Revolution Health Radio

In this episode, we discuss:

• How our stress-response system works
• The concepts of resilience and metabolic reserve
• The origins of “adrenal fatigue”
• The problems with the adrenal fatigue model
• Why an accurate understanding matters
• The causes of HPA axis dysfunction
• How to treat HPA-D

[smart_track_player url="http://traffic.libsyn.com/thehealthyskeptic/RHR_-_The_Myth_of_Adrenal_Fatigue.mp3" title="RHR: The Myth of Adrenal Fatigue" artist="Chris Kresser" ] Show notes:

• The Role of Stress and the HPA Axis in Chronic Disease Management by Dr. Thomas Guilliams

Chris Kresser: Hey, everybody, Chris Kresser here. Welcome to another episode of Revolution Health Radio. Today, we have a question from Mary. Let's give it a listen. Mary: Hi, Chris. I'm Mary from Oregon, and I heard that you recently did a presentation at a symposium in California with more information about evidence-based research addressing adrenal fatigue. And I think you're going to focus of course on using diet to remedy those things. So I'm especially interested in that, and I know you've done some recent podcasts about over-exercising and adrenal fatigue. But I would appreciate it if you would do an updated podcast on adrenal burnout, or HPA axis dysfunction, or whatever you want to call it. So I appreciate it. Thank you. Chris: Thanks for that question, Mary. It's really an interesting topic. Adrenal fatigue has become a popular diagnosis amongst both patients and practitioners, at least within the functional and integrated medicine worlds. It's really used to describe a wide range of symptoms from fatigue, insomnia, and brain fog to things like joint pain, allergies, and weight gain. If you search for adrenal fatigue online, you'll see usually a bullet point list of pretty much every symptom that you could possibly ever experience, so very nonspecific and associated with a lot of problems. Proponents of the adrenal fatigue concept will suggest that it affects hundreds of millions of people around the world and may be at the root of most modern disease. But the question is, does adrenal fatigue really exist? Is it an accurate representation of stress-related pathology? What happens to us when we experience chronic stress, and is it in alignment with current scientific evidence? These are questions I've been exploring for a very long time. Can your adrenals really become fatigued? When I started studying functional medicine and getting involved in this world, I heard the term “adrenal fatigue” thrown around a lot, and it's one of those things that I think a lot of us as health care practitioners just accept, at least those of us in the functional and integrated medicine wo...

In this episode we discuss:

• A disorder of energy metabolism
• Metabolic dysfunction may be a root cause
• How the ketogenic diet can help
• Existing research on keto and cancer
• Additional evidence supporting the metabolic theory
• Why keto alone may not be enough

[smart_track_player url="http://traffic.libsyn.com/thehealthyskeptic/RHR_The_Ketogenic_Diet_and_Cancer.mp3" title="RHR: The Ketogenic Diet and Cancer" artist="Chris Kresser" ] Chris Kresser: Hey, everybody, Chris Kresser here. Welcome to another episode of Revolution Health Radio. Today, we have a question from Kelsey. Let's give it a listen. Kelsey: Hi, Chris, I was just wondering about your thoughts on the ketogenic diet as an approach to cancer prevention and therapy. I just read something about how cancer cells can only thrive on glucose, and in its absence we can prevent cancer potentially. So I was wondering if you could discuss this in a podcast. I think that would be great. Thank you. Chris: Okay. Thanks, Kelsey, for sending that question in. It’s a really great question, one that's been on my mind a lot recently, actually, and I've been diving into the research on. Most of you probably know that cancer dogma holds that malignancies are caused by DNA mutations inside the nuclei of cells and that these mutations ultimately lead to runaway cellular proliferation, which is the hallmark feature of cancer. A disorder of energy metabolism But there are some cancer biologists out there that feel that while mutations are ubiquitous in cancer, they may not be the primary driving force of the disease and, as we'll discuss later, they may actually be secondary effects of a deeper underlying process. They believe that cancer is as much a disorder of altered energy metabolism or energy production as it is genetic damage. This goes back to the work of German physician Otto Warburg in the 1920s and 1930s, and we know that healthy cells generate energy using an oxygen-based process of respiration. This is what we refer to as cellular respiration, but Warburg was the first to note that cancer cells prefer an anaerobic, or oxygen-free, process of producing cellular energy known as fermentation. Contemporary researchers like Dr. Thomas Seyfried and Dominic D'Agostino have argued that this dysregulated cellular energy production, or cellular metabolism, is actually what induces malignancy and that by extension, if we limit the fuels available for this process of fermentation, and the fuels are glucose, which is derived from carbohydrate in the diet, and glutamine, which is derived from protein in the diet, then we can actually starve cancer cells and either improve the results of ...

