No. 1 Sugar Expert: 17 Seconds Of Pleasure Can Rewire Your Brain!

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/07e3da39a0d95e74

People say oh Alzheimer's is genetic.
Garbage. That genetic component is only five percent. So that means ninety-five percent of Alzheimer's risk is environmental. Air pollution, microplastics, ultra processed food. And a paper just came out showing that sweetener consumption correlates with dementia. And we think we know why. And you've not talked about this publicly yet. No.
Let's talk. Dr. Robert Lustig is a world leading sugar expert who's teaching the world how to reclaim their health from the industry that profits off your vulnerabilities.
Seventy-three percent of the items in the American grocery store are poison because sugar is hidden in all the foods. For instance, there's 262 names for sugar, and the food industry uses all of them. Because they knew when they add it, you buy more. But the problem is that it's providing people with a dopamine hit. And that dopamine is addictive. And that's when you actually have a biochemical and medical.
Problem. And we have data to show that ultra-processed food has been associated with dementia, diabetes, cancer, every single mental health disease. So the question is, how can you buy healthy food?
and not be tempted by the bad stuff. So first, if a food has a label, it's a warning label. Second thing, if any food has a sugar in the first three ingredients, it's dessert. And then when they go to the store, don't go hungry.
And what about exercise? Well, it doesn't really impact your desire to reach for sugar. It has its own metabolic benefits. But if you think exercise is going to make you lose weight, you are
Diluted. And we can talk about that. So with all of this in mind, if I've got a sugar problem or if I've got an addiction problem, what is the remedy? I will tell you that this is one of the things I did in my obesity clinic. So the only way you're gonna be able to fix the problem is
Just give me thirty seconds of your time.
Two things I wanted to say. The first thing is a huge thank you for listening and tuning into the show week after week. It means the world to all of us, and this really is a dream that we absolutely never had and couldn't have imagined getting to this place.
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Thank you.
Uh
Doctor Robert, good to have you back. Oh, my pleasure.
I am
Particularly fascinated by this term.
hostage brain. I know you're in the early stages of working on a book about this subject, but
For anyone that doesn't understand, so when I look at this word the hostage brain.
I think of all the times that I've been out of control.
I wanna say out of control.
I'm gonna let you define it, but when I say out of control, I mean there's so many things I want to do as it relates to my health, my fitness, other aspects of my life, whether it's avoiding eating the cookie at two A.
Uh
other areas of my life where I want to have greater elements of control. What does what do you mean by the hostage brain?
All of us.
Wanna be in control, Steven.
I mean, it's the nature of humanity. We want to be in control.
We want to be in control of our lives. Unfortunately, many of us wanna be in control of everyone else's lives, as we've seen play out on grand stages lately.
Okay? Everyone wants to be in control. And the reason we want to be in control is because then we can mitigate threat.
When you're in control, then
Thread is low because
You're in control.
Problem is
We're not in control.
The more in control
The more a specific area of your brain.
is basically gloming on. And that area of the brain is known as the amygdala.

Is
Your fear center.
It's also your twenty four hour century. But really what the amygdala is, it's the point guard on your basketball team.
Okay.
So
It surveys the entire court.
Sees the offense and the defense.
And has to make split second decisions.
Who's gonna score?
No.
A lousy point guard takes all the shots.
A good point guard.
passes off to the guy.
Who has the best shot?
A great point guard.
is gonna be able to figure out if he's gonna score or if he's gonna pass it off.
to somebody else.
If you're in control.
Mm.
Your level of threat goes down.
But
Really?
Your control is an illusion.
You really don't have control.
And the more you try to exert it
the more you realize you're not in control.
And what that does is that
generates an enormous amount of stress.
and in a more enormous amount of pain.
Yeah.
That pain can turn inward.
And we call that depression.
And right now, twenty-nine percent.


and four point four percent of the entire world.
is depressed.
These numbers were infinitesimal.
A generation ago.
And there.
Basically, you know.
Just you know.
pushing up further and further. And the reason is because of this.
Inappropriate illusion.
Of control.
And it's causing an enormous amount of pain.
How do you mollify that?
Amen.
How do you basically deal with the psychological pain?
Of
Lack of control.

put upon yourself.
Well.
We have loads.
Cocaine, amphetamine, nicotine, alcohol, sugar, gambling, uh uh social media, internet gaming, uh pornography.
Pick your
Poise.
That's dopamine.
Dopamine.
Basically
Provides you with a little bit of pleasure.
On top of a whole lot of pain.
The problem is
Uh dopamine is addictive.
And so when you
Apply
A
Set of pleasures to try to deal
With
Your pain of lack of control.
That puts you into a never ending cycle.
of consumption.
And misery.
That's the hostage brain.
What do I need to understand about
dopamine in order to'cause I think sometimes awareness is step one in being able to do something about
a problem that you might have.
So w what do I need to understand about what dopamine is and what it's doing in my brain and how it's sort of associated with addiction?
To then be able to do something about it, which I I consider step two.
Dopamine basically
has two functions.
The first is learning.
There's no learning without dopamine.
Any time you learn something, whether it's
Positive or negative.
It's because
There was a dopamine release.
When you put your hand down on a hot stove when you were three years old,
And went.
Yeah.
I'm never doing that again.
Okay, that was dopamine that did that.
Okay. And what it did was it went to your amygdala and it rewired it.
That was a rewiring of your amygdala due to the excitatory
N neurostimulus of that dopamine affecting an area of your brain called the basilateral amygdala.
Okay.
And it laid down and it set up a circuit.
And that circuit is still working in you right now.
Okay.
So dopamine is the learning
Neurotransmitter.
It can be for negative learning, it can be for positive learning.
Either way.
Yeah.
Dopamine is also
When it's going to another area of the brain
called the nucleus accumbens.
which is the reward center.
That is
A stimulus for reward.
That is the motivation.
For reward.
That is
And
One word.
Four play. Okay.
That is the excitement.
The
Reason for continuing
Any given.
behavior.
Okay. You get both.
Ark dopamine.
Okay.
In short
Small bursts in the right venue.
That's how we navigate life.
We navigate it through learning and we navigate it through
Reward.
You can't
Do it without dopamine.
Dopamine is good.
Unless it's bad.
And as you know, everything in science is both good and bad.
The problem is chronic overstimulation of any neuron leads to neuronal cell death.
Dopamine.
is a chronic stimulator.
And so
If you have chronic dopamine.
being released.
What's gonna happen is you're gonna kill the next neuron.
No.
That nerd doesn't want to die.
So it
Down regulates the receptors for dopamine.
So that it's less likely that one dopamine over here is gonna find the receptor over here to bind to, because there are fewer of them.
So what this means is
More and more for less and less.
And we call that phenomenon tolerance.
More dopamine, more tolerance.
So the law of diminishing returns.
So
You get a.
Hit.
You get a rush.
It'd be a sh sugar, alcohol, whatever it might be. Picture. Pornography. Yeah.
Pick your poison.
Doesn't matter.
You get a hit, you get a rush, receptors go down, next time you need a bigger hit to get the same rush, receptors go down, and then you need a bigger hit and a bigger hit and a bigger hit until finally you get a huge hit to get nothing.
That's called tolerance.
And then
When the neurons
Actually start to die.
That's called addiction.
So tolerance is
The start of addiction.
And the problem is more dopamine.
More tolerance, more tolerance.
More addiction.
So people that are getting addicted to
Unhealthy foods and sugars and those kinds of things.
What's like going on in their brain?
So
At first.
The first time they taste it?
Yeah, whatever it is, whether it's a uh a fruit loop or uh you know, uh candy corn or uh um
You know a frappicino or you know, pick your uh
Take your poison.
Um
Yeah, y you get this big, you know, sh sort of, you know, sugar
bomb going off in your head and you go, Wow, this is great. You know, I want some more of this. And what is that? Okay.
And what you've done is you've basically
H
You're
Nucleus cumins with a big slug of dopamine.
And you go, wow, that was great.
And then an hour later it's gone. And then you go, God, I need that again.
Okay.
So
The first time you got it, you liked it.
The second time you did it.
Ya wanted it.
And the third time.
You needed it.
So that's the difference between liking and wanting and needing.
Okay,'cause liking we all do.
And no one wants to take away liking.
One thing gets into problems.
Because
You can over ab abuse things.
Needing is when you actually have.
Hey.
biochemical and medical problem.
So with all of this in mind, if I've got a sugar problem or if I've got an addiction problem, I'm addicted to insect poison.
What is what is the
The remedy. Just avoid it for a while and then if that is the remedy, what ha what's going on in my brain? Is it
Fixing itself?
There are many remedies.
Okay, and they can all be used in conjunction with each other.
Uh ultimately.
The only thing that's gonna work.
is getting those dopamine receptors back up. Remember I told you, dopamine down regulates its own receptor.
The only way you're gonna be able to fix the problem is for the dopamine.
Receptors to come back up.
There's a uh
Uh
I uh
Trend going on right now out in Silicon Valley you may have heard of called dopamine fasting.
Ah. Yeah, I've heard the word.
You basically people lock themselves up in a hotel room for three weeks. Okay. Don't take a shower. And um you know, basically
you know, take the T Vs out of the room and um
You know.
try to commune with uh themselves and with nature with no stimuli.
With no external stimuli.
In order to
Bring there.
Dopamine receptors back up.
particularly true of cocaine addicts, because their dopamine receptors are way down because after all, cocaine
is a dopamine reuptake inhibitor, so it's flooding the zone.
with dopamine therefore.
those receptors are, you know, down in the sewer.
No.
Do you have to be that severe? No, of course not.
But does it work?
Takes three weeks.
You want to do it for three weeks? Yeah. Then it works.
Other ways.
You know, you can wean yourself off, you can do abstinence.
But and if you if you can do abstinence, that's a good idea.
Hard to do.
Especially when it's
You know, staring at you and when it's available twenty four seven, three sixty five, like sugar is.
Yeah. It's everywhere. It's on every street corner.
When when I when I fast or when I do the ketogenic diet, I lose my
A parent
Cravings.
Exactly right.
And the reason is because
No sugar in in a ketogenic diet.
So you're basically removing
The offensive stimulus.
I was so shocked. I love th those cinnamon roll things. Not that I I probably eat one every two years, but I love them nonetheless. I'm like a big admirer, even though we don't have a relationship anymore. And
I when I I did the ketogenic diet for about I was on f I was four weeks in of not having any sugar and or
carbohydrates and I walked up to this concession in Cape Town.
with these all these amazing cinnamon rolls that they're like specialists. And I looked at them
And there was zero part of my brain that was interested in any of it.
Zero part of my brain. And I was like, wow, my brain has been like rewired or something.
Just because I've removed sugar from my diet. Yeah.
Yeah.
It happens.
Uh it but it takes a while.
It's not something that, you know, you can turn on and off.
It it takes a a a fair amount of time.
I will tell you that um you know, this is one of the things I did in my obesity clinic.
you know, on a daily basis was getting people off
their sugar addiction.
And sometimes you have to basically babysit them.
You have to, you know, work with them and with the work with their parents in order to, you know, basically turn over the entire pantry.
Because the sugar is hidden in all the foods, you know. I mean it's it's uh there are two hundred and sixty two names for sugar, and the food industry uses all of them.
This is why we are trying to get sugar addiction and ultra processed food addiction codified by the WHO and by the American Psychiatric Association as a
bona fide um diagnosis so that we can get remediation and therapy.
Therapy for people.
One of the things that was one of the most popular parts of our conversation last time, Robert, was there's a section where we talked about
the different types of sugar and diet cokes and Coke Zeros and all these kinds of things.
You know, I uh if I I'm I can see a couple of cans on the desk over there where where Jack is. Um
In the darkness that I can vaguely see.
And
Thans of fizzy drink, they all have some kind of sugar substitute. Yep.
Are those sugar substitutes harmless?
No, of course not.
Um
A paper just came out like three days ago.
in Annals of Neurology.
Uh basically showing that uh uh
Non nutritive sweetener.
Consumption.
So diet.
sweetener consumption uh correlates with dementia.
And we think we know why.
Why?
Reactive oxygen species.
So oxygen radicals.
uh little chemicals that are given off from various substances.
That cause
changes in energy metabolism in cell, and also cause damage in cells.
ROSs, reactive oxygen species.
The famous ones are Sparta Sucolos.
No.
Do monk fruit extract, do stevia, does allulose
Also cause reactive oxygen species. I very specifically looked
for data on those could not find it.
But for Spartame and for Sucralos.
The two biggest ones that are
available today, the ones that are used in a lot of diet drinks.
Huge amounts.
of ROS generation.
All right.
uh reactive oxygen species generation. So
Anything that generates ROSs.
contributes to
Um
Dementia.
Is the evidence strong at this stage?
Yeah, it's pretty darn strong. I'm actually giving a talk about this next week in San Diego.
I heard you've got a
A new
theory on the causes of Alzheimer's dementia. That's somewhat linked. This is it.
Yeah.
Can you explain that to me?
And you've you've not talked about this publicly yet. You you're you're said to talk about it in a couple of days, I hear.
Let me uh
Take it back a step.
Okay.
There's
This organelle.
Inside our brains.
called mitochondria.
You've heard of mitochondria. Yeah.
For the for your audience, mitochondria are the little energy burning factories inside each of our cells.
What they do is they take food energy and turn it into the chemical energy that your cell can actually use to power itself.
Okay, and that chemical energy has a name. It's called ATP.
Yeah.
If you
Took biology in high school.
You've heard of ATP, adenosine triphosphate.
The energy is in the phosphate bonds.
So
A T P
Will give up its energy and go to A D P
Dye phosphate.
Which will then give up its energy and go to A M P.
Monophosphate.
Which will then finally go to adenazine.
And adenosine binds to the adenosine receptor and makes you go to sleep.
Mm-hmm.
By the way, that's where caffeine works. It blocks the adenosine receptor, keeping you awake.
So that the adenosine can't bind.
to the adenosine receptor.
Okay. So
That ATP
is the currency of the cell.
That's what makes the cell run.
Anything that depletes ATP.
is gonna put the cell at risk.
Mm-hmm.
Okay. Because it doesn't have the energy it needs.
to run.
Yeah, which like it's gasoline.
It's like gasoline. So what happens when you start running out of gasoline?
Well you break down. You'll break down.
So brain fog
Difficulty concentrating.
Irritability.
And ultimately all the way to depression.
So the amount of ATP within any given neuron
is
V
A proximate cause.
of neuronal dysfunction.
That we see.
As
Neurocognitive and neurobehavioral change.
Now.
How do mitochondria and how do ROSs fit into this?
Mitochondria.
Make ATP.
But every time they make ATP they make also make ROSs.
There are eleven steps.
in mitochondria and they all give off ROSs.
Now those ROSs
are gonna damage the cell.
They have to be gotten rid of.
They're like
Toxic fumes.
They gotta be gotten rid of.
And so we have a pathway in each cell of our body.
to get rid of the toxic ROSs.
Okay.
They're called antioxidants.
Like.
glutathione, vitamin E, vitamin C.

