Tag: animal protein

Turn Your Passion for Pet Health into Profit with Raw Diets for Dogs: The Way They Were Born to Eat! | Animal Wellness Magazine
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Raw diets for dogs boost health and happiness—earn money partnering with a company that delivers raw meals right to your door!

Dog parents are always looking for the best and healthiest foods for their fur babies. And while there are plenty of options on the market, including tons of trends and fads, the ideal food for any dog is one that meets their ancestral needs. Raw diets for dogs are biologically appropriate and provide our canine companions with everything they need to live healthy, active lives. We Feed Raw is on a mission to bring wholesome, safe, raw food to dogs everywhere, and they’re looking for partners to earn extra income spreading the word about their incredible food!

Complete and Balanced Raw Diets for Dogs: The Way Nature Intended

Dogs flourish on diets rich in raw animal protein, healthy fats, and edible bones. These whole-food ingredients deliver essential vitamins, minerals, and amino acids that:
- Strengthen the immune system
- Sharpen cognitive function
- Support joints and bones
- Promote skin and coat health
- Supply energy
Raw food is highly digestible and nutrient-dense, and many pet parents notice visible improvements when they switch. In fact, in as little as a week, pet parents who switched to We Feed Raw noticed incredible benefits like:
- Visibly healthier skin and coat: 88%
- Improved digestion: 87%
- More mealtime excitement: 86%
- Smaller, firmer, less smelly poops: 96%
- Decrease in allergy symptoms: 79%
Safe Raw Ensures Health and Welfare with Raw Feeding

It’s clear that raw diets have innumerable benefits for dogs, but food safety is a concern. Raw meat can harbor dangerous food-borne pathogens like Salmonella, E. coli, and Listeria.

As such, it’s important to choose raw food from companies that go the extra mile.

At We Feed Raw, safety isn’t an afterthought—it’s built into every step. Recipes start with USDA, human-grade meats sourced from trusted partners who share a commitment to quality and safety. Each batch is carefully treated with high-pressure processing (HPP), a cold-water, high-pressure technology that destroys harmful pathogens without sacrificing nutrition. After processing, meals are flash-frozen to maintain peak freshness and purity, and then every lot is thoroughly tested before leaving the facility.

Help Dogs Thrive Naturally—Become a We Feed Raw Partner Today!

We Feed Raw is on a mission to support better health and wellness for dogs using the freshest, highest-quality ingredients nature has to offer. Every made-in-the-USA recipe is rich in animal protein and nutrients—free from grains, fillers, or unnecessary processing—making it highly digestible and biologically appropriate for dogs. Each meal is AAFCO compliant, complete and balanced, tailored to meet your dog’s unique nutritional needs, and conveniently delivered to your door—free!

We Feed Raw is partnering with pet professionals, including veterinarians, groomers, trainers, rescues, and breeders, who want to earn income while sharing the news about the healthiest, tastiest, safest raw diets for dogs. As a We Feed Raw partner, you’ll get access to:
- Product samples
- Digital or physical postcards
- Strategic discount to offer your audience
- Competitive commission
Interested in seeing the difference the right diet can make for dogs? Learn more about partnering with We Feed Raw and help spread the word while earning extra cash!

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Animal Wellness is North America’s top natural health and lifestyle magazine for dogs and cats, with a readership of over one million every year. AW features articles by some of the most renowned experts in the pet industry, with topics ranging from diet and health related issues, to articles on training, fitness and emotional well being.
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Animal Wellness

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November 13, 2025
How much protein do you really need? Use this calculator to find out

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If you’ve been in a grocery store or on social media recently, it’s no secret — we’re in the midst of a protein craze. We spoke with Good Housekeeping’s Nutrition Director and registered dietitian Stefani Sassos about the trend and what protein products are actually worth buying.So, why the buzz? Three factors contribute to protein’s popularity, said Sassos: the increase in use of GLP-1s and weight management; women in menopause and peri-menopause; and the influx of protein on social media. Protein has always been part of a healthy diet. Protein helps build and repair muscle, balance hormones and balance blood sugar levels. Recently, protein has popped up in unusual places — like popcorn, pasta, ice cream, candy and even Starbucks’ new Protein Cold Foam coffee. It may be tempting to add these flashy new items into your cart, but Sassos recommends looking at the ingredients list first to see if they’re minimal, whole foods.”Make sure it’s not crowding out fiber or other important nutrients that you should be getting into your diet,” Sassos said. “Protein doesn’t negate added sugar, so make sure you’re keeping the added sugar in your snacks or any of your packaged foods in check.” What protein-rich foods are worth buying?When looking for protein-rich foods, here’s a trick: you can keep a protein-to-calorie ratio of 10 grams of protein for every 100 to 150 calories. The best protein-rich foods are going to be lean meats like chicken breast, lean ground beef and fish. Dairy products like yogurt and cottage cheese are a great source of protein. For an extra protein boost, Sassos recommends skyr, an Icelandic soft cheese similar to yogurt, which has 17 grams of protein per serving.Plant-based protein foods like lentils, oats and peas provide a good amount of protein and fiber. How much protein do you actually need?For most people, the minimum daily Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for protein is 0.36 grams of protein per pound of body weight.Use the calculator below to find out how much protein you need.Is it possible to eat too much protein? Sassos said excessive amounts of protein may have a negative impact on your health. Excessive protein could lead to issues with the kidneys, especially if you have preexisting renal issues. Another issue with high-protein diets is that people can lean heavily on highly processed meats like bacon or hot dogs. Focusing solely on protein could crowd out other valuable nutrients in your diet, like fiber and healthy fats. “Protein works incredibly in whole foods with the nutrient synergy of all the other vitamins and minerals and healthy fats inside it,” Sassos said. “So if you can have your protein in whole food form, not only is it going to be more beneficial, but you’re going to get this explosion in nutritional symphony.”

