4. Food Is Medicine Pt 2 w/ Dr. Terry Wahls

Dr. Terry Wahls 0:03

I'm excited about ketosis. I think there's a lot of benefit from ketosis. I think we have to be incredibly cautious about the concept of a high fat diet.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 0:12

Welcome to the longevity blueprint podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Stephanie gray. My number one goal with the show is to help you discover your personalized plan to build your dream house and live a longer, happier, truly healthier life. You're about to hear part two of my conversation with Dr. Terry walls. If you haven't listened to the first half of the conversation yet, you're going to want to go back and listen to that last episode first, to hear her journey from being wheelchair bound with multiple sclerosis to riding her bike in the best shape of her adult life. In this episode, you're going to get to hear what a day in the life of Dr. Balls looks like, what oil she cooks with her favorite recipes, and she's even going to answer my question. Should kids be eating dairy? Let's continue our conversation.

Tell us about this term walls warriors. Oh yeah.

Dr. Terry Wahls 0:59

Yeah. So So I acknowledge that, you know, this is hard, we're doing hard work. And so I invite people to think about this journey as the hero's journey. And the hero, you know where we are, we in our society are facing epic struggle. And then society and we are sort of losing. So we, the individual, the hero separates from society with a conventional approach to your disease, you learn something really important. You hopefully useful, then you come back and you reengage in the struggle, and you're much more successful. And so I talk with people encourage them to view this as what is your hero's journey? What do you need to learn? What does your tribe need to learn? And how can that help you in your healing journey? And I think people have really embraced that term. They love the game themselves, in their hero's journey in them selves, as warrior. so affectionate term as well as warrior, as we're battling this journey as we're rooting ourselves to learn what we need to learn to be more successful.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 2:12

So speaking of conferences, I have attended a few other conferences that you have as well. And I saw one of your social media posts sitting at the airport at one point was snacking on a cabbage. Oh. Give yourself the antioxidants you need. Yeah, yeah. So tell us give us some tips for snacks that you travel with because you truly live this every day. So

Dr. Terry Wahls 2:35

so I want to point out to everyone that all the stuff I talked about my book I actually do, because if I declined on my diet, if I'm exposed accidentally to gluten, dairy or eggs, my face pain turns on I have her rific levels of pain. If I am exposed to toxins, I have a pain. If my stress level comes too severe. I'll have Pain. So I really have to do all this stuff. So I travel all over the globe speaking and I discovered that I did three flights in a month, my face payment come back. So I had to up up my detox protocols. And part of that is, I carry a cabbage with me when I fly, because I slice up the cabbage. And cabbage is very happy without a refrigerator.

So I can still have my nine cups of vegetables. If I take a head of cabbage with me, which does mean I get stopped going through airport security all the time, because it's, you know, it might carry on. And as I'm flying, I will be eating cabbage in the plan because, again, that will boost my detox capability in the plane. Because as you fly, you're exposed to more radiation, more plastics in the plane, and then some recirculation of the aerosolized jet fuel. And by making those tweaks, but my problem with flying was wood is much better. Of course, most recently, I've not been flying since March, presumably, we will get through this and we'll be back to you know, national travel I'll be back to giving these lectures.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 4:09

I've heard you say before that the facial pain you get if you waver at all from your diet is a blessing because to you that you know forcibly? Well, I guess not for simply you always you could choose to have the facial pain but you're choosing to not you're choosing Yes way.

Dr. Terry Wahls 4:22

You know, my facial pain is really a tremendous barometer of the level of inflammation in my brain in my spinal cord in my bloodstream. So I can get blood tests. But I have a minute by minute mark sensor biosensor. I know that I talked about that. Now at the summer, we've created a much more robust walls behavior change model, and I walked the conditions through how to teach people how to make these changes and one of them, one of the segments of the lecture is how to teach people how to To recognize what's your bio sensor, so that because it's much easier if someone has paying, that's the easiest to deal with, if they have something really visible skin, that can be very helpful. If you have that you can't see, that's pretty hard to ignore. So we coach clinicians and patients, how do you identify what's your bio sensor? That's your most sensitive marker, that there's been a little unfavorable or favorable change in how you're running the chemistry of life.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 5:34

Part of your training also for clinicians is to help with modifications of patients are vegetarian or with myself. For instance, I've struggled with fructose intolerance and CBOE and spent years on a low fodmap diet. And so eating all these greens, I had to really slowly slowly work my way up, see what I could tolerate. But talk to me a little bit about the available modifications for those listening and if they are vegetarian.

