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A podcast to separate quack from fact in the health, fitness and wellness industry. Hosted by Dr. Bill Ferro and Erin O'Hearn.
Sponsored by Betr Health
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:00:02:
The consumer, of course, is focusing on the weight loss because that's what we are as humans. You wake up every day, see yourself naked and go, yeah, I probably should maybe a couple of lbs, a couple of pounds. Maybe I should drop. So it's a constant reminder. So it's the motivation. I don't know for most people that come to us, it's you could call it a focus, but it's definitely the impetus to say, hey, maybe I should do something. Okay, welcome to the Quacks and Hypochondriacs Podcast. I'm Dr. Ferro. Much of the traditional medical community calls me a quack, probably right, so. And...
Erin O'Hearn - 00:00:40:
I'm Erin O'Hearn, a former ABC and NBC journalist and self-described hypochondriac who the medical community wishes would stop calling them completely.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:00:51:
Absolutely.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:00:52:
Right, Billy?
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:00:53:
Absolutely. Okay, guys. So Erin and I are discussing what's going to be our next topic, which in this case is going to be weight losses or health gain. Like, which is it? And so I'm thinking about all these topics, like all these people it's going to help. And I text her and she goes, what day? She goes, is that okay? Because it's going to be something weird with my eyes.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:01:14:
I said wonky.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:01:15:
Wonky. That's right. My eyes will be wonky. And I'm like, now I can't think of anything but wonky eyes. I can't believe I know someone who would use wonky in a sentence, much less put it in written fashion. And so, thus the hypochondriac begins.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:01:33:
Well, I mean, it's not really hypochondriac.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:01:36:
Okay, it's not hypochondriac, but wonky eyes is always something. So please describe the eye thing.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:01:43:
Okay, so I don't think that anyone would be surprised that at 46, you always look for things to help you feel better about yourself because you find yourself aging and you want to sort of look your best. And one of the places on your face that is most noticeable, obviously, are your eyes because number one, that's the first thing people see. And second of all, it's just, as you get older, you lose the collagen, wrinkles form. You're dehydrated, your skin looks a little, what should I, the wonky is not the word I'm looking for. It is crinkly.
Dr. Bill Ferro – 00:02:24:
Like a grape.
Erin O'Hearn -00:02:25:
Yeah. So anyway, so four or five years ago, the option was to use filler to put in under your eyes and like the trough area. But the big thing that they found with filler is that especially with people who exercise and people who are not overweight, it can tend to migrate. So then people would find out that like the filler would be like down here and it would look really bad. So have you heard of PRP?
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:02:52:
Yes.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:02:53:
All right. So PRP is sort of the new way to regenerate cells and regenerate collagen. And it's used in everything from injuries to bad knees. And they also are using it in the under eye area. So basically what I did today was I went to a licensed nurse injector at a medical spa overseen by a doctor. And they take your blood, they take a vial of blood, like you're going to get a blood test. And then they put it in the spinner and they take everything out. But I guess it's the plasma, the stem cells. And then they re-injected it into your eye. And then over the course of the next few weeks, your body then has a reaction and you start building your own collagen instead of using something phony artificial.
Dr. Bill Ferro – 00:03:37:
Okay.
Erin O'Hearn – 00:03:38:
So see how they're swollen a little bit, but that's actually from the injection. It's not from the actual.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:03:45:
What they actually spend is to get your platelets to help with the healing.
Erin O'Hearn – 00:03:49:
Right. Sorry. Yeah.
Dr. Bill Ferro -00:03:50:
So they help with the healing. Actually, my wife Amber had that done when her first pregnancy, they used PRP to help close up the incision because the boys were, both boys were C-section to just, and that was new back then. It was new that they were using that to help the healing process to do PRP. So, it makes sense because it's the most natural thing that you could put in there. The filler thing always bothers me, right? You're putting in stuff that is foreign to the body and you're right. It can migrate to different areas. And I'm glad you did something all natural.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:04:23:
I don't want to call it all natural. It's about as the natural as you can go with that stuff.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:04:28:
Some might say you didn't have an issue. If Erin gets complimented on anything, it's her eyes.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:04:37:
Oh, well, thanks.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:04:38:
Throughout life. And, you know, when you see her on camera, not this camera, because right now it's completely wonky. But when you see her on camera, you know, you can't walk past the screen and not go, oh, wow, what's going on there? And it's from her eyes. I can see why you're trying to still highlight that with procedures. There is what people notice most about me is I'm tall and I have a very gigantic nose to the point where if I was a smoker, I could smoke in the shower and there would be no issues. They may also notice my personality and people have been taking my platelets and spinning them, trying to instill a sense of humor. Right now, the studies are just in South Africa because they're known to have a good sense of humor. So they feel like if I can enhance their sense of humor, it will be better. But okay, let's get back to a more serious.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:05:33:
Oh, my God. Okay, that really took a weird turn. But If I could inject different people I know with your sense of humor, the world would be a better place. So keep me updated on that.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:05:47:
Your hypochondriac nature. And she gets upset easy when she first moved to Philadelphia. She's a New York native, lived in the South for a little bit. But when she first moved to Philadelphia, her husband, let's just say he's Italian. And she started picking up a colloquialism of these Italians that. Oh, yeah, I went there. I was going to bring over bread, but it was out of bread. It's a sin. It's a sin.
