5 Vegan Foods for Strong Bones | Dr. Neal Barnard Live Q&A

welcome to the exam room podcast brought to you by the Physicians committee hi I am the weight loss Champion Chuck Carroll thank you so very much for watching and downloading in more than 150 countries around the world and making the exam room one of the most consumed nutrition podcasts anywhere on the planet today and today you might notice that we're kind of on location we are in the office of Dr Neil Barnard and today we are going to be talking about something that is very important and on the minds of virtually everyone as we grow older and that is maintaining strong bones is that possible to do without drinking gobs of milk and turning to Dairy we're gonna find out because today we're going to be talking about the top foods for strong Bones on a plant-based diet Dr barnardo thanks for being here my friend it's great to see you Chuck I'm really happy to be talking about this because I have an 87 year old father-in-law downstairs at home who is very much skeptical of eating a plant-based diet says he doesn't want brittle bones is it possible to maintain optimal bone health strong dense bones without eating a whole lot of dairy not only is it possible it's a plant-based diet is exactly what you would want to be doing because it gives you calcium in the healthiest possible form without all the bad stuff but Chuck this is really an important question because if you have unhealthy bones what's going to happen hip fractures often just lead to downhill spiraling of health because you're immobile and it leads to one thing in another wrist fractures spinal fractures all of these things these are things you don't want so absolutely there's a lot you can do with a plant-based diet true story uh he actually fell and broke his arm unfortunately a few weeks ago so that this really is kind of a timely conversation that we're having so I'm really glad to have it um let's talk about though if somebody is interested in maintaining that plant-based diet or getting started on it no matter what the age um we we've talked in the past about getting calcium from plants is kind of like cutting out the middle man right so what are the best plant sources that people should be turning to well you know that that's exactly it people think of cow's milk as the source of calcium cows don't make calcium cows eat calcium in the form of grass comes from the earth gets into the green leafy grass and then it gets into their body so we're not eating grass um however when we go to the grocery store what do you see you look all around the green vegetables have to come tops so broccoli very very uh popular vegetable everybody loves it but broccoli is not only has calcium but it's a highly absorbable form of calcium brussels sprouts same story do we think of this as absorbable well maybe milk is more absorbable let me give you some numbers if you take a glass of milk and think how much of that calcium actually gets into your body as opposed to just going through your body and going out with the waste the answer is 32 percent so in in cow's milk out of every 100 grams of of calcium that you're going to consume only 32 of them ever get into your body brussels sprouts double that 64. uh percent uh do we know why that is uh for whatever reason dairy dairy has a lot of calcium in it but most of that calcium more than 60 does not ever get into your body so for whatever reason the type of calcium is just poorly absorbed green leafy vegetables they vary but virtually all of them in that category broccoli kale collards brussels sprouts so those are top four Foods really should be in your routine because they're calcium absorption really high couple exceptions though spinach delicious vegetable Swiss chard delicious but pretty and they have a lot of calcium but their calcium absorption is really low too so that brings me to another interesting question and that is well is there anything nutrient-wash that we could add to the spinach to the chard to make their calcium a little bit more absorbable for example I think if you add maybe vitamin C to some other vegetables you can absorb the iron a little bit better yeah that's the squirt of lemon juice that people are often using what I would really do is is you shouldn't exclude spinach and chard because they're healthy vegetables I just wouldn't count on them for calcium because you got so many choices of foods that have a lot of calcium you're not going to be calcium deficient if these foods are front and center let's just list them broccoli yep kale collids brussels sprouts but let me say a word for beans the Forgotten being you know our grandparents knew about beans but somewhere along the generations everybody thought you know that's that's not for me that's Poor People's food or something like come on let's bring these healthy humble beans back into our diet I don't care if it's black beans Pinto beans soybeans navy beans black eyed peas those are good healthy foods for everybody we ought to really bring them back because they got a lot of calcium in them great point I love beans particularly fond of the garbanzo bean huge fan of hummus I think a lot of us are is there going to be calcium in that absolutely you know the garbanzo bean is you know you know every every country kind of has its own favorite bean and garbanzos you think of as being in Italy and southern Europe in general and they're great for hummus you know hummus is