- A couple of months
ago I did an episode on how long health influencers live and the reaction was amazing. But people asked, "How could
you miss Charles Atlas, Dr. Sebi, Paul Bragg, the Gersons? And while you're at it, please include some
social media influencers." So here we go with the sequel,
(chuckles) it involves some crazies,
some Nobel Prize winners, some tragic figures and some real heroes. One of my new heroes is
Charles Atlas who said, "Don't let yourself slump, it'll make you look sad and feel sad." Oh no. Stand straight and you'll feel happy. (laughing) (chuckles)
I couldn't find his advice on making out on Valentine's day though,
(chuckles) if you're 6,4 and your wife is 5,6. So we had to get creative. I'll go from youngest to
oldest, like last time and we can see at the end
if any patterns emerge. But that means we have to
get through some tragedies before we get to the truly
inspirational stories. One of the legendary social
media influencers is Zyzz who died of a heart attack at 22. He's been gone 10 years, but. (upbeat ambient music)
- [Narrator] There are now nearly 300,000 YouTube videos about Zyzz. A new tribute is uploaded
every couple of hours. - When someone dies that
young, the word is usually that they had an undiagnosed condition, but Zyzz posted his steroid
cycles on bodybuilding.com and insiders had a lot to say about it. - Compounds used DBOL
[Kickstart], Test E, and DECA. So that was like the classic
forum bro bulking cycle, which is hyper-aggressive. - Beyond steroids, human
growth hormone and diuretics, the bodybuilding community often goes for very high protein diets. The trainer for Daniel
Posey who died at 23 said he couldn't get Daniel to
eat any carbohydrates at all. Speaking of high protein,
this is Meagan Hefford who died at 25 shown here promoting Savage protein
powder on Instagram. She had toxic levels of
ammonia in her blood. At some triathlons I competed in, some of my friends on
very high protein diets would smell like ammonia after the race from metabolizing protein. Tragically I could keep going. Here's Dallas McCarver, a popular bodybuilder who died at 26. I won't add any more modern
bodybuilders to the timeline because they'd take up the whole episode and their stories are very similar. Moving on to one of my heroes, a neuroscientist with
impeccable credentials. (crowd cheering)
- I'm Dr. David Servan-Schreiber. 16 years ago, I was
diagnosed with brain cancer. - He was a junk food junkie who got an aggressive brain tumor at 31. He had it removed, went back
to chili cheese dogs and Coke and six years later, he got another one. This time he got serious
about what else he could do. - And I decided I would use
my skills as a physician and as a scientist to find out everything I could
in the scientific literature about how I could help my body above and beyond the
conventional treatments so that I would make it to this very tail end
of the survival curve. - He published the
best-selling book "Anti Cancer" somewhere in this stack. And I read it the day it came out in 2008. He tirelessly traveled all over the world during the next 14 years to promote his anti-cancer lifestyle. - In the Mediterranean diets, which is the most perfect anticancer diet. - He did make it to the tail
end of the survival curve for patients with cancers like his and he had a profound influence on cancer patients around the world. In his last few months of life, he wrote a book I'll never
forget, a bestseller in France. He lived to 50. The next influencer was
Dr. Alfred Pennington, the man who inspired Dr. Atkins. He published well-respected papers in the 50s showing the success they had in helping Dupont workers lose weight on a steak and potato diet. You could eat all the steak you wanted, but go easy on the
potatoes, rice and fruit and no sugar or flour. The Pennington diet became so popular, his interviews would make the cover of popular consumer magazines in the day with the catchphrase, the all
you can eat reducing diet. Pennington would say, "We are
today nutritionally speaking, moving from the vitamin
era to the age of protein." He not only inspired Dr. Atkins, but celebrities like John Wayne. (intense ambient music)
- I'd like to talk to your commanding officer. - Dr. Pennington died in his home at 56. The planets aligned for Sylvester Graham to become a huge influencer
in the mid 1800s. He had survived several
bouts of consumption which was the word for
tuberculosis back then and he was preaching vegetarianism just as cholera was
terrorizing the nation. He was a Presbyterian minister so he had the moral authority to say, cholera was not a punishment from God as many people thought. And the healthier you got, the less likely it was
that cholera would get you. He immersed himself in physiology and claimed the healthiest
diet was vegetarian and gave lectures to packed audiences about the science of life. He preached fire and brimstone against the rise of white bread and sugar, and even wrote a book about baking bread with whole
grain freshly ground. Perhaps his greatest accomplishment was to inspire Ellen White, the co-founder of the