In this episode we discuss:

• Treating autoimmunity in two steps
• Foods that prove difficult to reintroduce
• Dietary changes alone are often not enough
• Regulating and balancing the immune system
• Reintroducing foods successfully
• How do we define health?
• The ability to live your dreams
• The downsides of lengthy dietary restriction

[smart_track_player url="http://traffic.libsyn.com/thehealthyskeptic/RHR_-_Will_I_Have_to_Follow_This_Diet_Forever_.mp3" title="RHR: Will I Have to Follow This Diet Forever?" artist="Chris Kresser" ] Chris Kresser: Hey, everybody welcome to another episode of Revolution Health Radio. This week, we have a question from Mikaela, so let's give it a listen. Mikaela: Hi, Chris. This is Mikaela. I have a question for you about the autoimmune protocol. Well, and actually, really, in the elimination diet. I have been following the autoimmune protocol for Crohn's disease to control my symptoms since 2012. And I have had success, but I'm not 100 percent better. And I've had very limited success in reintroducing foods. So my question is, when you're following an elimination diet, if you are unable to reintroduce foods, does that mean that you're not healing? Or do you think that some foods are just off the table for good? I'd love to be able to sit down and have some salsa or maybe scrambled eggs. And I'm wondering if that's just something I'm going to have to live without. Thanks for an awesome podcast and looking forward to hearing your response. Chris: Thanks so much for sending in your question, Mikaela. It's a great one. We receive some kind of variant of this question pretty regularly, and in some ways it's the million dollar question because there are so many people out there who are doing elimination diets like autoimmune Paleo (AIP) or low FODMAP or even just a 30-Day Paleo reset or a Whole30, and they are wondering the same thing, “Will I have to be on this diet forever?” or “Will some healing take place that allows me to recover my function and be able to eat some of these foods that I've taken out of my diet?” Now of course, if you're removing things like Twinkies, Cheez Doodles and Super Big Gulps, unfortunately, you're never going to (at least that's as far as we know) acquire any magical properties that will enable you to better tolerate those foods because they're just nutrient poor and calorie-dense, and we have really no business eating them in the first place. But certainly there are other foods that are healthy otherwise, and they're well tolerated that are removed from things like the autoimmune Paleo prot...

In this episode we discuss:

• The problem with conventional B12 serum testing
• The prevalence of B12 deficiency
• Why even omnivores may be deficient
• The serious consequences of B12 deficiency going undiagnosed
• Lab results: what to look for
• Nutrients rich in vitamin B12

Show notes:

• B12 Deficiency: A Silent Epidemic with Serious Consequences
• What Everyone (Especially Vegetarians) Should Know about B12 Deficiency
• Could It Be B12?: An Epidemic of Misdiagnoses by Sally Pacholok and Jeffrey Stuart

[smart_track_player url="http://traffic.libsyn.com/thehealthyskeptic/RHR_-_Why_B12_Deficiency_Is_Significantly_Underdiagnosed.mp3" title="RHR: Why B12 Deficiency Is Significantly Underdiagnosed " artist="Chris Kresser" ] Chris Kresser: Hey, everybody, Chris Kresser here. Welcome to another episode of Revolution Health Radio. This week, we have a question from Kristin. Let's give it a listen. Kristin: Hey, Chris, my name is Kristin. I have a question for you in regards to vitamin B12 and deficiency in it. I was doing some research on vitamin B12 a while back because I have severe anxiety and panic attacks, and I noticed that sometimes people that have symptoms like that have B12 deficiency. But I also came across some articles in regards to our fingernails and how the half moons will be gone if we have vitamin B12 deficiency. I don't know if that's something that is common in functional medicine to look at, is the fingernails, or stuff like that. But that's really been interesting to me lately and I would just really love to know your opinion on that. Thanks. Chris: That's a great question. I often get questions like this related to the fingernails as markers of nutritional deficiency, and there is some limited data on nutritional deficiency showing up in the fingernails. It can be one of the many diagnostic criteria for nutritional deficiencies, but in some cases, the data is stronger than they are in other cases, and I wouldn't use fingernails as the sole way of diagnosing a nutritional deficiency. I would think about it as one sign that could point us toward doing further diagnostic workup for nutritional deficiencies that would include lab testing, blood testing in most cases, sometimes urine testing. But I would never make a definitive diagnosis of a nutritional deficiency just based on the fingernails alone. Why you should have your vitamin B12 tested—and the right way to test it Let's talk a little bit more about B12 and diagnosing the B...