a breakfast food in much of the Middle East is it really it is that's where it really started but now it's kind of our lunch or our appetizer whatever but garbanzos can go on your salad uh you can frankly just take a can of garbanzos and just add Adam is a side just for anything so yes garbanzos they count well see now you got me thinking about like some hummus on toast for breakfast right so like I'm I'm fired up because now you've opened hummus up to that third meal I didn't know that this was possible yet beans in general are part of breakfast for so many cultures kind of Forgotten you know here in Washington DC for whatever reason but if you got on a plane went to London you could go into any breakfast buffet and they've got a big vat of baked beans that go right on your breakfast plate and if you were spring breaking in Cancun this is for a lot of young people their introduction to beans for breakfast it's black beans with a little pico de gallo and and hummus is as I mentioned a breakfast food if you're from Syria or other places in the in the Middle East that's how it started wouldn't it be fair though to have this conversation without also asking about the studies that have been shown that people who eat a plant-based diet perhaps are at a higher risk for having fractures as they get older what's your response to that well you know in our studies we bring people in and we'll randomly assign them to a vegan diet versus an omnivorous diet or whatever and I got to tell you Chuck we find that both groups at least at the beginning of the study they tend to run low in calcium no matter which group they're in unless they're planning for how to bring in the calcium and people can cheerlead for dairy all they want to people really are not drinking milk and don't particularly want to and so the dairy industry is trying to push them back into it if they do we've already talked about the fact that only about a third of that calcium gets in your body anyway so regardless of your diet you've got to be thinking about the greens and the beans because they bring you nutrition that's just not there in that class is there a risk of ever overdoing it with calcium can that be like too much of a good thing is not a good thing absolutely um you go to the store and you get calcium pills and you think this is going to be good for me this will get into my bones where it might get is into your kidneys um researchers at Harvard found that calcium supplementation is particularly risky if you're taking it on an empty stomach for some reason when people would take it with Foods somehow the calcium absorption was moderated a little bit but if they were taking on an empty stomach it went through the body into the kidneys and led to kidney stones that's all right good to know too much of a good thing um a lot of that is tied also with vitamin D does vitamin D well you think calcium and vitamin D would Dairy almost synonymous um what role does that play if any in bone health you're eating your green leafy vegetables the the calcium is going down your digestive tract vitamin D which comes from the sunlight on your skin the vitamin D pulls the calcium out of your digestive tract into your blood that's its whole job it helps you absorb it so you do need Vitamin D you need it from the Sun but if you're not in the Sun a supplemental do you and most doctors would say about 2 000 international units per day all right uh before we open up the doctor's mailbag Let's uh talk just just briefly about what we have coming up in La uh tomorrow if we release this show here uh March 30th the Ebel out in Los Angeles you and I are going to be live on stage for the first time ever doing the exam room in front of a live crowd I could not be more excited for this it is going to be so exciting it's going to be you me we've got wonderful guests we're going to have fun and I I got to tell you I am ready to be with our La friends again oh me too and and Dr Christie funk you talk about the guest Dr Christy Funk is going to be there Dr Columbus Batiste he will be there Samantha Harris host of Dancing With the Stars she's going to be joining us that night Tony okamoto plant-based on a budget so taking that whole idea that eating a healthy plant-based diet means it's going to take up your whole paycheck she crumples that up and throws it right in the waste basket she's going to be with us showing us how to do it quick easy and on the Cheap plus Harley Quinn Smith phenomenal actress and musician I mean that's an All-Star lineup of Health right there it is we're gonna have a good crowd but I think we can still accommodate a few you more people tell me there's always room okay there's always room so pcrm.org events is the website to visit right now to get your tickets or um click the link in the episode notes so pcrm.org events or right down there in the episode notes will get you your ticket so uh VIP tickets by the way I mean we've got dinner beforehand it's not just the show it's dinner and a show 6 30 talking about recipes inspired by Tony okamoto her latest book so we're going to be serving those for dinner and then the show starts at eight but you also get with the VIP tickets exclusive meet and greets photo opportunities a great time but if you can't make dinner no problem just come home for the show at eight can't wait absolutely can't wait um let's open up the doctor's mail bag you ready you bet all right this one this uh this one comes to us