Program Interview Notes and Highlights
Please enjoy program highlights use these notes and highlights for your own understanding and benefit.
Completes of Dr. Clyde Wilson

Understanding Metabolism i.e.; Insulin Sensitivity

Background:
Insulin controls where calories go: It sends calories to fat instead of muscle

Background: Calories’ going to fat instead of muscle is commonly referred to as low metabolism

• Unsaturated fat doubles how much insulin goes to muscle
• Omega-3 fats increase insulin to muscle by over an order of magnitude (a factor of 14)
• Saturated fats do the opposite of unsaturated fats, reducing metabolism
• Protein shuts down insulin signaling in muscle, reducing muscle fueling
• Sugar shuts down insulin signaling in muscle
• A diet high in saturated fat, protein, and in particular sugar lowers metabolism
• A diet containing unsaturated fat, whole carbohydrates (whole grains, whole fruit, and vegetables) and moderate in protein raises metabolism

Improve Lifespan by Caloric restriction

Background:
Worms and rodents can double their lifespan by restricting their calories by 40%
Background:
Some of longest living humans are in Okinawa, Japan where they intentionally restrict their calories

• Humans might only raise their lifespan by 10% with caloric restriction because of their metabolism
• Most of our lifespan increase from proper diet comes from reducing disease risk
• Large scale studies of societies and what they eat shows that diets high in unsaturated fats and whole carbohydrates leads to the largest reduction in total, cardiovascular, and cancer mortality

The lifespan improvements that come from caloric restriction result from biochemistry in cells that are also turned on by specific compounds in red wine (resveratrol) and green tea (catechins)

Weight loss…  Facts and Fiction

• High protein diets reduce weight more in 6 months than a “prudent” (low fat) diet
• A high protein diet results in greater weight re-gain in the second 6 months of dieting than any other studied diet, with the result that there ends up being no net benefit
• Large scale studies show 22% greater mortality (death) from a high-protein diet
• The American Heart Association defines high protein as over 20-30% of total calories because that is where the negative medical side effects from high protein kick in
• The reason high protein results in an initial weight loss and health improvement is because it is associated with the reduction of refined carbohydrates
• In head-to-head studies of high-protein to whole-carbohydrate dieting, the high carbohydrate (WHOLE carbohydrate) diet resulted in equal body fat loss and much improved blood lipids compared to high protein: Relative to whole carbohydrate, a high protein diet is putting fat from your belly into your arteries instead of getting rid of the fat altogether
• Unsaturated fat raises metabolism via insulin resistance and increasing the fat-burning machinery in cells, plus it increases fat availability for fat burning

The scientifically best way to lose weight, meaning the best method that science has shown to maintain weight loss

Carbohydrate; what you need to know

Background:
Starches are sugar storage areas in plants that sugar being mainly glucose.  These are tubers (potatoes, yams), cereals (wheat, oats, rice etc, which make foods like pasta, bagels, etc) and legumes (lentils, beans)
Background:
Fruits and vegetables are mainly made out of sucrose (glucose and fructose combined).  Fruits can be as high in calories as starches, but vegetables are generally much lower in calories and higher in fiber and phytonutrients compared to fruits and starches.  This is why vegetables lower hunger and increase health so much.

• Intensive high-vegetable diets drops cholesterol by 30 points in 2 weeks, which is as large as the benefits from statins (medical pharmacological intervention)
• Intensive high-vegetable diets drop the need for insulin injection in type 1 diabetics by 50% or more
• Vegetables reduce heart disease dramatically and more than any other proven nutritional approach
• Phytonutrients, which are powerful antioxidants, are herbicides and insecticides created by plants to protect themselves; this is why phytonutrients are in highest concentrations on the surface of plants i.e. their outer skin or peal
• Pealing fruits and vegetables, or juicing them, leaves the peal behind and therefore dramatically reduces their health value
• Boiling vegetables leaches out half the nutrients in 30 minutes
• Shredding vegetables and leaving them on your kitchen counter at room temperature increases oxygen’s destruction of the phytonutrients so that half the health is gone in 6 hours
• Supplements containing vegetables or antioxidants have been not only shredded but powdered and processed, destroying the majority of the nutrients in them
• Fruit juice is, essentially, sugar water (no peal, processing, high in fast-digesting calories)
• Smaller fruit have relatively higher outer peal (surface area) relative to larger fruit, making them higher in phytonutrients and healthier; this is why berries are healthier than all other fruit
• Cinnamon is tree bark, which is why it is so health
• Eating processed sugar results in dopamine and natural opioid release in the brain that causes an increase in cravings for sugar, which has the potential to eventually develop into an addiction
• Low-calorie sweeteners have not been shown to cause health problems in humans, but the lack of solid evidence that they are not harmful, and the evidence that some do cause disease in animals means that we do not have the final answer on the long-term negative effects
• Aspartame reduces learning capacity and changes mood (seratonin handling) in rodents

