How Your Diet Today Could Shape Your Health for Decades with Dr. Michael Goran

Mark Hyman, MD

Dr. Mark Hyman is leading a health revolution—one focused on using food as medicine to support longevity, energy, mental clarity, happiness, and so much more. Mark Hyman, MD is a practicing family physician and an internationally recognized leader, speaker, educator, and advocate in the field of Functional Medicine. He is the founder and director of The UltraWellness Center, Founder and Senior Advisor for the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine, a sixteen-time New York Times best-selling author, and Board President for Clinical Affairs for The Institute for Functional Medicine. He is the founder and chairman of the Food Fix Campaign, dedicated to transforming our food and agriculture system through policy.

He is a co-founder and the Chief Medical Officer of Function Health. He is the host of one of the leading health podcasts, The Dr. Hyman Show with 150+ million downloads. Dr. Hyman is a regular medical contributor to several television shows and networks, including CBS This Morning, Today, Good Morning America, The View, Fox, and CNN.

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Full Transcript

Automatically generated. Please forgive any typos or errors in the following transcript. It was generated by a third party and has not been subsequently reviewed by our team.

Michael Goran
Developing body, developing brain is dependent on proper nutrition to to help it develop and build successfully. And so we're talking about in utero, early development. These things are also affected by processed foods. So we tend to think of ultra processed foods as it causes you to eat too much, you gain weight, and you get obesity and diabetes and all the rest. It's deeper than that because something about ultra processed food is also affecting the developmental process.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Welcome to the podcast, Michael. It's great to have you. I've been a follower of your work for a long time, so I'm really happy to have the chance to jump in and and talk about something we both are passionate about, which is the shitty state of our food system and what it's doing to us and our children.

Michael Goran
Thanks for having me on the show, Mark. It's it's really great to see you and look forward to our healthy discussion about this... The the shitty state of of food and what we can do to make it better for our kids.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Well, thank you. And and, you know, you're you're... You've obviously been a huge pioneer in our understanding of ultra processed food, of the sorry state of our food system, its impact on our kids, on adults, on... So whole spectrum of things that we really should be paying attention to.

And I think I'm sort of curious to start out this conversation because right now there's there's... It was sort of a big effort to define ultra processed foods which has been a lot of the focus of your work. And the FDA had put together a white paper given to the White House, and it sort of stuck there. And I thought just sort of your perspective on one, how much you are aware of what's in that and and whether or not we're on the right track. And two, you know, what your perspective is on on how do we move forward if if the White House is sort of stuck in this place and how how do we sort of get this moving forward?

Because the food industry is so powerful in in opposing any kind of definition or any kind of clarification of what is or is not ultra processed food because if if it's defined a certain way, it has huge implications for them. So I just love maybe to start out at that high level. I'd love your thoughts about that just at the head of the conversation.

Michael Goran
I'm not involved in any way with the federal process for defining ultra processed foods, so I have no idea other than what I'm reading in the news and blogs about what... Where that's up to and where it's stuck. I think that in my discussions and interactions, I think there obviously is a huge industry opposition. And I think that... I think that getting bogged down in the definition kinda just detracts from the main issues of what it is about out processed foods specifically that is affecting health.

I think we need it for, obviously, for broader policies like labeling, which I think we need for food labeling. But I I think we've worked out... Other groups have worked out decent definitions that that kind of give some exceptions to the Nova four definitions most broadly used in research. So clearly, there are some Nova four defined ultra processed foods that are healthy, but there's not that many of them. And I think it should be pretty straightforward to overcome, but there's a lot of noise about it.

And I think that's I think that's unfortunate.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. I I think you're right. I think just for those listening, Nova classification was a system developed in Brazil from a scientist there to try to define what is ultra processed food. It was more around classifications for unprocessed, minimally processed, so forth. And the ultra process is basically defined as as industrial ingredients that are quite different chemically and structurally from their original forms that are, you know, found not found in our typical cooking or kitchens.