If you’ve been in a grocery store or on social media recently, it’s no secret — we’re in the midst of a protein craze.

We spoke with Good Housekeeping’s Nutrition Director and registered dietitian Stefani Sassos about the trend and what protein products are actually worth buying.

So, why the buzz?

Three factors contribute to protein’s popularity, said Sassos: the increase in use of GLP-1s and weight management; women in menopause and peri-menopause; and the influx of protein on social media.

Protein has always been part of a healthy diet. Protein helps build and repair muscle, balance hormones and balance blood sugar levels.

Recently, protein has popped up in unusual places — like popcorn, pasta, ice cream, candy and even Starbucks’ new Protein Cold Foam coffee.

It may be tempting to add these flashy new items into your cart, but Sassos recommends looking at the ingredients list first to see if they’re minimal, whole foods.

“Make sure it’s not crowding out fiber or other important nutrients that you should be getting into your diet,” Sassos said. “Protein doesn’t negate added sugar, so make sure you’re keeping the added sugar in your snacks or any of your packaged foods in check.”

What protein-rich foods are worth buying?

When looking for protein-rich foods, here’s a trick: you can keep a protein-to-calorie ratio of 10 grams of protein for every 100 to 150 calories.

The best protein-rich foods are going to be lean meats like chicken breast, lean ground beef and fish.

Dairy products like yogurt and cottage cheese are a great source of protein. For an extra protein boost, Sassos recommends skyr, an Icelandic soft cheese similar to yogurt, which has 17 grams of protein per serving.

Plant-based protein foods like lentils, oats and peas provide a good amount of protein and fiber.

How much protein do you actually need?

For most people, the minimum daily Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for protein is 0.36 grams of protein per pound of body weight.

Use the calculator below to find out how much protein you need.

Is it possible to eat too much protein?

Sassos said excessive amounts of protein may have a negative impact on your health. Excessive protein could lead to issues with the kidneys, especially if you have preexisting renal issues.

Another issue with high-protein diets is that people can lean heavily on highly processed meats like bacon or hot dogs.

Focusing solely on protein could crowd out other valuable nutrients in your diet, like fiber and healthy fats.

“Protein works incredibly in whole foods with the nutrient synergy of all the other vitamins and minerals and healthy fats inside it,” Sassos said. “So if you can have your protein in whole food form, not only is it going to be more beneficial, but you’re going to get this explosion in nutritional symphony.”

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November 4, 2025
Eating to Help Control Cancer Metastasis | NutritionFacts.org

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Randomized controlled trials show that lowering saturated fat intake can lead to improved breast cancer survival.

The leading cause of cancer-related death is metastasis. Cancer kills because cancer spreads. The five-year survival rate for women with localized breast cancer is nearly 99 percent, for example, but that falls to only 27 percent in women with metastasized cancer. Yet, “our ability to eﬀectively treat metastatic disease has not changed signiﬁcantly in the past few decades…” The desperation is evident when there are such papers as “Targeting Metastasis with Snake Toxins: Molecular Mechanisms.”

We have built-in defenses, natural killer cells that roam the body, killing off budding tumors. But, as I’ve discussed, there’s a fat receptor called CD36 that appears to be essential for cancer cells to spread, and these cancer cells respond to dietary fat intake, but not all fat.

CD36 is upregulated by palmitic acid, as much as a 50-fold increase within 12 hours of consumption, as shown below and at 1:13 in my video How to Help Control Cancer Metastasis with Diet.

Palmitic acid is a saturated fat made from palm oil that can be found in junk food, but it is most concentrated in meat and dairy. This may explain why, when looking at breast cancer mortality and dietary fat, “there was no difference in risk of breast-cancer-speciﬁc death…for women in the highest versus the lowest category of total fat intake,” but there’s about a 50 percent greater likelihood of dying of breast cancer with higher intake of saturated fat. Researchers conclude: “These meta-analyses have shown that saturated fat intake negatively impacts breast cancer survival.”

This may also explain why “intake of high-fat dairy, but not low-fat dairy, was related to a higher risk of mortality after breast cancer diagnosis.” If a protein in dairy, like casein, was the problem, skim milk might be even worse, but that wasn’t the case. It’s the saturated butterfat, perhaps because it triggered that cancer-spreading mechanism induced by CD36. Women who consumed one or more daily servings of high-fat dairy had about a 50 percent higher risk of dying from breast cancer.