Dr. Terry Wahls 5:57

Yeah. So and this is very interesting. In sidebar, my ancestral health folks, my paleo friends were sort of horrified that I said, yes, you can be a vegetarian. And I said, No, I need to be inclusive. It is really very helpful that my PhD student who was so important to our study, it's a vegetarian for religious reasons. So I thought, Okay, I have to guide her on how to fine tune her diet for health reasons, which we did. And then I could use those concepts in the book, in the issues for vegetarians are going to be at risk for inadequate protein. Some people just take animal products out of the diet, they still eat a lot of sugar, a lot of processed foods, no vegetables, no protein now on the fat, and so they're creating nutritional deficiencies.

So I educate the vegetarian and how to make sure that they're having a complete diet, in what risk factors to think about b 12, iodine essential fats and Being the big ones. And then I also in my book, I talked about the benefits of ketogenic eating. Because Yeah, and the research continues to grow, that ketogenic eating can be very, very helpful for mental health issues for neurologic issues for insulin resistance for diabetes, pre diabetes, so that's really helpful, then, about how you do it, you may drive your cholesterol through the roof, and that's a problem. So I, we give some guides on how to manage that.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 7:35

Sure. Let's let's talk a little bit about the ketogenic aspect of walls protocol. So maybe, can you get into level two and level three of what was paleo plus and talk to you?

Dr. Terry Wahls 7:46

So level two is the more traditional paleo diet but now highly structured. We talked about meat, although I've scaled back the meat intake compared to the usual paleo diet. I talked about Oregon. I want you to have liver 68 ounces a week or take liver capsules. And then have you know, oysters, mussels, tongue, heart, kidneys, other organs as well. Bone broth, all that very, very helpful. Then fermented foods, kimchi, sauerkraut, fermented nut milks or coconut milk. In then the benefits of raw and the benefits if you're going to have nuts and seeds of soaking them.

So you begin the germination process. Plus, they're way more delicious. If you've had soaked sprouted nuts I've been dehydrated again. And that lessens the lectin danger or risk it makes it much less inflammatory. I do mention the the benefit of using Instant Pot or high pressure cooking that also lower selected content as well. And then the third category is the ketogenic diet in a high fat diet You can do it either with medium chain triglycerides, or MCT keys. And coconut oil. Coconut milk is a very tasty way of doing that. The potential downside, some people just have nausea, vomiting, some diarrhea with MCT oils and don't do well with coconut milk. Some people have their lipids go through the roof. And that just means that you don't tolerate that coconut milk as well. Then for that person, we put them on olive oil diet, clip out lots of olive oil. But if you're using olive oil, then you can't take as many carbs in so if you're able to tolerate the coconut milk, you can get 50 to 80 grams of carbs. If you're using only olive oil, then you have to limit it to 25 grams of carbs. And that's pretty tough. That's like one plate of a big plate of salad. And so in that circumstance You may decide you want to do time restricted feeding, intermittent fasting or periodic fast.

Yeah, as an adjunct and to have more of a low glycemic diet, that is still sort of halfway between the level two and level three, he won't be in ketosis. You could modify that by eating just one meal a day, then you'll be in ketosis for a few hours every day. Or you could do the product fast and have a calorie restriction of 500 calories to say 800 calories for three to five days. However, because of COVID-19 in the animal models of calorie restriction, that causes an A 30% drop in your immune cell lines. So you have a temporary suppression of your immune system during the periodic fast. So during that time period, you're going to be a creator. risk for getting cobit. So for that reason, I feel good about time restricted feeding. I feel good about interment fast. I'm uncertain about the risk for periodic fast during this time. So I feel really very cautious about that.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 11:17