from somebody who's watching on YouTube this is from actually the last show that we did together they want to know what is the best type of calcium for bones as a senior and should we take anything else in the supplements such as K2 case 7 or magnesium we talked a little bit about supplementation this is getting a little bit more specific yeah it is um well let's go back to the basics because that's really where it's at you do need calcium and we've talked about greens like brussels sprouts kale collards broccoli that kind of stuff beans Great you do need Vitamin D from the Sun or supplements you need exercise that gives your bones a reason to live you need to be sure you're strengthening your wrist bones little push-ups sit-ups you know just and even regular walking bounces your bones and muscles around enough that it'll it'll stress them a little bit and strengthen them too but what about other things I would not supplement calcium unless your doctor says you should and I would not supplement vitamin K either it's true there are different forms but you are just not going to see a person who's eating a lot of greens and ends up vitamin K deficient the greens bring it to you they bring a lot of it to you and your Healthy gut microbiome we'll convert it from one form to another giving you the vitamin K that you need yeah I was just going to say I was like I think it would be really difficult on a plant-based diet especially if you are eating those greens to come up a little bit short in that Arena I know that people who are on a wharfin have to be especially careful with the amount of greens that they're eating because they're getting too much yeah yeah although even them you know they they should not shy away from greens but they should the old approach the kind of 1980s idea was wait a minute you're on this drug you don't want to be getting too much vitamin K so don't eat vegetables and and the patient just would say to the doctor but but that's the healthy food can't I have that what we now know is that as long as the amount of vegetables you eat is kind of the same from day to day you're getting a lot of it your doctor can test you and can get you on the warfarin dose that you need you're going to be fine how is it uh here's an interesting one how is it that uh exercise resistance training can actually strengthen the bones what's happening there because a bone isn't exactly a muscle so the muscle you get you work it out the muscle gets bigger how does the bone get stronger when it gets stressed okay well the the muscle is attached it goes through what we call the insertion into the the bones and the bone is it's got an architecture and it is under stress too and it responds to it you take a tennis player and you measure let's say their dominant dimes or right arm that's when they're they're Swinging with if you measure the bone density of their right arm it is it is significantly stronger than their left arm so they got the same genetics in both arms you know and everything same foods go to both arms but that recurrent stress strengthens those bones interesting that sounds like that could have come and come straight from Dr Kim Williams right there with the tennis reference there you go uh let's take a question here from Blues I want to go back to oil we talk about that frequently on the show as well uh they write I heard that corn oil is the healthiest oil what in your opinion what is your opinion on corn oil well what they're thinking of is corn oil is remarkable that has very little saturated fat so you and I have talked about this a lot of times saturated fat is bad fat yeah your body doesn't need any of it and when you get it it causes your cholesterol level to rise that leads to heart disease leads to Alzheimer's disease you don't want that however um corn oil is is lower in saturated fat than all the animal fats and even lower than Olive Oil that's a lot lower and that's really good however the problem is with all fats a fair amount of calories and so that's why we learn how to use a non-stick pan and so instead of hanging out with all these oils I think there's still so much confusion even though we've done so many shows about oils there's still so much confusion there's a lot of people that are like no oil whatsoever is that's the healthiest route and if you introduce any little bit it's just like what are you doing how does somebody person balance what's healthy versus not being just driving themselves crazy about it well oils aren't poison um so if you're having if you're having a little bit of oil here and there who cares the person who really should care is the person is trying to lose weight every gram of any kind of oil no matter how healthy it is you know this can be a bottle of extra virgin olive oil straight from Tuscany it's still got nine calories per gram so if you want to lose weight get the oils out of your diet secondly if you've got diabetes or insulin resistance you really want to get them out of your diet because that will allow the fats to come out of your muscles and out of your liver and let your insulin work again so oil is going to work against you if you've got a hormonal issue hot flashes menstrual pain diminish the oils because oils for some reason like any kind of fat causes estrogen levels to go up and that's a problem so but on the other hand you're young you're healthy you don't have any health health issues you're not trying to lose weight you're not