Erin O'Hearn – 00:06:17:
I did not say that.
Dr. Bill Ferro -00:06:17:
You did. You did. It was a brief prayer to time.
Erin O'Hearn – 00:06:21:
Really?
Dr. Bill Ferro – 00:06:21:
Yes. You would say everything was a sin. And so it was great. It was phenomenal. Then you got over it. Then you get over it. But okay, let's get into it.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:06:29:
It's called new love. Okay, go ahead.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:06:31:
Yes, exactly. So I am going to play this clip that Erin came up with. And this is a what? A from 10 years ago commercial?
Erin O'Hearn - 00:06:40:
So I think about 10 years ago. I mean, it's so weird because the quality of video has grown so much over the past few years that even things from five years ago seem like. If I saw it, I'd be like, oh, that's out of ' 90s. No, it's like, it's 2014. So I think it's at least six or seven years ago, probably more 10 to 15, but go ahead and you'll see why.
Clip (Commercial) -00:07:04:
30, 35, 42, 50. You will lose weight, too, with Nutrisystem. Get great-tasting meals delivered to your door. And now you can save up to 50%. I love my results. I'm Erin, and I lost 30 pounds on Nutrisystem. After kids, I never thought I'd be back in a bikini. I'm Cora, and I lost 42 pounds on Nutrisystem. Nutrisystem is based on the glycemic index, which helps you feel fuller longer. I got this body eating pizza, pasta, even chocolate. Choose four fantastic meals for less than $11 a day. Millions of people have lost weight on Nutrisystem, and you can too. And now you can save up to 50%. I feel better in my 40s than I did in my 20s. I feel sexy. I am back in a bikini again. If I did it, you can do it too. Call 888-651-SIZE now and save up to 50%.
Dr. Bill Ferro -00:08:04:
You know, the first part of this conversation is really timely because you just have the CEO of Lululemon coming out saying, hey, our ads don't look good. The people that we've been putting in our ads aren't inspiring because, you know, they started embracing putting people, you know, various shapes and sizes and let's face it, overweight people on these ads. And you hear people like Candace Owens. I don't know if you're familiar with her. She's just all upset that we're embracing this as, you know, hey, being overweight and obese is fine and healthy. And then in this scenario, only 10 years ago, this was a video of people in bikinis, right, focusing solely on the weight loss. And so it's a catch-22. And on one hand, you're saying, we don't want to promote being unhealthy. But by the same token, we'd also don't want to promote everyone needs to be in a bikini and feel amazing, right? So strange time to be alive.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:09:00:
Yeah, but so let me backtrack because Lululemon... The reason that they are now backtracking from there embracing of all different body types is not because they feel they've all of a sudden had a come to Jesus moment. It's because people aren't clicking on the clothing advertisements in which they may show people who are more unhealthy looking, right? And I'm not saying, there are all different types of bodies. But you're not going to click on something that doesn't represent how you look or how you think the clothes would look on you. So that's where, like, I'm not, I don't think that he's any great person who's had a turnaround. I don't know who the CEO is, but this has to do with money. I mean, they're just not, they're not getting the clicks on certain, so they're going to change it. And yes, it is unhealthy. And I don't think that everybody has to be in a bikini, because that was just kind of a weird commercial anyway. It wasn't even that they were in bikinis, it was just bizarre. But you do have to, people have to aspire to something, right? You know, it's okay if it's using a medication, then you see the results. It's the failure that people don't like. It's not that there aren't different body types represented. It's that I want to make, I want to feel okay about not being able to achieve this. That's what it is.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:10:26:
I would agree. And yes, we’re always catering to, I'm sorry, you feel bad. Here's the root cause let's get there. But really this just plays into my mind, more gaslighting again on either side of the equation, because as we continually poison Americans. And they can't get there, we still always think it's a psychological battle. And so then it rages, well, you're making fun of me, because I might have a little extra pounds and somebody else doesn't mean I'm completely unhealthy. And we should celebrate all shapes and sizes, which we should do. But we still always got to get back to the root causes. Every time we think it's about willpower motivation, that's what derails this conversation. But I think the other point you're trying to make in this is like, think about it, we were just so focused on the weight loss, but we weren't focused on the health gain, because I will submit to you that someone who is 20 to 30 pounds overweight, who exercises every day, and eats pretty well can still be overweight, not because of their thyroid, not because they could have some other inflammation, but they're probably still healthier than somebody who is at this at their “ideal weight” and never exercises. The person who exercises every day and overweight is going to live a longer, happier, healthier life. So we really trying to talk about health gain today. And when you look at that Nutrisystem commercial, you think, first of all, they're eating what low glycemic, low calorie, right, more deprivation, more hunger to get to that end result of looking thin. So that's the other end of the spectrum. That's not health gain. That's just weight loss.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:11:54:
Right. Correct. And I think that the issue that I have is the weight loss is a... I don't know if you would call it, you can correct me on this because you're the expert and I'm just sort of dissecting everything, but it's a symptom of what you're doing with your body and what you're putting in your body and what you're, you know. Whether you're exercising or not or moving, it's the symptom. So if you treat the root cause, which is what we talked about. Which is basically treating your body like it should be treated, right? Not putting chemicals in it. Not putting artificial junk because it doesn't, if you take away the caloric count. It can be low calorie. It doesn't mean it's good for you. So, I think that maybe the more important visual to show is what are we all looking and feeling like on the inside.
