1
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Heart disease,

2
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still the single leading cause of death,

3
00:00:39,164 --> 00:00:40,707
the number one killer.

4
00:00:40,707 --> 00:00:43,626
The number
one killer in the US.

5
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We're
spending so much money

6
00:00:46,588 --> 00:00:49,215
and yet the outcomes are all worse.

7
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Heart disease has become

8
00:00:50,467 --> 00:00:52,552
the most frequent cause of death.

9
00:00:52,552 --> 00:00:53,386
Cardiovascular ailments

10
00:00:53,386 --> 00:00:55,597
continue to take American lives.

11
00:00:55,597 --> 00:00:58,224
You can
reduce the risk of heart attack

12
00:00:58,224 --> 00:01:01,186
if you eat a diet low in
cholesterol and saturated fats.

13
00:01:02,103 --> 00:01:04,439
We're still
taught that high-fat diets

14
00:01:04,439 --> 00:01:08,193
cause heart disease because
they raise LDL cholesterol.

15
00:01:08,193 --> 00:01:09,527
We
would talk about cholesterol

16
00:01:09,527 --> 00:01:12,155
being bad. Higher cholesterol
is gonna clog your veins.

17
00:01:12,155 --> 00:01:14,616
- Is that what we should
be focusing on the most?

18
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And I think, no, it absolutely is not.

19
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The
only reason to focus on

20
00:01:19,454 --> 00:01:21,790
cholesterol is because we have drugs.

21
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There's no other reason.

22
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- More drugs, more illnesses,
and it's not working.

23
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It's
a broad failure of the

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00:01:32,509 --> 00:01:35,053
medical system, I think. It's
just the paradigm is wrong.

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You go to the medical literature,

26
00:01:36,513 --> 00:01:40,725
it's all on flimsy data based
off of a sick population.

27
00:01:43,561 --> 00:01:45,897
cholesterol
was not a good predictor

28
00:01:45,897 --> 00:01:48,066
of who's gonna have a heart attack.

29
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Now is our chance.

30
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This one study could change everything.

31
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These people could finally
help us crack the code.

32
00:01:57,951 --> 00:02:00,411
I'm
sorry, that's not ethical.

33
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Incredibly reckless.

34
00:02:01,996 --> 00:02:03,790
No regard for human life.

35
00:02:03,790 --> 00:02:05,375
- I feel like I've underestimated

36
00:02:05,375 --> 00:02:07,544
the wind that's in front of us.

37
00:02:07,544 --> 00:02:11,172
- If we think high LDL in
everybody is equally concerning,

38
00:02:11,172 --> 00:02:15,051
if that's wrong, then we've
been wrong for a very long time.

39
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All over the world,

40
00:02:27,772 --> 00:02:30,817
people are looking for ways
to live a healthier life,

41
00:02:32,318 --> 00:02:34,612
free from medication and disease.

42
00:02:38,449 --> 00:02:40,994
I have traveled so many places

43
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to get some of these
stories from people like me,

44
00:02:46,416 --> 00:02:48,793
people who suffered,
sometimes for decades,

45
00:02:48,793 --> 00:02:50,170
with chronic illness,

46
00:02:50,170 --> 00:02:52,881
and then, in what seems like a miracle,

47
00:02:52,881 --> 00:02:56,176
a simple change in diet
turns it all around.

48
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My symptoms
all improved dramatically.

49
00:02:59,179 --> 00:03:02,015
Many people lowering
or getting off medication,

50
00:03:02,015 --> 00:03:03,850
finding relief from pain.

51
00:03:03,850 --> 00:03:05,560
It really
did change my life.

52
00:03:05,560 --> 00:03:08,062
It literally felt like
the lights had come on.

53
00:03:08,062 --> 00:03:10,481
They have hope again, life again.

54
00:03:11,316 --> 00:03:13,776
So many people have found their solution

55
00:03:13,776 --> 00:03:15,069
in a Ketogenic diet.

56
00:03:17,614 --> 00:03:19,908
I was
surprised at first that

57
00:03:19,908 --> 00:03:21,367
just changing my diet

58
00:03:21,367 --> 00:03:25,455
had such a night and day
effect on my mental health.

59
00:03:26,623 --> 00:03:27,498
There's new hope

60
00:03:27,498 --> 00:03:29,584
for the reversal of mental illness.

61
00:03:29,584 --> 00:03:33,379
- It's almost like a different existence.

62
00:03:33,379 --> 00:03:35,840
The resolution
of eating disorders.

63
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I'd never
been able to go that long

64
00:03:37,258 --> 00:03:38,509
without eating

65
00:03:38,509 --> 00:03:40,845
or without, like, obsessing
about it and thinking about it.

66
00:03:40,845 --> 00:03:43,306
The reversal of Type 2 diabetes

67
00:03:43,306 --> 00:03:45,391
and safe management of Type 1.

68
00:03:45,391 --> 00:03:48,102
His diabetes is
completely under control.

69
00:03:48,102 --> 00:03:49,812
He just looks healthy.

70
00:03:49,812 --> 00:03:51,314
Every
day is just a better day.

71
00:03:51,314 --> 00:03:52,523
There is hope.

72
00:03:53,399 --> 00:03:55,944
And that is what I want everyone to know.

73
00:03:55,944 --> 00:03:57,028
- That was my story,

74
00:03:57,028 --> 00:04:01,115
and it's a story I've seen
tens of thousands of times.

75
00:04:01,115 --> 00:04:03,201
I wish the story ended here.

76
00:04:04,035 --> 00:04:06,371
- A new report from the
American Heart Association

77
00:04:06,371 --> 00:04:08,748
is shedding light on the risks associated

78
00:04:08,748 --> 00:04:10,750
with some popular eating plans.

79
00:04:10,750 --> 00:04:12,919
The problem is
modern medicine believes

80
00:04:12,919 --> 00:04:15,880
that Ketogenic diets can also kill us.

81
00:04:15,880 --> 00:04:18,007
- These diets that were
very low in carbohydrates

82
00:04:18,007 --> 00:04:19,676
raise the risk for bad cholesterol,

83
00:04:19,676 --> 00:04:21,594
and that is a risk
factor for heart disease.

84
00:04:21,594 --> 00:04:24,097
- If you have that much fat,
the bad cholesterol goes up,

85
00:04:24,097 --> 00:04:26,015
increasing your risk of heart problems.

86
00:04:26,015 --> 00:04:27,225
- There's an assumption

87
00:04:27,225 --> 00:04:30,144
that if someone starts a Ketogenic diet,

88
00:04:30,144 --> 00:04:32,438
automatically you increase
your risk of heart disease.

89
00:04:32,438 --> 00:04:34,399
And that really is unfounded.

90
00:04:34,399 --> 00:04:35,441
Most people on Keto

91
00:04:35,441 --> 00:04:37,402
see little change in their cholesterol,

92
00:04:38,403 --> 00:04:41,698
but surprisingly, it's the
leanest, healthiest individuals

93
00:04:41,698 --> 00:04:44,367
who can see their levels go up, a lot.

94
00:04:45,285 --> 00:04:47,245
- The cholesterol went through the roof.

95
00:04:47,245 --> 00:04:49,789
- My LDL is way up.

96
00:04:49,789 --> 00:04:51,582
- It was the highest I've seen it.

97
00:04:51,582 --> 00:04:53,584
- I was in the best I've ever been in,

98
00:04:53,584 --> 00:04:57,046
yet one lab number was
saying that this was bad.

99
00:04:57,046 --> 00:05:00,300
- I just knew how good I
felt when I was low carb,

100
00:05:00,300 --> 00:05:02,135
but I did freak out a little.

101
00:05:02,135 --> 00:05:03,511
- I was really afraid.

102
00:05:03,511 --> 00:05:05,680
I was really scared.

103
00:05:05,680 --> 00:05:08,308
Modern medicine
believes there's no debate.

104
00:05:08,308 --> 00:05:11,227
These people are a heart
attack waiting to happen.

105
00:05:11,227 --> 00:05:12,979
- Straight out, LDL cholesterol

106
00:05:12,979 --> 00:05:16,149
causes heart disease and stroke.

107
00:05:16,149 --> 00:05:19,861
- LDL cholesterol is
causative, without a doubt.

108
00:05:19,861 --> 00:05:23,531
- LDL causes heart
disease, without question.

109
00:05:23,531 --> 00:05:25,742
You'll have more heart
attacks and more strokes.

110
00:05:25,742 --> 00:05:28,036
- A lot of times LDL is described

111
00:05:28,036 --> 00:05:30,872
as though it is the disease.

112
00:05:30,872 --> 00:05:32,081
If you have high LDL,

113
00:05:32,081 --> 00:05:34,417
it's as good as if you
already have heart disease,

114
00:05:34,417 --> 00:05:37,253
or at least that it's
right around the corner.

115
00:05:37,253 --> 00:05:39,464
But what if modern medicine is wrong?

116
00:05:39,464 --> 00:05:40,298
Would
you like to see your heart

117
00:05:40,298 --> 00:05:41,883
in three dimensions?

118
00:05:41,883 --> 00:05:43,843
What if this
isn't a medical problem

119
00:05:43,843 --> 00:05:45,762
but a scientific opportunity?

120
00:05:45,762 --> 00:05:46,679
Well, we have the

121
00:05:46,679 --> 00:05:48,348
anterior descending artery here.

122
00:05:48,348 --> 00:05:51,893
- Why not just go ahead
and study these folks?

123
00:05:51,893 --> 00:05:54,437
- That's one of the
fascinating things about Dave.

124
00:05:54,437 --> 00:05:56,647
He's an outsider who came in

125
00:05:56,647 --> 00:05:59,567
and is starting to sort of upend medicine.

126
00:06:01,152 --> 00:06:03,237
My story began when
I saw my own cholesterol

127
00:06:03,237 --> 00:06:04,989
skyrocket on this diet

128
00:06:04,989 --> 00:06:07,283
and I became obsessed
with finding out why.

129
00:06:08,159 --> 00:06:10,620
But I'm not a medical professional.

130
00:06:10,620 --> 00:06:12,830
I've gathered hundreds of blood tests

131
00:06:12,830 --> 00:06:14,791
and I tracked everything I consume.

132
00:06:14,791 --> 00:06:17,168
But I don't work for a lab.

133
00:06:18,169 --> 00:06:19,712
I've authored peer-reviewed papers

134
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to share these discoveries.

135
00:06:21,297 --> 00:06:22,131
Well, then, Dave,

136
00:06:22,131 --> 00:06:23,800
please come and tell us more about it.

137
00:06:25,218 --> 00:06:26,219
- And now I'm spearheading

138
00:06:26,219 --> 00:06:28,346
a highly controversial research study

139
00:06:28,346 --> 00:06:30,014
with a team of doctors and PhDs

140
00:06:30,014 --> 00:06:32,558
across multiple institutions.

141
00:06:32,558 --> 00:06:34,435
But I'm not a trained researcher.

142
00:06:34,435 --> 00:06:37,271
I'm an engineer chasing
this medical mystery

143
00:06:37,271 --> 00:06:39,190
around the world and seeking an answer

144
00:06:39,190 --> 00:06:40,483
for the countless individuals

145
00:06:40,483 --> 00:06:43,236
who rely on Ketogenic
diets for their health.

146
00:06:43,236 --> 00:06:45,905
I need for what they're experiencing

147
00:06:45,905 --> 00:06:47,615
to tell the story for us.

148
00:06:48,533 --> 00:06:51,661
And that's what's exciting,
getting to see how different

149
00:06:51,661 --> 00:06:53,079
each of the locations are,

150
00:06:53,079 --> 00:06:55,456
but yet how common the phenomenon is.

151
00:06:55,456 --> 00:06:58,000
This isn't to say the
Ketogenic diet is a panacea.

152
00:06:58,876 --> 00:07:00,169
It's not for everyone.

153
00:07:00,169 --> 00:07:02,004
It's certainly not for
every medical condition.

154
00:07:02,004 --> 00:07:05,800
But for some medical conditions
and for some individuals,

155
00:07:05,800 --> 00:07:08,344
it seems to be a lifeline.

156
00:07:08,344 --> 00:07:10,388
And yet they have this one problem.

157
00:07:10,388 --> 00:07:12,306
They see this extraordinary increase

158
00:07:12,306 --> 00:07:14,267
in their LDL cholesterol.

159
00:07:14,267 --> 00:07:16,811
Why not just go ahead and find out,

160
00:07:16,811 --> 00:07:18,271
are they at a higher risk?

161
00:07:19,272 --> 00:07:20,982
He's throwing strikes.

162
00:07:20,982 --> 00:07:22,900
- We really need to have an answer,

163
00:07:22,900 --> 00:07:25,695
not just for the adults,
but also for the children,

164
00:07:25,695 --> 00:07:29,407
who might have a medical reason

165
00:07:29,407 --> 00:07:31,534
to be on a very low carbohydrate diet.

166
00:07:32,743 --> 00:07:34,662
And they deserve it from us.

167
00:07:34,662 --> 00:07:38,207
- 91.

168
00:07:43,754 --> 00:07:45,798
Worldwide, the
leading causes of death

169
00:07:45,798 --> 00:07:47,175
are chronic diseases.

170
00:07:47,175 --> 00:07:48,759
You already know these well,

171
00:07:48,759 --> 00:07:51,512
heart disease, stroke, Type 2 Diabetes,

172
00:07:51,512 --> 00:07:53,264
Alzheimer's, and kidney disease.

173
00:07:54,098 --> 00:07:56,517
A key driver of most chronic diseases

174
00:07:56,517 --> 00:07:58,686
is chronically elevated insulin.

175
00:07:58,686 --> 00:08:01,606
And a major contributor to
chronically elevated insulin

176
00:08:01,606 --> 00:08:05,693
is the over-consumption of
sugar and refined carbohydrates.

177
00:08:05,693 --> 00:08:09,113
Ketogenic diets, often
referred to as Keto,

178
00:08:09,113 --> 00:08:12,909
restrict carbohydrates to less
than 5% of daily calories.

179
00:08:12,909 --> 00:08:15,036
They include high amounts of healthy fats

180
00:08:15,036 --> 00:08:17,413
and a moderate amount of protein.

181
00:08:17,413 --> 00:08:20,291
Studies on Keto diets show
that they can reduce insulin,

182
00:08:20,291 --> 00:08:22,710
normalize blood sugar,
promote weight loss,

183
00:08:22,710 --> 00:08:24,337
and restore metabolic health.

184
00:08:24,337 --> 00:08:26,631
And yet every physician
I've met on this journey

185
00:08:26,631 --> 00:08:30,134
was taught that Keto diets
cause high cholesterol,

186
00:08:30,134 --> 00:08:33,387
and high cholesterol causes
the number one killer,

187
00:08:33,387 --> 00:08:34,805
heart disease.

188
00:08:34,805 --> 00:08:35,973
- Just cholesterol is bad.

189
00:08:35,973 --> 00:08:37,642
It causes heart diseases.

190
00:08:37,642 --> 00:08:39,227
- We would talk about
cholesterol being bad.

191
00:08:39,227 --> 00:08:41,145
Higher cholesterol are
gonna clog your veins.

192
00:08:41,145 --> 00:08:43,606
The assumption was just,
well, everyone knows

193
00:08:43,606 --> 00:08:45,024
that the cholesterol is the problem.

194
00:08:45,024 --> 00:08:45,858
Enough said.

195
00:08:47,443 --> 00:08:49,529
- But what is cholesterol?

196
00:08:51,239 --> 00:08:52,782
cholesterol is an essential molecule

197
00:08:52,782 --> 00:08:55,284
found in every cell in the human body.

198
00:08:55,284 --> 00:08:56,619
We cannot live without it.

199
00:08:57,537 --> 00:08:59,205
In fact, whatever cholesterol

200
00:08:59,205 --> 00:09:01,123
we don't get from the foods we eat,

201
00:09:01,123 --> 00:09:03,084
our liver will make on its own.

202
00:09:03,084 --> 00:09:04,418
And the liver is not alone.

203
00:09:05,294 --> 00:09:07,338
Nearly every cell in the human body

204
00:09:07,338 --> 00:09:09,090
can synthesize cholesterol.

205
00:09:10,466 --> 00:09:13,886
cholesterol is essential for
building your cell membranes.

206
00:09:13,886 --> 00:09:15,763
It also helps your liver make bile,

207
00:09:15,763 --> 00:09:17,974
which is needed to
digest the foods you eat.

208
00:09:19,100 --> 00:09:21,143
cholesterol also plays a starring role

209
00:09:21,143 --> 00:09:22,895
in the central nervous system,

210
00:09:22,895 --> 00:09:25,523
ensuring your brain communicates
well with your body.

211
00:09:26,524 --> 00:09:28,609
It also helps synthesize vitamin D,

212
00:09:28,609 --> 00:09:30,403
which supports your immune system,

213
00:09:30,403 --> 00:09:33,447
and sex hormones like
testosterone and estrogen.

214
00:09:35,533 --> 00:09:38,536
So if every cell in our
bodies needs cholesterol

215
00:09:38,536 --> 00:09:40,037
and we can't live without it,

216
00:09:40,037 --> 00:09:42,707
how did it become the
villain of modern medicine?

217
00:09:42,707 --> 00:09:44,584
Well, here's an interesting fact.

218
00:09:44,584 --> 00:09:46,877
Most studies that show an association

219
00:09:46,877 --> 00:09:49,297
between elevated cholesterol
and heart disease

220
00:09:49,297 --> 00:09:51,465
are looking at general populations

221
00:09:51,465 --> 00:09:55,886
who are, let's face it,
generally unhealthy.

222
00:09:55,886 --> 00:09:58,222
- There was a recent study that showed 93%

223
00:09:58,222 --> 00:10:01,934
of the American population has
suboptimal metabolic health.

224
00:10:01,934 --> 00:10:02,852
93%.

225
00:10:02,852 --> 00:10:04,103
So then the question becomes,

226
00:10:04,103 --> 00:10:06,022
well, would that same evidence

227
00:10:06,022 --> 00:10:08,649
translate to a metabolically
healthy population

228
00:10:08,649 --> 00:10:11,360
or a population who's in Ketosis?

229
00:10:11,360 --> 00:10:13,070
And we don't have that evidence, right?

230
00:10:13,070 --> 00:10:15,698
That population has not been studied.

231
00:10:15,698 --> 00:10:19,035
- What if we back out high insulin?

232
00:10:19,035 --> 00:10:23,539
What if we back out obesity,
diabetes, pre-diabetes?

233
00:10:23,539 --> 00:10:26,667
What if we take a look at healthy people

234
00:10:26,667 --> 00:10:30,671
and see if cholesterol matters the same?

235
00:10:30,671 --> 00:10:32,840
- What if high cholesterol

236
00:10:32,840 --> 00:10:35,092
in healthy people on a Keto diet

237
00:10:35,092 --> 00:10:36,886
is telling us a different story?

238
00:10:47,063 --> 00:10:52,068
This is the kind of thing I
like to be eating, or this.

239
00:10:54,820 --> 00:10:56,238
Now you might be like,

240
00:10:56,238 --> 00:10:59,950
"Huh, how many photos
of food do you have?"

241
00:10:59,950 --> 00:11:01,243
Good question.

242
00:11:01,243 --> 00:11:06,165
About, I don't know, this many.

243
00:11:06,165 --> 00:11:08,501
I've been pretty much
a nerd my whole life.

244
00:11:08,501 --> 00:11:11,337
And I liked playing with Legos.

245
00:11:11,337 --> 00:11:14,298
I liked reading comic books.

246
00:11:14,298 --> 00:11:15,716
I liked playing video games.

247
00:11:18,386 --> 00:11:20,888
I liked playing around with programs

248
00:11:20,888 --> 00:11:24,392
and writing little games
for myself and my friends.

249
00:11:26,060 --> 00:11:28,354
I like building things.

250
00:11:28,354 --> 00:11:30,314
I remember I really
impressed my dad one time

251
00:11:30,314 --> 00:11:33,984
'cause I built a
transmission for a Lego car.

252
00:11:33,984 --> 00:11:35,778
And it was fun.

253
00:11:35,778 --> 00:11:39,323
Just the building and the
constructing of things

254
00:11:39,323 --> 00:11:41,117
is enjoyable.

255
00:11:42,159 --> 00:11:45,413
But here's one of the
things about all engineers.

256
00:11:45,413 --> 00:11:49,583
We actually spend more
time taking things apart.

257
00:11:50,584 --> 00:11:52,753
I've been taking photographs of my food

258
00:11:52,753 --> 00:11:54,130
and lot of these metrics

259
00:11:54,130 --> 00:11:58,092
for coming on to eight
years in a couple of months.

260
00:11:59,260 --> 00:12:02,430
I'd just always be sure that
my hand was in the shot,

261
00:12:02,430 --> 00:12:04,557
but usually I'd have, like, my fist nearby

262
00:12:04,557 --> 00:12:06,308
so you could get a sense of volume.

263
00:12:07,393 --> 00:12:09,019
Why do you do this?

264
00:12:09,019 --> 00:12:10,688
- I wanted to track all my food

265
00:12:12,148 --> 00:12:16,152
so that I had the data to
match with the blood work I do.

266
00:12:16,152 --> 00:12:18,946
And I have a perfect record
of everything I've consumed.

267
00:12:20,239 --> 00:12:21,073
How many photos

268
00:12:21,073 --> 00:12:23,743
has Dave taken of you versus food?

269
00:12:23,743 --> 00:12:25,745
Well, I think if anybody

270
00:12:25,745 --> 00:12:26,704
looked through their phone,

271
00:12:26,704 --> 00:12:30,791
they'd think that something
was very, very off,

272
00:12:30,791 --> 00:12:34,754
because there are far
more pictures of his food,

273
00:12:34,754 --> 00:12:36,547
his food and his fist.

274
00:12:36,547 --> 00:12:39,091
- I even have a lot of gestures.

275
00:12:39,091 --> 00:12:41,427
While the hand enclosed

276
00:12:41,427 --> 00:12:44,180
is what's showing up shot after shot,

277
00:12:44,180 --> 00:12:48,559
I actually have some
things like this gesture.

278
00:12:48,559 --> 00:12:50,561
What this means is I decided

279
00:12:50,561 --> 00:12:52,772
to start eating two
hot dogs without a bun.

280
00:12:53,898 --> 00:12:56,609
But an open hand means that I stopped.

281
00:12:56,609 --> 00:13:00,154
And that's because these hot
dogs were gross.

282
00:13:00,154 --> 00:13:02,490
- Being the engineer geek that he is,

283
00:13:02,490 --> 00:13:04,241
he just has a different way of thinking,

284
00:13:04,241 --> 00:13:08,120
that maybe somebody who spent
their entire life in medicine,

285
00:13:08,120 --> 00:13:10,956
than how they would think
in their thought process.

286
00:13:10,956 --> 00:13:12,249
- The more I could take things apart

287
00:13:12,249 --> 00:13:13,626
and see how they worked on the inside,

288
00:13:13,626 --> 00:13:16,045
the more I became fascinated.

289
00:13:16,045 --> 00:13:18,339
And nowhere did I become more fascinated

290
00:13:18,339 --> 00:13:21,133
than with code, with programming.

291
00:13:24,220 --> 00:13:27,556
As early as I can
remember, I loved software.

292
00:13:27,556 --> 00:13:30,851
Eventually, I'd be writing my
own code, starting businesses,

293
00:13:30,851 --> 00:13:33,896
and building platforms
with teams of engineers.

294
00:13:33,896 --> 00:13:37,775
I love technology, and
technology loved me back.

295
00:13:37,775 --> 00:13:40,069
But it came at a cost.

296
00:13:40,069 --> 00:13:42,822
Like my fellow developers,
my diet was terrible

297
00:13:42,822 --> 00:13:43,656
and my blood work

298
00:13:43,656 --> 00:13:45,908
was showing higher and
higher glucose levels,

299
00:13:45,908 --> 00:13:47,952
suggesting I was developing diabetes,

300
00:13:47,952 --> 00:13:49,328
like most of my family.

