compare to I guess the other long living populations of say that Eskimo people and other people. Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm sure one day you'll get down on the show. I have emailed him. I had it put it out there. It's gonna happen one day I have the Pleasure of seeing him talk at an event actually and his wonderful lady friend Kathy freston. She is amazing. But yeah, I also had the pleasure of speaking to one of the researchers who study the Okinawan Blue Zone, so What they all have in common in terms of nutrition as you say is 95% plant-based nutrition, the Adventist have 100% plant-based those who have the longest lives and it's not just about food. There's a certain lifestyle associated with it. There's that Joy de vivre or there's the ACOG a I think it's called a car guy, which is the Japanese word for sort of finding purpose in life. And so there is a lot more to it, but What they all have in common in terms of food is that they all have beans chickpeas or lentils everyday? They have whole grains. They have they have vegetables. They have fruit they have food that is locally grown and they have seasonal food and interestingly four of the five prisons are islands. So if we can't all live on an island, we can follow the advice of the largest and potentially most successful Blue Zone, which is the Adventists. They don't live on an island they live in A fairly average borough of California. It's not by the beach and what they have is a really really wholesome plant-based lifestyle and that's what I think Dan buettner was able to understand when he was studying that and I would strongly recommend that that people look at that research because the Adventist have got a tremendous amount of research behind them to show. Yes. They've got a great positive attitude. Good community links. They have a lot of them have a religious Faith, but they all eat plants and we talked about the Inuit or even the had to tribe. So people are people in sort of paleo circles talk about hands of tribes and how they eat meat so we have to eat meat but actually they eat a tremendous amount of fiber. Most of what they eat is fiber-filled fiber-rich and the same with Paleolithic man, if you look at Paleolithic fossilized, Well poo samples. Basically what you notice is that it's all fiber and we are tremendously fiber deficient here in the Western World guidelines. Tell us to have about 30 grams a day. We have more like 15, if you're lucky and these ancient the hadza tribe and even Paleolithic man, they had around more like 100 to 150 grams. They were having so much plant matter. And I think that's what we really need to focus on is the fact that we're not getting enough fiber. We're not getting enough fruits vegetables whole grains and beans and that is the Cornerstone of the diets of those that live the longest the Inuit are a very interesting subset and I've noticed that people who advocate for saturated fat and animal-based diet to stop talking about the Inuits because they realized that they don't actually have a higher longevity. They have a very low life expectancy on average and they also have a genetic mutation. Which prevents them from going into ketosis and so they are genetically adapted to eat a lot of meat and not go into ketosis, which is another reason why I would suggest that ketogenic diets are not good long term because the s that the Inuit populations had to essentially adapt to have to eat a lot of meat in these harsh conditions at the edge of the world. Most of us don't live in those Hospital harsh conditions. Most of us don't have those genetic adaptations. Most of us respond to plant foods and that's what we've forgotten. I mean, I think we've kind of covered a lot of stuff that people that are already vegan or plant-based probably know a little bit about so I think it's worth covering stuff that maybe they need to be a little bit more careful with that. We've talked about adding selenium from Brazil nuts if somebody is vegan or plant-based what things do they need to kind of make sure they're actually doing to be Healthy as possible. They need to take a B12 supplement. I would suggest some people don't have a B12 supplement and I saw an interview with the amazing ultramarathon Runner Fiona Oaks who has done tremendous Feats of physical endurance, and she said that she doesn't take any supplements whatsoever. Including the fell I think to be on the safe side. It's important to take a B12 supplement many vegans will probably already know that but it's made from microbes in the soil. So for not eating unwashed vegetables. Rules and fruits and we're not drinking untreated water, which I wouldn't recommend that we do then we're not going to get enough B12. So I would recommend a B12 supplement for everybody and also many meat eaters of B12 deficient especially if they're over the age of 50, especially if they take proton pump inhibitor medication, especially if they're on Metformin for diabetes, they're going to find themselves struggling to absorb B12 from the meat that they are eating. So yes, I would definitely recommend Maybe 12 the other thing that people tend to forget and that I would strongly recommend is an omega-3 source. So would you like me to talk a bit more about Omega-3s can do? Yeah. I mean there's a great post on my Instagram about this but you talk about it and I'll make sure that everything that's on there is correct. Test Okay, so You got America 3 fatty acids from Plants a la and they