Dr. Bill Ferro – 00:12:55:
Correct.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:12:56:
Right. Because if we're treating ourselves well on the inside, then the outside is a result of that. But we have it sort of opposite. It's like, let's focus on what we look like on the outside. And that's the result that we want. And we don't really care what it does. Because the issue with those programs, and it's not just Nutrisystem, it's all these pre-packaged sort of antiquated plans, is that if you look at what you're eating, it's not any different than what they were eating before. It's just smaller amounts. Am I right?
Dr. Bill Ferro – 00:13:35:
Yes.
Erin O'Hearn -00:13:36:
And it's gross. Like it's the stuff in it is gross.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:13:39:
You're sending it in the mail with no ice. Like you're putting it's it should be called Nutrishitstorm because that's exactly what's going to happen when you're on that. And so, yeah, listen, I always like a mission where you're trying to help people and I'm sure that that's how it started. But when you look at it, who really wants to eat that to get to that result? But then again, here comes GLP-1 for weight loss. You know, I'm not talking about Ozempic, which is for diabetes, too. And that's a whole other issue. But weight loss, we don't care if this what it's doing to our insides long-term, short-term, as long as we get to that goal of weight loss. And I understand, right? I understand why someone would do any of these things. They've been thought and trained to think that there's something wrong with them. So we need to fool the body with medication to slow whatever they say it does, which they don't really know exactly. They think it slows digestion so that your body feels full longer. Basically, it just makes you nauseous.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:14:41:
But wait a second. You have to hold up on that because we're going to come full circle with that. And I want to explain something when I play another bite for you that I found, which was a really interesting conversation, but I want to backtrack because I did want to do a snapshot of what is actually in some of these meals, these pre-packaged meals. So the other part of the appeal of some of these programs is like, you can eat whatever you want. Like you can have pizza. You can have, in this case, a chicken mozzarella melt, which actually isn't a bad, like if you were to have a chicken mozzarella melt, right, at home, that's not a bad, like that, I would consider that a decent meal to give to my kids, right? Maybe it's harder cheese, you know, not the mozzarella, but either way you get the point. So this has 210 calories, which is not a lot. Tender chicken, which I don't think it's real chicken is paired with seasoned tomatoes and low-fat mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses, then in a zesty tomato sauce wrapped in a whole grain roll. Okay, fine. Let's look at what's in it. White whole wheat flour, whole wheat flour, water. So they list the ingredients in order of the abundance of ingredients. You have flour, water, and sugar as your first three. Then we have soy bean oil.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:16:08:
You made a cake.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:16:10:
Okay. Salt, yeast. I have yet to see chicken, by the way. Yet to see chicken, which is probably the most important ingredient. Monogly... What is it? Monoglycerides or I don't know. If you can't pronounce it, it shouldn't be in your body. With propionic acid. More acid, wheat flour, garlic, there's nothing in here. There's nothing in here that resembles real food except the flour.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:16:38:
Well, maybe the description.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:16:41:
The description, right?
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:16:43:
This is like going through a Tinder profile. Unloving, outdoorsy, active member, blah, blah, blah. And they're like, well, let me see the real ingredients. Super psycho, shows up at your house on an island. Obsessive- compulsive.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:17:00:
That's what diet meals are. It's Tinder.
Dr. Bill Ferro – 00:17:03:
It's white bread. Tinder. I don't know.