Seventh Day Adventists to make vegetarianism central
to the Adventist way of life. Graham died at 57 after
receiving an opium enema to relieve the pain of
whatever was afflicting him, which no one seems to know. The planets also aligned
for Lulu Hunt Peters who in 1918 wrote the first
best-selling book in America, 2 million copies sold and still in print. (upbeat ambient music)
She caught the wave of fashion when women wanted to be thin. I guess that was a change
from the previous century. And it became a patriotic
duty not to eat too much so the troops could be
fed in World War One. She introduced the concept
of a calorie to the public and she was perfect to promote it because she had a great
backstory of losing 70 pounds. She was beautiful, fashionable, witty and a columnist for the Los Angeles Times. She died of pneumonia at 57. Speaking of fashionable diets, Judy Mozelle sold a million
copies of the Beverly Hills Diet that was endorsed by celebrities
like Englebert Humperdinck. The diet took
(chuckles) crazy to a new level and you couldn't combine carbs
and protein in the same meal. - But that is just a
symptom of indigestion. - She had no nutritional background, but she was an influencer in
the 80s, so I included her. She died of peripheral
vascular disease at 63. In contrast to Judy, Martha
Clare Morris, who recently died was a respected expert in nutrition. She had received her PhD
in nutrition from Harvard and developed the mind diet,
a variant of the Mediterranean and dash diets designed
to prevent Alzheimer's. She was a professor at Rush University Just before COVID struck, I was invited to attend an
MIT Stanford brain summit with 150 scientists who
specialize in Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, they served us what they believe are brain
healthy foods for the three days straight out of the mind diet. I didn't meet any of
them who doubted the diet and I noticed Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon promoted it in his new book. Dr. Morris died at 64
of esophageal cancer. Robert Kuwalski burst on the scene with the "8-Week Cholesterol Cure" on the New York Times bestseller list for a record 115 weeks. - At 35, I had a heart attack and bypass, at 41 I had a second bypass. - So he put his biology background in journalism career to work which led him to publish his book. He allowed red meat in
moderation and lived to 65 before dying of an aneurysm. Dr. John Rolo wrote a
low carb book in 1797 that was widely referenced
in treating diabetes patients throughout the 1800s. He died around age 66. Elma Stewart wrote a popular
carnivore diet book in 1898 that went through 32 additions. She had been in pain of joint
and muscle for nine years before discovering the
meat diet of Dr. Salisbury and it cured her. She died at 66. I eat something called "Montignac method". And it allows me to eat lots
and lots and lots of food, but still stay skinny. - (speaks french) - Michel was a flamboyant
French businessman who sold 17 million books revealing the secret of why
French women don't get fat. He believed calories didn't matter, but fast digesting carbs like
white flour, sugar, potatoes, and even carrots did. He was the first to promote the
glycemic index to consumers, a measure of how much your
blood sugar rose after eating. His diet is often described
as mostly low carb. He died at 66 of prostate cancer. A century and a half before Michelle was revealing the secrets
of slim French women, Jean Anthelme Brilat Savarin was revealing the secrets
of how to fatten them up. He noted that all thin women
of the day wanted to be fat so his fattening regimen was
to have them eat bread all day and put as much sugar on
their fruit as possible. He is sometimes considered
the father of low carb diets and his book is a wonderful description on thoroughly enjoying food. He died at 70. Georgios Silo was the founder
of the macrobiotic diet and a force of nature who wrote 300 books in
Japanese and 20 in French. Macrobiotics is partly spiritual and partly based on a
traditional Japanese diet roughly 50% of whole grain like
brown rice, 25% vegetables, 10% legumes, 5% miso soup
and occasional fish and nuts. He died at 72 of a heart attack. Jerome Rodale was the man who popularized organic food in America. He was the publisher of
magazines like "Prevention" and books on gardening and nutrition. He wasn't strict about his own diet and had a lust for occasional ice cream. On the Dick Cavett Show, he famously predicted
he would live to a 100 and then had a heart
attack on the set and died. - Ladies and gentlemen, Dick Cavett. (crowd applauding)
(upbeat ambient music) - Yes, I think I might be the only person in any book of records like
for Guinness Books of Records in any country to have
had a guest drop dead while doing the show. There wasn't nobody in show business but who of the guys have
died on a television show, but a health expert. - He was 72. Blake Donaldson wrote a
carnivore diet book in 1961 called "Strong Medicine". It's still in print and getting
great reviews on Amazon. He could have called it strong wording.