Right? So I think I think, you know, in your work you you've studied these foods and and they have tremendous health consequences for our bodies, for our brains, for kids, and developmental processes they go through. And your your research has has sort of uncovered and reinforced what we all believe and what we all see, is that America's getting sicker and fatter and has more chronic illness and our kids are getting sicker and have more issues around obesity and diabetes in many kids and mental health issues and so many things that are affected by the food we're eating. And, you know, it is to me, it's one of the central issues of our time. Like our food system and the food we're producing, the food we're consuming is driving so much of what's wrong with the world and in the way we do it all.

And I and I wrote a book about it called Food Fix, is really kind of underscoring the the ways pervasive problem. And I think we used to call it junk food, you know. I always say there's no such thing as junk food, there's junk and there's food. It's not actually food. And by by the technical definition of food, ultra processed food actually isn't food.

It's that's not something that supports the health and and and development and nourishment of an organism. Right? It's just actually not food. Even though we eat it. It's it's technically not food.

So when when you sort of looking at this sort of connections, tell us about your your your understanding of about the the role that these foods play in our chronic disease epidemic of diabetes, obesity, heart disease, you know, cancers, dementias, depression, fertility, and a whole range of things that that we see.

Michael Goran
Yeah. Well, I mean, we did the when we did the report to... For this... To support the scientific foundations for dietary guidelines, I was asked to review the literature on how ultra processed foods... In the report, we called it highly processed foods because we didn't have a definition, but really all of the research that's in the literature is dealing with ultra processed foods.

I mean, what surprised me was the breadth and consistency of the effects. So what we did was we reviewed, like, dozens of meta analysis. So the listeners of meta analysis is a study that reviews multiple studies. So we're not, like, just cherry picking individual studies. But even in dozens of of meta analysis, the findings are pretty consistent that ultra processed foods affects almost every health outcome that that is that is that is looked at, including in children.

This is obesity, type two diabetes, or overall mortality. And let's not forget the effects on the brain and mental health. I mean, these are all also quite dominant effects at both ends of the age spectrum. So in kids, we have studies that show that how to process foods affects executive function, brain development, learning. And at the other end of the spectrum, have cognitive decline, Alzheimer's.

All those outcomes have been shown to be significantly impacted by a diet that's high in ultra processed foods.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So it's not just weight and, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, you're talking about mental health and you're talking about dementia, which are Yes. You know, things we don't typically think of as related to food, but they are. I think, you know, the the the magnitude of the effects is is quite great. I mean, even, you know, some of your data showed that, like, for every 10% increase in ultra processed food, your your risk of diabetes went up ten percent. And that's that's not trivial.

Michael Goran
I mean, there's significant dose responses in in these effects. And I think those are those are meaningful and useful and practical. I mean, that means if you can just cut back your ultra processed foods by 1010% of your calories, you can have a meaningful impact on reducing risk of type two diabetes and presumably other outcomes as well.

Dr. Mark Hyman
My my view is we shouldn't be eating any of it.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
But Yeah. I'm a... I'm kind of an extremist when it comes to that perspective. I think people should only be eating food. And I think that was one of the messages of the dietary guidelines that you were an adviser on, which was eat real food.

I mean, it's a simple Yeah. Message, but it's never been... It was never said before by the government, was a huge step. And I think, it it really threatened a lot of the the food industries in terms of how they they think about, you know, coming at this. And I I know there's a there's a war room that was put together by the Consumer Brand Association, which represents all the grocery stores and all the food manufacturers.

And they they they have a very coherent, you know, strategy on on opposing this, You know, almost like a tactical war room of a of a military to how to combat this at every level, you know, from the news to policy to, you know, local organizations to really any any potential target for for manipulating controlling the narrative, they're gonna use. And it's not it's not that they're just, oh shoot, you know, we're making these foods and we really know they're bad and like maybe let's try to fix it. They're like, they they wanna keep things as they are. And then it's... In in many ways, I think, you know, I I would like to see the the the the...