In this episode, we cover:

• Do kids need different food from adults?
• The nutrients kids need most
• Ways to monitor your child’s nutrition

[smart_track_player url="http://traffic.libsyn.com/thehealthyskeptic/RHR_What_Nutrients_Do_Kids_Need_to_Thrive.mp3" title="RHR: What Nutrients Do Kids Need to Thrive?" artist="Chris Kresser" ] Chris Kresser: Hey, everybody. It’s Chris Kresser here. Welcome to another episode of Revolution Health Radio. This week, we have a question from Terra. Let's give it a listen. Terra: Hello, Chris. My name is Terra and I've been following your work for several years now. Our family has pursued a functional medicine-type lifestyle for the last couple of years and we've overcome a great number of health issues as well as escaped a toxic mold situation that was wrecking our health. I do have a question for you specifically regarding children. We've had our kids on mostly the same dietary plan as we've had for the last couple of years. We are all gluten-free and most of the kids are also dairy-free except for the few that tolerate it in small portions. With that being said, our kids are on the very small side. All of them except for one are under the first percentile for height and they are very small in weight as well. I will say that my husband is Asian and he is five foot three, and I am only five foot six. So we're not the largest people on the planet. With that said, I will say that they are also smaller than most all of their peers. I'm just curious if I should be doing anything different in regards to their nutritional needs on a daily basis as children. I know people often will tell me that they need milk or that they need grains or that they need all these things to help them with their growth. But I also know the downfalls of those different things. So I'm just curious what your thoughts are regarding children specifically and any additional nutritional needs that they may need. Thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it. Chris: Thanks so much for sending that question in, Terra. This is one of the most important topics for me as a father myself, and I just am so passionate about the health of future generations and making sure our kids are getting the nutrition they need and also just avoiding things in the environment that could worsen their health. It's a hugely important issue. I can't think of many topics in the whole health world that are more important than this. Thanks again for bringing this up. Do kids need different food from adults? Chris: Before we talk more specifically about your question, Terra, I want to step back and discuss this issue a little bit more generally first.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Correlation does not equal causation
• The problem with confounding factors
• Rice flour lacks fermentable fiber
• Fiber intake on Paleo-type diets
• How the media is guilty of oversimplification
• Why rice flour can also lead to higher arsenic levels
• Reducing intake of refined flours of any kind is key

[smart_track_player url="http://traffic.libsyn.com/thehealthyskeptic/RHR_Could_Gluten-Free_Diets_Be_Harmful.mp3" title="RHR: Could Gluten-Free Diets Be Harmful?" artist="Chris Kresser" ] Chris Kresser: Welcome to another episode of Revolution Health Radio. This week we have a question from Pam. Actually, several people sent this question in, but I just chose Pam's version of it and I think it will address everybody's question on this topic. Let's give it a listen. Pam: Hi, Chris. My name is Pam Grover. I'm a functional medicine doctor in Rochester, New York. I'm calling to ask a question that was posed by my patient a few days ago. She was doing some research and found an article written on the University of Wisconsin website that stated patients who followed a gluten-free diet could possibly be causing low good bacteria and putting themselves at risk for nutrient deficiencies. I myself have found that patients who follow gluten-free diets have a lot of benefit from that. And with the right nutritional guidance, they do not get nutritional deficiencies and also they can maintain good levels of lactobacilli. However you have always been a great resource of knowledge for the rest of us and I thought I would pose the question to you so you can shed some more light on the situation. Chris: Okay. Thanks again, Pam, for sending that question in as well as everybody else who sent similar questions. This is really a great example of the inherent problems with nutrition research because the study suffers from many of the problems that we see in this type of research, including confounding factors and healthy user bias. We've talked about “healthy user bias” many times before. For example, if a study finds that people who eat more red meat have higher rates of cancer or heart disease, does that mean that red meat is actually causing that increased risk of cancer or heart disease? If you've been reading my blog or listening to my podcast for any length of time, you know that the answer to that question is no, or at least we can't be sure that the answer to that question is yes. That's a more accurate way of putting it. We would need more information to be able to draw a causal link between those two factors. Correlation does not equal causation Unfortunately, when you see media reports of studies like this, the headlines and even the articles themselves ...