(chuckles) What a character he
would tell his patients, "Unless you're willing to stop
eating flour now and forever. I don't wanna take care of you. If you continue your one piece of protein bread for breakfast, there is nothing ahead
of you, but disaster. He died at 73. - As a world renowned nutritionist. Jean Mayer has served
presidents Nixon, and Carter. - He was an obesity
researcher at Harvard advisor to (indistinct) of the white
house conference on nutrition. He recommended a balanced diet
that included meat, poultry and fish, he thought milk
was an excellent food. He died at 73 of a heart attack. Phyllis Balch was a nutritionist who sold 8 million books
along with her husband, James an MD with a naturopathic bent. I browse through her
book, "Herbal Healing", and she writes with
unbelievable confidence about remedies to help maladies from Alzheimer's to swollen ankles. I mean, look at this chart. Ashwagandha, Brahmi concentrate,
Gotu Kola plus Hawthorne, Huperzine A. She died at 74 of cancer. Russell Wilder was a
researcher at the Mayo Clinic who developed the keto diet which is currently all the rage. I found a speech he wrote in 1953. - The animal proteins of meat,
eggs and milk are superior. Whole wheat bread does
you about as much good as a cold shower in the
morning, you only think it does. - Dr. Wilder died at 74. (branches creaking) (intense ambient music) (screams in distress) (horse neighs) That was Steve Reeves
who could uproot trees with his bare hand, stop runaway horses, get the prettiest of girls and
star as Hercules and Goliath. (chuckles)
Every young boy wanted to be him and he had one of the
greatest physiques in history. Fortunately, he told us how he did it. He advocated for a
balanced natural food diet including all food groups, but like a lot of people
mid century, a lot of milk. He died of a blood clot two
days after surgery at 74. - [Interviewer] And I'd be interested in to know what brought about that decision, or how long have you been a vegetarian or would you talk about that? - Sure. From the time that my father died, I haven't had meat in my
diet and that was in 1970. And then a few years
ago I gave up seafood. And that was simply
because I said to somebody, I had heard that fish
was very good for you. And that person said, yeah,
but it's not good for the fish. (laughing)
I haven't thought of that. - Mr. Rogers was co-owner
of Vegetarian Times but was very respectful of
people who had other diets. He died of stomach cancer at 74. Carl Bomberg was the editor of "Health and Hygiene Magazine". And in 1935, he wrote a book called, "Diet and Die" about fad diets. The number three diet on his list (chuckles)
vegetarianism, how far vegetarianism had fallen since the age of Sylvester
Graham and John Harvey Kellogg. He died at 75, Barry groves believed most of
what the experts have told us about nutrition is wrong and
we're designed to eat meat. He wrote several books,
such as "Eat Fat, Get Thin". He died at 77 of a heart attack. What, you've never heard of Barry Groves? At this point, you're probably asking, who's making his list
and who isn't and why? I can best answer that by
skipping ahead to a chick, Dr. Harriet Chick, (chuckles)
I'm not making that up. And now you won't forget her name. She had the audacity to
apply as a researcher at the prestigious Lister
Institute in London where no men had been hired before. Over the objection of some of the men, the director gave her a chance and here she is
(chuckles) among a sea of men in suits. Did I offend you by calling her a chick? Then can I call her a dame? Because that's what queen
Elizabeth called her when she made her dame
of the British empire. Here's how it happened. When World War One broke
out the men of Lister got deployed overseas and the director wrote from
a field hospital to Harriet asking her to research, what could be added to the troops rations to prevent the outbreaks
of beriberi and scurvy that they were seeing? Dr. Chick organized a small group of women who figured out that milk
and cheese didn't help but whole grains prevented beriberi And the most practical solution to scurvy was sprouted beans. After the war, the big cities
of Europe and north America were grappling with
rickets among the children and it was very confusing. Was it an infectious disease like tuberculosis due
to unsanitary crowding? Many experts had come to think so. Swedish fishermen had used cod
liver oil as a folk remedy, but Scottish researchers had shown that you could cure puppies of rickets by taking them on walks in the fresh air. So it couldn't be a nutritional disease. So Harriet spent two