Know, like we have with tobacco, like an expose, and and I know there's a lot of groups out there that are that are looking at legal action. And not just to sort of get a settlement, but actually do discovery and actually look at what they're doing. Because it's it's if the public knew about it, it would be it would be shocking, know. And I've seen enough and I don't... I'm I'm curious about what you've seen, but I you know, I I'm clearly putting a target on my back by saying these things, but somebody has to talk about it because this is not this is a this is a crisis affecting every American in some way or another through some illness that they have or their family has or some way these foods are affecting them or, you know, and all the downstream consequence of these foods.

So it's it's... To me, it's the central problem of our time.

Michael Goran
Absolutely. And I I think what what's sometimes missed is that that process starts from come... From conception. So the the developing body, the developing brain is dependent on proper nutrition to keep it to to help it develop and build successfully. And so we're talking about in utero infancy, early development.

These things are also also affected by by by processed foods. So we tend to think of ultra processed foods as the kind of... The conventional thinking is it causes you to eat too much, you gain weight, and you get obesity and diabetes and all the rest of it. But it's it's much... It's deeper than that because something about ultra processed food is also affecting the developmental process of brain development.

And we've shown that now in our research, not from a causative perspective, but at least from an association angle. But what's interesting is that we we don't know what it is about the processing itself. It could be something as simple as that, for example, in children, children who are consuming a diet high in ultra processed foods are just missing key nutrients like choline and magnesium and fiber. It could be just they're missing a key ingredient, or there could be ingredients, preservatives, emulsifiers, which have been really completely understudied in how they're affecting the developing body.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. I think I think you you make a really important point there, which is that it's the presence of potentially harmful components that are in ultra processed foods, whether it's the the sort of pulverized, you know, deconstructed things that are highly absorbable and high glycemic foods, whether they're altered fats or altered protein structures that we we may not know. I remember hearing a nice researcher once talking about, you know, I I high hydrolyzed soy protein versus whole soybeans and food and how they had profoundly different effects in animal models on cancer risk even though it's soy, the way it was industry processed changed the the effect on the body because food is information. So it's it's the presence of those potentially harmful ingredients, but it's also the lack of protective ingredients. Right?

The right nutrients like vitamins, minerals, omega threes, choline, all these things that you're talking about that are so essential for neurodevelopment, for health, and overall health. And so it's a combo package, like bad stuff and not enough good stuff. And I think that's that's what we're seeing is is this sort of double whammy effect of this this diet.

Michael Goran
And the way to overcome it is not to argue about the definition. The way to overcome it is to help people everywhere and communities everywhere get access to real food and and real scratch cooked foods as opposed to processed foods. And even if we can shift the needle a little bit at a time, I think that will be significant.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I think I wanna sort of just sort of roll the history clock back a little bit and talk about how nutrition policy and how thinking and advice gets made. Because historically, it's about demonizing a nutrient or a category of macronutrient, fats bad or carbs are bad or... You know, sure. And and I I think saturated fat is bad. Whatever whatever the ways we we sort of label things in in our diet.

And we focus on macronutrients or calories or sugar or fat. But it seems like there's something beyond all that that that has to do with how these foods are produced and manufactured that are that are causing these differences in our biological systems that are causing harm to our microbiome and harm to our immune system and harm to our metabolic health or mitochondrial health to our brain health that are they're just beyond these sort of macronutrients. Because you can take macronutrients and have the same isocaloric macronutrient composition protein fat carbs calories fiber in you know, a whole food versus a ultra processed food. And they have profoundly different effects on the body even though they're exactly identical in terms of their macronutrient and and the the fiber composition. Right?

So that's the part I think is sort of interesting for people to to understand that it's not just about the the calories or the the fat protein or carbs. It's it's something else that's going on.