are things like flax seeds. Chia seeds walnuts hemp seeds and they're really useful source of omega-3 fatty acids. You have to convert them into EPA and DHA in the body which are the long chain fatty acids. So you basically have to convert that some people are not so good at that conversion fertile females are probably the best but having said that I would still recommend if somebody was pregnant that they They take an EPA DHA supplement because it's very important for the baby's brain development. So yeah, I would suggest EPA DHA supplement from an algae Source because that's where the fish get it from fish swimming in the ocean. They've got Omega-3s in their muscles in their liver because of the algae that they eat in the ocean. So if you take an algae based EPA DHA supplement, you're not getting any of the heavy metals or the dioxins from the fish flesh. You're just getting the The pure Omega-3s there was a study I read recently about how people who eat a lot of fish actually don't end up doing much in the way of conversion because they're eating the fish which I thought was quite interesting because many of us have adapted not to live near the sea. So you have to think well, why is it that many people have not been omega-3 deficient in the past is it it can't be because they were eating fish when they weren't and they operate it turns out that they probably The mega three short chains for Mega three long chain conversion, so you can potentially up and down regulated depending on what you're eating. And that's quite interesting because I've interviewed Fiona and she did tell me she doesn't take any supplements and I was like, wow, how do you how do you run these? Are you run these Ultra marathons? I'm not doing and I was just surprised but like what I do say to everybody is like it's not worth the risk like this such affordable supplements is just not worth the risk of being deficient on them because you know, if you do have a deficiency that is life-changing. Yeah one thing that I was deficient in when I actually had my blood tested. On two months ago was vitamin D and I think maybe you could cover that quickly visit Indy is definitely one to think about. So the three the three things I like to think about people is B12 Vit D and EPA DHA vitamin D is a problem for a lot of people it's not it's not just a problem with people on a plant-based diet because most of the vitamin D is supposed to come from sunlight. It's actually a hormone that our bodies make through Sunlight exposure primarily and so when you think about the fact that 90% of the vitamin D that you synthesizes through sunlight exposure on your skin and then you think about the fact that most of us are indoors most of the time then it kind of makes sense that we're going to have a problem with vitamin D. Especially if you've got darker skin, especially if you're living in a part of the world where the sunlight is not strong enough. So living in the UK, for example The sunlight is pretty much guaranteed not to be strong enough in the winter months. There's a simple rule of thumb that you can use if you're especially in the summer months if you're going to be getting out in the sunshine to try and get your vitamin D requirements if your Shadow is longer than your body. You're probably not going to be able to make the term Indie if your Shadow is shorter than your body. That's when you're likely to be able to make that in Mandi Through Your Skin most of the day your shadows going to be longer than your body most of the time. I'm the sun's going to be behind lots of clouds. Is that is that evidence based research just there that is the shadow test, but I think the bottom line is it doesn't do any harm to take a vitamin D supplement and you don't want to be deficient because it affects not only bone strength, but it can also have a strong effect on our immune system immune regulation and other issues within the body. So it's worth getting it tested to be honest. I think that anyone on any kind of diet should probably get their vitamin D test and that's coming from a GP. So I might get other GPS listening to this having a big sigh and rolling their eyes, but I do think it's worth checking vitamin D because I was vitamin D deficient years ago. This is when I was you know, I was eating what you'd call it an omnivorous diet and I was in the sun. I had a bit of a tan. You know, I'm fair-skinned. You wouldn't think it would be a problem for me. But I still had a low vitamin D then so it's definitely worth checking that taking a supplement unless you're going to be on a constant holiday in the Caribbean. Yeah, and I think another Point worth mentioning as well as we're assuming that the people that need these supplements are having a pretty varied Whole Food plant-based diet if they are just vegan and they having high processed vegan foods in the probably going to need a lot more supplements if they decide that they just want to be vegan for the animals. Fair and just have the vegan junk food. Yeah. Absolutely. You're not going to be getting any of the apps. This is the problem. You're not going to be getting any of the health benefits that I've talked about in this interview. If you regularly enjoy the vegan junk food. It's just not going to happen. You're not going to get enough of the folate and the B vitamins and the magnesium and the calcium and all of those incredible this minerals that you get from a variety of whole plant. US Foods because you're not eating them