Jonny Bowden's Blog, page 2

Want to know the next big thing? Look to these influencer survey results

I met many passionate influencers while manning a booth at ShiftCon, a conference for the top health and wellness influencers. These social media influencers aren’t followers. They want to do more than share an easy recipe or the latest face cream. And according to the survey I conducted at the ChecktheFactsReportTheNews.org booth, this group is well versed in nutrition and sustainability. In fact, I think their answers may reveal what the greater society will be thinking next year about what to put in their shopping carts. 

Survey cards were freely available at my booth at the conference exhibition center. It’s obvious that clean and green labels are important to most of those who completed the card. 

88% reported that they always or usually think about a product’s environmental impact78% reported that they always or usually choose products that support family farmers91% reported that a product’s country of origin is important to them100% wanted to learn more about sustainable ingredients92% reported that they always or usually choose products that are non-GMO92% reported that they always or usually choose products that are certified organic 

I found it fascinating that 50% reported always choosing non-GMO while only 37.5% report always choosing certified organic. This mirrors other studies that have shown how important non-GMO ingredients are to consumers. That said, in the 2019 International Food Information Council and Foundation study, less than 30% reported regularly purchasing non-GMO foods and even a smaller percentage reported regularly purchasing organic. The ShiftCon attendees were clearly leading the charge here and are likely a glimpse into the future.  

ShiftCon attendees’ knowledge of nutrition and sustainability also caught my eye. 

25% of survey respondents reported that they limit saturated fat because it may lead to heart disease. 

That means 75% know the saturated fat should be a part of a healthy diet. The tide is finally changing and that’s good for the health of our society. Click here to watch my presentation on this topic and learn why insulin resistance needs to be on your radar.

45% of those surveyed reported that livestock and soybeans are the top drivers of deforestation in our world. 

That’s true; livestock is by far the largest driver of deforestation. Soy is second, followed by corn. This group isn’t falling for the hype that palm oil, a product which is being vilified despite the facts, is the leading cause of rainforest loss. 

There’s still work to do because 23% blamed wood products and palm oil. I’m confident that the truth will come out because many influencers I met want to know the truth and share it with their communities. That’s why in my presentation and at my table, I shared information from CheckTheFactReportTheNews.org, a website that cuts through the hype and emotional claims about palm oil and shares third-party facts. 

Social media influencers are going to change the world. Here’s why.

I had the honor of
speaking at ShiftCon, an expo of the top health and wellness influencers.  These aren’t your everyday bloggers. They
truly are the cream of the crop who have lofty goals for themselves. ShiftCon
values transparency, good health and eco-friendly practices so I felt at home
among this group. What really impressed me about ShiftCon bloggers was their
passion for straight, honest, fact-based nutrition information. They
desperately wanted to know how to spot the myths and speak the truth to their
community. This gave me hope that someday, we won’t be battling all the hype
about what to eat and what to avoid. The truth will be as close as our favorite
podcast or social media feed.

My presentation, Fact Checking the Fact Checkers: Myths and
Truths in Health Advice, was just prior to the conference’s keynote. This
gave me the unique opportunity to bash a few myths while warming up this
already highly engaged crowd. Watch my presentation here.

Among other things, I
explained that much of the nutrition advice shared decades ago was inaccurate
and downright dangerous to our health, such as how the low-fat craze led to a
devastating rise in obesity. I talked about the demonization of saturated fats,
despite fact-based clinical studies documenting that its consumption does not
increase heart disease risk. This misinformation grows and gets rooted in
society making it hard to know what’s really true.

In fact, a new study coming out of Malaysia reaffirmed that fat is not the problem in
our diet. It’s a high amount of carbohydrates. When you accurately assess
cardiovascular risk using modern measures, you get a very different story about
which dietary patterns influence cardiovascular risk. Bottom line: We’ve been
targeting the wrong macronutrient. Fat isn’t — and never was — the dietary
enemy.

I also had the opportunity to personally connect with many bloggers while hosting a booth sponsored by ChecktheFactsReportTheNews.org. This is what really stirred my hope for the future and why I think these passionate influencers can make a difference in our society. These people are leaders, not followers. And they’re well educated on the issues plaguing us. I conducted a survey at the event which revealed this, as well as some thought-provoking issues. Read more about in my next blog.