Uh flavonoids.
Okay.
Those basically quench those.
Reactive oxygen species they go to die.
If you do that, then the ROSs basically just get funneled away and all is well and the cell can keep working.
But if for some reason those antioxidants aren't up to par, if for instance you've been eating ultra-processed food and you can't make
You're
Antioxidant complement.
Then the ROS is feedback and what happens is
The ROSs are basically telling the cell
Hey.
Yeah.
shunting too much energy down this pathway.
Because
I can't clear'em.
So there's too much stuff.
So
Shut it down!
And so what happens is that instead of funneling the glucose into the mitochondria
To generate more ATP.
it diverts it and it goes off into other directions like glycogen.
Which is in the brain is not good.
Or fat, which is even worse.
And bottom line.
You're cellus now.
Not.
Energy.
Producing.
Like it used to be.
been reduced in terms of its energy capacity.
What's that gonna do? That's gonna reduce
A T P generation.
Okay.
That's step one.
Now step two.
There's this stuff called cortisol.
Cortisol comes from stress.
Cortisol comes from sleep deprivation.
Cortisol comes from exogenous glucocorticoids.
Like steroids being given to people for, you know.
autoimmune disease or for uh
You know, uh other uh uh
Il illnesses.
Okay. That cortisol.
causes neurons to increase
And
Um
Metabolism.
causes them to burn energy faster.
Okay, so you now you have an increased ATP utilization.
So you have a decreased ATP generation, now you have an increased ATP utilization.
Now you've got an energy crisis inside each cell.
No.
Your ATP can't keep up with the needs of the cell.
When that happens.
Now you've got symptoms.
Whether it's
Brain fog or
Irritability or
all the way to Frank Depression.
Okay, now.
Step three.
There are these proteins inside each neuron.
Culpen.
amyloid precursor peptide APP.
Okay. So normal.
protein in all cells.
Every cell in your body has APP.
It needs to stay in solution.
And in order for it to stay in solution, it ha energy has to be applied.
To it.
in order to keep it in solution.
the ATP in the cell goes down.
They come out of solution and they start
Forming.
Um aggregates.
Which we call
Plaques.
Yeah.
Okay.
And those plaques damage the cell.
Which then
Start an inflammatory process.
Uh in the cells uh next door called the microglia.
in order to clean up the process.
And now you've got plaques and an inflammation.
And now you've got neuronal cell death.
That's dementia.
So it starts.

With an ATP energy crisis.
Moves through.
Plaque and inflammation.
to generate neuronal cell death.
Well this is
problematic to say the least. And by the way, anything that generates ROSs.
has been associated with Alzheimer's. Anything that increases ATP utilization
Like stress, glucocorticoids, fever.
Autoimmune disease.
also increases Alzheimer's.
So anything that increases step one, anything that increases step two.
ultimately leads to increase step three.
And Alzheimer's.
in a couple of sentences for someone that has no scientific understanding.
And we're gonna have to
cut a c few corners here scientifically in order to to for them to under have a free to understand it. How would you give me some sort of analogy for it?
Maybe in the context of, I guess, a petrol station and a car.
Yeah. So I mean if we're basically doing petrol, we're talking energy only.
Yeah.
Okay.
So bottom line.
Your car?
Runs on
Petrol. Mm-hmm.
Okay.
The petrol comes in, that's the glucose.
And the engine
Okay. Powers pistons.
And the pistons then power an axle.
And the axle then powers wheels.
And
You go.
Yeah.
Okay. But there are a lot of things.
That have to go right.
For all of those things to happen.
Like for instance
Yeah.
energy, the the the gasoline has to get into the engine in the first place.
What if you have
carbon deposits on your intake manifolds.
And if you have a problem with any one of those steps.
You're gonna end up
With a jalapian instead of a sports car.
I mean, that's what we're seeing in the United States, over seven million Americans live with Alzheimer's, and this is expected to double to almost thirteen million.
in the coming decades.
Indeed.
Yeah.
Because we haven't solved the problem.

