Are You Eating Too Many Carbs? | Dr. Neal Barnard on The Exam Room Live

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] welcome to the exam room live brought to you by the physicians committee hi i am the weight loss champion chuck carroll and this is the healthiest half hour anywhere online today and we appreciate you joining us right here on facebook and on youtube as we all raise our health iqs together now today's question the lead question is carbs can you eat too many on a diet well dr neal barnard is here with us as we open the doctor's mailbag to answer your health and nutrition questions so if there's something on your mind go ahead and put that in the comments or the chat box we'll get to as many questions as we possibly can other questions that are already in the mailbag we have a question about fiber and whether freezing fruits and vegetables strips that out does that really happen we have questions about migraines we have questions about so much so let's not waste any more time let's dive right on in and welcome dr barnard to the show sir thank you so very much for joining us hi chuck great to be with you again it is really good to have you here carbs never seems to be a topic that is not of discussion everybody is curious about carbs and i love today's first question because it's one that i think a lot of people probably have especially as they begin to explore the idea of eating a plant-based diet so dr barnard this particular viewer on instagram wrote i recently began eating a whole food plant-based diet but now my nutrition app is telling me that i'm eating too many carbs how concerned should i be uh the answer is not at all um you might be concerned that you got the wrong app but um the carbs themselves are gonna be okay um and let me give you a few things to think about number one uh what you might be thinking about is calories do carbs make it fat here are the numbers a gram of fat has nine calories doesn't matter where it's from fat has nine calories carbohydrate whether it's starch or pure sugar those are the two forms of carbohydrate four calories in every gram so you can eat them all day long okay second thing to think about uh as you probably know japan has been the thinnest healthiest longest lived country on the planet at least before the diet westernized with burgers and things what was the dietary staple in japan at that time it was rice a huge rice-based diet and and the japanese people did really well until the rice started slipping away and burgers started coming in and then their um health issues started to degrade so rice is good rice is good food and so are the other carbs um perhaps the most important thing to say is that in the same way as gasoline fuels your car carbs fuel your muscles your brain and all the other parts of your carbs carbohydrate starch breaks apart to release the glucose your brain needs and that your muscles need so it's perfectly fine the big issue with carbohydrate is what goes with them you take that beautiful organic sweet potato out of the oven and what do we do we top it with cheese doodles and all and baco bits and all these things that's really the problem you take the healthy spaghetti noodles and we top them with alfredo sauce cheese sauce meat sauce and so forth it's the things that go along for the ride that are often a big problem to that end ashley has a great follow-up question to that she said that finding salad dressings and condiments that are healthy and tastes good is something that she struggles with so what suggestions do you have okay a couple of great things um when you're chopping your salad do look at the the salad dressing section um there are lots of non-fat dressings out there give them try a few of them see which ones you like or you can go even more simple have you had rice vinegar or organic seasoned rice vinegar pick them up some of them are just they're light they're really really delicious and some people will mix them with a tiny dollop of vegan mayo or something like that or a touch of bragg's use bragg's aminos you can kind of mix these things together do a little bit of organic chemistry so to speak and you'll find things that you really like on your potato frankly you can have it just plain some people have it with a little bit of salsa a little dijon mustard and that way you're getting away from the cheesy goopy stuff here's a question from joanne came in at 12.05 she says that she's hit a weight loss plateau and is eating primarily potatoes do you have any advice for her uh like i was mentioning earlier the potato itself not really very high in calories at all um potatoes are fine the issue that many people have with potatoes is how they top them uh butter marger and especially cheese nowadays um parents learned some years ago that if you put cheese on anything kids will eat it and it's unfortunately not the healthiest choice so the real issue is the toppings the potatoes themselves fine question from sean wrote this on twitter sent in the question using the hashtag exam room live wants to know is fiber destroyed when you freeze fruits and vegetables it is not uh fiber is not entirely indestructible but pretty close so the freezing is not gonna hurt at all that's good to know uh you and i recently had a discussion about migraines that was a pretty popular episode here and vad had a follow-up question to that writes that uh they've been vegan for about