True Personalized Medicine: A Game-Changer

I’m about to tell you about the beginnings of a paradigm change in nutrition and medicine. It will—eventually—change the way both nutrition and medicine are practiced.

See for all of my lifetime, and likely all of yours, we’ve talked about nutrition in terms of the properties of the food we eat. This food contains these amino acids; it contains this number of fat grams; it has this glycemic index. And our nutritional advice has all been based on that. Stuff like the number and quality of calories, vitamins, amino acids, phytochemicals, protein, fat, and fiber found in the food (or supplement).

We assumed these foods would affect people in the same way. If you ate high-fiber foods, you had better digestion. If you ate steak, you had plenty of B-12. And if you ate high-glycemic processed carbs, your blood sugar would go up a lot and bad stuff would happen.

Simple, right?

Except that it’s not.    

Calories, for example, affect different people differently, as I’m sure you’ve noticed! Some people can eat anything and not gain weight, others feel like they gain an ounce if they so much as look at Haagen-Daz. A calorie may be a calorie in the test tube—but once it hits the individual gut, it’s a very different story.

Which brings me to the glycemic index. And a pretty important discovery.

The glycemic index is a measure of how much a food raises your blood sugar. It’s determined by giving a fixed quantity of net carbohydrates (50 grams) from any given food to hundreds of thousands of people, measuring their blood sugar, and then averaging the results. It’s based on a ton of testing and measuring and has been validated in many peer review studies.

But recently, scientists have been noticing that individual glycemic response to foods is all over the map, and often very different from what would be predicted from the glycemic index alone. If you and I ate the same 50 gram portion of net carbs from carrots (or any other food), it’s anybody’s guess whether or not the rise in our respective blood sugar would be the same.

Probably, it wouldn’t be. Because studies are beginning to show that the glycemic index of a food is only a so-so predictor of how any given individual will respond to that food.

And here’s where the revolution in personalized medicine begins. Because when you plug an individual’s microbiome data into the equation, your ability to predict a given individual’s blood sugar response to food gets better by about 20%.

In one recent study, scientists asked 327 non-diabetic patients to send in stool samples so they could have their microbiome analyzed. The researchers then plugged that data into the largest microbiome database in the world, in Israel. Now armed with individual microbiome data for the individuals, they started the study

The people in the study wore continuous glucose monitors so were able to measure their blood sugar every five minutes. They kept copious track of every morsel eaten. When the scientists analyzed the food they were eating (for carb content, glycemic index, etc), they found there was around a 40% accuracy in predicting individual glycemic response just from knowing about the food.

But when they plugged in the individual microbiome data, the prediction increased to around 60%.

In other words, it’s not just what you eat that affects your blood sugar—it’s what you eat in combination with your individual microbiome. (And, probably, your genes—and maybe other factors yet to be discovered.)

As Louis Pasteur said on his deathbed, “Look to the host”. In other words, after a lifetime of studying the nature of bacteria, he realized it’s not just the bacteria—it’s how they affect a given individual (host).

And this is the beginning of the paradigm changing revolution.

It’s the beginning of the era of personalized medicine.

In fact, Day Two—the company in Israel that developed the microbiome database and analyzed the results for the researchers in the study I just told you about– offers consumers a version of the microbiome test used in the studies. You send in your sample and they plug the results into their vast database to actually predict which foods you personally will do well with and which ones you should avoid. (I recently took the Day Two microbiome test—and I’ll keep you informed about my results and experience.)

Expect the results to be surprising. Because on any individual’s list there will be a lot of “healthy” foods that just aren’t matches for that particular individual. And there may be some “iffy” foods that their microbiome likes just fine. (The FODMAP diet is a great example of perfectly fine foods being problematic for certain individuals.)

The point, really, is that as we learn more about the things that make us as individuals unique—our genes, our SNPPS, our gut bacteria/microbiome— we will get better and better at predicting individual reactions to foods, supplements, probiotics, and even medicine.

Most docs I know all believe the day will come when they will have a much better idea of what dose of a given drug will be effective in a given individual.