years in a Vienna hospital testing infants with rickets
and showed conclusively that you could bring them back to health with several different fish
liver oils, butter, summer sun or even ultraviolet lamps. Untangling the chemicals behind
beriberi, scurvy and rickets led to a whole series of Nobel prizes from people you've
probably never heard of. Harry went on to found the
British Nutrition Society and serve as its first president. She spoke there when she was 98, was seen taking the London
underground by herself at 99 and lived to 102. Her life helped me put so many nutrition mysteries into context. First, how did dairy become so associated with health among Northern
Europeans and Americans? That's partly because
a strange new vegetable arrived from the Andes of
all places in the late 1500s. It thrived in cooler climes and displaced many fields of grain, potatoes have vitamin C to prevent scurvy which grains don't. Potatoes provided three to four times the calories per acre than grain and you didn't need milling machines and marauding troops
couldn't steal all your food like they could the grain because potatoes are in the ground. What else was needed for a thriving peasant population? Dairy because it had
vitamins, A, D and B12, which potatoes were missing. Context is everything and
in the context of the day, potatoes and dairy were super foods. Second, it helped me understand
why my mom and grandmother both organic chemists, made me take a spoonful
of cod liver oil every day and thought milk and
butter were so healthy. It was centuries of accumulated wisdom and the fact that B12 was one of the last
vitamins to be discovered and wasn't manufactured until the 40s. And third, why does nutritional science
(chuckles) has such a dodgy reputation. I think it's because great scientists are not
the people listening to, we're listening to book authors who write books with sensational titles. I'm gonna put Dr. Chick
on my timeline anyway and get back to the people
we are listening to. Fortunately, there are
some great scientists and doctors in the crazy mix of it all. Speaking of sensational
titles, the Gersons. Dr. Max Gerson became
famous for a therapy program that the Gerson Institute claims has a high degree of success
curing heart disease, diabetes and both famously and
controversially cancer. It involves a vegan diet, many glasses of fresh squeezed juice a day because they believe juice
concentrates the nutrients and makes them easier to absorb Frequent coffee enemas, ugh, they even sell an enema kit. Max Gerson died at 77 and the official cause of
death was listed as pneumonia, but the internet says he may have died of arsenic poisoning by the medical mafia. Weston Price was a very special dentist who traveled the world in the thirties to study the effect of processed foods on native populations. He took awesome photos of their teeth and even sent native foods back to the US to analyze for its nutritional content. He discovered what we all now know that processed food is the devil. One very confusing thing
is pricepottinger.org which dates back to 1952 and is filled with articles
like eating a rainbow and avoiding the carnivore diet, gets confused with the
Weston A. Price Foundation which was established a
half century after he died. And whose imagery is
all about animal foods and it has an appalling legacy. Dr. Price died in 1948 at 77,. And now onto a crazy kook who wrote a book with a sensational title, Herman Taller, who sold
2 million copies in 1961. He claimed the safflower oil pills he sold cause you to lose weight by
softening your fat tissues. And that's one of the reasons
he was convicted of fraud. He died at 78. Three years before, and Richard Mackarness published a similar low
carb book that sold well, that's been a reliable formula for weight loss books for two centuries. He died at 79 of a stroke. Roy Walford was an
expert on life extension through calorie restriction,
believing we could live to 120. He famously was the doctor
for an eight person crew who lived in biosphere two for two years. There's a great recent movie about that. He was a respected professor
at UCLA medical school and died of Lou Gehrig's disease at 79. Charles Atlas was one
of the most famous men in the world in his day and he had a backstory every young man (chuckles)
could identify with. He took his girlfriend to the beach and a bully kicked sand in his face and embarrassed him in front of his girl. He invented a technique to
