Participants: Nick Evenson (Host), Dr. James Marcum
Series Code: UP
Program Code: UP000094A
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00:17 If you live in North America you probably eat the standard
00:20 American diet, which statistics show can lead to serious 00:23 health problems down the road. 00:25 But if you want to prevent disease, and if you want to 00:27 reduce your need for prescription medications, 00:30 you're going to want to stay tuned to this program today 00:32 as we'll be discussing food as medicine. 00:34 The Ultimate Prescription starts right now. 00:36 I'm Dr. James Marcum. 00:39 Are you interested in discovering the reason why? 00:42 Do you want solutions to your health care problems? 00:45 Are you tired of taking medications? 00:47 Well, you're about to be given the Ultimate Prescription. 00:55 Hello, and thank you for joining us today on the 00:57 Ultimate Prescription. 00:58 Our program is dedicated to helping us better understand 01:01 God's design for our lives. 01:03 And on today's program, Dr. Marcum is here to join me. 01:05 I'm your host, Nick Evenson, and we're going to be talking 01:07 about food as medicine. 01:08 Dr. Marcum, welcome to the program. 01:11 Well, I'm glad that we're talking about food as medicine, 01:14 because this has been around for a long time. 01:16 You know, we've talked before on previous programs about how 01:21 this was God's plan at the very beginning to use fruits, 01:25 vegetables, nuts, and grains for our bodies, not only to make us 01:27 feel better, but now we're finding that it can actually 01:30 change the chemistry when we have disease; 01:33 especially for chronic disease. 01:35 Modern medicine is great for disasters. 01:38 You know, from having a heart attack I want a stent. 01:41 If I'm bleeding to death sew me up. 01:43 You know, if I'm having a gallbladder attack and it needs 01:46 to come out, I want it out. 01:47 That's great for acute problems, but for chronic disease like 01:51 diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, cancer, some of those 01:58 obesity related illnesses. 01:59 We want to see if we can get at the cause. 02:02 And all too often modern medicine treats symptoms, 02:05 and not the cause of disease. Right. 02:08 So that's why I'm glad that we're talking about it. 02:10 But you know what the challenge is when we talk about food as 02:12 medicine is how do we make it interesting for those 02:15 that watch it, Nick? How do we make it entertaining? 02:17 Yeah! How do we make it entertaining? 02:18 Tell me, how do we do this? 02:20 Well, we've got to make it applicable to their lives. 02:23 Applicable? Make it relevant. 02:24 Make it relevant to their lives. Right. 02:26 So, that's a big challenge. 02:28 You know, when people... We eat food every day. 02:31 A lot of times we eat out of convenience. Right. 02:34 But I've been finding out that as people learn about things, 02:37 and make changes one step at a time, they feel better. 02:40 And, actually, we know in our brain our taste buds change, 02:45 but our brain changes, and how we think about food, 02:48 and all these receptors that happen. 02:50 You know, food can be an addiction. 02:52 Do you believe that? Yes, certainly. 02:54 Yeah. I have people come to the office that are addicted to all 02:57 sorts of things, including food; especially sugar. 03:00 You know, people addicted to sugar. 03:01 It's in everything it seems. 03:03 Especially processed sugar. 03:04 And the people that make processed sugar know that it 03:08 causes an addiction. 03:09 That's why they have processed sugar. Right. 03:11 And the brain, you know, these little amounts go a long way. 03:14 And they put more and more in it so you need more and more to 03:16 feel those dopamine receptors; make them happy. 03:19 So we just eat more and more. 03:20 Yeah. You know earlier you mentioned convenience. Yeah. 03:23 And in North America we have all kinds of convenient ways to eat, 03:26 right? But those aren't necessarily the healthiest way. 03:29 It's hard to get good healthy nutrition if you're 03:31 eating at fast food places, where you don't have to prepare 03:34 your own food, right? Right. 03:35 And it's very convenient, and a lot of people like to just put 03:38 it in the microwave. 