The days of one-size-fits-all (in medicine OR nutrition) are clearly coming to an end.

And—to use the overused term—that is truly a game-changer.

The Medical Medium and the Celery Juice Craze

I live in LA, a city not known for its skepticism and critical thinking when it comes to health fads. And one of the biggest right now is a morning drink of celery juice.. Proponents state that stand-alone celery juice confers a myriad of health benefits and drinking it every morning has some mysterious cleansing powers different from that of any other green juice or vegetable.

And how do they know this?

The Medical Medium told them.

(If you don’t know who the Medical Medium is, all you really need to know about him can be found HERE.)

Let me be clear: I don’t think there’s anything wrong with celery juice. In fact, I consume it every day as part of my fresh-made juice of broccoli, kale, celery, carrots, apples, turmeric, ginger and lemon.

No, my problem isn’t with celery juice. It’s with the Medical Medium.

According to the Medical Medium—whose success a cynic might attribute to the fact that the privileged class in LA and New York City have entirely too much time on their hands—celery contains many different kinds of salt which have not yet been discovered by science. (The Medical Medium claims to get this knowledge in advance of medical science from spiritual visions.) These salts perform their (unidentified) magic best when they are consumed alone. (How does he know this? See answer above).

The premise of the Medical Medium is that you don’t need no stinkin’ degree to diagnose cancer, or anything else for that matter. The Medical Medium “sees” illness and can prescribe herbs, natural compounds and foods to combat just about any condition.

And people are eating this up.

Believe me, I understand the frustration with conventional medicine and the desire for alternative solutions. I’ve been in the trenches fighting the pharmaceutical-medical-industrial complex for 28 years, and am firmly on the side of what could be called “alternative”, at least compared to the medicine of the prescription pad. I don’t blame anyone looking for answers they haven’t been able to get elsewhere. And I’m quite willing to accept that there are people who are able to “hear” or envision messages of wisdom that others can’t. I was a big fan of Abraham, the collective voice of spirits that spoke to Esther Hicks and delivered inspiring and wonderful messages of compassion, acceptance, and kindness.

This isn’t that.

The Medical Medium isn’t just telling people to drink some green juice. He’s giving medical diagnoses. Which only he can see and to which only he has the solution. And that’s a very, very dangerous thing.

So to all you people who follow the advice of the Medical Medium, I’d like you to imagine the following hypothetical situation:

I have a friend named Bruce who is an airplane pilot intuitive. He’s never had an aerospace education, never went to pilot school, never studied an instrument panel, and wouldn’t know a Delta Airbus 350 from a minivan. But Bruce has an extraordinary gift—he can mysteriously intuit exactly how to fly a plane safely. Seriously. He gets this knowledge from God who speaks to him in visions and dreams, and he believes that knowledge is unimpeachable and he can therefore navigate a flight and keep everyone safe.

Here’s the question:

Would you get on a flight with Bruce at the controls?

If your answer is “Hell no!” but you’re taking health advice from the Medical Medium, then let me ask you this: What’s the difference?

If your answer is “yes”, and you’re taking health advice from the Medical Medium, well, at least you’re consistent.

But you should probably buy some life insurance.

The Medical Medium and his Celery Juice Cleanse

I live in LA, a city not known for its skepticism and critical thinking when it comes to health fads. And one of the biggest right now is the celery juice cleanse. Proponents state that stand-alone celery juice confers a myriad of health benefits and drinking it every morning has some mysterious cleansing powers different from that of any other green juice or vegetable.

And how do they know this?

The Medical Medium told them.

(If you don’t know who the Medical Medium is, all you really need to know about him can be found HERE.)

According to the Medical Medium—whose success a cynic might attribute to the fact that the privileged class in LA and New York City have entirely too much time on their hands—celery contains many different kinds of salt which have not yet been discovered by science. (The medical medium claims to get this knowledge in advance of medical science from spiritual visions.) These salts perform their (unidentified) magic best when they are consumed alone. (How does he know this? See answer above).

The premise of the Medical Medium is that you don’t need no stinkin’ degree to diagnose cancer, or anything else for that matter. The Medical Medium “sees” illness and can prescribe herbs, natural compounds and foods to combat just about any condition.