To know that very interesting. I want to comment on back to individuals who may not tolerate ketogenic diet or or just consuming that many fats. There's one caveat here, if patients have a specific a PO eg no type, I should not be on high saturated fat diet. And that's, that's why it's so important to work with a functional medicine provider, a coach that understands these concepts just to help

Dr. Terry Wahls 11:40

personalize Yeah, if you're gonna be on a ketogenic eating, you will certainly want to know your apri for status. You want to know your diabetes risk factor, and you need to know your Lipitor response. Because even if you don't have a before, let's say you happen to be a three, two three to two. So you have great grief for. But if your cluster still goes up to 400 or 300 on a high fat diet, that is not good for you. And so other other strategies would be appropriate. You know, and the other thing that I would stress is that the high fat diet, that's a very new phenomena we've been doing that since, I think about 100 years is Mayo Clinic. Physicians discovered this was a useful way to treat seizures. Our ancestral mothers and fathers were often in ketosis, but it wasn't because they're eating a high fat diet. They're in ketosis for one of two reasons.

One, there was no food and they were starving. So that happened plenty of times. And the other was, they had to work their tush off to get the food that acquittee. So there was a lot of physical activity. And if humans do physical activity, that's fairly intense for more than two hours. We've used up all of our glycogen, and we are in ketosis. So every day we were out to get food. Because it didn't come to the grocery store, folks. We had to work incredibly hard to get the food. And if you were in a clan where the men got the food, so they, you know, traveled 10 miles 20 miles, got the food, brought it back, right back, then blaze worked their tail off, preparing the food in so both sides of clan were working really hard. So we were in ketosis a lot, probably more often on the basis of exercise, or starvation. It was never because we had a high fat diet. That's a really new artificial phenomenon. So while I'm excited about ketosis, I think there's a lot of benefit from ketosis. I think we have to be incredibly cautious about the concept of a high fat diet.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 13:52

Why is why is word so your message and research have come a long way in the past five years. So are there any major updates for us would like to share, or maybe you already have.

Dr. Terry Wahls 14:02

Well, well, well. Hi. I love talking about the research. So yes, some very exciting updates. One, we are analyzing the data for the low fat diet versus the walls diet so that Swank diet versus walls. And I'm actually quite hopeful that we'll be able to submit an abstract for that date and present to the international meeting this fall. And so, probably in September, assuming that that meeting will get to still be happening, we'll have that information out. In the meantime, I don't yet know. We're staying laser data. So I don't know we're going to find but I'm excited that we're at that point. Now, the next thing that I'm so excited about is we're starting our next study in our next study, because we've never been able to answer the question, wall Stop, don't walls diet, meditation exercise, no drugs versus standard of care. drugs for the newly diagnosed ms patient or clinically isolated syndrome are the equivalent. Are people harming themselves when they've declined the drugs?

Are they doing better when they declined the drugs in taking diet and lifestyle? We don't know. But this we're going to begin to answer that question because we have just now gotten approval for a study that were approved to do the study back in January. But then COVID happened and we can't do in person visits. And so we had to redesign the study. We've got approved approval now for the redesign. And what we're doing is we're doing this all virtually people who have been offered drugs newly diagnosed and want to do diet and lifestyle, we will have a baseline visit we will train you on the diet and lifestyle, and then support you will do reassessments every three months, repeat everything at 12 months. It's called Life studies only then will be abstracting medical records. And we will do that. I am disappointed. We don't get to do the MRIs. That was very disappointing, but you know, life changes and you have to adapt.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 16:14

Well tell us about your new book, actually, you have an expanded edition. So what's new with that revision?

Dr. Terry Wahls 16:22

Well, what what's new in the revision, I spent a lot more time talking about the science of behavior change. So the patients will find this, I think, incredibly useful. The Coalition's will find it useful as well. And then we provide more nuance in the discussion of diet. We talk about histamines. I talk about oxalates talk about fodmaps. I talk about how to transition people from the current diet, perhaps a Mediterranean diet to level one, level two, level three. In the level three version, we talked about time restricted feeding intermittent fasting product fast I talked about stem cells, who would be appropriate for stem cells and how you could get them.

