Longevity Diet: How Much Protein, Fat, and Carbs Do We Need to Live A Long Life? | Dr. Joel Fuhrman

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] hey welcome to the E live podcast I here with my dad Dr Ferman hi everybody welcome and I'm here with my daughter Jenna and we are diving into a Hot Topic today so hot that this might be the second time we've covered it you know what we're hitting it from a different angle and more giving different information about that similar topic and that topic is protein so we're going to dive into protein because it is so talked about in our podcast in the narian diet on the internet on social media people are just rampant about it so we thought we should dive in and get the cold hard facts what do you say doctor I say that I've actually been discussing with people and they wanted me to go into more detail and repeat certain things again and review the confusion because they're being bed by keto carnivore protein being bad being good people wanting to Crave and put extra protein powders in their food so let's go start with this let me let me start with this idea that there are people that bash carbohydrates right and there are people that bash fat some people say better to be a diet be lower in carbs now there are studies that show that carbohydrates are bad and I'm saying people that bash carbs use studies to Def defend their viewpoints and those studies are showing un poor quality carbohydrates like white rice white flour bread and other processed carbohydrates or poor quality carbohydrates when you at good quality carbohydrates you can't bash them cu the good quality carbohydrates like beans and vegetable carbohydrates beets carrots peas are linked to longer lifespan and I'm sure actually when you're talking about foods that are Health promoting and non-health promoting in the carbohydrate space there's a lot of processed carbohydrates so it makes sense to me that unprocessed Whole Foods would be the best source of carbohydrates like you get from sweet potatoes even chickpea pasta It's that's right nutritarian diet wants you to have the best quality most nutrient dens the least processed foods so you're choosing the best carbohydrates the best fats and the best proteins now people who bash fat every study they point to to bash fat are American style fats which are animal fats and butter and oils they don't study nuts and seeds they can't produce a study showing eating more fat from nuts and seeds has negative effects on weight loss on Diabetes on cholesterol or on on lifespan IM fact the opposite is shown when you actually look at the high fat the whole food whole plant food fats which are nuts and seeds and avocados then the studies show when you go up in qual in amount you have longer lifespan this to was actually so it's like they they're telling people and certain um nutritional gurus in the plant-based Community are getting people nervous about eating nuts and seeds and avocado because theyve have this blanket brainwashing that fats are bad that was what I was just going to say is really surprising to me I don't know if it's just my circle world but when I go out to plant-based restaurants like Cafe Gratitude or Trilogy in La Hoya there's a bunch of options where they put like quinoa sweet potatoes load on the cashew sauce avocado all these things that are really good fats that I'm so excited to eat and they make me feel so nourished and full so I'm very surprised to hear you say there are people that are actually cautioning against that a tremendous um Prince met of um nutritional myths is is propagated within the plant-based Comm community and maybe you're not aware of living in there but in me I live in that Community because I you know give lectures I right and they use they use science but some people say like the fat you eat is the fat that goes on your body makes you fat the fat you eat makes you fat it's not true this and then they produce a study to show that this fat goes up people's body fat goes up that's not true it's only when you look at oil not when you look at nuts because when you ice it calorically which means the same like let's say, 1400 calories a day and take out some carbohydrate like rice or potato and put in nuts and seeds with with more fat in the diet the same amount of calories you get more weight loss not more weight gain the idea that you're eating fat puts on fat is totally a myth and it's a distortion of the what the science says so I just want to be we're talking about of course if you eat more nuts if you required 1,400 calories a day and you eat an extra 300 calories nuts and seeds on top of the 1400 you were eating sure the extra calories of anything can make you gain weight and nuts can be concentrated calories and people can overeat on them but that's not same thing as fat makes you fat it doesn't make you fat you substituted from an equal amount of carbohydrates or equal amount of protein removed from the diet and when you get your fat from nuts and seeds you're getting a protein fat mixture you're not getting just plain fat so when you use and plus the fact when people use oil on their food they're stripping protein out of their diet because then if they got the whole Nutter seed they'd be getting the fat mixed with protein and if they're taking the oil they're getting the fat mixed with no protein wow you just said a lot question and now I got I got lost for a second um what I was going to say originally is that it is easier for me not to overeat when I have those healthy fats in there and I always I kind of dumb it down in my own language to just I really do believe there are good fats and bad fats and the good fats help me feel satiated and full and kind of like the you say they they let the bad fat slide off your body like that visualization really helped me and I feel like once you start eating it and feeling so satiated it it makes you believe that hey this must be good for you yeah and it adds