get a world-class physique without a gym so you two
could get a body like his. - Ah, honey, you still have enough muscle, but there is the issue of the
hair like Bait and Switch. Charles drank a lot of
milk, always with fruit but otherwise he had a
pretty balanced diet. According to his son, Charles developed diabetes in his 70s, so as doctors put him on a low carb diet which clogged his arteries and
he had a heart attack at 80. Paul Bragg was a force of nature
whom Jacqueline Lane claims saved his health as a teen
and set him on a career path. Paul and his adopted daughter, Patricia have sold healthy living
products for a 100 years and 91 year old Patricia recently sold their company
to her neighbor Katie Perry. - I called her "god song-bird". I gave her singing lessons
from the age of eight on, at 12, I bought her a guitar. - Cauliflower. Keto. - Paul was known to exaggerate his age, but apparently he was 81 when he died of a heart
attack while swimming. William Banting is famous as
the father of low carb diets. He was a portly undertaker whose doctor advised him at
age 65 to give up milk, butter, bread, sugar, and beer. He said he tried everything
to lose weight, but admitted he'd been very fond of
butter, bread and pastries. He wrote a thin pamphlet in 1863, a letter on corpulence
addressed to the public. He went from 202 pounds at
five feet, five inches tall to 150 a couple of years later, his new diet had plenty of meat, a little dry bread and
boiled rice, some fruit, green vegetables and wine. So how did Banting become
the father of low carb diets when Dr. Rolo had written
about it long before and doctors were using it
to treat diabetes patients? Malcolm Gladwell once explained that the really popular diet books usually have three things in common, one, the author was trapped in darkness, unable to lose weight or get well. Two, they discovered a secret
that had been overlooked, ignored, or repressed. And three, they advocate
a plan that works fast without too much sacrifice. I'd add a fourth one, which
is to add the words new and revolutionary. To his great credit though, Banning lost a lot of
weight on his new diet and made it another 16 years to 81. - The Salisbury steak
actually has its beginnings as a cure for digestive
illnesses during the Civil War. Far from the nuisance
it is in the US today, digestive illnesses killed more soldiers during the Civil War than combat did. The inventor of the Salisbury steak, Dr. James Henry Salisbury,
born near Cortland, New York was an early pioneer of germ theory and of diet being a factor in health. - He published a carnivore
diet book using words I had to keep looking up as
I read it, he lived to 82. Do you know where you heard innovates are healthy on an almost all meat diet? Probably from Vilhjalmur Stefansson, the Arctic explorer,
advocate of an all meat diet and Harvard professor. (wind whistling)
- Stefansson has also been given up for dead. In fact, Stefansson and his two companions are very much alive. - He wrote fantastic books
on Arctic exploration and a book called, "Fat of the Land", which advocated a plant free diet. - Okay.
- I have since then spent aggregator, more
than six years on red meat. That is seal meat,
caribou meat, muskox meat, polar bear, grizzly bear, and so on. You have to have fat with a lean, as lean and fat together
make a perfect diet. - He died at 82. - He told me how much the black community, Dr. Sabby is revered. - Absolutely.
- As an elder. - They brought us over here and didn't bring our diet with us. - That if your ancestors are from Africa. - Hmm-mm.
- Your body is not programmed to digest milk. (tranquil ambient music)
How I found out that black people should be vegetarians because when I began to
remove you from that meat and that stuff, that grease, you begin to say in one week, how the pain that you had
for years begin to disappear. - Tragically he died in a Honduran
prison of pneumonia at 82, Dennis Burke had received tons of honors as a great scientist and surgeon, and he devoted decades to
Medical Mercy in Africa. Hero. One of the things he was famous for was discovering the role of fiber and preventing constipation
and other diseases. He died of a stroke at 82. Here's a sensational title for you, Raymond Francis was a
chemist and a New York Times bestselling author who recommended a diet as close to whole plants as you could get. But he had very little
respect for doctors. - This is the level of ignorance. - Yeah.
