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Micro wisdom delivered to your ears every morning in voice notes ranging from 3 to 15 minutes long. Wisdom on how to live a healthier and more fulfilling life. Every podcast will ground you in the present moment to ensure you know what's important, the here and now.
Comfortable feeling. So there's a lot of hormonal influences going on there that do cause that slump. Other things that can complicate it are the combination of other factors with the meal the protein, the fibre as well. Depending on what we've eaten we might not get that sleepiness that slump some days and other days we just might do. Again depending on how much vegetables or salads we've had with a meal and how much protein we've had with that particular meal as well.
Speaker 1:So it's difficult to pull away, you know, the factors to get to a specific cause of that.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:But certainly it's well known that big carbohydrate heavy meals, yes, they do cause sleepiness and also, you know, over indulging in refined carbohydrates can cause the high and the low of blood glucose and the sleepiness that comes after. Also we get different responses in insulin responses. People that have PCOS, type two diabetes have what we call insulin resistance. Some days that insulin resistance is better or worse. Different meals will have varying effects on stimulating insulin.
Speaker 1:As we know insulin brings down blood glucose. Sometimes if a person's body is over producing insulin, sorry, it can bring blood glucose down a little bit low and cause that sleepiness. I think people might be aware of a lady on the internet, the glucose goddess. I don't know if anyone's heard of her, but this is her specific point of, discussion and talk on weight management and, that is balancing and controlling blood glucose, having a nice stable blood glucose level. So if anyone's interested, her videos are very good.
Speaker 1:They're evidence based and backed by science. So, yep, you can all go and have a little peek on YouTube for the glucose goddess. Quite good informative videos.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Scott. Makes a lot of sense. Last time we spoke, we had a lot of people talking then about, I don't know, like supplementation. Parasites is a big one, you know?
Speaker 1:Yeah. And a parasite test.
Speaker 2:What percentage of people do you think There's two questions here. The first one is on supplementation. How necessary is supplementation in general do you think for the today's population? And
Speaker 1:Yeah. Do you need to
Speaker 2:be supplementing or thinking about it? Or
Speaker 1:Well, yeah. That's a very good question and again there's a whole lot of variables in that. When people are on a weight loss phase and on a good weight loss phase, particularly with the use of medications, weight loss medications, or just with diet and exercise, to lose the weight we have to really reduce our dietary intake. So with that we tend to reduce the amount of proteins, carbohydrates, fruit, vegetables, fiber. So again, depending on the magnitude of weight loss, a stone, six kilos, up to four stone.
Speaker 1:Yeah. If you're if you're in the realms of three to four stone weight loss or heading that way, it's probably a good idea to have a general multivitamin and mineral. There's no really hard fast empirical evidence or scientifically researched evidence to say that this should be the case. However what we've seen in clinical practice in the hospitals and in the weight loss clinics definitely that people can end up with vitamin b12 deficiencies particularly those who are not really keen on animal meats, you know, the fish, the eggs, the meats, having a more plant based diet and reducing on that. Those on a vegetarianvegan diet and weight reducing, yes, it would make very good sense to take a vitamin and mineral just to assure that we've got sufficient b12 in the picture.
Speaker 1:During October to March the whole of The UK is advised to take ten micrograms ten UG of vitamin D through those winter months. Studies show that around twenty percent of The UK population has vitamin D insufficiency and again during a weight loss phase that can tip into vitamin deficiency. So moving from having a low level but okay to being deficient in vitamin D. And vitamin D I think we touched on that briefly last time that it's involved in metabolism and absorption of calcium and particularly bone metabolism. And yeah it is low vitamin D for a long time like decades ten, twenty years can be a causative factor or an agent that's associated with osteoporosis.
Speaker 1:And it's a really good question that you ask about supplements. Generally we should be able to get all the nutrients that we need from a healthy balanced diet. That is a fact. And again if we went and checked most of the population we would find that almost all of the population are adequate. You know their blood markers are good but again with many of the patients I see for weight reducing they've been on cycles that on and off diets, on and off diets, on and off diets, so two to three cycles in a year which can again lead to those deficiencies which is vitamin D, vitamin B12, iron folate.
Speaker 1:And with those deficiencies the most common is iron deficiency where that has an implication on the red blood cell, where people just end up a little bit fatigued. So I would suggest if anyone's been in a cycle of weight loss or on a really good trajectory coming down down down then ask the GP to run bloods here in The UK. If you haven't had them done in the last while I. E. Years and you're losing weight, is a fair requisite to go to the GP and ask your hand up and say please can you run some basic bloods for me.
Speaker 1:Actually I did a slide on that this evening just looking I'll see if I can find it here just looking at basic blood work. Yep. Here we go. Yes. Yes.
Speaker 1:So
Speaker 2:So what do you ask for? What do want? You go to the GP. You ask for bloods. Like, do you have to ask for specific tests for some things as well, or they cover everything in the one test?
Speaker 1:Yes. We we look. Here we go. I think you might be able to see that there. Has that come up?
Speaker 1:Not
Speaker 2:yet, but maybe oh, here it comes.
Speaker 1:Yep. There we go.
Speaker 2:Yes. Yes. I see. I see.
Speaker 1:Is that clear? You can see the whole thing there?
Speaker 2:I can see it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So what we need to look for on RCGP for is a thing called a full blood count, f b c. So that looks at the red blood cell. When they do a red blood cell count, it's like they get a little cup of blood, they level it off, they tip it out, and they count the red blood cells in the cup. If the red blood cell is misshapen and micro, there will be a lot of them in the cup. If the red blood cell is misshapen and macro large, there'll be not many of them in the cup.
Speaker 1:They also look at the pigmentation, what's called hematocrit. We often find people with microcytic hypochromic, which means tiny pink blood cells, red blood cells. So they're smaller than they should be and they just don't have the pigmentation there. What this means is, again the person's anemic or slipping into anemia. We do see this a lot and quite often people just let it go for a long time before they come to the GP and ask, say look I don't feel well I'm really tired and fatigued all the time.
Speaker 1:And that's a bit sad. People with iron deficiency, you know an abnormality in the red blood cell, quite often they just miss out on life a bit. Their friends ask them come on let's go out shopping or go to the movies and they'll often decline and just say look I just feel a bit tired I'm not really interested and this can be one of the reasons why it changes our behaviors and habits and makes us less less fun. So again getting us and the GP to do full blood count, have a look at iron as well. You also want to have a look at folate.
Speaker 1:As the name suggests folate comes from foliage. It's a water soluble vitamin found in green leafy vegetables. Some of the patients we see don't eat a lot of vegetables to begin with or salads then go on a diet and we can find that folate will be low. Vitamin b12 this is only found in animal prod products, animal meats. Cows and sheep and chickens, etcetera, they all eat foods rich in b twelve, and that b twelve is concentrated in animal proteins.
Speaker 1:We then eat those animal meats, and we get a good dose of vitamin b12. Iron, folate, b12 they're all necessary to make a beautiful red blood cell right size, right shape, right colour. Vitamin d. So those are your key ones for a weight reducing person. Again, whether it's diet, exercise, weight loss medications or even weight loss surgery those are the key ones that we look for.