And people are eating this shit up.

So to all you people who follow the advice of the Medical Medium, I’d like you to imagine the following hypothetical situation:

I have a friend named Bruce who is an airplane pilot intuitive. He’s never had an aerospace education, never went to pilot school, never studied an instrument panel, and wouldn’t know a Delta Airbus 350 from a minivan. But Bruce has an extraordinary gift—he can mysteriously intuit exactly how to fly a plane safely. Seriously. He gets this knowledge from God who speaks to him in visions and dreams, and he believes that knowledge is unimpeachable and he can therefore navigate a flight and keep everyone safe.

Here’s the question:

Would you get on a flight with Bruce at the controls?

If your answer is “Hell no!” but you’re taking health advice from the Medical Medium, then you’re a hypocrite.

If your answer is “yes”, well, then at least you’re consistent.

But you’re an idiot.

The Most Important Vitamin We Never Talk About

Vitamin K is finally getting the attention—and the respect—it so richly deserves. It’s comprised of two structurally related (but very different acting) compounds, vitamin K1 and vitamin K2. Vitamin K1 is primarily found in green leafy plants such as lettuce and spinach. Vitamin K2 is primarily synthesized by bacteria in the colon, although it’s available in some foods (see below).

Vitamin K1 is found in leafy greens—even lettuce—so it’s relatively easy to get from your diet. Vitamin K2 is trickier. It’s found mainly in animal foods like egg yolks, cheese and dark chicken meet or in fermented foods like natto and sauerkraut.

The most important thing that vitamin K1 does is help the body with clotting. That’s why doctors tell you to “avoid” green leafy vegetables when you’re on Coumadin, a popular drug which is frequently given to thin the blood of patients who are prone to blood clots.

(The advice to take Coumadin while avoiding green leafy vegetables may be well past its expiration date at this point, but that’s a discussion for another day.)

Vitamin K2, on the other hand, does a whole bunch of other things having nothing to do with clotting. For one thing, it’s vitally important for strong healthy bones. Why? Because vitamin K is necessary to make a bone-related protein called osteocalcin. Without vitamin K, osteocalcin either doesn’t get made or doesn’t work very well, and without osteocalcin minerals like calcium can’t bind to bone. So, in a metaphorical sense, vitamin K acts like a traffic cop, making sure calcium winds up where it belongs—in the bones (and teeth)—and not where it doesn’t (in the arteries!). And that brings us to the second, very important role of vitamin K2 in heart health.

See, keeping calcium in the bones where it belongs is only one side of the coin. The other side is keeping calcium out of the arteries, where it most definitely does not belong! (Remember “hardening of the arteries?” Well, that’s calcium showing up where it has no business being!) That’s why vitamin K2 is gaining such a strong reputation as a heart-healthy nutrient—which it is!

Vitamin K2 is found in fermented foods, such as sauerkraut, natto, and some cheeses (many of which most people don’t eat). The situation is made worse by the fact that antibiotics wipe out so many of the bacteria that normally produce vitamin K2 in the colon. Because I don’t think most people get enough K (especially K2), I almost always recommend supplementing.

Vitamin K2 comes in two forms—MK4 and MK7.  Both are good, but the MK7 is longer acting. Remember to take vitamin K with a meal containing some fat. Along with vitamins A, D and E, vitamin K is a fat-soluble vitamin and better absorbed when consumed with some healthy fat.

At least once a year, an interviewer will ask me to name the ten supplements I think are most important for their readers to take. I always explain that no routine will suit everyone and that everybody’s different. That said, I do have a basic list of go-to supplements that I think just about everyone would benefit from. A couple of years ago I added vitamin K2 to that list of core supplements. I now consider it cornerstone nutrient for both the heart and the bones.

Weider Global Nutrition just launched a K2 product I like a lot called Artery Health which combines the MK-7 form of K2 with a couple of powerful antioxidants like ginger. And it’s easy to find—you can get it all over, including Costco and Amazon and a whole bunch of other places.