In this episode we discuss:

• Telomeres and their connection to aging
• Genetic vs. environmental factors
• The role of inflammation on aging
• The FTO, APOE, and JAK-2 genes
• The clock gene and its effect on weight
• How do you measure aging?
• The FKBP5 gene and stress response
• The effect of eating meat on aging

Show notes:

• Younger: A Breakthrough Program to Reset Your Genes, Reverse Aging, and Turn Back the Clock 10 Years by Sara Gottfried

[smart_track_player url="http://traffic.libsyn.com/thehealthyskeptic/RHR_-_How_to_Slow_Down_Agingwith_Sara_Gottfried.mp3" title="RHR: How to Slow Down Aging—with Sara Gottfried" artist="Chris Kresser" ] Chris Kresser: Hey, everybody, Chris Kresser here. Welcome to another episode of Revolution Health Radio. Today, I'm going to be talking to Dr. Sara Gottfried about aging, genetics, the exposome, and the environment. Dr. Gottfried is a Harvard-educated physician and two-time New York Times bestselling author. In her new book, Younger, she shows how to reset gene expression in order to slow down aging and lengthen healthspan. We’re going to get back to the listener Q&A format pretty soon. We have been doing some interviews lately with Robb Wolf and Stephan Guyenet about their books, and this will be the last one of these for a little while. But as you probably know, I'm a voracious reader, and this kind of research and learning is a big part of what I do, and I also consider it to be my job to bring these new resources to your attention when they become available if I think they're valuable. It just so happened that three of the people that I respect the most in terms of their work and their perspective have published books almost back to back. In particular, with Sara’s book, Younger, this is one of the few popular resources that goes into depth but is still accessible on genetics, the exposome, and aging. Those are topics that we’ve talked a lot about, the relationship between genes and the exposome on my blog and a little bit on the podcast, but we haven’t gone into much detail on those topics as they relate to aging and healthy aging, which of course is a concern for everybody. Sara’s one of the people that I know that has done the deepest dive in this area and she knows more about it than just about anybody. I'm really excited to welcome her on the show and to share some of this knowled...

Diet is always a hot topic in the Paleo and ancestral health community. There are diehard advocates on every side. Today I talk with Robb Wolf about his new book Wired to Eat. We explore how his approach to diet has evolved beyond just choosing the right mix of carbs, fats and protein and why a personalized approach is the key to understanding weight loss.  In this episode we discuss:

• The focus of Wired to Eat
• The Paleo diet 3.0
• Is it really about the food?
• Why the concept of “cheating” is harmful
• How stress impacts your weight
• The right tool for the job: why personalization is key

Show notes:

• Wired to Eat: Turn Off Cravings, Rewire Your Appetite for Weight Loss, and Determine the Foods That Work for You by Robb Wolf  [Note: The book has now been released, but readers of ChrisKresser.com can still get the bonus materials mentioned below by emailing the receipt of their purchase of Wired to Eat to wired2eat@gmail.com by March 27th.]

