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Category: Nutrition

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  • The Hidden Costs of Bariatric Surgery | NutritionFacts.org

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    Weight regain after bariatric surgery can have devastating psychological effects.

    How Sustainable Is the Weight Loss After Bariatric Surgery? I explore that issue in my video of the same name. Most gastric bypass patients end up regaining some of the fat they lose by the third year after surgery, but after seven years, 75% of patients followed at 10 U.S. hospitals maintained at least a 20% weight loss.

    The typical trajectory for someone who starts out obese at 285 pounds, for example, would be to drop to an overweight 178 pounds two years after bariatric surgery, but then regain weight up to an obese 207 pounds. This has been chalked up to “grazing” behavior, where compulsive eaters may shift from bingeing (which becomes more difficult post-surgery) to eating smaller amounts constantly throughout the day. In a group of women followed for eight years after gastric bypass surgery, about half continued to describe episodes of disordered eating. As one pediatric obesity specialist described, “I have seen many patients who put chocolate bars into a blender with some cream, just to pass technically installed obstacles [e.g., a gastric band].”

    Bariatric surgery advertising is filled with “happily-ever-after” fairytale narratives of cherry-picked outcomes offering, as one ad analysis put it, “the full Cinderella-romance happy ending.” This may contribute to the finding that patients often overestimate the amount of weight they’ll lose with the procedure and underestimate the difficulty of the recovery process. Surgery forces profound changes in eating habits, requiring slow, small bites that have been thoroughly chewed. Your stomach goes from the volume of two softballs down to the size of half a tennis ball in stomach stapling and half a ping-pong ball in the case of gastric bypass or banding.

    As you can imagine, “weight regain after bariatric surgery can have a devastating effect psychologically as patients feel that they have failed their last option”—their last resort. This may explain why bariatric surgery patients face a high risk of depression. They also have an increased risk of suicide.

    Severe obesity alone may increase the risk of suicidal depression, but even at the same weight, those going through surgery appear to be at a higher risk. At the same BMI (body mass index), age, and gender, bariatric surgery patients have nearly four times the odds of self-harm or attempted suicide compared with those who did not undergo the procedure. Most convincingly, so-called “mirror-image analysis” comparing patients’ pre- and post-surgery events showed the odds of serious self-harm increased after surgery.

    About 1 in 50 bariatric surgery patients end up killing themselves or being hospitalized for self-harm or attempted suicide. And this only includes confirmed suicides, excluding masked attempts such as overdoses classified as having “undetermined intention.” Bariatric surgery patients may also have an elevated risk of accidental death, though some of this could be due to changes in alcohol metabolism. When individuals who have had a gastric bypass were given two shots of vodka, their blood alcohol level surpassed the legal driving limit within minutes due to their altered anatomy. It’s unclear whether this plays a role in the 25% increase in prevalence of alcohol problems noted during the second postoperative year.

    Even those who successfully lose their excess weight and keep it off appear to have a hard time coping. Ten years out, though physical health-related quality of life may improve, general mental health can significantly deteriorate compared to pre-surgical levels, even among those who lost the most weight. Ironically, there’s a common notion that bariatric surgery is for “cheaters” who take the easy way out by choosing the “low-effort” method of weight loss.

    Shedding the weight may not shed the stigma of prior obesity. Studies suggest that “in the eyes of others, knowing that an individual was at one time fat will lead him/her to always be treated like a fat person.” And there can be a strong anti-surgery bias on top of that—those who chose the scalpel to lose weight over diet or exercise were rated more negatively (for example, being considered less physically attractive). One can imagine how remaining a target of prejudice even after joining the “in-group” could potentially undercut psychological well-being.

    There can also be unexpected physical consequences of massive weight loss, like large hanging flaps of excess skin. Beyond being heavy and uncomfortable and interfering with movement, the skin flaps can result in itching, irritation, dermatitis, and skin infections. Getting a panniculectomy (removing the abdominal “apron” of hanging skin) can be expensive, and its complication rate can exceed 50%, with dehiscence (rupturing of the surgical wound) one of the most common complications.

    “Even if surgery proves sustainably effective,” wrote the founding director of Yale University’s Prevention Research Center, “the need to rely on the rearrangement of natural gastrointestinal anatomy as an alternative to better use of feet and forks [exercise and diet] seems a societal travesty.”

    In the Middle Ages, starving peasants dreamed of gastronomic utopias where food just rained down from the sky. The English called it the Kingdom of Cockaigne. Little could medieval fabulists predict that many of their descendants would not only take permanent residence there but also cut out parts of their stomachs and intestines to combat the abundance. Critics have pointed out the irony of surgically altering healthy organs to make them dysfunctional—malabsorptive—on purpose, especially when it comes to operating on children. Bariatric surgery for kids and teens has become widespread and is being performed on children as young as five years old. Surgeons defend the practice by arguing that growing up fat can leave “‘emotional scars’ and lifelong social retardation.”

    Promoters of preventive medicine may argue that bariatric surgery is the proverbial “ambulance at the bottom of the cliff.” In response, proponents of pediatric bariatric surgery have written: “It is often pointed out that we should focus on prevention. Of course, I agree. However, if someone is drowning, I don’t tell them, ‘You should learn how to swim’; no, I rescue them.”

    A strong case can be made that the benefits of bariatric surgery far outweigh the risks if the alternative is remaining morbidly obese, which is estimated to shave up to a dozen or more years off one’s life. Although there haven’t been any data from randomized trials yet to back it up, compared to non-operated obese individuals, those getting bariatric surgery would be expected to live significantly longer on average. No wonder surgeons have consistently framed the elective surgery as a life-or-death necessity. This is a false dichotomy, though. The benefits only outweigh the risks if there are no other alternatives. Might there be a way to lose weight healthfully without resorting to the operating table? That’s what my book How Not to Diet is all about.

    Doctor’s Note

    My book How Not to Diet is focused exclusively on sustainable weight loss. Check it out from your library or pick it up from wherever you get your books. (All proceeds from my books are donated to charity.)

    This is the final segment in a four-part series on bariatric surgery, which includes:

    This blog contains information regarding suicide. If you or anyone you know is exhibiting suicide warning signs, please get help. Go to https://988lifeline.org for more information.

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    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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  • Scientists Have Figured Out How Much Coffee a Day You Need To Live Longer

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    (Photo: Ayana Underwood/Canva)

    Published January 12, 2026 11:29AM

    If your day doesn’t truly start until you’ve had a cup of coffee, you’re in luck. A new science review in the journal Nutrients concludes that the brew is healthy to drink in moderate amounts. It may even help extend lifespan in some cases, though there are caveats.

    Here’s the scoop on coffee’s links to longevity, and a few tips on how to use it to fuel your personal health and performance.

    How Does Coffee Promote Long-Term Health?

    After analyzing three decades’ worth of research, this new review found that moderate coffee consumption is associated with reduced overall mortality and a lower risk of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, stroke, respiratory conditions, and cognitive decline, and potentially certain cancers.

    The Nutrients review acknowledges that most studies on coffee and longevity so far have been correlative, meaning they don’t necessarily prove that coffee extends lifespan. (It could be that people with certain diseases drink less coffee as a result of their symptoms, for example.) So while the review’s authors acknowledge that more research is needed, they write that “the consensus is that moderate coffee intake is more beneficial than harmful across a wide range of health outcomes.” 

    Integrative physician Dr. Bindiya Gandhi, who was not involved in the review, says that coffee’s health impacts seem to be partially fueled by plant compounds called polyphenols. Certain polyphenols in coffee have antioxidant properties that protect against oxidative stress (an imbalance that can cause cellular damage) and inflammation—both of which accelerate aging.

    As we get older, our telomeres (the structures that protect our DNA) naturally shorten, reducing cellular health and increasing our susceptibility to disease. Emerging research is finding correlations between coffee consumption and telomere length. In one new study, regular coffee drinkers had telomeres that appeared five years younger than their biological age, potentially due to the drink’s antioxidants.

    In addition to polyphenols, longevity expert Dr. Florence Comite, who was also not involved in the review, notes that coffee contains vitamin B2 (riboflavin) and magnesium, both of which help fuel cellular health and energy.

    Coffee Offers an Added Perk for Athletes

    Any runner, biker, or lifter who regularly trains with caffeine knows that the compound can boost athletic performance, which could provide another longevity link.

    Exercise helps us live longer, and research shows that caffeine (whether consumed through coffee or supplements) can help us do more of it, improving athletic endurance by roughly two to four percent. It may also help power everyday movements, with one randomized trial on 100 adults finding that those who drank caffeinated coffee walked nearly 1,000 steps more per day than those who didn’t.

    How Much Coffee Should You Drink for Longevity Benefits?

    According to the Nutrients review, capping your consumption at three to five cups per day seems to be beneficial for most people; any more than that can actually damage heart health in the long term. The review also notes it’s best to avoid adding excess sugar, syrups, and creamers to your coffee, as they’re likely to negate any lifespan benefits.

    Personal tolerance plays a role here, too. “Each one of us is unique, so caffeine may impact you far differently than your best friend,” Comite says.

    Those with acid reflux, or chronic acid reflux known as gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), anxiety, or sleep issues should steer clear, says Gandhi. If coffee gives you the jitters, that’s also a sign to reduce your consumption or switch to decaf, she says.

    Is There a Best Time to Drink Coffee?

    Some people are fast caffeine metabolizers with genetics that allow them to enjoy coffee all day long. But, for most of us, drinking it too close to bedtime will harm sleep (and health, by extension, if sleep deprivation continues).

    Both Comite and Gandhi suggest taking your last sip by around noon to give your body plenty of time to process it before bed. This aligns with research showing that drinking coffee in the morning is more strongly linked to lower mortality risk than drinking it throughout the day.

    According to the International Society of Sports Nutrition, most athletes consume caffeine roughly one hour before working out—but if you tend to exercise at night, you’ll want to play around to find a balance between fueling and sleep.

    Finally, if you’re not already a coffee drinker, don’t feel like you need to pick up the habit to live a long, healthy life. Longevity doesn’t hinge on any one beverage; it’s your overall diet and lifestyle that really make the difference.

    Want more Outside health stories? Sign up for the Bodywork newsletter. And to get your new year off to a great start, sign up for the Winter Warrior Challenge; all you need to do is log 20 hours of workouts, and you’ll earn an exclusive challenge badge.

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    aunderwood

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  • Teen Health Revolution

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    Teen Health Revolution: Summary

    In this episode, Teen Health Revolution, host Evan Transue welcomes four young guests: Abdullah, Zain, Emaad, and Qasim Ansari. These remarkable teenagers, aged 10 to 17, are hosts of The Holistic Kids Show Podcast and co-authors of the ‘Teen Health Revolution’ book. The Ansari brothers share their journey into holistic health, spurred by personal health issues like eczema and mood disorders, and influenced by their family’s background in both conventional and holistic medicine. They emphasize how lifestyle and nutritional changes, championed by their mother, dramatically improved their health and inspired them to educate others. They’ve collaborated with over 200 experts to compile practical, expert-backed tips into their book, focusing on addressing teen health issues holistically—covering physical, mental, and spiritual health.

    The podcast delves into how teens can integrate better lifestyle habits, the importance of education, and parental influence in these health changes. The Ansari brothers argue for incremental improvement, starting with manageable steps toward healthier eating and living. They discuss common challenges teens face, such as addiction to ultra-processed foods and social media, and they offer mindfulness, gratitude, and nature exposure as starting points for better health.

    The Ansaris passionately advocate for a ‘Teen Health Revolution,’ a movement encouraging teens to take control of their own health by understanding what they consume and how it impacts them. They call on adults to listen more to teens and support their health journeys. The episode is a testament to the power of young voices in driving meaningful change in public health.

    Teen Health Revolution: Topics

    00:00 Introduction to the Health Detective Podcast

    00:36 Meet the Young Holistic Health Enthusiasts

    01:03 The Inspiring Journey of The Holistic Kids

    02:18 Formal Introduction of The Holistic Kids

    04:26 The Holistic Kids’ Health Challenges and Discoveries

    09:11 Spreading Awareness and Educating Peers

    14:14 Navigating School Life with Healthy Habits

    24:07 The Impact of High Fructose Corn Syrup

    25:06 The Role of Parents in Health Education

    26:50 Living a Balanced Lifestyle

    30:42 The Vision for a Healthier Future

    36:07 Supporting the Teen Health Revolution

    41:43 Final Thoughts and Signature Question

    Where to Find The Holistic Kids

    Go to our Health Detective Podcasts for more informational and functional health-oriented podcasts like this one.