Erin O'Hearn -00:17:06:
All right. So anyway, we don't want to, again, this is, remember Lean Cuisine? I don't even see it anymore, but I think it still exists.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:17:12:
Yeah, they're still in the frozen food section.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:17:14:
By the way, I used to, so another health disclaimer. I did used to eat those in high school. Like it would be, especially because I remember one time my parents were renovating our kitchen and we didn't have like a stove or an oven. So they put the microwave somewhere. So I would grab, and my mom would do it too. I mean, they didn't know any better at that time. We would grab like Lean cuisines or whatever it is, like I forget the other name, and pop them in the microwave. Well, lo and behold, of course, you know, five years later, and I'm not saying that this is what did it, but it could be a combination of things. I get diagnosed with Crohn's disease, which is, you know, could also be irritated at the very least, maybe not cause, but irritated by processed food. So when you stop eating processed food, which I did a long time ago, then all of a sudden my symptoms have been alleviated.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:18:07:
For sure. And you know what's interesting is when we met, I was just really starting to uncover this food protocol. That's how, you know, this was all, like, I was just trying to, and we have, you and I would have these conversations and part of the conversations I had with you prompted me to go further because I had not heard of your disease, you know, Crohn's disease prior to this. I knew musculoskeletal stuff, but I started hearing more of my people coming in as we altered their diets. And then I remember when you finally, when we went, when I perfected the protocol, I think it'd been a couple of years and you went on and you're like, wow, you would have had already done a lot of things, but then you figured out what foods were causing an issue for you. And then when you go and you think, well, there's got, you know, you just always think, well, there's got to be a known etiology or a known reason why this happened. And there is none for all these inflammatory diseases, which still bogs my mind. The, the microwave, you know, is the toughest one to give up because we grew up with it as well. But, you know, when you really think what a microwave does to food, it makes it rancid.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:19:06:
Wait, I want to get back to this because something that this, I've been dying. Like I saw this conversation this morning, and I really want to get to it because it does come full circle. But first I just want to, this is like the proof of concept here, which is another quick and easy, low calorie. This is, you know, you're getting, you're satisfying your taste buds, yet you're not, these aren't calorie dense foods and they're certainly not nutritionally dense foods. So this is cheese and spinach ravioli again with the wheat flour. Okay, fine. Milk fat, organic tapioca starch, whey protein concentrate, xantham gum. Another kind of gum, lactic acid, spinach, organic cheese. I don't know. You tell me. I guess this one sounds a little bit better, but there’s still lots of stuff in there that doesn't. It doesn't sit well with me. Like I wouldn't want to, I wouldn't give it to my kids.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:20:10:
Well, right off the bat, we know xantham gum is a known microbiome disruptor. And it's just, it's in everything, use it for dressing. So-
Erin O'Hearn - 00:20:20:
What does it do? Keep everything.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:20:22:
It congeals it. It keeps it together. Yeah.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:20:23:
Yeah. Okay. So lots of salad dressings and stuff.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:20:27:
Yes.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:20:28:
Okay.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:20:28:
Back when we started the meal delivery company, we wanted to do dressings and I was like, okay. And I, dumb, I'm like, how do you make them shelf stable? And the answer is you shouldn't.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:20:39:
Yeah. They're meant to be separated, right?
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:20:42:
And so then when we started doing the meal, I'm like, all right, we'll just send them fresh. And even when I make fresh dressing myself, like we have the creamy ranch, which is made with sesame seeds.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:20:59:
What are those seeds?
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:20:59:
But it only lasts for a short period of time, which is how it should be. It shouldn't last long. So Xantham Gum was like, they said, well, if you want to do a dressing in mass production, you're going to have to use Xantham Gum. I'm like, well, I can't do it because I'm not going to destroy people's gut. Michael Grimes over it. But yeah, ultimately, this isn't food, right? If you gave this. Many years ago, there was a Netflix of a group of guys. I think they came from Nigeria or they came from an African tribe. They were put into a family in Minnesota and immediately, you know, first dinner around the table. And there's these guys that lived way out in the jungle and they're looking at what they're eating and they were watching stuff come out of a can. And they wouldn't eat it. And they were trying to translate. It's like, why won't you eat it? It's like, because that's dead. Like they just couldn't in their mind see that people would drink eating dead food. And yet it's just become so commonplace for us to open up a can for those types of things. All right.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:22:01:
So just to remind listeners what we're talking about, it is the difference between weight loss and health gain. And so many people concentrate on the weight loss. Which is fine. But again, if you concentrate on the health gain first, the weight loss will come, correct?