Michael Goran
Yeah. I think we've spent too much time kind of, as you say, demonizing individual nutrients or macronutrients and blaming this part of the diet or that part of the diet. But the reality is we're just not eating enough real food. So we need to get back to more scratch cooking and whole foods and less reliance on packaged foods. So that that that is the key message that I think we need to focus on, not identifying what what the nutrient of the of the of the moment is that may be harmful to health.

Dr. Mark Hyman
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Michael Goran
including

Dr. Mark Hyman
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Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Absolutely. So so when when you think about that ultra processed food and the components that you've you've studied, you've written about you know some of the the non caloric sweeteners and some of the preservatives and emulsifiers and how those affect for example like the microbiome. These are these are different order effects than just calorie effects or or sugar effects. There's something else going on with these foods that are that are a little bit kind of under the radar for most people.

They don't understand that these these things that you know, they don't really recognize on the label might be doing quite a bit of harm. And now we're beginning to understand what those harms are. So would you mind unpacking what your research has shown around these these sort of additional components that that are in these ultra processed food beyond just the macronutrients?

Michael Goran
I think the most work that 's been done has been on the sweeteners. I mean, we we'd we'd love... We're trying to do research on emulsifiers and preservatives and flavorings and all the other additives. But it's... You know, where do you begin?

It's a very difficult process to to to to actually rigorously study those, not just one at a time, but also in combination with each other because they're used in different combinations. So it's really complicated. But we do have the most information on on sweeteners, which some people use that as definition of processed foods. If it has some type of alternative sweetener in it, then that makes it ultra processed. And studies have shown again that at all stages of life that these products can be harmful.

They do... They're intended to cut calories, which they do, but studies have shown that individuals who are consuming sweeteners end up consuming more calories throughout the day because it, in a way, kind of tricks the body into feeling it has consumed calories and sugar when it hasn't, and you end up eating more calories. We also know that studies, for example, looking at consumption patterns in pregnant women who are consuming high amounts of diet sodas, diet beverages, their babies have a higher risk of developing obesity. I think that's really noticeable... Remarkable.

These compounds also affect microbiome development because they're designed to be not absorbed because we don't want the body to absorb them because we don't want the calories, which means that they get processed in the gut, meaning that they get metabolized and broken up by the gut microbiome, which not only changes the profile of the gut microbiome, but may produce other metabolites that are released by those microbes that affect the rest of the body. So there's multiple different stages at which, at least for sweeteners, are really affecting development, really affecting outcomes in in negative ways.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You mean the artificial sweeteners?

Michael Goran
Not just artificial sweeteners, but but also natural sweeteners like stevia and monk fruit. The body doesn't know that it was derived from nature as opposed to synthesized in a lab, and so these are still purified chemicals that are affecting the body and have to be handled in the body in different ways.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So no no free ride, whether it's monk fruit or whether it's aspartame is still potentially a problem. And I I think I think to double click on what you said, I just wanna make sure people understood it. You're saying that people

Dr. Mark Hyman
paradoxically will

Dr. Mark Hyman
consume non nutritive sweeteners like zero calorie drinks or sweeteners in their food with the hope that they're gonna reduce their calorie consumption. But when in fact, it actually increases their calorie consumption because they are left feeling hungrier because they're not getting what they... Their body's expecting to get. That's a that's a bummer. Right?

It's kind of like a little backfire. That's probably why we see an association with increasing obesity and diabetes in these people because there's something's going on. And it may not be that the actual sweetener itself that's making them gain weight or the non interest sweetener but it may be that the effects on their overall hormonal neurochemistry metabolic system that's driving these behaviors of over consumption and overeating and and and calorie intake when you eat a non calorie compound. And the microbiome, I'd love you to sort of double click on that a little bit more. Like, what is happening in the microbiome?

You say basically these these sweeteners are not going to get metabolized

Michael Goran
by

Dr. Mark Hyman
the microbiome. They're turned into metabolites that potentially have adverse effects. Can you unpack more of what what is actually going on there, and what do we know about this?