That's the mechanism.
What is the cause?
Right. So
We know
We know.
That's
The cause is environmental.
Yeah.
People say, Oh Alzheimer's is genetic.
Garbage.
There is a genetic component to Alzheimer's, I'm not arguing.
There is.
Okay. This is this thing called Apo E4.
And if you have
Two copies of Apo E four.
on your genome.
Your risk for getting Alzheimer's is nine times
the general population.
That is absolutely true. I don't
Disagree with that.
So Ape OE4 is not a good thing, I'm not arguing that. Once upon a time in you know uh evolution,
Uh having two copies of Apo E4 was good because it meant you got fat up to your brain pretty fast.
But
We don't need that right now. That's kind of a
Uh
An ol old news kind of pro uh of issue.
People who th have double doses of Apo E four.
are at higher risk. There is absolutely no question about that, but they can mitigate that risk.
If they change their diet.
Okay. They can eat a very low fat diet.
And was and
improve their risk down to the general population.
Okay.
Everything else in Alzheimer's.
is not genetic.
By the way, that genetic component is only five percent.
of all the outsiders.
So that means 95%.
of Alzheimer's risk.
is environmental.
Now the question is, what in the environment?
Well
Air pollution.
Ionizing radiation.
Microplastics.
Okay.
There's nothing you can do about any one of those three.
That's baked into the cake.
You can't do anything about those today.
What other things?
Uh sleep disorder breathing.
medications.
Ultra processed food.
Okay.
What about ultra processed food?
Fructose?
My favorite, you know, hobby horse.
You know, the sweet mold and sugar.
Low omega threes.
So
No.
Fish, uh eggs, chicken.
Uh lack of fiber?
Because fiber.
Suppresses inflammation.
Presence of emulsifiers.
Okay. B vitamins.
Lack of B vitamins.
Particularly B six, B twelve folate.
Okay.
Are all associated.
with an increase in reactive oxygen species.
You can manage those, you can mitigate those.
Thereby increasing mitochondrial function, increasing ATP generation.
and preventing that cellular energy crisis.
So that you don't end up
behind the eight ball.
And you don't lose your neurons.
When people tw
t tell me that Alzheimer's is associated with having a sort of energy crisis in the brain.
Mm-hmm. I'm increasingly hearing people talk about
Key tones.
It's just it's remarkable the
improvement in cognitive performance that I
feel when I'm fasted or I'm in a ketogenic
No.
Whereas if I'm in a if I've been eating a lot of uh
carbohydrates or sugar.
It's like my brain is like
Like
Backfiring. Yeah, it's stumbling over itself.
I'm not surprised.
Yeah.
The the food industry tells you, Well, carbohydrates are energy.
Actually that's not true.
Carbohydrates inhibit energy production.
How do you mean?
So
There's this thing called a bomb calorimeter.
And there's this thing called a mitochondria.
They are not the same.
A bomb calorimeter.
You throw food into the bomb calorimeter, it explodes and it gives off heat.
You know, captures the heat, measures the heat.
And that's how we know for instance fat burns at nine calories per gram.
Protein burns at four calories per gram.
Carbohydrate burns it.
four calories per gram, which is why
Fat is more energy dense than
protein or carbohydrate, which is how we all determine the fat major fat.
And the bomb calorimeter is also how they determine if a bag of crisps or chips, whatever you call it here.
It's two hundred calories because if you put them in there, exactly. It will release two hundred calories of energy.
So it is a measure of physics.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
Mitochondria are not bomb calorimeters. They are not capturing heat.
They are giving off heat. They are capturing ATP.
No bomb calorimeter.
Captures ATP.
Mitochondria capture and generate ATP.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Turns out thirty five to forty percent.

Turns out to be heat.
That's why you have a body temperature.
is from that. And so you have never you will never have a 100% energy efficient mitochondrion, because if you did
Okay. You would have a temp
body temperature of you know room temperature, okay, and you'd be dead. That's not the way it works.
Bottom line.
That
transfer of food energy to chemical energy.
Loses energy in the process.
Okay.
The bomb calorimeter can't tell the difference.
But your mitochondria can.
Ultimately.
It's how efficient.
are your mitochondria at converting food energy to ATP.
The bomb calorimeter can't tell you anything about that.
So
These two phenomena
You know, the concept of calories as fuel and the concept of calories as
generators of ATP have really very little to do with each other.
And it turns out that there are individual things in food.
The famous one is fructose, but there are others, lectins and others, that actually inhibit
the mitochondrial generation of ATP.
So they actually inhibit
Your ability to turn food energy into chemical energy.
If that's the case.
Even if they have
calories per gram in a bomb calorimeter, if they're interfering with mitochondrial function.
Are they food?
What is the definition of food?
Substrate that contributes either to growth or burning of an organism. Well, I just told you, fructose actually inhibits
Burning.
Turns out
Prectose also inhibits growth. It inhibits cortical bone growth trabecular bone growth cancels bone growth.
Bottom line.
People who eat ultra-processed food end up shorter.
We have the data for that.
So
If a substrate that passes your lips
Does not contribute to growth.
And does not contribute to burning.
Is it a food?
I guess no.
I guess not. What is it, then?
So poison.
And how much of our diet do you think is poison?
A fair amount.
Ultra processed food is loaded with them.
Real food is not loaded with them. You can still find them, but not loaded with them. Ultra processed food has, in my opinion,
Okay.
Five things.
Wrong with it.
Too much sugar.
Which poisons your mitochondria. Not enough fiber.
Which is necessary to suppress inflammation.
Not enough omega three fatty acids which are necessary to build your brain.
Conduct neurotransmission.
Too many emulsifiers.
which leads to gut inflammation and therefore systemic inflammation.
And then we can throw on top of that.
the food dyes and food additives which are butogenic because they're, you know, petroleum based.
That's ultra processed food.
Ultra processed food has been associated with every single one of these diseases, including every single mental health disease, especially
Dementia.
as we now have seen. Ultra processed food is specifically associated with dementia, and even diet sweeteners are associated.
with dementia through this reactive oxygen species pathway.
The sugar industry can't be your biggest fan.
They're not.
I'm trying to help them though.
You know?
I am trying to help them. Last year.
Um not too long after we had our uh previous uh uh uh session.
Uh I was the uh keynote speaker.
at the fourth international sugar reduction summit in Atlanta, Georgia.
Yeah, Daniel and the Lion's Dead.
And you know.
Like why would they invite me?
I am, you know.
I'm their conscience. I said, I don't want to be your enemy. I want to be your conscience.
I want you to do the right thing.
Okay. Ultimately.
Okay.
Ultra processed food's not going away.
As much as I would like it to, it's not gonna go away.
And I'm not even sure we want it to go away, because we've got to feed 10 billion people by the year 2050, and we're not gonna have enough land and ocean to do it.
Ultimately.
Ultra processed food.
Is
Here to stay.
It is
Baked into the cake.
But
The question is can we make
Ultra processed food.
Healthy.
Right now they're not.
Right now.
What's going on in the US?
you know, uh food industry is
doing the exact opposite. It's making
Food disastrously.
Disease producing.
The question is
Could you
Change that.
And the answer is yes, you can.
In fact, we've done it.
We have been doing it.
Um
Five years ago.
I started working with an offshore.
Food company.
Gratis, by the way. No money, changed hands.
And so they came to me and they said, look, we know we're part of the problem. We want to be part of the solution.
We know that Kuwait has an 18 percent diabetes rate and an 80 percent obesity rate. And we don't want to be the reason. We want to be the help.
Кан юп ас.
Figure out.
How to make
metabolically healthy
Processed food.
So I convened a
Scientific advisory team of five
Members.
And we worked for the next three years.
Looked at every single

Process, every procedure.
Every
Uh vendor.
Every ingredient, every product, sent them all for biochemical analysis.
To figure out.
What's going into the food, what's coming out of the food, is the food metabolically healthy? What has to be done? How does it need to be reengineered?
To lead
to something that is metabolically healthy.
And we came up with a set of principles.
Which we published in Frontiers and Nutrition in twenty twenty three.
We call it the metabolic matrix.
We d basically collapsed it down to nine words.
Three clauses, nine words.
Protect the liver.
Feed the gut.
Support the brain.
That's it.
Those three things.
Any
Thing that passes your lips.
That protects the liver, feeds the gut, supports the brain.
It's healthy.
Whether it's ultra processed or not.
Anything.
That passes your lips, that does none of the three.
It's poison.
Whether it's ultra processed or not.
So it's actually not the ultra processing.
It's whether or not it
contributes to metabolic health.
So then we started re engineering products.
Um
In the KDD line.
And they have one hundred eighty items in their portfolio.
We have reengineered
10% of them, 18 products.
to become metabolically healthy. And we have tested them on people.
In Kuwait.

their metabolic benefit.
What is it? And they are on the shelves now.
But isn't there a is there a trade off there because those products might sell
Worse now that they've you've removed the
The stuff that makes them addictive.
No.
So we didn't tell the public.
That we were doing this.
We just did it.
And they just re- they just introduce them.
To the public.
I didn't tell him.
And they didn't miss a friggin' beat.
In terms of sales.
And in terms of profits.
But I mean.
Tell'em.
And it works. Logically though, it the th th the bad stuff often makes the food more addictive.
And that's why this is so cool.
It didn't change.
consumption and it didn't change.
Prophets.
And that's what they care about.
Ultimately they don't care if consumption changes as long as profits don't.
This can be done by other
Food industries.
We're trying to get them.
on board.
And
You know, I have lots to say about RFK.
But he has at least
Uh.
Uh convened a discussion.
on what's wrong with ultra processed food. And we're hoping to be able to enter that uh
Enter that conversation.
RFK is the health leader, I guess.
You have a lot to say about him. I have boatloads to say about him. Most of which uh you can't print.