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:22:23:
It's both. So I think what we're seeing now in the society is that people did focus on the weight loss for so long. They gave up on the weight loss and said, well, it's a much more it's, you know, like when we had Dr. Fatima Cody from Harvard, it's a much bigger issue. It's all emotional. You know, they just put all this baggage on. So then we said, all right, we need to stop worrying about the weight loss. This is, this was a short period of time. And let's just focus on celebrating different body types, because essentially, let's just give up on the fact that people could have weight loss, because we're going to, we're going to blame something else that's esoteric that no one could put their finger on. And because we still never got to the root cause of the poison. Then we went to this point where, oh, wait, you know how all the doctors and everyone was saying, don't focus on that. We're going to focus on it again, because we came up with a drug that can sell a ton of money. So it just keeps undulating. So the consumer, of course, is focusing on the weight loss, because that's what we are as humans, you wake up every day, see yourself naked and go, I probably should maybe a couple lbs, couple pounds, maybe I should drop. So it's a constant reminder. So it's the motivation. I don't know, for most like the people that come to us, it's, you could call it a focus. But it's definitely the the impetus to say, hey, maybe I should do something. I don't, I don't feel like this feels good on me.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:23:40:
Yeah, no, no, no. And I don't think I was arguing that point. My point is, is that you can't just throw up your hands and say, I'll do whatever to lose the weight, even though it's not good for me. For instance, eating some of this stuff, even though it may cut your calories, and you may feel somewhat satisfied immediately, you certainly can't sustain eating food like this, number one. And number two, if you truly look at how your body processes food and what you consume. I guess my point is, is that's when the weight comes off. But like, you have to look at what you're saying is the root cause of everything. It's not, yeah.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:24:22:
Yeah, because we keep saying like, well, if you just focus on eating healthy and I keep saying, well, yeah, that's true. But today I had a glass of water and it had all my neighbor's pharmaceutical weight waste product in it. Like we're being freaking poisoned. So I'm saying to them, look-
Erin O'Hearn - 00:24:39:
You know, you're talking a hypochondriac.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:24:41:
I know. I'm sorry to tell you that.
Erin O'Hearn – 00:24:42:
And I'm like-
Dr. Bill Ferro – 00:24:43:
You're not your neighbor. And Nidhi said it best on the podcast. And I just re-listened to that, by the way, which was great. Dr. Nidhi, the Ayurvedic practitioner, some really incredible anecdotes. And she keeps calling. She mentioned about remembering, remembering how good your body is. Remember how incredible your body is, that even if you are drinking your neighbor's Prozac right now and birth control pills, I can see you praying for us. But even if that is the case in small degrees, your body is still able to fight it by eating foods that are low inflammatory and then removing as many other chemicals as you can from the lotions you put on your skin. I think you're not arguing either of those, neither am I. What we're saying is, is that in the getting weight loss actually can be easy with drugs, with Nutrisystem, with diets, but you've already done all that. And at what value did you really get? Did you get internally healthy? So what are the markers that someone can say, hey, I actually did get internally healthy. Maybe you said like we should look at their insides. So what should we marker? How can we gauge that to say? Because if you lose weight, you get a compliment, right?
Erin O'Hearn – 00:25:54:
Sure.
Dr. Bill Ferro – 00:25:55:
So that's the that's the positive reinforcement. What if we could just be like, by the way, look at my look at my blood pressure, right? Hey, look at my gut microbiome. It's more diverse than it was 20 years ago. We could actually start showcasing things that actually, you know, it was set as it's sexy to have a more diverse microbiome. We got to call Justin Timberlake and bring sexy back for microbiome.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:26:22:
I don't know. Then it wouldn't rhyme. Okay. I want to get to this video because this is a really good conversation. And by the way, this happened in the UK, which I think, I think, I think, I think that the US is worse than the UK, right? As far as regulation and what they put on their supermarket shelves, but they still have a problem. I preface this with saying that the US is worse because he's referencing some pretty scary numbers in the UK. So take that with a little bit of grain of salt and know that the US is worse, which is hard to believe.
Speaker 2 - 00:26:59:
Informal term like junk food. It's a formal category of foods. The definition was developed about 10 years ago, and there's a very long scientific definition, long because it has to encompass so many different processes. But it boils down to this. If it's wrapped in plastic and it contains at least one ingredient that you don't typically find in a domestic kitchen, then it's ultra-processed food. So at the moment in the UK, it makes up about 60% of the calories we eat on average. And for a young person, a teen, or even a baby, it can make up 70%, 80%, to 100% of their calories. So this is most of what we're eating? This is our national diet, and it's what we've eaten for many generations.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:27:42:
Holy moly. 80%, 60% of the standard, then 75 to 80% for a baby ultra processed. I mean, processed, they always sound smarter when it comes to, from the Brits. And if that's happening there, I mean, they banned a substance called titanium dioxide, which is in like so many of our foods, like many, many years ago that, you know, they, that you get, and if they're still having this issue and look at that scale, imagine what it is here. We probably have[inaudible].
Erin O'Hearn - 00:28:15:
I thought that was really, really scary and sort of emphasized what he said, which this is an emergency that no one's really paying attention to. And the reason why no one's paying attention to is because it's a lot easier for companies to just put out the stuff in mass production and sell it because it makes money and it's easy for people and it's easy to understand and it's easy to follow the directions. And it's easier to market a better way of consuming the processed foods than it is to educate people on not eating them.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:28:47:
Agreed. And now it's a death by a thousand cuts because you can't see it. You can't see the chemical. All you see is a chicken parm or whatever that thing was. You can see it, but it's so easy to ignore the chemicals. And because you don't immediately take it and then notice a difference, you're like, oh, well, how bad could this be? Well, add all those chemicals on top of all the stuff you're breathing, on top of all the microplastics, your neighbor's Prozac in your water. And now you have a chemistry equation that is slowly destroying you.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:29:24:
So maybe instead of putting calories and nutritional information on the back of things, well, you should put that. But in addition to it. There should be a percentage of what is actually natural and how much chemical, or like what's the ratio to processed to unprocessed in that particular meal or that particular food?