    LEARN MORE ABOUT US

    Try FDN for FREE! 

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    Functional Diagnostic Nutrition

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  • Stop Chasing Superfoods. Here’s What Keeps You Alive Longer.

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    Published January 11, 2026 03:00AM

    The longevity industry is a loud, billion-dollar machine. Turn on any podcast, and you’re bombarded with 18-step morning routines, expensive “anti-aging” powders, and hacks that promise to rewind your biological clock. It’s enough to make you think that living a long, healthy life requires a PhD and a second mortgage.

    But if you strip away the marketing and look at the actual data, the secret to longevity isn’t found in a bottle. It’s found in the produce aisle. 

    “The idea of ‘superfoods’ is largely a misconception used for marketing purposes,” says Dr. Matt Kaeberlein, a biologist and the CEO of Optispan, a health technology company focused on health span extension. “There is no single food with magical properties. Longevity comes from overall dietary patterns, not nutritional silver bullets.”

    True longevity isn’t achieved with a list of hacks. When paired with other healthy living habits, it comes from mastering the boring, unsexy fundamentals that have kept humans alive for millennia.

    Let’s explore them.

    The Boring Truth About What to Eat

    We love the idea of a superfood because it feels like a cheat code—eat this berry, live forever. But some of the most substantial evidence for longevity consistently points to a short list of humble staples, including legumes, whole grains, nuts, fruits, and vegetables.

    A 2025 study published in Nature Medicine analyzed over 100,000 adults and found that adhering to a plant-forward diet, specifically one rich in whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and nuts, was associated with significantly better aging outcomes. The researchers noted that there wasn’t one “perfect” diet, but rather several patterns (like the Mediterranean or plant-based diets) that all shared the same DNA of minimally processed plants and healthy fats.

    “If you want a single litmus test, look at how much of someone’s diet is minimally processed plant food versus ultra-processed calories,” says Dr. Anant Vinjamoori, Chief Medical Officer at Superpower, a health platform that offers proactive, personalized healthcare. “That split predicts a lot.”

    Why do these simple foods work better than high-tech supplements? It’s called the food matrix. “Whole foods deliver a package: fiber, micronutrients, protein, fats, and thousands of bioactive compounds that travel together,” Vinjamoori explains. Supplements can’t replicate that synergy.

    Health Fats

    If you’re looking for a place to start, look at foods like almonds and walnuts. “Large cohort studies repeatedly associate regular nut intake with lower cardiovascular risk and reduced all-cause mortality,” says Melanie Murphy Richter, a registered dietitian and longevity expert. Beyond nuts, Richter points to extra-virgin olive oil for its anti-inflammatory properties and plant proteins like beans and lentils, which help keep cellular aging pathways balanced.

    Fiber

    Even humble fiber, often ignored in favor of flashy nutrients, plays a massive role. Kaeberlein explains that higher fiber intake is consistently linked to better metabolic health and longevity, recommending a target of 30 to 40 grams per day. Vinjamoori agrees, suggesting a simple, actionable goal of adding beans or lentils once a day as a simple move that improves satiety, cardiometabolic risk, and gut health.

    Ultimately, the boring staples win because they work together. As Richter notes, “One ingredient can support health, but it cannot replace the whole system.”

    Protein

    In your twenties you might have eaten protein to build biceps, but in your fifties and beyond, getting enough can help you stay out of a nursing home. As we age, our bodies develop anabolic resistance, meaning we become less efficient at turning protein into muscle. “The same protein dose produces a weaker muscle-building signal,” says Vinjamoori. This is critical because muscle is a longevity organ; losing it puts you on a fast track to frailty and metabolic disease.

    Current research, including a 2024 review in Nutrients and data published in PubMed Central, suggests that the standard recommended allowance (0.36 grams for every pound of body weight) is likely too low for optimal aging. Experts now recommend aiming higher to counteract muscle loss. A reasonable rule of thumb, according to Kaeberlein, is 0.6 to 0.9 grams of protein for every pound, combined with regular resistance training. Vinjamoori explains that while general recommendations for older adults often start lower, needs increase significantly if a person is active, recovering from illness, or trying to rebuild strength.

    The source and timing of that protein matter just as much as the total amount. Richter notes that from age 18 to 65, protein from plant sources like legumes and beans appears particularly supportive of long-term health and metabolic balance. Furthermore, you shouldn’t hoard your daily intake for a massive steak dinner. “Protein quality, distribution across meals, and pairing with resistance training matter as much as total intake,” says Richter.

    The ‘Blue Zone’ Reality Check

    We’ve all heard the gospel of the Blue Zones—those mythical regions like Sardinia, Italy, or Okinawa, Japan, where people supposedly forget to die. Families living in these regions have in common lifestyle factors like whole-food/plant-based diets, natural movement, and strong social ties. But before you book a one-way ticket to the Mediterranean, you should know that the data might be a little… dusty.

    In 2024, demographer Saul Newman was awarded an Ig Nobel Prize for highlighting a correlation between “supercentenarian” hotspots and regions with poor birth record-keeping or high rates of pension fraud. In other words, some of those 110-year-olds might just be clerical errors.

    But just because the numbers are messy doesn’t mean the habits are wrong.

    “Leaving aside ongoing debates about which Blue Zones are real, the consistent themes are clear,” says Kaeberlein. Whether or not everyone is hitting triple digits, the populations in these regions consistently display lower rates of chronic disease, and the mechanism isn’t genetic magic, it’s lifestyle.

    Research published in the Journal of Gerontology and Geriatrics on Sardinian longevity highlights that the secret is actually a combination of factors, including a plant-forward diet, constant low-level physical activity (like walking and gardening), and strong family bonds. Basically, living in an environment that discourages sitting still and eating processed junk.

    The Transferrable Lessons

    You don’t need to live in an Italian village to replicate the biological benefits. The research points to a few specific transferables.

    Eat a Plain Diet. Across these regions, the menu is remarkably consistent. It is high in whole foods, legumes, and whole grains, and low in ultra-processed foods. A review of longevity diets found that these patterns work by reducing inflammation and improving metabolic health, often mimicking the effects of caloric restriction without the hunger.

    Don’t Eat Alone. In North America, we often view food as fuel to be consumed at a desk. In longevity hotspots, meals are social anchors. “Isolation is not a longevity strategy,” warns Vinjamoori. “Social eating matters.” The data supporting this shows that strong social capital is a primary driver of successful aging in these zones, helping to buffer stress and improve mental well-being.

    Prioritize Deliciousness. Sustainability is key. As Registered Dietitian Ashley Koff, nutrition course director at the University of California, Irvine says, if your longevity diet tastes like cardboard, you won’t stick to it long enough to see your great-grandkids. “One of the core pillars of longevity eating is ‘better be delicious to me,’” says Koff. The Mediterranean diet works largely because it is enjoyable—rich in fats like olive oil and diverse flavors—making it a pattern people want to maintain for decades.

    “The lesson isn’t to copy a specific cuisine,” Kaeberlein says “but to apply those principles within your own cultural context.”

    What About Fasting and Supplements?

    If you’re hoping a pill or a fasting window will help you retain a heavier lifestyle, the experts say otherwise.

    “Fasting and time-restricted eating are not inherently longevity-promoting,” states Kaeberlein. While they can be useful tools to stop you from snacking on junk at midnight, they don’t replace food quality.

    As for supplements, “They’re best for correcting a deficiency or treating a defined risk factor,” Vinjamoori says. Unless you have a specific medical need, your money is likely better spent on high-quality groceries. The exceptions worth discussing with your doctor are Omega-3s, Vitamin D, and creatine, which Kaeberlein calls “one of the most evidence-supported supplements” for maintaining muscle and cognitive function.

    The Long Game

    Longevity isn’t a six-week challenge or a guru-promoted biohacking stack. It’s a practice.

    “I genuinely prefer a salmon salad to a cheeseburger and fries,” Kaeberlein admits, noting that taste buds adapt over time.

    The best diet for longevity is simply the one you can stick to for the next 50 years. So, start small. Swap a processed snack for an apple. Add a scoop of lentils to your soup. “Do it consistently, then build from there,” Vinjamoori advises.

    The goal isn’t just to live longer. It’s to live better—and that starts with what’s on your plate today.

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    Emilee Coblentz

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  • Why Indoor Air is MORE Dangerous Than Outdoor Air

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    Why Indoor Air is MORE Dangerous: Summary

    In this episode, Why Indoor Air is MORE Dangerous Than Outdoor Air, host Evan Transue interviews Justin Liberman, Director of Operations at Jaspr. Justin shares insights from his nine years of experience in environmental science, focusing on testing indoor air quality and the development of Jaspr air scrubbers. 

    The discussion highlights the efficacy of Jaspr in reducing indoor pollutants, including mold and VOCs. Justin explains the real-world benefits users experience, noting significant improvements in sleep quality, including increased deep sleep when using Jaspr. 

    The episode touches on the comparison of Jaspr with standard air purifiers and answers audience questions about testing indoor environments and the associated health benefits. Throughout, the emphasis is on the importance of being ‘air aware’ and taking proactive steps to improve indoor air quality for better health outcomes.

    Why Indoor Air is MORE Dangerous: Topics

    00:00 Welcome to the Health Detective Podcast

    00:33 Introduction to Today’s Episode and Guest

    01:04 Meet Justin Liberman: Environmental and Air Quality Expert

    04:07 Justin’s Journey: From Air Quality Canada to Jaspr

    07:18 The Importance of Indoor Air Quality

    13:42 Understanding Jaspr’s Air Scrubber Technology

    22:59 Real-World Impact of Jaspr on Mold and Air Quality

    30:15 The Value of Air Quality in Health

    31:54 Challenges in Mold Remediation

    34:50 The Jaspr Air Purifier’s Impact on Sleep

    35:17 Details of the Sleep Study

    38:10 Future Studies and Snoring

    43:36 Comprehensive Air Quality Testing

    50:36 Jaspr’s Customer Experience

    54:44 Final Thoughts and Recommendations

    Where to Find Justin Liberman

    Go to our Health Detective Podcasts for more informational and functional health-oriented podcasts like this one.

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    Functional Diagnostic Nutrition

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  • The 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans – Diet and Health Today

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    In summary

    * Dietary goals for Americans were first published in 1977. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans were first published in 1980 and are revised every five years. The two key guidelines that have most impacted American food policy (and public health) for nearly 50 years were to limit total fat to no more than 30%, and saturated fat to no more than 10% of calorie intake. These restrictions were set because it was thought that fat caused heart disease (in middle aged men). My PhD examined the evidence for those guidelines and the beliefs upon which they were based and found that they should not have been introduced – then or now. Other research teams have found the same.

    * The Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGAs) 2025-2030 – the tenth edition – were published on January 7th, 2026. The first sentence was “These Guidelines mark the most significant reset of federal nutrition policy in our nation’s history.” That was not an overstatement.

    * The next sentence was “The message is simple: eat real food.” Those few words captured what an entire movement has been saying for years. To a great extent, this was the day that many of us thought we would never see. Reading the short document (10 pages instead of the 164 pages of the 2020 report) was joyful.

    * The original food pyramid became “MyPlate” in June 2011. The pyramid has returned and it’s been flipped upside down, as it was in a South Park sketch. Secretary Kennedy tweeted the clip in case you missed the 2014 classic.

    * The new guidelines are concise, readable and quite revolutionary, but there’s a big BUT…

    * First, the good news and there is a lot of good news in the eight guidelines, three boxes and the “Special populations & considerations”:

    – The eight guidelines prioritize high-quality, nutrient-dense protein foods (and protein intake recommendations have been increased.) Animal sources of protein (eggs, poultry, seafood, and red meat) are cited ahead of plant sources (beans, peas, lentils, legumes, nuts, seeds, and soy.) Consume dairy, is another message – and not just dairy but full-fat dairy. The healthy fats section mentions olive oil, butter and beef tallow. The entire 2025 report has no mention of seed oils. Grains are way down the list (and at the bottom of the new upside down pyramid). Serving goals are 2-4 per day – far from the 6-11 servings of beige starches which formed the original pyramid base. “Limit highly processed foods, added sugars, refined carbohydrates and alcohol” rounded up the common sense.