Protein; Animal and Plant

• The effectiveness of protein foods for human growth is roughly equal between tofu, fish, and animal products (meat and dairy, poultry and eggs, pork, lamb, etc)
• The type and amount of fat in protein foods varies dramatically; this is why tofu and fish (both high in unsaturated fat) are healthier than animal products low in all fats (white-meat poultry, low-fat dairy, egg whites, lean meats), which are healthier than higher-fat animal products
• Over-cooking meats so that they are dark brown or blackened creates free radicals on the surface of the meat, which dramatically increases the colorectal cancer risk (this is where the majority of the cancer risk comes from with these foods)
• Deli meats, because they contain nitrates and nitrites or other preservatives, increase colorectal cancer risk by 10-50% if you eat an average of 1 thin slice per day
• Soy products have not been shown to improve health in short scientific studies in humans, but often improve health in short animal studies and are correlated to improved health in long-term human studies
• Soy reduces testosterone in animals when they gorge on soy, but not in humans when they have several servings per day for several months
• Soy is high in manganese, which reduces neurological development in monkeys, which makes soy potentially dangerous for infants and may be the reason that soy is associated with smaller brains in elderly humans
• Soy reduces breast cancer risk by 10%; it does not increase breast cancer risk as is believed by most medical doctors
• The evidence is still unclear as to the health implications of eating animal products from cloned animals or those subjected to steroids (both of which are imposed on the majority of animals providing our food in typical grocery stores)
• Seafood, what was one of the healthiest groups of food in the past, is becoming more and more contaminated by mercury; large predatory fish are the highest and therefore least healthy (swordfish, shark, etc) but tuna is also high (children should not consume more than a can per month)
• FDA guidelines on mercury intake are 10 times too high based on studies showing reduction in test scores in children consuming seafood containing mercury
• Salmon and sardines are both high in good fats and low in mercury, meaning that they are convenient (both available in cans i.e. portable) ways of increasing brain function

The Skinny on Fats

Background:
 Saturated fats are mainly in animal products, whereas unsaturated fats (including monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, the latter including omega-6 and omega-3 fats) are mainly from plants

• Saturated fats reduce metabolism, cardiovascular function, brain function and longevity
• Omega-3 fats increase all aspects of health more than any other nutrient group; we only need a dozen calories of omega-3 fats per day, but few foods contain them, so everyone should eat some salmon, sardines, flax, or walnuts each day or supplement with 2 fish or flax oil tablets per day
• Omega-3 fats improve brain function, reducing depression, dementia, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer’s
• Omega-6 fats also improve health dramatically, and improve health the most when they are consumed in roughly the amount of 3 times more than omega-3 fats
• Monounsaturated fats can be made by the body, implying that they do not need to be in the diet, but the traditional Mediterranean diet improves health and longevity unless it allows for getting monounsaturated fats from animal products instead of olive oil, in which case all the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet are lost
• Trans fats are more than 2 times worse for health than saturated fats and reduce health no matter how small an amount you eat (there is not lower threshold below which it is ok to eat them)
• The FDA only requires trans fats to be reported on the label of foods if there is at least 0.5 grams of them in a serving, so companies can reduce the serving size reported on the label so that the amount of trans fats is 0.49 grams or less, allowing them to report zero grams trans fats on the label; therefore you should ignore the trans fat amount reported on labels and, instead, read the ingredients and avoid any foods that contain any form of partially hydrogenated oil
• Most oils other than extra virgin olive oil experience high temperatures during their processing, particularly if they are deodorized, as is done with soy and canola oil; heat processing makes oil partly rancid and toxic to health, so look for products containing either extra virgin olive oil or specifying that they are cold pressed

Caloric pacing; why sit is so important…

• Although people are often not hungry when they wake up in the morning, blood sugar and amino acid levels are lower, and cortisol (a stress hormone that breaks down muscle tissue) is higher when you wake in the morning than any other time in your day; your body is breaking itself down and eating itself when you wake up, which can only be stopped if you eat breakfast
• Dehydration reduces digestion capacity, so if breakfast causes nausea, drink some water first
• Eating too much at one time or eating foods that digest too fast (sugars, white carbs such as white pasta, white bread, white rice), floods the bloodstream with too many calories at once, causing insulin to flood the bloodstream, driving calories into fat so fast that there is little left for muscle or brain, making a person tired and hungry so that they snack more and over-eat later in the day
• Healthy snacks (containing unsaturated fats like nuts, whole grains like whole grain crackers or some dry whole grain cereal, whole fruit, or vegetable pieces in a bit of vinaigrette) increase health, whereas sugars reduce health and mental focus while increasing body fat and hunger

Metabolism reduces by about 1/3 when going to sleep, so dinner should be soon enough before going to bed that it is completely digested (at least 2-3 hours) before sleeping.

Hydration; an Absolute Must for health

• Water increase growth by stimulating protein production by our DNA and ribosome’s, meaning that water is a transcription factor, similar to testosterone and growth hormone
• Xanthenes’, (such as caffeine) in coffee and tea are weak diuretics, so 1 cup is hydrating, 2 cups is neutral, and 3 or more cups is dehydrating for most people
• Any fluid higher than 2% alcohol is dehydrating
• Any fluid containing calories is less hydrating than water (milk, soda, and fruit juices only hydrate you half as well as water)
• Diet fluids (diet soda, or other fluids containing low-calorie sweeteners) increase cancer risk
• Drink at least half your fluids as water to avoid the problems that come from too much of any one type of fluid
• 3 drinks reduces growth hormone release during sleep by a factor of 4, 6 drinks reduces it by 40

Brief What, When, and Water Conclusions

• What: Unsaturated fats, whole carbohydrate (whole grains, whole fruit, and in particular eat vegetables), and moderate levels of protein in balance with each other this is what the science explains to us.
• When: Breakfast, occasional healthy snacks as desired, dinner not too late
• Water: Hydrate with at least as much water as all other fluids in your day combined, and have 1 quart or liter for each 1000 Calories you eat, which for most people means 2 qt or L per day i.e. 8 cups per day

Enjoy Better Health