a month and a half and no longer have any headaches they go on to say that when they ate meat and dairy they had them all the time but they still can't explain why their head doesn't hurt anymore they're still confused so why is it that meat and dairy may have been contributing to the migraines it's a very common observation as we were talking about earlier chuck that that when people get away from animal products very often migraines uh either just go away or improve a lot and science is not entirely clear how to explain this but here's here's what is almost certainly happening um within meat products within egg products and especially within dairy there are certain proteins that we're just a little bit sensitive to in the same way as you might react to a bee sting by so your skin swells up that's inflammation um your body might become inflamed so to speak when you bring these animal proteins into your diet and one of the reactions some people have is migraine so you get those products out of the diet you do better it's probably removing the animal protein that is doing the benefit for you and what is striking is that some people will have migraines not just in response to aged cheese or high-fat chicken wings or something like that but even in response to a totally say non-fat milk or non-fat yogurt because again it's that those little traces of the animal protein that we believe are doing the harm but you did the right thing you got them out of your diet and you're benefiting um tell all your friends who are still suffering with headaches that they can give this a try and see if they can't get relief this is a fantastic question from anna marie wants to know is it possible to reverse a recent diagnosis of type 2 diabetes in an otherwise healthy 25 year old black woman oh my goodness uh first of all thank you for that question that's an outstanding question and thank you for thinking about this um 25 yes that that's that's that's that's a young age to be diagnosed with with diabetes but this is not unusual we're seeing it younger and younger and younger ages used to be we would see it after 40. now we're seeing it early is it possible to reverse yes run do not walk to the following regimen number one no animal products at all and by the way if this is a new idea for you don't take this on faith i'm gonna what i'm gonna describe i would ask you to just try don't set aside your skepticism that's perfectly reasonable but give it a try for the next say eight twelve weeks no animal products whatsoever you're going to be vegan and we've got lots of things to help you at pcrm.org and so forth number two keep oils really really low learn how to steam your vegetables and use non-fat dressings and cook things in vegetable broth we're trying to get the oils out of the diet too so no animal products keep oils really low and the things that are left choose the healthiest choices okay so as time goes on you're eating vegetables fruits beans whole grains you're having your spaghetti with tomato sauce not meat sauce you're having the bean chili instead of the meat chili your tastes will adapt and what you're going to discover is in most cases their blood sugar starts coming down down down down down if you're not yet on medications that's great if you are on medications be sure you tell your prescriber that you are doing this because your blood sugar is likely to fall and the combination of strong drugs and this very strong diet i just described to you it can mean that your blood pressure blood sugar can fall sometimes a little bit too low that's hypoglycemia and your doctor will say okay great well let's back up your of your medicines are stopping completely so um try the diet changes that i just recommended um don't uh forget b12 you need vitamin b12 for complete nutrition put it to work let your caregiver know that you are doing this and can you reverse it absolutely um everyone gets a different result but by all means give it a try do not do a halfway measure it would be my strong strong advice don't do mediterranean or ketogenic or any of those kinds of things do a plant-based diet and in this program we've talked many times about the mechanisms for it and sooner or later we'll come back to why it works but for right now just put it to work let's take another question about diabetes this one comes to us from laurie wants to know how diabetes can lead to kidney disease yeah diabetes means of course that you have a high blood sugar because the sugar is not going where it's supposed to go it's supposed to go into your muscles and your liver to to fuel them but it's instead it's staying outside it's building up in your blood and as it builds up in the bloodstream and your bloodstream goes through the kidneys that tiny little nephrons the little filter units in the kidneys are affected by high blood sugar by a high blood pressure and also by the atherosclerotic changes that are narrowing the arteries so all those things conspire together to cause the kidneys to get damaged that's bad news good news uh when you're on a healthy plant-based diet all those things tend to get better and because you're avoiding animal protein that's you'll find that your diet is much easier on your kidneys too and uh be sure to work with your doctor you know don't cancel your doctor's appointment or caregiver's appointment um kidney disease is a serious thing but this healthy kind of diet is the