Speaker 1:So Interesting. Yeah. In terms of supplements, again, I'm really a fan of over the counter high street brands. We don't need expensive top shelf fifties or men woman specialist products. It's all the same.
Speaker 1:Just a general A to Z multi vitamin mineral. You don't even need to take them every day but a couple a week. Again if you're on a good good pathway losing weight, it's it's really good insurance. It's cheap as chips and you know prevention is better than cure.
Speaker 2:100%. 100%. If you have slides to show today's call? So you just know you had that slide.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I I did bring a few. Just a few just a few topics. I thought I'd just throw a few things up just to get things rolling.
Speaker 2:For sure.
Speaker 1:Should I go should I go through them?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It'd be super interesting. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay. I will here we go.
Speaker 2:And and before you start, there is a question coming that we can maybe answer. Yeah. So, Tom and Sarah, as as asking. Question is, I have underactive thyroid, and I've often heard that I should also work against it with my diet by, for example, having a proper breakfast in the morning. Is this true?
Speaker 2:Sorry. I'm able to come on. Yeah. So, underactive thyroid yeah. Breakfast, what makes the difference with that?
Speaker 2:Does diet help with it? Yeah.
Speaker 1:Good question. So hypothyroid thyroid is a regulator of a lot of systemic functions, body temperature, and has a moderate effect on metabolism how we burn energy. For various reasons different illnesses and autoimmune disorders can have an effect on the thyroid itself and make it either produce too much thyroxine or not enough. And you know patients present to the GP generally unwell. They check the bloods.
Speaker 1:You know there's quite a few symptoms and identifying factors. They check the bloods and find that it's either over or under. Generally with underactive thyroid this does reduce metabolism and can have an effect on a person's weight making progressive weight gain over a long period of time seem a bit of a puzzle to the people where they're eating well, they're exercising, but their weight's just crept up over the last ten years. Generally when the doctors give you thyroxine we should be taking that first thing in the morning on a completely empty stomach with just a sip of water, give it thirty minutes for it to settle and be absorbed because if it's accompanied with food even a cup of tea with a bit of milk in it that can impair the absorption of the thyroxine. Generally the person with low thyroid then has checkups regularly and the doctor will adjust the thyroxine dose just to get the person in the right reference range.
Speaker 1:So there's a lower end and a higher end and if you're in the middle of the acceptable range then that low underactive thyroid is ruled out now. You're the same as the rest of the population having a medicated normal thyroxine level blood level. So where it comes into play is where people have had low thyroid, hypothyroid for a long time and you know being undiagnosed or untreated, low thyroid doesn't have an immediate impact on a person's weight. So it's not like it goes out of range and this month I've gained three kilos half a stone. It doesn't behave that way.
Speaker 1:It's not a really radical jump. The underactive thyroid, when we look at that in terms of a person's weight, we have to look at a decade over a longer longer period of time rather than just up front. So when it's managed properly, unfortunately, the weight that we've gained in that period, it's difficult to shift. It's there now. And having a a thyroxine level in the normal range is not actually going to have an impact of bringing the weight down, sadly so, I'm afraid.
Speaker 1:So again, going back to the dietary parts, eating well for thyroid. No. It's just balanced healthy diet. That's that's it, I'm afraid.
Speaker 2:It makes sense. I've heard that some I used to work in a supplement shop when I was in Cardiff in the university, and I remember the guy running. He used to his bodybuilders used to come in, and they used to talk about taking thyroid to increase their metabolic rate. I'm not sure whether that would help or not, but, if you have any problems, I don't know if it doesn't.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Again, it's only gonna have a a hyper, metabolic function of millimeters. Tiny, tiny effect. Mhmm. You know, take deliberately taking too much is not really clever.
Speaker 2:I don't think it
Speaker 1:is. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But yeah. No. There's a yeah. You can crack on with the slides now, think. Joey just mentioned she's been on I'm Sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah. We can talk Joey Joey, we can talk after the slides. Yeah?
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Okay. I assume you can say that in.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I can see it. I've put a full screen, and thumbs are coming up. So we're good.
Speaker 1:Very good. So again, banging on about protein. Actually, I saw some social media information this week where protein is on the catwalk. If anyone wants to have a look at that, it's rather amusing. Paris Fashion Week recently, there was a couple of fashions as well one fashion designer in particularly had made clothing with I heart protein on it and fiber.
Speaker 1:So they're kind of taking a bit of a joke satire satire against attack against the food industry, the diet industry, the weight loss industry, social media influences, and how protein is, you know, it's now. That word is quite distorted, quite perverted. But it is very important for obvious reasons. Again in the clinics after weight loss surgery or medication we see really quite enormous amounts of weight loss huge amounts of weight loss. And sometimes people are not eating well, not eating sufficient protein, and studies show that twenty five percent of weight loss can be actually attributed and accounted for by a loss of muscle tissue.
Speaker 1:And I think anyone who's chimed in tonight, tuned in tonight, might you know have similar things to share that as they lost weight things became heavy and tasks and day to day household chores become a little bit tough. So how much protein do we need? Again, in the hospital setting, we aim for around about point eight grams to 1.6 grams per kilogram. For me, ninety kilo guy, that's somewhere between 72 to a 144 grams a day. Now that top end, a 144 grams a day, I feel that's completely unrealistic.
Speaker 1:Back in my bodybuilding days when I was a youngster in my twenties and deliberately lifting heavy weights and overeating, I was pushing for a 110 grams of protein a day and it was really really hard work. Really hard work. In a hospital setting, we would only shoot for one point six grams per kilogram if the person had enormous raised requirements such as tissue trauma, burns, etc, skin grafts, you know, serious wounds like that where we really have to be pushing a high protein intake. So, yep, high protein foods they are essential. Are handy for keeping us fuller for longer and they're they're nutritionally fantastic packed with calcium, iron, vitamin b twelve.
Speaker 1:Some vegetarian or plant based proteins are really high in fiber as well. So I've got, you know, common ones there poultry, salmon, white fish, oily fish, tuna, mackerel, sardines, etcetera. Also meat, often these days when we look at protein, meat gets a bit of a bad reputation and it's not really highlighted that much. And I in 2021, I think World Health Organization brought out a report which kind of was quite damning on meat and red meat. It said that that it had quite a serious link with bowel cancer.
Speaker 1:And that report went global. There was panic all around the world that meat is bad for us. We have to stop eating meat and people got themselves in quite a tizz. When we cook meat and we brown meat on a barbecue or in the oven and sometimes burn it slightly, it makes a compound called a heterocyclic amine, which is actually very tasty, but, you know, that that really tacky brown burnt ends that some people love so much. It's actually a bit of a risk factor for bowel cancer.
Speaker 1:So, you know, there's a there's a couple of factors that play into the meat being bad for us. It's how we cook it. Don't burn it. And if we look at Bowel Cancer UK website who have a nice fantastic balanced view on it, if we keep our intake of meat to under 500 grams cooked weight per week that involves a very reduced risk of bowel cancer. Now the reason why I put meat on there often I see patients in weight reducing scenarios who love their white proteins.