What's w what's your general opinion?
I've
Of him and his role and what he's doing, etcetera.
I've been asked to serve in this administration four times.
And I've said no each time.
And it's not because I don't want to be. I do.
But it's because
My opinion and his opinion would basically get me thrown out after about five seconds.
What's the difference? I wouldn't last a uh I wouldn't last a second.
What's the difference in opinion?
All right.
Fi R F has five.
buckets in his portfolio.
Food.
I'm on board.
Form of transparency.
I'm on board.
Chemicals in the environment.
I'm on board.
Fluoridation.
I'm partially on board.
You could get the fluoride out of the water, but first you gotta get the sugar out of the food.
You can't just take the floret out of the water or everybody'll get mountain dew mouth all at the same time.
And that would be a complete and utter disaster. Has to be done in a coordinated public health
PSA driven campaign.
with
Everyone on board, including the food industry and the medical profession
And government. And to explain that, there's fluoride in the water in the United States because there's so much sugar. There's so much sugar in the food.
You wouldn't need sh uh fluoride in the water.
If you didn't have sugar in the food. Just to explain this. So the the United States put fluoride in the water.
To stop
Dental carries.
Which protects people's teeth.
Which protects people's teeth.
Uh.
Point is
Yeah.
Only half the countries in the world have fluoride in the water.
The others don't.
And the reason is'cause they don't have sugar in the food.
The only reason you need to put the floor in the water is
Because the sugar in the food causes the dental caries.
No.
The fluoride reduces the
Uh.
Uh prevalence.
Dental carries.
Cavities. Cavities, yeah.
By about thirty to forty percent.
No.
The problem with fluoride is at high dose.
It can be a neurotoxin.
Now the goal is for
uh public floridation to stay way below that.
No.
Do they?
Not really.
Sometimes they go above.
So
Normal fluoride concentrations when you're doing it as a uh you know public health
Effort.
should be between point three and point nine parts per million.
Sometimes it goes up to one point five parts per million and at one point five
it becomes a neurotoxin.
So it's a purely dose issue.
But one of the reasons why people are screaming about getting fluoride out of the water is because it can be a neurotoxin.
It's not supposed to be in doses that are appropriate.
But
You know.
People don't look at the data.
Point is you could get the fluoride out of the water.
But
If you got the fluoride out of the water and didn't take the sugar out of the food.
You know, we'd have more dental carries, we'd have more anesthesia, we'd have more teeth pulling, we'd have more
sepsis, we'd have more dental abscesses, we'd have more soldiers dying in the field. It's a matter of national security.
So you can't just do it. It requires
A
You know, coordinated
Uh.
Uh.
Uh effort.
Is there anything else you disagree with him on?
And then finally bucket number five.
vaccines.
I am a pediatrician.
I am not a vaccine expert, to be sure.
I am not an immunologist, to be sure.
But I am a pediatrician and I know a lot about vaccines, and I know a lot about the infectious diseases that those vaccines were set up to
Basically prevent.
And I have taken care of all
Eight.
of the diseases that we have child immunizations for mumps, measles, rubella.
Dheria, pretussis, tetanus.
H flu.
Polio.
I've taken care of all eight of those, and I will tell you right now.
When I take care of those
It's because of someone who didn't get vaccinated.
And when I take care of those,
Okay, the chances are 90% that that kid's gonna die.
R FK is not.
RFK says he can s tell whether someone has mitochondrial function dysfunction just by looking at them.
I'm a mitochondriologist.
I can't.
Ultimately.
RFK's view of vaccines.
is um
Shall we say?
His and his alone.
And is not shared by the medical community.
Um and I will not be part and parcel to three thousand mules deaths.
Because of
A
uh blanket uh disdain for uh
vaccines and vaccine technology, which has worked beautifully to save one hundred and fifty-four million people on this earth.
over the last fifty years.
Yeah, you know, I don't I don't talk about this stuff a lot. Um
But
I
Was
I'm pretty sure
At least one of my siblings was saved by vaccination when we were in Africa and we had uh malaria.
I think if I'm if I'm if I'm accurate here, I had malaria.
my brothers had malaria. And I think I was the one that didn't get the malaria vaccine and then I ended up in hospital at a as a at a very young age with with malaria. I was like hallucinating and stuff like that.
Um
Mm-hmm. And obviously as a as someone that was
born in Africa, I y y I think you probably have a clearer understanding of
The role that's
Vaccines can play in in good health.
You know, it's it's it's um it's quite concerning. Because w when you speak to any scientist like
Oh look.
the majority of the leading scientists. They're very
Extremely pro vaccine.
But we we've seen
Both sides. We've seen what happens when there's no vaccine and we've seen what happens when there is vaccine. And this is not to say that there
Can be side effects to vaccines.
Um the vaccine manufacturers and scientists talk about those side effects as well. But the the thing that I think people should focus on is the net.
um good that vaccines have done.
for for the last centuries in eradicating illnesses and avoiding um disease.
And my concern, uh just to close off on this point, is my concern is if there is to be some kind of
Outbreak.
Mm-hmm.
Any time soon.
We're in such a cloud of misinformation around vaccines that I I worry
People might make the wrong decisions. Interestingly there was
A measles outbreak in Texas recently and R FK at one point
did eventually prompt the federal deployment of MR.
M M R
Vaccines.
and expressed support for them.
um because there was a a big outbreak of measles in in Texas very recently.
I'm gonna tell you something now that I have not talked about in the public.
I had
Uh a half an hour with RFK on the phone.
One on one.
Back in December of
two thousand twenty four.
After the Trump uh uh election.
And R F was starting to convene his
Uh team.
And I was asked to join it.
And so I got a half hour with him.
And I will relate to you now.
For your public. So that they understand.
What that
Conversation entailed.
Basically.
Two threads.
By the way, we're supposed to talk about food.
We didn't talk about food, we talked about vaccines.
And here with the
Two threads.
First thread.
There are three
Papers in the medical literature.
Let's say that vaccines do more harm than good.
And he quoted them at me.
And I wrote them down.
And I went and looked them up afterwards.
And indeed they.
Say what he says they said.
That it's unconscionable that
Vaccines do more harm than good and we're giving them to
Newborns.
Yeah.
It is true that those three papers do say this.
There are fifty thousand that say opposite.
Okay.
Second thing he said.
A woman gives birth to a healthy baby.
That healthy baby
gets a shot under the skin.
And now that baby is not healthy anymore.
That's a tort.
Illegal.
Tort.
Okay. And you know, in fact.
You could argue that that is a, in fact, a legal tort, because
Yeah.
Dil uh uh neg negligence, you know, all the way down to damages.
What's the recommend What's the uh the remedy for tort, I said lawsuit. He says, right.
But
That mom can't sue because of the vaccine indemnification act of nineteen eighty six.
So that mom
basically has a damaged baby and no recourse. That's unconstitutional.
Those were the two threads.
Of our half hour discussion.
Yeah.
Everything he said is absolutely true.
And irrelevant.
They demonstrate.
Basically.
Confirmation bias.
Um
He's a lawyer.
He believes in precedent.
I'm a doctor.
I believe in probability.
There's always a risk benefit ratio.
Unless you're a lawyer, in which case there's only risk.
And that's how he sees.
The world.
Sees the world as risk.
I don't.
I wouldn't have lasted five seconds.
I think we both
On the same page in terms of making sure people have
the right information as it relates to probability. We, you know, everything we do in our life is a factor of probability. Whether I well, I got I got in a taxi to come here this morning,
I I I understood the probability of that taxi crashing into another car, but I decided to get in the car and come here anyway. We all deal with these
Yeah.
Every single day,
I wanna

There's obviously it's almost but it's become quite a political issue and there's two there's two sides and