best way to baby your kidneys and sheila has kind of a follow-up to that she wants to know how much uh a healthy whole food plant-based diet would help someone whose kidneys have already fully failed will they still see the benefits there um if you have a little bit of life left in your kidneys and there they have some filtering capacity a plant-based diet is absolutely the thing to do um it's still the thing to do if your kidneys are completely non-functional but if the kidney cells are really just dead they're not going to come back i'm sorry sorry to say that said what is it that really hurts a person who's got advanced kidney disease in most cases what they end up dying of is cardiovascular disease heart disease heart attacks so you don't want a scrap of cholesterol or animal fat in your diet even at that point let's switch gears now and talk a little bit about high blood pressure mary wants to know what she can do to reduce her high blood pressure she says she's eating a pretty clean diet right now she's getting at least 10 000 steps a day but she still has high blood pressure what advice do you have for her okay great question and um lots of other people who are listening are nodding because they've got the same issue that you have so thanks for for raising it your exercise is a good thing diet is absolutely central because it's usually diet that leads us into high blood pressure for the majority of people um your doctor or caregiver will have said cut the sodium good idea because that will reduce blood pressure a little bit but you can go further and that's tackling something called viscosity viscosity is the thickness of your blood like if you buy a motor oil for your car some of them are more watery some are really thick and um and flow more slowly so the viscosity word applies also to your blood and if you have very viscous thick slow-moving blood it's more like oil less like water your heart has to push hard to make it go through i'm being a little bit simple in my explanation but that's the basic idea so you need to reduce the viscosity of your blood how the heck am i going to do that if i can get my blood to be less viscous it'll flow better my blood pressure will come down how do i do it um we get the bad fat out of the diet chicken fat fish fat yes fish fat is got a lot of bad fat in it mixed in even if it does have some omega-3 it's got a lot of saturated fat too and you get away from uh from animal products in general keep vegetable oils very very low and what you'll find is that if you were to measure the thickness of your blood is lower you don't have to measure it but what you'll see as your blood pressure comes down so what do you do limit sodium read labels choose the not the no sodium versions eat all the vegetables and fruits that you can they're they're naturally really low in sodium and skip the animal products that will bring down your blood thickness and lower your blood pressure and exercise is good too let's pivot over to cholesterol shall we this is a good question from annika wants to know she says that she's vegan but still has high cholesterol above 250 as a matter of fact wants to know what she should be doing differently okay thanks for that question you're right to be concerned that's a high number and your doctor is going to start getting nervous anytime it's over 200. about one in 10 people will have a high cholesterol level that's related entirely to genetics meaning no matter what you do it just stays high so is your level due to genes or not here's how you tell for the next eight weeks no animal products in your diet if you have no animal products in your diet you've got no cholesterol in your diet and you've got no animal fat in your diet at the same time keep oils really low and the reason for that is that even though oils have less bad fat compared to butter or chicken fat they still have some and that will drive your cholesterol up a little bit too so for the next eight weeks no animal products keep oils super low and then test your cholesterol if it's if it's moving if it's coming down you got your answer if it is stay is still in that high range um then it looks like it's probably genetic and at that point you're going to want to talk with your doctor about whether a statin is advisable for you or not question from sally also about cholesterol wants to know how she can raise her hdl cholesterol should she be taking niacin uh no my in my advice is not to um and years ago researchers happen to notice this curious phenomena that hdl or high density lipoprotein was associated with lower risk of heart disease so what they didn't really realize is that it was sort of a genetic quirk people who happen to have hdl high hdl tended to have lower risk of heart disease but it wasn't exactly cause and effect subsequent studies have shown that if you do things to boost your hdl take a low hdl make it high you can do it with drugs you can do with supplements all this kind of stuff you know what it does to your heart risk nothing doesn't help so the new idea about hdl is we don't really pay as much attention to it as we used to what you really need to concentrate on is keeping your ldl low density lipoprotein low definitely below 100 that's really the main focus nowadays we have a lot of follow-up questions from our migraine discussion um not just from last week but we started it already today a little bit uh we'll take one