    – Breastfeeding is emphasised. The toddler diets (one of which was vegetarian) in the 2020 report are gone.

    – Even in the few pages, there was room to introduce an option for low carb diets. Hats off to Dr Nina Teicholz and others who have been presenting the evidence for this for years.

    – The document closes with warnings for the nutritional deficiencies that are likely to arise from vegetarian and vegan diets. So much legacy nutritional non-sense has gone.

    – By its absence the 30% cap on total fat has gone. However, the saturated fat cap remains: “saturated fat consumption should not exceed 10% of total daily calories.” This is the huge BUT, because all the good news in the guidelines is incompatible with that one preserved guideline.

    * IF the 10% saturated fat cap is followed, all the good advice to eat real food (red meat, oily fish, eggs, dairy, olive oil etc) cannot be followed. IF the good advice to eat real food is followed, the 10% saturated fat cap cannot be followed. This note explains why.

    * I am as astonished by the committee having missed this glaring inconsistency as I am by all the good things in the report.

    Introduction

    I have often been asked on podcasts “what should we eat to make people healthy again?” The answer is simple. I summarised it in a post in 2021 (Ref 1). The first two principles should be 1) Eat real food and 2) Choose that food for the nutrients it provides. I am then often asked “what needs to happen to make this our advice?” My reply to this has been more complicated – along the lines of “Ideally, dietary guidelines would change and then a top down cascade would happen. That would be the optimal way. However, that’s not going to happen so we need a bottom up approach whereby individuals ignore the guidelines and eat real nutrient dense food. A third way is happening with health practitioners who have realised the guidelines are harmful. They can then influence their patients and it speeds up the bottom up approach.”

    I was wrong. Specifically, I was wrong about the top down approach not happening. It has just happened. The day I, and many others in the real food arena, thought would never happen just happened on January 7th, 2026. The new Dietary Guidelines for Americans for 2025-2030 were published (Ref 2). They are concise, readable and quite revolutionary. There is one exception – a huge exception – and we don’t yet know how the contradiction that the exception brings will play out. But for now, let’s celebrate all that is good about the new Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGAs) 2025-2030.

    First – a bit of background…

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    Zoe

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  • Is Surgery Necessary to Reverse Diabetes? | NutritionFacts.org

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    Losing weight without rearranging your gastrointestinal anatomy carries advantages beyond just the lack of surgical risk.

    The surgical community objects to the characterization of bariatric surgery as internal jaw wiring and cutting into healthy organs just to discipline people’s behavior. They’ve even renamed it “metabolic surgery,” suggesting the anatomical rearrangements cause changes in digestive hormones that offer unique physiological benefits. As evidence, they point to the remarkable remission rates for type 2 diabetes.

    After bariatric surgery, about 50% of obese people with diabetes and 75% of “super-obese” diabetics go into remission, meaning they have normal blood sugar levels on a regular diet without any diabetes medication. The normalization of blood sugar can happen within days after the surgery. And 15 years after the surgery, 30% remained free from their diabetes, compared to a 7% remission rate in a nonsurgical control group. Are we sure it was the surgery, though?

    One of the most challenging parts of bariatric surgery is lifting the liver. Since obese individuals tend to have such large, fatty livers, there is a risk of liver injury and bleeding. An enlarged liver is one of the most common reasons a less invasive laparoscopic surgery can turn into a fully invasive open surgery, leaving the patient with a large belly scar, along with an increased risk of wound infections, complications, and recovery time. But lose even just 5% of your body weight, and your fatty liver may shrink by 10%. That’s why those awaiting bariatric surgery are put on a diet. After surgery, patients are typically placed on an extremely low-calorie liquid diet for weeks. Could their improvement in blood sugar levels just be from the caloric restriction, rather than some sort of surgical metabolic magic? Researchers decided to put it to the test.

    At a bariatric surgery clinic at the University of Texas, patients with type 2 diabetes scheduled for a gastric bypass volunteered to stay in the hospital for 10 days to follow the same extremely low-calorie diet—less than 500 calories a day—that they would be placed on before and after surgery, but without undergoing the procedure itself. After a few months, once they had regained the weight, the same patients then had the actual surgery and repeated their diet, matched day to day. This allowed researchers to compare the effects of caloric restriction with and without the surgical procedure—the same patients, the same diet, just with or without the surgery. If there were some sort of metabolic benefit to the anatomical rearrangement, the patients would have done better after the surgery, but, in some ways, they actually did worse.

    The caloric restriction alone resulted in similar improvements in blood sugar levels, pancreatic function, and insulin sensitivity, but several measures of diabetic control improved significantly more without the surgery. The surgery seemed to put them at a metabolic disadvantage.

    Caloric restriction works by first mobilizing fat out of the liver. Type 2 diabetes is thought to be caused by fat building up in the liver and spilling over into the pancreas. Everyone may have a “personal fat threshold” for the safe storage of excess fat. When that limit is exceeded, fat gets deposited in the liver, where it can cause insulin resistance. The liver may then offload some of the fat (in the form of a fat transport molecule called VLDL), which can then accumulate in the pancreas and kill off the cells that produce insulin. By the time diabetes is diagnosed, half of our insulin-producing cells may have been destroyed, as seen below and at 3:36 in my video Bariatric Surgery vs. Diet to Reverse Diabetes. Put people on a low-calorie diet, though, and this entire process can be reversed.

    A large enough calorie deficit can cause a profound drop in liver fat sufficient to resurrect liver insulin sensitivity within seven days. Keep it up, and the calorie deficit can decrease liver fat enough to help normalize pancreatic fat levels and function within just eight weeks. Once you drop below your personal fat threshold, you should then be able to resume normal caloric intake and still keep your diabetes at bay, as seen below and at 4:05 in my video. 

    The bottom line: Type 2 diabetes is reversible with weight loss, if you catch it early enough.

    Lose more than 30 pounds (13.6 kilograms), and nearly 90% of those who have had type 2 diabetes for less than four years can achieve non-diabetic blood sugar levels (suggesting diabetes remission), whereas it may only be reversible in 50% of those who’ve lived with the disease for eight or more years. That’s by losing weight with diet alone, though. For people with diabetes, losing more than twice as much weight with bariatric surgery, diabetes remission may only be around 75% of those who’ve had the disease for up to six years and only about 40% for those who’ve had diabetes longer, as seen below and at 4:41 in my video.

    Losing weight without surgery may offer other benefits as well. Individuals with diabetes who lose weight with diet alone can significantly improve markers of systemic inflammation, such as tumor necrosis factor, whereas levels significantly worsened when about the same amount of weight was lost from a gastric bypass.

    What about diabetic complications? One reason to avoid diabetes is to avoid its associated conditions, like blindness or kidney failure requiring dialysis. Reversing diabetes with bariatric surgery can improve kidney function, but, surprisingly, it may not prevent the occurrence or progression of diabetic vision loss—perhaps because bariatric surgery affects quantity but not necessarily quality when it comes to diet. This reminds me of a famous study published in The New England Journal of Medicine that randomized thousands of people with diabetes to an intensive lifestyle program focused on weight loss. Ten years in, the study was stopped prematurely because the participants weren’t living any longer or having any fewer heart attacks. This may be because they remained on the same heart-clogging diet but just in smaller portions.

    Doctor’s Note

    This is the third blog in a four-part series on bariatric surgery. If you missed the first two, check out The Mortality Rate of Bariatric Weight-Loss Surgery and The Complications of Bariatric Weight-Loss Surgery.

    My book How Not to Diet is focused exclusively on sustainable weight loss. Check it out from your local library, or pick it up from wherever you get your books. (All proceeds from my books are donated to charity.)

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    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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  • Top 10 NutritionFacts.org Videos of 2025 | NutritionFacts.org

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    We create more than a hundred new videos every year. They are the culmination of countless hours of research. We comb through tens of thousands of scientific papers from the peer-reviewed medical literature so busy people like you don’t have to.

    In 2025, I covered a wide variety of hot topics. I released an extensive series on Ozempic, updates on vitamin B12, and, of course, a lot on aging and anti-aging based on my research for How Not to Age. Which videos floated to the top last year? 

     

    #10 How Much Vitamin B12 Do We Need Each Day?

    How are the recommended daily and weekly doses of vitamin B12 derived?

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    #9 The Best Way to Boost NAD+: Supplements vs. Diet (webinar recording)

    This webinar wrapped up the pros and cons of all the NAD+ supplements and the ways to naturally boost NAD+ with diet and lifestyle. (Did you know we now offer a growing library of on-demand webinars for CME credits? To learn more and to register, visit us on the LearnWorlds platform.)

    The Best Way to Boost NAD+: Supplements vs. Diet (webinar recording)

     

    #8 How to Improve Your Heart Rate Variability

    A healthy heart doesn’t beat like a metronome.

    How to Improve Your Heart Rate Variability

     

     

     

     

     

     

    #7 The Best Foods for Your Skin

    Greens, apples, tomato paste, and grapes are put to the test as edible skin care candidates.

    The Best Foods for Your Skin

     

     

     

     

     

     

    #6 Friday Favorites: Foods That Cause Inflammation and Those That Reduce It

    This is a popular combination of two earlier videos, exploring which foods are the worst when it comes to triggering inflammation within hours of consumption and what an anti-inflammatory diet looks like?

    Friday Favorites: Foods That Cause Inflammation and Those That Reduce It

     

     

     

     

     

     

    #5 The Healthiest Way to Drink Coffee

    Why do those who drink filtered coffee tend to live longer than those who drink unfiltered coffee?

    The Healthiest Way to Drink Coffee 

     

     

     

     

     

     

    #4 Is One Egg a Day Too Much?

    *Spoiler alert*: Meta-analyses of studies involving more than 10 million participants confirm that greater egg consumption confers a higher risk of premature death from all causes.

    Is One Egg a Day Too Much?

     

     

     

     

     

     

    #3 Do Not Eat Pawpaws

    Pawpaw fruits, like soursop, guanabana, sweetsop, sugar apple, cherimoya, and custard apple, contain neurotoxins that may cause a neurodegenerative disease. 

    Do Not Eat Pawpaws

     

     

     

     

     

     

    #2 The Highest Antioxidant: Apple, Bean, Berry, Lentil, or Nut?

    Remember these kinds of videos from way back when? I brought them back! Of course, the best apple, bean, berry, lentil, and nut are the ones you’ll eat the most of, but if you don’t have a strong preference, which ones have the highest antioxidant power? 

    The Highest Antioxidant: Apple, Bean, Berry, Lentil, or Nut?

     

     

     

     

     

     

    #1 How to Slow Cancer Growth

    The fact that this video was so popular is validation for my plan to take on cancer after How Not to Hurt, my upcoming book on lifestyle approaches to pain management, which should be out in (fingers crossed) December 2026. This video explains how, at this very moment, many of us have tumors growing inside our bodies, so we cannot wait to start eating and living more healthfully.

    How to Slow Cancer Growth

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Thank you for being a part of this community. We gained more than 170,000 new subscribers on YouTube in 2025, and the number of people we can reach with this life-saving, life-changing information continues to grow.

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    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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  • Brain Energy Reset

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    Brain Energy Reset: Summary

    In this episode of Brain Energy Reset, host Evan Transue sits down with Moira Newiss, a BANT-registered nutritional therapist and expert in ketogenic metabolic therapy, to explore the powerful connection between brain energy, metabolic health, and mental wellbeing. Moira shares her personal journey from years of mental health challenges and chronic fatigue while working in the NHS to experiencing complete symptom remission after adopting a ketogenic approach.

    Drawing from both lived experience and clinical practice, Moira explains how ketones support brain function through anti-inflammatory effects and enhanced neuroplasticity. She discusses how optimizing brain energy can lead to profound improvements in mental health and overall resilience, and how this framework now guides her work with clients.