The Most Important Vitamin We Never Talk About

Vitamin K is finally getting the attention—and the respect—it so richly deserves. It’s comprised of two structurally related (but very different acting) compounds, vitamin K1 and vitamin K2. Vitamin K1 is primarily found in green leafy plants such as lettuce and spinach. Vitamin K2 is primarily synthesized by bacteria in the colon, although it’s available in some foods (see below).

Vitamin K1 is found in leafy greens—even lettuce—so it’s relatively easy to get from your diet. Vitamin K2 is trickier. It’s found mainly in animal foods like egg yolks, cheese and dark chicken meet or in fermented foods like natto and sauerkraut.

The most important thing that vitamin K1 does is help the body with clotting. That’s why doctors tell you to “avoid” green leafy vegetables when you’re on Coumadin, a popular drug which is frequently given to thin the blood of patients who are prone to blood clots.

(The advice to take Coumadin while avoiding green leafy vegetables may be well past its expiration date at this point, but that’s a discussion for another day.)

Vitamin K2, on the other hand, does a whole bunch of other things having nothing to do with clotting. For one thing, it’s vitally important for strong healthy bones. Why? Because vitamin K is necessary to make a bone-related protein called osteocalcin. Without vitamin K, osteocalcin either doesn’t get made or doesn’t work very well, and without osteocalcin minerals like calcium can’t bind to bone. So, in a metaphorical sense, vitamin K acts like a traffic cop, making sure calcium winds up where it belongs—in the bones (and teeth)—and not where it doesn’t (in the arteries!). And that brings us to the second, very important role of vitamin K2 in heart health.

See, keeping calcium in the bones where it belongs is only one side of the coin. The other side is keeping calcium out of the arteries, where it most definitely does not belong! (Remember “hardening of the arteries?” Well, that’s calcium showing up where it has no business being!) That’s why vitamin K2 is gaining such a strong reputation as a heart-healthy nutrient—which it is!

Vitamin K2 is found in fermented foods, such as sauerkraut, natto, and some cheeses (many of which most people don’t eat). The situation is made worse by the fact that antibiotics wipe out so many of the bacteria that normally produce vitamin K2 in the colon. Because I don’t think most people get enough K (especially K2), I almost always recommend supplementing.

Vitamin K2 comes in two forms—MK4 and MK7. Both are good, but the MK7 is longer acting. Remember to take vitamin K with a meal containing some fat. Along with vitamins A, D and E, vitamin K is a fat-soluble vitamin and better absorbed when consumed with some healthy fat.

At least once a year, an interviewer will ask me to name the ten supplements I think are most important for their readers to take. I always explain that no routine will suit everyone and that everybody’s different. That said, I do have a basic list of go-to supplements that I think just about everyone would benefit from. A couple of years ago I added vitamin K2 to that list of core supplements. I consider it a cornerstone nutrient for both the heart and the bones.

The New Cholesterol Guidelines: Why They Suck

The release of the new cholesterol guidelines on Nov. 10, 2018, shows that the American Heart Association and Co. have doubled down on the cholesterol theory of heart disease and the related notion that statins are the solution to everything.

The new guidelines say we should aim for lower LDL numbers—“as low as possible, in some cases less than 70”, said GMA’s chief medical correspondent Dr. Jen Ashton. When asked if statins were safe, Ashton replied emphatically, “One-hundred percent!” adding that we should use statins even more aggressively in pursuit of lower cholesterol numbers—“at whatever dose is necessary”, says Ashton)

It’s the greatest marketing plan for a drug I’ve seen in my lifetime. And it will undoubtedly work.

The AHA has evidentially learned the lesson of modern-day politics: double down and play to your base. In this case, the “base” consists of doctors and patients who have never shown much inclination to question the party line on cholesterol, and seem blissfully unaware of the raging debate about the continued relevance of cholesterol lowering as we know it.

The debate on cholesterol and heart disease affects their life about as much as the Russia investigation impacts the life of a farmer in Iowa, which is to say not at all. The overworked docs get a lot of their info from pharmaceutical reps and from studies sponsored by Big Pharma. And the patients listen to the doctor. It’s a nice solid base from which you can control the narrative (and the policies) on heart disease and the drugs that treat it. Modern-day politics shows that if you have an enthusiastic base that supports a policy—like lowering cholesterol because it “causes heart disease” — your policy can win the day, even when it’s completely wrong.