here from vegan law says giving up coffee helps my migraines but i really like it so will i still experience some benefits if i just cut back a little bit double-edged sword i'm sorry to say uh coffee drinkers do have more headaches um than non-coffee drinkers especially in the morning when you haven't had your cup of joe and you're you know in in in withdrawal um caffeine is addictive you know it's it's not the worst addiction in the world but it is it is physically habituating and you will go through withdrawal and coffee drinkers have more headaches that said the funny part of it and we mentioned this last week too i think is that if you've got a headache just coming on i'm talking about like a migraine the pounding is starting you run into the kitchen you brew yourself the the strongest cup of coffee you can have one or two cups of it and for many people it knocks the headache out and that's because the caffeine itself is a painkiller that happens to be added to a lot of other painkillers as you'll see look at the label of over-the-counter pain medicines there's often caffeine added to potentiate their pain killing effect so um over the long run coffee is not your friend it makes you more likely to have headaches but in a pinch when one is coming on you can use the caffeine as effectively a treatment yeah didn't you say on the show that a lot of those the the painkillers they actually have a little bit of caffeine in them they do um many many of them um if you look at the painkillers that are uh often combinations of things they add a little caffeine to it and it's not just that the caffeine picks you up it actually potentiates the the pain-killing action of the main drug that's that's in there um i have to say caffeine is something that a lot of people get habituated to and its effects are unfortunately a bit mixed question from fm wants to know whether carrots can trigger migraines not that i've ever seen um carrots are one of those foods on the list of pain-safe foods let me give you this list by the way this is golden for you if you've got migraines also if you have digestive problems if you have rheumatoid arthritis and you're trying to think what the heck are my my my triggers the pain safe food list includes rice like brown brown white rice is okay with brown rice even better it just doesn't trigger these inflammatory conditions and then vegetables too green vegetables or orange vegetables like carrots are the best are when they are cooked and the reason is that that can sometimes knock out it sort of denatures the proteins a little bit and finally fruits but in the cooked form so apple sauce not an apple how do i use this list let's say i've got migraines and they are driving me crazy and i've done everything i possibly can and you went vegan for four weeks and your your headaches were not quite gone now for the next week two three really focus on the paint safe foods have lots of rice have lots of vegetables cooked you can have a lot of them uh beverages water that's it it's a restrictive diet but you don't have to limit calories so you're not hungry you're just a little bored and then what you'll often find is your migraines are knocked out by this because you're not eating any trigger foods now migraines gone or joint pain is better whatever it is now reintroduce the foods you took out one at a time every two days and start at the bottom of my dirty dozen list apples bananas they're they're very rare as triggers so i have a lot of apples on wednesday and again on thursday if that didn't trigger a migraine it's not a trigger for you keep them uh go to bananas add a lot of bananas to your diet like three four a day for a couple days if that didn't trigger a migraine fine keep them and then you go to the other foods add them in one at a time every two days having a generous amount as a test and if they don't trigger pain you keep them and so your diet gets richer and richer and richer and what most people find is that they discover one or two triggers that they didn't know they had and if they avoid it they are pain-free and as as long as you're then avoiding the really really bad foods like meats and dairy and eggs and greasy stuff you're going to find that it is a life-changing experience in many cases i want to sneak one more food in there uh is in terms of migraine triggers here um this is an interesting one from nicholas says that uh he's twice gotten migraines while cutting garlic do you know of any connection there between garlic and migraine headaches who are you talking to who else was in your kitchen what music were they playing at the time i have not heard that but however you will you will hear people say that very strong odors and other things can sometimes be their thing um what's the best the best gauge is what happened to you if something triggered your migraines like that intense um a smell you know the garlic when it's intact doesn't really have much smell but once the cell membranes are sliced through and these this magical chemical reaction uh occurs not just in in in garlic but in all the allium vegetables like shallots and onions and scallions that big rush of chemicals that went into the air went into your nose and your brain said yikes and reacted to it so so if it has happened to you more than once believe it boy this this name is fantastic dragon ninja mommy wants to know if there are non-nut sources of omega-3s that