Michael Goran
Yeah. I mean, again, we know the most about the sweeteners, but the same could be true for emulsifiers which aren't absorbed or or preservatives which aren't absorbed. They impact the the the microbiome. So so bacteria that are living in our gut that are there for a reason, you have a profile that produces compounds that have effects in the rest of the body. If the gut is not absorbing, let's say, aspartame and it's building up in the gut, then it's going to be basically chewed up in the same way that fiber is chewed up by by gut microbes.

And that will affect the different types of bacteria that are evolving in the gut and what they're producing and how those products might have impacts on the rest of the body.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Has it been identified what those harmful compounds produced as metabolites by bacteria from consuming these non nutritious sweeteners so we know what those are and what they're doing?

Michael Goran
Not specifically. I mean, there... There's been some specific studies in animal models, but I don't... I think the I think the the clarity in the human studies is is is not as result.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. But it's doing something, and it's messing up our microbiome, and the net net is that it's having harmful effects on us, and it probably is driving more inflammation. I think the emulsifier data is also interesting. I've seen how that you know increases risk of allergy and autoimmunity that causes a leaky gut. So basically it disrupts the gut barrier which protects you from the inside of the contents of your colon which aren't very good and and your small intestine.

So that that leaky gut phenomenon drives systemic inflammation and that may be one of the ways that this also drives chronic disease because that's a that's a real clear mechanism. Anything that goes inflammation will drive chronic disease. So I think it's interesting to see how these things all connect.

Michael Goran
Right? And, again, emulsifiers are some evidence in... Not in children, but in rodent models of of emulsifiers leading to anxiety behaviors, for example, potentially against the microbiome changes.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I wanna I wanna kinda highlight one aspect of your research that I think people will find really interesting, which is that a lot of people assume that ultra processed food causes harm mostly because it caused you to eat more or maybe gain weight or get obesity or diabetes and that is true. However, your your... Some of your data show that independent of weight, and and change in weight that these foods have harmful effects on the body. Can you can you talk about your research around around this topic? Because it's kind of counterintuitive.

Right? How how does something have a bad effect on you if you're not changing your weight, but it but it seems to.

Michael Goran
Yeah. I I I think that... I mean, that's that's what our studies are showing. So we we we just published a paper, for example, a few months ago in children, six year old children. And I think we're looking at how how children...

You know, by six years of age, children are already consuming 60% of their calories from from ultra processed foods. And now it might not be affecting their weight at that age. And think if we just kind of... We're looking at some of the traditional outcomes like weight, you might say, well, there's no impact on on the outcomes. But I think that is going to be an outcome that happens later.

I think to really understand the mechanism, we have to look at development. And so what ours... What we've showed in our study was that children who consumed higher amounts of food from ultra processed foods had significant reductions in key areas of of of the subcortical brain area. Almost... It's a it's a small effect, 2% lower subcortical volume, but this is found in key regions of the brain that are developing and being built.

For example, the nucleus accumbens, which is controlling reward and motivation, the amygdala, which is control... Developing emotional regulation. These areas of the brain are not being developed in the same way. We don't know exactly what a smaller subcortical brain volume will do over time, but we need to look at some of these developmental effects because I think that's where that will be setting the children up for longer term outcomes like what you just mentioned. But I think...

And that's that's that's what we need to be looking at is some of the early developmental effects. Because if we're looking at obesity or diabetes, it's too late. That might not happen for another twenty or thirty years as an outcome.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. You know, Michael, I'm sure you're you're probably more or

Michael Goran
less around my age, somewhere in your sixties, I'm guessing, and... Or maybe

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yep. Maybe somewhere in there.

Michael Goran
Let let... Let's let's just say I just got the... I'm getting all the peep... The the mailings from Medicare and asking me to sign up.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Robert Lustig, who you work with with Eat Real, who's a good friend of both of ours, you know, he he talks about how there's like, I don't know, 600,000 new products on the market since the last forty or fifty years that are all these industrial food products. I'm I'm quite concerned about that, and I think your your research is important because it highlights this but I don't know if pediatricians are are are paying attention to this or who's actually like focusing on this because it seems to me this is a a generational problem. We're raising a whole generation of kids.