We see the same with dairy and its relationship to prostate cancer survival. Researchers found that “drinking high-fat milk increased the risk of dying from prostate cancer by as much as 600% in patients with localized prostate cancer. Low-fat milk was not associated with such an increase in risk.” So, it seems to be the animal fat, rather than the animal protein, and these findings are consistent with analyses from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (HPFS) and the Physicians’ Health Study (PHS), conducted by Harvard researchers.

There is even more evidence that the fat receptor CD36 is involved. The “risk of colorectal cancer for meat consumption” increased from a doubling to an octupling—that is, the odds of getting cancer multiplied eightfold for those who carry a specific type of CD36 gene. So, “Is It Time to Give Breast Cancer Patients a Prescription for a Low-Fat Diet?” A cancer diagnosis is often referred to as a ‘teachable moment’ when patients are motivated to make changes to their lifestyle, and so provision of evidence-based guidelines is essential.”

In a randomized, prospective, multicenter clinical trial, researchers set out “to test the effect of a dietary intervention designed to reduce fat intake in women with resected, early-stage breast cancer,” meaning the women had had their breast cancer surgically removed. As shown below and at 4:02 in my video, the study participants in the dietary intervention group dropped their fat intake from about 30 percent of calories down to 20 percent, reduced their saturated fat intake by about 40 percent, and maintained it for five years. “After approximately 5 years of follow-up, women in the dietary intervention group had a 24% lower risk of relapse”—a 24-percent lower risk of the cancer coming back—“than those in the control group.”

That was the WINS study, the Women’s Intervention Nutrition Study. Then there was the Women’s Health Initiative study, where, again, women were randomized to lower their fat intake down to 20 percent of calories, and, again, “those randomized to a low-fat dietary pattern had increased breast cancer overall survival. Meaning: A dietary change may be able to influence breast cancer outcome.” What’s more, not only was their breast cancer survival significantly greater, but the women also experienced a reduction in heart disease and a reduction in diabetes.

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Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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July 10, 2025
Foods That Disrupt Our Microbiome | NutritionFacts.org

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Eating a diet filled with animal products can disrupt our microbiome faster than taking an antibiotic.

If you search online for “Crohn’s disease and diet” or “ulcerative colitis and diet,” the top results are a hodgepodge of conflicting advice, as you can see below and at 0:15 in my video Preventing Inflammatory Bowel Disease with Diet.

What does science say? A systematic review of the medical literature on dietary intake and the risk of developing inflammatory bowel disease finds that Crohn’s disease is associated with the intake of fat and meat, whereas dietary fiber and fruits appear protective. The same associations are seen with ulcerative colitis, the other major inflammatory bowel disease—namely, increased risk with fat and meat, and a protective association with vegetable intake.

Why, according to this meta-analysis of nine separate studies, do meat consumers have about a 50 percent greater risk for inflammatory bowel disease? One possibility is that meat may be a vehicle for bacteria that play a role in the development of such diseases. For instance, meat contains “huge amounts of Yersinia.” It’s possible that antibiotic residues in the meat itself could be theoretically mucking with our microbiome, but Yersinia are so-called psychotropic bacteria, meaning they’re able to grow at refrigerator temperatures, and they’ve been found to be significantly associated with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). This supports the concept that Yersinia infection may be a trigger of chronic IBD.

Animal protein is associated with triple the risk of inflammatory bowel disease, but plant protein is not, as you can see below and at 1:39 in my video. Why? One reason is that animal protein can lead to the formation of toxic bacterial end products, such as hydrogen sulfide, the rotten egg gas. Hydrogen sulfide is not just “one of the main malodorous compounds in human flatus”; it is a “poison that has been implicated in ulcerative colitis.” So, if you go on a meat-heavy, low-carb diet, we aren’t talking just about some “malodorous rectal ﬂatus,” but increased risk of irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel syndrome (ulcerative colitis), and eventually, colorectal cancer.

Hydrogen sulfide in the colon comes from sulfur-containing amino acids, like methionine, that are concentrated in animal proteins. There are also sulfites added as preservatives to some nonorganic wine and nonorganic dried fruit, but the sulfur-containing amino acids may be the more important of the two. When researchers gave people increasing quantities of meat, there was an exponential rise in fecal sulfides, as seen here and at 2:37 in my video.

Specific bacteria, like Biophilia wadsworthia, can take this sulfur that ends up in our colon and produce hydrogen sulfide. Eating a diet based on animal products, packed with meat, eggs, and dairy, can specifically increase the growth of this bacteria. People underestimate the dramatic effect diet can have on our gut bacteria. As shown below and at 3:12 in my video, when people are given a fecal transplant, it can take three days for their microbiome to shift. Take a powerful antibiotic like Cipro, and it can take a week. But if we start eating a diet heavy in meat and eggs, within a single day, our microbiome can change—and not for the better. The bad bacterial machinery that churns out hydrogen sulfide can more than double, and this is consistent with the thinking that “diet-induced changes to the gut microbiota [flora] may contribute to the development of inflammatory bowel disease.” In other words, the increase in sulfur compounds in the colon when we eat meat “is not only of interest in the field of flatology”—the study of human farts—“but may also be of importance in the pathogenesis of ulcerative colitis…”

Doctor’s Note:

This is the first in a three-part video series. Stay tuned for The Best Diet for Ulcerative Colitis Treatment and The Best Diet for Crohn’s Disease Treatment.