[smart_track_player url="http://traffic.libsyn.com/thehealthyskeptic/RHR_-_Why_We_Gain_WeightBeyond_Carbs_Fat__Protein_with_Robb_Wolf.mp3" title="RHR: Why We Gain Weight—Beyond Carbs, Fat & Protein with Robb Wolf" artist="Chris Kresser" ] Chris Kresser: Hey, everybody, Chris Kresser here. Welcome to another episode of Revolution Health Radio. In this episode, I'm excited to welcome back Robb Wolf, a good friend and colleague. For those of you who don’t know who Rob is (I can't imagine there are that many of you listening to this podcast), but he is a former research biochemist, health expert, and author of New York Times bestseller The Paleo Solution and the eagerly anticipated Wired to Eat, which is his most recent book that we’re going to be discussing today. He has been a review editor for the Journal of Nutrition and Metabolism and Journal of Evolutionary Health. He serves on the board of directors at a specialty health medical clinic in Reno, Nevada, and is a consultant for the Naval Special Warfare Resilience Program.

In this episode we cover these topics:

• Why it’s the brain that controls obesity
• The ancestral perspective on food intake
• Is it really about “calories in/calories out”?
• Why both low-fat and low-carb diets reduce calorie intake
• Are carbs and sugar to blame for obesity?
• Does dietary fat cause obesity?
• How to work with your brain to lose weight

Show notes:

• The Hungry Brain: Outsmarting the Instincts That Make Us Overeat, by Stephan Guyenet

[smart_track_player url="http://traffic.libsyn.com/thehealthyskeptic/RHR_-_Why_Your_Brain_Makes_You_Fatwith_Stephen_Guyenet.mp3" title="RHR: Why Your Brain Makes You Fat—with Stephan Guyenet" artist="Chris Kresser" ] Chris Kresser: Hey, everybody, Chris Kresser here. Welcome to another episode of Revolution Health Radio. Today, I'm going to interview Dr. Stephan Guyenet about his fantastic new book, The Hungry Brain. You may recognize Stephan as a previous guest on the podcast. He is actually the only guest, now with this third visit, who has been on my show three times. He was one of the first guests I ever had way back when I started Revolution Health Radio, which was not called Revolutionary Health Radio at that point. I think it was called the Healthy Skeptic Podcast ... I don't even remember, it was a while ago. But the reason I've had Stephan on twice and now this third time is that I really consider him to be one of the most informed and sanest voices in the discussion about why we gain weight and why it's so hard to lose it. Stephan has been a neuroscientist for 12 years. He worked in a lab that studied the neurobiology of fat regulation for four of those years and is just an extremely insightful, bright, and level-headed scientist, researcher, and commentator. I appreciate his perspective on these topics, and I think his new book is by far the best publicly available resource now that explains the evidence behind weight regulation, and so I'm happy to welcome Stephan back.

In this episode we discuss:

• Why methylation is so important
• Why SNPs don’t tell the whole story
• How to support your body’s natural methylation process
• The concept of methylation adaptogens
• When is supplementing with methyl donors appropriate?

Show notes:

• Methylation Diet and Lifestyle by Dr. Kara Fitzgerald (use code kresser15 for a 15% discount)

[smart_track_player url="http://traffic.libsyn.com/thehealthyskeptic/RHR_-_Methylation_-_Are_We_Supplementing_Too_Much_with_Dr._Kara_Fitzgerald.mp3" title="RHR: Methylation: Are We Supplementing Too Much?—with Dr. Kara Fitzgerald" artist="Chris Kresser" ] Chris Kresser: Hey, everybody. It’s Chris Kresser. Welcome to another episode of Revolution Health Radio. This week, I have an interview for you with Dr. Kara Fitzgerald. She received her Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine degree from the National College of Natural Medicine in Portland, Oregon. She completed the first Council on Naturopathic Medicine-accredited post-doctorate position in Nutritional Biochemistry and Laboratory Science at Metametrix Clinical Laboratory, which is now Genova Diagnostics, under the direction of Richard Lord. Her residency was completed at Progressive Medical Center, a large integrated medical practice in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Fitzgerald is the lead author and editor of Case Studies in Integrative and Functional Medicine and is a contributing author to Laboratory Evaluations for Integrative and Functional Medicine and the Institute for Functional Medicine’s textbook for functional medicine. Her latest ebook is The Methylation Diet and Lifestyle, which we are going to be talking about in this interview. She has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Fitzgerald is on the faculty at IFM, is an IFM-certified practitioner, and lectures globally on functional medicine. She was formerly on the faculty at the University of Bridgeport in the School of Human Nutrition and is a clinical researcher for the Institute for Therapeutic Discovery. Dr.