    The episode highlights compelling client success stories, including cases of complete remission of schizophrenia and significant improvements in anxiety, binge eating behaviors, and severe gastrointestinal reflux. Moira also offers practical insights into implementing a ketogenic diet safely and sustainably, emphasizing the importance of a gradual transition, adequate electrolyte support, and understanding the metabolic benefits of ketosis.

    Rounding out the discussion, Evan and Moira explore an evolutionary lens on nutrition, examining how environment and geography influence dietary needs. This conversation provides a hopeful, science-informed perspective on how addressing metabolic health can transform mental and physical wellbeing.

    Brain Energy Reset: Topics

    00:00 Welcome to the Health Detective Podcast

    00:38 Meet Your Host: Evan Transue

    01:15 Introducing Our Guest: Moira Newiss

    01:46 Evan’s Journey with Mental Health and Ketogenic Diet

    03:19 Moira’s Health Struggles and Discovery of Ketogenic Diet

    18:04 The Science Behind Ketogenic Diet and Mental Health

    22:54 Personal Experiences and Benefits of Ketosis

    25:43 Training Fasted: Personal Experience and Benefits

    26:39 Evolutionary Perspective on Fasting and Food Availability

    27:43 Transitioning to a Ketogenic Diet

    34:13 Personal Routine and Long-Term Ketosis

    44:04 Client Success Stories and Case Studies

    48:22 Final Thoughts and Advice

    Where to Find Moira Newiss

    Go to our Health Detective Podcasts for more informational and functional health-oriented podcasts like this one.

    LEARN MORE ABOUT US

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  • The Orange Julius Protein Smoothie Is the New Post-Workout Obsession

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    (Photo: Orange Julius Smoothie: Ashia Aubourg; Design: Ayana Underwood/Canva)

    Published January 3, 2026 03:27AM

    Lately on TikTok, people have been dumping frozen orange juice concentrate into blenders alongside Greek yogurt, bananas, and other fridge and pantry staples to recreate the viral Orange Julius smoothie. The trend pulls inspiration from the creamy, citrus-forward milkshake many people love to order at Dairy Queen drive-thrus. Fitness devotees, however, have since reworked the classic into a post-workout recovery drink designed to refuel and satisfy a sweet tooth.

    Anyone leaning into an active lifestyle quickly learns one essential lesson: recovery deserves as much attention as training. Stretching, hydration, and the occasional ice bath all play a role, but nutrient intake matters just as much.

    Below, you’ll find why this smoothie makes for a great recovery drink, how to make it, my honest take on the taste and recovery benefits, and a few dietitian-approved tweaks that further boost its nutritional payoff.

    What Makes the Orange Julius Smoothie the Perfect Recovery Drink?

    A strong recovery drink relies on a balance of protein, fiber, healthy fats, and carbohydrates, says Maddie Pasquariello, a registered dietitian based in New York City. The Orange Julius smoothie delivers on all fronts.

    Frozen orange juice concentrate supplies a solid dose of vitamin C, about 380 milligrams in one cup, which supports muscle repair and recovery, Pasquariello says. (For context, you only need between 75 mg and 90 mg per day, according to the National Institutes of Health. The juice is literally worth the squeeze in this case.)

    Depending on the protein powder and yogurt you choose, each serving of this smoothie can provide approximately 47 grams of protein or more—well over the typical recommended amount for each meal (between 15 grams and 30 grams), making it a great way to support muscle repair after demanding workouts.

    Banana adds fiber, which is great for better bowel health, plus potassium to help replenish electrolytes. Together, these ingredients support recovery and refueling after hard efforts, she explains.

    How to Make the Orange Julius Protein Smoothie 

    This recipe yields about 25 fluid ounces. If you drink the whole thing, it’s about the volume of two bottles of water.

    Ingredients

    • 3 ounces frozen orange juice concentrate
    • 1/2 frozen banana
    • 1/2 cup low-fat (one-percent) milk
    • 1.5 ounces vanilla protein powder
    • 1 cup Greek yogurt
    • 1 tablespoon honey
    • 1/2 cup of ice

    Recipe

    1. Place all ingredients in a blender.
    2. Blend the ingredients on medium-high speed until the beverage is smooth and creamy.

    The Verdict: A Nostalgic Creamsicle Throwback That Delivers Satiating, Energizing Sips

    Growing up, I always reached for creamsicles whenever I stopped at the corner store after a long day of kickball. One sip of this smoothie transported me straight back to those afternoons, where I demolished a frozen bar after hours spent running around the park

    I drank this as a post-hike dessert during that part of the day when dinner still felt far off, but my energy had already dipped. I needed something sweet (but not sickeningly sweet) and functional enough to carry me through the evening cooking. I finished the entire glass in seconds. The texture stayed creamy, which made it easy to enjoy without slowing me down.

    The smoothie delivered enough energy to get dinner on the table instead of defaulting to takeout, even with sore legs—the benefits carried into the next morning. I woke up without lingering aches and with enough fuel to tackle my next adventure: an 8:30 A.M. barre class.

    How to Get the Most Out of This Smoothie, According to a Nutritionist

    One of the simplest ways to tweak this smoothie involves cutting back on added sugar, according to Pasquariello. First, you can leave out the honey entirely without noticing a difference in flavor, she says. From there, swap the frozen orange juice concentrate for half a cup of fresh orange juice or a whole peeled orange.

    Another easy upgrade to this Orange Julius protein smoothie involves using a full frozen banana instead of half, Pasquariello says. That small change boosts fiber, potassium, and antioxidants, turning the recipe into an even more loaded post-workout recovery drink to sip on.

    Want more Outside health stories? Sign up for the Bodywork newsletter. 

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  • Bariatric Surgery: Risks in the OR and Beyond | NutritionFacts.org

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    The extent of risk from bariatric weight-loss surgery may depend on the skill of the surgeon.

    After sleeve gastrectomy and Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, the third most common bariatric procedure is a revision to fix a previous bariatric procedure, as you can see below and at 0:16 in my video The Complications of Bariatric Weight-Loss Surgery.

    Up to 25% of bariatric patients have to go back into the operating room for problems caused by their first bariatric surgery. Reoperations are even riskier, with up to 10 times the mortality rate, and there is “no guarantee of success.” Complications include leaks, fistulas, ulcers, strictures, erosions, obstructions, and severe acid reflux.

    The extent of risk may depend on the skill of the surgeon. In a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, bariatric surgeons voluntarily submitted videos of themselves performing surgery to a panel of their peers for evaluation. Technical proficiency varied widely and was related to the rates of complications, hospital readmissions, reoperations, and death. Patients operated on by less competent surgeons suffered nearly three times the complications and five times the rate of death.

    “As with musicians or athletes, some surgeons may simply be more talented than others”—but practice may help make them perfect. Gastric bypass is such a complicated procedure that the learning curve may require 500 cases for a surgeon to master the procedure. Risk for complications appears to plateau after about 500 cases, with the lowest risk found among surgeons who had performed more than 600 bypasses. The odds of not making it out alive may be double under the knife of those who had performed less than 75 compared to more than 450, as seen below and at 1:47 in my video.

    So, if you do choose to undergo the operation, I’d recommend asking your surgeon how many procedures they’ve done, as well as choosing an accredited bariatric “Center of Excellence,” where surgical mortality appears to be two to three times lower than non-accredited institutions.

    It’s not always the surgeon’s fault, though. In a report entitled “The Dangers of Broccoli,” a surgeon described a case in which a woman went to an all-you-can-eat buffet three months after a gastric bypass operation. She chose really healthy foods—good for her!—but evidently forgot to chew. Her staples ruptured, and she ended up in the emergency room, then the operating room. They opened her up and found “full chunks of broccoli, whole lima beans, and other green leafy vegetables” inside her abdominal cavity. A cautionary tale to be sure, but perhaps one that’s less about chewing food better after surgery than about chewing better foods before surgery—to keep all your internal organs intact in the first place.

    Even if the surgical procedure goes perfectly, lifelong nutritional replacement and monitoring are required to avoid vitamin and mineral deficits. We’re talking about more than anemia, osteoporosis, or hair loss. Such deficits can cause full-blown cases of life-threatening deficiencies, such as beriberi, pellagra, kwashiorkor, and nerve damage that can manifest as vision loss years or even decades after surgery in the case of copper deficiency. Tragically, in reported cases of severe deficiency of a B vitamin called thiamine, nearly one in three patients progressed to permanent brain damage before the condition was caught.

    The malabsorption of nutrients is intentional for procedures like gastric bypass. By cutting out segments of the intestines, you can successfully impair the absorption of calories—at the expense of impairing the absorption of necessary nutrition. Even people who just undergo restrictive procedures like stomach stapling can be at risk for life-threatening nutrient deficiencies because of persistent vomiting. Vomiting is reported by up to 60% of patients after bariatric surgery due to “inappropriate eating behaviors.” (In other words, trying to eat normally.) The vomiting helps with weight loss, similar to the way a drug for alcoholics called Antabuse can be used to make them so violently ill after a drink that they eventually learn their lesson.

    “Dumping syndrome” can work the same way. A large percentage of gastric bypass patients can suffer from abdominal pain, diarrhea, nausea, bloating, fatigue, or palpitations after eating calorie-rich foods, as they bypass your stomach and dump straight into your intestines. As surgeons describe it, this is a feature, not a bug: “Dumping syndrome is an expected and desired part of the behavior modification caused by gastric bypass surgery; it can deter patients from consuming energy-dense food.

    Doctor’s Note

    This is the second in a four-part series on bariatric surgery. If you missed the first one, see The Mortality Rate of Bariatric Weight-Loss Surgery.

    Up next: Bariatric Surgery vs. Diet to Reverse Diabetes and How Sustainable Is the Weight Loss After Bariatric Surgery?.

    My book How Not to Diet is focused exclusively on sustainable weight loss. Check it out from your local library, or pick it up from wherever you get your books. (All proceeds from my books are donated to charity.)

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    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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  • Bariatric Weight-Loss Surgery and Mortality | NutritionFacts.org

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    Today, death rates after weight-loss surgery are considered to be “very low,” occurring in perhaps 1 in 300 to 1 in 500 patients on average.

    The treatment of obesity has long been stained by the snake-oil swindling of profiteers, hustlers, and quacks. Even the modern field of bariatric medicine (derived from the Greek word baros, meaning “weight”) is pervaded by an “insidious image of sleaze.” Beguiled by advertising for fairy tale magic bullets of rapid, effortless weight loss, people blame themselves for failing to manifest the miracle or imagine themselves metabolically broken. On the other end of the spectrum are overly pessimistic practitioners of the opinion that “people who are fat are born fat, and nothing much can be done about it.” The truth lies somewhere in between.

    The difficulty of curing obesity has been compared to learning a foreign language. It’s an achievement virtually anyone can attain with a sufficient investment of energies, “but it always takes a considerable amount of time and trouble.” And, of those who do stick with it, most will regain much of the weight lost. To me, this speaks to the difficulty, rather than the futility. It may take smokers an average of 30 attempts to finally kick the habit. Like quitting smoking, curing obesity is just something that has to be done. As the chair of the Association for the Study of Obesity put it, it doesn’t take “will power” to do essential tasks like getting up at night to feed a baby; it’s just something that has to be done.

    Our collective response doesn’t seem to match the rhetoric or reality. If obesity is such a “national crisis” reaching alarming proportions, dubbed by the post-9/11 Surgeon General as “every bit as devastating as terrorism,” why has our reaction been so tepid? For example, governments meekly suggest the food industry take “voluntary initiatives to restrict the marketing of less healthy food options to children….” Have we just given up and ceded control?

    Our timid response to the obesity epidemic is encapsulated by a national initiative promulgated by a Joint Task Force of the American Society for Nutrition, Institute of Food Technologists, and International Food Information Council: the “small-changes approach.” Since “small changes are more feasible to achieve,” suggestions include “using mustard instead of mayonnaise” and “eating 1 rather than 2 doughnuts in the morning.” Seems a bit like bringing a butter knife to a gunfight. Proponents of the small-changes approach lament that, unlike other addictions—for example, alcohol, cocaine, gambling, or tobacco—we can’t counsel our obese patients to give up the addictive element completely, as “[n]o one can give up eating.” But just because we have to breathe, doesn’t mean it has to be through the end of a cigarette. And just because we have to eat doesn’t mean we have to eat junk.