And what additional things you'd want to do if you go down the stem cell. We talked about emotional resilience and metabolic resilience. That, you know the fact that we live in air conditioning, central heating in a very narrow temperature range. That's harmless metabolically that we've designed a very comfortable environment for ourselves. And that's harmless metabolically. So what can we do to improve our resilience? Given that we've created these environments are very comfortable. And I'm not telling people to give up those environments because they are comfortable and pleasurable. But there are specific steps that you can do that will improve your resilience so we can still enjoy air conditioning and heating, but have much better Resilience

Dr. Stephanie Gray 18:01

that's very interesting that piques my curiosity today before interview, I knew I had to get to the office 30 minutes early to turn the air down. So it was a hot, humid day. And I I needed that air. Right, just right. For any of you I look forward to reading that. You're the revised book because I don't have that one. But that's, that's interesting. I picking my curiosity very much. So.

Dr. Terry Wahls 18:21

Yeah, and you'll definitely have gotten a much more interested in is evolutionary biology. And I think this is what I bring to the functional medicine folks is because I combine ancestral health, evolutionary biology, functional medicine, and my clinical experience with taking care of people don't have any money. That gives a very unique perspective. Evolutionary Biology we'd be so much further off in healthcare if we understood evolution and use those kinds of Subs in designer interventions for patients.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 19:03

Fascinating. Let's go back to the kitchen for a moment here. So I want to ask you a few fun questions like What is your favorite recipe that you cook frequently?

Dr. Terry Wahls 19:12

Well, baking greens, absolutely. It's one of our favorite meals. I think people often struggle like how on earth could you make liver tastes good. They're just like, oh my god, it just sounds so terrible. So here, here's a recipe that I got from my great grandmother. For 1890 compare cookery, where you slice a bunch of onions, put them in the batteries of your pan, lay chicken livers on top, and then lay bacon strips across all of the chicken lovers. Put them in the oven at 225. start checking them at about 70 minutes. And what you'll see is that they might take up to 90 minutes, the outside delivery will be more room. You'll slice the inside. It'll be Pink but they won't be using anymore. In you'll have this wonderful soft custody texture of the liver. That will be incredibly delicious. The bacon is delicious. The onions are yummy. I and when I've made that for my kids they like wow that really is quite yummy. They make it for guests. That is an amazing meal.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 20:22

good recipe. I haven't made that one yet. What oils Do you cook with what are the three staples on your kitchen counter?

Dr. Terry Wahls 20:28

So I will fry with bacon fed with duck fat or clarified butter. I will boil steam, roast fake grill and then I will put olive oil. So I just went and got a bunch of my fresh garden herbs some girly chives and oregano, mince them and blended them up with olive oil and lemon juice and so we'll pour the oregano pesto over the steak that we're grilling tonight. So I think Save olive oil and mix it with fresh herbs and pour that over stuff after it's been boiled, steamed or roasted. If I need to fry something, I'll use doc fat to be my favorite fat.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 21:14

So tell us what a day in the life of Terry was looks like and what you do from a lifestyle standpoint, are you gardening and growing your own food? Well,

Dr. Terry Wahls 21:22

so we'll tell you, we'll walk you through what I've done today. So I get up early, I do a 478 breathing meditation. Then I got up, you can sort of see over my right shoulder, a stim device. So I hold myself up, and I do a strength training workout, augmented by electricity and or every other day I swim, so I'm either zapping and strength training or swimming. Then I follow that with a saw. And then in Asana, I do some voice training and some more seven, eight breathing after I've done I just read for 20 minutes I do a few more voice training and, and meditation, and I take a cold shower. And so that that morning routine, quite the routine, yeah, two and a half hours. Then I launch into my day.

So today I was doing some reading for pleasure in gardening and taking the dog out for walks. That was a workweek. I would be doing my meeting with my research teams, etc. I would take the time to walk outside, couple 10 minute walks because I want to get the sunlight in my eyes, so I better sleep at night. And then in the evening, I'll make my meal. That's generally the first time that I eat. So I've had water or detox tea green tea up until then. Then I'll make a meal tonight we're having buys and steak, mushrooms of most Gerlich.

