The plant-based diet | Michael Greger, MD, | TEDxBismarck

[Music] surely if there was some safe simple side-effect free solution to the obesity epidemic we know about a by now right oh not so sure may take an average of 17 years before research findings make it into day-to-day clinical practice to take one example that was particularly poignant for my family heart disease dr. Dean Ornish and colleagues demonstrated decades ago that our leading cause of death could be reversed with diet and lifestyle changes alone yet hardly anything happened even now hundreds of thousands of Americans continue to needlessly die from what we learned decades ago was a reversible condition I saw it with my own eyes my grandmother was cured of her end-stage heart disease by Nathan Pritikin one of Dean's predecessors using similar methods she was given a medical best sense at age 65 but thanks to a healthy diet was able to enjoy another 31 years on this planet till age 96 to continue to enjoy her six grandkids including me so if effectively the cure to our number one killer could get lost down some rabbit hole and ignored what else might there be in the medical literature that could help my patients but just didn't have a corporate budget driver's promotion well I made a my lives mission to find out that's why I became a doctor in the first place and why I started a non-profit site called nutritionfacts.org everything on the website is free there are no ads no corporate sponsorship strictly non-commercial not selling anything just put up as a public service as a labor of love as a tribute to my grandmother new videos and articles nearly every day on the latest in evidence-based nutrition what a concept okay so what does the science show is the best way to lose weight if you want testimonials and before-and-after pictures you have come to the wrong place I am NOT interested in anecdotes I'm interested in evidence when it comes to making decisions as life-and-death important as to what to feed ourselves and our families then there's really only one question what does the best available balance of evidence say right now okay well look I mean with enough portion control anyone can lose weight or lock someone in a closet even forcing them to lose as much body fat as you want chaining someone to a treadmill could have a similar effect but what's the best weight loss regimen that doesn't involve calorie restriction or exercise or a felony well I have scoured through the medical literature at all the randomized controlled trials and the single most successful strategy to date it's a diet of whole plant foods the single most effective intervention like that ever published in the peer-reviewed scientific medical literature a whole food plant-based diet that works better than anything else studied today I mean we've known for more than 40 years that those who we predominantly plant-based weigh on average about 30 pounds lighter than the general population but you don't know if it's the diet itself until you put it to the test in 2017 a group of researchers in New Zealand published two broad study a 12-week randomized control trial in the region with the highest obesity rates the poorest region in the country in overweight individuals were randomized to either standard medical care or semi-weekly classes offering advice and encouragement t low-fat diets centered around fruits vegetables whole grains and legumes which are beans peas using lentils and that's all it was just empowerment with knowledge no meals were provided people were merely informed about the benefits of plant-based eating and encouraged to you know incorporate it into their own lives no significant change in the control group but the plant-based intervention group even without any restrictions on portions being able to freely eat all the healthy foods they wanted lost on average 19 pounds by the end of the three month study look 19 pounds of respectable weight loss but what happened next I mean at the end of those 12 weeks class was dismissed and no more instruction was given you know the researchers were curious you know how much weight the subjects had gained back after being released from the study so at the six-month mark everyone was invited back to get relay the plant-based group had left the three-month study 19 pounds lighter you know but you know by 6 months there were only down about 27 pounds it got even better the plant-based group was feeling so good physically and mentally had been able to come off so many their medications that they were sticking with the diet on their own and the weight had continued to come off all right what about a year later even in studies that last a whole year where people are you know put on a pig particularly that coached the entire year to stick to it you know by the end of the year and the initial weight loss in the first few months tends to creep on back the broad study only lasted three months yet after was all over those who had been randomized the plant-based group not only lost dozens of pounds they kept it off they not only lost more weight at 6 and 12 months than any other comparable trial that was months after the study had already ended whole food plant-based diet achieved the greatest weight loss ever recorded compared to any other such trial published in the medical literature you can read the record Bray case study free in full at nature.com slash article slash in utd 20 173 or just point your phone camera at the screen and pick off the QR code any diet that results in a reduction in calorie intake can result in weight loss you know dropping pounds isn't so much the issue the problem is keeping them off and a key difference between plant-based nutrition and more traditional approaches to weight loss is people are encouraged to eat ad libitum meaning you can eat as much as you want no calorie counting the portion control just eating the strategy is to improve the quality of the food rather than restricting the quantity of food if you put people on a diet packed with fruits vegetables whole grains and beans loudly need as much as they want they end up eating about 50% fewer calories than they otherwise would weight how can you keep people satisfied removing thousand calories out of their daily diet by eating more high bulk low calorie density foods vegetables fruits whole grains and beans and fewer calvin dense foods the means cheeses sugars and fats but it may not just be the calories in side of the equation those eating more plant-based appear to effectively be burning more calories in their sleep the resting metabolic rate of those anymore plant-based may be 10% higher or more a boost of metabolism that can translate into burning off hundreds of extra calories a day more without doing a thing eating plant-based you burn more calories just being alive just existing so no wonder why those we more plant-based tend to be slimmer start packing your diet with real food that grows out of the ground and the pound should come off naturally taking you down towards your ideal weight if there was one piece of advice that kind of best sums up my recommendations for weight loss it would be woe off your calories see animal cells are encased only an easily digestible membranes which allow the enzymes in our gut to effortlessly liberate the calories within a state for example on the other hand plant cells have cell walls that are made out of fiber which acts as an indigestible physical barrier so many of the calories remain trapped process plant foods fruit juice sugar refined grains even whole grains if they've been powdered into flour have had their cellular structure destroyed their cell walls cracked open and their calories are free for the taking but if you eat structurally intact plant foods chew all you want you're still gonna end up with calories completely encapsulated by fiber which then blunts the glycemic impact delivers sustenance to your friendly flora activates what's called the ileal break which dials down your appetite and frankly dumps trapped calories out the other end so bottom line trying to make sure as many of your calories as possible your protein your carbs your fat is encased in cell walls in other words from whole intact plant foods that's what nature intended to happen millions of years before we learned how to sharpen spears and mill grains boil sugar cane our entire physiology is presumed to have evolved in the context of eating what the rest of our great ape cousins eat plants the Paleolithic period when we started using tools only goes back about two million years we and other great apes have been evolving since the Maya seen here are more like 20 million years ago so for the first 90 percent of our hominoid existence our bodies evolved on mostly plants it's no wonder then that our bodies made five best on the diet we were designed to eat so maybe we should go back to our roots all right I've got a few minutes here what about the ketogenic diet you know body fat loss actually slows down when you switch to a ketogenic diet because your body starts cannibalizing its own protein just looking at the bathroom scale though the keto diet would seem like a smashing success losing less than a pound a week on the regular diet - boom three and a half pounds within seven days after switching to keto but what was happening inside their bodies told a totally different story on ketogenic diet their rate of body fat loss was cut by more than half so most of what they were losing was just water but they were also losing protein they're also losing lean mass this may help explain why the leg muscles of CrossFit trainees placed on the ketogenic diet may shrink as much as eight percent within two months weight training supposed to make your muscles bigger not smaller look even if keto diets worked the goal of weight loss is not to fit into a skinnier casket people whose diets even tend to trend that way appear to live significantly shorter lives on the other hand even drifting in the direction of eating more healthy plant foods is associated with living longer going the other direction though starting out more plant-based but then adding meat to your diet at least once a week may not only double or triple your odds of diabetes stroke heart disease and weight gain but may be associated with a three point six year drop in life expectancy that's going from no meat to just once a week meat or more low carb diets have been shown to impair artery function and worsen heart disease on the other hand whole food plant-based diets have been shown to actually reverse heart disease that's what Ornish and Pritikin use so what appears to be the most effective diet for weight loss just so happens to be the only diet ever proven to reverse heart disease in the majority of patients and my grandma didn't have to die like that maybe no one's grandma has to die like that if that's all a plant-based I could do reverse the number one killer of men and women shouldn't kind of be that default done to proven otherwise and the fact that can also be so effective in treating arresting reversing author leading killers like type-2 diabetes and high blood pressure would seem to make the case for plant-based eating simply overwhelming only one diet has ever been shown to do all that a diet centered around whole plant foods so we don't need to mortgage our health to lose weight the healthiest diet also appears to be the best diet for weight loss after all permanent weight loss requires permanent dietary changes I'm a healthier habits just have to become a way of life and if it's gonna be a lifelong you want it to lead to a long life thankfully the single best diet program for weight loss also just so happens to be the safest cheapest we need for the longest healthiest life thank you [Music]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 877,012