301
00:13:50,412 --> 00:13:54,250
Finally, in 2015, I decided
to do something about it.

302
00:13:54,250 --> 00:13:56,919
The low-carb diet was
steadily rising in popularity,

303
00:13:56,919 --> 00:13:59,171
especially for treating diabetes,

304
00:13:59,171 --> 00:14:01,423
which made a lot of sense to me.

305
00:14:01,423 --> 00:14:04,385
And when I cut back on
carbohydrates, it worked.

306
00:14:04,385 --> 00:14:06,345
Not only did my blood sugar come down,

307
00:14:06,345 --> 00:14:09,098
I dropped 30 pounds, my
energy levels increased,

308
00:14:09,098 --> 00:14:12,309
my sleep improved, my running improved.

309
00:14:12,309 --> 00:14:16,230
Everything got better, except one thing,

310
00:14:16,230 --> 00:14:18,357
one thing that could not be ignored.

311
00:14:19,650 --> 00:14:22,027
I remember that day like it was yesterday.

312
00:14:22,027 --> 00:14:27,032
I remember it because that
one 8 1/2 by 11 piece of paper

313
00:14:28,284 --> 00:14:30,369
completely changed my life.

314
00:14:33,789 --> 00:14:37,877
I just kept looking at those
labs completely mystified.

315
00:14:40,963 --> 00:14:42,256
I kind of wanted a second opinion.

316
00:14:42,256 --> 00:14:43,632
Maybe it was a lab error.

317
00:14:45,384 --> 00:14:47,845
So why not just get my
blood work all over again?

318
00:14:48,846 --> 00:14:49,722
In the meantime,

319
00:14:49,722 --> 00:14:52,057
I'm trying to learn everything
I can about cholesterol.

320
00:14:52,057 --> 00:14:54,560
But I have no background
in medicine or research

321
00:14:54,560 --> 00:14:58,355
so I'd just get frustrated
and then depressed.

322
00:14:58,355 --> 00:15:00,399
And my appetite had fallen off.

323
00:15:01,400 --> 00:15:03,360
But I kept thinking, that's
actually a good thing.

324
00:15:03,360 --> 00:15:05,738
If my appetite's fallen off, guess what?

325
00:15:05,738 --> 00:15:10,117
I'm eating less fat, and
especially less saturated fat.

326
00:15:10,117 --> 00:15:12,077
Because if I'm eating less saturated fat,

327
00:15:12,077 --> 00:15:15,247
my LDL should drop, right?

328
00:15:15,247 --> 00:15:16,415
But that's not what happened.

329
00:15:16,415 --> 00:15:17,374
Not at all.

330
00:15:18,959 --> 00:15:21,003
The second test was two weeks later.

331
00:15:21,003 --> 00:15:25,090
Instead of dropping, my
LDL jumped up, a lot.

332
00:15:25,090 --> 00:15:27,134
It climbed another hundred points.

333
00:15:27,134 --> 00:15:31,597
And suddenly a lot of my
fear became fascination.

334
00:15:31,597 --> 00:15:35,643
I knew, I knew right then,
there's way more to this story.

335
00:15:35,643 --> 00:15:38,228
It's not as simple as it's
just fat or saturated fat

336
00:15:38,228 --> 00:15:41,398
because this was literally
the first experiment

337
00:15:41,398 --> 00:15:43,275
that I didn't even intend to do,

338
00:15:44,401 --> 00:15:47,112
yet I was doing it.

339
00:15:47,112 --> 00:15:50,866
I was finding out that
the thing that I was told

340
00:15:50,866 --> 00:15:52,701
was driving up my cholesterol,

341
00:15:53,953 --> 00:15:57,373
it couldn't have been all
there was to the story.

342
00:15:57,373 --> 00:15:59,708
There had to be more.

343
00:15:59,708 --> 00:16:02,544
And at that point it, it
turned into a full obsession.

344
00:16:03,963 --> 00:16:06,674
So I started taking pictures
of my food all the time,

345
00:16:06,674 --> 00:16:08,884
and that allowed me to
have a tighter record

346
00:16:08,884 --> 00:16:11,887
of where my food matched
with my lipid levels,

347
00:16:11,887 --> 00:16:14,807
because at the same time, I'm
getting constant blood tests

348
00:16:14,807 --> 00:16:16,266
and tracking my cholesterol,

349
00:16:16,266 --> 00:16:18,560
then comparing it to my food intake.

350
00:16:18,560 --> 00:16:21,271
So I could actually see
these changes in real time.

351
00:16:21,271 --> 00:16:23,774
And the very first pattern that emerged

352
00:16:23,774 --> 00:16:26,527
was this inversion pattern.

353
00:16:26,527 --> 00:16:29,321
My baseline LDL is still high on Keto,

354
00:16:29,321 --> 00:16:33,242
but, get this, my numbers
can swing dramatically

355
00:16:33,242 --> 00:16:35,744
based on what I eat on a daily basis,

356
00:16:35,744 --> 00:16:38,163
and not the way we might think.

357
00:16:38,163 --> 00:16:40,708
When I consumed less food on Keto,

358
00:16:40,708 --> 00:16:44,670
including less saturated
fat, my LDL jumped higher.

359
00:16:44,670 --> 00:16:47,673
When I consumed more, my LDL dropped.

360
00:16:47,673 --> 00:16:49,133
That was the first signal.

361
00:16:49,133 --> 00:16:50,843
The first signal was, wait, wait, wait,

362
00:16:50,843 --> 00:16:53,095
these levels are super dynamic.

363
00:16:53,095 --> 00:16:56,348
All I need to do is track my food,

364
00:16:56,348 --> 00:16:59,351
take a higher frequency of these tests,

365
00:16:59,351 --> 00:17:00,477
and then see if that feedback

366
00:17:00,477 --> 00:17:01,770
gives me meaningful information.

367
00:17:01,770 --> 00:17:02,604
And it did.

368
00:17:02,604 --> 00:17:05,691
It was giving me meaningful
information in real time.

369
00:17:05,691 --> 00:17:07,276
In just the span of a few months,

370
00:17:07,276 --> 00:17:11,572
I was already wanting to go to
the next low carb conference,

371
00:17:11,572 --> 00:17:13,365
and knock on their doors, and say,

372
00:17:13,365 --> 00:17:14,742
"Look, guys, you've gotta check this out.

373
00:17:14,742 --> 00:17:16,076
You've gotta look at this."

374
00:17:21,290 --> 00:17:23,959
It's my very first low carb conference.

375
00:17:23,959 --> 00:17:25,377
And I brought my laptop with me,

376
00:17:25,377 --> 00:17:26,795
which had the data in it.

377
00:17:26,795 --> 00:17:28,422
And it had the graphs.

378
00:17:28,422 --> 00:17:31,508
- The thing was that it
was our very first event,

379
00:17:31,508 --> 00:17:33,677
and I was spinning like a top,

380
00:17:33,677 --> 00:17:36,221
and he kept getting in
my face with his laptop.

381
00:17:36,221 --> 00:17:37,056
You know, like, "Look at it."

382
00:17:37,056 --> 00:17:39,683
And I was saying, "Yeah, Dave,
thanks, but, you know..."

383
00:17:39,683 --> 00:17:41,143
"No, no, no, like..."

384
00:17:41,143 --> 00:17:42,728
He was so passionate about it.

385
00:17:42,728 --> 00:17:45,606
- And all I had was eight
blood tests at that time,

386
00:17:45,606 --> 00:17:48,275
but it showed this inversion pattern.

387
00:17:48,275 --> 00:17:49,818
And I started talking to them

388
00:17:49,818 --> 00:17:51,737
about what I thought it might be.

389
00:17:52,988 --> 00:17:57,576
And they all looked at me like
I was an alien.

390
00:17:57,576 --> 00:17:58,994
- But the most astounding thing to me

391
00:17:58,994 --> 00:18:00,621
was everybody was coming to me saying,

392
00:18:00,621 --> 00:18:03,040
"Have you met that gentleman

393
00:18:03,040 --> 00:18:04,958
who's walking around with a laptop?"

394
00:18:04,958 --> 00:18:07,961
And he's got this graph
and he's showing everybody

395
00:18:07,961 --> 00:18:10,464
you can adjust your LDL
and your cholesterol

396
00:18:10,464 --> 00:18:13,092
by what you eat on a daily basis.

397
00:18:13,092 --> 00:18:16,595
- Yeah, I'm sure I came off
as, you know, a bit kooky.

398
00:18:17,513 --> 00:18:21,475
Regardless, though, it didn't
change how passionate I was

399
00:18:21,475 --> 00:18:24,812
about making sure that
they could understand

400
00:18:24,812 --> 00:18:26,939
just how dynamic these levels were.

401
00:18:26,939 --> 00:18:29,358
- The usual we think about
lipids and lipoproteins

402
00:18:29,358 --> 00:18:31,110
is on the order of months.

403
00:18:31,110 --> 00:18:32,361
Now here's Dave who comes along

404
00:18:32,361 --> 00:18:34,029
with his end of one experiment and says,

405
00:18:34,029 --> 00:18:35,656
"In a matter of days,

406
00:18:35,656 --> 00:18:38,283
I can radically change my cholesterol."

407
00:18:39,660 --> 00:18:42,162
We've not talked about that in lipidology.

408
00:18:42,162 --> 00:18:43,664
- If anybody has any questions,

409
00:18:43,664 --> 00:18:46,208
feel free to post them here in the chat.

410
00:18:46,208 --> 00:18:47,918
The more I shared my discoveries,

411
00:18:47,918 --> 00:18:50,045
the more people started paying attention.

412
00:18:50,045 --> 00:18:52,464
- Dave is a software engineer

413
00:18:52,464 --> 00:18:54,341
who got ridiculously interested

414
00:18:54,341 --> 00:18:57,010
in self experimentation, nutrition.

415
00:18:57,010 --> 00:18:58,262
- I wanna thank Dave Feldman,

416
00:18:58,262 --> 00:19:00,264
an engineer who came into this field.

417
00:19:00,264 --> 00:19:02,391
- Dave Feldman, I think it's extraordinary

418
00:19:02,391 --> 00:19:03,976
that we've got an engineer.

419
00:19:03,976 --> 00:19:07,437
- Dave Feldman noticed that
when he went on a low carb diet,

420
00:19:07,437 --> 00:19:08,272
his LDL-

421
00:19:08,272 --> 00:19:10,440
- Dave Feldman is someone
you'd wanna have on too.

422
00:19:10,440 --> 00:19:12,693
- Dave Feldman, who's been
a guest on the podcast-

423
00:19:12,693 --> 00:19:14,820
- I respect Dave Feldman.

424
00:19:14,820 --> 00:19:17,573
- Dave Feldman, who's been on the podcast.

425
00:19:17,573 --> 00:19:19,116
- I mentioned a guy named
Dave Feldman and he was-

426
00:19:19,116 --> 00:19:21,910
- And Dave Feldman is an engineer

427
00:19:21,910 --> 00:19:23,620
who stumbled onto this mystery.

428
00:19:24,913 --> 00:19:26,707
- And that's how it all started.

429
00:19:26,707 --> 00:19:28,041
They all thought I was a little crazy,

430
00:19:28,041 --> 00:19:32,171
which maybe I am because I put
my engineering career on hold

431
00:19:32,171 --> 00:19:35,591
and jumped full time into
the world of science.

432
00:19:45,434 --> 00:19:47,686
It's fascinating because now

433
00:19:47,686 --> 00:19:49,563
I'm connected with all these people

434
00:19:49,563 --> 00:19:51,315
who experienced the same thing I did.

435
00:19:51,315 --> 00:19:54,401
It's like they're echoing
back the same story,

436
00:19:54,401 --> 00:19:58,238
where they feel like they
found the fountain of youth.

437
00:19:58,238 --> 00:20:00,449
All these things improved
and there's a lot of people

438
00:20:00,449 --> 00:20:02,534
who are getting medical benefits

439
00:20:02,534 --> 00:20:04,995
from dropping their
carbohydrates way down,

440
00:20:04,995 --> 00:20:07,789
but you've got this one
thing, this one thing.

441
00:20:11,126 --> 00:20:14,504
I have to know, I have to
know if this is a problem.

442
00:20:14,504 --> 00:20:17,716
Because it's the only one,
it's the only one I can see.

443
00:20:17,716 --> 00:20:18,550
Alison?

444
00:20:20,427 --> 00:20:21,261
- Hi.

445
00:20:21,261 --> 00:20:22,095
Hello.

446
00:20:22,095 --> 00:20:22,930
- How are you?

447
00:20:22,930 --> 00:20:24,306
Come on in.

448
00:20:24,306 --> 00:20:26,266
I've landed in Pennsburg, Pennsylvania

449
00:20:26,266 --> 00:20:27,768
to meet 10-year-old Johnny.

450
00:20:27,768 --> 00:20:29,353
Hey.

451
00:20:29,353 --> 00:20:30,938
Tell me a little bit about Johnny.

452
00:20:30,938 --> 00:20:32,189
What kind of kid is he?

453
00:20:32,189 --> 00:20:36,068
- So Johnny is all boy.

454
00:20:36,068 --> 00:20:38,654
I'm gonna start with that.

455
00:20:38,654 --> 00:20:40,697
He's very, very active.

456
00:20:42,157 --> 00:20:44,409
- Do a full windup, all right?

457
00:20:44,409 --> 00:20:46,411
You could go slow, slow with the windup.

458
00:20:47,746 --> 00:20:50,415
He turned 10 last April

459
00:20:50,415 --> 00:20:54,002
and he played with 11 and 12 year olds.

460
00:20:54,002 --> 00:20:55,003
And some of those 12 year olds

461
00:20:55,003 --> 00:20:57,756
actually were almost 13 year olds.

462
00:20:57,756 --> 00:20:59,841
And he didn't miss a beat.

463
00:20:59,841 --> 00:21:02,761
- Like, I think I can do
like 50 miles per hour,

464
00:21:02,761 --> 00:21:05,222
like, right-handed.

465
00:21:05,222 --> 00:21:07,182
I sure 12 year olds too.

466
00:21:08,141 --> 00:21:09,810
Last year, Johnny was diagnosed

467
00:21:09,810 --> 00:21:11,270
with Type 1 diabetes.

468
00:21:11,270 --> 00:21:14,356
His condition requires
vigilant blood sugar monitoring

469
00:21:14,356 --> 00:21:15,941
and insulin therapy.

470
00:21:15,941 --> 00:21:19,194
This is .5 units of R insulin.

471
00:21:19,194 --> 00:21:21,697
He'll get this right
before he eats breakfast.

472
00:21:21,697 --> 00:21:23,073
Insulin injections are crucial

473
00:21:23,073 --> 00:21:24,908
for individuals with Type 1 diabetes

474
00:21:24,908 --> 00:21:27,577
because their bodies
don't produce insulin,

475
00:21:27,577 --> 00:21:29,079
a hormone needed to regulate blood sugar.

476
00:21:29,079 --> 00:21:30,330
There you go.

477
00:21:31,248 --> 00:21:32,332
Without insulin,

478
00:21:32,332 --> 00:21:33,875
glucose builds up in the bloodstream

479
00:21:33,875 --> 00:21:35,419
to dangerously high levels.

480
00:21:36,336 --> 00:21:38,630
Injections of insulin unlock the cells,

481
00:21:38,630 --> 00:21:40,966
allowing them to absorb glucose properly,

482
00:21:41,800 --> 00:21:44,052
keeping blood glucose levels normal.

483
00:21:45,762 --> 00:21:47,848
But the amount of insulin Johnny requires

484
00:21:47,848 --> 00:21:50,309
is greatly affected by the foods he eats.

485
00:21:51,143 --> 00:21:54,104
- Type 1 diabetes, the
mantra has always been

486
00:21:54,104 --> 00:21:55,981
eat whatever you want, eat your carbs,

487
00:21:55,981 --> 00:21:57,733
and cover it with insulin.

488
00:21:57,733 --> 00:21:59,484
Your child
will still be able to eat

489
00:21:59,484 --> 00:22:01,737
all of his or her favorite foods.

490
00:22:01,737 --> 00:22:02,904
- Because with Type 1 diabetes,

491
00:22:02,904 --> 00:22:05,115
the risk of too low of insulin

492
00:22:05,115 --> 00:22:07,367
is as great as too high of insulin.

493
00:22:07,367 --> 00:22:10,996
And that's unfortunately
why, in the long run,

494
00:22:10,996 --> 00:22:12,831
they tend to do pretty poorly,

495
00:22:12,831 --> 00:22:17,085
because the treatment
guidelines are very lax

496
00:22:17,085 --> 00:22:19,087
about how aggressive to be.

497
00:22:19,087 --> 00:22:23,258
- I can have a cupcake and get
insulin for it and be okay.

498
00:22:23,258 --> 00:22:25,844
- That's what they kept
saying, feed him what he wants,

499
00:22:25,844 --> 00:22:27,596
you dose accordingly.

500
00:22:27,596 --> 00:22:30,849
So I have pictures of him,
like, in the hospital bed

501
00:22:30,849 --> 00:22:35,354
with his IVs and he's shoveling
pancakes covered in syrup.

502
00:22:35,354 --> 00:22:38,440
- That's the highest
his blood sugar has been

503
00:22:38,440 --> 00:22:41,568
since we knew he had Type 1 diabetes.

504
00:22:41,568 --> 00:22:43,987
The last night in the
hospital under their care,

505
00:22:43,987 --> 00:22:47,616
I think it was over 300
milligrams per deciliter.

506
00:22:47,616 --> 00:22:51,703
But he didn't like being
on that rollercoaster.

507
00:22:51,703 --> 00:22:54,581
- That rollercoaster of
glucose gets too high,

508
00:22:54,581 --> 00:22:56,875
you need insulin, but then it
can get too low and you have

509
00:22:56,875 --> 00:22:59,461
the hypoglycemic effect.
- Correct.

510
00:22:59,461 --> 00:23:02,005
- If I was living, like,
that high carb diet,

511
00:23:02,005 --> 00:23:04,216
like, I would have to
take a lot of insulin,

512
00:23:04,216 --> 00:23:06,927
it'd bring me up and then
when I started low carb

513
00:23:06,927 --> 00:23:08,387
it got perfect.

514
00:23:09,971 --> 00:23:13,266
- So we buy our eggs from a local farm.

515
00:23:13,266 --> 00:23:14,976
The entire family went Keto,

516
00:23:14,976 --> 00:23:17,896
cutting out simple
carbohydrates like bread, pasta,

517
00:23:17,896 --> 00:23:19,898
cereal, and sugary sweets.

518
00:23:19,898 --> 00:23:21,983
- So Johnny at 10 years old,

519
00:23:21,983 --> 00:23:25,362
hardly requiring any insulin
because he's on a Keto diet,

520
00:23:25,362 --> 00:23:28,865
his path is going to be
much clearer, much smoother,

521
00:23:28,865 --> 00:23:32,119
and much better controlled
than the alternative.

522
00:23:32,119 --> 00:23:33,495
Fewer carbs on his plate

523
00:23:33,495 --> 00:23:35,789
means less glucose in his bloodstream,

524
00:23:35,789 --> 00:23:39,376
making Johnny less reliant
on injected insulin.

525
00:23:39,376 --> 00:23:41,753
An hour and
a half after breakfast

526
00:23:41,753 --> 00:23:44,047
and he's sitting at 78,

527
00:23:44,047 --> 00:23:46,925
which is pretty healthy blood glucose

528
00:23:46,925 --> 00:23:48,343
for a child or anybody.

529
00:23:49,678 --> 00:23:53,723
So I keep our
extra insulin in this fridge.

530
00:23:53,723 --> 00:23:57,102
We get it every month
and I just put it away.

531
00:23:58,895 --> 00:24:00,522
Before the discovery of insulin,

532
00:24:00,522 --> 00:24:03,733
a diagnosis of Type 1
diabetes was a death sentence.

533
00:24:03,733 --> 00:24:05,986
Children with the disease became emaciated

534
00:24:05,986 --> 00:24:08,155
and slowly starved to death.

535
00:24:08,155 --> 00:24:10,282
When insulin was discovered in the 1920s,

536
00:24:10,282 --> 00:24:13,034
it revolutionized the treatment of Type 1,

537
00:24:13,034 --> 00:24:15,871
but dosing insulin was a new frontier

538
00:24:15,871 --> 00:24:18,373
and there were no tools
like blood glucose meters

539
00:24:18,373 --> 00:24:20,333
to monitor the results.

540
00:24:20,333 --> 00:24:23,253
- In the old days,
individuals were being given

541
00:24:23,253 --> 00:24:26,506
what I call industrial doses of insulin.

542
00:24:26,506 --> 00:24:28,425
- Richard Bernstein is a pioneer

543
00:24:28,425 --> 00:24:30,218
in the realm of diabetes care.

544
00:24:31,303 --> 00:24:36,016
Born in 1934, he developed
Type 1 at the age of 11.

545
00:24:36,016 --> 00:24:37,601
How old are you Dr. Bernstein?

546
00:24:37,601 --> 00:24:38,768
- 89.

547
00:24:38,768 --> 00:24:40,187
89.

548
00:24:40,187 --> 00:24:43,482
- When I got diabetes,
my parents were told

549
00:24:43,482 --> 00:24:48,487
that my lifespan would be
30 years from the onset.

550
00:24:50,030 --> 00:24:52,616
So I'd live to be 41.

551
00:24:52,616 --> 00:24:54,284
Wow.

552
00:24:55,243 --> 00:24:57,954
Many of Bernstein's
contemporaries would die young.

553
00:24:57,954 --> 00:25:00,373
Early insulin therapy was a miracle cure,

554
00:25:00,373 --> 00:25:02,626
but young patients on high insulin doses

555
00:25:02,626 --> 00:25:05,086
developed early atherosclerosis.

556
00:25:05,086 --> 00:25:07,506
Most died from heart attacks and strokes

557
00:25:07,506 --> 00:25:10,675
within 20 or 30 years of starting therapy.

558
00:25:10,675 --> 00:25:14,387
So one of the things that's
emerged with insulin therapy

559
00:25:14,387 --> 00:25:19,184
for Type 1 diabetics is it's
connection with heart disease.

560
00:25:19,184 --> 00:25:22,270
- The connection with heart
disease was very profound.

561
00:25:22,270 --> 00:25:25,065
Gary Taubes is an
investigative science journalist

562
00:25:25,065 --> 00:25:27,943
who has researched the history
and treatment of diabetes.

563
00:25:27,943 --> 00:25:32,113
- By the 1960s, the research
is saying insulin itself

564
00:25:32,113 --> 00:25:37,118
in high doses is atherogenic,
it causes atherosclerosis.

565
00:25:37,118 --> 00:25:38,286
Bernstein was determined

566
00:25:38,286 --> 00:25:40,539
to avoid those complications.

567
00:25:40,539 --> 00:25:44,584
- Okay, this is the
first blood sugar meter.

568
00:25:44,584 --> 00:25:47,587
It was used in emergency rooms

569
00:25:47,587 --> 00:25:50,340
to tell the drunks from
the diabetics at night

570
00:25:50,340 --> 00:25:53,051
when the labs were closed.

571
00:25:53,051 --> 00:25:54,719
Originally
trained as an engineer,

572
00:25:54,719 --> 00:25:56,680
Bernstein hacked the bulky monitor

573
00:25:56,680 --> 00:25:59,266
so he could run it off
batteries, carry it with him,

574
00:25:59,266 --> 00:26:01,184
and continuously track his blood sugar.

575
00:26:01,184 --> 00:26:04,813
- So he becomes the very
first person in the world

576
00:26:04,813 --> 00:26:07,732
to start measuring his blood sugar at home

577
00:26:09,401 --> 00:26:10,902
multiple times a day.

578
00:26:10,902 --> 00:26:13,029
- I was the only one in the world

579
00:26:13,029 --> 00:26:15,991
who was checking his
blood sugar all day long.

580
00:26:15,991 --> 00:26:19,869
- Literally patient number one
for blood sugar monitoring.