As Upton Sinclair said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it”.

Screening should start at age 2. On what planet was that, again?

The new guidelines also suggest screening for cholesterol at as early as two years old.

Let’s look at that one for just a sec, shall we? Fact one: Cholesterol is absolutely essential to brain development. You need it for memory and thinking. Without cholesterol, your brain is pretty much screwed. Fact two: Your kid’s brain doesn’t get fully developed until about age 25 when the cerebral cortex finally comes online.

Now put those two facts together and do the math.

We still have free speech in this country, so let me say this very clearly: In my opinion, putting a child with a developing cholesterol-dependent brain on a cholesterol lowering medication is medical malpractice.

Statins in the water supply?

As far as statins being safe for everybody, that’s patently and demonstrably false. How do we know? From groundbreaking peer-reviewed research by Beatrice Golumb of Stanford University.

Statins produce a laundry list of side effects—from muscle pain to memory loss to plunging libido—and, as Golumb’s research shows, about 65% of doctors don’t report these ADR’s (adverse drug reactions) to the FDA.

Why, you ask? The doctors don’t “believe” these side effects were caused by statins, (which, of course, is exactly what the statin manufacturers say! Quelle surprise!) Research shows that most doctors strongly believe they themselves are not susceptible to drug- company marketing influences, though the research shows the exact opposite.

The next era in personalized medicine? Not so fast…

The new guidelines are being marketed as the “next phase in personalized medicine”. Not even close. What the AMA and Co. is doing here a classic marketing ploy—take a buzzword everyone is talking about (personalized medicine) and slap it on your product so it seems relevant, even if your product is as unrelated to the buzzword as a peacock is to a salamander.

Personalized medicine—which nearly everyone agrees is the future of medicine and nutrition—involves very specialized and detailed genetic testing that can help suggest the proper dose of any medicine or nutrient for a given individual. The new cholesterol guidelines have zero to do with cardiometabolic genetic testing, and everything to do with giving this old, tired package of recycled and outdated ideas the appearance of being “current” and “cool”.

Did someone mention triglycerides?

It’s worth noting that, in this 120-or-so page report, no guidelines were provided for the treatment of triglycerides. This is a clue to the real agenda of the AHA, a clue that’s hiding in plain sight. Here’s why.

Triglycerides—a form of fat that can be measured in the blood—are a serious risk factor for heart attack and stroke. The very telling Triglyceride: HDL ratio—which you can calculate yourself from any blood test (just divide HDL number into Triglyceride number)—is an extremely important indicator of your risk for cardiovascular disease (as well as other cardiometabolic diseases like diabetes). We want triglycerides to be low, and since the guidelines are, after all, about lowering blood lipids (both cholesterol and triglycerides fit into that category), you’d think someone would address the triglyceride problem.

Nope. No recommendation from the committee on how to lower triglycerides.

Here’s my guess as to why. There’s no good drug for lowering triglycerides.

However, there is a treatment for high triglycerides that’s effective close to 100% of the time. It’s called a low-carb diet.

In study after study after study (just Google Professor Jeff Volek) triglycerides drop like a rock on a very low-carb diet, and with it the risk factors for heart disease.

Will the real agenda please stand up?

It’s my opinion that the main agenda of the committee wasn’t lowering the risk for heart disease. The main agenda of the committee was expanding the market for statin drugs.

And they couldn’t have written a better business plan to accomplish that than the new cholesterol guidelines. Congratulations, boys. Statin shareholders, get out your kazoos. The rest of us should start getting second opinions from doctors trained in functional medicine, and others—like licensed NDs—who are not in the powerful shadow of statin drug makers.

And please—if you want my opinion– run the other way if your doctor suggests a statin for your two-year-old.

How to Spring Clean Your Diet

KCTV- KANSAS CITY, MO – I talk with the hosts of Better Kansas City about how to do a spring cleaning on your diet!

Watch Now

Tweaks and Tricks to get the Most Out of Your Diet

KSUI- SAN DIEGO, CA – I talk about ways to make your diet even better on San Diego’s favorite morning show, Good Morning San Diego.

Watch Now