Yeah.
which is more of the RFK side, is incredibly sceptical. Um and
And they have their opinion. Then there's the other side which tends to be dominated more by the scient scientists. If I interview scientists a lot, so I know that pretty much everyone I've interviewed that's a scientist would agree that um
you know, there's there are side effects, but
Or net net vaccines um are very positive.
Okay. If you look at it uh a uh
Through a public health lens.
Uh-huh.
Okay.
The vaccines do more good than harm.
And and if you look at it from a purely individual lens.
Then you say
Wait a second.
I
Didn't get
the disease, but I got the shot.
And I have
A vaccine injury therefore
I have been subjected to a tort. I would just like to close the section by telling people that if there is a health crisis in the near future, some kind of viral outbreak like we saw with the pandemic.
to make sure you get your information from sources that are
highly credible and those sources should not include.
Um they should not include, frankly
They should not include podcasts.
They should not include social media.
They should inc they should include places like I'd recommend checking out a website called Consensus. I have no affiliation with them, but Consensus allows you to type in a question you have about health, vaccines, whatever it might be.
And it
shows you what the um sort of peer reviewed studies say
um and what the consensus is. So for example, I was uh I was using the website a couple of days ago to try and understand something. I typed in, does this particular is this particular thing healthy or unhealthy? And it comes up with this bar the team will show it on the screen. And it shows you how much of the scientific research
supports that idea. So it said like 70% of the scientific research says it was positive. It said 25% said it was neutral. And five percent said
we kinda don't know or um or negative. And I think that's a really great tool because there's so much information out there and there's so many studies and there's one study that says this and another that says this. So using tools like that, I think is a much better way.
to make your health decisions than podcasts like this or
um TikToks or Instagrams or tweets because another thing I wanna say
is you might not know this, and I'm just speaking directly to my audience here, but you're currently in
an algorithmic echo chamber. And if and if you want to know what I mean by that, is the algorithm that you have on any of your feeds.
Has been
Personalized.
give you more of the stuff that either scares you, frightens you, concerns you, et cetera. And if you if you want to prove this, go and ask your best friend or someone else, a member of the public, to look at their feed.
Uh, I had really uh I remember probably two years ago I asked my best friend if I could just look at his Twitter feed.
And it was
Completely different from mine. Yes. For one, there was no Manchester United and it was all Liverpool. But then all of the information was completely different as well. And so we're living in these echo chambers where misinformation or you know things we believe is being reinforced positively or negatively. So you need a strategy for information, especially as it relates to health. I couldn't agree more.
The fact of the matter is
These algorithms
Are designed
To keep you engaged, they are not designed.
To keep you informed.
Mm. It's just that simple.
Um
The other problem, of course, is confirmation bias.
If you have confirmation bias, you will only seek out the information
That
reconfirms your bias. And that's what's about to happen. That's what we didn't used to have, but that's what we have now.
That's what's about to play out in the comment section whenever we talk about subjects like like vaccines is
Um, there'll be a group of people who have their own opinions on it.
and you're entitled to your own opinion. And they will go at war to can confirm and prove that opinion. And there'll be another group of people that have a different opinion and they'll go at war to confirm that opinion. What I what I love.
And hopefully.
What I think my audience understand me for.
Is
I try and s
I try and remain open.
Mind it.
And that's like a really fucking hard thing to do these days.
Yeah. I I saw a journalist the other day they said they were trying to place me politically, and they said, We think Steven is apolitical.
And I think that's probably an apt description of my opinions because I have I would consider that a high compliment. It's an amazing compliment. I have views, but I don't
sign up to any particular
Like
Hold.
That's the way I'd describe it. And and you know you're in a cult when your views
Ninety nine percent represent the person.
Who's also in the cult. Because logically
Yeah.
I agree. Um you know, cults are uh part and parcel of uh society, unfortunately.
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I wanna get really practical, tactical here with the person that's listening right now.
And they have menu in their ears.
And they know
That sugar is bad.
They know pr ultra processed food is bad.
They
Still.
are struggling with
A little bit of uh
U other sort of diseases, they're probably on the in on the trajectory to some form of chronic disease, maybe Alzheimer's, maybe dementia, maybe a form of cancer. What do we ha if we're talking direct, let's name her.
Or him.
Let's call her.
Jenny.
Jenny's listening right now. Jenny and Dave.
They both sat there.
They're the average American.
What do we say to Jenny and Dave to get them to
Change their lives.
The first thing
That you have to say to them.
Is.
Who are you?
Do you know?
Do you know who you are?
Because if they don't know who they are.
Then nothing else is gonna matter.
They have to be comfortable in their own skin and they're not.
The reason that they
have glomed on to ultra processed food as it's providing them.
With
A dopamine hit.
That's probably the only one
Thing.
that even remotely gives them pleasure.
And if that's all the pleasure they get in their lives.
You're never gonna fix it.
Because that's all they've got.
So the question is
Sorting.
Your priorities.
At at the at the individual level.
What's important to you?
What
Of primary importance.
Love.
relationships.
What's of secondary importance?
Pleasure.
Food.
Drugs.
Okay. If you don't have any of the
Love.
relationships.
Stability.
In your life.
There's no amount of food.
Or drugs.
that's going to be able to make up for that.
So who are you?
What is it that really matters to you?
And until you answer that question.
Honestly and affirmatively.
You're never gonna get past this.
So can l let me role play as Jenny and Dave. You've asked me who am I?
I am
thirty years old and uh I work this job. I don't uh job's okay. I I don't love it. It's not lighting me up. I'm single.
I'm living in this this city.
And yeah, I'm just, you know.
Trandling along.
Kind of like on the
On the treadmill of life.
And
How much stress are you under stress. A whole lot of stress. Every time I open my phone it's stressful, my emails, my work, there's this thing going on with this person. I think my mom's got a problem with this thing and her health is
Deteriorating.
So imagine what that's doing.
to the ATP in your brain.
What's it doing?
It's
Depleting it like crazy.
Number one, you have mitochondrial dysfun from all the shit you hate, and from the you know, uh unfortunately from the uh air pollution you've been breathing and from the microplastics, you know, that have basically taken over your brain. One two hundredth of your brain right now, Stephen, is microplastics, whether you like it or not. So Jenny and Dave probably have more.
Okay. And you eat well, they don't.
Alright. So
Here we are.
This is this is
the the substrate. This is the base.
The question is how are we going to improve
They're
ATP generation, how are we going to improve their mitochondrial function? How are we going to get those their neurons to start responding properly?
That's the question.
And do you aim at stress as part of the solution?
Yes, of course.
You have to.
How can you not?
Let me give you another.
Uh cle quick clinical vignette.
Recently.
I uh had the opportunity to have a an extended conversation
With
Um
A hero of mine.
Doctor Vivic Murphy.
Умер Surgeon General of the United States, and we were in London together.
And I finally sat him down and I said
Yeah, Vivek, I love your
You know, uh espousing of love.
That we ultimately need to love each other to get over these.
uh systemic societal travails.
That we that that love is what's missing.
Here's the problem.
You can't love if your brain is inflamed.
You can't love if you can't love.
If your brain is inflamed.
Of course the reason for the inflamed brain.
is the
ultra processed food and all the things we talked about, the reactive oxygen species, the cortisol, et cetera, that we talked about before.
So are you saying people that are metabolically unhealthy
that are have inflamed brains that are under stress.
Have a reduced ability to love. Yes.
That's exactly what I'm saying.
They can't love themselves and they can't love
Anyone around them. Explain the science there.
Serotonin.
What is serotonin? Serotonin is a neurotransmitter.
That is necessary for eudaimonia for
Being able to be content.
Oxytocin is the
Love neurotransmitter, the reproduction neurotransmitter, the safety neurotransmitter.
Okay.
Causes.
Uh the
Methylation of the oxytocin receptor.
So now the oxytocin can't work, so you can't feel safe?
And the serotonin is necessary to
basically suppress that inflammation in the amygdala.
That's actually causing
The
Buckshot.
that w you know the uh the inability to surgically strike.
like we talked about before, being that lousy point guard.
So I said to him.
You can't love if your brain is inflamed.
And he thanked me and he
You know, I thought that was the end of that and I'm not gonna bother him anymore.
Two weeks ago I got an email from Vivek.
saying I thought about what you said and I'm halfway through your book.
And let's talk.
You can't love if your brain is inflamed. I was just looking at a study that says high cortisol levels in a mum during pregnancy can affect the baby's oxytocin receptors, meaning they'll feel less safe.
Exactly right.
And it's epigenetic, it happens even before birth.
I'm trying to play out so I'm trying to form a couple of hypotheses here around what this might mean in practice. So
I mean, in the case of the mother, if the mother was
And uh
A lot of stress.
That resulted in cortisol.
Then the baby's oxytocin receptors, which are the bonding chemical of of
hum within humans, the bonding hormone is gonna be depleted. So if I had a really stressful
Mother during
Um
Might.
Conception, whatever that's during pregnancy. During pregnancy. Yeah.
There's a probability
There's a causal probability that I might be less good at bonding with people.
There we are.
That's exactly what we're saying.
But I guess also that can take place after pregnancy, where I've chronically stressed it it's a it's a continual process.
The question is can it be undone?
And the answer is yes, but with
Uh a lot of work.
And you have to have the baseline substrate.
To be able to do it.
There's a bit of um
What's the what's the term when
something becomes a little bit self fulfilling where it kind of
Tautology.
Uh what I'm saying is if someone's lonely
Extremely lonely.
And they are in a single apartment alone.
Which is increasingly a lot of people. Yes.
Then the I've read. Basements. Basements. Yeah. Well but even even in major cities like London and New York, et cetera, so many people live in a little shoebox alone. Um and I saw the studies that show the average person used to have X amount of friends to turn to in a time of crisis. Now they have on average it's like one or zero.
So loneliness is up. And then I also saw some research that said when people are lonely, their body goes into
a state where they sleep worse, they're more stressed, they're
They're more uh bitter.
Mm-hmm. To people.
Yeah.
And I can't remember the term for that.
But it's like s it's like this heightened sensitivity and the thesis is that once upon a time in an evolutionary context
If you were if you lost your tribe
You would have to be more on edge to survive. That's your amygdala.
And if that's the case then, it means that it would suggest that
If you're lonely.
you're higher stress. Yes. But if you're higher stress, you're more likely to be lonely.
That's right.
That's the vicious cycle. That's the vicious cycle. Absolutely. Couldn't agree more.
That's what we're trying to undo.
So here's a question for you. Quiz.
All right. And you know the answer.
Okay. Okay. Because I've mentioned it already on this podcast. Uh uh. All right. You ready? Yeah.
What is the difference?
Between loneliness
And solitude.
Loneliness?
Is
A lack of human connection.
And solitude is being
Alan.
Well, both have a lack of human connection.
I don't know. Tell me the answer. What's the answer? Serotonin.
Okay.
If you're serotoned and depleted, you're lonely.
If your serotonin replete, it's solitude.
You're comfortable in your loneliness.
You're happy.
That you're lonely.
'Cause you're not really lonely, you're alone.
And how does that happen that I become lonely and in terms of the serotonin mechanism?
Well you
Choose.
To be alone when you're in solitude.
But the point is.
That's what you
Um
want that's what you chose.
You could be with other people. You've chosen to be in solitude.
When you're lonely.
Okay.
Even when people are coming at you, even when you're at a party.
And you are clearly not lonely.
You feel like you are.
You feel like you're there.
All by yourself.
Even though
All these people are around you.
What is serotonin? And that's because your serotonin depleted. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter. It's made from a
uh amino acid called tryptophan. Tryptophan is the rarest amino acid in
All of the proteins that we ingest. It's the rarest amino acid on the planet. It's found in eggs.
Chicken, fish, not exactly ultra processed food.
So people who eat ultra processed food at high rate are going to be
tryptophan deficient and therefore serotonin deficient.
are going to be somewhat irritable and also somewhat lonely.
And what it does is it inhibits the next neuron.
Yeah.
Causes the next neuron.
Not to fire.
instead of dopamine which causes the next neuron.
Too fire.
They are very different.
Saratonin.
When it's at normal dose.
gives you a feeling of contentment.
Not?
necessarily happiness, but
This feels good.
I don't want or need any more.
So it's almost the opposite.
It's the exact opposite of dopamine.
Dopamine is this feels good. I want more.
And serotonin is this feels good I don't want or need anymore. And serotonin's predominantly made in the gut.
Ninety percent. So ninety percent is made in the gut.
The question is, does the gut serotonin get to the brain? And the answer is through the afferent vagus nerve. So that afferent vagus
has to be functional and has to basically conduct information from the gut up to the brain in order to be able to transduce that. That is what we call
Intuition.
That is called gut feeling.
So I need my vagus nerve to be healthy.
Yes, so you yes, you do. And there are a lot of things that are causing that vagus nerve not to be healthy, including all of the gut inflammation that we talked about from the ultra processed food. So how do I make my vagus nerve healthy?
Eat real food.
What about those vagus nerve stimulators that everyone's banging on about?
So the the they're interesting.
And they do have benefits for seizure control.
Okay, for seizures, um the uh vagus nerve
For some reason
transduces information up and down that help mitigate
Seizures.
No one's been able to demonstrate