581
00:26:19,869 --> 00:26:21,121
And he comes up with this idea

582
00:26:21,121 --> 00:26:23,290
that he calls the Law of Small Numbers,

583
00:26:23,290 --> 00:26:26,293
which is the way physicists
and engineers think,

584
00:26:26,293 --> 00:26:30,672
that small inputs have
predictable effects.

585
00:26:30,672 --> 00:26:33,717
So if he keeps the input, the carbs small,

586
00:26:33,717 --> 00:26:36,011
he can keep the insulin doses small.

587
00:26:36,011 --> 00:26:40,265
And now he could kind of keep
everything under control.

588
00:26:40,265 --> 00:26:43,602
- I finally had normal blood sugars.

589
00:26:43,602 --> 00:26:48,398
I walked into this taking
200 units of insulin,

590
00:26:48,398 --> 00:26:51,943
and today I take about 20 units,

591
00:26:51,943 --> 00:26:54,529
about a 10th of what I was taking then.

592
00:26:54,529 --> 00:26:57,073
Bernstein went
back to school in his 40s

593
00:26:57,073 --> 00:26:59,618
to become a medical doctor.

594
00:26:59,618 --> 00:27:01,369
Adding MD after his name

595
00:27:01,369 --> 00:27:03,705
would open more doors for
publishing his discoveries

596
00:27:03,705 --> 00:27:05,498
in medical journals.

597
00:27:05,498 --> 00:27:06,916
But even so...

598
00:27:06,916 --> 00:27:09,210
- Letters of rejection.

599
00:27:09,210 --> 00:27:10,462
- He sent it out to journals,

600
00:27:10,462 --> 00:27:13,089
got very nice rejection letters back then

601
00:27:13,089 --> 00:27:17,510
saying this is a good idea,
but you're not a typical person

602
00:27:17,510 --> 00:27:19,179
and nobody else is ever
gonna wanna monitor

603
00:27:19,179 --> 00:27:21,473
their blood sugar five times a day.

604
00:27:21,473 --> 00:27:26,478
So Bernstein's revelation that
you can control the disease

605
00:27:26,770 --> 00:27:29,356
with small doses of insulin

606
00:27:29,356 --> 00:27:32,108
and control blood sugar almost perfectly

607
00:27:32,108 --> 00:27:35,737
without carbohydrates
would be left behind.

608
00:27:35,737 --> 00:27:39,074
- Wow, it just seems so
straightforward though.

609
00:27:39,074 --> 00:27:41,034
If carbohydrates are what gets converted

610
00:27:41,034 --> 00:27:43,161
to glucose in our body

611
00:27:43,161 --> 00:27:46,373
and if you've got a condition

612
00:27:46,373 --> 00:27:48,375
where you have difficulty regulating it,

613
00:27:48,375 --> 00:27:50,251
why not just have less carbohydrates?

614
00:27:50,251 --> 00:27:52,212
- Well, there's something

615
00:27:52,212 --> 00:27:55,840
that's now called the cholesterol Myth.

616
00:27:55,840 --> 00:27:57,509
- Okay, so remember how,

617
00:27:57,509 --> 00:27:59,511
in the early years of insulin therapy,

618
00:27:59,511 --> 00:28:02,263
people with Type 1
diabetes were dying young

619
00:28:02,263 --> 00:28:04,516
from heart attacks and strokes?

620
00:28:04,516 --> 00:28:06,559
At the time, some researchers blamed it

621
00:28:06,559 --> 00:28:08,353
on high doses of insulin,

622
00:28:08,353 --> 00:28:11,773
but other researchers blamed
it on high cholesterol.

623
00:28:11,773 --> 00:28:15,068
Dr. Bernstein calls this
the cholesterol Myth

624
00:28:15,068 --> 00:28:17,654
because he observed that reducing insulin

625
00:28:17,654 --> 00:28:21,616
reduces diabetic complications
like heart disease.

626
00:28:21,616 --> 00:28:24,035
When did you first find out that Johnny

627
00:28:24,035 --> 00:28:26,746
had something going on
with his cholesterol?

628
00:28:28,331 --> 00:28:31,418
- That was at his one year labs.

629
00:28:31,418 --> 00:28:33,420
And this brings
us back to Johnny.

630
00:28:33,420 --> 00:28:36,673
Johnny's insulin is under
control and he's thriving.

631
00:28:36,673 --> 00:28:38,883
But like so many I've
met who are very lean,

632
00:28:38,883 --> 00:28:40,677
and athletic, and go low carb,

633
00:28:40,677 --> 00:28:43,722
Johnny's cholesterol
went through the roof.

634
00:28:43,722 --> 00:28:45,598
- I was hysterical.

635
00:28:45,598 --> 00:28:46,808
I called my husband.

636
00:28:46,808 --> 00:28:49,602
I was just like, "Ahhh,
we're doing everything right.

637
00:28:49,602 --> 00:28:51,604
Why is this happening?"

638
00:28:51,604 --> 00:28:52,897
He's like, "Calm down.

639
00:28:52,897 --> 00:28:53,732
It's okay.

640
00:28:53,732 --> 00:28:55,400
Like, breathe."

641
00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:56,526
- Timeout.

642
00:28:56,526 --> 00:28:58,987
Of course Johnny's parents
and his medical team

643
00:28:58,987 --> 00:29:00,280
are freaked out.

644
00:29:00,280 --> 00:29:02,490
His LDL cholesterol isn't just high,

645
00:29:02,490 --> 00:29:05,118
it's 640 milligrams per deciliter.

646
00:29:05,118 --> 00:29:08,621
That's well over six times
the recommended level.

647
00:29:08,621 --> 00:29:10,165
Johnny's cholesterol is on par

648
00:29:10,165 --> 00:29:12,250
with kids who have a rare genetic disease.

649
00:29:13,334 --> 00:29:17,756
It's called Familial
Hypercholesterolemia, or FH.

650
00:29:17,756 --> 00:29:19,966
FH impairs the absorption
of LDL cholesterol,

651
00:29:19,966 --> 00:29:22,635
causing a massive buildup
in the bloodstream.

652
00:29:22,635 --> 00:29:26,181
In its rarest form, FH can
cause heart attacks and death

653
00:29:26,181 --> 00:29:27,640
in young children.

654
00:29:27,640 --> 00:29:31,269
This condition is often marked
by fatty deposits on the skin

655
00:29:31,269 --> 00:29:34,481
and is considered the strongest
case for the hypothesis

656
00:29:34,481 --> 00:29:38,401
that LDL cholesterol independently
causes heart disease.

657
00:29:38,401 --> 00:29:40,528
But it's unclear how much of the risk

658
00:29:40,528 --> 00:29:43,740
is related to the genetic disease itself.

659
00:29:43,740 --> 00:29:46,659
Regardless, the association
between LDL cholesterol

660
00:29:46,659 --> 00:29:48,536
and heart disease in this condition

661
00:29:48,536 --> 00:29:53,082
is a major reason why Johnny's
medical team is so concerned.

662
00:29:53,082 --> 00:29:55,251
So now the difficult question.

663
00:29:56,127 --> 00:29:57,587
How do you know for sure

664
00:29:57,587 --> 00:30:00,215
if you're doing the
right thing for Johnny?

665
00:30:00,215 --> 00:30:02,133
- I feel sometimes, just looking at him,

666
00:30:02,133 --> 00:30:05,428
he looks like so much healthier

667
00:30:05,428 --> 00:30:08,556
than any other kid his own age.

668
00:30:08,556 --> 00:30:10,266
I know that's kind of naive,

669
00:30:10,266 --> 00:30:13,269
to think that nothing
wrong is going on inside,

670
00:30:13,269 --> 00:30:16,231
but I tell you that all the
time, he just looks healthy.

671
00:30:16,231 --> 00:30:18,608
- I'm hoping that maybe one day

672
00:30:18,608 --> 00:30:22,737
there'll be a doctor that can help us,

673
00:30:22,737 --> 00:30:25,657
you know, at least with what we should do,

674
00:30:25,657 --> 00:30:27,951
the proper test to get done to make sure

675
00:30:27,951 --> 00:30:30,411
that everything is okay with him.

676
00:30:35,834 --> 00:30:37,043
- Here's an important point.

677
00:30:37,043 --> 00:30:39,128
Johnny doesn't have genetic FH.

678
00:30:39,128 --> 00:30:41,798
He wasn't born with these levels.

679
00:30:41,798 --> 00:30:44,843
Like me, he only started
to see high cholesterol

680
00:30:44,843 --> 00:30:48,805
when he went on a Ketogenic
diet to manage his diabetes.

681
00:30:48,805 --> 00:30:51,015
He also has minimal body fat

682
00:30:51,015 --> 00:30:53,309
and is extremely lean and athletic.

683
00:30:54,519 --> 00:30:55,687
And high LDL cholesterol

684
00:30:55,687 --> 00:30:58,064
wasn't the only thing we had in common.

685
00:30:58,064 --> 00:31:00,650
We also had high HDL cholesterol,

686
00:31:00,650 --> 00:31:03,444
often referred to as the good cholesterol.

687
00:31:03,444 --> 00:31:06,322
And low Triglycerides, a
measure of fat in the blood.

688
00:31:07,407 --> 00:31:10,076
High HDL cholesterol and low Triglycerides

689
00:31:10,076 --> 00:31:12,161
are markers of good metabolic health

690
00:31:12,161 --> 00:31:14,205
and are associated with a low risk

691
00:31:14,205 --> 00:31:16,374
of cardiovascular disease.

692
00:31:16,374 --> 00:31:20,086
I continued to see this
triad of high LDL cholesterol

693
00:31:20,086 --> 00:31:23,423
alongside high HDL cholesterol
and low Triglycerides

694
00:31:23,423 --> 00:31:27,093
in other lean, metabolically
healthy people on a Keto diet.

695
00:31:28,595 --> 00:31:32,140
Finally, in 2017, I wrote
an article in my blog

696
00:31:32,140 --> 00:31:35,894
where I named this profile
Lean Mass Hyper Responder.

697
00:31:35,894 --> 00:31:37,604
The responses were staggering.

698
00:31:38,771 --> 00:31:41,232
Hundreds of people,
then thousands of people

699
00:31:41,232 --> 00:31:43,943
from different countries
all around the world.

700
00:31:45,945 --> 00:31:49,365
Identifying this phenotype
proved a major breakthrough.

701
00:31:49,365 --> 00:31:51,868
But the big unanswered question remains.

702
00:31:51,868 --> 00:31:53,828
Will these high levels of LDL cholesterol

703
00:31:53,828 --> 00:31:56,581
cause plaque to build up in their arteries

704
00:31:56,581 --> 00:31:57,624
or is there something different

705
00:31:57,624 --> 00:31:59,417
about Lean Mass Hyper Responders?

706
00:32:00,418 --> 00:32:03,880
For that matter, is there
something more they can tell us

707
00:32:03,880 --> 00:32:06,466
about cholesterol and its
role in heart disease?

708
00:32:13,556 --> 00:32:15,600
- You know, when you
see your LDL come back

709
00:32:15,600 --> 00:32:17,894
in the 300s, 400, 500s,

710
00:32:19,562 --> 00:32:22,065
and you're a medically literate person,

711
00:32:22,065 --> 00:32:23,983
the reaction always is,

712
00:32:26,152 --> 00:32:28,988
like, I can just, it's
the facial expression.

713
00:32:28,988 --> 00:32:29,906
It's the double take.

714
00:32:29,906 --> 00:32:32,825
Like, is this an error?

715
00:32:32,825 --> 00:32:34,035
What's going on here?

716
00:32:34,035 --> 00:32:35,662
This is something that you only see,

717
00:32:35,662 --> 00:32:37,205
especially levels in the 500s,

718
00:32:37,205 --> 00:32:40,416
in very rare genetic conditions.

719
00:32:40,416 --> 00:32:41,626
This is the famous building

720
00:32:41,626 --> 00:32:42,835
that there are all the pictures of-

721
00:32:42,835 --> 00:32:45,630
- Nick Norwitz is a
medical student at Harvard.

722
00:32:45,630 --> 00:32:47,548
He first noticed his LDL spiking

723
00:32:47,548 --> 00:32:48,883
when he got his blood work back

724
00:32:48,883 --> 00:32:51,177
after starting a Ketogenic diet.

725
00:32:53,054 --> 00:32:55,723
Nick went Keto to treat
his ulcerative colitis,

726
00:32:55,723 --> 00:32:57,058
an inflammatory bowel disease

727
00:32:57,058 --> 00:32:59,686
that causes ulcers in the gut.

728
00:32:59,686 --> 00:33:03,189
Symptoms of ulcerative colitis
include severe abdominal pain

729
00:33:03,189 --> 00:33:04,774
and intestinal bleeding.

730
00:33:04,774 --> 00:33:05,984
- Basically, I went from having

731
00:33:05,984 --> 00:33:07,652
absolutely no dietary restrictions,

732
00:33:07,652 --> 00:33:08,861
in fact I was known as the guy

733
00:33:08,861 --> 00:33:10,863
who would basically be
the garbage disposal,

734
00:33:10,863 --> 00:33:12,115
I'd eat anything,

735
00:33:12,115 --> 00:33:14,200
to really not being able
to eat much of anything

736
00:33:14,200 --> 00:33:17,495
without having negative reactions.

737
00:33:17,495 --> 00:33:21,749
- I think the scariest thing
about his ulcerative colitis,

738
00:33:22,750 --> 00:33:25,086
for me at least, was
seeing him lose weight.

739
00:33:25,086 --> 00:33:27,714
I mean, he lost a
dramatic amount of weight.

740
00:33:27,714 --> 00:33:29,632
He lost about 20% of his body weight,

741
00:33:29,632 --> 00:33:32,719
and he's already, you know,
a very lean young man.

742
00:33:32,719 --> 00:33:34,178
Over the course of two years,

743
00:33:34,178 --> 00:33:36,222
Nick went from athletic and energetic

744
00:33:36,222 --> 00:33:39,851
to dangerously thin, going
in and out of the hospital.

745
00:33:39,851 --> 00:33:41,269
He was so sick and weak

746
00:33:41,269 --> 00:33:43,813
he considered dropping
out of medical school.

747
00:33:43,813 --> 00:33:45,565
At the lowest point of his illness,

748
00:33:45,565 --> 00:33:47,442
he ended up in a palliative care ward

749
00:33:47,442 --> 00:33:49,527
surrounded by dying patients.

750
00:33:49,527 --> 00:33:52,488
- Yeah, it was a little bit terrifying.

751
00:33:54,615 --> 00:33:57,577
- So that was the point at
which I started finagling

752
00:33:57,577 --> 00:34:00,705
with lifestyle and particularly diet.

753
00:34:00,705 --> 00:34:02,206
And you know the punch
the line to the story

754
00:34:02,206 --> 00:34:03,750
was I eventually tried Keto

755
00:34:03,750 --> 00:34:07,754
out of a large degree of
desperation and zero expectation.

756
00:34:08,796 --> 00:34:11,382
And my life changed like that.

757
00:34:13,301 --> 00:34:16,137
It was shocking to see
what a potent effect

758
00:34:16,137 --> 00:34:17,847
the Ketogenic diet had on my life.

759
00:34:18,973 --> 00:34:22,852
Within a few days, I was
feeling remarkably better.

760
00:34:22,852 --> 00:34:25,354
My energy was back.

761
00:34:25,354 --> 00:34:27,857
My symptoms all improved dramatically,

762
00:34:27,857 --> 00:34:29,108
and my inflammatory markers

763
00:34:29,108 --> 00:34:31,277
had dropped to completely normal.

764
00:34:31,277 --> 00:34:33,988
I think they dropped like
sixfold within a week.

765
00:34:34,989 --> 00:34:38,159
So, you know, that was a
light bulb moment for me.

766
00:34:38,159 --> 00:34:39,660
Even then, I was a little bit anxious,

767
00:34:39,660 --> 00:34:41,412
you know, that it wouldn't hold.

768
00:34:43,289 --> 00:34:46,501
But it's been over four
years and it's holding.

769
00:34:46,501 --> 00:34:48,127
- We're gonna leave a little bit on there.

770
00:34:48,127 --> 00:34:49,295
It really has changed my life

771
00:34:49,295 --> 00:34:53,841
and I think given me the life
back that I was hoping for.

772
00:34:53,841 --> 00:34:57,970
- Nick is interesting
because he got into Keto

773
00:34:57,970 --> 00:35:00,014
because it became the
one thing he could do

774
00:35:00,014 --> 00:35:02,475
to help his symptoms
with ulcerative colitis.

775
00:35:02,475 --> 00:35:07,438
And that ironically is what
would ultimately lead him to me,

776
00:35:07,438 --> 00:35:10,358
because given how lean and how fit he is,

777
00:35:10,358 --> 00:35:12,902
that meant he was likely gonna develop

778
00:35:12,902 --> 00:35:15,113
the Lean Mass Hyper Responder phenotype.

779
00:35:15,113 --> 00:35:16,239
And eventually he did.

780
00:35:16,239 --> 00:35:18,324
- And on my first lipid panel,

781
00:35:18,324 --> 00:35:20,326
which was taken very shortly

782
00:35:20,326 --> 00:35:22,328
after I started a Ketogenic diet,

783
00:35:22,328 --> 00:35:25,248
my LDL jumps well over threefold.

784
00:35:25,248 --> 00:35:28,376
It had gone from around
90 to well over 300.

785
00:35:29,544 --> 00:35:32,713
Subsequent tests found that
it went up even higher.

786
00:35:33,965 --> 00:35:35,842
It's peaked at the mid-500s.

787
00:35:36,801 --> 00:35:38,761
Nick Dove into
the medical literature,

788
00:35:38,761 --> 00:35:40,096
but he found few answers

789
00:35:40,096 --> 00:35:41,472
as to why he would experience

790
00:35:41,472 --> 00:35:44,142
such a hyper-response in his cholesterol.

791
00:35:44,142 --> 00:35:46,602
So he did what any modern
medical student would do.

792
00:35:46,602 --> 00:35:48,312
He hit the internet.

793
00:35:48,312 --> 00:35:51,023
- And it wasn't long
before I got into the trail

794
00:35:51,023 --> 00:35:54,235
of this quirky engineer in Nevada

795
00:35:54,235 --> 00:35:57,363
who had put up a blog
post about this phenotype

796
00:35:57,363 --> 00:36:00,199
in which people who are lean
and athletic go low carb

797
00:36:00,199 --> 00:36:02,994
and their LDL goes through the roof.

798
00:36:02,994 --> 00:36:05,204
Their HDL also goes up and
the Triglycerides drop.

799
00:36:05,204 --> 00:36:06,539
And I looked back on my lipid panel,

800
00:36:06,539 --> 00:36:09,750
I'm like, "Well, this is me."

801
00:36:10,585 --> 00:36:12,670
- Isn't it just striking

802
00:36:12,670 --> 00:36:14,714
how little curiosity there really is

803
00:36:14,714 --> 00:36:17,091
for at least wanting to get under the hood

804
00:36:17,091 --> 00:36:18,759
and understand this better?

805
00:36:18,759 --> 00:36:21,053
- When you have a question,

806
00:36:22,096 --> 00:36:24,640
a really authentic question,

807
00:36:24,640 --> 00:36:27,727
and you're told it's off limits,

808
00:36:29,270 --> 00:36:31,022
at least for me, it makes
you a lot more hungry

809
00:36:31,022 --> 00:36:33,733
to, like, go after that question.

810
00:36:33,733 --> 00:36:35,985
The idea that this is a scientific taboo

811
00:36:35,985 --> 00:36:38,029
but actually also a
legitimate scientific question

812
00:36:38,029 --> 00:36:39,780
is very enticing for both of us,

813
00:36:39,780 --> 00:36:41,866
combined with the fact that
it actually has the potential

814
00:36:41,866 --> 00:36:43,159
to help a lot of people.

815
00:36:43,159 --> 00:36:44,577
So Nick and I teamed up,

816
00:36:44,577 --> 00:36:47,205
along with Dr. Adrian
Soto-Mota and many others,

817
00:36:47,205 --> 00:36:49,332
and we begin publishing papers together.

818
00:36:51,459 --> 00:36:55,713
- True science is human being
exercising their curiosity

819
00:36:55,713 --> 00:36:57,840
and poking things to see what happens

820
00:36:57,840 --> 00:37:00,176
and then trying to make sense of it.

821
00:37:00,176 --> 00:37:01,636
That's true science.

822
00:37:01,636 --> 00:37:03,721
- When you keep poking at that question

823
00:37:04,722 --> 00:37:05,681
and there's no good answer,

824
00:37:05,681 --> 00:37:06,974
that's the question you wanna pursue.

825
00:37:06,974 --> 00:37:08,476
And if people get defensive
about that question,

826
00:37:08,476 --> 00:37:10,478
that's a question you really wanna pursue.

827
00:37:10,478 --> 00:37:12,688
- We are presented with this opportunity,

828
00:37:12,688 --> 00:37:15,441
this scientific opportunity
that's never existed before,

829
00:37:15,441 --> 00:37:16,692
where we actually pulled off

830
00:37:16,692 --> 00:37:21,697
getting this one variable of
interest, LDL, all by itself.

831
00:37:24,158 --> 00:37:25,534
It's scientific manna

832
00:37:26,494 --> 00:37:28,329
that you could actually get
the variable of interest

833
00:37:28,329 --> 00:37:30,873
all by itself at super high levels

834
00:37:32,083 --> 00:37:34,252
alongside low cardiovascular risk.

835
00:37:34,252 --> 00:37:36,671
- Yeah, it's a natural experiment.

836
00:37:36,671 --> 00:37:39,257
- And yet there's so much controversy

837
00:37:39,257 --> 00:37:42,760
just in our pursuing research on this,

838
00:37:42,760 --> 00:37:44,887
which, to me, baffles me.

839
00:37:44,887 --> 00:37:45,763
It's crazy.

840
00:37:51,018 --> 00:37:53,813
So this is just a general example?

841
00:37:53,813 --> 00:37:58,192
- Yes, this is somebody who
has severe atherosclerosis.

842
00:37:58,192 --> 00:37:59,235
Dr. Matthew Budoff

843
00:37:59,235 --> 00:38:01,237
is a cardiologist and researcher.

844
00:38:01,237 --> 00:38:03,364
He's conducted hundreds of clinical trials

845
00:38:03,364 --> 00:38:06,033
and published over 1,500
peer-reviewed papers

846
00:38:06,033 --> 00:38:07,326
on his findings.

847
00:38:07,326 --> 00:38:08,828
- This is the left artery.

848
00:38:08,828 --> 00:38:12,039
Dark means that there's soft plaque.

849
00:38:12,039 --> 00:38:14,208
White means there's calcified plaque.

850
00:38:14,208 --> 00:38:15,710
You can see dark and white.

851
00:38:15,710 --> 00:38:19,338
So this person has just
a lot of atherosclerosis.

852
00:38:19,338 --> 00:38:22,300
Dr. Budoff uses high
resolution computerized x-rays

853
00:38:22,300 --> 00:38:26,262
to produce detailed 3D
images from inside the body.

854
00:38:26,262 --> 00:38:28,514
- And we can take a look
at the individual arteries

855
00:38:28,514 --> 00:38:32,143
and compare it and contrast it
to the last study we just saw

856
00:38:32,143 --> 00:38:33,894
that had severe disease.

857
00:38:33,894 --> 00:38:35,354
This is the right coronary,

858
00:38:35,354 --> 00:38:40,151
nice, smooth, big pipes
and no disease seen.

859
00:38:40,151 --> 00:38:42,653
So I started working with cardiac CT

860
00:38:42,653 --> 00:38:45,114
early in my career in the early '90s.

861
00:38:45,114 --> 00:38:48,367
And my boss told me back in 1991

862
00:38:48,367 --> 00:38:50,453
this is gonna be the
mammogram of the heart,

863
00:38:50,453 --> 00:38:53,831
that we're gonna do these
scans in middle aged people,

864
00:38:53,831 --> 00:38:55,833
see who has plaque and who does not,

865
00:38:55,833 --> 00:38:57,668
who needs treatment and who does not,

866
00:38:57,668 --> 00:38:59,211
and base everything on that,

867
00:38:59,211 --> 00:39:01,464
just like we do a mammogram
for breast cancer.