like flavor and enjoyment to your meal totally how can you just it's like dry I feel like everything would be really dry but the other issue is here that I'm making is that this extreme low fat ism is not good for your long-term Health it increases risk of cardiac arhythmia the card The myocardium cells the heart cells need fat to stabilize the Rhythm and they idea that it's better to cut out fat to reverse heart disease is actually the opposite it's better to include some healthy fats to reverse and prevent heart disease because it makes the heart more stable and when I published a study on that I have a study um I I was I have studies in front a lot of studies in Front of Me Maybe I didn't bring that one out but may maybe I have it here no well anyway I published a few studies I don't have it here um one on the fact that a nutritarian diet with with the diet is fat adequate was able to take about 450 people showing their blood pressure reversed more than any study I'm aware of in the medical literature in you know that it dropped the um systolic blood pressure 26 points while the medications were withdrawn um not only that but then I also gave multiple cases of very Advanced heart disease people in heart failure irregular heartbeats Advanced you know blockages that show that they recovered their health using a Nutri Arian diet um dramatic reduction dramatic Improvement and resolution of severe heart disease using nuts and seeds and I gave a study published again in the international Journal of disease prevention and reversal showing with more than 60 different references how it's healthier to be on a diet even when you have advanced heart disease that includes nuts and seeds in it includes fat in it and all the detrimental effects you have when you cut fat out but the main detrimental one of the main detrimental effects is you don't absorb nutrients as well fat C nutrients as well you get tremendous re increase but the next thing is it doesn't support the production of hormones and immune system function and Longevity proteins maintaining stem cells and maintaining telome as we age when your diet gets too low in fat so it accelerates aging and increases risk of all cause mortality and reduces immune surveillance so our body needs fat and this idea that fat is is is evil is you know is incorrect and so we're talking about nuts and SE as super foods that benefit our long-term Health people don't know this but you are actually a poet as well right what is that what we talking about just wait for it wait for it you like to rhyme right you do have a Blog article called nuts and seas melt heart disease which is a nice rhyme I don't know if you did that on purpose so a little mantra for you is nuts and disas nuts and seeds melt heart disase good so I think that's important to recognize but what's also cool is I've seen that change happen firsthand it is very cool to be visibly seeing this stuff at the E of retreat when you've had guests come in who instead of getting triple bypass surgery they've come to the retreat and you put them on a nutritarian diet and they're losing weight their heart disease is improving it's just cool their diabetes goes away in two weeks they're off their in their high blood pressure goes away in three weeks right their chest pains go away they get well so quickly and so predictably on because the diet is encompassing so many beneficial factors and then the and then transitioning into this idea of protein cuz people bash protein too because they say that too much protein is bad and it's true too much animal protein is bad but the thing we're talking about today is that just like the body needs fat it needs protein and the design of the plant-based diet is important to make to assure protein adequacy and the idea that you can just eat anything you want you get enough protein is not true because you could have a a macrobiotic diet you could have a fruitarian diet with too much fruit because fruit is too low in protein if eating mostly fruit some of these raw food diets are too high in fruit and avocado and they're not they're not eating any cooked beans you know they're not and their diet may be low in protein especially as they age because as we pass the age of 60 to 70 to 75 to 80 the ability the amount of protein we absorb from the food we eat goes down and our protein requirements go up not go down and therefore some of these people who are thriving in their 40s and 50s will find they have immune suppression and failure to th as they get older and I'm mentioning this it's so important because so many people have turned back from eating plant-based or vegan diets due to failure to thrive because they eating the wrong type of diet and my experience as a plant as a physician taking care of a large plant-based Community with varied um very dietary habits I've observed in my clinical practice over the decades many people following fruitarian type or raw food diets have developed pneumonia fungal infections loss of hair and na nails and and IM and what what do you call it failure to thrive as they aged because their diet was too low in protein they were eating the fat and carbohydrate but the diet was too low on protein which is kind of funny because I was at a coffee shop doing some work before this and I ordered lunch and when I ordered the bartender asked me hey are you vegan like I want to make sure you know there's no cheese in that and we were talking about it he said you know I was vegan for 3 years but I I stopped it because I was getting too skinny he said I needed more protein and we were talking about it a bit he said I didn't eat any of like the beans tofu all that stuff so I had to add chicken and meat blah blah blah blah and I said why don't why don't you just add more beans and tofu to your diet beans and tofu are so delicious I couldn't imagine not having them in my diet so if you're someone that's eating plant-based and not having those ingredients I feel