Speaker 1:So having white fish, a little bit of tuna, but chicken breast, and you know focusing their proteins on those sort of whiter proteins. And I've seen a lot of patients with that sort of dietary makeup end up anemic, low iron. The darker the meat, the more iron is contained in that. So you know, one to two, three years or even more with people just having chicken breast and white fish, that is a bit of a risk factor for iron deficiency. So if anyone's tuned in tonight and those are the main proteins, then maybe they do need to bully the GP into having a look at their full blood count and get a check on the iron status and b 12 status.
Speaker 1:So that's really enough on protein for that one. There's a few other vegetarian ones on there. I'm sure everybody's quite familiar with all those proteins. So fiber, again, we spoke about this and touched on it last week. Studies in The UK show that pretty much all of us are falling short of the recommended 30 grams of the stuff a day.
Speaker 1:And when we're on a weight loss phase whether again that's diet, exercise or medication or surgery, we end up eating just not quite enough dietary fiber. Constipation is a big side effect of that as we touched on before with the glucose goddess and that you know the you know the sleepiness after meals. Dietary fibre having a bit of vegetables or salads with the meals helps slow down the absorption of carbohydrate and regulates our blood glucose, helps moderate cravings, helps keep us fuller for longer. And down the bottom there Scott probably touching on that idea of the parasite in the gut good hydration and plenty of dietary fiber is good for our digestive health digestive health, sorry. And there's a lot of recent research going on that it is our gut microbiome that is the boss and bosses us around and tells us what to eat and how much to eat.
Speaker 1:Just a quick little slide here from foods really rich in fibre. Chickpeas and kidney beans. Really fantastic storeroom staple, know, kitchen kitchen cupboard staple. If we're ever making a stew or a casserole or a one pot dish just crack a tin of kidney beans or the three bean mix, rinse them, throw them in. It extends the dish increases the protein and pushes their fiber right through the roof really fantastically.
Speaker 1:As we know wholemeal breads and all those other veggies etc really quite rich in fiber. But I do like the idea of the lentils, the chickpeas and the kidney beans just adding them to any dish that lends itself to it. Another interesting thing eating out. So we all go out to eat very often, myself included. It's a it's a pretty much a Saturday night sport for my wife and some friends.
Speaker 1:We're we're often in restaurants on Saturdays. Tip is to choose a meal that has a clear protein source such as a fish, chicken, or a meat dish or a vegetarian dish based on legumes or pulses. Consider ordering a starter as a main meal. Down the bottom, don't feel pressured into finishing a large portion. I touched on that previously when it's we we caught up a few weeks back.
Speaker 1:Portions that are given in restaurants are made for guys like you and I Scott, six foot blokes, to make us happy, give us value for money, and what they're putting on the plate is just too many calories for most ladies and too many calories for most men. So you know be careful of the portions when eating out. Another tip is always have a vegetable base side dish. The other one there consider a main meal and no starter. I always fall foul of that myself.
Speaker 1:Get to the restaurant, I'm starving. I can't wait for the starter and I've ordered a main and a veggie side dish. I eat a lot then I'm stuffed. I'm overly full and regretting my decisions. So eating out is a little bit of a minefield.
Speaker 1:Time is the essence. The idea of this and in terms of weight management long term, one of the key things is having the right food available at the right time. I think this is really quite important and helps us make avoid making bad decisions with foods. You know, when we get home, if we've got the right food ready to go, that can really help. It can help sort of balance our baseline diet, our Monday to Friday nine to five eating so that we're doing good most of the time.
Speaker 1:I batch cook on the weekends, and my one pot dish will get me through Sunday night, Monday night, Tuesday night. I get three three days out of it. I then just change the carbohydrate and the veggies or salads each night with that protein dish. Now the high street has responded very interesting with the rise of weight loss medications Marks and Spencer's and Co op Co op were the first ones who brought out their mini meals, and these are designed for people that are on Mounjaro and Ozempic. So, of course, the other food chains jumped in.
Speaker 1:Marks and Spencer's, they have the nutrient dense range. Co op got the good fuel. Morrisons have their applied nutrition meals. So what these are are lower, not not carbohydrate devoid or you know missing carbs, but lower carbohydrate, high fiber, high protein meals. And with that you know they're relatively good to go.
Speaker 1:So if you're working a long day and you come home late and you're fatigued, these are a decent option for people that are on a weight reducing plan. Most of them are coming in about three sixty calories per meal, but again high fiber, high protein, and with that you get the high satiety, that fullness. But be careful. Obviously, you know, these claims on the products, they're not compulsory and they're not legislated. So, yeah, don't trust the food manufacturer.
Speaker 1:Read those labels. And again, ultimately nothing really beats homemade balanced meals cooked from fresh. These are some of the co op ones. I hope you can see there. So they got a fantastic range like that 21 grams of protein, 18 grams of protein.
Speaker 1:The first one has a fantastic 12 grams of fibre, so it's a little bit less protein but I would think that it's got an equal satiety value I. E. You have that you're full for ages. And there's the applied nutrition ones from co op. So again these guys these guys were the first on the scene.
Speaker 1:And rumor has it that also high street outlets, McDonald's, and KFC are soon to come with the GLP one friendly meals. So again, having the right food at the right time and the right options, it's getting a little bit easier for us. So another interesting point this week: fluids be careful. A little anecdote: I had a lady in clinic this week. She'd had a sleeve gastrectomy done.
Speaker 1:That was done in November last year, so we're around about seven months into it. She's lost 23 kilograms, so just coming up to four stone, but hasn't lost anything for really the last six to eight weeks. And we looked at her diet. It was precision. You know?
Speaker 1:Regular meals perfectly balanced. Then I asked her, know, what are you drinking? She said, oh, it's all sugar free except my coffee. I love coffee. And she said she's having these Dolce Gusto cappuccino pods which go in the Nespresso machine, and she's having five a day and actually getting through a box of 30 a week.
Speaker 1:We looked at that and we found that those carry 84 calories per pod which is really quite considerable. So with her 30 of these a week that tallied up to 2,500 calories worth of coffee pods just in a week which when we extrapolate that over you know the last six months since surgery we're looking at 30,000 calories which is around about 12 pounds of weight loss. So that was quite interesting so hopefully we're going to have her on another downward weight loss trajectory. So be careful up in the top corner there it says Coffee Mate. I've had this experience before with another patient who I was eating quite healthily.
Speaker 1:When we kind of got down the nitty gritty, he had quite a love affair with CoffeeMate. And CoffeeMate is made by Nestle who make the coffee pods for the Nespresso machine. And they use them in the Coffee Mate, the way they manufacture it, they mix glucose syrup, vegetable oil, and skim milk powder, and they spin it in a centrifuge under a hot air, a really hot sort of cycle of air, and that condenses and makes that stuff solidified. So then you get these granules in a scoop and pop it into a cup of coffee, and it tastes fantastic. It has a mouth feel and makes it any sort of instant coffee makes it taste so luxury.
Speaker 1:But the information on on Coffee Mate, good luck trying to find it. They don't really broadly indicate what's in the stuff, but it is hugely calorific. Smoothies as well, hugely variable from one hundred and fifty thirty calories in the standard coffee mug. Protein shakes they can range from mild to wild. Some of our patients are having high juice which is a squash which they dilute with water, and that can vary between 20 calories in the no added sugar version to 40 calories in a standard mug.