868
00:39:01,464 --> 00:39:04,133
- Yeah, we called it the
mammogram of the heart.

869
00:39:04,133 --> 00:39:06,135
And we knew it reflected

870
00:39:06,135 --> 00:39:08,471
the total amount of atherosclerosis.

871
00:39:08,471 --> 00:39:09,972
In the early 1990s,

872
00:39:09,972 --> 00:39:12,641
Dr. Arthur Agatston, Dr. Budoff,

873
00:39:12,641 --> 00:39:14,435
and their cardiology colleagues

874
00:39:14,435 --> 00:39:17,146
rallied around a brand new x-ray machine.

875
00:39:17,146 --> 00:39:19,815
For the first time, it
was ultra fast enough

876
00:39:19,815 --> 00:39:23,444
to take clear images of a
live, beating human heart.

877
00:39:23,444 --> 00:39:25,154
- And it froze the motion of the heart.

878
00:39:25,154 --> 00:39:28,866
So for the first time, you
could actually see the heart.

879
00:39:28,866 --> 00:39:31,869
It showed that there was a
lot more coronary calcium

880
00:39:31,869 --> 00:39:35,623
in people with coronary
disease versus those without.

881
00:39:35,623 --> 00:39:37,792
But the high price
and radiation exposure

882
00:39:37,792 --> 00:39:40,628
of ultra-fast scanners made adoption slow.

883
00:39:40,628 --> 00:39:43,881
Fast forward 30 years and
both the price and exposure

884
00:39:43,881 --> 00:39:45,758
have come down dramatically.

885
00:39:45,758 --> 00:39:49,178
Yet still, coronary calcium
scans are under-utilized.

886
00:39:50,054 --> 00:39:53,432
A more advanced scan
known as a CT angiogram

887
00:39:53,432 --> 00:39:57,561
adds contrast dye injected
into the blood of the patient.

888
00:39:57,561 --> 00:39:59,939
This allows researchers like Dr. Budoff

889
00:39:59,939 --> 00:40:03,275
to see both the calcified and soft plaque

890
00:40:03,275 --> 00:40:06,570
for a more complete picture
of their heart disease risk.

891
00:40:06,570 --> 00:40:07,988
- And then we can rotate around

892
00:40:07,988 --> 00:40:09,490
to the right side of the heart

893
00:40:10,408 --> 00:40:13,536
and measure the right
coronary artery through here.

894
00:40:13,536 --> 00:40:15,496
And then this is the right coronary artery

895
00:40:15,496 --> 00:40:18,040
with a moderate to severe stenosis.

896
00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:21,043
It gets narrow and then opens
back up like an hourglass.

897
00:40:21,043 --> 00:40:22,503
That's a stenosis.

898
00:40:22,503 --> 00:40:24,338
This person will probably
need to get a stent

899
00:40:24,338 --> 00:40:26,966
or bypass surgery at some point.

900
00:40:26,966 --> 00:40:28,634
- CT angiography is great

901
00:40:28,634 --> 00:40:31,720
because beyond looking at
something like a marker, like LDL,

902
00:40:31,720 --> 00:40:33,848
you're actually looking
at the physical presence

903
00:40:33,848 --> 00:40:35,933
of the disease itself,

904
00:40:35,933 --> 00:40:37,935
for that matter, whether
it's there at all.

905
00:40:37,935 --> 00:40:39,311
And this gave me an idea.

906
00:40:39,311 --> 00:40:41,856
What if we recruit a hundred
Lean Mass Hyper Responders

907
00:40:41,856 --> 00:40:44,442
who rely on Keto diets for their health

908
00:40:44,442 --> 00:40:46,277
and who see extraordinary increases

909
00:40:46,277 --> 00:40:48,195
in their LDL cholesterol?

910
00:40:48,195 --> 00:40:50,072
We just scan their hearts.

911
00:40:50,072 --> 00:40:53,742
We just go ahead and
look inside to find out,

912
00:40:53,742 --> 00:40:56,078
do they have plaque in their arteries?

913
00:40:56,078 --> 00:40:58,956
- Honestly, I mean, as just a reflex,

914
00:40:58,956 --> 00:41:00,666
as a preventive cardiologist,

915
00:41:00,666 --> 00:41:05,671
somebody walks into my office
with an LDL of 250 or 300,

916
00:41:05,963 --> 00:41:08,924
I'm looking for the prescription pad.

917
00:41:08,924 --> 00:41:12,761
So why not just study
them, look inside and see?

918
00:41:12,761 --> 00:41:14,138
The plan is simple.

919
00:41:14,138 --> 00:41:17,266
We scan everybody at the
beginning of the study.

920
00:41:17,266 --> 00:41:19,560
And then a year later,
we do a follow-up scan.

921
00:41:20,686 --> 00:41:23,606
Then we can do a
comparison between the two.

922
00:41:23,606 --> 00:41:25,065
There's only one catch.

923
00:41:25,065 --> 00:41:27,193
- There's no money without industry

924
00:41:27,193 --> 00:41:29,862
and there's not an industry
for Ketogenic diet.

925
00:41:29,862 --> 00:41:33,199
We don't have big pharma
here to fund the trial.

926
00:41:33,199 --> 00:41:36,452
- So I decided to try something different.

927
00:41:36,452 --> 00:41:41,457
I had officially announced the
Citizen Science Foundation.

928
00:41:42,041 --> 00:41:44,710
And I was a little scared, honestly.

929
00:41:44,710 --> 00:41:47,379
I didn't know how much money
we would get or wouldn't get.

930
00:41:47,379 --> 00:41:49,507
- Yeah, so for me, this was a first.

931
00:41:49,507 --> 00:41:51,926
I haven't worked with
other crowdfunding studies.

932
00:41:51,926 --> 00:41:55,596
- But I knew I needed at least $50,000.

933
00:41:55,596 --> 00:41:59,391
Yes, if you could
donate, any amount helps.

934
00:42:03,187 --> 00:42:07,233
As that study announcement was made,

935
00:42:07,233 --> 00:42:10,528
I was heartened to see that
tens of thousands of dollars

936
00:42:10,528 --> 00:42:11,946
were coming in.

937
00:42:16,033 --> 00:42:16,867
I went ahead and said,

938
00:42:16,867 --> 00:42:20,079
"Look, but what I really want is 200,000."

939
00:42:20,079 --> 00:42:23,582
At $200,000, that would give me $2,000

940
00:42:23,582 --> 00:42:25,000
per Lean Mass Hyper Responder,

941
00:42:25,000 --> 00:42:27,044
which is what I figured I would need

942
00:42:27,044 --> 00:42:29,338
for the study idea I had in mind.

943
00:42:29,338 --> 00:42:30,172
Hi, guys.

944
00:42:30,172 --> 00:42:34,718
I am humbled, to say the
least, to share this news,

945
00:42:34,718 --> 00:42:36,220
that once our contributor pool

946
00:42:36,220 --> 00:42:38,806
reaches a hundred thousand dollars,

947
00:42:38,806 --> 00:42:40,808
there's an anonymous
donor that has made clear

948
00:42:40,808 --> 00:42:43,686
that they will be matching
it dollar for dollar.

949
00:42:43,686 --> 00:42:48,691
They will be contributing a
hundred thousand dollar match.

950
00:42:54,405 --> 00:42:55,239
We did it.

951
00:42:55,239 --> 00:42:59,493
We managed to crowdfund a clinical study.

952
00:42:59,493 --> 00:43:03,163
And that just doesn't happen these days.

953
00:43:03,163 --> 00:43:05,624
That's just not something you see.

954
00:43:05,624 --> 00:43:07,209
And thank goodness

955
00:43:07,209 --> 00:43:09,169
because now we're really getting the data.

956
00:43:09,169 --> 00:43:11,380
We're just making it happen ourselves.

957
00:43:11,380 --> 00:43:13,048
And who better to lead the study

958
00:43:13,048 --> 00:43:16,427
than one of the pioneers in
high resolution heart imaging,

959
00:43:16,427 --> 00:43:18,554
Dr. Matthew Budoff himself.

960
00:43:18,554 --> 00:43:19,972
- I think this is remarkable.

961
00:43:19,972 --> 00:43:21,473
I think it's a wonderful model.

962
00:43:21,473 --> 00:43:23,767
I think you can answer a
lot of great questions.

963
00:43:23,767 --> 00:43:25,978
And I think crowdfunding
has done wonderful things

964
00:43:25,978 --> 00:43:26,979
outside of science.

965
00:43:26,979 --> 00:43:29,106
I'm not aware of too many models of it

966
00:43:29,106 --> 00:43:31,233
funding scientific studies,

967
00:43:31,233 --> 00:43:33,777
but we now need crowdfunding

968
00:43:33,777 --> 00:43:36,989
to answer some of these
clinical questions about diet.

969
00:43:38,657 --> 00:43:40,576
So it's happening.

970
00:43:40,576 --> 00:43:44,246
The fully funded Lean Mass
Hyper Responder Study is a go.

971
00:43:44,246 --> 00:43:46,874
All 100 participants
will be evaluated here,

972
00:43:46,874 --> 00:43:49,627
at the Lundquist Institute's
Cardiac Wellness Center

973
00:43:49,627 --> 00:43:51,670
in Southern California.

974
00:43:51,670 --> 00:43:54,131
Frank Caputo traveled
all the way from New York

975
00:43:54,131 --> 00:43:55,174
to participate.

976
00:43:55,174 --> 00:43:56,175
- I enrolled for it.

977
00:43:56,175 --> 00:43:57,259
They picked me for it.

978
00:43:57,259 --> 00:43:58,344
How are you today?

979
00:43:58,344 --> 00:43:59,261
- Good, how are you?

980
00:43:59,261 --> 00:44:00,429
- I'm good.

981
00:44:00,429 --> 00:44:01,263
Scan day.

982
00:44:01,263 --> 00:44:05,100
And I'm hoping that this changes
the science going forward.

983
00:44:05,100 --> 00:44:07,686
Back Home, Frank
works as a landscaper.

984
00:44:07,686 --> 00:44:10,189
He started Keto five years ago.

985
00:44:10,189 --> 00:44:12,399
I do work a very physical job,

986
00:44:12,399 --> 00:44:15,152
have a lot of inflammation
throughout my days.

987
00:44:15,152 --> 00:44:16,403
I needed a change,

988
00:44:16,403 --> 00:44:19,406
so I challenged myself
to try this diet out.

989
00:44:19,406 --> 00:44:21,367
Immediately, I started feeling better.

990
00:44:21,367 --> 00:44:22,660
Frank qualified for the study

991
00:44:22,660 --> 00:44:26,955
because after he started Keto,
his LDL cholesterol spiked.

992
00:44:26,955 --> 00:44:30,626
- LDL was last we
checked, it was about 238.

993
00:44:30,626 --> 00:44:34,630
Prior to being on the
diet, it was at about 73.

994
00:44:35,589 --> 00:44:39,802
So it is what they
consider a hyper response

995
00:44:39,802 --> 00:44:41,970
to the diet, the LDL.

996
00:44:41,970 --> 00:44:44,181
Frank's other
blood work all looks good.

997
00:44:44,181 --> 00:44:46,266
His blood glucose and
Triglycerides are low

998
00:44:46,266 --> 00:44:49,395
and his HDL is high,
which are all indicators

999
00:44:49,395 --> 00:44:50,896
of excellent metabolic health.

1000
00:44:52,189 --> 00:44:53,607
As a participant in the study,

1001
00:44:53,607 --> 00:44:56,735
Frank must test his ketone levels daily.

1002
00:44:56,735 --> 00:44:59,738
This number is proof that
Frank is keeping his carbs low

1003
00:44:59,738 --> 00:45:01,156
and maintaining his Keto diet.

1004
00:45:01,156 --> 00:45:03,826
- And this is the extent
of the fat burning mode

1005
00:45:03,826 --> 00:45:05,077
that I'm in right now.

1006
00:45:05,077 --> 00:45:06,161
Along with blood work,

1007
00:45:06,161 --> 00:45:08,539
Frank will undergo two CT angiograms,

1008
00:45:08,539 --> 00:45:09,832
one at the beginning of the study

1009
00:45:09,832 --> 00:45:12,042
and another one year later.

1010
00:45:12,042 --> 00:45:14,962
The images taken here could
change our entire understanding

1011
00:45:14,962 --> 00:45:18,757
of Ketogenic diets,
cholesterol, and heart health.

1012
00:45:18,757 --> 00:45:21,552
I'm hoping this
changes the medical protocol,

1013
00:45:21,552 --> 00:45:24,638
where instead of them
immediately putting you

1014
00:45:24,638 --> 00:45:27,266
on a statin for the rest of your life

1015
00:45:27,266 --> 00:45:29,351
because they see a high LDL,

1016
00:45:29,351 --> 00:45:31,270
they're sending you for a heart scan

1017
00:45:31,270 --> 00:45:33,063
and they're seeing if there's any calcium

1018
00:45:33,063 --> 00:45:35,357
that's built up in your arteries.

1019
00:45:35,357 --> 00:45:38,235
- Very soon, Frank and 99 others

1020
00:45:38,235 --> 00:45:40,154
will help us find some answers.

1021
00:45:49,329 --> 00:45:53,792
To understand how LDL cholesterol
can jump so high so fast,

1022
00:45:53,792 --> 00:45:56,587
you need to understand what
happens inside the body

1023
00:45:56,587 --> 00:45:58,839
when you restrict carbohydrates.

1024
00:45:58,839 --> 00:46:00,507
The human body has what you might call

1025
00:46:00,507 --> 00:46:02,301
a hybrid energy system.

1026
00:46:02,301 --> 00:46:05,429
We can use glucose for fuel,
which comes from sugar,

1027
00:46:05,429 --> 00:46:07,514
starches, and simple carbohydrates,

1028
00:46:07,514 --> 00:46:10,476
and our bodies can run on fat.

1029
00:46:10,476 --> 00:46:12,644
When your primary fuel is fat,

1030
00:46:12,644 --> 00:46:16,190
you enter a unique metabolic
state called Ketosis.

1031
00:46:17,191 --> 00:46:19,985
A variety of eating
patterns can induce Ketosis,

1032
00:46:19,985 --> 00:46:23,447
including carnivore, omnivore, vegetarian,

1033
00:46:23,447 --> 00:46:25,991
and there's even plant-based Keto.

1034
00:46:25,991 --> 00:46:28,994
The key to Keto is
restricting carbohydrates.

1035
00:46:30,037 --> 00:46:33,123
Carbohydrate restriction drops
glucose stores in the liver

1036
00:46:33,123 --> 00:46:37,628
and shifts energy demand over
to using more fat for fuel.

1037
00:46:37,628 --> 00:46:39,463
- So if we're eating high carbs,

1038
00:46:39,463 --> 00:46:41,548
we're using glucose for energy.

1039
00:46:41,548 --> 00:46:43,926
If we're eating low
carb, we're in Ketosis,

1040
00:46:43,926 --> 00:46:45,427
all of a sudden our body switches

1041
00:46:45,427 --> 00:46:47,429
and we're burning predominantly fat

1042
00:46:47,429 --> 00:46:50,182
or fatty acids to create energy.

1043
00:46:50,182 --> 00:46:53,268
- But here's the thing,
and this explains a lot,

1044
00:46:53,268 --> 00:46:56,647
glucose is soluble, like this table sugar.

1045
00:46:56,647 --> 00:46:58,357
It mixes easily in the blood

1046
00:46:58,357 --> 00:47:00,734
because the blood is water-based.

1047
00:47:02,528 --> 00:47:04,321
But shipping fat around in the bloodstream

1048
00:47:04,321 --> 00:47:06,698
is an extremely difficult
problem to solve.

1049
00:47:06,698 --> 00:47:07,908
Why?

1050
00:47:07,908 --> 00:47:10,244
Well, you know how oil
and water don't mix.

1051
00:47:10,244 --> 00:47:13,163
It's the exact same thing
with fat in the blood.

1052
00:47:14,122 --> 00:47:18,252
Like this oil, fat will clump together.

1053
00:47:18,252 --> 00:47:20,712
It doesn't mix well with the blood.

1054
00:47:20,712 --> 00:47:23,173
So how does the body solve this challenge?

1055
00:47:24,007 --> 00:47:26,426
Well, the body makes
these little containers

1056
00:47:26,426 --> 00:47:28,846
to ship lipids through the bloodstream.

1057
00:47:28,846 --> 00:47:30,639
They're a bit like submarines.

1058
00:47:30,639 --> 00:47:33,100
And the lipids are effectively the cargo

1059
00:47:33,100 --> 00:47:34,810
that rides inside.

1060
00:47:34,810 --> 00:47:38,647
Altogether, they're a complex
of lipids and proteins,

1061
00:47:38,647 --> 00:47:41,358
appropriately called lipoproteins.

1062
00:47:41,358 --> 00:47:43,277
Never heard of a lipoprotein?

1063
00:47:43,277 --> 00:47:45,320
Well, actually, you probably have.

1064
00:47:45,320 --> 00:47:48,448
The most legendary is called LDL,

1065
00:47:48,448 --> 00:47:50,993
short for Low Density Lipoprotein.

1066
00:47:52,452 --> 00:47:54,997
And here's where we see the
connection to cholesterol,

1067
00:47:54,997 --> 00:47:57,040
because the fat we burn for energy

1068
00:47:57,040 --> 00:48:01,753
is just one kind of lipid that
rides inside lipoproteins.

1069
00:48:01,753 --> 00:48:04,214
There are other lipids
that catch a ride as well,

1070
00:48:04,214 --> 00:48:08,051
such as fat soluble
vitamins, A, D, E, and K.

1071
00:48:08,051 --> 00:48:11,096
And yes, the most famous
lipid that ride-shares

1072
00:48:11,096 --> 00:48:15,392
with fat around the body is,
you guessed it, cholesterol.

1073
00:48:15,392 --> 00:48:17,936
And that brings us back to the Keto diet.

1074
00:48:17,936 --> 00:48:20,689
When we're fueled more
by fat than glucose,

1075
00:48:20,689 --> 00:48:23,567
it makes a lot of sense
why we would need to ship

1076
00:48:23,567 --> 00:48:25,485
more of this fat around in the blood

1077
00:48:25,485 --> 00:48:27,738
inside these lipoproteins.

1078
00:48:27,738 --> 00:48:30,157
More lipoproteins circulating in the blood

1079
00:48:30,157 --> 00:48:33,577
means more cholesterol
in circulation as well.

1080
00:48:33,577 --> 00:48:37,539
To be sure, this is a high-level
simplified explanation,

1081
00:48:37,539 --> 00:48:39,041
but it's the basic premise

1082
00:48:39,041 --> 00:48:41,293
for what we call the Lipid Energy Model,

1083
00:48:41,293 --> 00:48:44,212
and it's the phenomenon we
believe we're seeing often

1084
00:48:44,212 --> 00:48:46,423
in lean people on a very low carb diet.

1085
00:48:47,341 --> 00:48:51,470
Okay, but are there any
studies supporting this?

1086
00:48:52,679 --> 00:48:53,805
Randomized controlled trials

1087
00:48:53,805 --> 00:48:56,600
are considered the gold
standard in research.

1088
00:48:56,600 --> 00:48:58,685
In a broad analysis of 41 RCTs

1089
00:48:58,685 --> 00:49:01,730
that included people on
low carb and Keto diets,

1090
00:49:01,730 --> 00:49:05,275
we see, indeed, the
leanness of participants

1091
00:49:05,275 --> 00:49:07,611
prove strongly predictive of the change

1092
00:49:07,611 --> 00:49:09,613
in their LDL cholesterol.

1093
00:49:09,613 --> 00:49:12,699
The leaner they were, the
more likely and higher

1094
00:49:12,699 --> 00:49:15,285
their LDL cholesterol would go.

1095
00:49:15,285 --> 00:49:18,705
Conversely, those with higher
body mass were more likely

1096
00:49:18,705 --> 00:49:21,083
to see their LDL stay the same

1097
00:49:21,083 --> 00:49:23,752
or even decrease on a low carb diet.

1098
00:49:26,546 --> 00:49:29,049
This could explain why most people on Keto

1099
00:49:29,049 --> 00:49:31,802
do not see an increase in LDL cholesterol,

1100
00:49:31,802 --> 00:49:35,138
because most people adopt
the diet to lose weight.

1101
00:49:35,138 --> 00:49:38,100
So they start out at a higher body mass.

1102
00:49:38,100 --> 00:49:41,186
But in recent years, we are
recognizing the power of Keto

1103
00:49:41,186 --> 00:49:43,480
for treating all kinds
of medical conditions,

1104
00:49:43,480 --> 00:49:45,232
including mental health.

1105
00:49:45,232 --> 00:49:47,567
For these reasons, we're seeing more lean

1106
00:49:47,567 --> 00:49:49,903
and normal weight people
switching over to Keto.

1107
00:49:49,903 --> 00:49:52,239
And it's when lean people

1108
00:49:52,239 --> 00:49:54,908
go on these very low carbohydrate diets

1109
00:49:54,908 --> 00:49:58,120
that we can see their
cholesterol levels rise, a lot.

1110
00:50:06,712 --> 00:50:07,754
Hello.

1111
00:50:07,754 --> 00:50:09,464
Hi, Robyn, how are you?

1112
00:50:09,464 --> 00:50:10,632
- I'm very well, thanks.

1113
00:50:10,632 --> 00:50:11,508
How are you?

1114
00:50:11,508 --> 00:50:12,342
- Good, good.

1115
00:50:12,342 --> 00:50:15,387
Robyn is a mom, a wife,
and a woman who's suffered

1116
00:50:15,387 --> 00:50:18,807
from the debilitating
depression of Bipolar disorder.

1117
00:50:18,807 --> 00:50:21,643
- I was basically comatose all day long.

1118
00:50:21,643 --> 00:50:23,478
I set an alarm in the morning to wake up

1119
00:50:23,478 --> 00:50:26,648
and take the kids to school,
go home, go back to bed,

1120
00:50:26,648 --> 00:50:30,027
set an alarm to remember
to wake up to get them.

1121
00:50:30,027 --> 00:50:32,404
Bipolar disorder
is a mental health condition

1122
00:50:32,404 --> 00:50:34,489
characterized by severe mood swings

1123
00:50:34,489 --> 00:50:37,951
that include manic highs
followed by depressive lows.

1124
00:50:37,951 --> 00:50:39,453
- Everything was just gray.

1125
00:50:39,453 --> 00:50:42,039
There was no joy in life.

1126
00:50:42,039 --> 00:50:44,916
And I'm doing all of this during a time

1127
00:50:44,916 --> 00:50:46,334
were my children are little.

1128
00:50:46,334 --> 00:50:49,129
Like, I should be sitting
on the floor with them

1129
00:50:49,129 --> 00:50:52,215
and playing with whatever
toys they're playing with.

1130
00:50:52,215 --> 00:50:55,510
But instead, I'm just
kind of perched on a couch

1131
00:50:55,510 --> 00:50:56,928
and just watching.

1132
00:50:56,928 --> 00:50:59,681
Like, I can see life is happening,

1133
00:50:59,681 --> 00:51:02,893
but I'm not participating in that life.

1134
00:51:02,893 --> 00:51:06,021
- It would become a decade-long struggle.

1135
00:51:06,021 --> 00:51:08,065
Robyn cycled through numerous doctors

1136
00:51:08,065 --> 00:51:09,524
and various medications,

1137
00:51:09,524 --> 00:51:12,569
drugs that sedated her
and caused weight gain,

1138
00:51:12,569 --> 00:51:14,696
making it difficult to do daily tasks

1139
00:51:14,696 --> 00:51:16,656
and help raise a family.

1140
00:51:16,656 --> 00:51:19,451
What are some of your
earliest memories of your mom?