she could give her child because they are allergic to nuts okay well first of all i'm sorry that you got to deal with a nut allergy that you know they are more common and i know you're talking to other parents who have the same issue it's um inconvenient and it's worrisome because you don't want your child to be exposed to something that can that can hurt him or her but yes there are plenty of sources of omega-3 let me give you my favorite one um kind of the most neglected and that's green vegetables so the little bit of of spinach on a salad i'm talking like uncooked fresh spinach or cooked green vegetables spinach broccoli all of them you wouldn't think they have any oils at all how can they have omega-3 send it to a lab and they'll tell you it doesn't have much fat in it maybe eight percent of its calories but of the fat that's in there a surprisingly high portion is omega-3 so take advantage of it now kids are phobic of green vegetables so you got to find the way that they will eat them spinach salad pretty good some kids like broccoli if you spray it with brags aminos or something like that but you'll find you'll find ways that they they like apart from that flaxseed chia seeds they have lots and lots of them and if you want i'm not pushing this but there are omega-3 vegan supplements online they've got dha and epa that are selling like crazy now it's what used to be thought of as the province of fish supplements but for lots of good reasons people are avoiding the fish supplements but you will see online vegan dha epa um if you're going to use those give those to your child talk to your pediatrician first because it's frankly something that kids for the most part are not going to need flax seed chia seed green vegetables can't go wrong let's stick uh with the child diet theme here we have a question from someone who says that my midwife told me that i need to eat three servings of dairy per day but i'm still trying to reduce animal products should i really be eating all of that cheese and all of that milk no you shouldn't and your your midwife means well um i'm glad you're consulting with this person but um that is really old-fashioned advice even a pregnant cow does not drink cow's milk um and this this whole idea the idea is that you need protein you need calcium cosmetics caused by those both that's true but what else does it have it has estrogens in it it has all kinds of chemicals in it um and you there is absolutely no requirement for cow's milk at any stage of life and certainly not during pregnancy but you do need protein you're going to get plenty of protein from grains beans vegetables you'll get plenty of calcium from green leafy vegetables also from beans don't forget your vitamin b12 it's important while you're pregnant important while you're breastfeeding it's important for your child after birth this question we've gotten a couple of times but i'm not sure if we've ever really answered it on the show before it comes to us from theresa wrote this at 12 19. wants to know whether or not she should be eating potatoes because her cholesterol is getting higher is there a connection between potatoes and cholesterol the connection is bacobits um if you're topping it with bacon um yes if it's the potato itself potato with dijon mustard and pepper no problem potato with salsa on top no problem there's no cholesterol there's no animal fat in there but if you top it with butter sour cream little bits of bacon those kinds of things that can raise your cholesterol right up janelle wants to know is there a connection between high blood pressure and high cholesterol are those two really connected by themselves or is it all diet related um i think i would say the latter meaning that one does not cause the other high blood pressure doesn't cause high cholesterol but a diet that's rich in animal products tends to drive both animal products have cholesterol in them cholesterol is a a little molecule it's in the membrane of a muscle cell and all and all other animal cells and so if you're eating a steak or a chicken wing you're eating the animal's muscle cells sounds appetizing doesn't it well you're getting the cholesterol that's built into those cell membranes and it adds to your own cholesterol but even worse the the animal fat that you're eating has a lot of what's called saturated fat that's the more solid fat that stimulates your body your liver and other cells to make additional cholesterol and that drives it up and as you're eating that then your blood is getting more viscous we were talking about that earlier um and your blood is getting thicker so your blood pressure tends to go up and animal products also are pretty high in sodium especially cheese but also a number of meat products have sodium and so all of those conspire to raise cholesterol and raise blood pressure and when you change your diet they can all go back down let's uh take another question about kids really quickly this is from cfy wants to know whether you recommend any other specific supplements other than vitamin d b12 and calcium for children who are eating a plant-based diet well first of all what a wonderful question is the greatest gift you can give to children is to give them a healthy diet and a plant-based diet is is the way to do it and so the rules are four food groups vegetables fruits whole grains beans and kids often have simple simple tastes so they may not yet be there