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:29:44:
Yeah, we basically say we need to first decide on what the definition of food is and then put a percentage of food on each label.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:29:55:
Right.
Dr. Bill Ferro – 00:29:55:
What percent of food?
Erin O'Hearn – 00:29:55:
I mean, that that would that actually would I think that that would scare the shit out of a lot of people.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:30:01:
Yes. Like in Nutri Shitstorm.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:30:06:
Right. Like that's, has anybody thought, like, did we just come up with that or somebody thought of that?
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:30:11:
No, of course I came up with that. What are you talking about?
Erin O'Hearn - 00:30:14:
Okay. So the next part of this video, which is really important because this is where the full circle comes. Before you hit play, I want you to repeat how you explained the way these weight loss drugs work that everyone's on. What did you say it does to the digestive system?
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:30:32:
Well, what they think that it does.
Erin O'Hearn – 00:30:35:
Okay.
Dr. Bill Ferro – 00:30:36:
What they're promoting to people is it delays the digestive process. So it slows down the emptying of your stomach into intestines. That way, it makes you feel like you're full faster and you won't eat as much. What I understand is that when your body's eating, of course, there is ghrelin and then there's leptin to tell you whether you're hungry or you're full. And so by slowing it down, it gives a chance for that hormone to tell your body you're full to the point where you know how if you eat too much, you do get nauseous. That much of that feedback loop will make you feel nauseous, which is why I think it's triggering it and then making this feedback loop to your brain that makes you not want to eat as much.
Speaker 2 - 00:31:27:
So the additives are just one part of the problem because the additives are the way we recognize the food. So people listening can go to their cupboards and they can get their packet of bread out. And the bread might say it's full of fiber, but you'll find emulsifiers on the bread because all our bread is in emulsified foam. And so people have started to worry about the additives. In fact, the additives are a small part of the problem. There are a number of different ways that ultra-processed food affects our biology. For the most part, it's incredibly soft and it's incredibly energy dense. So per gram, it has a lot of calories. The softness and the energy density means that we consume it at a far higher rate than our internal systems that should tell us when to stop eating can catch up. So broadly, whether you're eating a burger or a piece of fried chicken or a bowl of breakfast cereal, there are illusions of texture. There'll be little crunches and pops and snaps and greasy bits and dry bits and chewy bits, but it's all inhalably fast to eat. And the hormones that tell you to stop just can't keep up. So that's a big part of the problem. There's then quite a long list of other ways it affects us. So the artificial sweeteners, the WHO has just released a report on this. They have powerful effects on the microbiome, on our palates, and on our internal physiology. If you put sweet taste in the mouth and the sugar never arrives, it spikes your insulin, and broadly you go and get your sugar elsewhere, which is why artificial sweeteners aren't associated with weight loss. We think some of the additives in the food affect the microbiome. That's your gut bacteria? These are the trillion or so friendly bacteria that don't just live in your gut, eating your leftovers. They secrete molecules that regulate your immune system, provide fuel for your heart, that are really important for your brain development. So these bugs are very much a part of us. And all kinds of things about the food interact with these bugs, modify the populations and feed them in different ways, and we think drive inflammation. So we are seeing at the moment, as well as going hand in hand with the pandemic of obesity, we're also seeing pandemic of inflammatory bowel disease, of metabolic disease like type-2 diabetes, of cardiovascular diseases and strokes. And all of these problems, there is a reasonable degree of evidence that they are caused by our diet primarily. So in 2019, our poor diet, which is to say an ultra-processed diet, overtook smoking as the leading cause of early death on planet Earth.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:34:02:
Did you listen to the part where he said that natural, real food it synchronizes with how your digestive system processes everything. And so if you digest real food at a normal pace. Your body, like what you were talking about, your body understands when it's full. It understands when it's satisfied. But when you're consuming ultra-processed foods, you can just keep going, keep going, because there's nothing real about it. So there's nothing in your body that synchronizes, right, along with how you digest, which is how does the weight loss drug work? It slows your digestive system, right? Or they think it does.
Dr. Bill Ferro – 00:34:51:
So is the emptying.
Erin O'Hearn -00:34:52:
Okay. But am I being a jerk here? Like that's what I'm saying is, is that if you're focusing on slowing the digestive system because you continue to consume ultra-processed foods. So it's a way of regulating what can naturally occur if you would just eat real food, right?