We have asparagus And onions, salad from our yard and I will pour pesto over the steak in the vegetables afterwards, we'll probably also have a kale salad from the yard. And then we'll have our dinner. before dinner we have a little gratitude practice where my wife and I reflect on what we're grateful for the day. Our daughter has been staying with us so for a few few weeks here, so partake in all of that as well. And then we may read or watch something on TV program. I will do another meditation before off to bed. Some evenings I can pay on my evening schedule. Also take in an ice bath. I'll tell you, it's very clear if I do the ice bath, the time to fall asleep is shorter in the depth of my sleep in the quality of my sleep is is A superior one I've had the ability to do and I Spath.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 24:04

Wonderful that makes me want to ask you 20 more questions, but Well, we'll keep it to just a few more. So you've been so gracious with your time today. Wonderful routine, because of the present pandemic that you referenced. There are many people that are taking disease modifying drugs who are more at risk for Oh, yeah, absolutely for contracting the virus. So what can some individuals do who are currently on immunosuppressive drugs to prevent their chance from

Dr. Terry Wahls 24:32

Yeah, okay, so the first thing you want to do is you have to stay on your drug, if you abruptly stop your drugs, your inflammatory cytokines will markedly increase. And so if you get the infection, you're going to be at much greater risk of having a severe reaction. So we don't want anyone to abruptly stop, I do want you to to lower your inflammatory cytokines and that really is about diet. In lifestyle, there appears to be particular elevations if you're sleep deprived. So party number one is making sure we are improving the quality of your sleep. So even meditation, prayers and consistent time of going to bed and getting up in the morning, that'll be really helpful.

Number two, improve the quality of your diet get your blood sugar, lower. So lower carbs, get rid of sugar, get rid of the flour based products. I'm not really keen on gluten free products. Many of them are contaminated they released too much blood sugar, better to have vegetables and your protein source. So improving the quality of your diet really helpful. And then you could want to be sure that game plenty of organ meat. The organ meat has vitamin A in it, which is very helpful for your immune cells. So liver 60 ounces a week. If you don't want to do that, you can pick up the organ meat capsules that we have on our website. But now try the chicken liver recipe quite surprised that it's quite delicious and wanted to get some zinc. Vitamin C, you know, the you could talk with your practitioner about what is the correct dose for you.

The the data, the potential downside of zinc supplements is that long term, they may compromise your copper levels, because zinc and copper are quite linked. So for a couple months, I think that's good. But long term, you know, it gets to be dicey if you don't know what your copper levels are, so that it gets cut. So you start taking supplements. It's much more complicated and much rather you work with a integrative physician practitioner who can help support, what supplements to take and for how long.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 26:58

Wonderful What about children So I have a 14 month old son and I have a lot of patients who ask me, are you going to allow him to have gluten or dairy or eggs or sugar? I get asked that question a lot. And so I'm curious to know what your opinion is on how we should be raising children these days, which foods we should be avoiding? Or is it okay to give a child milk? What are your thoughts on? Okay?

Dr. Terry Wahls 27:18

So, mammals have been giving milk to our infants for a really long time, about 200 million years. So human milk is course my preferred food that would be superior and breastfeed that child, certainly, as long as is practical for you and your family. In that if you're not using human milk, then you'll have to sort out with your healthcare provider, which formula is the most appropriate. Sugar is an incredibly addictive compound in the flour based products are incredibly addictive compounds. And so, again, you'll have to evaluate your family circumstances.

But if you can keep them from getting addicted to sugar, addicted to high glycemic index foods, you'll be well served my speak with my pediatrician, colleagues and friends. And they certainly endorsed that the walls protocol is a great diet for kids. And what you can do is visualize is three fourths of a plate are the greens color, sulfur, and a quarter of the plate is the protein source and have that as often as appropriate for that child. The issue of dairy now this is a controversial topic, and I'll give you my thoughts on that. From a evolutionary biology perspective. mammals have been using milk to raise our young for about 200 million years. Humans we, we separate the primates about 6 million years ago. We're still using milk for young What's it mean that getting milk then the genius home Against getting milk to get weaned anymore, two half million years, then the species Homo sapiens 250,000 years, it was just 10,000 years that we've had dairy in some parts of the world.