Speaker 1:So again, you know, over the course of the year that really adds up. Energy drinks, that's a no brainer as well. Huge amount of sugar in a 500 mil energy drink. It's really quite disturbing. And alcohol, it's very difficult to calculate the calories in alcohol, but generally around about two twenty to two fifty calories for a large wine or a pint of cider.
Speaker 1:So that can really add up as well. And finally coming into the last couple of slides popular diets. I think somebody asked questions about this last week intermittent fasting. If it works for you fantastic. Five:two diet that is another version of the intermittent fasting.
Speaker 1:I think it was made popular by Michael Mosley Or the eightytwenty diet. I think people tonight might have heard of the eightytwenty diet. Personally, it's it's the one that I apply to my my I'm quite human and prone to weight gain as well. So eighty twenty diet is eating quite healthily 80% of the time, and 20% of the time I'm off the leash, which is my weekends in the restaurant with the start of the main and a dabble in the pudding and half a bottle of wine. Mediterranean diet.
Speaker 1:This really is the most studied diet and has fantastic evidence to back it up as being the most healthy balanced nutritionally complete diet of all. And it is the one that we should try and base our sort of go to everyday eating or our baseline diet on the Mediterranean diet. Other diets like the paleo, the carnivore, the keto diet they're all very popular. They're not sustainable. They're quite nasty.
Speaker 1:They strip out and remove whole food groups completely just which is really sad. It makes it just long for those foods, and it can also remove, you know, complete nutritional groups. Some of the nutrients, the fiber, the vitamins, minerals that we get with a varied diet. So, you know, as a tool to drop weight very quickly, yes, they can be very effective and I think that's what's made them popular in the popular press and media. But unfortunately they're not sustainable in the long term.
Speaker 1:The DASH diet down there if anyone has high blood pressure or a cardiovascular problem, the DASH diet. So that's just a diet for anti hypertension or high blood pressure. So it's just a low sodium, low fiber, low alcohol diet. So it's a bit of a variation on the Mediterranean diet really. So if anyone's, you know, interested in the DASH diet that might work.
Speaker 1:Now Journal of American Medical Association in 2014, this is an interesting paper. They compared 48 different diets, popular diets, and they found there was no significant difference. There was a recent study as well looking at intermittent fasting compared to balanced healthy regular meals, they found that there was absolutely no difference in weight loss outcomes when we look at the outcomes over the course of the year or in the longer term. All that matters with choosing a diet is that you get a calorie reduction or a deficit to enable the weight loss. But the most important thing with any diet is that we can stick to it in the long term.
Speaker 1:And again the best diet is the one that's sustainable. So you know going back any of these might work for you, but we've got to keep them balanced. And again it's, you know, the eightytwenty or the fivetwo style for me. The fivetwo means five days we eat very well and or regularly, and two days that person is quite on a calorie restricted diet. So you can apply any of those diet and then come back to a baseline that's sustainable, enjoyable, varied and nutritionally complete.
Speaker 1:And finally it's just those bloods looking at the bloods asking the GP to have a look at those which we covered earlier before. So that was a bit of a whirlwind tour just on some ideas I've got over tonight.
Speaker 2:No. That's super interesting. I appreciate that, Scott. The so on the diet side of things, a lot of people so you've covered there about the reasons why some of them are popular, and it's mainly weight loss based. And there's no evidence, essentially, overall.
Speaker 2:What what would you say to people who worry about their diet being plastic covered or convenience coming from, you know, those I eat a lot of those meals that you showed, by
Speaker 1:the way.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But a lot of people will worry, okay, like, I can hit my macros and stuff, but now what about plastic? What about that? Is that something that you've looked into or covered with your patients? Are they worried about the microplastics and and stuff?
Speaker 2:Stuff?
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah. Yeah. I I see what you you're you're getting to the microplastics, the films, etcetera. Certainly, those products, they are packaged in a in a way that seals them and they're they're they're hermetically sealed so the food doesn't spoil. I believe they have carbon dioxide encapsulated in the package which helps the food retain its freshness etc.
Speaker 1:There is concern that we are eating plastics and microplastics. Personally, it's not something that I really speak to patients about very much. Yeah. In the food chain microplastics, god, they found plastic at the bottom of the Marianas Trench in in the Pacific, the deepest part of the world of the oceans. Unfortunately, those plastics and those you know, that we unknowingly ingest them, it it is part of the modern world, I'm afraid.
Speaker 1:Is it causing health problems? I think that's yet to be seen. But certainly, again, cooking our foods from fresh will minimize that if that is a concern for people. But again, we get what we pay for and we do have choice and those supermarket chains with those high protein meals that you're having in Scotland, I've had quite a few of them myself, They, to me, they are quite acceptable.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And again, get you out of a bind at a sticky time.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But, yeah, I think when when I speak to a lot of people as well, there is a concern and maybe it's the fear mongering on social media, but like about the length of ingredients in a food and you should have one ingredient versus six. Yeah. Where does the truth land on that? Are there any ingredients you think, do you know what?
Speaker 2:Don't consume this, or what's the deal with that?
Speaker 1:Yeah. That that is a good point. It's what we now refer to as processed foods and ultra processed foods. Technically, when we cook a steak or cook an egg at home, we've processed it processed it. When we take some flour, some eggs, some sugar, and some butter, and we whip it into a batter and put it into the oven and bake it and make a cake we've processed those ingredients.
Speaker 1:Classifying it according to the classification system it is quite complicated and a bit misleading for the consumer. However, a very simple rule of thumb is when we read the ingredients list, the general advice is if there's something on that list that you have not heard of and seems weird and chemically, give it a miss. You know, if it's got some, you know, potassium hydroxide or something like that, you know, invert glucose syrup. Things that you wouldn't find in your kitchen, then yeah, find yourself a different product you know if that is a concern for you.
Speaker 2:Okay, thanks for that. A few questions coming in now. Zaza, unless you want to come on, Zaza, you? Hello, hello, welcome back. You can chat if you want.
Speaker 2:Let's come on. Anything from that chat?
Speaker 3:It was great. I'm sorry I was late. I was in the gym, and I should have taken my pods and listened Well the done you. You. I do have a question.
Speaker 3:I am on thyroxine. I've been on thyroxine for some years. Yep. And last August, I think it was, I had a raft of thyroid blood tests. The results of which showed elevated anti TSG, is it?
Speaker 3:Which I understand can, well, it is sort of a cause of hypothyroidism and can lead to Hashimoto's which is autoimmune I believe, right? And a natural health practitioner I've been working with recommended that I go on to a gluten free diet because gluten has some kind of an impact on thyroid. So I'm really, by the way, I'm waiting for a recent set of tests which this time will include reverse T3. We didn't do that last time. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So I'd really love to understand from a medical point of view that connection between gluten and hypothyroidism and am I going to be off gluten for life?
Speaker 1:To be fair, Shosha, I've not really heard a lot of evidence to support that theory. However, I do think it's worth a try. The problem with removing gluten from your diet is that a lot of beautiful foods are eliminated. You know gluten is a bit ubiquitous. It's in Worcestershire sauce.