with asparagus but they get the green beans and corn um that's fine they do need b12 and that's really the only supplement that they definitely do need is vitamin b12 but you mentioned a couple of others that are worth thinking about you mentioned calcium they don't necessarily need a calcium supplement if they're getting lots of green vegetables sometimes calcium fortified soy milk or other plant milks they may not need a calcium supplement but but they can be used uh let your pediatrician know that that's what you're doing uh vitamin d normally comes from the sun on your skin if you live near the equator or you're outside a lot you might get adequate vitamin d from that source otherwise than a vitamin d supplement for your child may make sense again talk to your pediatrician this is a question from meewa coming in wants to to ask this on behalf of her husband this is an interesting predicament that he finds himself in says that he began eating a whole food plant-based diet but now needs to gain weight because he's lost so much of it because he works a job that demands so much physically from him what recommendations might you have to make sure that he keeps his weight up and doesn't get too thin well first of all he's the envy of everybody else at work that is great congratulations so he he lost all that whatever excess weight he had now he'd like to gain some more um first of all if he doesn't do anything if he just sticks with the plant-based diet he's not going to waste away because the weight that he lost it's not like his muscles are smaller or his skin is thinner or his bones are smaller the only thing he lost was that that excess fat layer and so the fat layer that you have is really dictated by the fat that you eat um so if he eats more fats he'll put weight back on if he's less fat so tend to come off um i would think twice before doing anything at all and what i would suggest is check his bmi go online plug in bmi calculator body mass index calculator you put in his height and his weight if the number comes up between 18 and a half and 25 forget it you're in a good range um nowadays a person who's got a bmi of 21 is going to be thought of you're skinny the reason they think you're skinny you're normal it's just that everybody else has a bmi of 35 and they're not you know i'm exaggerating but you get the idea that as our society has become heavier a person who used to be regarded as a healthy weight is now regarded as too thin or whatever so don't try to gain weight if you're if you're in a healthy range if your bmi is below 18 and a half that's too skinny and at that point a make sure you're eating make sure you're eating adequate amounts and if you want to bring in occasional nuts and oils to make sure that you've got adequate calories you can do that but for most people that's not really an issue judy's hanging out with the exam roomies today says that since she adopted a whole food plant-based diet her cholesterol has dropped by 50 points that is fantastic 50 points that's nothing to shake a stick at dr barnard congratulations that's wonderful uh anna marie wants to uh ask how you can increase your ability to become pregnant and even sustain pregnancy with diet and lifestyle so if you eat a cleaner diet does that increase your chances of becoming fertile yes in several ways and at the risk of sounding a little self-promotional we we have discussed this very issue in relation to my book your body and balance which has a whole big section on fertility and the things that affect it both for men and women so if you don't mind let me encourage you to have a look at your body and balance and and the recipes were done by lindsey s nixon and they are perfect illustrations of how to do this but to to give you a couple of quick tips here number one if your weight is not in a super healthy range that is that affects fertility very very strongly and so a plant-based diet vegan diet without a lot of oil and minimize the oils tends to help us get back into the body size that is where fertility is more likely and even a little bit of overweight is associated with fertility issues so it's good to be in the normal range even kind of the bottom part of the normal healthy bmi range which you remember 18 and a half to 25. secondly if you're not avoiding dairy throw the dairy out now researchers have been looking at links between dairy and infertility it's not so much a fertility killer for people who are 16 17 18 but when women are saved in their 20s you start seeing fertility dropping off the more milk women consume and at first this was just kind of an epidemiologic mystery um why is it that in thailand where women don't drink milk they they're fertile into their 30s at 40 and so forth but in the u.s the fertility just drops off in in the 30s we think it's uh galactus the dairy sugar lactose breaks to a smaller pair of sugars called glucose and galactose the galactose is toxic to the ovary according to the best evidence we got so skip the dairy uh follow a healthy plant-based diet that'll help your weight to get back to where you want it and you'll see a lot more tips in your body and balance let's go ahead and grab two more questions before we close up the doctor's mailbag today this one comes to us from jan wants to know how much salt we actually need each day and whether eating too much of it can prevent weight loss wow okay yes um salt is something that