1141
00:51:20,702 --> 00:51:24,998
- To be honest, I don't
have a lot of them.

1142
00:51:26,208 --> 00:51:28,293
I think I would ask her to play with me

1143
00:51:28,293 --> 00:51:32,005
and she would just sit in her
bed and she wouldn't get up.

1144
00:51:33,590 --> 00:51:37,302
- There was a lot of, for
them, tears, a lot of crying,

1145
00:51:37,302 --> 00:51:39,679
a lot of uncertainty.

1146
00:51:39,679 --> 00:51:44,684
But for me, a lot of, I
don't know how to stop this.

1147
00:51:44,768 --> 00:51:46,144
And it was miserable.

1148
00:51:46,144 --> 00:51:47,729
It was absolutely heartbreaking.

1149
00:51:48,730 --> 00:51:50,899
Nearly a billion
people on the planet

1150
00:51:50,899 --> 00:51:53,610
now have a psychiatric
condition serious enough

1151
00:51:53,610 --> 00:51:56,238
that it interferes with their daily life.

1152
00:51:56,238 --> 00:51:58,865
This startling increase
in mental health disorders

1153
00:51:58,865 --> 00:52:02,285
coincides with the rapid decline
in the quality of our diet.

1154
00:52:02,285 --> 00:52:03,787
For the past 75 years,

1155
00:52:03,787 --> 00:52:05,664
we've thought of mental health conditions

1156
00:52:05,664 --> 00:52:07,666
as chemical imbalances in the brain

1157
00:52:07,666 --> 00:52:09,501
to be treated with medications.

1158
00:52:10,544 --> 00:52:13,547
But the field of psychiatry is
experiencing a transformation

1159
00:52:13,547 --> 00:52:15,549
in how it views these conditions,

1160
00:52:15,549 --> 00:52:18,093
recognizing that most mental disorders

1161
00:52:18,093 --> 00:52:22,472
may in fact be metabolic
disorders affecting the brain.

1162
00:52:22,472 --> 00:52:23,974
- There is a very strong connection

1163
00:52:23,974 --> 00:52:25,225
between metabolic and mental health,

1164
00:52:25,225 --> 00:52:26,977
just as there is a very strong connection

1165
00:52:26,977 --> 00:52:27,978
between metabolic health

1166
00:52:27,978 --> 00:52:31,273
and just about every
aspect of health.

1167
00:52:31,273 --> 00:52:32,357
Dr. Georgia Ede

1168
00:52:32,357 --> 00:52:34,151
and a growing group of psychiatrists

1169
00:52:34,151 --> 00:52:36,611
say that Ketogenic Metabolic Therapy,

1170
00:52:36,611 --> 00:52:39,239
which is structured around a Keto diet,

1171
00:52:39,239 --> 00:52:41,241
offers promising new hope.

1172
00:52:41,241 --> 00:52:44,661
- And for some people,
it can be life-changing.

1173
00:52:44,661 --> 00:52:47,122
Dr. Chris Palmer,
a Harvard psychiatrist,

1174
00:52:47,122 --> 00:52:49,416
says the Ketogenic diet can work

1175
00:52:49,416 --> 00:52:51,251
even when medications fail.

1176
00:52:51,251 --> 00:52:53,086
- It doesn't work for everyone.

1177
00:52:53,086 --> 00:52:56,214
But I think the thing that
has been really disruptive

1178
00:52:56,214 --> 00:52:58,425
to the field and quite exciting

1179
00:52:58,425 --> 00:52:59,467
is that the Ketogenic diet

1180
00:52:59,467 --> 00:53:03,346
can sometimes have dramatic benefits

1181
00:53:03,346 --> 00:53:06,975
for people with Bipolar
disorder, schizophrenia.

1182
00:53:06,975 --> 00:53:09,644
- There's still some debate
on exactly how Keto diet

1183
00:53:09,644 --> 00:53:11,521
improves brain function,

1184
00:53:11,521 --> 00:53:13,690
but one prominent theory
points to the change

1185
00:53:13,690 --> 00:53:15,108
in fuel sources.

1186
00:53:16,026 --> 00:53:18,820
High consumption of sugar
and refined carbohydrates

1187
00:53:18,820 --> 00:53:21,072
can flood the body with so much glucose

1188
00:53:21,072 --> 00:53:23,533
that it causes an energy overload,

1189
00:53:23,533 --> 00:53:26,036
making cells malfunction
throughout the body

1190
00:53:26,036 --> 00:53:28,538
and causing cells in the
brain to malfunction too.

1191
00:53:30,040 --> 00:53:31,583
A Keto diet switches the body

1192
00:53:31,583 --> 00:53:33,793
over to burning mostly fat for fuel.

1193
00:53:33,793 --> 00:53:37,297
A portion of this fat
is converted to ketones.

1194
00:53:37,297 --> 00:53:40,508
Even in the midst of a
glucose-induced energy crisis,

1195
00:53:40,508 --> 00:53:42,969
ketones can fuel the brain.

1196
00:53:42,969 --> 00:53:45,430
- I think that may be
responsible for this phenomenon

1197
00:53:45,430 --> 00:53:48,975
that we often see in patients
who begin a Ketogenic diet.

1198
00:53:48,975 --> 00:53:51,269
Sometimes in as little as three days,

1199
00:53:51,269 --> 00:53:53,647
people will say things like,

1200
00:53:53,647 --> 00:53:55,482
"I feel like my brain,

1201
00:53:55,482 --> 00:53:57,609
you know, the lights just switched on."

1202
00:53:59,236 --> 00:54:00,278
- A revelation.

1203
00:54:00,278 --> 00:54:01,446
- I just felt amazing.

1204
00:54:01,446 --> 00:54:03,323
- My energy is through the roof.

1205
00:54:03,323 --> 00:54:05,158
- I'd never felt like that before.

1206
00:54:05,158 --> 00:54:07,869
- Everything was in color
and sounded amazing.

1207
00:54:08,745 --> 00:54:09,955
- You get the picture.

1208
00:54:09,955 --> 00:54:10,830
And get this.

1209
00:54:10,830 --> 00:54:13,458
In 2022, scientists in France

1210
00:54:13,458 --> 00:54:16,044
used a Ketogenic diet with 28 patients

1211
00:54:16,044 --> 00:54:19,214
who had been hospitalized
for severe Bipolar disorder,

1212
00:54:19,214 --> 00:54:22,092
major depression, or schizophrenia.

1213
00:54:22,092 --> 00:54:25,011
In less than a year, nearly
half of the participants

1214
00:54:25,011 --> 00:54:27,555
achieved full clinical remission.

1215
00:54:27,555 --> 00:54:29,683
That means they no
longer meet the criteria

1216
00:54:29,683 --> 00:54:31,268
for mental illness.

1217
00:54:31,268 --> 00:54:35,647
- And that is so exciting and powerful

1218
00:54:35,647 --> 00:54:38,608
because our existing treatments right now

1219
00:54:38,608 --> 00:54:41,278
usually don't restore people's health.

1220
00:54:41,278 --> 00:54:44,406
- You know, doctors who've
been treating Bipolar disorder,

1221
00:54:44,406 --> 00:54:48,660
schizophrenia, major depression
for years and decades

1222
00:54:48,660 --> 00:54:50,620
have said they never thought

1223
00:54:50,620 --> 00:54:54,499
they would see complete
remission with nutrition alone.

1224
00:54:54,499 --> 00:54:55,625
- In addition to his work

1225
00:54:55,625 --> 00:54:57,711
as a cardiologist and lipidologist,

1226
00:54:57,711 --> 00:55:01,172
Dr. Bret Scher is the medical
director at Metabolic Mind,

1227
00:55:01,172 --> 00:55:04,509
a nonprofit organization that
promotes metabolic therapies

1228
00:55:04,509 --> 00:55:06,011
to improve mental health.

1229
00:55:06,011 --> 00:55:08,888
- But what I've seen in
the past year and a half

1230
00:55:08,888 --> 00:55:11,099
by being the director of Metabolic Mind

1231
00:55:11,099 --> 00:55:12,976
is stories left and right

1232
00:55:12,976 --> 00:55:15,854
of people completely putting
their Bipolar disorder

1233
00:55:15,854 --> 00:55:18,148
into remission with a Ketogenic lifestyle.

1234
00:55:18,148 --> 00:55:21,359
And that's remarkable, the way
it has changed their lives,

1235
00:55:21,359 --> 00:55:24,029
the way it's changed their family's lives.

1236
00:55:24,029 --> 00:55:27,198
- It's almost like a different existence.

1237
00:55:27,198 --> 00:55:29,034
I don't even know how to describe it.

1238
00:55:29,034 --> 00:55:30,410
After a five-year struggle

1239
00:55:30,410 --> 00:55:32,495
with treatment-resistant Bipolar disorder

1240
00:55:32,495 --> 00:55:33,788
that left him homeless

1241
00:55:33,788 --> 00:55:36,249
and wandering the streets of Los Angeles,

1242
00:55:36,249 --> 00:55:40,045
out of desperation, Matt
Baszucki tried Ketogenic therapy.

1243
00:55:40,045 --> 00:55:42,714
He says it healed his brain.

1244
00:55:42,714 --> 00:55:44,257
- Not only did my mood stabilize,

1245
00:55:44,257 --> 00:55:46,009
but everything just fell into place.

1246
00:55:46,009 --> 00:55:49,804
So I could play chess again,
I could work full-time.

1247
00:55:49,804 --> 00:55:53,516
I was exercising, and
I was lifting weights,

1248
00:55:53,516 --> 00:55:54,559
and I had energy.

1249
00:55:54,559 --> 00:55:57,145
And everything seemed to fall into place

1250
00:55:57,145 --> 00:55:58,063
when I went on Keto.

1251
00:55:58,063 --> 00:56:02,067
- And people have no
idea that what they eat

1252
00:56:02,067 --> 00:56:04,778
can cause mental illness.

1253
00:56:04,778 --> 00:56:07,572
Eric Rogers suffered
from severe depression

1254
00:56:07,572 --> 00:56:08,615
and thoughts of suicide.

1255
00:56:08,615 --> 00:56:12,369
He adopted a Keto diet to
address his pre-diabetes.

1256
00:56:12,369 --> 00:56:14,204
Not only did his metabolic health improve,

1257
00:56:14,204 --> 00:56:16,581
his depression faded away.

1258
00:56:16,581 --> 00:56:18,875
- I felt it initially fairly quickly,

1259
00:56:18,875 --> 00:56:22,587
but it's just been a
continual gradual improvement

1260
00:56:22,587 --> 00:56:27,592
to where, yeah, the last seven
years, no mood issues at all.

1261
00:56:28,676 --> 00:56:30,929
- Like, kind of blown away

1262
00:56:30,929 --> 00:56:35,058
that I just don't really
experience symptoms anymore.

1263
00:56:36,059 --> 00:56:36,893
Lauren Kennedy

1264
00:56:36,893 --> 00:56:38,895
struggled with Schizo Affective Disorder

1265
00:56:38,895 --> 00:56:40,105
for more than a decade.

1266
00:56:40,105 --> 00:56:41,981
It's a serious mental health condition

1267
00:56:41,981 --> 00:56:44,859
that combines the
psychosis of schizophrenia

1268
00:56:44,859 --> 00:56:47,487
with the mood disorders of Bipolar.

1269
00:56:47,487 --> 00:56:48,780
But earlier this year,

1270
00:56:48,780 --> 00:56:51,074
she began working with her psychiatrist

1271
00:56:51,074 --> 00:56:52,992
to implement Ketogenic therapy.

1272
00:56:53,827 --> 00:56:55,745
- I have been using
medical Ketogenic therapy

1273
00:56:55,745 --> 00:56:57,580
to treat my Schizo Affective Disorder

1274
00:56:57,580 --> 00:56:58,957
over the last five months,

1275
00:56:58,957 --> 00:57:01,459
and honestly I'm kind of blown away

1276
00:57:01,459 --> 00:57:04,838
by how effective it has been
in eradicating my symptoms.

1277
00:57:04,838 --> 00:57:06,673
I have thoroughly documented this process

1278
00:57:06,673 --> 00:57:09,008
on my YouTube channel, Living
Well With Schizophrenia,

1279
00:57:09,008 --> 00:57:11,469
if you want to learn
more about my experience.

1280
00:57:11,469 --> 00:57:14,264
I think I already feel
fine on 10 milligrams,

1281
00:57:14,264 --> 00:57:18,643
so kind of planning to
try going completely off.

1282
00:57:18,643 --> 00:57:20,019
- People who have schizophrenia

1283
00:57:20,019 --> 00:57:22,814
usually have lifelong disorders.

1284
00:57:22,814 --> 00:57:24,816
They have lifelong suffering.

1285
00:57:24,816 --> 00:57:28,778
Any treatment that can reduce symptoms

1286
00:57:28,778 --> 00:57:33,783
or even put symptoms into
remission is a godsend.

1287
00:57:34,951 --> 00:57:37,871
- You may have noticed the name
of our channel has changed.

1288
00:57:37,871 --> 00:57:40,206
It's gone from Living
Well With Schizophrenia

1289
00:57:40,206 --> 00:57:43,251
to now Living Well After Schizophrenia.

1290
00:57:44,794 --> 00:57:49,799
I don't struggle with my symptoms
of schizophrenia anymore.

1291
00:57:51,092 --> 00:57:55,430
And so I hope that setting an
example that it is possible

1292
00:57:55,430 --> 00:57:59,184
can be seen as a new
kind of beacon of hope

1293
00:57:59,184 --> 00:58:01,227
for people who may be experiencing

1294
00:58:01,227 --> 00:58:03,188
similar challenges or illnesses.

1295
00:58:05,857 --> 00:58:07,901
Let's go with red.

1296
00:58:07,901 --> 00:58:09,986
This is where it gets interesting.

1297
00:58:09,986 --> 00:58:14,157
Because I had no indication, no idea,

1298
00:58:14,157 --> 00:58:18,077
no information at the time to let me know

1299
00:58:18,077 --> 00:58:21,372
that mental health could be affected

1300
00:58:21,372 --> 00:58:24,501
in any way, shape, or form by diet.

1301
00:58:24,501 --> 00:58:26,628
Ironically, it was the desire

1302
00:58:27,837 --> 00:58:30,798
to lower her cholesterol that
led Robyn to try Keto diet.

1303
00:58:30,798 --> 00:58:34,302
Within six months,
Robyn dropped 50 pounds.

1304
00:58:34,302 --> 00:58:37,764
At first, her cholesterol
levels trended downward.

1305
00:58:37,764 --> 00:58:40,558
And something remarkable
happened to her mood.

1306
00:58:40,558 --> 00:58:42,393
- I said to Matt,

1307
00:58:42,393 --> 00:58:45,480
"I think my mental health
is getting better."

1308
00:58:45,480 --> 00:58:47,357
- There was a joy in her

1309
00:58:47,357 --> 00:58:51,236
that I hadn't seen in
a very, very long time.

1310
00:58:53,363 --> 00:58:54,531
- I felt excitement.

1311
00:58:55,365 --> 00:58:59,953
And I just said, "You
know what, I need to see

1312
00:58:59,953 --> 00:59:04,832
if I can live my life
without this medication."

1313
00:59:04,832 --> 00:59:07,585
We went to the doctor and we
told him what was going on.

1314
00:59:07,585 --> 00:59:10,171
And she agreed and said,

1315
00:59:10,171 --> 00:59:13,174
"Yes, let's titrate you
off your medications."

1316
00:59:13,174 --> 00:59:15,969
So that's exactly what we did.

1317
00:59:15,969 --> 00:59:16,803
And I have not been

1318
00:59:16,803 --> 00:59:19,931
on any mental health
medications ever since.

1319
00:59:19,931 --> 00:59:21,683
Wow.

1320
00:59:21,683 --> 00:59:23,726
Robyn achieved full remission.

1321
00:59:23,726 --> 00:59:26,229
She no longer suffers from Bipolar.

1322
00:59:26,229 --> 00:59:27,272
And it's holding.

1323
00:59:27,272 --> 00:59:28,815
It's been seven years now.

1324
00:59:28,815 --> 00:59:30,733
Robyn has reconnected with her children

1325
00:59:30,733 --> 00:59:32,860
and is healing her relationships.

1326
00:59:32,860 --> 00:59:36,155
Before life was
gray, now it's full of color.

1327
00:59:36,155 --> 00:59:40,034
That joy that I knew existed, I now feel.

1328
00:59:40,994 --> 00:59:43,037
I just look
forward to everything.

1329
00:59:43,037 --> 00:59:44,747
That is in the bulls-eye.

1330
00:59:44,747 --> 00:59:46,666
- That's totally a miss.

1331
00:59:46,666 --> 00:59:48,918
'Cause this is
what it's supposed to be.

1332
00:59:48,918 --> 00:59:51,838
This is what our life is supposed to be.

1333
00:59:51,838 --> 00:59:55,091
- There's hope, and it just
takes one little change.

1334
00:59:55,091 --> 00:59:56,801
You did a good job throwing axes.

1335
00:59:56,801 --> 00:59:57,635
- Thank you.

1336
00:59:57,635 --> 01:00:00,138
But now that Robyn
has regained her mental health,

1337
01:00:00,138 --> 01:00:03,057
she has also become more and more lean.

1338
01:00:03,057 --> 01:00:05,351
- Well, that's where the irony starts.

1339
01:00:05,351 --> 01:00:08,313
I started this whole
process of eating low carb

1340
01:00:08,313 --> 01:00:10,898
to drop my cholesterol

1341
01:00:10,898 --> 01:00:14,986
and then suddenly my
cholesterol starts shooting up.

1342
01:00:14,986 --> 01:00:19,282
- Robyn saw her LDL
cholesterol climb to 360.

1343
01:00:19,282 --> 01:00:23,828
Suddenly, she faced a very
real and difficult decision.

1344
01:00:23,828 --> 01:00:27,999
Should she abandon a diet that
has given her her life back?

1345
01:00:27,999 --> 01:00:31,294
- Modern lipidology says abandon
the diet quickly, you know?

1346
01:00:31,294 --> 01:00:34,005
This is the worst thing that
could ever happen to you.

1347
01:00:34,005 --> 01:00:38,468
And yet we see so many
people improving their lives,

1348
01:00:38,468 --> 01:00:39,761
improving their metabolic health,

1349
01:00:39,761 --> 01:00:41,721
improving their mental health.

1350
01:00:41,721 --> 01:00:44,891
And abandoning it could lead

1351
01:00:44,891 --> 01:00:48,186
to some potentially
really negative outcomes.

1352
01:00:48,186 --> 01:00:51,773
So it's tough to figure out what to do.

1353
01:00:51,773 --> 01:00:54,150
Robyn, it's so good to see you again.

1354
01:00:54,150 --> 01:00:55,109
How are you?

1355
01:00:55,109 --> 01:00:56,110
- I'm doing really well.

1356
01:00:56,110 --> 01:00:57,362
How are you?

1357
01:00:57,362 --> 01:00:59,739
Robyn turned
to Dr. Tro Kalayjian.

1358
01:00:59,739 --> 01:01:02,533
He specializes in low carb nutrition.

1359
01:01:02,533 --> 01:01:04,452
- Of course, you being the
great doctor that you are,

1360
01:01:04,452 --> 01:01:08,915
you asked me, would I go
on a statin, and I refused.

1361
01:01:08,915 --> 01:01:10,875
But instead of being like
all the other doctors

1362
01:01:10,875 --> 01:01:13,711
and considering me a noncompliant patient,

1363
01:01:13,711 --> 01:01:16,506
you worked with me on some ways

1364
01:01:16,506 --> 01:01:18,675
that we could try to get around that.

1365
01:01:18,675 --> 01:01:21,928
- We saw your famous Wonder Bread study

1366
01:01:21,928 --> 01:01:25,181
and we knew of other people in my clinic

1367
01:01:25,181 --> 01:01:26,808
who had improved their cholesterol

1368
01:01:26,808 --> 01:01:30,269
by adding back carbohydrates.

1369
01:01:30,269 --> 01:01:33,106
- What Dr. Tro just
mentioned is a key premise

1370
01:01:33,106 --> 01:01:34,941
of the Lipid Energy Model.

1371
01:01:34,941 --> 01:01:37,902
I demonstrated this in my
most popular experiment.

1372
01:01:39,696 --> 01:01:42,365
I called it the White Bread Experiment.

1373
01:01:42,365 --> 01:01:44,242
In it, I lowered my cholesterol

1374
01:01:44,242 --> 01:01:46,577
more than 200 points in a week

1375
01:01:46,577 --> 01:01:50,123
by adding white bread to
my otherwise Keto diet.

1376
01:01:50,123 --> 01:01:51,207
The experiment reveals

1377
01:01:51,207 --> 01:01:55,002
just how tightly linked
cholesterol is to metabolism.

1378
01:01:55,837 --> 01:01:57,088
Many people who eat Keto

1379
01:01:57,088 --> 01:01:59,924
have replicated variations
of this experiment.

1380
01:01:59,924 --> 01:02:03,553
It can dramatically and swiftly
affect cholesterol levels.

1381
01:02:03,553 --> 01:02:06,472
And any simple carbohydrate will work.

1382
01:02:06,472 --> 01:02:10,852
It can be white bread, sweet potato, or...

1383
01:02:13,813 --> 01:02:15,732
- Five months ago, I started an experiment

1384
01:02:15,732 --> 01:02:18,109
to see which would lower
my cholesterol more,

1385
01:02:19,318 --> 01:02:22,572
statin therapy or Oreo cookies.

1386
01:02:23,948 --> 01:02:25,742
Nick made the provocative choice

1387
01:02:25,742 --> 01:02:28,327
of adding 12 Oreo cookies per day,

1388
01:02:28,327 --> 01:02:30,413
about a hundred grams of carbs

1389
01:02:30,413 --> 01:02:33,458
to his otherwise low carb Keto diet.

1390
01:02:33,458 --> 01:02:35,084
He compared that to six weeks

1391
01:02:35,084 --> 01:02:37,378
of high intensity statin therapy.

1392
01:02:37,378 --> 01:02:39,881
The results are stunning.

1393
01:02:39,881 --> 01:02:42,800
The addition of Oreo cookies
was twice as effective

1394
01:02:42,800 --> 01:02:47,013
at lowering Nick's LDL in less
than half the amount of time.

1395
01:02:47,013 --> 01:02:48,222
But why?

1396
01:02:48,222 --> 01:02:50,808
Well, remember, according
to the Lipid Energy Model,

1397
01:02:50,808 --> 01:02:54,937
the main driver of LDL cholesterol
in people on Keto diets

1398
01:02:54,937 --> 01:02:58,524
is a drop in glucose stores in the liver.

1399
01:02:58,524 --> 01:03:00,401
This shifts energy demand

1400
01:03:00,401 --> 01:03:03,404
toward using mostly fat-based fuel.

1401
01:03:03,404 --> 01:03:06,157
But even a small
reintroduction of carbohydrates

1402
01:03:06,157 --> 01:03:08,618
can refill those glucose stores.

1403
01:03:08,618 --> 01:03:10,912
And when glucose is easily available,

1404
01:03:10,912 --> 01:03:12,997
it dramatically drops the need

1405
01:03:12,997 --> 01:03:15,792
to ship fat fuel in the blood,

1406
01:03:15,792 --> 01:03:18,336
resulting in a sudden and significant drop

1407
01:03:18,336 --> 01:03:19,670
in LDL cholesterol.

1408
01:03:20,838 --> 01:03:23,299
So did it work for Robyn?

1409
01:03:23,299 --> 01:03:28,095
- So every day, actually,
the very first meal of my day

1410
01:03:28,095 --> 01:03:30,431
was one sweet potato.

1411
01:03:31,265 --> 01:03:32,225
For three months,

1412
01:03:32,225 --> 01:03:34,685
Robyn added one sweet potato per day

1413
01:03:34,685 --> 01:03:36,312
to her baseline Keto diet.