like you must always be hungry and you the fiber it all makes you feel so full and satiated so why would you not eat a protein Rich plant-based diet that's what I'm advocating you know cuz I love to do Sports and then you know I love to ski play tennis like I go to the gym and lift weights yeah and I don't want my arms being like sore after my biceps exercise and pull downs and curls and stuff and I want to have an adequate protein in my diet even though I'm not on a plant-based diet so I'm looking to have these natural um sources of plant-based proteins that and the message here in this podcast is that paying attention to the increasing these plant-based proteins in your diet has been documented in scientific studies to make you live longer more more plant protein if you can remember anything from this podcast it said more animal protein shortens lifespan and more plant protein paying attention to it and getting more plant protein not overeating calories of course makes you live longer increasing the protein concentration with whole plant Foods makes you live longer just to be crystal clear so you're advocating for the optimal amounts of carbohydrates fat and protein are macronutrients and you could do so I think by just eating your g-bombs right doesn't that kind of cover all our bases greens beans onions mushrooms berries and seeds yeah but it's a little lacking because the G bombs don't cover all the things you may want to eat carrots beets peas sweet potatoes intact oatmeal it didn't it didn't to it didn't give you everything you might want to eat it just gives you cu the G bombs is just focusing on those six foods that have the most scientific evidence to prevent cancer you know right but when I was thinking about these foods like what I shop for at Whole Foods or the grocery store is it's really like the produce section like everything is game on in the produce section you got yourb you got your gar you got any veget has somei properties that are good for you and some some are Hing carbs some are hiring fat like whether it's the avocado or the sweet potato whatever you're mixing at the grocery store and that whole food section is good for you when it's not processed then you have your packaged foods and all all that crap that you might want to not associate with sure but it's like I love the fact that it's not so limiting even though you're talking about these ratios and how you want to mix what's good what's this the optimal amounts I feel like I'm not restricted or Limited just like eating Nature's Food in these mixtures and bowls that I love that's cool because I'm saying that it's people that they um fat is bad and they cut too much fat of the diet bad people who put too much they carbohydrate is bad they cut too much carbohydrate of their diet they want to be keto yeah or they want to be Zone let you know the zone is 40 303 40% carbohydrate 30% fat 30% protein keto is 70 % is less than 30% protein 30% um fat I'm sorry the keto is less than 30% carbohydrate so it's like 20% carbohydrates 30% fat and 50% protein 50 30 20 something like that or 40 you know something in that range they want to keep carbohydrate really low maybe Fat's the most thing they eat might 50% fat um 30% carbohydrate or 20% carbohydrate after 50% fat leaving 30% wait I have a question are you saying if for like keto or carnivore someone that's eating a very meat heavy diet say it's just like meat and vegetables you're saying that diet if it's mainly meat is higher in fat than it is protein that's correct meat is more fat than protein really I don't think I knew that because people are protein upset protein craze I feel like that's their number one reason for going carnivore or keto is because they're like I just need a ton of protein it's hamburger is like 35% protein and then like 65% fat you know most mean is is more fat than protein right but even if the lanus cuts of meats could be like 50/50 maybe chicken or fish might be more protein than fat but in any case they're getting they're still getting an adequate fat and protein but they're restricting carbohydrate and what the studies are showing so I'm saying here the studies show two very interesting points one is that carbohydrate goes down deaths increase and once you cut down to a lower amount of carbohydrate particularly in keto you have the highest amount of what's called early life deaths or premature deaths now an early life death is a death before the age of 70 the average um the average male lives to be about 75 so if you're losing more than 5 years of life early life death before the age of 70 for a male that's what keto diets show when they're tested long term and I've got a whole bunch of studies in front of me like 20 different studies that show the same that all corroborate each other and the carnivore diet would be the height of a dangerous diet the most dangerous diet you could eat would be a carnival diet it's hard to believe people believe this not this craziness right nothing but meat so they have almost zero carbohydrate because we know that the risk of animal protein creates disease in a dose dependent relationship the more your diet restricts carbohydrate and we're needing carbohydrate we need protein we need fat but as you restrict carbohydrate and too low you increaseed risk of death and the optimal carbohydrate intake based on all these studies optimally is probably between 50% carbohydrate and 70% carbohydrate the optimal fat protein ratio is not the 80110 that the fruitarians and the and part of the low-fat vegan Community are advocating but it's not like a nutritarian diet a nutritarian diet is more like 60 2020 or 70515 we're talking about 60 to 70% carbohydrate and 15 to 20% protein and 15 to 20% fat that's what the nutritarian diet runs around based on eating you know a few ounces of nuts and seeds a day and that's what the scientific literature has from all these studies those are the ranges we get where we get maximum