Michael Goran
Absolutely.

Dr. Mark Hyman
We're gonna live sicker and and die younger than their parents. And and who are gonna have more challenges than we've ever seen. So it is it is quite quite concerning to me. I think that you didn't notice about what these studies was a change in cognitive performance. So I'm wondering what that was about.

If you think, you know, maybe it took... Takes longer to show up, or why why didn't you see changes in in the actual cognitive performance?

Michael Goran
Yeah. I mean, that's kind of an interesting finding. In our study, I think that it shows that structure may precede function, that we're having structural effects in the brain that may later have functional outcomes. There's... Our kids in our study were six years of age.

There are other studies in children who are older. I mean, there's there's even a meta analysis that reviews dozens of studies in children that does show significant effects of ultra processed foods on executive function, memory, learning, emotional regulation. So we know the effects are there. I think in our study, we might just have caught them. Those those outcomes might not yet have have developed.

So it kind of points to this... To the developmental process that we need to think about how ultra processed foods are affecting the building of key organs like the brain and the microbiome and the pancreas. That building of those organs is all going to be impacted, and then we'll see structural differences that may precede functional outcomes, like emotional regulation, like insulin production in the pancreas, and eventually excess eating obesity. So it's... It it it...

It's a progressive thing that starts very early starting probably with structural development of key organs.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. And I I think that's right. It's like how to... How how we develop as kids is sermon so much about what our life is. And I think, you know, I I remember sitting and listening to someone who worked with Save the Children, and they were talking about how they went into Appalachia, and they went into a home and, you know, they saw this sort of apathy of little children, and they they were encouraging the parents to play with the kids and play ball with them and then get them like thinking, yeah, that's great.

And if these kids brains are malnourished, how are they going to even engage? Like if they don't have omega threes or b vitamins or magnesium or zinc or maybe microbiome isn't healthy because they're eating all this ultra processed food and that's affecting their cognition and mood. How how are they gonna, you know, even you know function and and and maybe they're focusing on the wrong target. It's not just about engaging these kids in more stimulating activities. It's actually taking care of their brains.

And and I think that's something people don't don't often make make the connection with. I I I wanna kinda ask

Michael Goran
you

Dr. Mark Hyman
speaking about the brain. Tell us more about your research into the ways in which these ultra processed foods affect mood disorders like depression and also the cognitive function as we get older and dementia. Like, how how much do we know about this? And what what does the data show?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. I mean,

Michael Goran
again, the data is pretty clear from report that we wrote. There's evidence to show that consumption of ultra processed foods is associated with cognitive disorders and Alzheimer's cognitive decline. Again, this is this is not single cherry picking studies. These are meta analysis that show that. And so we we we do know that consumption of highly processed foods is affecting the brain at both ends of the spectrum, probably in different ways.

I think that's important to to recognize as well.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I mean, I think your your data is compelling because it's not... Like you said, a meta analysis is a study of studies and you've combined the study of study of studies. And so, you you know, you're looking at over 66,000,000 participants in all these various studies and you're looking at the trend lines and what happens when people consume more of these foods. And what you're seeing is just as consistent drumbeat of these things are bad for us and they're causing harm across the spectrum of our lives and across a whole array of illnesses that that are are the modern diseases of chronic illness. And and that that doesn't include diabetes and heart disease and obesity, but also includes things like mental health, our mental health crisis, our our our increasing rates of Alzheimer's and dementia.

So these these are these are, you know, for me that it's almost like a... It's like, you know, I can't I can't end, you know, I can't end wars. I can't create Middle East peace. This is a solvable problem. Like this is not rocket science.

We we have so much data. We have so much knowledge. And yet unfortunately, like the the powers that be are are aren't allowing these things to happen. And I I was very disappointed that that you know, the White House did not release this definition. However, imperfect it may have been to just at least start to to have the conversation about how do we start to create coherent policies to protect our citizens, to protect our children.