    What about bringing a scalpel to the gunfight instead? The use of bariatric surgery has exploded from about 40,000 procedures noted in the first international survey in 1998 to hundreds of thousands performed now every year in the United States alone. The first technique that was developed, the intestinal bypass, involved carving out about 19 feet of intestines. More than 30,000 intestinal bypass operations were performed before we recognized “catastrophic” and “disastrous outcomes” resulted from these procedures. This included protein deficiency-induced liver disease, “which often progressed to liver failure and death.” This inauspicious start is remembered as “one of the dark blots in the history of surgery,” as I discuss in my video The Mortality Rate of Bariatric Weight-Loss Surgery.

    Today, death rates after bariatric surgery are considered “very low,” occurring on average in perhaps 1 in 300 to impacting 1 in 500 patients. The most common procedure is stomach stapling, also known as sleeve gastrectomy, in which most of the stomach is permanently removed. Only a narrow tube of the stomach is left so as to restrict how much food people can eat at any one time. It’s ironic that many patients choose bariatric surgery convinced that, “for them, ‘diets do not work,’” when, in reality, that’s all the surgery may be—an enforced diet. Bariatric surgery can be thought of as a form of internal jaw wiring.

    Gastric bypass, known as Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, is the second most common bariatric surgery. It combines restriction—stapling the stomach into a pouch smaller than a golf ball—with malabsorption by rearranging one’s anatomy to bypass the first part of the small intestine. It appears to be more effective than just cutting out most of the stomach, resulting in a loss of about 63% of excess weight compared to 53% with a gastric sleeve. But gastric bypass carries a greater risk of serious complications. Many are surprised to learn that new “surgical procedures…do not require premarket testing and approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)” and are largely exempt from rigorous regulatory scrutiny.

    Doctor’s Note

    I didn’t know there wasn’t some kind of approval process for new surgical procedures!

    This is the first video in a four-part series on bariatric surgery. Coming up are:

    My book How Not to Diet is focused exclusively on sustainable weight loss. Check it out from your local public library or pick it up from wherever you get your books. (All proceeds from my books are donated to charity.)

     

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    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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  • Integrative Cancer Care: Advanced Solutions

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    Integrative Cancer Care: Summary

    In “Integrative Cancer Care,” host Evan Transue interviews Dr. Akiba Green, a board-certified functional medicine practitioner specializing in integrative cancer care, thyroid dysfunction, autoimmune disease, and chronic illness. Dr. Green discusses his journey into natural medicine, emphasizing the significance of addressing the root causes of disease through advanced diagnostics and personalized treatments. 

    Dr. Green’s path into medicine was shaped by personal experience. As a young athlete, he faced serious health challenges, including a ruptured appendix that nearly cost him his life. After recovering, he became driven to pursue a medical career focused on saving lives in a proactive, empowering way. Initially trained as a Doctor of Chiropractic, he later expanded into naturopathic and functional medicine, seeking deeper answers for patients whose needs were not being met by conventional approaches alone. 

    A central theme of Dr. Green’s work is the belief that cancer and chronic disease arise from a dysfunctional internal environment, or “terrain,” shaped by immune dysregulation, metabolic imbalance, mitochondrial dysfunction, diet, toxins, and lifestyle stressors. While acknowledging that conventional oncology can be effective in certain situations, he emphasizes the importance of addressing the underlying biological environment to improve outcomes and reduce recurrence risk. 

    The episode delves into various diagnostic tests, such as the Grail test and RGCC Onconomics Plus, which are pivotal for early cancer detection and personalized treatment plans. Dr. Green stresses the importance of a holistic approach to cancer care, integrating both conventional treatments like low-dose chemotherapy and innovative natural therapies like IV vitamin infusions, ketogenic diets, and radiofrequency therapy. He addresses controversial topics, such as the efficacy of Ivermectin and the role of sugar in cancer metabolism and shares practical advice on diet and lifestyle changes to mitigate cancer risks. 

    Integrative Cancer Care: Topics

    00:00 Welcome to the Health Detective Podcast

    01:07 Introduction of Dr. Green

    02:33 Dr. Green’s Journey into Natural Medicine

    04:40 The State of Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment

    07:38 The Importance of Early Detection

    13:05 Advanced Screening Tests and Their Benefits

    15:10 The Role of Functional Medicine in Cancer Treatment

    17:23 Practical Advice for Proactive Health Screening

    31:05 Integrative Treatments for Cancer

    31:24 Debunking Cancer Myths

    32:27 The Role of Sugar in Cancer

    32:55 Ketogenic Diet and Cancer

    34:13 Parasites and Cancer

    36:20 Alternative Cancer Treatments

    37:20 Personalized Cancer Treatment Plans

    42:23 The Importance of Diagnostic Testing

    42:54 IV Therapy and Other Treatments

    44:13 Dietary Recommendations for Cancer

    45:50 Audience Questions and Answers

    54:48 Final Thoughts and Encouragement

    Where to Find Dr. Akiba Green

    Go to our Health Detective Podcasts for more informational and functional health-oriented podcasts like this one.

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  • How Healthy Are Baruka Nuts? | NutritionFacts.org

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    How do barukas, also known as baru almonds, compare with other nuts?

    There is a new nut on the market called baru almonds, branded as “barukas” or baru nuts. Technically, it isn’t a nut but a seed native to the Brazilian Savannah, known as the Cerrado, which is now among the most threatened ecosystems on the planet. Over the last 30 years, much of the Cerrado’s ecosystem has been destroyed by extensive cattle ranching and feed crop production to fatten said cattle. If it were profitable not to cut down the native trees and instead sell baru nuts, for example, that could be good for the ecosystem’s health. But what about our health?

    “Although baru nuts are popular and widely consumed, few studies report on their biological properties.” They do have a lot of polyphenol phytonutrients, presumably accounting for their high antioxidant activity. (About 90% of their phytonutrients are present in the peel.) Are they nutritious? Yes, but do they have any special health benefits—beyond treating chubby mice?

    Researchers found that individuals fed baru nuts showed lower cholesterol, supposedly indicating the nuts “have great potential for dietary use” in preventing and controlling cholesterol problems. But the individuals were rats, not humans, and the baru nuts were compared to lard. Pretty much everything lowers cholesterol compared to lard. Nevertheless, there haven’t been any reports about the effect of baru nut consumption on human health, until this: A randomized, controlled study of humans found that eating less than an ounce a day for six weeks led to a 9% drop in LDL cholesterol. Twenty grams would be about 15 nuts or a palmful.

    Like many other nut studies, even though the research subjects were told to add nuts to their regular diets, there was no weight gain, presumably because nuts are so filling that we inadvertently cut down on other foods throughout the day. How good is a 9.4% drop in LDL? It’s the kind of drop we can get from regular almonds, though macadamias and pistachios may work even better, but those were at much higher doses. It appears that 20 grams of baru nuts work as well as 73 grams of almonds. So, on a per-serving basis or a per-calorie basis, baru nuts really did seem to be special.

    There are lower-dose nut studies that show similar or even better results. In this one, for instance, people were given 25 grams of almonds for just four weeks and got about a 6% drop in their LDL cholesterol. In another study, after consuming just 10 grams of almonds a day, or just seven individual almonds a day, study participants got more like a 30% drop in LDL during the same time frame as the baru nuts. Three times better LDL at half the dose with regular almonds, as you can see below and at 2:47 in my video Are Baruka Nuts the Healthiest Nut?.

    The biggest reason we are more confident in regular almonds than baru almonds is that studies have been done over and over in more than a dozen randomized controlled trials, whereas in the only other cholesterol trial of baru nuts, researchers found no significant benefit for LDL cholesterol, even at the same 20-gram dose given for even longer—a period of eight weeks.

    That’s disappointing, but it isn’t the primary reason I would suggest choosing other nuts instead of baru nuts. I would do so because we can’t get raw baru nuts. They contain certain compounds that must be inactivated by heat before we can eat them. The reason raw nuts are preferable is because of advanced glycation end-products (AGEs), so-called glycotoxins, which are known to contribute to increased oxidative stress and inflammation.

    Glycotoxins are naturally present in uncooked animal-derived foods, and dry-heat cooking like grilling can make things worse. The three highest recorded levels have been in bacon, broiled hot dogs, and roasted barbecued chicken skin—nothing even comes close to that, not even Chicken McNuggets, as you can see below and at 3:50 in my video.

    However, any foods high in fat and protein can create AGEs at high enough temperatures. So, although plant foods tend to “contain relatively few AGEs, even after cooking,” there are some high-fat, high-protein plant foods. But, again, AGEs aren’t a problem at all with most plant foods. See the AGE content in boiled tofu (in a soup, for instance), broiled tofu, a raw apple, a baked apple, a veggie burger—I was surprised that veggie burgers are so low in AGEs, even when baked or fried—and nuts and seeds, which are up in tofu territory, especially when roasted, which is why I would recommend raw nuts and seeds and nut and seed butters whenever you have a choice. See below and at 4:33 in my video.

    Doctor’s Note

    In my Daily Dozen checklist, I recommend eating a quarter cup of nuts or seeds or two tablespoons of nut or seed butter each day. Why? See related posts below. 

    For those unfamiliar with advanced glycation end-products (AGEs), check out the first two videos I did on them way back when: Glycotoxins and Avoiding Glycotoxins in Food.

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    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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  • Top 12 New Year, New You, The Must-Have Wellness Products for 2026 

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    Dec 23, 2025

    By Liana Werner-Gray

    The New Year is one of my favorite times to reset  physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally. True healing doesn’t always come from extremes; it comes from consistently giving your body what it actually needs to thrive. These are the wellness tools I personally use and return to year after year because they support detoxification, nervous system balance, digestion, clean living, cellular health, healthy cravings and even make the body inhospitable to cancer. 

    Can you believe I’ve been consistently living the Earth Diet lifestyle now for seventeen years? It’s been the best thing I’ve ever done and I love sharing with you along the way what works and doesn’t work. I am so grateful for healthy I feel and how much energy I have, especially compared to when I rock bottom with my health. Each product for this lineup below aligns with the Earth Diet philosophy: real, high quality ingredients and supporting the body’s natural intelligence to heal itself.

    Disclaimer: When you shop using my links or codes, I may receive a commission that supports my work. I’m so grateful for your support.

     

    1. Berberine – Helps with Sugar Cravings + A GLP1 Alternative!  

    Berberine is especially effective for reducing sugar cravings because it targets blood sugar instability, which is often the real driver behind cravings, not lack of willpower! When blood sugar spikes and then crashes, the brain signals for quick energy in the form of sugar. Berberine helps correct this by:

    • Improving insulin sensitivity, allowing glucose to move efficiently into cells

    • Reducing post-meal blood sugar spikes, preventing crashes

    • Activating AMPK, the body’s metabolic “master switch,” which supports better glucose and fat utilization

    When blood sugar is steady, cravings naturally quiet down.

    Berberine is also gaining attention as a powerful natural GLP-1 alternative because it supports many of the same metabolic pathways as GLP-1 medications—without overriding the body’s natural signals. GLP-1 plays a key role in appetite control and blood sugar regulation, and berberine helps by:

    • Increasing the body’s own GLP-1 production in the gut

    • Slowing carbohydrate absorption in the intestines

    • Reducing excess glucose output from the liver

    • Supporting a healthy gut microbiome, which directly influences appetite hormones

    I need to write an an entire article on the dangers and toxicity of GLP1 and would encourage you all to stay far away from it as it has links to thyroid cancer and blindness. Instead of suppressing appetite artificially, berberine helps the body relearn how to regulate hunger and fullness naturally. Many people notice fewer sugar cravings, feeling satisfied sooner, steadier energy between meals, and less desire to snack late at night. When paired with a clean, whole-food Earth Diet, berberine becomes a powerful plant-based tool for metabolic health supporting balance, sustainability, and long-term wellness rather than quick fixes. 

    Global Healing’s berberine is formulated without fillers, using clean sourcing, made with organic ingredients and use glass packaging! Ideally stay away from supplements in plastic.  