insulin resistant I don't think you need to blot the last bit of oil off of your noodle okay I love this question from Claudia because this this is kind of what the show is all about Claudia is just getting started and I think you can see exactly where she's coming from how do we prevent heart problems fatty liver disease cancer or kidney damage when most of the foods that we eat are so full of sugar salt and sodium what diet is recommended for us yeah well sugar salt and sodium those are issues but those are not the main drivers of the problems that she's asking about the main drivers we have is take me I grew up in North Dakota a plate game at dinner time and in the middle of the plate was a big hunk of meat and if you had a hamburger there was this big hamburger in it you know um cheese on top those are the big drivers of the health issues it's the fat and the foods that end up in the liver causing the fatty liver she's asking about that's what the Big Driver of cardiovascular disease so if we get rid of those things even if you haven't yet reduced sugar and you haven't yet reduced sodium when you get rid of the animal products you are doing a huge favor for your body just with that that said you don't need a lot of extra sugar and you can you can minimize that don't don't have a zero sugar diet an apple has natural sugar in it and orange has natural sugar a pear has those are natural sugars that your body was designed to use for fuel so those are good things let's grab a couple more before we wrap things up we're going to keep it on the short side today Stella struggling with diabetes right now wants to know whether or not she could theoretically eat a little bit of whole grain rice in her diet absolutely eat a lot of whole grain rice I I would um what I would do is get away from the animal products and you've heard me talk about this before and you'll see it in my reversing diabetes book the problem in diabetes is to get the fat out of the muscle cells and the fat out of your liver cells that's where the insulin is trying to work and if those cells are filled with fat they just they just can't accept this they can't pull the sugar out of the blood so rice does not have any saturated fat in it has very little of any kind of fat bring it into your diet but but not just Rice have it as part of a balance with beans other legumes lots of vegetables and healthy food all right and let's wrap things up with another question about vitamin D we were talking about the various forms of vitamin K a little bit earlier but AR is wondering about the various forms of vitamin D wants to know what's the difference between regular old vitamin D I suppose and then vitamin D3 okay short answer they all work okay okay long answer when the Sun hits your skin it's making vitamin D3 so that's the one in you and in every other animal D2 is is a forum called that works fine is put in supplements but you'll also you'll see supplements of D2 or D3 D3 is quote unquote the natural one but they both work there you go the skinny on D3 there you go all right and uh here you go March 30th the Ebel Los Angeles California for the very first time ever the exam room live and in person uh so excited that you're gonna be there again Dr Christy Funk she's going to be their Dr Columbus Batiste Tony okamoto plant based on a budget Samantha Harris Dancing with the Stars and of course our good friend Harley Quinn Smith as well I mean it's just going to be so great I can't wait for dinner especially I mean my goodness gracious thank you so much for making the track all the way across the country to make this happen with us I I just my hat is off to you you know I think it's going to be informative it's going to be educational but heck it's going to be fun oh yeah I mean 12 million downloads I think the people are ready to party man uh one last bit and and super important is to let everybody know that today's episode of the exam room live has been powered by the Gregory J Ryder memorial fund you know Dr Bronner the Gregory J writer memorial fund supports organizations like the Physicians committee that carry on Greg's love for Animals by promoting plant-based health and working to end animal abuse while emphasizing programs that promote systemic change and also benefit people they've got a great website you can visit it right now gregoryriderfund.org that's Gregory writer r-e-i-t-e-r-fund dot org Allison Mahoney and the Gang there we just couldn't do the show without them absolutely Greg had such a heart for Animals Allison has carried that forward in such a beautiful way so thank you Allison thanks for everybody thanks to everybody who's supporting uh the Greg writer fund too absolutely absolutely thank you Allison and thank you Dr Barnard this has been a real treat getting to do this in person with you can't wait to do it again tomorrow you bet I can't wait all right into the crew behind the scenes that makes the magic happen thank you guys so very much for all of your hard work and to you exam roomies thanks so very much for watching and raising your health IQs with us and for everybody here at the Physicians committee I am the weight loss Champion Chuck Carroll we will talk to you again very soon but until then keep it plant-based

Channel: Physicians Committee

Views: 104,749

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Id: TZA3czhOKU8

Length: 20min 31sec (1231 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 29 2023