1414
01:03:37,396 --> 01:03:40,399
- Lo and behold, the numbers
are all trending downwards

1415
01:03:40,399 --> 01:03:42,819
where they're supposed to trend downward.

1416
01:03:42,819 --> 01:03:45,780
And we're seeing success.

1417
01:03:45,780 --> 01:03:47,824
But the first thing that happens to me

1418
01:03:47,824 --> 01:03:51,702
when I wake up in the morning,
and this is a big sign to me,

1419
01:03:51,702 --> 01:03:54,580
it's like a blaring me on blinking sign,

1420
01:03:54,580 --> 01:03:56,624
is I can't wait to go back to bed.

1421
01:03:58,251 --> 01:04:00,920
I said, "I think my
depression's coming back."

1422
01:04:00,920 --> 01:04:03,840
Dr. Tro and Robyn
tried scaling back the dose,

1423
01:04:03,840 --> 01:04:06,968
cutting down to half a
sweet potato per day,

1424
01:04:06,968 --> 01:04:08,094
then a quarter.

1425
01:04:08,094 --> 01:04:11,222
But still, her symptoms
of depression lingered.

1426
01:04:11,222 --> 01:04:12,640
- It was not getting better.

1427
01:04:12,640 --> 01:04:15,434
Even that quarter of a sweet potato,

1428
01:04:15,434 --> 01:04:17,645
I was not in a good mental state.

1429
01:04:17,645 --> 01:04:20,731
My family was very aware
of what was going on,

1430
01:04:20,731 --> 01:04:22,608
and they were telling me,

1431
01:04:22,608 --> 01:04:24,277
"Mom, it's hard to be around you."

1432
01:04:24,277 --> 01:04:26,696
"Mom, you're angry again."

1433
01:04:26,696 --> 01:04:30,616
It wasn't worth it to
me to drop that number

1434
01:04:30,616 --> 01:04:32,243
and ruin the relationships

1435
01:04:32,243 --> 01:04:35,162
that I was really very new to forming

1436
01:04:35,162 --> 01:04:36,914
with my family members.

1437
01:04:37,874 --> 01:04:40,334
And so we eventually just stopped.

1438
01:04:41,919 --> 01:04:44,422
Robyn's experience
speaks to a larger issue.

1439
01:04:44,422 --> 01:04:47,967
For many people, the
Keto diet is a lifeline,

1440
01:04:47,967 --> 01:04:51,345
and adding back carbohydrates
is simply not an option.

1441
01:04:52,221 --> 01:04:55,433
What's important
to me is my overall health

1442
01:04:55,433 --> 01:04:56,475
and the relationships

1443
01:04:56,475 --> 01:04:59,186
that I'm trying to
rebuild with my children.

1444
01:04:59,186 --> 01:05:02,481
And I can't do that if
I am eating that way.

1445
01:05:02,481 --> 01:05:05,067
I've lived that life, I know
what that life feels like,

1446
01:05:05,067 --> 01:05:07,528
and I never want to go back.

1447
01:05:18,372 --> 01:05:20,124
- So to be coming from the outside,

1448
01:05:20,124 --> 01:05:21,834
raise money for a study like that

1449
01:05:21,834 --> 01:05:24,378
to pursue a question that
you're just curious in,

1450
01:05:25,880 --> 01:05:27,965
I'm trying to think of a word
more powerful than admirable,

1451
01:05:27,965 --> 01:05:29,759
but it's incredibly admirable.

1452
01:05:29,759 --> 01:05:31,886
- Today, today is the day.

1453
01:05:31,886 --> 01:05:35,473
We're going to Lundquist, so this is it.

1454
01:05:36,474 --> 01:05:37,725
- He's swimming upstream.

1455
01:05:39,602 --> 01:05:41,187
And he's had to scrap and fight

1456
01:05:41,187 --> 01:05:42,730
just to get a couple
hundred thousand dollars

1457
01:05:42,730 --> 01:05:43,731
to do these studies.

1458
01:05:44,982 --> 01:05:48,277
- Today we get to see the
first hundred heart scans

1459
01:05:48,277 --> 01:05:49,111
from the study.

1460
01:05:51,405 --> 01:05:54,325
It's taken seven years
to get to this point.

1461
01:05:55,326 --> 01:05:56,160
Big day.

1462
01:05:59,288 --> 01:06:02,708
For Dave, it's truly
a passion project for him.

1463
01:06:04,794 --> 01:06:08,381
It's something that he
feels very strongly about.

1464
01:06:08,381 --> 01:06:12,218
This is not about money,
or fame, or fortune,

1465
01:06:12,218 --> 01:06:13,177
or anything like that.

1466
01:06:13,177 --> 01:06:16,347
It has always been about
helping other people.

1467
01:06:17,473 --> 01:06:19,558
- I'm kind of nervous, man.
It's been so long to come up

1468
01:06:19,558 --> 01:06:21,268
to this exact moment.

1469
01:06:22,228 --> 01:06:26,732
So, Dr. Budoff, our hundred
baselines are here, right?

1470
01:06:28,150 --> 01:06:31,237
So let's look.

1471
01:06:31,237 --> 01:06:32,071
- Sure.

1472
01:06:32,071 --> 01:06:37,076
So just going through the
population that we studied,

1473
01:06:37,118 --> 01:06:38,828
you can see a pretty nice spectrum,

1474
01:06:38,828 --> 01:06:41,622
going from about 200 LDL
all the way up to somebody

1475
01:06:41,622 --> 01:06:42,915
who looks like they're approaching

1476
01:06:42,915 --> 01:06:46,210
about 600 milligrams per deciliter.

1477
01:06:46,210 --> 01:06:49,547
So this is kind of the big money shot.

1478
01:06:49,547 --> 01:06:51,549
More than half had zero plaque.

1479
01:06:52,550 --> 01:06:56,804
53% had absolutely no plaque detectable.

1480
01:06:56,804 --> 01:06:59,056
The vast majority have either no

1481
01:06:59,056 --> 01:07:02,351
or minimal atherosclerosis.

1482
01:07:02,351 --> 01:07:03,936
- I just couldn't believe my eyes.

1483
01:07:03,936 --> 01:07:08,941
The total plaque score can
go from 0 to a maximum of 45.

1484
01:07:08,983 --> 01:07:12,278
And yet everyone in the
study is a nine or below.

1485
01:07:12,278 --> 01:07:15,823
Not one person even made it to 10.

1486
01:07:15,823 --> 01:07:19,326
This is actually, this is really good,

1487
01:07:19,326 --> 01:07:20,286
right?
- Yeah.

1488
01:07:20,286 --> 01:07:23,039
Staying zero is still
the predominant number

1489
01:07:23,039 --> 01:07:26,125
and the median is still
zero for the overall cohort,

1490
01:07:26,125 --> 01:07:29,295
even as we trended higher in age.

1491
01:07:29,295 --> 01:07:30,671
- This is big.

1492
01:07:30,671 --> 01:07:33,966
The average age of our participants is 55.

1493
01:07:33,966 --> 01:07:37,094
At 55 years old, it's
very common to see plaque

1494
01:07:37,094 --> 01:07:38,971
developing in the arteries,

1495
01:07:38,971 --> 01:07:42,183
and yet most of our participants
have no visible plaque

1496
01:07:42,183 --> 01:07:44,226
on these initial scans.

1497
01:07:44,226 --> 01:07:48,147
Add to that, they've been Keto
for an average of 4.7 years.

1498
01:07:48,147 --> 01:07:49,690
That's almost half a decade

1499
01:07:49,690 --> 01:07:52,610
at these sky high levels
of LDL cholesterol.

1500
01:07:53,652 --> 01:07:57,698
- Yeah, no, I think this is
really, really incredible data.

1501
01:07:57,698 --> 01:08:00,076
I think the expectations

1502
01:08:00,076 --> 01:08:02,286
when we see LDL cholesterol

1503
01:08:02,286 --> 01:08:06,082
of 200, 300, 500, 600

1504
01:08:06,082 --> 01:08:09,543
is that the coronaries are
gonna be coated in plaque,

1505
01:08:09,543 --> 01:08:11,295
that there's gonna be a lot of blockages,

1506
01:08:11,295 --> 01:08:12,463
that we're gonna be thinking about,

1507
01:08:12,463 --> 01:08:16,092
should we be calling the cardiac
surgeon for bypass surgery?

1508
01:08:16,092 --> 01:08:18,594
And that's not what we saw.

1509
01:08:18,594 --> 01:08:20,471
- I just really appreciate this, Matt.

1510
01:08:20,471 --> 01:08:24,016
Like, there's literally
epileptics that write me,

1511
01:08:24,016 --> 01:08:26,393
and severe Type 1 diabetics.

1512
01:08:26,393 --> 01:08:30,189
And, you know, the first
time I'm hearing a toddler,

1513
01:08:30,189 --> 01:08:32,983
her parents are considering
getting her brain surgery.

1514
01:08:34,610 --> 01:08:37,196
And she was thriving on a Ketogenic diet.

1515
01:08:37,196 --> 01:08:38,906
The pediatrician was
pushing back and saying,

1516
01:08:38,906 --> 01:08:39,907
"Well, there's no point

1517
01:08:39,907 --> 01:08:43,369
if she's gonna, like, have
a heart attack in 10 years.

1518
01:08:43,369 --> 01:08:46,622
I wanna be able to give her
that answer from our data.

1519
01:08:46,622 --> 01:08:48,332
- We will, we will give 'em the answer.

1520
01:08:48,332 --> 01:08:49,208
- Yeah.

1521
01:08:49,208 --> 01:08:50,751
So thanks.

1522
01:08:50,751 --> 01:08:53,504
Thanks to you, and your
team, and everybody.

1523
01:08:53,504 --> 01:08:54,338
- That's great.

1524
01:08:54,338 --> 01:08:56,882
And we just pursue wherever
the science takes us.

1525
01:08:56,882 --> 01:08:59,135
And we, you know, come in with open minds

1526
01:09:00,010 --> 01:09:03,472
and try to see which way the,

1527
01:09:03,472 --> 01:09:06,058
you know, the science pushes us.

1528
01:09:06,058 --> 01:09:07,685
- Yeah.

1529
01:09:17,486 --> 01:09:19,738
- Here we are, London town.

1530
01:09:20,865 --> 01:09:23,617
There's a lot of low carbers here.

1531
01:09:23,617 --> 01:09:25,786
And that means, of course, a number of 'em

1532
01:09:25,786 --> 01:09:27,663
are gonna have some high cholesterol.

1533
01:09:28,539 --> 01:09:30,291
We've traveled all the way across the pond

1534
01:09:30,291 --> 01:09:32,501
to London, England to meet with members

1535
01:09:32,501 --> 01:09:34,336
of the Public Health Collaborative.

1536
01:09:34,336 --> 01:09:37,214
The PHC is a nonprofit health organization

1537
01:09:37,214 --> 01:09:39,758
that advocates for the
use of low carb and Keto

1538
01:09:39,758 --> 01:09:43,262
to reverse metabolic disorders
like Type 2 diabetes.

1539
01:09:43,262 --> 01:09:44,889
Sam Feltham is the president

1540
01:09:44,889 --> 01:09:47,641
and he's been closely
following our research.

1541
01:09:47,641 --> 01:09:52,271
- The LDL issue, really one
of the biggest objections

1542
01:09:53,105 --> 01:09:57,026
to implementing low carb in all aspects,

1543
01:09:57,026 --> 01:10:00,529
whether it be cardiovascular
disease, or Type 2 diabetes,

1544
01:10:02,323 --> 01:10:04,366
and everything else in between.

1545
01:10:04,366 --> 01:10:08,996
So Dave's work is vital
in overcoming that.

1546
01:10:08,996 --> 01:10:10,873
So I'm really excited about it.

1547
01:10:15,252 --> 01:10:16,545
Why do
you travel all over the world

1548
01:10:16,545 --> 01:10:18,088
to meet these people in person?

1549
01:10:19,423 --> 01:10:21,008
- I think there's just no substitute.

1550
01:10:21,008 --> 01:10:25,304
Like, really coming to
meet people directly,

1551
01:10:25,304 --> 01:10:28,599
you get to know their story directly.

1552
01:10:29,683 --> 01:10:30,768
While we're here,

1553
01:10:30,768 --> 01:10:33,729
we'll actually be chatting
with Dr. Jen Unwin.

1554
01:10:33,729 --> 01:10:34,563
Jen.

1555
01:10:34,563 --> 01:10:35,856
- Welcome.

1556
01:10:35,856 --> 01:10:36,690
How are you?

1557
01:10:36,690 --> 01:10:37,608
- Pretty good.

1558
01:10:37,608 --> 01:10:38,859
- I'm just so excited

1559
01:10:38,859 --> 01:10:40,986
to finally be discussing this with her.

1560
01:10:40,986 --> 01:10:44,865
And of course she has
extraordinarily high levels of LDL.

1561
01:10:44,865 --> 01:10:47,534
You don't just have high cholesterol,

1562
01:10:47,534 --> 01:10:49,995
you have what I think many would consider

1563
01:10:49,995 --> 01:10:51,789
extremely high cholesterol.

1564
01:10:51,789 --> 01:10:52,665
- Mm-hmm.

1565
01:10:52,665 --> 01:10:54,208
- I myself was very surprised

1566
01:10:54,208 --> 01:10:58,879
that her levels were up
there, at around 600.

1567
01:10:58,879 --> 01:11:02,216
And she's voluntarily
having it at those levels

1568
01:11:02,216 --> 01:11:04,301
in order to work with her food addiction.

1569
01:11:05,427 --> 01:11:07,888
I'm a carb addict.

1570
01:11:07,888 --> 01:11:11,475
If I up my carbohydrate, I
lose all balance with my diet

1571
01:11:11,475 --> 01:11:15,938
and I start overeating and
then putting on weight.

1572
01:11:15,938 --> 01:11:17,731
- She's exactly the kind of person

1573
01:11:17,731 --> 01:11:20,734
who drives me to continue this research.

1574
01:11:20,734 --> 01:11:23,153
I'm sure many colleagues would say,

1575
01:11:23,153 --> 01:11:26,073
"Why not just go ahead and
bring the carbs up a little bit

1576
01:11:26,073 --> 01:11:29,118
if that can bring the
cholesterol down a lot more?"

1577
01:11:29,994 --> 01:11:31,704
Why wouldn't you consider that?

1578
01:11:31,704 --> 01:11:34,915
- What I've learned, like you,
through self experimentation,

1579
01:11:34,915 --> 01:11:38,585
is that I'm better when I
keep the carbs really low.

1580
01:11:38,585 --> 01:11:40,087
And I think that's why

1581
01:11:40,087 --> 01:11:42,214
my cholesterol's gone up over the years,

1582
01:11:42,214 --> 01:11:44,133
because there's a nice balance

1583
01:11:44,133 --> 01:11:48,262
between feeling well mentally,

1584
01:11:48,262 --> 01:11:50,097
not doing that sort of weight cycling.

1585
01:11:50,097 --> 01:11:54,893
It's just that sort of stability
is so invaluable to me,

1586
01:11:54,893 --> 01:11:56,437
that mental stability.

1587
01:11:58,480 --> 01:12:00,983
I might not even swap that if you told me

1588
01:12:02,776 --> 01:12:05,529
that I'm going out earlier.

1589
01:12:05,529 --> 01:12:07,406
I might even keep that.

1590
01:12:07,406 --> 01:12:11,410
- Dr. Jen follows a nearly
100% animal-based diet

1591
01:12:11,410 --> 01:12:13,454
with fresh eggs from her own chickens

1592
01:12:13,454 --> 01:12:16,415
and grass-fed lamb from a
pasture just down the road.

1593
01:12:17,499 --> 01:12:20,461
She's been eating this way
for more than a decade.

1594
01:12:20,461 --> 01:12:23,130
You're eating a lot of these livestock,

1595
01:12:25,090 --> 01:12:27,301
predominantly meat-based diet.

1596
01:12:27,301 --> 01:12:28,135
Yeah.

1597
01:12:28,135 --> 01:12:30,054
- It's resulting in you
having high cholesterol.

1598
01:12:30,971 --> 01:12:34,558
And this, as natural as it feels,

1599
01:12:34,558 --> 01:12:36,602
must therefore be killing you, right?

1600
01:12:36,602 --> 01:12:40,105
Yeah, no.

1601
01:12:42,066 --> 01:12:42,900
No.

1602
01:12:42,900 --> 01:12:47,488
So, you know, I feel better
physically and mentally at 59

1603
01:12:48,822 --> 01:12:52,618
than I did in my 20s when
I was eating a high sugar,

1604
01:12:52,618 --> 01:12:55,245
high processed food diet.

1605
01:12:55,245 --> 01:12:56,705
Dr. Jen is not alone.

1606
01:12:56,705 --> 01:12:59,625
New research is bringing to
light the benefits of Keto

1607
01:12:59,625 --> 01:13:02,252
for a variety of eating disorders.

1608
01:13:05,172 --> 01:13:08,175
- Then there was kind of
this constant, like, battle.

1609
01:13:08,175 --> 01:13:09,385
You know, I felt like I was standing

1610
01:13:09,385 --> 01:13:10,844
on the sidelines of my own life.

1611
01:13:10,844 --> 01:13:12,846
Like, I couldn't really
participate, you know?

1612
01:13:12,846 --> 01:13:14,932
'Cause I always had,
like, all these thoughts

1613
01:13:14,932 --> 01:13:16,100
running through my head.

1614
01:13:16,100 --> 01:13:17,893
Michelle Hurn
was just 12 years old

1615
01:13:17,893 --> 01:13:20,479
when she was diagnosed
with Anorexia nervosa,

1616
01:13:20,479 --> 01:13:23,023
a potentially deadly eating disorder.

1617
01:13:23,023 --> 01:13:26,193
She suffered from constant
racing thoughts about food

1618
01:13:26,193 --> 01:13:27,945
but struggled to eat.

1619
01:13:27,945 --> 01:13:30,447
She became so thin her parents sent her

1620
01:13:30,447 --> 01:13:32,074
to an inpatient care facility

1621
01:13:32,074 --> 01:13:34,993
where the medical team put
her on an IV feeding tube

1622
01:13:34,993 --> 01:13:38,205
and force-fed her foods that
would help her gain weight.

1623
01:13:38,205 --> 01:13:40,374
- The number one
ingredients of tube formulas

1624
01:13:40,374 --> 01:13:44,461
are maltodextrin, soy protein,
corn syrup, canola oil,

1625
01:13:44,461 --> 01:13:47,548
these really highly
inflammatory ingredients.

1626
01:13:47,548 --> 01:13:49,633
And so, you know, you're taking somebody

1627
01:13:49,633 --> 01:13:52,511
who, you know, clearly
had starved themselves

1628
01:13:52,511 --> 01:13:55,889
for several months, super damaged GI,

1629
01:13:55,889 --> 01:13:59,393
and immediately dripping,
you know, all of this sugar

1630
01:13:59,393 --> 01:14:01,270
and oil in their system

1631
01:14:01,270 --> 01:14:03,981
while having them eat the
standard American diet.

1632
01:14:03,981 --> 01:14:05,274
You know, we were eating cereals,

1633
01:14:05,274 --> 01:14:07,401
and breads, and pastas, the food pyramid.

1634
01:14:07,401 --> 01:14:08,861
- The focus of treatment

1635
01:14:08,861 --> 01:14:10,654
always seems to be about the weight.

1636
01:14:10,654 --> 01:14:12,281
Eat your shakes.

1637
01:14:12,281 --> 01:14:14,032
Eat your chocolate shakes,
and your chocolate cake,

1638
01:14:14,032 --> 01:14:15,701
and your cookies.

1639
01:14:15,701 --> 01:14:19,455
I mean, it's a real thing that
people aren't able to leave

1640
01:14:19,455 --> 01:14:22,207
an inpatient treatment center
until they eat their cookies.

1641
01:14:22,207 --> 01:14:23,917
- It didn't take long for,

1642
01:14:23,917 --> 01:14:26,336
I had all kinds of
problems in the facility.

1643
01:14:26,336 --> 01:14:30,424
I had severe anxiety, you know, depressed.

1644
01:14:30,424 --> 01:14:32,092
I was, like, shaking.

1645
01:14:32,092 --> 01:14:34,803
I had massive GI issues, diarrhea,

1646
01:14:34,803 --> 01:14:37,764
then constipation, lots of pain.

1647
01:14:37,764 --> 01:14:39,016
And, you know, you're often told,

1648
01:14:39,016 --> 01:14:40,392
like, it's in your head, you know?

1649
01:14:40,392 --> 01:14:41,727
It's in your head.

1650
01:14:41,727 --> 01:14:46,356
It was a very difficult time.

1651
01:14:46,356 --> 01:14:48,066
Michelle eventually
gained enough weight

1652
01:14:48,066 --> 01:14:49,485
to check out at the care facility,

1653
01:14:49,485 --> 01:14:52,404
but she struggled with
anxiety and nutrition

1654
01:14:52,404 --> 01:14:55,240
throughout adolescence and into adulthood,

1655
01:14:55,240 --> 01:14:57,951
even contemplating suicide for a time.

1656
01:14:57,951 --> 01:15:00,329
Then out of sheer desperation,

1657
01:15:00,329 --> 01:15:04,124
she tried a low carb,
high animal protein diet.

1658
01:15:04,124 --> 01:15:05,501
In a matter of weeks,

1659
01:15:05,501 --> 01:15:08,795
her anxiety around food
started clearing up.

1660
01:15:08,795 --> 01:15:10,547
- If you're thinking
about eating disorders

1661
01:15:10,547 --> 01:15:13,634
as purely like a psychiatric illness,

1662
01:15:13,634 --> 01:15:15,344
like, you can't ask somebody

1663
01:15:15,344 --> 01:15:18,305
with a dysfunctional
relationship with food

1664
01:15:18,305 --> 01:15:20,807
to eliminate a food group
or give up a food group.

1665
01:15:20,807 --> 01:15:24,311
Like, that in theory, like, makes sense.

1666
01:15:24,311 --> 01:15:26,897
But what I want people to understand

1667
01:15:26,897 --> 01:15:28,273
and what I'd want more dieticians

1668
01:15:28,273 --> 01:15:30,400
and medical professionals to understand

1669
01:15:30,400 --> 01:15:33,612
is Anorexia is not just
a psychiatric illness.

1670
01:15:33,612 --> 01:15:36,448
It has a metabolic
component to it, you know?

1671
01:15:36,448 --> 01:15:39,535
And that's the one
thing that we've missed.

1672
01:15:39,535 --> 01:15:42,079
I mean, Anorexia has the
highest mortality rate

1673
01:15:42,079 --> 01:15:44,289
of any psychiatric disorder.

1674
01:15:44,289 --> 01:15:48,252
So if people can eat in a way,

1675
01:15:48,252 --> 01:15:49,878
you know, that provides their body

1676
01:15:49,878 --> 01:15:52,089
with all the nourishment they need,

1677
01:15:52,089 --> 01:15:54,675
and they feel calm, and they
can participate in their life,

1678
01:15:54,675 --> 01:15:56,885
I would say that's not restrictive.

1679
01:15:56,885 --> 01:15:58,095
That's freedom.

1680
01:15:58,095 --> 01:16:00,806
- And I think a lot of food
addicts would stay the same.

1681
01:16:00,806 --> 01:16:04,977
It's really priceless,
that freedom from cravings

1682
01:16:04,977 --> 01:16:09,731
and compulsions to eat,
which I've suffered.

1683
01:16:09,731 --> 01:16:11,441
Both Dr. Jen and Michelle

1684
01:16:11,441 --> 01:16:13,360
have dedicated their
lives to helping others

1685
01:16:13,360 --> 01:16:14,861
with eating disorders,

1686
01:16:14,861 --> 01:16:16,989
Michelle as a registered dietician

1687
01:16:16,989 --> 01:16:18,657
who supports Ketogenic nutrition

1688
01:16:18,657 --> 01:16:20,492
for treatment of Anorexia

1689
01:16:20,492 --> 01:16:24,079
and Dr. Jen in her
practice as a psychologist.