I mean, I I have a friend who's a pediatrician Harvey Carpenter, he says if a foreign country we're doing to our kids, what we're doing, we'd go to war to protect them. If Russia or China were doing this to our kids, it would be World War three. But we're doing it to our own kids and and we're... Nobody's really paying attention as far as I can see in in any real way. I think it's...

We're starting to, but it's it's tough.

Michael Goran
But you know what's also interesting is that... I mean, despite the fact that we don't have that that definition yet of highly processed foods, one of the things that surprised me when we wrote all these reports was we're seeing almost the same effects. If you just look at sugary beverage consumption and we know what the definition of that is pretty much, we see very similar effects. Just... If you just look at...

Again, look at all the meta analysis that have been done looking at sugary beverage consumption and health outcomes in children or in adults, you see a very similar pattern. And so if you were to ask me what's the one thing we could change, I mean, that that is one simple thing that would have huge impact on health outcomes. And it doesn't get bogged down in a in a difficult definition. It's it's sugar sweetened beverages.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I remember being in its White House, Preventive Health Task Force. I was at the White House, and it was all these academic scientists, folks like Walter Willett and and many of, you know, your colleagues and and mine. I remember Walter Willett saying this. It was so clear. He said, the single biggest thing that tracks against obesity is sugar sweetened beverages.

And the second thing is watching hours of television watched.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Now it's probably... That was before,

Dr. Mark Hyman
you know, we had so much social media. This was even, you know, decades ago. But when you look at the data, it is really compelling that that somehow liquid sugar calories are different than other sugar calories or other calories in in general. So can you explain why these liquid sugar calories seem to be the the big boogeyman here and why they're so consistently showing this. I mean, one twelve ounce soda increases your risk of diabetes according to your data by twenty three percent, which is a lot.

Michael Goran
Yeah. So it's not just obesity. It's type two diabetes, fatty liver disease, also the mental health outcomes like depression and cognitive disorders. And I think... And and fatty liver disease too.

And I think it's... If you think about it metabolically, it's not just a lot of sugar. In fact, our our our meta analysis reviews of added sugars weren't as damning for added sugars. They were clearly damning for liquid sugar. And that's because it's a bolus.

It's like a bolus infusion into your body. It's it's because you... We consume it very quickly and it's rapidly absorbed. And it's to do with how that rapid absorption of sugars is metabolized and handled by the body. And when there's rapid bolus absorption, it goes

Dr. Mark Hyman
to the liver

Michael Goran
more readily, and it's metabolized by the liver, converted into fat producing inflammatory molecules as byproducts. That fat is stored in the liver. You get into fatty liver disease or the... Or that fat is exported from the liver as lipids, and then you get high lipids, dyslipidemia, and that's where you get into the cardiovascular disease as well. And so I think it's...

It... It's clearly to do with the rapid bolus absorption and metabolism of liquid sugars being very different from when you eat an apple, which still has sugar. It still has bad sugars. It's got fructose, but there's less of it. It's slowly absorbed because of the fiber and has less damaging effects.

So that rate of consumption and that rate of absorption has very different impact in the body and that's that's why liquid sugar is so harmful for the body.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I mean, I get the the apple analogy. What about cake or cookies? Like, it it... It's worse than cake or cookies according to the data.

Michael Goran
Right? Well, there there tends to be more sugar there and less fiber, so it is more rapidly absorbed. But you can control that. You can make a cookie with less sugar and and still have it be very tasty and delicious. Maybe even more tasty with less sugar, you can argue.

But, yeah, it's it's it's still there, but we don't see as much of an effect from the studies. That would be an added sugar. That the evidence is much clearer from liquid sugar than it is for added sugar.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. I think if people listening could do one thing in their life that would make a massive difference is just stop drinking liquid sugar calories, whether it's a tea, a sweetened tea, or juice, or obviously soda, or coffee, sweetened coffees that you get at all these you know Starbucks and place like that. They're they're more sugar than even the cans of soda. That's probably the single thing biggest thing you can do is is cut out liquid sugar calories for your health. And I I agree with you on that one.