Speaker 1:It's in you know, all our breads and cakes and biscuits and all of those things. Like the name suggests, gluten is it is a protein, and it's like glue. It binds those starches together, and gluten free products just don't have the mouthfeel that quality of them. But going on a gluten free diet it is worth an absolute try. I would advise you to give it a whirl.
Speaker 1:The only problem I have
Speaker 3:been doing it. Yes.
Speaker 1:You have been?
Speaker 3:Yeah and so I'm curious to see if there's any change in my anti TSG in this results that I'm waiting Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah I'd be really interested to see how that goes. And as you know there are fantastic other carbohydrates out there which tick the box. Yeah. And have you heard of a grain called teff? I
Speaker 3:have but I've not tried it yet. I mean I'm horribly disappointed in the gluten free bread that you can buy there. It's just not, yeah. But I've been very successful in my own baking, you know, using alternatives like buckwheat and gluten free oats and things like that. So yeah but I haven't tried Teff.
Speaker 1:Well Teff in Ethiopia they have a brand called injera which is they're stable very nice.
Speaker 3:It's fermented isn't it? It's delicious. Yes it
Speaker 1:is, yeah. It's quite yummy. It's got a good mouthfeel and fantastic for protein as well.
Speaker 3:Good to know, thank you. I'll give it a go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, other options are corn flour tortillas wraps and good old fashioned rice and potatoes.
Speaker 3:Exactly, thank you. If rice were off the menu, I think I would have lost the will to live.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah. It'd be good to get some feedback from your next set of bloods for the group. I think everyone would be quite interested to see it.
Speaker 3:They should come through next week. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Thank you. But really interesting talk. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thanks. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Azar. Appreciate coming on and chatting as always, getting this group chat going. Debbie Riley, do you wanna come on and have a chat a bit? Probably all comment because maybe there's more there.
Speaker 4:Oh, but but the what my brother was told with the plastics.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:Oh, well, was just told by his consultant that they think they predict a rise in bowel cancer just because of our chopping boards of plastic, the non stick on everything you cook with. Obviously, that all comes off, and it all comes off in food we eat and your drink bottles that you buy, just this whole list of stuff. And for him, he's like, well, I'm not bothered. I've not got long left. That was his attitude.
Speaker 4:There's no point in me worrying about it. Yeah. Just all this stuff you don't really think about, like your chopping boards, you see where you've sliced into it when you've cut stuff up, it's like, yeah. Don't really think about where it all goes. But all that kind of microplastic stuff that ends up in your system.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That's
Speaker 4:yeah. It's
Speaker 1:That is a good point. And actually, I've seen some recent studies and reports coming up about the company called DuPont and how they've ruined planet Earth. There there's a what they call a forever chemical that never breaks down, and that most famous chemical is called Teflon. And Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's seemingly coming up everywhere in the environment, almost all around the world. So it is possible that, yes, we do have future health problems linked to this this nonstick surface on our frying pans, Teflon.
Speaker 4:Yeah. But when he was he was told go just go stainless steel. Apparently, it lasts longer and stuff. And my mom, she was a chef younger, and she's like, oh, mine's lasted for years. I've never had issues.
Speaker 4:As moms do. They know best.
Speaker 1:Well, it's a bit tricky cooking with a stainless steel frying pan and we end up scrubbing the damn thing, but these days they've got anti stick ceramics, so they have a ceramic coating on them, which you have to be careful with them. But, yeah, they're a lot safer for us for a non stick product.
Speaker 4:I mean, to be fair, I always take everything with a pinch of salt because at some point something's bad for you and then it's all right for you. And then something else is bad for you and something else is Like
Speaker 1:like the scare for the good old aspartame. Yeah. They're still wheeling out that study from 1992 where they fed the mice their own body weight in the stuff every day until something went wrong and then they said, oh, look. It causes cancer. Yeah.
Speaker 1:The thing with aspartame is that it is 300 times sweeter than sugar. It is a really fantastically powerful sweetener. So what we've got actually in a can of Coke or Diet Coke or any artificially sweetened beverage is the tiniest tiniest amount. And in fact, you know, other environmental pollutions like London air, etcetera, are probably a lot more harmful for us than these artificially sweetened products. My dietitian colleagues are horrified that I drink this stuff.
Speaker 1:I don't drink that much. I quite I quite like it. But some people hypothesize that when we have a artificially sweetened drink, it teases that reward circuit in our brain and it bites us up and makes us go looking for chocolate half hour later. Now I've not found that happens to me.
Speaker 4:No. I find that that kind of drinks that make it easier to go through the day without picking because you've got the sweet hit Yes. Without having all the calories.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 4:And I have to go caffeine free so then it just fakes the but it doesn't work there. I'm knackered that I can't have caffeine.
Speaker 1:But I've not seen the scientific evidence that backs it up that those drinks support or make us crave further sweets and sugars and candies etc.
Speaker 4:No. To be fair though wouldn't that kind of science be the same for even stuff like fruit because you're eating stuff that is technically sweet or is it just because it's more fiber? I'm just guessing out loud.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think I'm going back to the thing with meat that I mentioned before as well. Yeah. When we brown the meat, those compounds in that and also other preserved meats like bacon, salami, sausages, etcetera. They have preservatives in them called nitrites and nitrates, which are risks of bowel cancer.
Speaker 1:And that 2020 report from World Health Organization that damned meat and said, you know, it's the consumption of the Western diet that's high in meat that's causing bowel cancers and increasing cancers. The study was a little bit biased and it was was difficult to say that these people weren't eating fruit and vegetables. Fruit and vegetables the fiber in that has antioxidants and protects us from some of the toxic compounds that we eat so I think this study was a bit biased and you know maybe looking at people that didn't have the best diet and attributing meat to be the bad guy.
Speaker 4:So it's like the kind of studies that people say oh no sugar and chocolate and all that's not that bad but when you look at who paid for the studies it's these chocolate companies.
Speaker 1:Yes, yep That's true. The same with monosodium glutamate, MSG, the famous MSG. It's not the devil. When we cook meat and again when we put the chicken or the lamb in the oven and roast it and that sticky lovely stuff that come that builds in the bottom of the pan that we make our gravy from, if you taste that, that is pure monosodium glutamate. So it's called the Maillard process of browning meat that caught that produces it brings the glutamine, which is a protein, and the sodium out of the meat and makes this salty sweet compound.
Speaker 1:That's what MSG is. So we deliberately make MSG when we do our Sunday roast, when we brown the meat. But if we brown the meat too far and it burns, that's where the risk of the cancers develops and emerges from.
Speaker 4:I remember I must have been about 17 and there'd been something that come out on monosodium glutamate and it was basically that oh they put it in crisps and stuff and that's why when you start eating them you can't stop because it's supposed to kick in this you want more
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Chemical in your head or whatever. It's that's
Speaker 1:when we get the the word umami. I'm sure everyone's heard of umami, which is that taste on the side of the tongue there, that wow factor, and that is MSG. That is what we're looking for with that.
Speaker 4:Oh, so it's not wrong then.
Speaker 1:No. It's it's not necessarily a bad thing. One of the things with MSG though is you put the right mix of MSG and sugar and oil or fat with poor quality food and it tastes fantastic. And this is where it's got its bad reputation from of being making poor quality food highly marketable, highly palatable, cheap, and, yeah, overly consumed. Oh, fine.