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Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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May 13, 2025
What About Animal Protein and Vegetarians’ Stroke Risk? | NutritionFacts.org

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Might animal protein-induced increases in the cancer-promoting growth hormone IGF-1 help promote brain artery integrity?

In 2014, a study on stroke risk and dietary protein found that greater intake was associated with lower stroke risk and, further, that the animal protein appeared particularly protective. Might that help explain why, as shown in the graph below and at 0:31 in my video Vegetarians and Stroke Risk Factors: Animal Protein?, vegetarians were recently found to have a higher stroke rate than meat eaters?

Animal protein consumption increases the levels of a cancer-promoting growth hormone in the body known as IGF-1, insulin-like growth factor 1, which “accelerates the progression of precancerous changes to invasive lesions.” High blood concentrations are associated with increased risks of breast, colorectal, lung, and prostate cancers, potentially explaining the association between dairy milk intake and prostate cancer risk, for example. However, there are also IGF-1 receptors on blood vessels, so perhaps IGF-1 promotes cancer and brain artery integrity.

People who have strokes appear to have lower blood levels of IGF-1, but it could just be a consequence of the stroke rather than the cause. There weren’t any prospective studies over time until 2017 when researchers found that, indeed, higher IGF-1 levels were linked to a lower risk of stroke—but is it cause and effect? In mice, the answer seems to be yes, and in a petri dish, IGF-1 appears to boost the production of elastin, a stretchy protein that helps keep our arteries elastic. As you can see in the graph below and at 1:41 in my video, higher IGF-1 levels are associated with less artery stiffness, but people with acromegaly, like Andre the Giant, those with excessive levels of growth hormones like IGF-1, do not appear to have lower stroke rates, and a more recent study of dietary protein intake and risk of stroke that looked at a dozen studies of more than half a million people (compared to only seven studies with a quarter million in the previous analysis), found no association between dietary protein intake and the risk of stroke. If anything, dietary plant protein intake may decrease the risk of stroke.

However, those with high blood pressure who have low IGF-1 levels do appear to be at increased risk of developing atherosclerosis, which is the thickening of the artery walls leading up to the brain, but no such association was found in people with normal blood pressure. So, there may be “a cautionary lesson for vegans” here. Yes, a whole food, plant-based diet “can down-regulate IGF-1 activity” and may slow the human aging process, not to mention reduce the risk of some of the common cancers that plague the Western world. But, “perhaps the ‘take-home’ lesson should be that people who undertake to down-regulate IGF-1 activity [by cutting down on animal protein intake] as a pro-longevity measure should take particular care to control their blood pressure and preserve their cerebrovascular health [the health of the arteries in their brain] – in particular, they should keep salt intake relatively low while insuring an ample intake of potassium” to keep their blood pressures down. So, that means avoiding processed foods and avoiding added salt, and, in terms of potassium-rich foods, eating beans, sweet potatoes, and dark-green leafy vegetables.

Might this explain the higher stroke risk found among vegetarians? No—because dairy and egg whites are animal proteins, too. Only vegans have lower IGF-1 levels in both men and women, so low levels of IGF-1 can’t explain why higher rates of stroke were found in vegetarians. Then what is it? I think the best explanation for the mystery is something called homocysteine, which I cover next.

If you aren’t familiar with IGF-1, my videos Flashback Friday: Animal Protein Compared to Cigarette Smoking and How Not to Die from Cancer are good primers.

Beyond eating a plant-based diet, how else can we lower our blood pressure? Check out the chapter of hypertension in my book How Not to Die at your local public library.

This is the eighth video in a 12-part series on vegetarians’ stroke risk. If you missed any of the previous ones, check out the related posts below.

Coming up, we turn to what I think is actually going on:

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Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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September 3, 2024
Circadian Rhythms and Our Health and Weight | NutritionFacts.org

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Given the power of chronotherapy—how the same dose of the same drugs taken at a different time of day can have such different effects—it’s no surprise that chronoprevention approaches, like meal timing, can also make a difference.

The 2017 Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded for “elucidating molecular mechanisms of the circadian clock,” our internal clock. For billions of years, life on Earth evolved to a 24-hour cycle of light and dark, so it’s no surprise our bodies are finely tuned to that pattern. But, even when we’re in total darkness without any external time cues, our body continues to cycle in about a 24-hour circadian rhythm. You can even take tissue biopsies from people and show the cells continue to cycle outside the body in a petri dish. Nearly every tissue and organ in our body has its internal clock.