- That we teach in our medical schools. - And he thought vaccinations
destroyed health. He died at 83 and they didn't
release the cause of death but it was near the height of
the COVID pandemic in America. And I couldn't help wondering if he thought his diet
would prevent that too. Ephraim Cutter was a
Harvard educated doctor with over 400 publications. And he wrote a low carb diet book in 1908. He was very critical of vegetarianism, he said beef has cured
grave chronic diseases when vegetable food had brought them on. He published a paper on diet and cancer where he prescribed a strict
animal diet to patients but if you must eat a mixed
diet, do it sparingly. He lived to 84. (upbeat ambient music)
- 70 year old Bernard Macfadden, publisher and physical culture advocate who learned flying at 65, enters the Bendix
transcontinental speed races. - People are surprised that
I should wanna enter this Bendix race a man of my age, like one reason for entering
it is like a demonstration, that life really begins at 70. Some people say it begins at 40 or 50 but I am inclined to
believe it begins at 70. - Bernarr Macfadden was a
publicity seeking force of nature if ever there was one.
(chuckles) - [Commentator] Meanwhile,
America's grandad Bernarr Macfadden takes to the air to celebrate his 83rd birthday. Not content with being air born when most men are chair born. Bernarr decides to return
to work the hard way by parachute. - He was America's godfather of fitness who recommended a mostly
whole food vegetarian diet with a little meat and milk. He didn't have any faith in doctors, and he died of a urinary tract infection at 87 after refusing treatment. (intense ambient music)
- Summoned to the hospital for an emergency consultation, the famed Boston heart
specialist, Dr. Paul Dudley White, the glad prospects were reasonably good for the president's complete recovery. - Paul Dudley White was
the father of cardiology with a giant reputation and
Eisenhower's cardiologist. He wrote 12 books and more than 700 papers.
(chuckles) - I suppose that the truth rests somewhere between the viewpoints of individuals who are vigorous in their
advice to be aware of all fats and those of others who go
to the opposite extreme, and they are advised to
pay little or no attention to the fat content of diets, or even to advocate high contents of fat as does the explorer, Stefansson. - He died at 87 of a stroke. - Here's the kickoff
(crowd cheering) of one of the most exciting
football games of all time as Princeton which stripes long sleeves, kicks to Yale wearing white
helmets and (indistinct), starts the game with a
spectacular run back. - The father of American
biochemistry, Russell Chittenden was a very distinguished
professor at Yale, widely quoted in the day who did experiments on
military men and athletes in the early 1900s to see what happens to
physical performance on a lower protein diet. His studies showed they improved. He published a book in 1907, The Nutrition of Man"
advocating a lower protein diet. He died at 87. Michio Kushi was a huge force in promoting the macrobiotic
diet, largely plant-based and wrote the "Cancer
Prevention Diet" book. He died at 88 of pancreatic cancer. (upbeat ambient music)
- Minute Maid fresh frozen orange juice
brings you Gayelord Houser, renowned author of the best seller, "Look Younger, Live Longer". The book on diet and health
that has swept the world. - Gayelord Houser was the
dashingly handsome nutritionist to stars like Greta Garbo
and according to McLean's had perhaps 20 million
readers of his book. He recommended whole natural foods like vegetables and lean meats and fortifying them with
skim milk, brewers yeast and black strap molasses, which
he called the wonder foods. He died at 89 of pneumonia. Martin Katon sold millions of
copies his books in the 80s, which focused on fruit and vegetables and keeping fat below 20% of calories. He died at 90 after a long illness. I couldn't put up in Sinclair's
book on fasting down. He was a world-class writer
who penned the famous line, "it is difficult to get a
man to understand something when his salary depends on
him not understanding it." He had access to all the
famous influencers of his day. The vegetarian John Harvey Kellogg, the distinguished meat
advocate, Dr. Salsbury, the physical specimen, Bernarr Macfadden and the famous biochemist, Dr. Chittenden. Reading this book was like watching a famous Hollywood movie when you had only seen the remake, which was made 50 years
after the original. In the modern version of this book, the journalist Michael Pollan plays the role of Upton
Sinclair, eat mostly plants but a little meat won't hurt you. Arnold Schwartzenegger plays