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:35:16:
Correct. Correct. They basically said, hey, this is what happens when you eat real food. They looked at the end. Now, this is hurting a line item in Walmart stores. Why? Because of Ozempic and Wegovy and what have you. Their sales are dropping, their food sales are dropping for junk food.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:35:42:
Okay.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:35:43:
That's a scary thing.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:35:44:
Yeah, for them, sure.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:35:45:
Yeah, you can say, hey, that's pretty good. But it's been so world, you know, renowned that it's having, it's actually affecting their bottom line. They're nervous about it. So, in one way it's having the effect where the people are eating way less. Anybody, you know, most people that you know on these medications will tell you, yeah, I have like one bite of the pizza and then I put it down. I have one bite of this and I put it, they're still eating bad. I shouldn't say they are. Some people are probably eating healthy on it too. And they'll find that they can come off it. We had a woman recently who's like, I did your program. I lost more weight than metformin and insulin and we go, be in metformin combined, but you're a hundred percent right. Your body's already been designed to tell you when you're full. But we fooled it. If you take a Jolly Rancher. And you look at it, you smell it looks like strawberry. The digestion doesn't begin when it gets down here. Digestion begins as soon as you see it. That whole process is working. And so we've been fooling it for years, and there's no wonder. And then when you come off these medications, we already know that stuff comes right back. Back to the full circle topic at hand, though, is weight loss done specific ways health gain? I will submit to you that if somebody who is 100 pounds overweight and gets on Ozempic and Wegovy and loses 75 pounds. They are probably better off than they were, right?
Erin O'Hearn - 00:37:03:
Yeah.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:37:04:
Unfortunately, we know it's a temporary state. They don't learn anything. And so for that short period of time, there could be some tangible health benefits. But if it then comes back, think about what's going to happen this way. If they do come off of it, they can't afford it anymore. It has other side effects. Their stomach gets paralyzed, whatever it is. And then the weight comes back. What mental position do you think they're going to be in at that point? When yet another thing failed.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:37:30:
Right, right. You're right.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:37:32:
The harm is not just what it can do physically. It's not a mental health crisis we have. We've been beating people into a mental health crisis by telling them that it's their fault and they need this medication because their body just doesn't function the right way and they have an insulin-resistance problem. No, they have a chronic chemical problem that they've been exposed to, overexposure. And so that I think is the real problem with all of this.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:37:58:
No, I agree with you, but I guess the point I was trying to make, and I want to drive this home again, just because number one, I like being right, and number two, I want to make sure that you agree with me. So what I was listening to, or what I was hearing, is that the ultra-processed food, it doesn't just make you gain. Well, the reason it makes you gain weight isn't just because of the caloric content. It is because of the way it's prepared and it's not food anymore. And so your body doesn't really know how to digest chemicals. It doesn't know how to use that food as fuel. So basically you just keep consuming it because you're never satisfied because it isn't, you're eating food to eat, not to, just to enjoy it, just this part of it, instead of converting it to real energy and using it in your brain and your muscles and your skeletal system, whatever. So, what the weight loss drugs have done is basically a chemical solution to inhaling chemicals. Like a chemical solution to offsetting what chemical consumption does to your digestive system.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:39:15:
Absolutely. That's the best way to put it. And in addition to that, when your body is eating chemicals, it can store them to fat because it doesn't know what to do with them. So we'll take those chemicals and say, I don't know what this is. I'm going to store this as fat and sequester it away from the body and in an effort to protect the body. So that's the other reason why eating chemicals can lead to weight gain, because your body wants to sequester them and get rid of them.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:39:40:
I don't know. I oversimplifying or as you know, in our last podcast, we had this doctor come on and say like, some people just have. It's a combination of biology and genetics and environment and chemicals and physiology. Of course it is. But of course, when you don't simplify it and get to the root, you can think that everything's a contributing factor when you're throwing darts in the wind. But like, I don't. I think that was the perfect parallel is if you're eating chemical foods, you're, you don't have an off button. So the Ozempic or Wegovy, it's an off button. Keep doing what you're doing. We just found a way to give you a way to turn it off.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:40:26:
Do you like plants? Do you have any plants in the house?