03:39 And, unfortunately, those products come with lots 03:41 of chemicals to preserve it. 03:44 And believe me, the people that make food know how to get 03:48 us addicted to food. 03:49 They know how to make products that make us eat more and more. 03:53 And I think about the soft drink epidemic, you know. 03:56 Look at all the sugar that's in that. 03:58 And if you look at all the packaged foods. 04:01 High fructose corn syrup; it's in almost everything now days. 04:04 Right. Again, a little bit of that goes a long way. 04:06 And if you think about it this way: you know, if you eat an 04:09 apple, you know you get natural fruit. Okay? 04:12 Sugar... Yeah, about 14 calories for a bite of an apple, 04:16 depending on how sweet it is. 04:17 Well, the brain has trained us as we've gotten older, 04:21 that we want to get calories the easiest way. Right. 04:24 The brain just sort of wants to do that. 04:26 Well, you know, an apple's a great way for a calorie. 04:29 But which tastes better to us? a sweet apple, or a sour apple? 04:32 Well, often the sweet apple; more calories. 04:34 Well, now we've concentrated calories. 04:37 We don't want to have apples anymore. 04:38 We have apple pies. 04:40 And we have concentrated, just a little bit, and our brain says, 04:43 This is great! I don't have to work as hard. 04:45 I get all these calories. 04:46 I can feel so good. 04:47 But at the same time there's downhill damages. 04:50 So that's why we want to talk about food as a way to treat 04:53 disease, but food can also cause disease. 04:55 You mentioned the sad American diet. Right. 04:58 You know, and that that's the standard 05:01 American diet now is sad. 05:03 In fact it's been estimated that, you know, fiber is so 05:06 important to our body. 05:08 It's been estimated that 97% of people now do 05:11 not get enough fiber. 05:13 Um. You know, let's talk for a second about what eating well 05:16 looks like just in a one day scenario. 05:19 You know, for somebody who is going to get up and have 05:21 their breakfast at home. 05:22 And they're going to eat something healthy for lunch 05:24 and then for dinner. 05:25 What is the balance of where you take most of your food in? 05:28 Where does that lie? 05:29 And then what kind of foods are we talking about for 05:31 just a regular day? 05:33 Well, that's a good practical question for people out there. 05:35 But one of the things you want to do is you want to eat most 05:37 of your food in the morning. 05:39 You want to break the fast. 05:41 Why do you want to break the fast? 05:43 Well, because that's when our chemistry, the epinephrine, 05:47 the cortisol, our body starts to rev up. 05:50 Remember at night we were designed to rest, and heal, 05:54 and take it easy; the body parts get better. 05:56 Then in the morning when the light comes up, 05:57 the circadian rhythms rev us up. 06:00 So we start increasing our metabolisms. 06:02 But that's when we should take our biggest meal. Right. 06:05 So a breakfast, a healthy breakfast might look like 06:09 something like oatmeal with some walnuts and almonds on top, 06:13 maybe some flax, maybe some kia seeds, maybe some berries. 06:17 You know, different types of berries on top. 06:19 That might be a good start to breakfast. Okay. 06:22 Um, and the things that we don't want to necessarily do is 06:26 Fruit Loops with lots of milk on it, and sugar on the side, 06:30 and then a donut. That might not be the best way, 06:32 because that's a lot of processed sugars, 06:34 and processed things. 06:36 Then lunch. You know the basic lunch might be greens. 06:39 And you might put different types of vegetables, 06:41 and different types of nuts, and beans with your greens. Right. 06:44 And maybe a healthy topping to make it taste good, 06:47 like a balsamic vinaigrette. 06:48 Not all the sort of creamy, fatty toppings. 06:51 And then a dinner might look like a base like potato base, 06:56 you know, a baked potato base, or a bean base. 06:58 Where we could... And then we might dress it up with other 07:01 things with it like some peppers. 07:03 And make that base sound good. 07:04 We might add some pasta and grains to that. 07:07 We might put some other fresh things with it. 07:10 So that's sort of an idea of what a regular 07:13 diet will look like. 07:14 And then you can dress it up with herbs, and spices, 07:16 and things that tickle your taste buds. 07:18 I particularly like to go out occasionally and tickle my taste 07:22 buds with hot sauces. 