An intricate system of intrinsic clocks drives not only some of our behavioral patterns, such as eating, fasting, sleeping, and wakefulness, but it also drives our internal physiology—our “body temperature, blood pressure, hormone production, digestion, and immune activity.” Most of the genes in our body “exhibit daily fluctuations in expression levels, making the circadian expression rhythms the largest known regulatory network in normal physiology,” the biggest regulatory system in our body. This cycling is thought to allow for a level of “‘predictability’ and ‘functional division of labor’” so that each of our body processes can run at the best time. At night while we’re sleeping, a whole array of internal housekeeping activities can be switched on, for example, and as dawn approaches, our body can shift back into activity mode.

Anyone who’s ever had jet lag knows what throwing off our cycle by even just a few hours can do, but now we know our circadian rhythms can be the difference between life and death. A study of more than 14,000 self-poisonings found that those who tried committing suicide in the morning were more than twice as likely to die than those who ingested the same dose in the evening. In the same vein, properly timed chemotherapy can not only end up being five times less toxic but also twice as effective against cancer. The same drugs, at the same dose, but with different effects depending on the time they’re given. Our body absorbs, distributes, metabolizes, and eliminates what we ingest differently, depending on when it is during the 24-hour cycle, as you can see below and at 2:19 in my video Chronobiology: How Circadian Rhythms Can Control Your Health and Weight.

We’re just beginning to figure out the optimal timing for different medications. Randomize people suffering from hypertension into taking their blood pressure pills at bedtime instead of in the morning, and not only does the bedtime group achieve better blood pressure control and suffer fewer heart attacks and strokes, but they cut their risk of death in half. (Yet, most physicians and pharmacists tell patients to take them in the morning, potentially doubling their risk of death.) If chronotherapy—the optimal timing of drugs—can have such an impact, maybe it should come as no surprise that chronoprevention—the scheduling of lifestyle interventions like mealtimes—can also make a difference.

In the official Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics position paper on effective treatments for obesity, importance is placed not only on the quantity but also on the timing of caloric intake. “Potentially consuming more energy [calories] earlier in the day, rather than later in the day, can assist with weight management.” Some have gone further and even characterized obesity as a “chronobiological illness.” What evidence do we have to back up these kinds of claims?

Well, the “timing of energy [caloric] and nutrient intake has shifted slightly over time, with a greater proportion of intake later in the day,” raising the question about a possible role in the rise of obesity. Middle-aged men and women who eat a greater share of daily calories in the morning do seem to gain less weight over time, and a study entitled “Timing of Food Intake Predicts Weight Loss Effectiveness” found that dieters eating their main meal earlier in the day seemed to steadily lose more weight than those eating their main meal later, as you can see in the graph below and at 4:12 in my video.

The obvious explanation for these findings would just be that those who eat later also tend to eat more. And, indeed, there does seem to be a relationship between when people eat most of their calories and how many calories they end up eating over the entire day, with those eating a greater proportion in the morning eating less overall. Maybe later eaters are overeating junk on the couch watching primetime TV? A tendency has been found for night owls to consume more fast food and soda, and fewer fruits and vegetables. In the field of social psychology, there is a controversial concept called “ego depletion,” where self-control is viewed as a limited resource, like a muscle that can become fatigued from overuse. As the day wears on, the ability to resist unhealthy food choices may decline, leaving one vulnerable to temptation. So, is it just a matter of later eating leading to greater eating?

In the study I mentioned above where earlier eaters steadily lost more weight, to the researchers’ surprise, the early eaters ate as much as the late eaters, despite the difference in weight-loss magnitude. By the end of the 20-week study, the early eaters ended up about five pounds lighter than the late eaters, even though the two groups ate the same amount of food. There didn’t seem to be any difference in physical activity between the two groups either. Could it be that just the timing itself of caloric intake matters? Scientists decided to put it to the test, which we’ll cover next.

Wasn’t that chemo data wild?

If you are on blood pressure medications, please share this video with your physician and ask if your timing is optimized.

We kicked off this chronobiology series by looking into the importance of breakfast when it comes to weight loss. In case you missed those videos, see Friday Favorites: Is Breakfast the Most Important Meal for Weight Loss, or Should It Be Skipped?.

For more on this topic, check out the related posts below.

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Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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April 9, 2024
A Look at the 5:2 Diet and the Fasting-Mimicking Diet | NutritionFacts.org

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What are the effects of eating only five days a week or following a fasting-mimicking diet five days a month?

Instead of eating every other day, what if you ate five days a week and fasted for the other two? As I discuss in my video The 5:2 Diet and the Fasting-Mimicking Diet Put to the Test, the available data are similar to that of alternate-day fasting: About a dozen pounds of weight loss was reported in overweight men and also reported in overweight women over six months, with no difference found between participants on the 5:2 intermittent fasting regimen and those on a continuous 500-calories-a-day restriction. The largest trial to date found an 18-pound weight loss within six months in the 5:2 group, which isn’t significantly different from the 20 pounds lost in the continuous calorie restriction group. Weight maintenance over the subsequent six months was also found to be no different.