Speaker 4:But I think a lot of us know that that that is that everything diet is so saturated yes that there's so much that is like oh is it good is this bad and it just gets confusing
Speaker 1:yeah again just read the ingredients list and you know, if it's minimal and we recognize everything that's on there, then it's pretty much good to go.
Speaker 4:Yeah. I'm pretty sure I've heard it's like you can't pronounce it to avoid it as well.
Speaker 1:Yes. Yeah. That is true.
Speaker 2:I'll be I'll be in trouble. I don't think I can pronounce the most basic sculpt. Maybe water. There's a there's a good question from Sarah Jelly. Don't if Sarah's here to talk.
Speaker 2:And, Sarah, I don't know if you're if you're in the teaching world right now. Because maybe you can be picking up on what the kids are up to on their on their diet. But she's mentioning she saw a cancer research poster saying bacon was the same as smoking a cigarette. So it like Wall food, like, it's very common when so when we speak about weight management with people, we mention like, you know, calorie deficit, protein intake, you know, like everything you've been saying, Scott, and then try and eat, obviously, minimally processed foods. But if you do have your chocolate bar, la la la, in moderation and your calories are controlled and it's happy days.
Speaker 2:But I still think people think it's hard to believe because, you know, chocolate's gonna kill you, bacon. If you how how does the food last, you know, fourteen days in the fridge? Like, what's in it for it to last that long? I can't understand it, so therefore it's evil or maybe dangerous. Where's the peck in order in your mind?
Speaker 2:When should someone start thinking, alright, maybe I should move on to the next phase of nutritional kind of, like, changes.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah. I'm guilty as charged. I like bacon. I like ham. And for me, you know, when I'm at home on the weekends, I can make a ham sandwich so quick, so easy.
Speaker 1:But, you know, I often find myself questioning my shopping habits like, should I put more ham in the basket this week or give it a break? Should I just roast the chicken and slice some chicken breast off and put that in my sandwich? Salt is the preservative in the bacon. And also, again, the nitrates and nitrites, which in conjunction with the salt make those preserved meats last a long long time. And we know definitely that in populations around the world that have higher salt intakes there's high incidence of stomach cancers.
Speaker 1:Again, I think that study that looked at bacon and said it's as bad as smoking, I think they were looking at the wrong sort of population. I think they were looking at the poor old lorry driver who's doing 600 miles a day up the M 1, who's stopping at his favorite truck stop and buying the same bacon monster five days a week. Yeah. It's repeated high volume, high frequency consumption. Again, I think little bits of it from time to time are not necessarily a bad thing.
Speaker 1:And again, one of the confounding factors and confusing thing is the what we call the antioxidants and things called polyphenols, which we find in dark chocolate, we find in a red wine, this fantastic antioxidant health preserving compound. It's in fruit and vegetables. The brighter the vegetables are red peppers, onions, yellow peppers, the oranges, satsumas, those brightly colored fruits and vegetables. It's not just the vitamin c and the other compounds of folate. It's the antioxidants in there which save us.
Speaker 1:The way that they bond to some of the compounds when they're metabolized. The toxic compound will bond to the antioxidant and be passed out through the toilet essentially. So, yes, it's it's all anything too much of anything is bad for us. But some things we we you know, not good for us, but we need them to make us feel good. Again, it's the frequency and what we're having them with, that that balance.
Speaker 1:You know, so personally, I like to have my cake and eat it. Do get my I do get my five a day. And it's not just because I'm a dietician or I'm a perfect creature. I'm I'm not. I just like the vegetables, and I find they add variety and texture and moisture to my dishes.
Speaker 1:But also, you know, deep down, I know I know the preservation and the health benefits that those foods give me.
Speaker 2:Yeah. When you're mentioning there about the antioxidants and fibre, I've seen a lot of chat in the group as well about people taking fibre supplementation to help with low fiber. Is that are you are you what's your opinion on that? Is it the same? Should it be done if you can't reach it through diet?
Speaker 1:Well, essentially, yes. They the fiber in those fiber supplements, it's taken from fruit and vegetables. It's dried out, had the water taken off it, and compressed right down or ground into dust and put it into a little tablet. Down it goes, and it does a job as fiber, you know, in fruit and vegetables does. It's a bit of a pricey way of getting it.
Speaker 1:Also, you're missing out on some of the other nutrients that come with the foods that they were extracted from. If anyone's interested, maybe jot down on their piece of paper UK constipation guideline. This came out in October 2025, so it's the first time that they really looked at the evidence base behind constipation and instead of people reaching for fiber supplements or Dulcolax or Senna or those other stimulants and osmotic medications, what came out is just as effective as medication was kiwi fruits. So now the kiwi fruit if you look at The UK guideline on constipation, kiwi fruit is right up the top. Two kiwis a day don't eat the little brown husk but eat the kiwi fruit Just as effective as medication or over the counter constipation remedies.
Speaker 1:Quite interesting. And it is the fiber that's in the kiwi that does that. But yes, Yeah. If fruit and vegetables not your thing and you struggle to get the fiber down, yeah, fiber supplement is perfectly a viable thing. A bit pricey, but
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:It is a viable thing.
Speaker 2:Zaza, how do I say that word? Psyllum. Is it psyllum husk?
Speaker 1:Oh, psyllium.
Speaker 3:Psyllium. Psyllium.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Psyllium husk.
Speaker 2:What's that?
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's a good thing, Zaza. I'm sure everyone's seen birdseed in the pet store. Those little tiny seeds that they give the birds, they have a little husk on the outside. It looks like just dust, and that's psyllium husk.
Speaker 1:It is fantastic fiber and that will get you fantastically regular. You can buy that in any supermarket in the health food section. But with that, do need to make sure we're getting plenty of fiber peak. Sorry plenty of fluids. If we're taking the fiber but not backing it up with the fluids it can kind of cement up a little bit in the gut which is where the kiwi fruit when we take them wet they got the fiber and the fluid at the same time.
Speaker 1:But the psyllium husk, yes, is a champion for constipation.
Speaker 3:And my experience is you've got to start slowly with it. So you know start with half a teaspoon in half a glass of water and it goes a little bit sort of gelatinous.
Speaker 1:It turns into wallpaper paste, yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then I also chase that with a whole glass of water afterwards because I know you've got lots of water. And my experience when I started it was, I mean, I eat a lot of fiber anyway, but I take the bacillium as well. My experience to start was for a couple of days I'd get a stomach ache an hour or so afterwards. But after a couple of days it settles out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anytime we do change our diet, our gut is going to have a little bit of a reaction. If you've a high fibre intake and you put brought that in, then yeah, there's a little bit more fermentation in the large bowel and yeah a little bit more gas production and a bit more tension possibly, but it does settle down in time. Having spoken about that just now, I had another thing pop up in my mind recently. Patient this week is buying collagen and I'm not sure if we touched on that last time Scott, but with collagen supplements anyone taking them don't waste your money.