07:24 Hot spicy food? Yes, I do. 07:25 In fact when I go out to eat I like to eat Thai food. 07:28 Because, you know, you can get, if you go to a Thai restaurant 07:31 you get a Thai spice, and you can make it as 07:33 hot as you want it to. Sure, sure. 07:35 And it can bring life to food that might seem boring to you. 07:38 But the more you eat healthy, you realize that not only 07:41 you use large variety, but the food in itself tastes different. 07:45 Yeah. So let's talk about that a little bit. 07:47 Um, for some people eating, as you just described, 07:50 there's going to be a large departure from 07:51 what they're used to. 07:52 And their taste buds might not be adjusted to it. 07:54 They might not like it. 07:56 It just doesn't taste good. Yeah. 07:57 So is that something that we're just going to have to deal with, 07:59 or do our taste buds change? 08:00 Well, our taste buds do change, but, you know, some people like 08:03 to do everything at once. 08:05 The people that have health problems, you know, they've just 08:07 been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, for instance. 08:09 We know that nutrition can reverse that. Right. 08:12 A person that has high blood pressure and wants to change it 08:14 with nutrition rather than medications. 08:17 Someone that has diagnoses of breast cancer 08:20 wants to lower their risk. 08:21 Or someone that's diagnosed with heart disease and wants to 08:24 reverse the disease or halt it. 08:26 Those people can change very quickly. 08:27 But what about the people that are, they feel like they're 08:31 healthy on the outside, but on the inside things are going on. 08:35 You know, these hidden diseases like high blood pressure, 08:38 fat in our diet, diabetes that we don't discover 08:41 till we get a symptom. 08:43 Then it's pretty much evolved. 08:44 Those are the people that sometimes it's harder, 08:46 and we have to find one thing. 08:48 But I found out, Nick, that when a person tries one thing, 08:51 they do it for a while, then the next time it's a lot easier. 08:55 In fact I work with a group of people, Nelson Campbell, 09:00 you know his dad wrote The China Study. Okay. 09:02 And he's developed some ten day jump starts. 09:06 And we've noticed that people that eat healthy just for ten 09:08 days, they feel so much better at the end of ten days that they 09:13 can't go back. Right. 09:14 And then when they eat bad they feel bad. 09:17 But most people it doesn't happen all at once. 09:20 It's a journey. Right. 09:22 And that's why the spiritual life is so important. 09:24 You know, having God in your life giving you the power 09:26 to make changes and see what truth is. 09:29 I have some people that honestly believe that these packaged 09:32 foods, and some of this stuff that we're actually eating 09:34 today, that they have to have it. Right. 09:37 But we've learned from watching people, that when people eat 09:41 healthy foods like fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains, herbs, 09:44 the things that come from the earth that God gave us, 09:47 they actually do better. 09:48 And not only do they do better, but they feel better. Right. 09:52 So we're going to talk about... 09:53 Yeah, I was going to say, Let's talk about nuts and seeds. 09:55 We've got some walnuts here and some almonds. 09:57 What are these good for? 09:59 Well, why don't you tell me? 10:01 Why don't you eat one of those? 10:02 You know, you want to try one of those almonds there? 10:04 Yes, it's pretty crunchy. 10:06 Yeah, it's a little crunchy there. 10:07 You could eat a little almond there. 10:09 Well, I'm just going to give you some data, okay? 10:12 And then you can decide if this is data that's very helpful. 10:15 Well, almonds and walnuts, and different nuts, 10:18 it's like these are loaded; a lot of nutrients 10:22 in a very tiny package, so they're nutrient dense, okay? 10:26 And they have lots of a substance called Omega 3 fatty 10:30 acids that are healthy fats. Uh huh. 10:32 In fact a lot of your brain is made of fat. 10:34 Did you know that? I didn't know. 10:36 So if I call you a fat head that's actually... 10:39 I'll take that as a compliment. Exactly. 10:40 But, no, it's not being mean, because we want fats in the 10:43 brain, the healthy fats that is, not the processed fats, okay? 10:47 And remember, the processed fats are the fats that get 10:51 hydrogenated, you know, that we start processing them. 10:54 We heat them up and they do some bad things in the body. 10:57 But let me... I just wrote down some of the studies that have 10:59 been done on nuts and the good things it can do. Okay. 11:03 Back in 2001 Frazier, in the Archives of Internal Medicine 11:07 showed that by eating 1/4 cup of nuts each day you could extend 11:11 your life by two years. That's incredible! 