lifespan and the most cenarius most healthy Long Live people we have so much data here today and I'm going to show you some of this incredible data but the point I'm making is it's pretty interesting because it shows that there's an optimal carbohydrate range there's an optimal fat range and there's an optimal protein range for longevity that people don't even have never heard of or not considering because the vice they get from these people speaking at all these conferences and lectures and that they they are not accurate so for someone that might not know about your recommendations or your diet how do they put that 8055 or 80 wait it would be 705 15 7055 60 2020 60 2020 okay 60 2020 how do you put that into practice um I get your point you don't have to be a scientist to put it into practice yeah you just have to because when you're eating whole natural plants they already have this kind of ratio if you're eating maybe a half an ounce to an ounce of nuts and seeds with each meal that means 1 and a half to 3 ounces of nuts a day is what we probably you and I probably eat which is which is that puts us in that range it's like a sauce an avocado it's the right amount and you don't want to eat more than an ounce of nuts and seeds with each meal anyway that's about the right amount you're overeating that doesn't mean you know LeBron James or you know a big 6'1 250 lb athlete who's that big isn't eat more food because they eat more calories limited to 3 ounces of protein when I was a competitive Athlete on you know in figure skating and I was my job was to exercise all day and then I had to eat like uh 4,000 calories a day I had double the amount of food I had to eat then I think Mom says like the whole back of your car was packed with yeah I'd have like a bathtub full of food in the back of my car when I was I was training all day long so then I had to eat like six to 8 ounces of nuts and Seasons I had to go to class in college and I had to be eating sunflower seeds during the class CU I had to go back to training again I didn't want to had to keep my way you know so then I ate a lot more but just for most of us average people who exercise you know an hour a day or a normal amount of day then right you know about half an ounce to an ounce with each meal or about 1 oun or I consider one and a half ounces a day of nuts and seeds to be the minimum because in the 7thday Adventist Health study 2 this study published in 2018 with more than 880,000 participants is such a fascinating study because these this diet where people were in the 7day Adventist population they're already eating a diet that's more plant-based less animal products and they found that the things that modulated death and lifespan the most were regulating animal protein more animal protein made for shorter lifespans and more nuts and seeds as when nuts and seeds became your source of plant protein that had the largest effect at lengthening lifespan wow of mod so let me just read this it says a total of over 880,000 participants the animal protein sources analyzed and the risk of cardiovascular death steadily climbed with higher consumption of meat protein even in small amounts a little bit extra meat protein made for higher cardiovascular deaths and steadily fell means the risk of death steadily fell and a dose dependent matter with greater consumption of protein from nuts and seeds so this was the first that's why I say 1 and2 ounces is the lowest amount because in these studies it showed that when people went below half an ounce a day compared to an ounce and a half a day there was a huge difference in longevity and so to conclude this it said the group of the highest meat intake was still less than what Americans eat had a 60% um higher risk of death than the group with the lowest and the group with the highest intake of nuts and seeds the cardiovascular r with 40% lower compared to the group of the lowest intake of nuts and seeds even among vegans even so we're talking about modulating risk of death among vegans the most the biggest modulator is nuts and seeds in their risk of you know increasing risk of death so put on your little tinf foil hat with me I went I sat down on my computer when we were prepping for this episode and I'm like I'm just going to I know the carnivore people and people who eat high protein diets are very loud on the internet and they say I'm right he's wrong she's right she's wrong and so I just wanted to see where they're getting their information from where are these studies you know what's what's the other side so I sit down and I go Google like research on Carnivore diet research on high protein research on keto right and there is so little research I was shocked because I see these things on Instagram and I'm like surely these people are saying there's so I looked at one single study that measured I think it was 1,800 CU they had like 3,000 but they threw out you know 1,800 or whatever so they had about, 00 people left of self-reported shortterm benefits so they say nothing has been conclusively or even studied for long-term benefits of high protein diets or of carnivore diets I mean um but short term there were you know some benefits of X Y and Z and you do not deny that there are some benefit short-term benefits of Carnivor no we have to discuss the benefits so people understand why people gravitate to those diets and feel better but I first just wanted to point out how little to zero research is done yet so many people are so sure that it is the solution for their Health and Longevity you know they're looking at short-term research where it lowers cholesterol they drop their body weight diabetes like their diabetes numbers look better and even some mitochondrial studies which reduce pre radical production from the mitochondrial generation of energy from fats instead from carbohydrate it means when you're getting when you're in ketosis and the mitochondria is getting burning fat it might produce less