the role of Bernarr Macfadden, back off on the meat, you
don't need it to be a man. Dr. Atkins plays the role of Dr. Salisbury by writing popular low carb books. Professor Colin Campbell plays the role of professor Chittenden by warning too much protein is toxic. Upton Sinclair died at 90. Speaking of believing too
much protein is toxic, Joe Weider. He's considered the
father of bodybuilding, the creator of Olympia contests, magazines like Muscle and Fitness and the protege of Arnold. Joe's nutrition philosophy
was protein gives you muscle, carbs give you energy and
you don't need much fat. Too much protein is toxic and carbs should be whole
like fruits and vegetables. He lived to 93, getting up there. Jay Cordage was the author
of best-selling books about juicing and known
as the "Juice Man". He lived to 93. Linus Pauling was the celebrated chemist
who won two Nobel prizes and believed in mega doses of vitamins. He believed in a balanced
diet, avoiding sugar, refined grains, and saturated fat. He died at 93 of prostate cancer. Charlotte Gerson carried on the
tradition of her father, Max with "The Gerson Therapy", a
vegan diet with coffee enemas. She lived to 96. Harold Triac was the Dean of
Loma Linda's Medical School and the author of many wonderful books. He was a Seventh Day Adventist, so no meat, alcohol or smoking but he did think milk was healthy. He lived in 97. Norman Walker was a juicing pioneer who wrote tons of bestselling
books in the mid 1900s which are still popular on
Amazon today, he died at 99. You know how when a crisis happens, you get to look behind the
curtain and find heroes you never knew about? We consumers see books
with sensational titles, but what about medical professionals who have to deal with serious disease? They have to turn to something
much more substantial. Oh, I need Charles Atlas's arms. We can all be thankful there
are people like Maurice Shils who somehow organized the world's experts to produce mindblowing
reference works like this. I don't know what Marie say, but if it's what's reflected
in these 1000s of pages, it would have been a whole lot of plants and not much processed foods or red meat. He lived to a 100. We already talked about
the great Harriet Chicks, so I'll move on to the great Joe Rollino. He was a strong man
performer at Coney Island in the 20s and 30s, before heading off to World
War Two in the Pacific theater, it was brutal. And he came home with three purple hearts, a silver and a gold star and
shrapnel in his leg and neck. But at 104, he was still walking (chuckles) five miles a day, come rain or shine, working out at the gym five days a week and swimming in the Atlantic Ocean three. On his 103 birthday, he entertained the guests by
bending quarters like this, (grunts)
maybe not. At 104, he blew out
(chuckles) the candles on his birthday cake, but he passed on a slice of cake because he said you don't
get to 104 and eat that - How old are you Joe? - I'm a 104 years of age. (upbeat ambient music)
(indistinct) it's in New York, Pennsylvania, still today, it belongs to me. It weighs 2,130 pounds. I used to lift there 75 times,
consecutive repetitions. - [Interviewer] Of course back then in the vaudeville age of the 20s, being a strong man was a very big thing. - It was a weird thing, it was incomparable to other people, like people can go to movies,
they can come to Coney Island and see the strongest man in the world. - He gave up meat at age 20
and a variety of dairy foods whatever that means. He died at 104 out on one of his walks when he got run over by a car. (crowd cheering) (dog whistling) - [Presenter] Aich was born in
the remote village of Dhamti, in Cumilla District in Bengal. He was crowned Mr. Universe in 1952. (crowd cheering) (laughing) He's a three time Asian Games gold medalist in bodybuilding. A statement of his health
is a simple diet of milk, fruits and vegetables, along with rice, lentils and fish. (crowed cheering) He does not smoke, and
never touched alcohol. (crowed cheering) - He too lived to 104,
let's hear it for old school (chuckles)
bodybuilders. Shigeaki Hinohara was a
Japanese longevity expert who lived to 105. For breakfast, he had a glass of milk and a glass of orange juice with a tablespoon of olive oil in it. He would often skip lunch because he was busy or have a light snack. Dinner was veggies, rice, a little fish and two nights a week, he
had a 100 grams of lean meat. He would say, take the stairs,
carry your own baggage, get a pet and don't retire. (baby crying)
- We'll have to wait and see how he is at six o'clock. - [Narrator] Approaching the age of 100, Dr. Denmark says she's about as busy now as she was when she