you're basically eating more processed foods junk Foods, you're going to be having high levels of something in the blood called homocysteine which increases risk of inflammation and you don't have any benefit in terms of life expectancy. So I would suggest really hopefully transitioning. So it is tough for people, you know, when they when they're going from a standard Western diet. It's really difficult to think. Okay. I'm just going to I'm just going to eat all healthy. Foods because your gut bugs are not adapted to it and your your taste buds are not yet adapted to it and it's really hard. So I think having a little bit of the vegan junk food to start with in that transition period is probably a good tool for some people as they as they move over to a whole food plant-based diet, but then hopefully the time they'll be having loads more of the way of fruits and vegetables and whole grains and legumes and herbs and spices. Has and nuts and seeds and all of those things and less of the rest good answer last question and then we can call it. If you are on death. Row. What would be your final meal? Whoa, that's a really good question. Somebody asked me the other day if I was on a desert island and all I could eat was one I said that the first thing that pops My head was a Buddha bowl because it has potentially think you need everything and won via whole grains the fruits the vegetables on that, but if I'm on death row, I don't need a review. It was literally my last meal. God I don't know. Let me think I tell you what I had a really know what does I have the other day, which I really liked there was oh, yeah, that's right. I went into this really lovely restaurant in London and they gave me this incredible. It was like an aubergine dish and I absolutely loved it. Probably some sort of a gene with some apricots, maybe some prunes. I love that stuff. And then they serve me up with this delicious chocolate brownie with salted caramel vegan ice cream and it was really yummy. So I think I'd probably go for that if I was really thinking about, you know, living much longer, that would probably be my choice of is the name of the restaurant it was it was the the gate at Maryland. Then I went there for New Year's Eve. That was my name is Ethan of the five course. Oh my God the five course meal. But you probably had the very meal I haven't had that I haven't had that they had a special menu and it does not that but the dessert was very good. Yeah, that's that's what I think I might have if they would make it for me. I don't know what I've done. Maybe they wouldn't want to make it right well with that I think that is more than enough and specs and fun for tonight. So thank you so much camera for taking the time to be on the spot. Ask them how to educate people a little bit more with plant-based diets. It's my absolute joy and pleasure Aaron and I think that you do fantastic work. So thank you for having me. So Ryan, hopefully I'll see you soon. Yeah, go to the gate. How about your final meal? We have to have this. Yeah. Yeah, and that's all for today guys. Hope you enjoyed today's episode. Of course. We'll see you next week if you have Ins I want to find out more information about working with me. Check out my Instagram at the vegan underscore coach my website the vegan coach the org, or just check out my Facebook page. Have a great day and see you next week.
In this episode I speak to the amazing down to earth and fun Dr Gemma Newman. We talk about her experiences and the numerous hours of study and research she has completed to share valuable information on important topics like;  - The longest living populations - Keto diets  - Vegan keto diets -Considerations long time vegans need to think about  And more..  Dr Gemma Newman has worked in medicine for 15 years and is the Senior Partner at a family medical practice. She studied at the University of Wales College of Medicine and has worked in many specialities as a doctor including elderly care, endocrinology, paediatrics, obstetrics and gynaecology, psychiatry, general surgery, urology, vascular surgery, rehabilitation medicine and General Practice. She gained additional qualifications in gynaecology and family planning. She is a graduate of the AFMCP course, and is a member of BSLM. She has a specialist interest in plant based nutrition and lifestyle medicine, and is an advisory board member of Plant Based Health Professionals UK. She gives nutrition and lifestyle advice to her patients, who have gained tremendous results using the power of their plate. As a broadcaster and writer she has been featured on television, including ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky News Sunrise. She has contributed to articles for magazines including Glamour, Zest and Health magazine. She has appeared in the feature film 'Vegan 2018'. Her family lead a fully plant based lifestyle, following the extensive research she had done of the scientific literature on the health benefits associated with whole-food plant based nutrition. She is regularly invited to teach other doctors and the general public via training programmes, podcasts and conferences about the benefits of plant-based nutrition. You can follow her on Instagram @plantpowerdoctor, or via Facebook Dr Gemma Newman, or through plantbasedhealthprofessionals.com  This episode is a great one for you to understand a little bit more about why a plant based diet is best based on evidence and not just opinions. Please share if you enjoy it! 