free radicals than burning um carbohydrate for energy there's some short-term biochemical benefits to being ketosis and there so and but but in any case um just to hit home that point is that um there that the short-term studies may show some benefits but now we finally have long-term studies and to be a carnivore a keto Advocate you have to have some illogical rationalization as why you're going to disregard a 100 long-term studies that show danger and they do they throw them all out the window they say I was in I was interviewed by and debated this guy saladino who was one of the like the founders of the carnivore diet who said oh all those studies don't matter because they're epidemological studies and it's just add to the people who are more wealthy or have television sets are going to be healthier and most of the people who are vegans or something like you just threw out all the studies so I'm saying you can't throw out all the studies that corroborate each other from all the parts of the world now we have really incredibly effective appropriate and intellectually done research showing long-term following these people on these keto diets and heavy protein diets for 20 years 30 years showing how dangerous they are and by the way this guy saladino this doctor who is so harming people just was recently interviewed like some months ago and he's off the carnivore diet himself what's he doing now he's doing fruit with meat now he got rid of the carnivore diet because total carnivore because he was having sleep disturbances lowering testosterone and too much joint pain and muscle aches because obviously when you're on a keto or carnivore diet your carbohydrate restricted you get high amounts of uric acid from all the purines you're eating and purines are even higher in in organ Meats which they recommend which means more uric acid and more uric acid means gout it means more propensity to kidney stones it means more kidney damage but it also means more aging of the cartilage and joints and the Aging of the cartilage and Joints these people even though the're big weightlifters and doing all this they think they're keeping their muscle strong they become old you know Osteo they become in pain in pain they get in pain they get um they cartilage and Joints go b s terrible he sounds like he's also using himself as an experiment just to see what happens and then it's changing um which I'm just so happy that you deal with a lot of elderly people so they like followed your recommendations you see how it's going well and then you help them modulate any needed protein as they age use protein powder all these things so you don't get too frail because you said so yourself you are very you are very like committed to not getting too frail as you age cuz you're 70 you still got muscles how you feeling about the protein situ yeah I'm like I exercise a lot still and the reason I exercise a lot is because I love to downhill ski and SK Powers Steeps Cliffs Mogul you know double blacks and I want I I love doing that so much fun but to do that you got to be strong it's not going to be safe right so I'm testing my strength with Box jumping and lifting weights and making sure I'm working out in the gym so I'm safe on the mountain right you know and I want to test my strength against can I still lift as much as I did when I was younger and I still jump up and down and can you I'm a little less than I a little less but I'm still pretty good pretty but as far as like my um strength on the mountain or in the skiing I'm just as good or better because I vote I vote so much attention to it now you know what I mean right because you look the same to me but you I know we were talking about this too you said yeah I'm just going to be I'm building muscle now and keeping up with it so I don't lose it as I age right which I think it's just going to be really cool when you're 80 to see all the muscles well I think it's it's that's the whole key to to for storing aging is to try to work on keeping your muscle to Fat ratio favorable as you age with this attention to diet which I is a fun hobby to attention to modulating your diet to have the to maintain your youthful Vitality as you age and then just to stick on that when you're on these keto diets with carbohydrates restricted you from meat Dairy fish or any kind you raise igf-1 into cancer promoting levels and that's insulin like growth factor one which is a um a hormone that promotes cellular replication and promotes angiogenesis allows cells to cells to replicate and get a blood supply so it allows tumors to grow as you maximizing muscle mass allows tumors to grow so extra protein even though it may promote a little more muscle mass extra animal protein promotes igf-1 and then it also changes the bacteria in the gut which means it unfavorable bacteria bacteria in the gut promosing promotes in TMO formation which is trimethylamine oxide which is an pro-inflammatory substance that ages us and promotes atherosclerosis and then this High diet high in meat is deficient deficient it's deficient in vitamin C it's deficient in folate deficient in vitamin E it's deficient in phytochemicals it's deficient in magnesium it's it's deficient so how could these people on these their their diet's deficient it's producing too much acidity it's aging their joints it's promoting cancer and it's just absolute craziness and people love to follow it I am actually surprised because I feel like that's their number one best point is like it it has all the vitamins and minerals you need all the amino acids it is not deficient so I'm actually shocked right now to hear you call out these nutrients that it's deficient in folate only comes from Plants vitamin C comes from Plants vitamin E comes from Plants vitamin you know all these things come from plants you hear on the internet actually people are now saying there's like post on it people believe it that plants have nutrients or antinutrients anti- nutrients