    Berberine is typically taken daily, split into 2–3 doses, and works best when taken with meals or 15–30 minutes before eating, especially before higher-carbohydrate meals. Because it has a short half-life, spreading doses throughout the day helps maintain steady blood-sugar support, improve insulin sensitivity, enhance natural GLP-1 signaling, and reduce sugar cravings. Many people take it with breakfast and lunch, adding dinner if evening cravings or blood-sugar issues are present, and some choose to cycle it for long-term use.

    Berberine is a completely natural compound that comes straight from plants found in nature. It is a yellow, bitter-tasting natural chemical compound (an alkaloid) found in plants including barberry, goldenseal, tree turmeric (berberis aristata), Amur cork tree and Oregon grape. 

    Berberine has a long history of use in traditional Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine for various ailments, particularly infections and digestive issues. 

     

    Popular Potential Uses and Benefits: 

    • Diabetes and Blood Sugar Control: Berberine may help lower blood glucose levels and improve insulin sensitivity in people with type 2 diabetes, with some studies showing effects comparable to the prescription drug metformin.
    • Cholesterol Management: It might help lower total cholesterol, LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, and triglyceride levels, potentially offering an option for patients who cannot tolerate statin medications.
    • Weight Management: Preliminary research suggests berberine may modestly help with weight loss, BMI reduction, and decreased abdominal fat by activating an enzyme (AMPK) that regulates metabolism. It is sometimes informally referred to as “nature’s Ozempic,” though it works differently and its effects are significantly smaller.
    • Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS): It may help improve blood sugar, cholesterol, and hormone levels in women with PCOS.
    • Other Uses: It has also been studied for high blood pressure, certain heart conditions, gut health (by balancing bacteria), and the treatment of canker sores with a topical gel. 

     

    Link: globalhealing.com

    Code: LIANA for 10% off

     

    2. 6-Day Liver Cleanse Kit – by Global Healing 

    Most people need a liver cleanse! Unless you have done an intentional liver cleanse, your liver would most likely benefit from this incredible and easy cleanse. The liver is the body’s primary detox organ, and when it’s overburdened, it affects digestion, hormones, skin, mood, and energy. This liver cleanse supports bile flow, toxin elimination, and overall liver function using organic herbs and whole-food compounds.

    Global Healing is known for exceptionally clean formulations, no fillers, and glass packaging — a big deal when detoxing. This liver cleanse supplement line includes ingredients like organic milk thistle, turmeric, reishi mushroom, dandelion, aloe, peppermint and magnesium. Truly incredible! 

    You do this liver cleanse for just 6 days only, but you get amazing results that will last a lifetime! 

     

    Link: globalhealing.com

    Code: LIANA for 10% off

     

    3. Go Raw Organic Pumpkin Seeds

    Pumpkin seeds are one of the best go-to snacks known to man! Excellent for on-the-go lifestyle and traveling when you need a quick protein boost. Pumpkin seeds are surprisingly high in protein, especially for a WHOLE, plant food. Just ¼ cup (about 30 g) of pumpkin seeds provides 7–9 grams of protein, which is comparable to:

    • 1 large egg (~6–7 g protein)

    • ½ cup cooked quinoa (~4 g)

    • 1 tablespoon peanut butter (~4 g)

    • ¼ cup almonds (~6 g)

    What makes pumpkin seeds stand out is that their protein comes packaged in a real, whole food, not a processed powder. They also contain all nine essential amino acids, making them one of the best plant-based protein sources available.

    Beyond protein, pumpkin seeds are rich in:

    • Magnesium (great for muscles, sleep, and stress)

    • Zinc (immune and hormone support)

    • Healthy fats for satiety and blood sugar balance

    • Fiber to support digestion

    Look for any organic brand! I love Go Raw mbecause they go above and beyond by using organic, sprouted seeds, which improves digestion and nutrient absorption, making them easier on the gut and more bioavailable.

    Sold online and available at most grocery stores and supermarkets.

     

    4. Aloe Vera Juice — (Raw & Unfiltered)

    Aloe 1 is one of the only companies in the U.S. that offers truly raw, unfiltered aloe juice that is flash-frozen at peak freshness with no preservatives or additives. Most aloe products on store shelves are watered down, processed and contain preservatives that reduce aloe’s healing benefits. 
     

    Aloe is one of the most powerful things you can do to support your digestion, reduce inflammation, and has neuroprotective effects that help support mood, focus, and emotional balance especially for anxiety and depression. It’s great for anyone looking to clean out their gut including parasites and bad bacteria (they hate aloe), heal IBS, bloating, Colitis, Crohn’s disease or any gut issue for that matter. If this is you I recommend you doing the Aloe + Silver cleanse for 4-8 weeks or until your gut is healed or improved. Check it out here 

    Alternatively you can drink 8-12 ounces of aloe her day for healing, maintenance, hydration (ladies it is hands down one of the best things we can drink for glowing skin from the inside out).  

    Link to buy the aloe: aloe1.com

    Use this link to receive a complimentary aloe lotion which is so divine, use it daily after you exfoliate shower. It’s great and nourishing especially for sensitive skin. Tip: When you buy the aloe you get 2 x 58 ounce bottles and they come frozen. Put 1 in the freezer and leave one to defrost in the fridge and drink that throughout the week. The aloe will stay fresh in the fridge for 10 days and you can refreeze it if you need. 

     

    5. Redmond Clay

    Bentonite clay has been one of my core healing tools for over 17 years, dating back to when I was very sick and actively healing. I’ve used it internally, in baths, as a face mask, and as a paste on areas needing extra detox support. Bentonite clay works by binding to toxins and heavy metals and drawing them out of the body in a powerful, natural way.

    If you are dealing with ANY GUT ISSUES AT ALL… you have got to try drinking this. Drink it daily for 30 days, just mix 1 teaspoon in a cup of water, or add it to a jar and shake it up and drink. There may be chunks to clay at the bottom, you don’t need to drink those if the texture isn’t for you.  

    It carries a natural negative charge, which attracts positively charged toxins, making it effective for both internal and external detoxification.

    Important note: Never use metal utensils or bowls with bentonite clay. Always use glass, wood, or plastic, as metal can interfere with its strong magnetic detoxifying properties! 

    I recommend getting the loose powder so you can mix it with water, juices or smoothies. You can also make face masks and first aid clay putty with the loose powder, or get the pre-made clay mask tube. Redmond also have a brand new toothpaste that has bentonite clay which is excellent for the gums, teeth and balancing good bacteria in the mouth! 

    You can purchase Redmond on Amazon of course, but if you are able I would really appreciate if you order directly from Redmond’s website as it helps to support my business immensely, and is better for Redmond’s business also. It’s always better to support the businesses website’s directly, however I know Amazon is convenient and I understand that.  

    Link: redmond.life

    Code: LIANA for 15% off

     

    6. RNC Store – Earth Diet Cancer Bundle

    These are the top 3 things I recommend to everyone that make the body inhospitable to cancer. Anyone with cancer, or anyone serious no about preventing cancer, should look into these seriously. This bundle brings together three foundational nutrients I’ve used for years to support detoxification, immune strength, and cellular health. These compounds work at a deep level to nourish the body and support its natural defenses. 

    • B17 (Apricot Seeds / Amygdalin) supports healthy cellular metabolism and encourages the body’s natural ability to identify abnormal cells.

    • Chlorophyll oxygenates the blood, supports liver detoxification, binds to toxins, and helps calm inflammation.

    • Sulforaphane (Broccoli Sprouts) activates detox enzymes, protects DNA, and supports long-term cellular resilience.

    This bundle reflects the core of the Earth Diet — using nature’s most powerful compounds to create an environment where disease cannot thrive.

    Link: rncstore.com/EarthDiet

    Code: LIANA for 10% off

     

    7. Anxiety-Free Supplement

    This is my own formula, created with organic herbs and nutrients that support the nervous system, adrenals, and stress response. The ingredients work together to calm the body, support emotional balance, and help bring the nervous system out of fight-or-flight.

    It’s grounding, nourishing, and designed for daily use without dependency.

    Link: lianasorganics.com

    Amazon: https://www.amazon.com (listed as Ashwagandha Advantage)

     

    8. My Books & Video Courses

    Education is one of the most powerful healing tools we have. My books and video courses were created to give you clear, empowering guidance on how to heal using real food, detox principles, and simple lifestyle changes.

    My four books — The Earth Diet, Cancer-Free with Food, Anxiety-Free with Food, and 10-Minute Recipes — teach how food can be used as medicine, how to reduce toxic load, and how to support the body naturally.

     

    The Earth Diet (The First Book)

    This foundational book introduces the core principles of returning to nature to heal the body. It teaches how to remove modern toxins, eat real food, and support the body’s natural ability to restore balance. The Earth Diet lays the groundwork for all future healing by reconnecting food, lifestyle, and the environment the way nature intended.

    Get it from Amazon here.

     

    10-Minute Recipes

    Created for people who are busy but still want to eat clean and heal. This book proves that nourishing, whole-food meals do not need to be complicated or time-consuming. With a foreword by Dr. Mark Hyman, it makes real-food eating practical, accessible, and sustainable for modern life.

    Get it from Amazon here.

     

    Cancer-Free with Food

    With a foreword by Dr. Mark Hyman and named one of the Top 100 Cancer Books of All Time, this book is packed with science-backed nutrition guidance and over 100 healing recipes. It explains how food can support the body’s natural defenses and cellular health, empowering readers with evidence-based tools for prevention and recovery. 

    Get it from Amazon here.

     

    Anxiety-Free with Food

    Written for those suffering from anxiety, this book reveals the powerful connection between food, gut health, the nervous system, and the brain. It explains the science behind how what we eat directly affects mood, stress response, and mental clarity—offering a natural, food-first approach to calming the body and mind.

    Get it from Amazon here.

     

    My video courses take this deeper, guiding you step-by-step through gut healing, weight balance, detoxification, and full-body resets so you can confidently apply this knowledge to your daily life. These are a great gift to yourself or to your loved ones. 

     

    Natural Healing Course

    A comprehensive course focused on healing the body through detoxification and anti-inflammatory, whole foods. Designed to support overall health and address a wide range of imbalances naturally.

     

    Cancer Healing Course

    A science-informed, food-first approach to supporting the body during cancer recovery and prevention, with a strong focus on detox, cellular health, and nourishment.

     

    Weight Loss Course

    A natural, sustainable weight-loss program that focuses on real food, hormone balance, and reducing inflammation—without extreme dieting or deprivation.

     

    Gut Healing Course

    A targeted course to restore gut health, reduce inflammation, and rebalance digestion, recognizing the gut as the foundation of overall health.

     

    Books: theearthdiet.com/books

    Courses: theearthdiet.com/courses

    9. Healthy Tech Essentials

    Create a non-toxic home by adding these healthy technologies. Reducing daily toxin exposure is one of the fastest ways to support healing, and there is nothing better than living in an amazing healthy environment with clean air and pure water. I give all my clients this checklist to eventually do to create the most amazing healthy home: 

    ✅ Water filter (for entire home or under sink)

    ✅ Shower filter (unless you get an entire home filtration system) 

    ✅ Air purifier 

    ✅ Non-toxic surgical stainless steel cookware 

    ✅ Knives and kitchen utensils made with American stainless steel 

    ✅ Mattress and pillows 

     

    My friend Anna has vetted the best of the best (I’ve also vetted all of these and have created my own non-toxic home). So you can buy all of these in one place, from Anna’s company “Healthy Tech”. You can either call Anna here 7543363394 she is very enthusiastic about these products and can explain the science of them in detail, or you can check them out on her website below… 

    Code: LIANA for 10% off 

     

    Shower Filter — reduces chlorine and heavy metals 

    Info: https://www.healthytechs.com/shower-filter

    To order: https://www.healthytechs.com/product-page/shower-filter

     

    Cookware — avoids chemical coatings and endocrine disruptors 

    Info: https://www.healthytechs.com/cookware
    To order: https://www.healthytechs.com/product-page/cookware

     

    Water Filter — provides clean, mineral-balanced drinking water

    Info: https://www.healthytechs.com/under-sink-water-filter
    To order: https://www.healthytechs.com/product-page/under-sink-water-filter

     

    Air Purifier — removes indoor pollutants, mold, and allergens

    Info: https://www.healthytechs.com/air-surface-pro
    To order: https://www.healthytechs.com/product-page/air-surface-pro

     

    Cutlery
    Info: https://www.healthytechs.com/cutlery
    To order: https://www.healthytechs.com/product-page/cutlery

     

    Grounding Mattress

    Info: https://www.healthytechs.com/grounding-mattress

    To order: https://www.healthytechs.com/product-page/grounding-mattress

     

    10. Nama Cold-Press Juicer

    One of the most impactful things you can do for your health is drink fresh juice daily — and a quality juicer makes all the difference. Fresh green juice is like a liquid IV for the body, delivering hydration, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and phytonutrients in their most absorbable form.