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Health, Disease, Medical research, Medicine, Obesity

Id: k8hgfXmZSHE

Length: 14min 55sec (895 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 25 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/thedavemcsteve]

Strongly recommend folks checking out "Eating You Alive" documentary that Dr. Greger is prominent in. Also "The Game Changers" comes at this from another angle, related to athletics and being WFPB. As someone who was once over 400lbs (at 5' 9") who is now at 190, I can say without any reservation, that the WFPB lifestyle not only works for health and weight optimization, but also cut my grocery bill significantly.

[u/puffpuffpass513]

I lost 65 pounds after going plant based and incorporating a minor yoga routine.

[u/Valhasselhoff]

Thank you for sharing this, I have been on the fence to go all plant based and have been doing KETO and seeing results kept me away from plant based. This is what I needed today, you are a rockstar:)

[u/vagabond9]

Shared this on r/keto ... turned out they didn’t like it.

[u/[deleted]]

As someone who has been full blown Keto diet, this was really insightful. Today is day one of my plant based diet, I had peanut butter and banana on a whole wheat bagel, and had a bean burrito bowl for lunch. I can't wait to see how sustainable this diet will be!

[u/specsaloni]

Greger is the best. Man has so much content in his website.

[u/YellowBlackBrown]

The volume of his voice up and down and is so annoying, ha

[u/vandelayATC]

I just saw Dr Greger give this talk and more on Monday. His new book How Not To Diet is coming out in December. In addition to this he talked about the benefits of things like garlic powder, black cumin, cayenne, and ginger on weight loss. Also recommended taking 2 teaspoons of vinegar before every meal to enhance weight loss.

[u/vagabond9]

Is there evidence on the metabolic rate that he claims to be higher in vegans? I’m not denying his research but I’m very cautious about the comparisons that are mostly made by plant based supporters. Usually they compare a health and nutrition conscious vegan with a not caring SAD follower.

I personally did not experience any change when I moved to plant based, though my meals have always been 50%+ plant based. The only difference now is that I replaced the lean chicken breast with a piece of tofu in a meal that consists of greens and whole wheat pasta.