to and like a poison for you essentially right so I mean all animals like humans from the beginning of time I've been eating berries plants all so it's and primates we're primates totally which fully eat plants right and we have the undeniable data and here it's 2024 but here's a study from 2023 let me just let me just say give you the title of this study low carbohydrate diets low fat diets and mortality in middle-aged and older people a prospective cohort study they divided people into cohorts and a medium followup medium of 23.5 years with more than 165 almost 166,000 deaths imagine the amount of people you have to follow to get 165,000 deaths they to follow like a million people to get 165,000 deaths okay so they were able to categorize all these huge amounts of people over 25 years this is an incredible study published last year just phenomenal okay and research categorized people as eating either a healthy or unhealthy lowfat or low carb low carb diet and what do you think they found of course what they found all these thousands of people and thousands of hundreds of thousands of deaths what they found is that low carb diets contribute the most to early life deaths below age 70 really people on keto diets 28% more likely to die of any cause really any cause of cancer heart disease take and participants on unhealthy low carb diet that means not carb more unhealthy low carbs more unhealthy proteins like more more meat and bacon and processed foods increase their mortalities by 38% every year 38% increas riskk of death every single year they will follow people dropping off with like flies it's franking food it's just craziness right it's not real food though it's it's manufactured in a plant that is filled with sugar and all these processed stuff we're talking about animal products here processed foods as well no no I thought that was 38% over the years no participants on low carb diets oh when they want unhealthy low carb which unhealthy low carb means they were having more red and processed Meats Oh I thought you meant like sugar candy like could be okay okay no no but that but okay so that's one aspect and then we have other studies coming out out pretty much the same thing with the same um effects it's right I think it's right here this study coming out in the Lan this is really interesting coming up 2018 okay people who had the lowest amount of carbohydrates had the highest amount of premature death yes true but people who got more than 70% of their energy from carbohydrates also had a higher risk of mortality I see what you did there there's an optimal range right so here's the thing is that less carbohydrates bad too much carbohydrate Bad true people could argue because too much carbohydrates they were eating maybe more processed carbohydrates like rice or you know white rice or white bread yeah but still when they went and analyzed all Long Live societies and Long Live populations they found there was an optimal carbohydrate range and those in the blue zones as well and the optimal fat range so we're saying here and then the people that live the longest who are the people so this is a published in the lanet 2018 the title of this study is dietary carbohydrate intake and mortality a pro effective cohort study and meta analysis of all the studies right and they eat they follow the eating patterns of like more than a half a million people around the world like half Millions you know half a million people we talking about and they found that when you replace carbohydrates with animal products more death but both high and low carbohydrates were associated with increased mortality The Sweet Spot of the longest life were mid-ranged when people got more protein and fat from high quality carbohydrates like beans and high quality proteins like nuts and seeds so beans and nuts and seeds were the major factor modulating death here and life more more longer life less less life okay so it says source of food the whole plant foods mod modifi the association between carbohydrate intake and mortality what it meant what that means is that this tracking of carbohydrates and mortality was showed up because people had either restricted carbohydrates too low or when they went too high why they didn't use whole food sources of carbohydrates totally because whole food sources of carbohydrates have protein and fat in them except for fruit so fruit is the only whole plant food that isn't high in protein the other plant Foods there are five of them intact grains vegetables beans nuts and seeds am I missing one I guess is there four now in tact whole grains I guess there's only four in tact whole grains vegetables nuts and seeds and beans right those are the four sources of cuz fruit is the sixth category but fruit is kind of low in protein right the only way you can make a plant protein consistently too low in protein is with too much fruit because it'll diminish the amount of the higher protein plant Foods you're eating so as your diet moves towards fruitarian in excess of calories from fruit lowering the amount pushing off your plate those higher protein plant Foods then your diet can become too low in protein as we age and require more protein how would someone know that because we're telling them right right here on the podcast but like would they feel symptoms of that or have failure to thrive cuz it's kind of I don't know anyone I've never seen someone who lacks protein but there is that guy telling me he got too skinny that's correct it's that my experience in working with a plant-based Community is people start to they they thrive on these diets high in fruit in their 30s and 40s and 50s but once they get over 60 they start to lose muscle mass and they and the immune system goes down they start to get more chronic infections more rashes risk of in um muscle wasting loss of strength sure and that and and I've had people on raw food and fruitarian diets that come to me as patients who develop