    Nama is the highest cold-pressed juicing technology that currently exists on the market. Everyone I know is so happy with their Nama juicer and the joy it brings to their home, plus clean up is so happy! Cold-pressed juicing also preserves enzymes and nutrients far better than blending, which means your body actually gets the full benefit. My go-to daily juice — celery, cucumber, broccoli sprouts, lemon, and ginger — supports digestion, reduces inflammation, boosts immunity, and keeps skin glowing.

    Link: https://namawell.com

    Code: LIANA for 10% off

     

    11. Signal Relief Patches

    These natural pain patches help ease muscle tension and discomfort without chemicals or medications. I use them on my neck, shoulders, and lower back after travel or long workdays. Many people also find relief using them for headaches, migraines, and post-surgery recovery.

    The patches work through bioelectric signaling, helping interrupt pain signals and allowing the body to naturally release tension. If you or anyone you love experience any physical pain these are a MUST TRY! 

    Cool to note: If they don’t work for you they have a full money back guarantee within 45 days. These patches don’t work for a small amount of people less than 5% because of their biological makeup. But if you are in pain and you are in the 95% you will be so relieved and overjoyed, I’ve seen people in tears over the relief these patches can bring.

    Link: signalrelief.com

    Code: LIANA for $15 off

     

    12. Organic Mattress and Sofa — The Futon Shop

    Did you know that if your mattress isn’t organic, that you are actually breathing in petrochemicals every single night? If your sofa isn’t organic, the same thing you are breathing in invisible petrochemicals every time you are in the living room. I am not saying this to cause fear, but to empower you. Because many people have health issues like weakened immunity, breathing issues, allergies, skin inflammation and more just because of what they are breathing in their home environment, and when you know this it can be empowering to make some changes in your home. 
     

    A petrochemical is a chemical substance made from petroleum (crude oil) or natural gas. These chemicals are used to create plastics, synthetic fabrics, foams, solvents, pesticides, and many household products— including synthetic mattresses, carpets, and furniture. When these materials break down or off-gas, they can release fumes that affect air quality and health.

    Breathing in petrochemicals nightly can irritate the lungs and airways, disrupt sleep, and contribute to headaches, brain fog, and nervous system stress. Long-term exposure has been linked to hormone disruption, increased inflammation, and a higher toxic load on the liver as the body works to detoxify these compounds. Over time, this chronic exposure may weaken immune function and increase the risk of respiratory issues and chemical sensitivities.

    Sleeping on natural materials helps calm the nervous system and supports deeper, more restorative rest. I have the Royal Mattress with the Royal Topper, and it feels like I am sleeping on a cloud every single night. Sleep is when the body repairs and regenerates. A natural futon mattress supports spinal alignment, grounding, and breathability without synthetic foams, flame retardants, or off-gassing chemicals.

    Core Natural Materials Used in the Futon Shop Mattresses and Sofas 

    The Futon Shop mattresses and sofas are handcrafted from mainly natural and organic materials rather than synthetic foams or chemicals:  

     

    ✔️ Organic cotton

    • Most futon mattresses use USDA-certified organic cotton batting as the main filling. Cotton is breathable and sustainable.  

    ✔️ Organic wool

    • Some models layer GOTS-certified organic wool with cotton, which adds cushioning, natural flame resistance, and temperature regulation.  

    ✔️ Natural latex (Dunlop)

    • Certain futons include natural Dunlop latex layers (not synthetic foam) for added support and durability.  

    ✔️ Coconut coir or micro-coils (optional)

    • In more supportive versions, natural coconut coir fibers or pocketed micro-coils can be added for firmness and structure.  

    ✔️ Potato-based PLA fiber (in some shiki versions)

    • Some lighter futon styles include PLA fiber derived from potato starch for a softer feel without synthetic materials.  

    🛏️ Cover and Certifications

    • Covers are typically made of organic cotton or GOTS-certified textile, keeping chemical exposure low.  

    • Many materials are certified organic or tested to Oeko-Tex standards.  

     

    Non-Toxic Focus

    The Futon Shop’s mission is to avoid fossil-fuel-based, chemical materials and replace them with natural fibers like cotton, wool, latex, and other renewable resources. Each mattress is designed to be chemical-free and low-off-gassing compared with typical synthetic foam mattresses.  
     

    Link: thefutonshop.com (link to mattress page specifically) 

    And link to sofas: 

    Code: LIANA for 5% off

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  • Can Vegan Fecal Transplants Lower TMAO Levels? | NutritionFacts.org

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    If the microbiome of those eating plant-based diets protects against the toxic effects of TMAO, what about swapping gut flora?

    “Almost 2,500 years ago, Hippocrates stated that ‘All disease begins in the gut.’” When we feed our gut bacteria right with whole plant foods, they feed us right back with beneficial compounds like butyrate, which our gut bugs make from fiber. On the other hand, if we feed them wrong, they can produce detrimental compounds like TMAO, which they make from cheese, eggs, seafood, and other meat.

    We used to think that TMAO only contributed to cardiovascular diseases, like heart disease and stroke, but, more recently, it has been linked to psoriatic arthritis, associated with polycystic ovary syndrome, and everything in between. I’m most concerned about our leading killers, though. Of the top ten causes of death in the United States, we’ve known about its association with increased risk of heart disease and stroke, killers number one and five, but recently, an association has also been found between blood levels of TMAO and the risks of various cancers, which are our killer number two. The link between TMAO and cancer could be attributed to the inflammation caused by TMAO, but it could also be oxidative stress (free radicals), DNA damage, or a disruption in protein folding.

    What about our fourth leading killer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), like emphysema? TMAO is associated with premature death in patients with exacerbated COPD, though it’s suspected that it’s due to them dying from more cardiovascular disease.

    The link to stroke is a no-brainer—no pun intended. It is due to the higher blood pressure associated with higher TMAO levels, as well as the greater likelihood of clots forming in those with atrial fibrillation. Those with higher TMAO levels also appear to have worse strokes and four times the odds of death.

    Killer number six is Alzheimer’s disease. Can TMAO even get up into our brains? Yes, TMAO is present in human cerebrospinal fluid, which bathes the brain, and TMAO levels are higher in those with mild cognitive dysfunction and those with Alzheimer’s disease dementia. “In the brain, TMAO has been shown to induce neuronal senescence [meaning, deterioration with age], increase oxidative stress, impair mitochondrial function, and inhibit mTOR signaling, all of which contribute to brain aging and cognitive impairment.”

    Killer number seven is diabetes, and people with higher TMAO levels are about 50% more likely to have diabetes. Killer number eight is pneumonia, and TMAO predicts fatal outcomes in pneumonia patients even without evident heart disease. Kidney disease is killer number nine, and TMAO is strongly related to kidney function and predicts fatal outcomes there as well. Over a period of five years, more than half of chronic kidney disease patients who started out with average or higher TMAO levels were dead, whereas among those in the lowest third of levels, nearly 90% remained alive.

    How can we lower the TMAO levels in our blood? Because TMAO originates from dietary sources, we could limit our intake of choline- and carnitine-rich foods. They’re so widespread in foods,” though we’re talking about meat, eggs, and dairy. “Therefore, restriction of foods rich in TMA-containing nutrients may not be practical.” Can we just get a vegan fecal transplant? “Vegan donors provided the investigators with a fresh morning fecal sample…”

    If you remember, if you give a vegan a steak, despite all that carnitine, they make almost no TMAO compared to a meat-eater, presumably because the vegan hasn’t been fostering steak-eating bugs in their gut. See below and at 3:40 in my video Can Vegan Fecal Transplants Lower TMAO Levels?.

    Remarkably, even if you give plant-based eaters the equivalent of a 20-ounce steak every day for two months, only about half start ramping up production of TMAO, showing just how far their gut flora has to change. The capacity of veggie feces to churn out TMAO is almost nonexistent. Instead of eating healthier, what about getting some vegan poop?

    In a double-blind, randomized, controlled trial, research subjects either got vegan poop or their own poop back through a hose snaked down their nose, and it didn’t work.

    First of all, the vegans recruited for the study started out making TMAO themselves, in contrast to the other study, where they didn’t make any at all. This may be because the earlier study required the vegans to have been vegan for at least a year, and this study didn’t. So, there wasn’t much of a change in TMAO running through their bodies two weeks after getting the vegan poop, but the vegan poop they got seemed to start out with some capacity to produce TMAO in the first place.

    So, the failure to improve after the vegan fecal transplant “could be related to limited baseline microbiome differences and continuation of an omnivorous diet” after the vegan-donor transplant. What’s the point of trying to reset your microbiome if you’re just going to eat meat? Well, the researchers didn’t want to switch people to a plant-based diet since they knew that alone can change our microbiome, and they didn’t want to introduce any extra factors. The bottom line is that it seems there may not be any shortcuts. We may just have to eat a healthier diet.

    Doctor’s Note

    Want to become a donor? Find out How to Become a Fecal Transplant Super Donor.

    For more on TMAO, check out related posts below. 

    See the microbiome topic page for even more.

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    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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  • The Longevity Blueprint: How to Live Younger, Longer

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    The Longevity Blueprint: Summary

    In this episode, The Longevity Blueprint, host Evan Transue engages with Dr. Jeffrey Gladden, a renowned interventional cardiologist and founder of Gladden Longevity. They delve into Dr. Gladden’s personal health journey, which began in his fifties when he faced significant health challenges including exhaustion, weight gain, anxiety, and depression. Dissatisfied with traditional allopathic solutions, he transitioned into functional and integrative medicine, finding substantial improvements in his health through genetic insights and personalized treatments. 

    Dr. Gladden discusses the importance of a psychospiritual foundation and introduces his methodology for longevity, emphasizing the need for an exponential approach to counteract the exponential nature of aging. He explains five critical areas: life energy, longevity, health, performance, and environment. They touch on practical measures like heart rate variability for assessing parasympathetic tone and stress resilience. 

    Dr. Gladden advocates identifying with a youthful age rather than chronological age to drive proactive health and fitness behaviors. The podcast highlights the forthcoming Gladden Longevity Wingman app, which aims to democratize access to personalized health coaching. For more information, listeners are directed to Gladden Longevity’s website, podcast, and book.

    The Longevity Blueprint: Topics

    00:00 Welcome to the Health Detective Podcast

    01:14 Introducing Dr. Jeffrey Gladden

    02:30 Dr. Gladden’s Personal Health Journey

    04:54 Discovering Functional Medicine

    08:15 The Shift from Sick Care to Health Optimization

    18:05 The Concept of Longevity

    25:40 Optimizing the Nervous System

    26:12 Understanding Longevity and Aging

    27:05 The Importance of Genetics

    27:27 Performance and Training for Longevity

    28:15 The Impact of Environment on Health

    28:42 The Role of Psychospiritual Health

    34:41 Heart Rate Variability and Stress

    38:49 Meditation and Daily Practice

    43:15 Gladden Longevity Services

    45:20 Final Thoughts and Advice

    Where to Find Jeffrey Gladden, MD

    Go to our Health Detective Podcasts for more informational and functional health-oriented podcasts like this one.

    LEARN MORE ABOUT US

    Try FDN for FREE! 

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  • The Science Behind Holiday Feasting—and Why It’s Totally Fine

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    Published December 20, 2025 03:00AM

    I didn’t even like the pie. It was too sweet and store-bought. Still, there I was—standing barefoot in the kitchen, fork in hand, jeans already unbuttoned, eating it straight from the plastic container. I wasn’t hungry, but I was still eating.

    The holiday kitchen is its own ecosystem—spices in the air, the familiar clutter of dishes, the hum of a full house. We eat past the point of hunger, not out of need, but out of something else. Memory. Instinct. Permission.