1690
01:16:24,079 --> 01:16:28,041
- I'm dedicated now to this
work around food addiction,

1691
01:16:28,041 --> 01:16:29,585
educating people about that

1692
01:16:29,585 --> 01:16:33,130
so that they understand
that it's a real condition,

1693
01:16:33,130 --> 01:16:35,841
and helping them to learn to manage it.

1694
01:16:35,841 --> 01:16:38,135
- But what about the cholesterol?

1695
01:16:38,135 --> 01:16:40,596
Both women are Hyper Responders.

1696
01:16:40,596 --> 01:16:44,725
Soon, Dr. Jen will visit her
cardiologist to find out,

1697
01:16:44,725 --> 01:16:46,685
is she trading good health today

1698
01:16:46,685 --> 01:16:48,520
for a heart attack tomorrow?

1699
01:16:55,068 --> 01:16:56,903
I think one of the benefits of traveling

1700
01:16:56,903 --> 01:16:59,740
and showing that this is everywhere,

1701
01:17:00,616 --> 01:17:04,786
in all ethnicities, and in
all ages, and all genders,

1702
01:17:04,786 --> 01:17:09,750
that it's a phenomenon that
needs to get looked at.

1703
01:17:10,125 --> 01:17:12,377
I think when people can see that,

1704
01:17:12,377 --> 01:17:14,296
particularly when all
kinds of people can see

1705
01:17:14,296 --> 01:17:16,214
all kinds of people are affected,

1706
01:17:16,214 --> 01:17:17,382
that makes a difference.

1707
01:17:24,389 --> 01:17:25,682
Okay, so you're recording?

1708
01:17:29,436 --> 01:17:32,147
This is absolutely gonna be one
of the best days of my life.

1709
01:17:33,815 --> 01:17:35,609
There's been a big development.

1710
01:17:35,609 --> 01:17:38,320
Dr. Budoff's team is preparing
our study for submission

1711
01:17:38,320 --> 01:17:40,447
to the American Heart Association.

1712
01:17:40,447 --> 01:17:42,908
The goal is to present a
summary of our research

1713
01:17:42,908 --> 01:17:45,577
to the AHA's Scientific Sessions,

1714
01:17:45,577 --> 01:17:47,829
one of the most important
cardiology conferences

1715
01:17:47,829 --> 01:17:49,206
in the world.

1716
01:17:49,206 --> 01:17:50,374
- Tomorrow, yeah.

1717
01:17:50,374 --> 01:17:51,291
- Tomorrow, wow.

1718
01:17:51,291 --> 01:17:53,043
Okay, so this is really it.

1719
01:17:53,043 --> 01:17:56,588
All the work, all of the
push, this is the moment.

1720
01:17:58,256 --> 01:18:00,217
I wasn't just thinking
it, I could feel it.

1721
01:18:00,217 --> 01:18:01,051
This is it.

1722
01:18:02,010 --> 01:18:04,721
This may be some of the most novel data

1723
01:18:04,721 --> 01:18:07,724
in the field of cardiology in decades.

1724
01:18:07,724 --> 01:18:11,520
Dr. Budoff has prepared a
comparison between 80 participants

1725
01:18:11,520 --> 01:18:14,106
in our Lean Mass Hyper Responder Study

1726
01:18:14,106 --> 01:18:16,483
and 80 from the Miami Heart Study,

1727
01:18:16,483 --> 01:18:18,694
a separate study that includes many

1728
01:18:18,694 --> 01:18:20,404
who are also metabolically healthy

1729
01:18:20,404 --> 01:18:23,615
but have average levels
of LDL cholesterol.

1730
01:18:23,615 --> 01:18:25,242
For the first time ever,

1731
01:18:25,242 --> 01:18:27,577
we'll see how the plaque
levels in our group

1732
01:18:27,577 --> 01:18:31,456
compare to a healthy
matched control group.

1733
01:18:31,456 --> 01:18:33,166
Are you excited about this data?

1734
01:18:33,166 --> 01:18:34,209
- Yeah, no, I'm very excited.

1735
01:18:34,209 --> 01:18:35,168
I'm looking forward to it.

1736
01:18:35,168 --> 01:18:37,879
I'm pretty confident that
we'll be able to present it

1737
01:18:37,879 --> 01:18:39,339
as a late-breaking clinical trial.

1738
01:18:39,339 --> 01:18:41,258
Obviously, we have to wait to see

1739
01:18:41,258 --> 01:18:42,926
what the American Heart says about it,

1740
01:18:42,926 --> 01:18:46,012
but I think it's robust
data, it's prospective,

1741
01:18:46,012 --> 01:18:47,139
it was blinded.

1742
01:18:47,139 --> 01:18:50,892
This is very exciting data and
I think very powerful data.

1743
01:18:50,892 --> 01:18:52,811
- This is a pivotal moment.

1744
01:18:52,811 --> 01:18:54,855
Our data and this comparison

1745
01:18:54,855 --> 01:18:58,316
have the potential to influence
the world of cardiology.

1746
01:18:58,316 --> 01:19:02,571
As much as I'd like to
have been that protagonist

1747
01:19:02,571 --> 01:19:04,156
who knew he was right all along,

1748
01:19:06,324 --> 01:19:09,745
you don't know until it's right
there staring back at you.

1749
01:19:13,081 --> 01:19:14,082
Okay, alright.

1750
01:19:14,916 --> 01:19:15,959
We've got a busy morning.

1751
01:19:20,881 --> 01:19:22,924
We've come to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

1752
01:19:22,924 --> 01:19:26,261
for the American Heart
Association's annual conference.

1753
01:19:26,261 --> 01:19:27,554
This is where cardiologists

1754
01:19:27,554 --> 01:19:29,347
and lipidologists from all over the world

1755
01:19:29,347 --> 01:19:31,433
come to learn the latest science,

1756
01:19:31,433 --> 01:19:35,562
except we've just learned our
science won't be presented.

1757
01:19:35,562 --> 01:19:36,855
I'm just beside myself.

1758
01:19:38,148 --> 01:19:38,982
I couldn't sleep.

1759
01:19:38,982 --> 01:19:41,693
I couldn't get over

1760
01:19:41,693 --> 01:19:45,447
that this was happening.

1761
01:19:45,447 --> 01:19:47,949
The American Heart
Association has a long history

1762
01:19:47,949 --> 01:19:50,744
of pushing back against low carb and Keto.

1763
01:19:50,744 --> 01:19:52,746
I suspected they might downplay our data,

1764
01:19:52,746 --> 01:19:56,416
but honestly I never expected this.

1765
01:19:56,416 --> 01:20:00,128
I can't think of a single better example

1766
01:20:00,128 --> 01:20:03,507
of what we're up against, frankly,

1767
01:20:03,507 --> 01:20:07,093
than the American Heart
Association's Scientific Sessions

1768
01:20:07,093 --> 01:20:11,765
rejecting our abstract of 160 people.

1769
01:20:12,849 --> 01:20:16,853
Groups of 80 compared with CT angiography,

1770
01:20:16,853 --> 01:20:18,647
that gets rejected.

1771
01:20:18,647 --> 01:20:20,941
But they're accepting
a case report abstract

1772
01:20:20,941 --> 01:20:25,946
on a single person who already
had advanced heart disease,

1773
01:20:27,405 --> 01:20:29,616
then having a heart attack,

1774
01:20:29,616 --> 01:20:33,578
and emphasizing that it's a
Lean Mass Hyper Responder.

1775
01:20:34,913 --> 01:20:37,624
Why not at least accept both?

1776
01:20:37,624 --> 01:20:39,876
I'm dumbfounded, honestly.

1777
01:20:39,876 --> 01:20:41,086
- Very disappointing, for sure.

1778
01:20:41,086 --> 01:20:43,964
I thought it would be
accepted at American Heart.

1779
01:20:43,964 --> 01:20:46,383
But, you know, we'll never know for sure

1780
01:20:46,383 --> 01:20:48,468
what kept it from the meeting.

1781
01:20:52,305 --> 01:20:53,223
Thank you very much.

1782
01:20:53,223 --> 01:20:55,725
It's certainly a pleasure
to be here with everybody.

1783
01:20:55,725 --> 01:20:57,352
Fortunately, it didn't take long

1784
01:20:57,352 --> 01:20:59,020
before another cardiology conference

1785
01:20:59,020 --> 01:21:02,566
recognized the value of this
new and exciting research.

1786
01:21:02,566 --> 01:21:04,693
- So we undertook this study

1787
01:21:04,693 --> 01:21:08,864
to look at this interesting
population of patients

1788
01:21:08,864 --> 01:21:13,326
who go on a carbohydrate-restricted
Ketogenic diet

1789
01:21:13,326 --> 01:21:18,164
and end up with very high LDL cholesterol.

1790
01:21:18,164 --> 01:21:19,833
The Lean Mass Hyper Responders

1791
01:21:19,833 --> 01:21:23,461
had an LDL of 272
milligrams per deciliter.

1792
01:21:23,461 --> 01:21:27,424
And when we compared them to
patients with more normal LDLs,

1793
01:21:28,717 --> 01:21:31,386
mean LDL of 123, there was no difference

1794
01:21:31,386 --> 01:21:33,847
in coronary plaque burden.

1795
01:21:33,847 --> 01:21:35,432
It's incredible.

1796
01:21:35,432 --> 01:21:36,850
When you compare the two groups,

1797
01:21:36,850 --> 01:21:39,477
there is no statistically
significant difference

1798
01:21:39,477 --> 01:21:41,104
in total plaque score.

1799
01:21:41,104 --> 01:21:44,399
In fact, ours are
trending slightly better.

1800
01:21:44,399 --> 01:21:47,694
In spite of having sky high
levels of LDL cholesterol,

1801
01:21:47,694 --> 01:21:49,279
the Lean Mass Hyper Responder group

1802
01:21:49,279 --> 01:21:52,490
has essentially the same
low level of plaque.

1803
01:21:52,490 --> 01:21:54,326
- But I'll just conclude by saying

1804
01:21:54,326 --> 01:21:56,620
there is no correlation, in this study,

1805
01:21:56,620 --> 01:21:59,623
between LDL cholesterol and plaque burden.

1806
01:21:59,623 --> 01:22:02,459
So with that, I'll stop and
thank you all very much.

1807
01:22:04,669 --> 01:22:07,380
That was fantastic.

1808
01:22:11,760 --> 01:22:13,637
I don't know how much
more I could've liked it.

1809
01:22:13,637 --> 01:22:16,932
And the response from the audience

1810
01:22:16,932 --> 01:22:19,059
was kind of what I was expecting.

1811
01:22:19,059 --> 01:22:20,977
- We are seeing these
people in clinical practice

1812
01:22:20,977 --> 01:22:23,146
and it makes us feel very uncomfortable

1813
01:22:23,146 --> 01:22:24,105
when somebody walks in with this.

1814
01:22:24,105 --> 01:22:26,441
So would you recommend

1815
01:22:26,441 --> 01:22:28,234
that we're supposed to just ignore the LDL

1816
01:22:28,234 --> 01:22:29,569
and not treat them if they walk in?

1817
01:22:29,569 --> 01:22:30,820
- No, no.

1818
01:22:30,820 --> 01:22:33,239
So I would say get a calcium score.

1819
01:22:33,239 --> 01:22:36,076
If we have great data that
a calcium score of zero

1820
01:22:36,076 --> 01:22:38,620
does not induce long-term risk,

1821
01:22:38,620 --> 01:22:40,413
I would say get a calcium score.

1822
01:22:40,413 --> 01:22:42,540
Going as fast as I can, George, I promise.

1823
01:22:42,540 --> 01:22:44,084
Huge amount of interest.

1824
01:22:44,084 --> 01:22:46,086
Rapid fire questions.

1825
01:22:48,171 --> 01:22:49,965
- They had to cut off the questions

1826
01:22:49,965 --> 01:22:51,132
because there were just so many.

1827
01:22:51,132 --> 01:22:54,052
- I think it was eyeopening
for a lot of people.

1828
01:22:54,052 --> 01:22:54,886
- Yeah.

1829
01:22:55,762 --> 01:22:56,596
This is it.

1830
01:22:56,596 --> 01:22:59,140
I mean, we're across the dotted line now.

1831
01:22:59,140 --> 01:23:01,476
- Wow, what a revelation.

1832
01:23:01,476 --> 01:23:03,728
- Earth-shaking in the world of health.

1833
01:23:03,728 --> 01:23:05,438
- Will the findings of a new study

1834
01:23:05,438 --> 01:23:08,441
make us rethink everything we
know about LDL cholesterol?

1835
01:23:08,441 --> 01:23:09,526
- The video I posted

1836
01:23:09,526 --> 01:23:11,403
is already up to a hundred thousand views.

1837
01:23:11,403 --> 01:23:14,823
I don't think I've ever
had anything this viral.

1838
01:23:14,823 --> 01:23:17,951
- The data that I've been
talking about is finally in.

1839
01:23:17,951 --> 01:23:20,745
- Even after four years,
most of these people

1840
01:23:20,745 --> 01:23:23,957
do not have a progression
of atherosclerosis.

1841
01:23:23,957 --> 01:23:26,084
- And that's also getting a little spicy.

1842
01:23:26,084 --> 01:23:27,961
A number of people are
getting pushback too.

1843
01:23:27,961 --> 01:23:29,671
- A lot of people now are
feeling that it's okay

1844
01:23:29,671 --> 01:23:32,382
to chug endless amounts of saturated fat

1845
01:23:32,382 --> 01:23:35,135
and increase your LDL to 500.

1846
01:23:35,135 --> 01:23:36,636
- So the research that Dave is doing

1847
01:23:36,636 --> 01:23:40,432
with Dr. Budoff and others
is absolutely groundbreaking

1848
01:23:40,432 --> 01:23:43,393
because medicine has never
looked at this in this way.

1849
01:23:43,393 --> 01:23:46,563
Whatever it shows, we need
to know what is going on

1850
01:23:46,563 --> 01:23:49,149
in this particular patient population.

1851
01:23:49,149 --> 01:23:51,067
And then that will hopefully
lead to more research,

1852
01:23:51,067 --> 01:23:53,862
and more experience, and more
research, and more experience.

1853
01:23:53,862 --> 01:23:55,780
And that's how science progresses.

1854
01:23:55,780 --> 01:23:57,449
That's how medicine progresses.

1855
01:23:57,449 --> 01:23:58,992
- It's new territory,

1856
01:23:58,992 --> 01:24:03,204
but the territory I was
aiming to get to.

1857
01:24:09,502 --> 01:24:11,504
When it comes to risk
factors for heart disease,

1858
01:24:11,504 --> 01:24:14,382
is it possible that we've
been missing the forest

1859
01:24:14,382 --> 01:24:16,009
for the trees?

1860
01:24:16,009 --> 01:24:17,260
Is it possible

1861
01:24:17,260 --> 01:24:20,180
that we've been hyper-focused
on LDL cholesterol

1862
01:24:20,180 --> 01:24:24,309
when the major culprit is
chronically high insulin?

1863
01:24:24,309 --> 01:24:26,770
Our processed food culture
provides an overabundance

1864
01:24:26,770 --> 01:24:28,897
of refined carbohydrates and sugar.

1865
01:24:28,897 --> 01:24:32,442
The blood sugar spikes caused
by over-consuming these foods

1866
01:24:32,442 --> 01:24:35,236
wreaks havoc on our metabolism.

1867
01:24:35,236 --> 01:24:36,321
This causes our bodies

1868
01:24:36,321 --> 01:24:39,199
to release ever higher amounts of insulin.

1869
01:24:39,199 --> 01:24:40,366
Chronically high insulin

1870
01:24:40,366 --> 01:24:42,577
is a major risk factor for heart disease.

1871
01:24:43,578 --> 01:24:46,247
Take a look at this analysis
of one of the largest

1872
01:24:46,247 --> 01:24:49,375
and longest health studies ever conducted.

1873
01:24:49,375 --> 01:24:50,794
The Women's Health Initiative

1874
01:24:50,794 --> 01:24:53,379
examined more than 160,000 women

1875
01:24:53,379 --> 01:24:56,591
over a period of more than 20 years.

1876
01:24:56,591 --> 01:24:58,176
This analysis found the condition

1877
01:24:58,176 --> 01:25:00,553
with the greatest risk
factor for heart disease

1878
01:25:00,553 --> 01:25:02,055
is Type 2 diabetes.

1879
01:25:02,972 --> 01:25:05,308
People with Type 2 increase their risk

1880
01:25:05,308 --> 01:25:09,479
of developing heart disease
by more than tenfold.

1881
01:25:09,479 --> 01:25:11,106
Those with metabolic syndrome,

1882
01:25:11,106 --> 01:25:13,483
which is a cluster of metabolic disorders,

1883
01:25:13,483 --> 01:25:16,569
have more than sixfold greater risk.

1884
01:25:16,569 --> 01:25:17,612
The biological marker

1885
01:25:17,612 --> 01:25:19,572
with the highest risk
factor for heart disease

1886
01:25:19,572 --> 01:25:21,449
is insulin resistance.

1887
01:25:21,449 --> 01:25:23,535
Insulin resistance occurs in people

1888
01:25:23,535 --> 01:25:25,745
who have chronically
high levels of insulin,

1889
01:25:25,745 --> 01:25:27,997
like in Type 2 diabetes.

1890
01:25:27,997 --> 01:25:30,041
No other marker even comes close.

1891
01:25:30,041 --> 01:25:33,128
By comparison, elevated LDL is associated

1892
01:25:33,128 --> 01:25:35,964
with a very small increased risk.

1893
01:25:35,964 --> 01:25:39,968
- Insulin resistance is responsible

1894
01:25:39,968 --> 01:25:42,762
not just for diabetes and heart disease

1895
01:25:42,762 --> 01:25:45,640
but all chronic diseases of the West.

1896
01:25:45,640 --> 01:25:48,059
And if you're not
measuring insulin levels,

1897
01:25:48,059 --> 01:25:50,228
you're missing the boat.

1898
01:25:50,228 --> 01:25:52,564
Yet insulin is rarely tested,

1899
01:25:52,564 --> 01:25:54,524
even though insulin resistance

1900
01:25:54,524 --> 01:25:57,944
has the strongest association
with the biggest killer.

1901
01:25:57,944 --> 01:25:59,654
What is routinely tested

1902
01:25:59,654 --> 01:26:02,198
in physician offices all around the world?

1903
01:26:02,198 --> 01:26:03,032
cholesterol.

1904
01:26:03,032 --> 01:26:05,785
- There've been lots of theories
about why the focus on LDL,

1905
01:26:05,785 --> 01:26:09,164
and one is because we have
a drug that we can give,

1906
01:26:09,164 --> 01:26:12,458
that is, you know, quote,
unquote, easy to take,

1907
01:26:12,458 --> 01:26:15,086
easy to give, easy for the doctors,

1908
01:26:15,086 --> 01:26:17,630
as opposed to lifestyle changes,

1909
01:26:17,630 --> 01:26:19,757
which is what improves metabolic health,

1910
01:26:19,757 --> 01:26:22,093
which takes more time to talk about,

1911
01:26:22,093 --> 01:26:25,638
which is, for many people,
harder than taking a pill.

1912
01:26:25,638 --> 01:26:27,515
I mean, that's really
where the focus should be,

1913
01:26:27,515 --> 01:26:30,351
but unfortunately I think
our modern day medicine

1914
01:26:30,351 --> 01:26:35,023
is not very good at addressing
lifestyle interventions

1915
01:26:35,023 --> 01:26:37,192
as opposed to pharmaceutical
interventions.

1916
01:26:49,078 --> 01:26:51,122
The final data is finally here

1917
01:26:51,122 --> 01:26:53,166
and I'm driving to meet Dr. Budoff.

1918
01:26:53,166 --> 01:26:55,752
I've waited eight years for this moment.

1919
01:26:57,462 --> 01:26:59,923
Dr. Budoff is ready to
show me a comparison

1920
01:26:59,923 --> 01:27:02,800
between the first and
the final set of scans.

1921
01:27:02,800 --> 01:27:04,510
- Take a look.

1922
01:27:04,510 --> 01:27:07,305
It's hard to even
describe how much effort it took

1923
01:27:07,305 --> 01:27:09,057
to get to this very moment.

1924
01:27:13,478 --> 01:27:16,356
Alright, one more try.

1925
01:27:16,356 --> 01:27:21,361
- It's definitely been a
roller coaster of seven,

1926
01:27:21,361 --> 01:27:23,488
however many years it's been.

1927
01:27:23,488 --> 01:27:26,366
He just keeps pushing through
all of the ups and downs

1928
01:27:26,366 --> 01:27:27,825
and the days where he just feels

1929
01:27:27,825 --> 01:27:30,578
like he wants to just give it up

1930
01:27:30,578 --> 01:27:33,581
and move on to something else.

1931
01:27:33,581 --> 01:27:37,919
He always just looks towards
the people that he's helping.

1932
01:27:40,546 --> 01:27:42,632
All right, Dave, sorry.

1933
01:27:42,632 --> 01:27:43,466
- No worries.

1934
01:27:43,466 --> 01:27:45,134
Promise, this
should work. Alright.

1935
01:27:47,804 --> 01:27:49,722
- A lot of people can
come up with a hypothesis,

1936
01:27:49,722 --> 01:27:52,267
but what he's done is
he's followed it through.

1937
01:27:52,267 --> 01:27:54,143
For someone with no medical training,

1938
01:27:54,143 --> 01:27:56,479
no medical degrees, no research training,

1939
01:27:56,479 --> 01:27:59,107
to have partnered and
built this amazing team

1940
01:27:59,107 --> 01:28:01,025
that contribute to the medical literature

1941
01:28:01,025 --> 01:28:03,820
is substantial, and
really deserves notice,

1942
01:28:03,820 --> 01:28:04,946
and would be remarkable

1943
01:28:04,946 --> 01:28:07,282
for any, you know, seasoned researcher.

1944
01:28:07,282 --> 01:28:08,658
But he's an engineer.

1945
01:28:08,658 --> 01:28:11,536
He's completely on the outside
and he's created all this.

1946
01:28:12,578 --> 01:28:13,413
- And we're in business.

1947
01:28:13,413 --> 01:28:15,248
All right, so here's the data.

1948
01:28:16,082 --> 01:28:18,251
So this is a sum of all of the vessels

1949
01:28:18,251 --> 01:28:20,253
and the severity of the plaque.

1950
01:28:20,253 --> 01:28:23,631
Overall, very, very excellent data,

1951
01:28:23,631 --> 01:28:26,509
with about 90% of
patients showing no change

1952
01:28:26,509 --> 01:28:28,511
over the course of a full year.

1953
01:28:28,511 --> 01:28:29,345
- Wow.

1954
01:28:30,430 --> 01:28:33,308
The data is better than I ever expected.

1955
01:28:33,308 --> 01:28:38,146
90% of our participants show
little to no change in plaque.

1956
01:28:38,146 --> 01:28:39,689
That means most people

1957
01:28:39,689 --> 01:28:43,318
who started with zero plaque
a year ago stayed at zero.

1958
01:28:43,318 --> 01:28:46,237
- Vast majority, 90% plus,

1959
01:28:46,237 --> 01:28:48,698
are in that range of no progression,

1960
01:28:48,698 --> 01:28:51,075
which is a great place to be.

1961
01:28:51,993 --> 01:28:54,537
Overall, remarkable results.

1962
01:28:54,537 --> 01:28:56,331
But there are a few outliers.

1963
01:28:56,331 --> 01:28:59,792
Six people showed significant
plaque progression.

1964
01:28:59,792 --> 01:29:02,295
But even then, the numbers don't line up

1965
01:29:02,295 --> 01:29:04,422
the way modern medicine would predict.

1966
01:29:04,422 --> 01:29:06,007
There is no correlation

1967
01:29:06,007 --> 01:29:07,675
between the levels of LDL cholesterol

1968
01:29:07,675 --> 01:29:09,635
and the progression of plaque.

