Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS

Vegetable oil is not good for you. It is highly processed, and the omega-6 fatty acids in it are pro-inflammatory. We should strive for an omega-6 to omega-3 ratio of 1 to 1, but most Americans have a ratio of 16 to 1 up to 25 to 1. There are some exceptions such as organically pressed sesame oil or high oleic oils, but generally vegetable oil is bad for us.
 
Transcript: "He said the question is why is everybody so down on vegetable oil? I thought it was supposed to be good for you. We all thought it was supposed to be good for us. We were not told the truth about that. It's not good for us at all. In fact, there are many people in my field in my neck of the woods and functional medicine and functional nutrition. Who if you ask them. What are the two most destructive ingredients in the American diet? Unquestionably. They would say, sugar and vegetable oil. So remember Vegetable came about at a time in history in American history. When two things were happening, one is saturated. Fat was demonized. Everybody thought saturated, fat caused heart disease. Many people still think that it's not true and they were looking for substitutes for saturated fat. And the second thing that happened was big food was going, we got all this runoff from our to stuff. We're selling for Wheaties and corn flakes and I wonder if we can sell it. Yes, we can. It's a great substitute for this thing. Everybody is afraid of now in one of my books. I think it's a great color storm. If we tell the story, the Minnesota, heart experiment in, which they actually tested the ingredient in vegetable oil against saturated fat, and found that risk factors went up even more. When the people ate the unsaturated fat. This isn't a blanket condemnation of all unsaturated fat, Omega, threes or an unsaturated fat. The problem with vegetable oil is twofold. Number one. Most of it is the most processed or You can imagine they deodorize it. They D gummit. They there's a so many processes that goes to the by the time it gets on the Shelf. There is absolutely nothing of any value in it. The second problem with it is that the omega-6 which is the main fat that's in vegetable oil is actually pro-inflammatory. Now, you need some omega-6 in your diet. You would like your omega-6 in your remote Omega-3 ratio to be about 1 to 1, that'd be ideal. Ours is 16 to 1 up to 25 to 1 in favor of the pro inflammatory omega-6s and we get it from corn oil, safflower oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil. These are just really not good oils for us. There are occasional exceptions. I mean, organically press sesame oil High oleic oils. Yes, they are not as bad but Basically live on omega-6 on the stuff that's in vegetable oil. They put it in every food product that you can buy in the store anything that comes packages, got partially hydrogenated or even if it's not partially hydrogenated corn, oil, sesame oil, sunflower oil, the cheapest the most processed the most pro-inflammatory oils, and I remember my great nutrition Mentor who started me in the field. Robert Cray on the lake barbecue man once said jokingly that if he wanted."

Metformin has been studied as a potential antiaging drug, and research is looking at how it might contribute to longevity by lowering blood sugar and insulin resistance. This could reduce the risk of chronic diseases like obesity, hypertension, prediabetes, diabetes, Alzheimer's, lung, kidney, and liver disease.
 
Transcript: "How does metformin contribute to longevity? That's a great question. And it's being answered as we speak in ongoing research at the National Institute of Health, which is looking at metformin as a potential antiaging drug. So for those who don't know, metformin has always been considered a diabetes drug. It lowers blood sugar. And it's often prescribed to diabetics. I actually having read so many positive things about metformin's side effects in terms of good stuff happening that I actually asked my very open-minded doctor for a prescription for it. I didn't need it. I wanted it. And I've been on it for the past few years precisely because I think it does contribute to longevity. And here's my hypothesis about how. We know it lowers blood sugar. It also seems to lower one of the side effects of having too much high blood sugar, which is often insulin resistance. I believe insulin resistance is the metabolic plague of the 21st century. We know that it's intimately connected to every single chronic disease we know of. And I suspect that the action of metformin on insulin resistance is the mechanism by which it extends life because we know that insulin resistance bad stuff happens. It's connected to obesity, hypertension, prediabetes, diabetes, Alzheimer's, lung, kidney, liver disease. All of these things are connected to insulin resistance in a very significant way. So to the extent, I believe that metformin lowers your insulin resistance. I think that's one of the mechanisms by which we will eventually find that it has a positive effect on lifespan. At least that's what I'm hoping. And that's why I take it."

The best diet for weight loss is dependent on what works best for your lifestyle. Generally speaking, a lower carb approach like the Paleo diet, which focuses on unprocessed, real foods that can be hunted, fished, gathered, or grown, is a great place to start.
 
Transcript: "What's the best diet for weight loss? Well, as I've always said there is no one best diet for weight loss. The question should be what's the best diet for you? What's the one that's going to work for you? Because people have lost weight successfully on just about every good diet that you can mention from carnivore to vegan. So there's a wide range and the question really should be what's going to work for your lifestyle? What's going to be able? What are you going to be able to stick with? And it always comes down to some form of a real food diet food. That is a Truly unprocessed that you recognize this food. It doesn't come in packages. And if you can concentrate on that, that's the first big step to any weight loss diet. Now that said, I tend to favor a lower carb approach, that's because I think that high carb diets lead to a high level of insulin resistance 88% of us have some degree of insulin resistance. It's a metabolic plague. It keeps you fat. It leads to diabetes. It's not a good thing. And the way you bring insulin, it's down, or you turn it around or you treat it is, you lower the amount of carbohydrates in the diet, you go for higher fat, real food, higher protein, higher protein, and higher fiber, and a lot less of the rice and pasta and Breads, and cereals, and all the stuff that they told us incorrectly was the heart of a healthy diet, back in the 80s and that many people are still following. So, I would look in the direction of paleo and the reason for that being The human genus has been here for two point. Four million years McDonald's been here since 1957, what should we base our diet, on the stuff that work best for the human genus for the last two point, four million years. And that is food that we could have hunted gathered plucked or grown and if it fell off a tree. If you could hunted, you could fish it. You could gather it, it was probably good for you and that's basically what paleo is, its natural foods that we've been with, for many many, many years. That are we genetically We adapted to and I think that's a great place to start."