started seven decades ago. (upbeat ambient music)
- She practiced till the age of 103 when
her eyesight began to fail. But that was in 2001 and she
was the oldest doctor on earth and then she lived to be 114. - My mother helped develop
whooping cough vaccine. This was I think, one
of the important things that she was involved
with in her lifetime. - Dr. Denmark said in the
early part of her career she treated diseases like polio. But as their 70 years
in practice rolled on, she found that the infants
she treated were fed poorly. She said, parents forgot
how to feed themselves and their infants as
the century progressed. (baby crying)
- Was like these mothers, I would say, if you feed this baby right, keep it away from sick
kids, you don't need me. - She believed every meal
should have a little protein, either an egg, lean meat,
black eyed peas, or lentils, she ate an egg every day for breakfast. And she advised either whole
grain or potato with every meal and vegetables with lunch and dinner. Dairy was overrated she said, and no one should drink
milk past eight months. And she said fruit (chuckles)
helps everything else go down especially for kids. She thought a small sweet on
Friday night and for dessert and Sunday supper gave the kids something
to look forward to. I'm pretty sure the cause of death was, (chuckles)
she was 114. - If you would right, drink right, and love to do what you're doing, there's no reason to die. (baby cries)
all right, who's the next angel? - So 60 influencers on the timeline, some of them coming to their diets because of serious health
problems like brain cancer, tuberculosis, or heart attacks. Let's see if patterns emerged. The first thing that jumps out at me is where the low carvers
landed versus everyone else. That happened in the previous
influencer episode too. I get the sense that low carb diets have degraded over the centuries. For example here, fascinating
cookbooks from 1797 in the Civil War era
that you might wanna get, the ate a much wider variety
of animals than we do now from little furry creatures
to a large variety of birds. And they ate every part of the animal. These cookbooks are filled with recipes for tongue and apple pie,
brains and boiled pigeons. (chuckles)
Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to get your mouth watering. Now, you're probably thinking
about where to order brains. No worries, you can just one
click them frozen or canned from The Everything Store. The reviews say they are delicious. Here in 2020, our meats mainly
come from monoculture animals raised on industrial farms. Plant heavy diets however, seem to have improved over the centuries. In most parts of the US and Europe, you can get fruit and veggies year round. And even if you live in a food desert, there's usually frozen. There are new foods like keenwah and an insane variety of rices and beans. Vitamins, B12, and D are super cheap now and we're learning that
even a significant number of animal food eaters need them. And perhaps even the juicers are taking things to the next level. And finally, these are centuries old diets marketed to sound new and revolutionary. For example, Thomas Tryon's
book, "The Way to Health" which inspired Benjamin
Franklin become vegetarian was published in 1681. Luigi Cornaro's book,
"Sure and Certain Methods of Attaining a Long and Healthful Life" was written in 1563 and
popular for two centuries more. It sure sounded to me like his
low carb book has bandings. He had some bread, but not fruit
and vegetables except wine. After the book was published, he was said to narrow
his eating to just eggs. By the way, a nun who
wrote the appendix said, "a little fainting fit took him" which sounds like it could
have been a heart attack, no? What none of these diets had faced before is what hamburger lover
Bill Gates is claiming we have to do to avoid a climate disaster. He and naturalist, sir David Attenborough are saying we no longer have a choice, we have to switch to plant-based meat. - Yeah, I've seen
(intense ambient music) a lot out here in the west, but at juicy Char-Broil burger was a patty made from plants? - Lucky for us, plant-based meat has become
so much better tasting lately and it's only gonna keep getting better. Also lucky for us, early studies seem to be showing that they're a little bit
better for us than real meat. (electric swoosh)
well, (chuckles)
that was a long episode and you're still watching,
thank you so much. I hope you'll like and subscribe, whether you're watching
on Plant-Based News or Plant Chompers. Also, I'd love it if you left a comment in either place, I read them all and
learn a ton from you guys and I respond to as many as possible.