11:15 1/4 cup of nuts, okay? 11:16 In the New England Journal there's a study that they 11:19 studied lots of people called the Prediment Study; 11:22 a big study, and it shows that people that ate a lot of nuts 11:27 as much as 1/2 a cup a day, they lowered their risk 11:31 of stroke tremendously: as much as one half. Wow! 11:35 So it's by eating nuts. 11:36 Okay, you know. It helps... 11:38 50% reduction? Yes, of the chance of having a stroke 11:40 just by eating regular nuts every day. That's incredible. 11:44 I had a patient that came to me not too long ago 11:47 that had high cholesterol. 11:49 And they were interested in lowering their cholesterol. 11:52 Now they didn't have a lot of other problems. 11:54 They just wanted to lower their cholesterol. 11:55 They wanted to try it off of stat. Sure. 11:58 So I said, Well, there's a study out there that showed 12:00 Brazil nuts, if you ate 8 to 10 Brazil nuts a day, 12:04 that lowered your cholesterol as much as a statin medication. 12:07 You know, you've heard all of the statins: Zocor, 12:10 Crestor, Lipitor, Pravachol. 12:13 And I use those in appropriate situations. 12:15 But I said, Well, you know, you're in a low risk group. 12:17 Let's give it a try. 12:19 And sure enough, they ate 8 to 10 Brazil nuts a day 12:21 and their cholesterol came down to within the limits we wanted 12:25 based on their risk. 12:26 I bet they were pretty thrilled about that, too. 12:27 They were, they were. 12:29 But nuts do things better than that as well. 12:32 So it also... walnuts have been shown to lower 12:36 the risk of cancer by as much as 50%. 12:40 A Harvard study that was done that showed that when we eat 12:43 nuts we have less obesity. 12:46 It seems... Nuts seem to boot your metabolism, speed up the 12:50 rate which we burn off calories. 12:52 So you want to lose weight, eat some nuts every day. 12:55 It seems a little bit counter intuitive because nuts generally 12:59 are high fat food, but yet they speed up the metabolism so they 13:03 can benefit weight loss? 13:04 They balance themselves out. 13:06 I imagine there's some balance there though, 13:08 because if you eat too many nuts... 13:10 You don't want to eat tons of nuts. Okay. 13:12 But you want, you know, about a handful. 13:14 You know, a cup to a quarter cup a day. Yeah. 13:17 The Harvard Nurse's study, they looked at a bunch of nurses, 13:20 and they showed that a person that ate just two handfuls 13:23 of nuts a week, two hands full of nuts a week, they can extend 13:28 their lives, live longer as those people that run 13:31 four hours a week. Wow! 13:33 So a hand full of nuts two times a week, 13:36 or run four hours a week. 13:37 Now we want you to do both. 13:38 Both would be even better, right? 13:40 But this study was quite, quite interesting. 13:43 Another thing that it seems is it seems to improve absorption 13:47 of other nutrients when you eat nuts. Really? 13:50 So it does something within the bowel itself, 13:52 probably with the good in bowel flora. 13:55 It probably changes the chemistry of those 13:57 trillion bacteria in the gut, so we can absorb nutrients better 14:01 when we have nuts in our diet. 14:02 So these are just a few things that are out there, 14:06 Nick, that help us know. 14:08 The studies, science again proves that what God has given 14:11 us not only helps prevent disease, but treats things like 14:15 obesity, helps us lose weight, it helps our brain work 14:20 better by the Omega 3's fatty acids. 14:23 It lowers the risk of cancer, lowers the risk of all sorts 14:26 of things, and helps us live longer by mechanisms we might 14:30 not even be able to explain at this point. 14:33 Sounds like there's a lot of significant attributes of eating 14:35 nuts; including those into your diet. 14:37 I'm going to have to do more of that. 14:38 Yeah, I think so. So I hope that I convince you that we should 14:42 have nuts as a way to treat and prevent disease. 14:45 You know, Brazil nuts. 14:47 It does many good things to help our bodies. 14:49 Alright. Well, there's lots more to come here on the 14:51 Ultimate Prescription where we talk about food as medicine. 14:54 But we're going to take a short break, so stay with us. |
Revised 2017-03-30