pneumonia I got sick with pneumonia at a young age they're more susceptible to infection I had one guy who came to me and because he was a natural hygienist he was on a FR fruitarian type diet and he refused to take an antibiotic with a pneumonia and he and he died so sad he came in and he I said you got to rush to the hospital and get on antibiotic Amal you've got a pneumonia you know and time he went to the emergency room was too late they couldn't they he gave they they got there alive but he died in the emergency room pneumonia and he's a healthy guy a young healthy guy on a fruitarian diet almost never see these young you know and so many of these fruitarians in the age they get funguses on their fingers and nails and they on their really there signs yeah there signs fungal infections and bak and more infections and and and lack of ability to maintain muscle mass you know what I mean what I wanted you to explain which is always been kind of crystal clear to me because we've talked about it so so much since I was 14 years old is plant protein for a longer life I get that and you said a vegan diet you know nutritarian diet but no protein like from animal sources because on a nutritarian diet you say F you could have a little bit of fish or meat if you want it for flavoring okay for special occasion or something right but you do say if completely vegan is probably the longest lifespan but it's you're not claiming that we get all of our nutritional needs all of our minerals and vitamins from just plants correct because there are three nutrients that we don't get optimal amounts from plants and those are B12 zinc and EPA and DHA so some of these plant-based enthusiasts are so excited and so philosophically powerful and strong about their religious enthusiasm for plant-based they want to make think that the plant-based side is perfect the way it is but it's not it's good it's good enough the way it is with just B12 if you want to live a normal lifespan if you want to be dead like everybody else M you know 75 and 80 like other people sure it's probably good enough with just B12 but if you want to push the envelope of human push the envelope of human longevity to 95 to 105 years old which I'm trying to do with my followers then the the plant-based diet is not sufficient without supplementation because then you're not getting the ideal amount of zinc and you're not getting the ideal amount of B12 and you're not getting the ideal amount of DHA and EPA to maximize brain size with aging because we lose muscle and bone with aging no matter what and we lose brain size with aging no matter what so do you want to lose at the rate other people are losing it we want to hold on to it better than most other people to keep our brain size and our muscle and bone size to push so we can live in good health till we 100 years old we then we got to do this really better do a better job do you think it's really possible that this diet is better than the blue zones oh yeah blue zones don't do that great really yeah because people but they do great they're good for research how good do they do they live on an average about five to eight years longer let's say six to nine years in good health though because I'm all about good health I don't just want to live long I want it to be quality years yeah the older people are definitely healthier and they're definitely living longer than the average American in a significant amount but not as much as a nutritarian diet a nutritarian diet pushes the envelope of of that type of style because blue zones are in this range what we're talking about usually but they may eat some blue zones may be up to somewhere between five and 15% of calories of animal products and they're but they you know as you know Sardinia in Italy is a Blue Zone and they're even a lot of O olive oil you know Costa Rica is a Blue Zone and they're so the diets are so much better than the American diet Costa Rica thank you it's so much better than the American diet but they're not examples of an ideal diet and my nutritarian family I'm observing people who I cared for that weren't that healthy when they were younger and they're living much longer collectively I'm seeing the nutritarian live much longer than the blue zones and and thriving in their later years with their full mental faculties you know we give some we talk about K2 as possibly being important um vitamin D to be F to be important too and even though there are other accessory having a little calcium extra calcium with each as we age to maintain bone mass with aging as being important too but the major three that are shortening lifespan the most in the vegan Community is B12 zinc because it's immune function and and mental function also way Z intake and DHA DHA and EPA mostly DHA and like Grandpa like Grandpa who's having his actual 92nd birthday today today yeah who had a heart attack when he was 70 cuz they didn't believe in your nutritional science they didn't believe in your protocols had a heart attack mom put her foot down and said oh you are improving your diet he did 92nd birthday right he's a good example because he had he had such a bad heart attack at in his 70s at age 70 yeah 22 years ago yeah and he had like ejection fraction went down really low and the doctors when he had in a low level of heart output they told him he had very poor prognosis and probably only had a 5year lifespan prognosis right and he didn't change his diet to everything I wanted to eat he doesn't do it that good and he's still 92 and okay now and he didn't have any more heart like he eat a salad a day or something no he does do much better but I just wanted to point out the fact that it is really cool to see these changes in person and it reinforces why why you're doing this yeah and and it's my mother's birthday this week yeah and she's going to be 96 and she didn't eat that healthy she had she ate all kinds of in junk when I was a kid growing up and she Smoked