Speaker 1:It's it is a complete waste of money. When we eat protein whether we're having a collagen tablet or whether we're having a macro fillet or a piece of steak, our stomach acids and digestive enzymes break the protein down into amino acids into the building blocks. They then absorbed into the bloodstream and circulate the system, go to the liver, and they're reassembled back into proteins. So collagen is a protein that's in our skin and gives us that plumpness in our skin. As we age and the years go on and we lose the collagen, so collagen in the shops is being touted as turning back the clock and when people lose weight how to stop looking gaunt particularly in this world of weight loss medications.
Speaker 1:People, you know, the the wellness industry is promoting collagen, but I swear as soon as we swallow it, it's our digestive system rips it apart into its individual amino acids and the body reassembles it as it needs where it needs. So there's no evidence in collagen. There has been some minute evidence to say that people have seen noticeable benefits in their appearance in the mirror after taking collagen, but we can't differentiate that from just eating a bit more protein. They took the collagen and actually the protein intake goes up, so we can't say whether it's the collagen itself. We're just eating more protein.
Speaker 2:Makes sense. It makes sense.
Speaker 1:It's multi million pound industry that's making money out of thin air, I'm afraid.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well, a lot of people are saying, but what about high quality collagen? If that means anything to you, Scott, or does it matter?
Speaker 1:Again, it's the same thing, Scott. It's our stomach's gonna rip it apart, pull it into its individual micro particles the amino acids and those amino acids they can only pass through a tiny little channel in the intestinal wall into the bloodstream And collagen is a bigger protein. You know, if you think about it when we eat a chicken breast we don't pull the chicken breast into our bloodstream. It is micro sized. It's a micro biochemistry.
Speaker 1:So it doesn't matter on the quality of the product. It's it's still stripped back to its basic building blocks and reassembled inside the cell into the protein of skin, hair, teeth, eyes, etcetera.
Speaker 2:Big collagen is gonna come after you now, Scott, so you better watch your door. But I'm not afraid.
Speaker 1:Show me the scientific show me the scientific evidence. Come on. Let's have it.
Speaker 2:No. Nice. I'm glad you come with that. On that on that note, there's a few more things I've seen consistently in the community, if you don't mind a few more questions because I know a
Speaker 1:lot of
Speaker 2:people here. It's it's the bone broths and the chicken broths and all these things coming out that people take. What what again, is there any diff diff difference in taking that specifically over just the whole meals? What
Speaker 1:Actually, again, those bone broths, they are great, actually. It's just a cooking method and making a product, making a soup, making a broth. But when we put it in the test tube and analyze it, really high amounts of protein in in that liquid. It's relatively tasty. It can make a meal.
Speaker 1:We can add, you know, a little bun with it and put some broccoli in the soup, in the broth, and then we've got the fiber. We got the protein and a little bit of carbohydrates. So, yes, it is a winner. And again, its popularity has risen again by just getting more protein into the people. It's an option of not having to cook and cut and chew the protein, but to just drink it down.
Speaker 1:But it's just proteins and again we swallow it broken down into amino acids circulates the bloodstream and reassembled into proteins in the bodies in the cell. But yeah, a good a good product, very popular and I think just for convenience really.
Speaker 2:Nice, nice. Okay, people would be happy with that. Sarah's asking you as well about the skin on fruits and vegetables. Should we be peeling over veg or not? And also, like, I Scott, don't know if this is good or not.
Speaker 2:I'll buy grapes, and I'll just go straight in and eat them. And, apparently, I should be washing them. How endangered am I?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Good question, Sarah. I think, Scott, with your grapes going in and washing them, I I think you can probably hear your mom's voice in your head saying, don't do that. Dogs could have weed on them. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Then again, we have the fruit box in our office that comes awake. There it is just there. Everybody jumps in, grabs a handful, and eats them. And, yeah, they could have dog wee on them. They could have human wee on them.
Speaker 1:They could have dust on them. Is it hurting us? Maybe not. I do know if anyone thinks and remembers back to about three four years ago there was a spate of deaths in Germany from people eating cucumbers that were contaminated. There was an outbreak of e coli outbreak and that was quite deadly and quite a concern across Europe of my god, where did these cucumbers go and how are they distributed?
Speaker 1:I hope people are washing them. So, yeah, I I think if the fruit and vegetable looks a bit questionable, yes. Give it a rinse. Sarah asked about peeling the vegetables. Definitely if the vegetables are grown in a conventional way where there might be pesticides used on the farm, Those pesticides can concentrate in the skin on the carrot on the cucumbers etc and the parsnips.
Speaker 1:We peel them off and that can reduce our exposure to those pesticides. But we've got options these days organically cooked grown produce I mean. Probably not necessary to skin them. Just a good scrub getting any of those sort of you know surface contaminants off. The skin on the vegetables does contain a fantastic nutritional profile with a lot of benefit on there and sometimes peeling those vegetables just to be safe we're a little bit missing out.
Speaker 1:So if it's conventional growing and we're not sure on the origin of it, yes peel it. If it's organic and certified organic just wash it should be good to go. The grapes in the office Yeah, I think the jury's out. Give them a I give them a bit of a rub on the on the, a cloth, you know, a towel.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. No. So listen. Thanks for that.
Speaker 2:And then the last one is, and this is probably quite it's coming there's a lot of female influences out there talking about Chinese medicine or kind of like the eastern view of consumption versus the western. And have you come across anything in your journey that would say that Chinese medicine or natural medicine, as they call it, is worth looking into? Is it a waste of money? What's your view on all of that stuff?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. That is a fantastic question. When they do studies on medications looking at the effectiveness of them, will randomise active drug like with the weight loss injection Mounjaro they had they randomize it some people got the sugar pill other people you know that the water injection other people got the active ingredient. What they found with a lot of other studies and looking at effect between one type of diet or another type of medicine or treatment you can't discount the placebo effect. Even on the Mounjaro people lost weight.
Speaker 1:They lost a good amount of weight on the belief that they are on the weight loss medication. We're not sure. What was interesting when they studied that when they flipped it and they put the people back on the water injection and the people on the water injection on the medication. The graphs changed greatly. The people that came off the active ingredient gained weight and the people that were on the placebo lost a lot of weight.
Speaker 1:So that was proven. Acupuncture and many other sort of alternative treatments were available on the NHS and Prince Charles when he was a prince before he was the king he was a big advocate of alternative treatments and therapies going back around about ten years now. The NHS poo pooed it and took it all off the table and said no we're not going to invest in this because there's no sort of evidence base on it. I work with some endocrinologists at St George's who are quite high level, you know, professors and experts in the field. Two of them are Chinese and both of them strongly believe in Chinese medicine along, you know, in tandem and parallel with regular conventional medicines.
Speaker 1:So personally I don't know enough about it. I can't exclude the placebo effect that that may work as long as it's ethical and the person feels comfortable with trying that. Yeah. Conventional wisdom and and you know, best practice would be to give it a go. Give it a try.
Speaker 4:Makes sense.
Speaker 1:There are there are yeah. There are a few weird things out there like air candling. I don't know if anyone's ever heard of that where they put a paper cone in your ear and burn it and it removes some badness from your system. Things like that I don't think there's much evidence base for that. So yeah, research it well, be careful how you spend your money, but definitely there's a lot about medicine and health that we don't really understand.