1969
01:29:09,635 --> 01:29:12,805
In fact, some people with
the highest LDL cholesterol

1970
01:29:12,805 --> 01:29:15,475
developed no plaque at all.

1971
01:29:15,475 --> 01:29:16,642
And take a look at this.

1972
01:29:16,642 --> 01:29:19,729
Six people actually show regression.

1973
01:29:19,729 --> 01:29:22,690
We did see six
people with regression.

1974
01:29:22,690 --> 01:29:25,360
So six people had less plaque.

1975
01:29:25,360 --> 01:29:26,819
- This is incredibly exciting.

1976
01:29:26,819 --> 01:29:30,990
Six people had less plaque
at the end of one year.

1977
01:29:30,990 --> 01:29:34,786
At these levels of LDL
cholesterol, that's unheard of.

1978
01:29:34,786 --> 01:29:38,122
For years, I've wondered
if that's even possible.

1979
01:29:38,122 --> 01:29:39,665
- We wouldn't expect it.

1980
01:29:39,665 --> 01:29:41,542
And if we did, that
would be a new learning

1981
01:29:41,542 --> 01:29:42,919
that we try to understand.

1982
01:29:42,919 --> 01:29:46,339
- If you saw regression with LDL levels

1983
01:29:46,339 --> 01:29:50,551
in the 2-300 range, that
better be front page news

1984
01:29:50,551 --> 01:29:53,596
because that would be remarkable.

1985
01:29:53,596 --> 01:29:55,932
To independently
confirm these findings,

1986
01:29:55,932 --> 01:29:58,267
we sent the same scans to an outside group

1987
01:29:58,267 --> 01:30:00,395
for a separate analysis.

1988
01:30:00,395 --> 01:30:03,439
Heartflow is one of the most
thoroughly validated platforms

1989
01:30:03,439 --> 01:30:05,900
in cardiovascular research.

1990
01:30:05,900 --> 01:30:07,652
Their results broadly matched

1991
01:30:07,652 --> 01:30:11,739
Dr. Budoff's semi-quantitative
and quantitative analysis.

1992
01:30:11,739 --> 01:30:15,034
The median change in
plaque volume remains low.

1993
01:30:15,993 --> 01:30:17,495
And look at this.

1994
01:30:17,495 --> 01:30:21,207
Heartflow shows more than 30
participants with regression.

1995
01:30:22,208 --> 01:30:25,420
Plaque regression has
been visually verified

1996
01:30:25,420 --> 01:30:27,630
by Dr. Budoff's team directly.

1997
01:30:27,630 --> 01:30:32,301
Multiple participants have less
plaque in their second scan,

1998
01:30:32,301 --> 01:30:36,389
people like Mark, Craig,
Kathleen, and Lyle.

1999
01:30:36,389 --> 01:30:39,475
In spite of high LDL cholesterol,

2000
01:30:39,475 --> 01:30:42,728
all four of you actually saw regression.

2001
01:30:42,728 --> 01:30:44,147
How did that make you feel?

2002
01:30:44,147 --> 01:30:46,649
- That was refreshing news.

2003
01:30:46,649 --> 01:30:48,860
- Thrilled of course,
over the moon for myself.

2004
01:30:48,860 --> 01:30:49,735
- I was happy.

2005
01:30:49,735 --> 01:30:52,363
- I'm happy with it 'cause
I love the Keto diet

2006
01:30:52,363 --> 01:30:53,573
and I wanna stay on it.

2007
01:30:53,573 --> 01:30:56,617
- Do you feel this study
will affect clinical care?

2008
01:30:57,452 --> 01:30:58,286
- I do.

2009
01:30:58,286 --> 01:31:02,498
I think for those patients
with a hyper response of LDL

2010
01:31:02,498 --> 01:31:04,250
in the setting of a Ketogenic diet,

2011
01:31:04,250 --> 01:31:07,044
I think that this should
have a change in management.

2012
01:31:07,044 --> 01:31:09,839
I can't imagine even a cardiologist

2013
01:31:09,839 --> 01:31:12,383
who would say this is inappropriate

2014
01:31:12,383 --> 01:31:13,885
to let you be on this diet.

2015
01:31:19,599 --> 01:31:21,767
- This is something that should
be interesting to everyone.

2016
01:31:21,767 --> 01:31:23,561
Even if that only applies to one patient,

2017
01:31:23,561 --> 01:31:24,812
you still have to ask the question,

2018
01:31:24,812 --> 01:31:26,397
well, what the heck is going on?

2019
01:31:29,775 --> 01:31:33,070
- Okay, Jen, so you had your CT scan.

2020
01:31:33,070 --> 01:31:35,781
For decades, doctors
viewed LDL cholesterol

2021
01:31:35,781 --> 01:31:37,783
as the go-to marker for heart disease.

2022
01:31:37,783 --> 01:31:38,868
- And obviously this was done

2023
01:31:38,868 --> 01:31:42,997
because your cholesterol
is massively high.

2024
01:31:42,997 --> 01:31:45,666
But today,
cardiologist can now see

2025
01:31:45,666 --> 01:31:47,460
a much clearer picture of your risk

2026
01:31:47,460 --> 01:31:49,295
with high resolution heart scans.

2027
01:31:49,295 --> 01:31:50,463
- There's no calcium in there

2028
01:31:50,463 --> 01:31:52,340
and there's actually no plaque either.

2029
01:31:52,340 --> 01:31:53,591
You can see there's nothing.

2030
01:31:53,591 --> 01:31:54,842
Sure enough,

2031
01:31:54,842 --> 01:31:57,553
Dr. Jen Unwin has no detectable plaque.

2032
01:31:57,553 --> 01:31:59,847
- Two negative calcium
scores five years apart

2033
01:31:59,847 --> 01:32:01,516
whilst continuing your current lifestyle,

2034
01:32:01,516 --> 01:32:05,895
with a cholesterol of 751
milligrams per deciliter,

2035
01:32:05,895 --> 01:32:08,105
and you've got no coronary artery disease.

2036
01:32:08,105 --> 01:32:09,398
So you don't need statins.

2037
01:32:09,398 --> 01:32:10,233
- Thanks very much.

2038
01:32:10,233 --> 01:32:11,067
- Alright.

2039
01:32:11,067 --> 01:32:11,901
- Yep.

2040
01:32:11,901 --> 01:32:13,694
- So it kind of flies in the face

2041
01:32:13,694 --> 01:32:15,655
of what you'd think should happen

2042
01:32:15,655 --> 01:32:18,074
and what the GP thought would happen.

2043
01:32:18,074 --> 01:32:19,450
- Well, and the fact
that I've been doing this

2044
01:32:19,450 --> 01:32:22,036
for 10 years and there
are still no symptoms,

2045
01:32:22,036 --> 01:32:23,454
and I'm an older person,

2046
01:32:24,705 --> 01:32:26,749
I guess I'd take that as reassuring.

2047
01:32:30,419 --> 01:32:33,714
- All those vessels look
really open and excellent,

2048
01:32:33,714 --> 01:32:35,925
lots of blood flow to
all of your heart here.

2049
01:32:35,925 --> 01:32:36,759
- Right.

2050
01:32:36,759 --> 01:32:38,678
Despite what Nick
is learning in medical school

2051
01:32:38,678 --> 01:32:41,639
about the consequences
of high cholesterol,

2052
01:32:41,639 --> 01:32:43,307
his heart scan is clean.

2053
01:32:43,307 --> 01:32:47,603
- My LDL has been over 500 for years

2054
01:32:47,603 --> 01:32:50,064
and my coronary arteries
are absolutely perfect.

2055
01:32:50,898 --> 01:32:52,149
- I definitely think Nick is gonna help

2056
01:32:52,149 --> 01:32:53,317
with shifting the paradigm

2057
01:32:53,317 --> 01:32:56,487
because he has extremely
high levels of LDL.

2058
01:32:56,487 --> 01:32:57,863
He is getting scanned.

2059
01:32:57,863 --> 01:33:00,866
He's turning that around and
putting it into the literature.

2060
01:33:01,701 --> 01:33:05,329
I think nothing quite hits home for people

2061
01:33:05,329 --> 01:33:09,208
like other people who are
sharing their own experience

2062
01:33:09,208 --> 01:33:11,210
and especially their own data.

2063
01:33:14,380 --> 01:33:16,465
Johnny and his parents
finally found a doctor

2064
01:33:16,465 --> 01:33:19,468
who supports Keto for the
management of Type 1 diabetes.

2065
01:33:19,468 --> 01:33:22,930
- The Type 1 diabetics
that manage their disease

2066
01:33:22,930 --> 01:33:26,183
with a low carb approach
or a Ketogenic approach,

2067
01:33:26,183 --> 01:33:29,103
in general, I've seen
faring significantly better

2068
01:33:29,103 --> 01:33:31,731
along every metric, every metric.

2069
01:33:31,731 --> 01:33:34,483
Dr. Bilal Mannan
is also keeping a close eye

2070
01:33:34,483 --> 01:33:35,860
on Johnny's heart.

2071
01:33:35,860 --> 01:33:39,071
- We're just going through
slices of his heart

2072
01:33:39,071 --> 01:33:42,908
and we see that it's all completely clean.

2073
01:33:42,908 --> 01:33:47,413
- I think it brings us a
little bit of, you know, peace

2074
01:33:47,413 --> 01:33:51,125
with the situation, just
knowing that his heart is okay

2075
01:33:51,125 --> 01:33:53,419
and we're just keeping an eye on it.

2076
01:33:57,465 --> 01:34:01,969
- Okay, Robyn, so we're
gonna review here your CAC.

2077
01:34:01,969 --> 01:34:03,179
Adding back carbohydrates

2078
01:34:03,179 --> 01:34:04,972
brought down Robyn's cholesterol,

2079
01:34:04,972 --> 01:34:07,808
but it also brought back
her symptoms of Bipolar.

2080
01:34:07,808 --> 01:34:11,729
She's choosing instead to stay
Keto and monitor her heart.

2081
01:34:11,729 --> 01:34:14,774
- And each of your arteries
are completely clean.

2082
01:34:14,774 --> 01:34:18,402
There's no evidence of any
calcified plaques there.

2083
01:34:18,402 --> 01:34:22,239
- It was a huge relief to get that back.

2084
01:34:22,239 --> 01:34:23,532
And it's a zero.

2085
01:34:23,532 --> 01:34:25,034
There's nothing going on in there.

2086
01:34:25,034 --> 01:34:27,161
- Nothing beats the physical detection

2087
01:34:27,161 --> 01:34:28,454
of the disease itself.

2088
01:34:28,454 --> 01:34:29,288
- No.

2089
01:34:29,288 --> 01:34:31,040
If there was a medicine that was found

2090
01:34:31,040 --> 01:34:33,793
that would've helped me
with my Bipolar disorder,

2091
01:34:33,793 --> 01:34:36,212
I may not have ever gone down this path.

2092
01:34:36,212 --> 01:34:38,214
There wasn't one, and here I am.

2093
01:34:42,677 --> 01:34:44,720
- If the CAC had been zero,

2094
01:34:44,720 --> 01:34:48,766
I wouldn't feel a need to
take lipid-lowering medicine.

2095
01:34:48,766 --> 01:34:50,476
But it wasn't zero.

2096
01:34:50,476 --> 01:34:52,353
Eric reversed suicidal depression

2097
01:34:52,353 --> 01:34:54,730
and metabolic syndrome with Keto,

2098
01:34:54,730 --> 01:34:56,774
but he fears that for many prior years,

2099
01:34:56,774 --> 01:34:59,235
his standard American diet caused damage.

2100
01:34:59,235 --> 01:35:03,114
Eric's coronary artery scan did
show moderate calcification.

2101
01:35:03,114 --> 01:35:06,283
- And the doctors I talked
to said take the medicine,

2102
01:35:06,283 --> 01:35:09,704
and if you tolerate it,
it's hedging your bets.

2103
01:35:09,704 --> 01:35:11,747
You're doing everything
you can with lifestyle,

2104
01:35:11,747 --> 01:35:15,960
but let's hedge your bets and
lower your LDL a little bit.

2105
01:35:15,960 --> 01:35:19,755
And as long as it's asymptomatic
lowering, no side effects,

2106
01:35:19,755 --> 01:35:21,924
I'm good with that.

2107
01:35:21,924 --> 01:35:23,467
Eric plans to remain Keto

2108
01:35:23,467 --> 01:35:25,428
for his mental and metabolic health

2109
01:35:25,428 --> 01:35:27,096
and take cholesterol-lowering medication

2110
01:35:27,096 --> 01:35:29,014
for the foreseeable future.

2111
01:35:29,014 --> 01:35:30,641
Many experts in the low carb community

2112
01:35:30,641 --> 01:35:32,184
agree with this approach.

2113
01:35:32,184 --> 01:35:34,979
- If they think they're a
Lean Mass Hyper Responder

2114
01:35:34,979 --> 01:35:37,690
and they have a lot of
plaque, you treat 'em.

2115
01:35:37,690 --> 01:35:39,191
- In a non-healthy environment,

2116
01:35:39,191 --> 01:35:41,944
I think people still need to
be very cautious about LDL.

2117
01:35:41,944 --> 01:35:44,697
And for those patients who
have metabolic disease,

2118
01:35:44,697 --> 01:35:46,115
coronary artery disease,

2119
01:35:46,115 --> 01:35:48,117
I still believe that lowering LDL

2120
01:35:48,117 --> 01:35:51,912
is very important in that
context of heart disease

2121
01:35:51,912 --> 01:35:54,457
or a lack of metabolic health.

2122
01:35:54,457 --> 01:35:57,585
- Almost every doctor we've
interviewed for this documentary

2123
01:35:57,585 --> 01:36:00,838
has a similar position to
Doctors Agatston and Budoff

2124
01:36:00,838 --> 01:36:02,798
for this exact situation.

2125
01:36:02,798 --> 01:36:04,842
They say if you have high LDL cholesterol

2126
01:36:04,842 --> 01:36:08,137
and poor metabolic health
or existing heart disease,

2127
01:36:08,137 --> 01:36:09,764
you may wanna consider taking steps

2128
01:36:09,764 --> 01:36:11,766
to lower your LDL cholesterol.

2129
01:36:12,641 --> 01:36:15,311
But they also agree
metabolic disease itself

2130
01:36:15,311 --> 01:36:18,397
is a far greater risk to heart health.

2131
01:36:18,397 --> 01:36:20,483
There's just no comparison.

2132
01:36:20,483 --> 01:36:23,694
- We should look at a lot of
different things as doctors.

2133
01:36:23,694 --> 01:36:27,907
But if you back out metabolic syndrome

2134
01:36:27,907 --> 01:36:31,744
and you look at just cholesterol
in the absence of disease,

2135
01:36:31,744 --> 01:36:34,079
in the absence of family history,

2136
01:36:34,079 --> 01:36:37,041
it's like it almost doesn't matter.

2137
01:36:37,041 --> 01:36:38,667
And what about me?

2138
01:36:38,667 --> 01:36:40,544
Well, remember earlier when Dr. Budoff

2139
01:36:40,544 --> 01:36:41,962
showed this heart scan?

2140
01:36:41,962 --> 01:36:44,298
- This is the left anterior descending.

2141
01:36:44,298 --> 01:36:48,010
Nice, smooth, big pipe
and no disease seen,

2142
01:36:48,010 --> 01:36:51,639
so this is a nice, clean study.

2143
01:36:51,639 --> 01:36:53,557
Yeah, that was me.

2144
01:36:53,557 --> 01:36:54,391
- It's very simple.

2145
01:36:54,391 --> 01:36:56,644
If you have a patient who is
a Lean Mass Hyper Responder,

2146
01:36:56,644 --> 01:36:59,647
their LDL is very high,
just get a calcium score.

2147
01:36:59,647 --> 01:37:02,107
If the score is zero,
we have great evidence

2148
01:37:02,107 --> 01:37:04,026
that there's no short-term risk

2149
01:37:04,026 --> 01:37:06,070
to having high LDL cholesterol.

2150
01:37:06,070 --> 01:37:07,947
And you may be able to derive the benefits

2151
01:37:07,947 --> 01:37:10,074
of the Ketogenic diet

2152
01:37:10,074 --> 01:37:12,493
without the harms of the high cholesterol.

2153
01:37:19,834 --> 01:37:21,627
Wow, isn't it beautiful?

2154
01:37:23,212 --> 01:37:27,466
We are at the office of Dr. Bernstein.

2155
01:37:27,466 --> 01:37:29,051
Okay, give a little knock.

2156
01:37:29,051 --> 01:37:31,178
We can't wait to meet him.

2157
01:37:31,178 --> 01:37:32,888
- One of you is Johnny.

2158
01:37:32,888 --> 01:37:34,515
- Yeah.
- Are you Johnny?

2159
01:37:34,515 --> 01:37:39,019
- I wanna thank him for
all of his teachings,

2160
01:37:39,019 --> 01:37:43,107
my son's health, and for getting
us off the roller coaster

2161
01:37:43,107 --> 01:37:44,149
that we were on.

2162
01:37:45,526 --> 01:37:46,819
Thank you so much.

2163
01:37:47,903 --> 01:37:51,615
- I have to tell you why I
feel such inspiration from him.

2164
01:37:51,615 --> 01:37:52,741
He was an engineer.

2165
01:37:54,660 --> 01:37:57,079
But the establishment
wasn't listening to him

2166
01:37:57,079 --> 01:37:58,706
until he became a doctor.

2167
01:37:58,706 --> 01:38:00,457
So he was willing to go the extra mile

2168
01:38:00,457 --> 01:38:02,042
to bring this solution

2169
01:38:02,042 --> 01:38:05,129
to so many amazing folks like yourself.

2170
01:38:05,129 --> 01:38:08,048
- We're so incredibly honored to be here,

2171
01:38:08,048 --> 01:38:10,342
to be able to say thank you in person.

2172
01:38:10,342 --> 01:38:13,637
- And so I hope

2173
01:38:13,637 --> 01:38:16,140
that I can bring the other
part of the solution.

2174
01:38:17,725 --> 01:38:21,061
- It takes somebody with
completely fresh eyes,

2175
01:38:21,061 --> 01:38:23,439
but some scientific background,

2176
01:38:23,439 --> 01:38:26,108
in Dave's case, engineering,

2177
01:38:26,108 --> 01:38:28,569
that would take this, and run with it,

2178
01:38:29,403 --> 01:38:31,906
and not be influenced

2179
01:38:31,906 --> 01:38:35,534
by the more traditional medical community.

2180
01:38:35,534 --> 01:38:37,745
- I would compare him to Richard Bernstein

2181
01:38:37,745 --> 01:38:40,414
because he was an engineer
who got into medicine,

2182
01:38:40,414 --> 01:38:41,498
had a new way of thinking,

2183
01:38:41,498 --> 01:38:44,293
to now running a major study,

2184
01:38:45,377 --> 01:38:48,797
and a very important study
that would never have happened

2185
01:38:50,090 --> 01:38:51,800
if his cholesterol hadn't gone up.

2186
01:38:52,760 --> 01:38:53,594
For decades,

2187
01:38:53,594 --> 01:38:55,721
modern medicine has
assumed high cholesterol

2188
01:38:55,721 --> 01:38:58,891
on a low carb diet is
dangerous for everyone.

2189
01:38:58,891 --> 01:39:01,769
Today, new data is
showing us that the story

2190
01:39:01,769 --> 01:39:04,438
is much more nuanced, offering new hope

2191
01:39:04,438 --> 01:39:07,358
to countless people who rely
on Keto for their health.

2192
01:39:07,358 --> 01:39:10,402
- If they wanna do it, that's
smarter than not doing it.

2193
01:39:11,779 --> 01:39:14,406
I recommend being
healthier than not healthy.

2194
01:39:14,406 --> 01:39:18,410
- For me, it was the difference
between having a life

2195
01:39:18,410 --> 01:39:19,662
and no quality of life,

2196
01:39:19,662 --> 01:39:22,539
from being able to pursue
a career in medicine

2197
01:39:22,539 --> 01:39:24,500
and not being able to
pursue a career in medicine.

2198
01:39:24,500 --> 01:39:27,836
- People need to understand what they eat

2199
01:39:27,836 --> 01:39:30,339
affects everything in their body.

2200
01:39:30,339 --> 01:39:33,926
- It's so hard in our
current food environment

2201
01:39:33,926 --> 01:39:36,136
to stay on this low carb journey.

2202
01:39:36,136 --> 01:39:37,846
So we need to all support each other,

2203
01:39:37,846 --> 01:39:39,556
have the right information.

2204
01:39:39,556 --> 01:39:44,311
- I hope doctors won't tell their patients

2205
01:39:45,229 --> 01:39:48,232
who feel good for the
first time in 20 years

2206
01:39:48,232 --> 01:39:49,775
that they need to stop doing Keto

2207
01:39:49,775 --> 01:39:52,152
because their LDL is 20 points higher.

2208
01:39:52,152 --> 01:39:53,445
That's insane.

2209
01:39:54,363 --> 01:39:57,491
- I've seen what a Ketogenic diet can do.

2210
01:39:57,491 --> 01:40:00,953
I want people to be given
this as an option initially

2211
01:40:00,953 --> 01:40:04,498
because it's hard to be hopeless.

2212
01:40:04,498 --> 01:40:06,458
I want that message to get out there.

2213
01:40:06,458 --> 01:40:07,459
- Hi, everybody.

2214
01:40:07,459 --> 01:40:11,255
Welcome to success story.

2215
01:40:11,255 --> 01:40:12,756
- People are now coming
out of the woodwork,

2216
01:40:12,756 --> 01:40:14,633
sharing their stories.

2217
01:40:14,633 --> 01:40:17,678
So, yeah, I think there's
a paradigm shift happening,

2218
01:40:17,678 --> 01:40:18,846
but we're at the very beginning of it,

2219
01:40:18,846 --> 01:40:21,015
and I can't wait to see what happens next

2220
01:40:21,015 --> 01:40:24,226
because the way this can
improve people's lives.

2221
01:40:24,226 --> 01:40:27,688
- Truth-seeking is not just science.

2222
01:40:27,688 --> 01:40:29,523
It's actually a part of human nature.

2223
01:40:30,441 --> 01:40:31,984
And I'm thankful for how many people

2224
01:40:31,984 --> 01:40:34,153
have put in their own elbow grease

2225
01:40:34,153 --> 01:40:36,947
to just help us get to the answer.

2226
01:40:36,947 --> 01:40:39,366
- Well, I'll take the side
of science every time.

2227
01:40:39,366 --> 01:40:41,493
- That's where the data led you.

2228
01:40:41,493 --> 01:40:43,120
- That's the answer the data gave us

2229
01:40:43,120 --> 01:40:45,706
and that's the answer
that I see in front of me.

2230
01:40:45,706 --> 01:40:47,207
And if we do another study

2231
01:40:47,207 --> 01:40:50,002
and, you know, can prove
something different

2232
01:40:50,002 --> 01:40:51,295
or supplement that,

2233
01:40:51,295 --> 01:40:53,589
then then the message
may change over time.

2234
01:40:53,589 --> 01:40:56,383
But that's gotta be led by
the science and the outcomes,

2235
01:40:56,383 --> 01:40:57,760
not by our personal beliefs.

2236
01:40:57,760 --> 01:41:00,846
And I think a lot of
times, even in medicine,

2237
01:41:00,846 --> 01:41:04,558
it's personal beliefs
that rule the moment,

2238
01:41:04,558 --> 01:41:07,561
and that might just be the
human flaw in all of this.

2239
01:41:10,689 --> 01:41:11,857
In the end,

2240
01:41:11,857 --> 01:41:14,109
no one can take ownership
of your health like you can.

2241
01:41:14,109 --> 01:41:14,985
You got this.

2242
01:41:21,533 --> 01:41:25,120
For me, that meant digging
deeper into the science.

2243
01:41:26,622 --> 01:41:29,625
And if there's anything I
can now say from experience,

2244
01:41:29,625 --> 01:41:32,878
it's that the science is never settled.