Though feelings of hunger may be more pronounced on the 5:2 pattern than on an equivalent level of daily calorie cutting, it does not seem to lead to overeating on non-fasting days. One might expect going two days without food may negatively impact mood, but no such adverse impact was noted for those fully fasting on zero calories or sticking to just two packets of oatmeal on each of the “fasting” days. (The oatmeal provides about 500 calories a day.) Like alternate-day fasting, the 5:2 fasting pattern appeared to have inconsistent effects on cognition and on preserving lean mass, and it also failed to live up to the “popular notion” that intermittent fasting would be “easier” to adhere to than daily calorie restriction.

Compared to those in the continuous-restriction control group, fewer subjects in the 5:2 pattern group expressed interest in continuing their diet after the study was over. This was attributed to quality-of-life issues, with 5:2 fasting participants citing headaches, lack of energy, and difficulty fitting the fasting days into their weekly routine. However, as you can see below and at 1:53 in my video, there has yet to be a single 5:2 diet study showing elevated LDL cholesterol compared with continuous calorie restriction at six months. Nor has it been shown for a year. This offers a potential advantage over alternate-day regimens.

Instead of 5:2, what about 25:5, spending five consecutive days a month on a “fasting-mimicking diet” (FMD)? Longevity researcher Valter Longo designed a five-day meal plan to try to simulate the metabolic effects of fasting by being low in protein, sugars, and calories with zero animal protein and zero animal fat. By making the diet plant-based, he hoped to lower the level of the cancer-promoting growth hormone IGF-1. He indeed accomplished this goal, along with a drop in markers of inflammation, after three cycles of his five-days-a-month program, as you can see below and at 2:33 in my video.

One hundred men and women were randomized to consume his fasting-mimicking diet for five consecutive days per month or maintain their regular diet the whole time. As you can see in the graph below and at 2:47 in my video, after three months, the FMD group was down about six pounds compared to the control group, with significant drops in body fat and waist circumference, accompanied by a drop in blood pressure.

Those who were the worst off accrued the most dramatic benefits, as seen in the graph below and at 3:04 in my video. What’s even wilder is that three further months after completion, some of the benefits appeared to persist, suggesting the effects “may last for several months.” It’s unclear, though, if those randomized to the FMD group used it as an opportunity to make positive lifestyle changes that helped maintain some of the weight loss.

Dr. Longo created a company to market his meal plan commercially, but, to his credit, says “he does not receive a salary or a consulting fee from the company…and will donate 100% of his shares to charity.” The whole diet appears to be mostly dehydrated soup mixes, herbal teas like hibiscus and chamomile, kale chips, nut-based energy bars, an algae-based DHA supplement, and a multivitamin dusted with vegetable powder. Why spend 50 dollars a day on a few processed snacks when you could instead eat a few hundred calories a day of real vegetables?

How interesting was that? All-you-can-eat above-ground vegetables for five days would have the same low amount of protein, sugars, and calories with zero animal protein or animal fat. But we’ll probably never know if it works as well, better, or worse because it’s hard to imagine such a study ever getting done without the financial incentive.

To learn more about IGF-1, see my video Flashback Friday: Animal Protein Compared to Cigarette Smoking.

In this series on fasting, I’ve covered several topics, including the basics of calories and weight loss, water-only fasting, and the types of alternate-day fasting, see them all in the related videos below.

I close out the series with videos on time-restricted eating: Time-Restricted Eating Put to the Test and The Benefits of Early Time-Restricted Eating.

If you want all of the videos in one place, I’ve done three webinars on fasting—Intermittent Fasting, Fasting for Disease Reversal, and Fasting and Cancer—and they’re all available for download now.

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Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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February 15, 2024
Plant-Based Meats and Our Health | NutritionFacts.org

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According to the United Nations, meat and dairy production would need to be doubled to meet the predicted demand for animal-based proteins in 2050, but the opposite is required to contain the ecological damage. As I discuss in my video The Environmental Impacts of Plant-Based Meat Substitutes, if we have any chance of sustainably meeting future food needs, we must lower our meat consumption. The largest barrier to following a plant-based diet may simply be meat appreciation.

Enter plant-based meats.

Alt-Meat and Our Planet

Before we dive into the health profile of plant-based meats, let’s look at their impact on the health of our environment. Both the Beyond Burger and the Impossible Burger have had environmental lifecycle assessments published by reputable groups, and, indeed, switching to either one of those meat-free meat alternatives results in 90 percent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, land use, and water footprints. Similar analyses have been performed on more than 50 different plant-based meats, and they’ve all been found to be vastly more sustainable.

Is Plant-Based Meat Healthy?

We have to ask: Compared to what? Food is a zero sum game. Each time we eat, there’s an opportunity cost, a lost opportunity to put something even healthier in our mouth. For example, are eggs healthy? Yes, when compared to a breakfast sausage link, but not when compared to oatmeal.

Plant-based meat alternatives are no match for unprocessed plant foods, such as beans or lentils, and a bean burrito or lentil soup could certainly fill the same culinary niche as a lunchtime burger. But, if you are going to have some kind of burger, it’s easy to argue that the plant-based versions are healthier.

Is Beyond Meat Healthy? Is Impossible Meat Healthy?