That you can use
A vagal nerve stimulator.
to actually change
emotion.
I was looking at the research and it says exactly what you described that a meta analysis and long term follow up show a thirty to fifty percent
reduction in seizures for patients who use vagal nerve simulation. But outside of that, in terms of depression, the evidence is
Modest.
Meager. Meager, yeah. Around fifteen to twenty five percent show
Mm.
Wh which is above
Placebo.
So it's small. Uh and then with anxiety it's the same, there's not
There's any low quality and small scale work.
Th they do say though that implanted
Vegas nerve stimulators.
show the strongest evidence for epilepsy and depression. But the bottom line is
Um, it works well for seizures, as you said, um, and there's still a lot unproven as it relates to stress and focus.
I wish they worked.
I mean it would be an easy s
And one thing you learn from doing doing what I do.
with this podcast is you learn
But
In life.
There are really not many shortcuts. And everything that appears to be a shortcut.
some device, some contrap contraption that's gonna fix things.
Actually either doesn't work is a scam or
Has some
Hidden.
Trade off.
Right.
And so
It goes back to this really important principle that I think everybody listening should embody, which is there's no free lunch.
in life. If it appears to be the s the fast way it's probably
Fast way to something else.
Uh and the slow way is the fast way, the hard way is the fast way. This is kind of what I've learned. Like I can try all these things to try and trick to try and not, you know, to try and be able to eat sugar but be healthy.
And there's always some fucking trade off. Like even as Empec.
Exactly.
Everyone's talking about Zimpex. It's a band-aid, not a fix.
How much time you got? Well depends what you think.
Yeah.
People ask me this all the time. Um
I wear three hats.
Okay. So
I'll put my first hat on, my clinician hat.
I'm glad they're here.
these GOP one analogs. They do work. I'm not saying they don't. They do.
And God knows if you have a BMI of forty to forty five and you have tried everything else and nothing else works and it's a matter of life and death, then I am glad they're here.
All right, now let me put my second hat on.
My scientists had.
Okay, why do they work?
They work in two places.
They work, actually, at that nucleus accumbens.
Which I mentioned before, the reward center. It actually seems to reduce reward. It's one of the reasons why.
GLP1 analogs are not just being used for obesity, but for alcoholism, for drug addiction.
For many things.
because they're basically putting that reward system to rest.
Which is a good thing.
No.
We had a drug that did that.
Back in two thousand six.
put that reward system to rest.
It was called Ramanabance.
Uh trade name accompli.
And
What it was was an anti
Endocannabinoid
It was an endocannabinoid receptor antagonist. It was the anti-marijuana drug. It was the anti-munchies drug. And so it caused weight loss.
And it got released in the European Union.
The EFSA approved it in two thousand six, and within two months of its hitting the market,
There were twenty one suicides.
Okay.
And the reason is because if you suppress reward
Ain't no reason to get out of bed in the morning.
Okay.
Yeah.
The good news with these GLP one analogs is we've been looking for the suicide signal.
and haven't seen it.
But we
Also looking for the depression signal.
And we see that a lot.
So it does seem to be having the same effect, maybe not as severe as Romana Band, but nonetheless, that's a downside for sure.
Okay.
Now the second place it works.
G. I tracked.
It delays gastric emptying. It slows
Food going through the alimentary canal, especially the stomach.
Okay.
That's why it works.
'Cause you can't eat more if your stomach's still full.
'Cause it didn't move it along.
Okay, that's good, sort of.
Except it gives you all the side effects.
Nausea, the vomiting, the pancreatitis, the gastroparasis, stomach turns to stone. Three point four percent of all people who take GLP1 analogs.
Get gastroparasis.
And guess what?
When you stop the med
The gastroparasis doesn't go away.
And there is a lawsuit against Novonordisk right now over gastroparasis.
From GLP one analogs.
Not so good.
In addition.
You lose weight.
Okay. Well kinda wait.
Turns out half muscle, half fat.
No, losing fast good.
Losing muscle is not.
Losing muscle.
is actually a risk factor for early demise. Sarcopenia is a
risk factor for early demise.
What else causes loss of equal amounts of muscle and fat?
Starvation.
And that's
How the damn medicines work. They're causing you to starve. Well, that's not the best way to do this.
People.
Also?
Only one third of people who take
GOP1 analogs actually respond. Two thirds don't. They don't tell you about those. They're only telling you about the responders. And as soon as you stop taking it, all the way comes rushing back plus some.
Because you've only band aided the problem, you haven't fixed the problem.
Also
Not such a great thing.
And then finally let me switch to my third hat.
my public health advocate hat.
Now, I did say these drugs work.
Sixteen percent mean weight loss.
True.
Yeah.
If everyone in America
Who
qualified for a GLP one analog. Got it.
That would be two point one trillion dollars to the healthcare system.
which is currently four point one trillion. So that would be a fifty percent surcharge over what we're currently paying. And Medicare is gonna go broke by the year twenty twenty nine. Anyway.
Without it.
So you're gonna put another 50% on top of that? How the hell are you gonna pay for that for a 16% weight loss?
Conversely.
If we just got added sugar.
Out.
Of
The diet.
out of the American diet.

level of USDA guidelines of twelve teaspoons of added sugar per day, no more.
we could get a twenty nine percent weight loss.
and save three point zero trillion dollars. That's a five point one trillion dollar swing.
For double the weight loss and no side effects.
Which one do you think is better?
Yeah.
That's how I feel about it.
There was um there was a recent animal research study that suggested that things like Azempek uh semiglutides reduced cocaine self
administration in rats by
roughly thirty percent during treatment, and cut their drug seeking behavior by 62% after a period of abstinence.
Which speaks to some of the things you were saying there about GLP Ones as Mpex role in the reward pathways in the brain.
So
It's interesting. It's interesting. But what is that saying? It's saying that if you
In these rats, if they were given
these GLP one antagonists, these Zempex, these semaglutides, they were less likely to be
Addicted.
To things.
Yeah.
I mean
They're already addicted. They're they're basically choosing not to continue to consume.
And again, we don't know if they're addicted to rats.
But their behaviors suggest that they're reducing the consumption of the addictive substance. And what what is this suggesting? This means that
The GLP when he's doing what? Well, number one.
Maybe the reason that they're not consuming more is
Because
Their stomachs aren't moving.
If your stomach's not moving, you don't want to take any more, do you?
May you maybe it's that. We don't know. That's one possibility.
Uh there are no qu there's no question that the nucleus accumbens has GLP one receptors.
Ventral tegmental area has GLP one receptors. And I actually gave a talk at the
um California Society of Addiction Medicine on Ozempic.
So we know what you know the the data show.
We're still you know.
researching this and trying to investigate it, figure out what it is. You know, it that also wouldn't explain the alcohol story, because alcohol's not
Um uh food.
You know, it's it's liquid.
So it's uh you know it's a little different and it definitely reduces alcoholism uh con uh uh alcohol consumption. So there does seem to be an effect.
Understanding what dopamine does from what you said earlier.
It would appear that then these like GLP ones, the Zempex are
dampening dopamine's release in some way because the rats when you talked about motivation
um and dopamine, the rats are less motivated
To go and get more cocaine. Correct.
Yeah.
And and that very well may be a good thing. And for certain people, I think we can absolutely use that.
uh phenomenon to assist them.
Perhaps that will be a good way to help with drug interdiction.
Did that also mean that I become less motivated, period. Yes.
Ah, that's not good.
Yes.
That's what I'm worried about.
Going back to Jenny and Dave.
Jenny and Dave both have a little bit of extra weight on them. We've talked about really interestingly the whole idea that serotonin connection, love plays in a tremendous role.
Um and stress.
And so Jenny and Dave now they're gonna be thinking about their relationships and friendships and going to that run club.
as a way to help them downstream with
addictions and other things they're struggling with. Is there anything else that
Jenny and Dave who represent a typical American
Need to know to maybe shed some of that.
Body fat.
Number one.
Ultra processed food.
is obesogenic.
No.
If Jenny and Dave are under stress.
If Jenny and Dave are under financial stress.
If Jenny and Dave are under time stress.
It's gonna be really hard for them to turn away from ultra processed food.
So
Don't expect their weight to get any better.
Until they fix their diet.
The one thing I am very sure of
is that if you keep eating the same shit
Don't expect anything good to happen. But it's hard. It's very hard.
Some practical types of things. The first thing is that
When they go to the store
Yeah. Don't go hungry.
Okay, love that. That's the first one. I make that mistake a lot.
The second thing Why? Let's give some context there. Oh, because if they're hungry, all bets are off. They're done.
Because they're more likely to reach for the bad stuff. The bad stuff.
'cause the bad stuff's calling to them.
And by the way, the bad stuff's on the end caps.
Of each other.
aisles of the grocery store.
And in the middle.
The middle of well uh any if you've gone into the aisles
You've gone off the rails, because that's where the ultraprocessed food is. So shop around the outside which is where the real food is. The fridges and
The fridges and the produce and the meats and the dairy.
Okay.
Not to say that there isn't, you know.
ultra processed food and sugar hiding in those places too.
But
If you've gone into the
you know, s uh standard, you know, aisles.
Um you know, that's where all the ultra-processed food is hiding. And you know.
Seventy-three percent of the items the American grocery store.
Or poison.
So
If you go into the grocery store you already have a problem.
So the first one is don't go hungry. The second one is
To
Stay on the outside of the
Supermarket. Yeah.
Anything else for Jenny and Dave?
And most importantly
Uh.
You know, I I don't want them to have to read food labels because that's kind of, you know
Oh.
out of bounds.
Okay, but they should basically um
If a food has a label
It's a warning label.
That's how they should look at it.
Okay. And if a and if any
If any food
Has
A sugar in the first three items.
the first three ingredients.
It's dessert.
That's how they should look at it.
So
You know.
Chinese chicken salad.
is desert.
Do you know the other day I looked at my friend was drinking a can of um
Coca-Cola.
Mm-hmm. And I picked it up and I I thought, you know, I've not seen one of these in a while.
I looked at the the back of it and it said the sugar quantity in it.
was something like forty percent in that region.
So it's thirty nine grams in a in a can, yeah?
That's right.
Forty percent of it.
Is just sugar. Correct.
And people are just
There you go.