Cigarettes you know and now that she got older I forced her to do this because she's living in the neighborhood she eats with us now and so she and now she's and she has a full mental faculty she drives she does and she she's very sharp mentally and plays games and plays cards and plays all these you know um but in any case she's 96 her birthday's this week she's going to be 96 years old right you know it's it's inspiring that we have these people in our lives that haven't had this all of the that haven't lost their lives early that we were able to get like a lot of more memory and I just want that for so many other people cuz people don't deserve to have their loved ones or their lifespans themselves ended early it's just life short as it is I know they're losing more than 20 years of potential enjoyable life right and because and they they're afraid to be that healthy or live that long because they think their life's going to be not going to be a good quality of life live that long but it's not true us nutritarian we're seeing it these people are living longer with a great quality of life that's the difference people are just so afraid to give up their meat and they it's in stilled in all of the propaganda media they like the taste of it it's you can get it easily at restaurants and they don't want to hear that meat's bad for you but what's the one thing you always say you always say that I'm just the messenger I love when you say that what and like do whatever you want I'm not your mother you know that's what I said in medical school people would like hide their candy bars behind their back when I walked up to the to sit on my seat and I say I'm not here to tell you what to do you come you could learn from me and I we could talk about it but I'm not going to you're just reporting on the nut studies you do whatever you want to do I'm not your mother you always said I'm just reporting on nutritional science don't be mad at me totally and I'm not knocking people who do it you know I I'm you know people want to believe what they want to believe yes and you know how people their bad nutrition makes their brains not even function well so they now them you know so we're talking about you know the the craziness of people wanting to be on Carnivore diets they'll take any kind of information and they'll want to believe that and they just lose their ability to think logically and really what it comes down to is education at least you look at the education look at the studies because you don't have a choice if you don't know but now that you know you have the choice you could feel empowered to make the decisions to choose plant protein over animal products to choose Health promoting Foods spend more time in the produce aisles all that stuff but it all starts with education and knowing you have options right let me give you an example of some high protein foods right now some really super high protein plant protein or yeah plant protein cuz that's the key the message here is more plant protein intake extends lifespan even among plant Foods paying attention protein does matter but it's not but so you got to get more plant so lentils and beans more than 15 grams of protein per cup that's a lot of protein you know okay edamami 20 grams of protein per cup that's a huge amount of protein hemp seeds 10 grams of protein for just three tablespoons of hem seeds that's a huge amount of protein talking about Pro you know broccoli 10 gram for two cups of broccoli that's like a little box of frozen broccoli a small pumpkin seeds 13 gram for 1 and half ounces almonds 10 gram 1 and half ounces we're talking about these plant Foods mostly beans seeds green vegetables and nuts so green vegetables seeds and nuts beans and legumes are your highest protein plant sources and enables us to design a a diet with adequate protein for the elderly people who require more protein mhm and to give anyone a longer life should you say start now start now yeah absolutely this is what we're talking here about all the studies on protein and lifespan and these studies are all corroborative each they corroborate each other with a high degree of accordance which the high degree of accordance means they all show the same thing the higher so we so now that we're talking about we don't want our diet to be higher in animal protein we do want it to be higher in plant protein and just for the people that have always I've seen this question so many time am I too late should I change my diet or am I too late if you are living breathing speaking writing this message you're not too late well they're alive so they could live better they could maintain Better Health they could even get healthier if they're alive yes once they're dead they can't get healthier right but that's what I'm saying if you're writing this message you're not too late so there's always time to change and improve your diet improve your life and health span right the living if you are going to live why not um live the best you can be the healthiest version of yourself possible if you're going to stay alive then do it right absolutely so we gave people more insight to protein and also the other macronutrients that are required for long healthy right life let's go to let's talk about the next podcast and go into fat with a little more depth I love it okay until next timeos bye [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Dr. Fuhrman

Views: 26,655

Keywords: zinc supplementation, plant-based nutrition, synthetic nutrients, nutrient absorption, nutritarian diet, multivitamin safety, cruciferous vegetables, dr fuhrman fasting, dr fuhrman, joel fuhrman, joel fuhrman eat to live, joel fuhrman interview, fuhrman diet, eat to live, Eat to Live Retreat, dr joel fuhrman, dr joel fuhrman eat to live, dr joel fuhrman diabetes, dr joel fuhrman heart disease, dr joel fuhrman recipes

Id: jX3HMHiua5s

Length: 43min 51sec (2631 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 24 2024