Four of the worst components of the food supply are cholesterol, trans fats, saturated fat, and sodium. As I discuss in my video Are Beyond Meat and the Impossible Burger Healthy?, plant-based meat wins hands down against animal-based meat when it comes to cholesterol and trans fat. Trans fat intake is a serious potential risk factor for cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes, and has been linked to depression symptoms, lower testosterone in men, and dementia. Higher levels of trans fat in the blood are associated with up to a 50 percent higher risk of developing dementia, including Alzheimer’s. A major source of trans fats? Animal products.

Plant-based meat is also free of hormones and antibiotics, which tips the scales even further in its favor, but it may have saturated fat from added coconut oil. Nevertheless, the largest study to date of the nutritional value of plant-based meats found that saturated fat levels of similar products only average about 2 grams per serving, which is much better than the animal-based equivalents. Sodium remains a problem throughout the sector, though, like nearly any other processed food out there.

So, plant-based meat is healthy compared with animal-based meat, but not as healthy as eating unprocessed or minimally processed plant foods directly.

Animal Protein vs. Plant Protein

Is there any advantage to eating protein from plants instead of animals? Studies have found intake of animal protein to be associated with a higher risk of mortality, particularly dying from cardiovascular disease, whereas higher consumption of plant protein is linked to lower all-cause mortality—a lower risk of dying from all causes put together. When it comes to living a longer life, plant protein sources beat out each and every animal protein source. Not just better than bacon and eggs, but better than burgers, chicken, turkey, fish, and dairy protein. What’s more, plant protein has also been linked to lower blood pressure, reduced LDL cholesterol, and improved insulin sensitivity.

Is Pea Protein Isolate Good for You?

The Beyond Burger is mostly comprised of pea protein isolate. Will we still get any benefits of the whole plant if the proteins have been isolated? Surprisingly, yes. As I discuss in my video Plant-Based Protein: Are Pea and Soy Protein Isolates Harmful?, researchers did not ﬁnd a signiﬁcant cholesterol-lowering difference between protein isolate products and whole food sources, “suggesting that the cholesterol-lowering effects are at least, in part, attributable to the plant protein itself rather than just the associated nutrients.”

Is Soy Protein Isolate Bad for You?

We’ve known about the beneficial effects of soy on cholesterol for 40 years or so, but what about its impact on the cancer-promoting growth hormone IGF-1? Soy protein is similar enough to animal protein that, at high enough doses, like eating two Impossible Burgers (mostly concentrated soy protein) a day, you may bump up your IGF-1 level. But the only reason we care about IGF-1 is cancer risk, and, if anything, higher soy intake is linked to decreased risk of cancer.

For instance, a recent systematic review and meta-analysis found that consumption of soy protein is associated with a lower risk in breast cancer mortality—a 12 percent reduction in breast cancer death associated with each 5-gram increase of soy protein a day. More than 10 daily grams of soy protein has been associated with cutting breast cancer mortality risk nearly in half, and more than 16 grams a day with a whopping 62 percent lower risk of dying from breast cancer.

What About Mycoprotein?

Mycoprotein is a meat alternative made from the mushroom kingdom. Quorn makes meat-free beef, chicken-free chicken, fish-free fish, and pig-free pork. As I discuss in my video The Health Effects of Mycoprotein (Quorn) Products vs. BCAAs in Meat, in terms of its environmental impact, Quorn beef’s carbon footprint is at least ten times smaller than that of beef and its chickenless chicken is at least four times better than chicken-chicken. Health-wise, mycoprotein is high in protein and ﬁber, low in fat, cholesterol, sodium, and sugar, and may help people control cholesterol, blood sugar, and insulin levels, and improve satiety. That isn’t a surprise, given that the fiber and the mycoprotein are fermentable by our good gut bugs, so they can also act as a prebiotic for our friendly flora.

What About the Heme in Impossible Meat?

As I discuss in my video What About the Heme in Impossible Burgers?, an issue specific to the Impossible Burger is the added heme, derived from soybean plants to enhance the product’s meaty flavor and appearance. Safety analyses have failed to find any toxicity risk specific to the soy heme churned out by yeast, and the Food and Drug Administration has agreed that it is safe—both for use as a flavor and color enhancer.

Plants for the Win

Plant-based foods, including meat-free meats, aren’t only healthier for our planet, but also for our bodies. But, as I discuss in my video Plant-Based Meat Substitutes Put to the Test, whole plant food sources of protein, such as beans, are even better. That’s why I consider plant-based meats to be more of a useful stepping stone towards a healthier diet, rather than the endgame ideal. The same amount of protein in a bean burrito would be better in nearly every way.

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Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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February 6, 2024
Keto Diet to Effectively Fight Cancer? | NutritionFacts.org

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What does the science say about the clinical use of ketogenic diets for epilepsy and cancer?

Blood sugar, also known as blood glucose, is the universal go-to fuel for the cells throughout our bodies. Our brain burns through a quarter pound of sugar a day because “glucose is the preferred metabolic fuel.” We can break down proteins and make glucose from scratch, but most comes from our diet in the form of sugars and starches. If we stop eating carbohydrates (or stop eating altogether), most of our cells switch over to burning fat. Fat has difficulty getting through the blood-brain barrier, though, and our brain has a constant, massive need for fuel. Just that one organ accounts for up to half of our energy needs. Without it, the lights go out…permanently.