When it comes to boosting energy naturally, the best way to do it is by correcting sleep and managing stress - not by taking supplements like ginseng, maca, or ashwagandha.
 
Transcript: "Hey Josh, the question was are there clean ingredients that are not caffeine or stimulants that can Boost energy naturally? There are, but I don't think it's the way to go. I'll answer your question. First ginseng has been used for that. Maca has been used for that, and I'll show Ganda is, he's pretty good for that, but I wouldn't do that first. And here's why, almost every time somebody doesn't have energy. It's because there is something else going wrong. Most likely they're not sleeping. Well and are used to have a. I had a professor in graduate school, who used to say when you have a, when you hear hoofbeats outside your window. Don't start by looking for zebras. Look for the obvious cause there's hook beats. It's probably horses. And if you're fatigued and your energy isn't what you think, it should be. And you're kind of dragging during the day. I'm going to 99. 9%, tell you that, if you can go back and correct, your sleep, that's going to go away. You can still use ashwagandha. It's wonderful marker. There. You can experiment with all of those things, but energy is like water. You cannot grab water with your hands and you cannot get energy from other things, but what you can do with Waters, you can create in your palms and environment where water can live you can cup your palms and you can actually hold some water in there. Not very long and not very effectively, but you can do it and just go with me on the metaphor. It's the best I could come up with. But the point is, you want to create that pom. You want to create that open space for energy in your life. And you do that, not by taking other stuff, but really by correcting sleep and managing stress because those are your energy drainers. I hope that helps"

Don't buy low-fat yogurt. Buy yogurt that is processed as little as possible, has no added sugar or jelly on the bottom and is from cows that have been grass fed and humanely raised on pasture. Taste test to choose the one you like best.
 
Transcript: "Okay, here's the question with so many yogurt options out there. How should I decide which one to buy? Is that a good rule of thumb? High fat content, low sugar content? Yeah, that's a great rule of thumb. It's not the best rule of thumb is known by the low-fat crap. Don't buy low fat yogurt. Don't buy low fat, anything. It's not that it needs to be high fat. It needs to not be low-fat. So by the yogurt that is as close to the way it comes out of the cow and gets fermented and made into yogurt with his little added as possible. You know, the cavemen didn't eat. Low-fat, Caribou or low-fat woolly mammoth. Okay. We this low-fat. Anything is just an idiotic idea that has somehow, I've passed many expiration dates, but it's still out there and you should ignore it. So you want stuff, that's his little process possible. Obviously, you don't want the stuff with the crap on the body. That on the bottom, the jelly on the bottom or whatever. It is. The there's a reasonable question about whether Greek yogurt is better than regular yogurt. It has little more protein, little less probiotics. They are all good for you and they're all good. As long as they don't have that fruit on the bottom. They're not. It with sugar, they come from cows that have been grass fed and humanely raised on pasture, and if it meets that criteria and you like the taste of it, that's the stuff you should buy."

It generally doesn't matter what time of day you take supplements, as long as you are taking them consistently. It is best to take vitamins and minerals with food, as it may reduce digestive upset. Some supplements such as B vitamins may be energizing and should be taken earlier in the day to avoid disruption of sleep.
 
Transcript: "This question is, does it really matter? What time of day? You take supplements such as Vitamin D, magnesium and vitamin C? Look. I've been doing this for 30 years. I've been taking supplements. Have been advising people who take supplements, I have found in general, it doesn't make much difference. There are certain rules of thumb magnesium's very relaxing. You might want to, if you're loading up on magnesium, may be the night times a better time to take that. But you know, the thing is the right time to take vitamins and minerals and supplements. Is when you're likely to take them, you know, that's that's really much more important than the time. The other question, you didn't ask it but I'll throw it out there anyway because a lot of people ask that in conjunction with the time of day question, which is should I take it with or without food? My rule of thumb is, if you don't know, take it with food, less digestive upset, let's likelihood of digestive upset. There are certain times when certain supplements will be prescribed by a health practitioner for a specific reason, and they're meant to be taken away from food. And that's pretty rare. Most of the time we humans got our vitamins and minerals when we ate. So our bodies are very used to taking extra nutrients in, you know, when you're eating so that would be my rule of thumb with with take or take with food or without food and as far as time of day, I don't really think it matters a lot. There are some people who might say that it's not the greatest idea to take the B vitamins at night. I think I'd probably agree with that because they can be energizing particularly if you're deficient in the And then all the sudden you get them and you be awesome energy that you didn't feel before. It's not really the vitamin giving it to you. It's the absence of the deficiency that's giving you that that little kick. But that could happen at night and I probably wouldn't, you know, stock up on my B12 right before bed."