Erin O'Hearn - 00:40:30:
I kill every plant I have in the house.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:40:33:
Okay. So you admit you kill the plant. You don't blame the seed. You don't blame the plant. You blame the fact that it didn't get water. It's not in the right sun. The soil might not be nutrient dense.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:40:50:
I don't make it a priority.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:40:52:
You don't make it a priority. So, but you're not blaming the plant.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:40:55:
No.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:40:56:
That's how I feel about people. They don't know that the soil that their feet are sitting in and their gut microbiome is destroyed. They're not getting enough sunlight. So they don't need a vitamin D pill. They need to get out in the sun. The water might potentially be contaminated. And if it is, you're contaminating yourself with artificial sweeteners by drinking Diet Coke. So if we want to not overwhelm people, it's like just think of yourself as a plant. Look at your soil, your water. Don't blame yourself because your soil is messed up. But be aware that your remind yourself and this is what i loved about when we had Dr. Nidhi on the Ayurvedic, this is Ayurveda is about reminding or, or remembering, remember, you were designed to thrive. You were designed not to be in distress or disease. You were designed to thrive. So just look at the simple things in your environment that can make a difference. The first things are anything you're putting on your skin, all of your lotions and potions. That's number one way. Clothing and then food. Look at the chemicals. If it's got a chemical in it, like a coffee creamer or even chewing gum, removing those things, although they don't think they can produce a result, I promise you quickly your body can recover and repair from all of this stuff without having to think about, should I have slippery elm? Should I have an ashwagandha root? Remember when Nidhi was telling you, you said, yes, sometimes I feel like I got to light candles. I'm doing all these things. People are trying to tell me to be wellness driven. She's like, it's like literally walking into a busy flea market and everyone's like, buy this, buy this. But if you're focused on size four jeans with these shoes, just focus. So all you have to focus on is, what chemicals are invading my soil, my skin, my water, my what's going in. And if I just remove those, the body will heal itself.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:42:48:
Right. And, by the way, can we just say that it isn't, it is impossible to remove everything, but you can do a lot, right? Yeah. I mean, you have to start somewhere. Because that's an overwhelming thought for people. I just want to, it's an overwhelming thought for me and it's a scary thought for me too, because I just had gum.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:43:06:
I agree. If you were to name, like a genius way to name a protocol would not be to name it perfect health. It would be to name it better health.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:43:17:
It's so good. Kind of like it's yoga practice, not yoga perfect.
Dr. Bill Ferro – 00:43:22:
That's correct.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:43:23:
Yeah. I did not come up with that one. Do you have any advice as we go forward? Like any tips for this week of how people can make one simple change?
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:43:35:
I think the tip of the week is to literally go back and listen to the Dr. Nidhi Podcast.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:43:39:
Okay.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:43:40:
It's like full of things in there that are just phenomenal. You know, most of the segments I speak. It was just a really good, honest conversation. And I think oftentimes you and I are doing these when we had the guests. There's some kind of epiphany moments in there or just remembrance. I think it was a real special one. To me, I would say, if you're looking at yourself as a plant and you're trying to see what Ayurveda is about, which is how you react to the environment, the environment reacts to you and reminding you how amazing you are as a plant, so people can stop blaming the seed and stop blaming the plant, that would be a really good one to go back and refresh on.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:44:21:
All right. I'll do that. And then also I just wanted to really quickly mention that the whole Jolly Rancher thing, when you see the Jolly Rancher and you see the bright colors. So I have, I've said this before, but I invested in a juicer a couple of years ago. So I spend the beginning of the week juicing a lot of different vegetables. And what happens is when you do the carrots and the celery and the spinach and then the beets, is the way the juicer works. It all of a sudden creates like a, you know how you go to a fancy coffee shop and they do the swirl with the milk? Or the oat milk, and it's like a heart. This isn't a heart, but it looks like somebody created something because it's all the vibrant colors from all the vegetables that you're putting in. And the top looks like a swirl of bright purple and bright green and bright orange. And by the way, that all of a sudden you want to like consume the whole thing because it looks so good. And you can, like, that's not a Jolly Rancher. That's just natural. Like it's in nature. Like nature created those vibrant colors for a reason to make them appealing. So I just think that that's proof of concept there.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:45:33:
I would agree. And the way they made a Jolly Rancher taste like a Jolly Rancher, they have tasters that go out to orchards tasting different fruit. And then they chemically engineer it based upon that taste to the point, Erin, where they'll go, well, this orange tasted orange, but it was, the orange was so good, but it only lasted seconds. We need one that lasts longer or it lasted too long. We need one that goes less. It'll eat another Jolly Rancher.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:46:00:
I mean, it's crazy how much they did it.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:46:02:
I want to remind some people about the juicing thing. Erin also gets a lot of fiber through her day from regular foods, vegetables, and apples.
Erin O'Hearn – 00:46:11:
Oh, yeah.
Dr. Bill Ferro -00:46:12:
Just juicing without the fiber we know is, you know, you need the fiber. So I don't want people thinking she's just juicing everything. You're not going to get wonky eyes, unwonky eyes. And not having fiber.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:46:26:
No, I don't. I eat a lot of fiber. I just like the way, like I would rather do a fresh juice than drink orange juice. And sometimes I need something in the morning to like. You know, when I'm taking a probiotic or whatever, but like, I just, I, for again, it's not that I replaced it. It's just that I added that to my diet and I especially like to give it to my kids and my husband. Yeah. So no, I'm not misleading you. I don't just juice.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:46:54:
Awesome. Well, everybody, this was an amazing episode of myself. Okay, so our signature tagline, which I think we forgot is here to entertain our listeners, right? With witty banter of wellness and digestive disease and normal. You know, we don't want to make people feel squeamish or skeptical or guilty. That's not what we want to do. We want to make you feel good. But basically, have a great week.
Erin O'Hearn - 00:47:21:
PRP is the way to go, babe.
Dr. Bill Ferro - 00:47:22:
See you.