    Every year, by New Year’s Day, the shame spiral kicks in. I’m left googling “sugar detox,” pricing out gym memberships, and trying to erase the previous three weeks like they were a stain on my progress. I’d spent the last year following a strict training plan—running four miles a day, tracking macros, staying committed to keto. I knew how to stay “on track” and override cravings.

    So why, every winter, did my body—and my resolve—seem to abandon the plan?

    Humans’ Biological Wiring Tells Us to Feast During the Holiday Season

    Ancient rituals honoring the winter solstice centered on feasting and togetherness. The Romans celebrated Saturnalia, which marked the coming winter months and involved an abundance of food and gifts. In early Germanic societies, Yule was a mid‑winter festival spanning multiple days that honored the solstice and welcomed the inevitable gradual return of light. In my Caribbean-American home, it wasn’t a solstice log or a Roman banquet—it was Trinidadian Parang, a Christmas musical celebration dating back to the eighteenth century. Our feast includes indulging in a traditional lime-infused eggnog called punch de crème and meat-filled cornmeal pies called pastelles.

    For most of human history, winter wasn’t just cold—it was dangerous. Food was hard to come by. Energy needed to be conserved. When food was available, we ate it. Not because we were undisciplined, but because survival required it. We evolved in environments of scarcity and unpredictability—what evolutionary biologists call a “feast-or-famine” model. We feasted when conditions allowed.

    Despite the abundance of modern food, our biochemistry hasn’t kept pace. Less light exposure during the winter months shifts your biological clock, throwing off your hormones, mood, and sleep. One of those hormones, serotonin, also drops. Because serotonin is the neurotransmitter that fuels feelings of happiness, having less of it can contribute to low mood. Fatigue is another symptom. This is known as seasonal affective disorder (SAD), or seasonal depression. SAD may create a stronger draw toward carbohydrate‑rich, comforting foods—and weight gain.

    According to a 2023 study, our food and energy intake increases in spring and winter but decreases in summer. Changes in how much food we eat or desire are due to environmental changes (fewer daylight hours) and social influences—like holidays.

    Ambient temperature also affects how much we eat. Colder temperatures increase ghrelin levels (the hormone that makes us feel hungry) and decrease leptin (the hormone that signals feelings of fullness), making us hungrier in the winter. When it’s hot out, leptin production increases, and we eat less.

    These biological responses may still influence our cravings and energy‑storage instincts: craving warmth, calories, and rest may be as much biology’s winter survival plan as modern psychological comfort‑seeking. So when I grew ravenous in the winter, my body wasn’t betraying me. It was remembering biology.

    Modern Diet Culture versus Ancient Wisdom 

    Modern wellness culture tends to treat indulgence like a crime scene. The most obvious example? The “cheat day.” A concept that promises freedom but is built entirely on the idea that pleasure is dangerous unless tightly scheduled. It’s a momentary lifting of restrictions—then back to penance—as if food needs a hall pass.

    A 2025 review suggests that cheat days can lead to an unhealthy relationship with food.

    Christy Harrison, a registered dietitian and author of The Wellness Trap, argues that wellness and diet culture intersect, ultimately robbing people of their well-being. Our dissatisfaction with our bodies, coupled with a toxic relationship with food, is due to a culture that depicts food as something to earn, fear, or justify. What looks like permission is often just control, dressed up as reward.

    During my own health journey, I leaned hard into that logic. A slice of birthday cake meant an extra sprint the next day. Mac and cheese at Friendsgiving? Only if I’d front-loaded with salad the week before. These weren’t decisions based on celebration. They were transactions. Controlled indulgence wrapped in justification. And still, it never really worked the way I wanted it to.

    The problem wasn’t the food. It was the framing.

    The modern “feast” is shame-adjacent and digitally documented. We scroll past plates and captions. We track our intake. We read headlines about guilt-proof recipes and plan our penance before the dessert fork drops. But when you strip away the macros, cheat days and ancient feasts aren’t so different. Both interrupt restriction. Both follow structure. Both mark a deviation from the everyday. The key difference? Ancient feasts were communal. Intentional. Emotional. They weren’t followed by shame—they were followed by storytelling.

    Ancient cultures made room for the feast—and understood its role in resilience. Modern diet culture isolates it, labels it a failure, and markets the fix.

    We don’t need another day of atonement. We need to remember why the feast existed in the first place.

    Not every craving is about calories. Some are about company, or memory, or needing something warm and familiar to take up space in your body when the rest of the world feels cold.

    Research shows that communal eating increases satisfaction and enhances emotional well-being. On the contrary, according to a 2021 study, eating alone, specifically when you don’t actually want to be alone but are forced to do so because you live alone, can fuel depression.

    Kelly McGonigal, health psychologist and author of The Joy of Movement, writes that food is often our most immediate tool for self-soothing. But shame, especially around food, cuts us off from the very things that nourish us emotionally. “Shame isolates us from others and from ourselves,” she writes. “But joy reconnects. Movement, music, shared meals—these are things that bring us back.”

    In community, I forget to be afraid of food. When I’m telling stories over a plate, not tracking every bite, the anxiety lifts. The numbers fall away. The feast becomes what it’s always been: a way back to ourselves.

    It took me years to understand that I wasn’t undoing progress during the holidays. I was participating in a pattern, one my ancestors already knew. These days, I still train. I still run. I still eat with intention. But I no longer treat December as something to survive or erase. I build space around the feast—not as a break from discipline, but as part of it.

    If I know I’m going to a holiday dinner, I don’t starve myself beforehand or punish myself after. I don’t try to “balance the macros” or “earn” the cake. I eat the food because it’s meaningful. I’m not erasing anything. I’m joining something.

    I stack my plate with the things I know will support me—turkey, ham, maybe oxtail if I’m lucky. But now I leave room for the mac and cheese too.

    So no, I’m not detoxing in January. I’m not apologizing for what I ate, or trying to scrub my body clean of memory. I’m not doing penance. I’m practicing recognition.

    And that pie I didn’t like? I wouldn’t eat it again. But I don’t regret it either.

    Want more Outside health stories? Sign up for the Bodywork newsletter. Ready to push yourself? Enter MapMyRun’s You vs. the Year 2025 running challenge.

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  • Is Aflatoxin a Concern? | NutritionFacts.org

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    Is “toxic mold syndrome” a real thing? What do we do about toxic mold contamination of food?

    In recent years, mold has been blamed for all sorts of “vague and subjective” symptoms, but we have little scientific evidence that mold should be implicated. However, this “concept of toxic mold syndrome has permeated the public consciousness,” perpetuated by disreputable predatory practices of those making money testing homes for mold spores or testing people’s urine or blood. But all these tests are said to “further propagate misinformation and inflict unnecessary and often exorbitant costs on patients desperate for a clinical diagnosis, right or wrong, for their constellation of maladies…The continued belief in this myth is perpetuated by those charlatans who believe that measles vaccines cause autism, that homeopathy works, that fluoride in the water should be removed….”

    Mold toxin contamination of food, however, has emerged as a legitimate issue of serious concern, and mycotoxins are perhaps even more important than other contaminants that might make their way into the food supply. Hundreds of different types have been identified, but only one has been classified as a known human carcinogen, and that’s aflatoxin. The ochratoxin I’ve previously discussed is a possible human carcinogen, but we know aflatoxin causes cancer in human beings. In fact, aflatoxins are amongst the most powerful known carcinogens.

    It has been estimated that about a fifth of all liver cancer cases may be attributable to aflatoxins. “Since liver cancer is the third-leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide, and mortality rapidly follows diagnosis, the contribution of aflatoxins to this deadly cancer is significant.” And once aflatoxin makes it into the food, there is almost nothing we can do to remove it. Cooking, for example, doesn’t help. Indeed, as shown below and at 1:50 in my video Should We Be Concerned About Aflatoxin?, once it makes it into crops or into the meat, dairy, and eggs from animals consuming those crops, it’s too late. So, we have to prevent contamination in the first place, which is what we’ve been doing for decades in the United States. Because of government regulations, “companies in developed countries…are ‘always sampling’ for aflatoxin,” resulting in nearly $1 billion in losses every year. That may get even worse if climate change exacerbates aflatoxin contamination in the Midwest Corn Belt.

    So, on a consumer level, it is more of a public health problem in the less industrialized world, such as in African countries, where conditions are ripe and farmers can’t afford to throw away $1 billion in contaminated crops. Aflatoxin remains a public health threat in Africa, Southeast Asia, and rural China, affecting more than half of humanity. This explains why the prevalence of liver cancer in those areas may be 30 times higher, yet it is not a major problem in the United States or Europe.

    Only about 1% of Americans have detectable levels of aflatoxins in their bloodstream. Why not 0%? The U.S. Food and Drug Administration works to ensure that levels of exposure to these toxins are kept as low as practical, not as low as possible. In California, for instance, there has been an increase in “unacceptable aflatoxin levels” in pistachios, almonds, and figs. Unacceptable in Europe, that is, so it affects our ability to export, but not necessarily unacceptable for U.S. consumers, as we allow twice as much aflatoxin contamination.

    Figs are unique since they’re “allowed to fully ripen and semidry on the tree.” This makes them “particularly susceptible to aflatoxin production.” It would be interesting to know about the fig-consuming habits of the 1% of Americans who were positive for the toxin. If figs were to blame, I’d encourage people to diversify their dried fruit consumption, but nuts are so good for us that we really want to keep them in our diets. The cardiovascular health benefits we get from nuts outweigh their carcinogenic effects; nut consumption prevents thousands of strokes and heart attacks for every one case of liver cancer. “Thus, the population health benefits provided by increased nut consumption clearly outweigh the risks associated with increased aflatoxin B1 exposure.”

    So, we’re left with aflatoxin being mostly a problem in the developing world, and, because of that, it “remains a largely and rather shamefully ignored global health issue….” Where attention has been paid, it has been largely driven by the need to meet stringent import regulations on mycotoxin contamination in the richer nations of the world, rather than to protect the billions of people exposed on a daily basis.

    Doctor’s Note

    This is the last video in a four-part series on mold toxins. If you missed the others, check the related posts below. 

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    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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  • Food Lies Exposed

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    Food Lies Exposed: Summary

    In Food Lies Exposed, host Evan Transue interviews Brian Sanders, the filmmaker behind the ‘Food Lies’ documentary and host of the ‘Peak Human’ podcast. Brian discusses his transition from a diet with processed foods to one rich in whole foods and animal products, leading to significant improvements in his health. 

    He attributes much of modern health issues to big industry’s push for high-profit, processed foods, which have low nutrient density compared to whole foods. Sanders emphasizes the importance of bioavailable nutrients, especially those found in animal products, for maintaining health. Referencing historical and scientific perspectives, he argues that whole foods, both plant and animal, provide essential nutrients that modern processed diets lack. 

    The conversation touches on the detrimental effects of low-quality diets and the implementation of the ‘Sapien’ framework, which focuses on aligning diet and lifestyle closer to nature. Additionally, Sanders introduces the Sapien Center in Austin, Texas, which promotes community-based health practices, including access to regenerative agriculture, wellness activities, and social gatherings. The podcast concludes with Sanders advising listeners to radically reduce their intake of processed foods for better health outcomes.

    Food Lies Exposed: Topics

    00:00 Introduction to the Health Detective Podcast

    00:33 Meet Today’s Guest: Brian Sanders

    03:01 Brian’s Health Journey Begins

    05:27 Transformative Dietary Changes

    08:46 The Birth of Food Lies

    11:27 Uncovering Industry Corruption

    17:32 The Influence of Fake Studies

    23:55 Avoiding Diet Fads

    24:30 Personal Diet Journey

    24:51 The Flaws of Diet Extremes

    25:50 Commonalities in Successful Diets

    27:25 The Importance of Whole Foods and Animal Nutrition

    28:37 Case Studies and Personal Anecdotes

    31:43 Nutrient Density and Bioavailability

    34:55 The Problem with Processed Foods

    42:38 The Sapien Center and Community Health

    47:23 Final Thoughts and Signature Question

    Where to Find Brian Sanders

    Go to our Health Detective Podcasts for more informational and functional health-oriented podcasts like this one.

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