To make that much sugar from scratch, our body would need to break down about half a pound of protein a day. That means we’d cannibalize ourselves to death within two weeks, but people can fast for months. What’s going on? The answer to the puzzle was discovered in 1967. Harvard researchers famously stuck catheters into the brains of obese subjects who had been fasting for more than a month and discovered that ketones had replaced glucose as the preferred fuel for the brain. Our liver can turn fat into ketones, which can then breach the blood-brain barrier and sustain our brain if we aren’t getting enough carbohydrates. Switching fuels has such an effect on brain activity that it has been used to treat epilepsy since antiquity.

In fact, the prescription of fasting for the treatment of epileptic seizures dates back to Hippocrates. In the Bible, even Jesus seems to have concurred. To this day, it’s unclear why switching from blood sugar to ketones as a primary fuel source has such a dampening effect on brain overactivity. How long can one fast? To prolong the fasting therapy, in 1921, a distinguished physician scientist at the Mayo Clinic suggested trying what he called “ketogenic diets,” high-fat diets designed to be so deficient in carbohydrates that they could effectively mimic the fasting state. “Remarkable improvement” was noted the first time it was put to the test, efficacy that was later confirmed in randomized, controlled trials. Ketogenic diets started to fall out of favor in 1938 with the discovery of the anti-seizure drug that would become known as Dilantin, but they’re still being used today as a third- or fourth-line treatment for drug-refractory epilepsy in children.

Oddly, the success of ketogenic diets against pediatric epilepsy seems to get conflated by “keto diet” proponents into suggesting a ketogenic diet is beneficial for everyone. Know what else sometimes works for intractable epilepsy? Brain surgery, but I don’t hear people clamoring to get their skulls sawed open. Since when do medical therapies translate into healthy lifestyle choices? Scrambling brain activity with electroshock therapy can be helpful in some cases of major depression, so should we get out the electrodes? Ketogenic diets are also being tested to see if they can slow the growth of certain brain tumors. Even if they work, you know what else can help slow cancer growth? Chemotherapy. So why go keto when you can just go chemo?

Promoters of ketogenic diets for cancer are paid by so-called ketone technology companies that offer to send you salted caramel bone broth powder for a hundred bucks a pound or companies that market ketogenic meals and report “extraordinary” anecdotal responses in some cancer patients. But more concrete evidence is simply lacking, and even the theoretical underpinnings may be questionable. A common refrain is that “cancer feeds on sugar.” But all cells feed on sugar. Advocating ketogenic diets for cancer is like saying Hitler breathed air so we should boycott oxygen.

Cancer can feed on ketones, too. Ketones have been found to fuel human breast cancer growth and drive metastases in an experimental model, more than doubling tumor growth. Some have even speculated that this may be why breast cancer often metastasizes to the liver, the main site of ketone production. As you can see below and at 4:59 in my video Is Keto an Effective Cancer-Fighting Diet?, if you drip ketones directly onto breast cancer cells in a petri dish, the genes that get turned on and off make for much more aggressive cancer, associated with significantly lower five-year survival in breast cancer patients, as you can see in the following graph and at 5:05 in my video. Researchers are even considering designing ketone-blocking drugs to prevent further cancer growth by halting ketone production.

Let’s also think about what eating a ketogenic diet might entail. High animal fat intake may increase the mortality risk among breast cancer survivors and potentially play a role in the development of breast cancer in the first place through oxidative stress, hormone disruption, or inflammation. This applies to men, too. “A strong association” has been found “between saturated fat intake and prostate cancer progression and survival.” Those in the top third of consumption of these kinds of fat-rich animal foods appeared to triple their risk of dying from prostate cancer. This isn’t necessarily fat in general either. No difference has been found in breast cancer death rates based on total fat intake. However saturated fat intake specifically may negatively impact breast cancer survival, increasing the risk of dying from it by 50 percent. There’s a reason the official American Cancer Society and American Society of Clinical Oncology Breast Cancer Survivorship Care Guideline recommend a dietary pattern for breast cancer patients that’s essentially the opposite of a ketogenic diet. It calls for a diet that’s “high in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and legumes [beans, split peas, chickpeas, and lentils]; low in saturated fats; and limited in alcohol consumption.”

“To date, not a single clinical study has shown a measurable benefit from a ketogenic diet in any human cancer.” There are currently at least a dozen trials underway, however, and the hope is that at least some cancer types will respond. Still, even then, that wouldn’t serve as a basis for recommending ketogenic diets for the general population any more than recommending everyone get radiation, surgery, and chemo just for kicks.

“Keto” has been the most-searched keyword on NutritionFacts.org for months, and I didn’t have much specific to offer…until now. Check out my other videos on the topic in related videos below.

For an overview of my cancer work, watch How Not to Die from Cancer.

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Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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November 23, 2023