And sugar's sugar's fundamentally linked to things like cancer as well, right? Yes, absolutely.
And we know why now.
We know how.
You know, through what mechanisms.
What are the mechanisms?
Uh for cancer? Yeah.
Okay. So first of all, ins anything that makes insulin go up inc increases your risk for cancer, because insulin is a growth factor.
Okay. Secondly, because insulin causes mitochondrial dysfunction.
Okay.
It increases these other
phenomena like for instance the pentose phosphate shunt and the um uh Randall cycle and the de novo lipogenesis, which is what cancer cells need to be able to multiply and divide.
Okay, so it's basically feeding the cancer.
Number three.
Certain cancers, particularly pancreatic cancer, have an enzyme in them called transketalase.
And what that can do is that can take fructose and turn it into glucose in
The cancer cell only so that when you're actually
consuming sugar, you are feeding the cancer specifically.
Yet.
What w what do we give cancer patients NSU, which is like straight fructose, so you are actually feeding the cancer.
So that that that's like ridiculous.
Okay. In addition, because fructose.
interferes with mitochondrial function.
Okay.
to the rest of the cell to divide.
Because
dividing cells are in growth phase.
They don't have mitochondria. That's why cancer cells don't have mitochondria. That's why fetal cells don't have mitochondria. Anaerobes don't have mitochondria. They grow the fastest.
You know, provided that the conditions are right.
So
Bottom line, anything that interferes with mitochondrial function puts you at risk for cancer.
And what we see in cancers growing.
There's the incidence of people getting cancer is that's growing. Absolutely, and people getting cancer earlier and earlier.
Especially colorectal cancer, my God.
Uh yeah, the mean age of colorectal cancer used to be fifty to fifty five. It is now you we are seeing patients with, you know, colorectal cancer in their thirties and early forties.
This is why.
Because if because if
'Cause I should her.
That's a huge problem.
It is a huge problem.
So that's what I would suggest Dave and Jenny do to start.
Okay, but ultimately they have to get there.
Sugar and ultra processed food consumption under control.
And the question is, can they do it alone?
Chances are
To be honest with you.
They probably can't.
And the reason is because they're sugar addicted.
And because the food industry's basically made it impossible for them to avoid.
That's what we have to fix.
We have to allow them.
the capability of being able to access
Real food.
This is why I'm so upset with what's going on with this.
uh argument here in the United States over Snap. Are you familiar with Snap? No.
SNAP is the supplementary nutrition assistance program.
S N A P
also known as food stamps.
Okay.
I actually testified in front of Congress in front of the House Appropriations Committee last year.
Two.
Fix Snap.
No.
To get soda.
Off snap.
Because soda is like the worst thing and it's also the thing that most people use their snap dollars.
You know, they're snap um vouchers.
to uh to purchase.
And it's killing people.
And so I don't think soda should be on Snap.
And so what I did was I testified basically explaining the science.
You know, in Congress.
And I said that what we need to do is take the money
that by banning soda sales on Snap, if people want to spend their own money on soda, that's their
Business.
But we shouldn't be, you know, using a federal government subsidy program to subsidize their death.
We should take the money that's saved from the soda sales and utilize it to improve the nutrition.
of those same people.
Yeah.
Uh real vegetables.
Dietary supplements, uh, fiber, water.
Okay. Things that will be healthy for them.
Divert the monies.
They didn't hear that.
Republicans are trying to
basically gut snap. They're trying to get rid of it as an
uh entity entirely. And if they don't they can't gut it, they will
Basically make it so that they take the soda away.
Which is

It's not going to improve their the rest of their nutrition.
because they're basically just gonna take that money and repocket it.
So
How you know set these uh legislation uh uh uh agenda items up is super important and right now.
This government's not doing it.
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Dot store.
The the messages and emails that you get from people that have heard you on podcasts or have read your books or seen your work in other places.
What is the the typical question that those people asked? If you had to summarise the question.
into one question. What is it that people ask you the most?
Uh is juice healthy.
Really?
Sure.
That's probably the most common question. You say sugar's bad, but isn't juice healthy?
Is juice healthy? Juice is not healthy. Fruit is healthy.
So what's the difference between fruit and juice?
The fiber.
Okay, fruit has fiber.
The fiber.
reduces the rate of absorption from the gut into the bloodstream.
And in doing so.
You reduce the insulin response, you reduce the glucose response.
You basically protect the liver.
And because you've
prevented its early absorption. It goes further down the intestine.
where the microbiome can chew it up for its own purposes, thus feeding the gut.

metabolically beneficial, anti-inflammatory, anti-Alzheimer's.
Okay, and the fiber acts like little scrubies on the inside of the colon to get rid of colon cancer cells.
So you get all sorts of benefits.
From the fiber in the fruit.
But as soon as you juice it, you've thrown the fiber in the garbage.
And so all you now have is sugar water.
So eat the fruit, don't drink the juice.
Problem is.
That's you know what that's not what the food industry's selling.
What if I
put the fruit in a blender and then instead of throwing out the gunk, I keep all the little bits in there.
So what happens is that the f blades in the brevel or the Vitamix or the Nutribullet or you know, whatever you use to make your smoothie, those blades are shearing
That fiber.
into smithereens into such short
pieces.
That it can't actually act.
as a lattice work to sequester.
And prevent that absorption.
So the rate of absorption in the intestine is just as fast. And so the fructose and the glucose will still get to the liver.
just as uh uh fast as it did before when it was juice.
So that's not the answer.
So
Uh making a smoothie out of it is not the answer.
I was looking at the top comments from our last conversation, and they're all
Extremely
I'd say similar, but they're they're all incredibly inspiring. Someone who's written the top comment which um
I shall pre I shall record the screen so Jack can throw it on the screen. Says Stephen, I discovered Robert three years ago after my
doctor told me I was pre-diabetic. Three years on my blood levels are completely normal, and everyone tells me how good I look recently. This man should be on every TV in the world.
But the food industry is trying to shut him up.
Follow the work and
You will change your life.
Like he changed mine.
Stuart J, fifty nine years old male in the UK.
That's very heartening. I'm glad to hear that.
Good for you, Stuart.
My friend was diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer and given one year to live. He found Dust Dr. Lustig
And rigorously followed his advice. Keto diet, intermittent fasting, regular walking. That was two years ago. He's now in remission.
The cancer is gone.
I was diagnosed with pre diabetes.
Fibromyalgia.
Mm-hmm.
And decided to cut out all the sugar, including fruit. Not only did I lose sixty pounds in under a year, but my pain went from ten to one to two.
I had more energy.
My A one C dropped to normal levels and I went
from being fully disabled to going back to work full time.
Cutting out all the sugar.
Is hard, I won't lie.
It's also a constant, constant battle.
But it is so worth it.
Mm.
And lastly.
I listen to this podcast.
Last year, I made a decision on december the twenty eighth, twenty twenty three, to stay away from all candy, brownies, maple, walnut, scones, and all desserts.
You get the idea.
It is now approaching december twenty eighth, twenty twenty four.
And besides rewatching this video, I have made another commitment to do the same thing I did last year.
It's a shame that seventy three percent of what's
in the aisles in a grocery store have hidden sugar in it.
And so I haven't gotten
radical about it.
But the changes I've made.
Have made me feel
Terrific.
Doctor Robert.
is the cat's meow and he has a giant part of
In me
Getting me back purring.
I'm sixty eight and play five days a week.
Two to four hours a day pickleball.
Well I love the choices I've made.
I love you, Doctor.
Uh huh.
You know what? I love you too.
And I'm sixty eight.
Maybe when the maybe maybe when I go to the UK we'll have a date. Well that's Leslie. She's a she's quite a pretty Oh very nice.
How does that make you feel?
Um
Very heartened.
I can see the uh the emo in your face.
You know, the problem is not.
Fixed.
The problem's fixed for each of these people, but the problem's not fixed.
And because the problem's not fixed, um
I still have a job to do.
So it it gives me more
Um
uh strength to do it. It gives me more purpose and gives me more reason to do it.
But
You know, the problem's not fixed.
Do you think one of the most important things I've got to do?
Impactful.
things that we could all do for our health is just to reduce our sugar consumption.
That'd be that's that's job one.
Okay.
Uh there are many things, but
Without question, that's the easiest one.
And
To be honest with you, the food industry should be helping us do that. The only reason the sugar's in the food is because they wanted it there.
They put it there.
On purpose because they knew when they add it, you buy more.
An exercise.
How does that impact my
Decision to
Reach for sugar or not reach for sugar.
Well, it doesn't really impact your desire des desire to reach for sugar.
It has its own metabolic benefits. I'm totally for exercise, don't get me wrong. I am completely for exercise.
Exercise does many good things.
But burning calories is not one of them.
Mm-hmm.
Okay, people think oh uh
You know, exercise to work off the donut that I ate.
Rom.
Uh
Forget it.
That's not what it's about.
What does exercise do? Exercise increases mitochondria.
And that's good because you need increased mitochondrial reserve in order to make all that ATP.
Exercise increases brain trophic factors which are necessary for cognition, and it's been shown now that exercise is one of the primary
um methods for mitigating risk for dementia.
Okay. It increases brain derived neurotrophic factor, it increases leptin, all of these are necessary.
to promote synaptogenesis and even increase neurogenesis, more neurons, you know, so that they don't die.
So
I'm all for exercise. Exercise also increases muscle mass.
Um muscle mass.
you know, is uh is a mitigating factor for early demise. Like I said, sarcopenia is a risk factor.
for early demise.
So
Exercise is the way to undo that.
Having said that, none of that had anything to do with weight loss.
Okay? So if you think exercise is going to make you lose weight.
You
Or
Diluted.
You are under a delusion. You have adopted the calorie hypothesis. I am here to
The spell.
I am here to
destroy the calorie hypothesis. A calorie is not a calorie.
So many of the people that are listening to this conversation right now.
If they're in the United States or if they're in other parts of the world that have similar health
Stats.
Are diabetic or pre diabetic?
one in ten people worldwide have diabetes, and in the United States, one in three to four
of adults that are listening right now.
are pre diabetic even
If you
You don't have a huge amount of fat on your body. It's actually forty percent.
Four out of ten.
Just crazy.
Yeah.
That's right.
It means that almost half of the people listening right now, whether you know it or not, could well be
pre-diabetic if you fit into the statistics that we we have here.
I mean
Terrifying?
Oh yeah.
So for those people that are pre diabetic that have just found out'cause there was I asked this question because there is a guy here that says
His doctors just um
told him he's pre diabetic and he's listening listening to the show probably again.
So I wanted to offer him something. His doctors just told him that he's pre diabetic. What should he
Be doing.
Alright, first thing.
Get rid of all ultra processed food from your diet.
Okay.
And in the process you will have gotten rid of all the sugar.
Udai
That's the first thing.
See how that works.
Okay, spend two weeks.
Doing just that.
If that
Works.
Fantastic. If that doesn't work.
Add a add some exercise. Walk.
Walk.
Your dog.
Okay, so on the first point, should he be using a glucose monitor?
to help him. Because people can get on Amazon or these other websites very
you know, twenty, thirty dollars you can get a glucose mon monitor for your arm.
Yeah.
So I am for glucose monitors.
And the reason is because they are a sub substitute, a proxy.
For insulin.
When the glucose goes up, that means the insulin goes up.
And it's the insulin that really makes the difference.
So we have documentation of the fact that by monitoring
Your own
Glucose.
Concentration.
You can see improvements.
in metabolic health.
Down the line.
You can food logo.
You can use the glucose monitoring. You don't need to do glucose monitoring. You can just do it with the food logging and it will still work.
Bottom line.
There are a whole bunch of scientists who are against
using glucose monitors for non-diabetics.
And they write about this routinely.
They seem to write about it always in the New York Times.
I am completely 180 degrees opposite on that. I think it is a very good idea. The reason that they say it is a bad idea is because if you're using
The same
uh outcome variables as for diabetes, time in range, time above range, time below range.
Well these are non diabetic, so of course
All of those numbers are going to be in the center. They're going to be in the time in range. So it looks like there's no benefit to that.
Okay.
That's not the point. The point is the downstream outcomes which come three months later.
They're not looking at that. We have those data.
We are looking at that, and the data are very good.
Do you know what John I think r is really, really useful with those CGMs, those continuous glucose monitors that you can buy online super cheaply, is they just
Educate you on
the impact that different foods you might have thought were healthy, like the juices we talked about. Like rice.
Yeah, like right oh my god, w white rose. That's actually one of the big things I learned. Do you know there's two things that shock me, three things that have shocked me over the last couple of years that I thought were healthy. So I grew up thinking that orange juices were healthy.
I remember being a young kid and getting the sunny delight out of the the fridge and like
Glugging it because I'd seen on the advert it said vitamin C or something. Yep. And I thought, oh vitamin C, good, glug it.
Um
I've come to learn.
And you were a victim.
I was a victim.
And I would like compensation.
Funny day.
I think the entire
Uh you know.
UK population, US population deserves compensation.
There's a young lady in the comment section, um, who watched our conversation last time. She said a quote from
This doctor that I loved and have never forgotten is
Any food.
That is linked to a television commercial should not be consumed.
Brilliantly said.
And a great boundary to put in place.
Yep, that's right.
Any food that is linked to a television commercial should not be consumed. It's so true. They don't put cucumbers
In television commercials. Nope.
Not enough um uh
uh marketing uh uh
Mm-hmm.
money n not enough uh
Margin.
So Sunny D, the sort of orange juices, generally I I don't drink any juices anymore. I haven't for years now. The other one was white rice. I thought that was healthy growing up. Thought it was really, really healthy. And then I did a continuous glucose monitor with a company that I'm an investor in called Vizoe. Yes, and
And it gave me this h it was like it was horrific. The um
impact on my like gut microbiome and my my glucose levels and the
Third one was tomato ketchup.
Mm-hmm. I didn't know there was so much bloody sugar. Oh yeah. Yeah.
In in most catchups.
High fractures concept.
Mm madness.
And that's the the I think that's the value of getting a continuous glucose monitor, even if you just run it for fourteen days.
is you'll learn your relationship with these things you frequently eat. And most of us are frequent eaters. We eat the same kind of things. Um
And you can make some trades.
What is the most important thing we haven't talked about that we should have talked about, Robert?
I know we haven't talked about.
Psedelics.
What would you like to talk about with psychedelics?
Psychedelics are serotonin.
A big
Dose a big glug of serotonin all at once.
Well serotonin.
Does it be a good thing.
is it provides you with this.
Sense of
complacency of
Eutemonia, of course.
Contentment.
Serotonin is necessary to rewire.
areas of the brain.
Um.
On MRI.
So actually leading to synaptic rewiring. Think of it this way.
Can I just confirm that just on one point? They're serotonin.
Mimicer.
Okay.
Yeah.
They mimic serotonin.
Yeah.
Leave it this way.
You live
Uh
On a mountain.
Okay? With snow.
And you have to every week go down to the general store at the base.
Uh the mountain.
And you ski down there.
And you ski down there.
And you ski down there.
And the
snow falls and you ski down there and soon what you've done is you've created
Ridges in the snow.