And then he started having milk for longer, so it's a relatively new foodstuff. And depending on your genetics, you may be at greater risk to have cross reactivity with molecular mimicry for your brain and a higher rate of mental health issues and neurologic issues. And again, some would suggest if we have higher rates of of M tour, because you have a high intake of casein, and a high intake of protein, you may have a higher rate of cancers. So there are some downsides with milk. There are some upsides I think, certainly not a very good food for raising infants for toddlers It gets less helpful. The older we get, once we have fuse growth plates, then all those growth factors in milk, they can grow, grow us horizontally, not so helpful, or they could grow us pathologically and develop cancer, also not so helpful. So, that factor, the growth factors, to me is a reason to not have a lot of milk.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 30:26

Agreed. Helpful answer. I think it's

Dr. Terry Wahls 30:29

very helpful for infants. Absolutely. We have a lot of reason to think that probably helpful for toddlers a lot of reason to think that and then it may get less helpful as we get older.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 30:39

So what's your top longevity tip? You had one

Dr. Terry Wahls 30:42

hormesis intermittently stress yourself with calories with exercise with temperature, so that they go through a period of mild stress, followed by rest and recovery.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 30:58

Wonderful. So how can listen sinners come see you as I got patient or work with you.

Dr. Terry Wahls 31:03

So if you go to tear walls calm, if you look across the top, there's a link that says, work with me. And we'll give you information about the type of practice that I have in what the next steps would be. And the other possibility, of course, is to think about attending our seminar. That is a this year a remarkable opportunity, because we have so much more content, and so many more interaction hours.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 31:30

So the conference is virtual. So really anyone listening virtual, yeah, just to be clear, or any listeners,

Dr. Terry Wahls 31:36

anywhere in the world. We have folks listening in from Australia, from Africa, from Europe, but really, we have no China. We have people from the Mideast. So it's very fun. We have hundreds and hundreds of people telling them

Dr. Stephanie Gray 31:52

that is a far reach. That's wonderful. So in the show notes, we will also post a link to a one sheet on Dr. Wall website where she does share her food pyramid, the walls, walls protocol pyramid so you can know in reference that as far as how to eat, of course read her books. That pyramid will be just a quick sheet for you to see more of what this diet entails that we've been discussing today. And also copies of her research papers are also on her website. So thank you, Dr. walls so much for being present with us here today. Thank you for not giving up with your own struggles, your pain and diving into the research and ultimately using your talents and ability to experiment on yourself but create this walls protocol, which is truly creating health for so many. So my last question to you is, do you feel invincible again?

Dr. Terry Wahls 32:42

Well, not quite, but I feel just totally empowered. Because I have so much more meaning in my life than I had. Back when I was an athlete much more satisfied. That's a bit maybe I do because now because I have so much more clarity in my life than I had them.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 33:00

Well, thank you. Thank you for being here today and for your story and for all that you do. Thank you. Well, there you have it what a jam packed hour, two episodes full of so many tips from Dr. walls, the walls, protocols improving the lives not just in those with autoimmune diseases but is great for chronic disease. And as you heard children, I'm going to have to try that little recipe this weekend. Be sure to check out my book your longevity blueprint.

And if you aren't much of a reader, you're in luck. You can now take my course online where I walk you through each chapter in the book. Plus for a limited time Not only is the course 50% off, but you also get your first consult with me for free. Check this offer out at your longevity blueprint comm and click the course tab. One of the biggest things you can do to support the show and help us reach more listeners is to subscribe to the show. And leave us a rating and review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. I read all the reviews and would truly love to hear your suggestions for show topics, guests or how you're applying what you've learned on the show to create your own. longevity blueprint podcast is produced by the team at counterweight created. As always, thanks so much for listening and remember, wellness is waiting.

The information provided in this podcast is educational. No information provided should be considered to be or used as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always consult with your personal medical authority