Speaker 1:Same with the weight loss surgery we're only just starting to begin to understand how that works and how it regulates the hormonal signal from the tummy back to the brain and why it works. We know it works because it's been done globally in so many people but understanding the actual chemical and neurological pathways we're only starting to get that mapped out. And it's partly how Mounjaro and Ozempic and Wegovy ended up being where they are today by observations of weight loss surgery in the past. So yeah it's a it is an evolving thing and they say that we're on the cusp of a revolution with medicine with artificial intelligence and supercomputers being able to crunch a lot of numbers and run through, you know, models and mapping of chemical compounds and theoretical medications. So the future is actually looking quite bright.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, Chinese medicine and alternative treatments, yeah, I would would go with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Was it was interesting. I read a book about like food and why things are sour and sweet and how like all kind of humans would know what to eat, what berries to eat and all. Do you think we've probably lost a lot of understanding on foods? Back in the day, lot of maybe human societies, for example, the Egyptians, I read, had actually consumed some kind of plant that had what we were using aspirin, they were using it for headaches back in the day.
Speaker 2:They didn't actually know exactly why, but they tended to find out a lot of these things naturally. And a lot of medicine does come from maybe natural discoveries then kind of pushed further. There's definitely something about that world that everyone's fascinated about because we we probably lost touch with it maybe.
Speaker 1:Yes. Certainly, aspirin comes with the bark of the willow tree. And thousands of years people have been chewing that bark as a remedy for tooth pain. Blood pressure medications come from turmeric and cumin compounds in that. A lot of medications come from plants as we know there's a lot of very powerful drug bases come from plants naturally occurring compounds.
Speaker 1:Interestingly when we do surgeries like a gastric bypass people come back and say oh my god my taste perception has changed hugely. That's very very very common. The way the food transits down the throat into the stomach, exits the stomach and into the intestine. We actually have taste receptors in our intestine that have an interaction with the taste receptor on our tongue. So as a food enters our system, there's a little chemical pathway down there that says my god that's gonna kill you stop eating it.
Speaker 1:So we can taste the sharpness in some chemical alkaloids and we recoil in horror and we stop eating. And when we see with the gastric bypass, people who had a bit of a love affair with high taste foods, high fat like chocolate, ice cream, sweets etc. They swallow those foods they enter the intestine very quick and the intestine sends a very loud signal to the SACE receptor stop you've had enough. So we find that people still have those foods but they get that kick they get that pleasure hit so much faster and more powerfully after those surgeries and that's one of the factors why the surgeries work because it does have that taste bud interaction. We've got taste receptors in very strange parts of the body inside our lungs.
Speaker 1:If anyone has ever inhaled a cocoa powder by mistake yeah you get a bit of a taste kick from that. Cocoa powder goes up in the kitchen cooking. But, yeah, the the taste receptor mechanism, yeah, it is still functional in the human, very powerful and very strange. Another thing I thought about just then was the food industry in the labs in those super super food companies. I won't name any but there's one starting with n.
Speaker 1:Some of the research that they do is really quite devious. As we all know, there's panels of people who test food products, and I don't know how they get recruited into it but they're lucky enough to come to the factory. They're put into a darkened room or put a blindfold on. They're asked to reach out and find the product, feel the wrapper, listen to it, pay attention to how it feels in the fingers, open it up, smell it, taste it, eat it, let it melt, then take the blindfold off and look at everything and then give it a score. And so it's not just you know, it's it's a blind test.
Speaker 1:It's pushing all of the sensors. Everyone has seen that the chocolate wrappers have gone from shinies to matte finish, so that matte finish has a bit of a sexier feel about it. The ring pull on all cans is this is highly designed to make a ping that triggers our interest and expectation of what's going to come from the can. That's that's a really deliberate piece of engineering. So I do know that the food industry has pushed all the people's buttons and refined recipes and sounds and textures and feels to get maximum sales and they don't share it with with the weight reducing industry.
Speaker 1:This kind of information that's hidden away from you know all of the people that's trying to stem the rise of overweight and obesity in the world. They're not telling us. It's quite fascinating.
Speaker 2:The dark arts are hidden away. Yeah. One day, we'll one day, it was you can do a little report in Scott, you know,
Speaker 1:get it
Speaker 2:out there.
Speaker 1:Next time you open a can, just pay attention to that sound. Make it make that magic sound. That's really quite quite something how they did that.
Speaker 2:I do like it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I like the
Speaker 2:sound a lot. It does make a difference big time. There's there's two more here quick ones, and then we we love respect your time, Nishka. I don't if you're taking on for too longer. But say that's saying high protein, low sugar ice creams, are they any different to the kind of full versions, or is it just about quantity?
Speaker 2:Yeah. What's your take on those types of products?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Sadly, they're disgusting. It's a bit like low fat cheese. I think everyone's had a go with low fat cheese and, you know, it's kind of alright. It's a cheesy product, but it doesn't give the same taste and the same pleasure.
Speaker 1:So a high protein low fat ice cream. You know, I I eat ice cream for pleasure. I don't eat it very often. If I was a bodybuilder and I had a show in three months time and I, you know, needed a bit of a treat on a really harsh weight reducing diet but high protein so I'm not losing my muscle mass. Yes.
Speaker 1:It might have a specific purpose for that. But again, I would look and consider why I'm eating ice cream and why I would choose that one. Well, don't think it's a nice exchange. I don't think you're gonna get the the pleasure and the quality and the the lovely experience of ice cream from it. You're you're having a an ice cream analogue something that mimics ice cream but on the package says this is not the devil whereas the real ice cream is the devil.
Speaker 1:Yeah I think be careful with that one. Just have occasionally or have the real thing occasionally.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Nice. Nice. Well, that's a good note to end on is to
Speaker 1:enjoy Whatever those thing in the food industry jumping in and just offering things to people just for the sake of it, really. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, there there were there's always that craze, isn't it? Whatever's the devil of the era, there's the opposite product coming out. And then they make loads of money, and then it doesn't really fix the problem because people thought it was the fastest overconsuming calories, and then, you know, they they thought these products would save them. But no, it's fascinating. I think, Scott, we need to probably have another call once everyone gets a chance to digest this one, because I think there will be a lot of questions coming in through the WhatsApp groups and stuff.
Speaker 2:So if you don't mind?
Speaker 1:Yeah. If you get a bunch of questions together and, you know, a specific yeah. Thing I'll I'll put some good information together, and we can have a look at that. But, I love I love this. I I love the the weight management thing, and I like it that we've got options and there are things out there that we can do.
Speaker 2:Yeah. No. A 100%. 100%. Let's do that.
Speaker 2:So everyone have a think. Digest it. Send the questions to me, and then Scott will link up again and do it again. But appreciate your time as always and everyone who joined learning a lot and yeah, let's chat soon.
Speaker 1:Everyone goes and has a little peek for those sort of weight loss friendly high protein ready meals. Yeah. Have a little dabble. You can't go wrong.
Speaker 2:Have a dabble all and we'll be back to review all the supermarkets against each other. Thanks, Scott and Scott. All good, guys. Appreciate it. Thank you, everyone.
Speaker 2:Have a good evening. Good night. We'll speak to you soon.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Scott.
Speaker 2:Ta da.
Speaker 1:Bye bye.