to get down the hill. And
They freeze.
And soon.
The only way to get down the hill.
Is
through the ridges that you've created.
You are now
Basically in a rut.
You have trapped into that.
H
There's no other way out your house.
Other than
Those ridges that
have frozen in place.
That's what's happening in your brain.
You can't
Unthink your way.

That's the only way you know.
Psychedelics are like a huge enormous blizzard.
Filling in.
the ruts, filling in the ridges.
So you end up with a pristine

for you to be able to basically
Ski any which way you want.
It's your way.
out of your rut.
And what we have in America.
And UK too.
There's a whole lot of people with a set of s belief systems that have put them into ruts.
that they can't think their way out of.
Yeah.
Can this be done without psychedelics? Absolutely.
But it's hard.
Psychelics are a way too.
S shall we say.
Fuck.
that belief system concept.
And allow you to rethink.
Your own life.
But the life of
The um
people around you and how you interact with them.
And um
We need more research.
in this to solve
Mental illness.
And also
uh improve uh the uh well being
of um you know sizable proportion of the population.
I'm I'm a big fan of uh
The research taking place with
Into the psychedelic.
Feel to I actually spent a year of my life.
Mm.
what I believe is the biggest psychedelics company in the world as an investor and then
as a director, um in a capacity where I was helping to drifing through through through marketing. And then the company is now a public business that's doing a lot of the clinical studies. So Which one is it?
Is it high life sciences? Uh huh.
I've obviously compass pathways as well. I'm an investor in that company and uh
I'm a big fan of what maps are doing.
As it relates to using these these molecules for
mental health disorders and treatment resistant depression, PTSD anxiety, et cetera. And it's so shocking to me that
the uh you know, it's taken so long.
Yeah, well, you know, it they got a bad rap uh from Nixon, you know, back in the nineteen seventies. I understand why.
By the way, no one should do psychedelics alone.
Yeah.
You do them with a guide, you do them with someone you completely trust.
where safety is paramount.
Yeah.
uh they can be really remarkable.
And we talk about set and setting, which is hopefully will they'll be done in clinical settings with a as you say, with a practitioner. Yes. That's the only way they should be done.
Doctor Robert?
We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next, not knowing who they're leaving it for. I knew it was coming. Yes, you did. Looking at your life.
And the lives.
Of
Others.
How would you describe the journey of life?
And how to approach it.
When you come out of the box
When you're born.

You already have
Neurons.
And synapses and
Neural pathways.
That have developed.
Even though you've had no experience.
The experience.
Well either.
Solidify those?
Or destroy them.
Ultimately those turn into belief systems.
Almost every belief system.
That you thought you understood.
About how the world works.
Is wrong.
You have to be open.

All the things you thought
Were true.
Aren't you?
And if you all if you're that open with yourself.
You will know yourself. And if you know yourself.
You can be happy.
But if you
You know.
Believe your belief systems.
And you've never
question them.
You're never gonna get there.
Amen.
Robert, thank you so much.
I mean I you know.
I say to some people sometimes at the end of these podcasts that they're doing good in the world, but you're quite frankly saving a lot of people's lives. I mean, the fact that all the top comments on the video seem to be dominated by the same narrative that you've saved someone's life, you've improved their life is I mean, is there any
higher work one can do with their life, then improve the quality and duration and
health of someone else's life and that's exactly what you're doing. It's what you've done through your public advocacy work. I know you recently spent some time
with Prince Charles in the UK, which is incredibly exciting. The the King of England.
um talking to him about health outcomes and all of the work that you've been doing and it's w what an honor it is to be invited by him.
Yeah.
You know, him asking for your opinions and your your perspective on on health, which I say is something that's quite close to the heart of of the king.
And then through the
These books, these incredible books that I have in front of me here, which I'm gonna link all of them below. This one's uh this one's new, right? So this one's um it's coming out September sixteenth. Okay, so that'll
Yeah, by the time the conversation's out I believe.
And
These incredible books. I mean, there's so many of them that I can't pick a favorite child, but um they're all incredible depending on what where people are at in their lives and what they're trying to understand.
Robert, thank you so much.
It's been a
My pleasure.
Make sure you keep what I'm about to say to yourself.
I'm inviting ten thousand of you to come even deeper into the diary of a sea.
Welcome to my inner circle.
This is a brand new private community that I'm launching to the world. We have so many incredible things that happen that you are never shown. We have the briefs that are on my pad when I'm recording the conversation. We have clips we've never released. We have behind the scenes conversations with the guest, and also the episodes that we've never ever released. And so much more.
In the circle, you'll have direct access to me. You can tell us what you want this show to be, who you want us to interview, and the types of conversations you would love us to have.
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Uh