although it's maligned a lot and for good reason you do need a little bit i hope you're not counting but the amount that your body needs is 1500 micrograms a day um i'm sorry 1500 milligrams a day um that's the body's requirements and and once it gets kind of over that it's going to start raising blood pressure uh and so most people would say you want at least 1500 milligrams but you don't want to go over 2300 so something like that 2 grams 2 300 that's kind of the upper limit of where we want to be um is it a problem above that yeah it sure is it raises blood pressure and will it raise my body weight a little bit in the sense that sodium if you've overdone it holds water and that'll register on your scale is two or three pounds not 15 pounds final question comes to us from milan uh this may be a very broad question but it's an interesting one nonetheless they want to know what are the best foods generally speaking for autoimmune conditions okay um you want to avoid the bad stuff and put in the good stuff in its place here's here's what we're talking about an autoimmune condition means that your immune system is firing inappropriately your white blood cells normally make antibodies to attack a virus or a bacterium that has invaded and now for some reason the white blood cell cells are releasing antibodies in response to something else that something else could be proteins in dairy products or other foods that you've taken in so the autoimmune system means that you're somehow reacting to yourself what does that mean i make my white blood cells are making these antibodies in response to some trigger and now they're attacking me they're attacking my joints they're attacking my thyroid and shutting it down in hashimoto's thyroiditis or they can attack me in other ways and there are lots of these asthma sjogren's disease rheumatoid arthritis even type 1 diabetes these are all autoimmune conditions so the big big rule of thumb is that we want to avoid those triggering those triggers dairy probably is at the top of the list meats animal products in general you want to avoid them for many people that causes autoimmune conditions to get better some people need to go further and they avoid the trigger foods that i mentioned earlier you'll see a big description of this in my book the cheese trap actually in one of the appendices of that book uh because so many people respond to dairy products with autoimmune reactions i put the whole elimination diet in there how to follow that and how to avoid the bad foods and how to use the pain safe foods that we described earlier in today's program all right if we didn't get to your question today have no fear we will save it and do our best to get you an answer on an upcoming episode dr barnard i appreciate you being here to field so many questions for us today well there were great questions thank you to all the listeners today and thank you chuck and thanks to the good folks over at kinder beauty we were able to celebrate earth day all week long over on the exam room podcast and on yesterday's episode i had the opportunity to speak with dr martin heller who just completed perhaps the most comprehensive study on food and water scarcity how much water it actually takes to produce some of your favorite foods and even those you shy away from how much water it actually takes to manufacture that brand new statistics the most in-depth study that i'm personally aware of it is a fantastic listen if you haven't already done so and then on tomorrow's episode dr barnard is going to join me on the podcast and he and i are going to be looking not at water footprints but carbon footprints and we're going to be pitting plant-based diets head-to-head with the standard american diet and see how that stacks up in terms of the climate and speaking of climate if you haven't already checked this out yet earlier this month the physicians committee had the opportunity to put on its first ever climate summit and so what we did is we brought in 11 leading experts who looked all at the climate and diet and the connection there did a deep dive on a lot of this experts including dr barnard was there dr michael greger was there so many others were there as well so if you haven't already had an opportunity to check out the plant-based climate summit i highly recommend that you do that it's on the physicians committee's facebook page and youtube channel where you happen to be this very minute so go and look on april 1st for that particular climate summit i think that you will find it very enlightening and if you haven't already subscribed to the exam room podcast go ahead and do that right now on apple podcast or wherever shows are available but for today my friends that is all the time that we have i want to say thank you one more time to dr neil barnard for being here and to the crew behind the scenes that makes the magic happen thank you guys and to you my exam roomies thank you so very much for raising your health iqs with us and now it's time to pay forward what you learned and help educate others and for everyone here at the physicians committee i am the weight loss champion chuck carroll we'll talk to you again next time but until then stay safe take a stand and keep it plant-based

Channel: Physicians Committee

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Length: 39min 39sec (2379 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 21 2021