I think the data is so compelling, and it it is quite different than just food based calories.

Michael Goran
So And if you if you don't wanna... If you can't cut it out immediately, you could start by just diluting it because that that dilution

Dr. Mark Hyman
I don't know. I don't mixing your can of Coke with a can of... A glass of water

Dr. Mark Hyman
is

Michael Goran
Oh, you could mix it with mix it mix it with sparkling water. But, you know, you could you could do... You you could you could apply that dilution to to juices.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I do that. I do. I take pomegranate juice and I put sparkling water, it's quite good.

Michael Goran
Yeah. It's the same thing. Right? That's that's dilution. Yeah.

So you could you could take... Like, I sometimes will take a kombucha and just, you know, put a splash of it in sparkling water just to get the taste.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Alright. Well, I wanna change gears a little bit and talk about how early chronic disease risk begins. Because a lot of your work has been focused on nutrition during pregnancy, infancy, childhood, and you know, in in some ways your your health journey begins the moment of conception. And and during the whole developmental process, you know, your your health isn't just determined by whatever you do once you're born. It's...

Or what happens to once you're born. It's also what your mother consumed. And I don't think people recognize this very well. And I think, you know, I I think I'd love you to sort of unpack a little of your your work around how how these early, you know, neonatal sort of... And and prenatal things actually cause cause harm.

Michael Goran
Yeah. And this goes back to what we call developmental origins for health and disease or or DOAD, and there's very clear evidence from animal studies and also from cohort studies that follow pregnant women through pregnancy and then follow the the the baby through life to to to draw associations between what the mother consumed or was exposed to and the health outcomes of of the child. And I think there's pretty clear evidence on this now that there are these developmental exposures, whether that's chemical exposures, air pollution exposure. We've done the most work with nutrition, which is an interesting exposure because it's it's an essential exposure, and it's a recurrent exposure. Like, we all have to eat at all stages of of life.

So I I... I'd say that nutrition is a developmental exposure that's essential. So... And those those nutrients can have impact. I mentioned already the many studies looking at sugar and non sugar sweetener consumption during pregnancy has multiple effects on the developing child, whether that's increased risk for obesity or even increased risk for learning disabilities as well.

There's there's pretty good evidence of that too that maternal consumption of sugar and sweeteners is associated with significantly reduced developmental learning abilities in the child starting as young as four, five, six years of age.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's remarkable. I mean, know, mother's consumption of, let's say, sodas or diet sodas actually will have this impact. I I think the the question is, you know, do we understand the mechanisms by which this is happening in utero? Is it really... Is it sort of metabolic changes?

Is it epigenetic programming that happens? What what... What's actually causing these durable effects? Because I've seen the data that show, you know, your exposures of what your mother did in pregnancy will impact your risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, like later in life. So how how did that all work?

Michael Goran
You know, it's really hard to figure out the exact mechanism, especially from human studies. Right? Because you you have to do the study and collect samples of tissues at various stages of development, measure the epigenetic changes, and and we don't have a clear mechanism from the epigenetic standpoint, at least not from human studies that I'm aware of. Some of the leading candidates, we are doing a study with collaborators right now at George Washington University. It's a it's a trial in pregnant women who are being randomized.

We're we're recruiting... Again, hard to do. You'd have to recruit a pregnant woman and have have them consume sweeteners, aka a harmful product, which is not really ethical now because we know it may have a harmful effect. So we recruit women who have a habit... Who are habitual consumers of the sweeteners.

We do the opposite, and we reduce consumption through behavioral training and providing them with alternatives. And then we're, you know, tracking the child looking at different outcomes. One of the leading mechanisms there would be microbiome changes, which we are looking at in that particular study. Another mechanism is glucose regulation of of the mother that then gets kind of translated down to the infant. So the short answer is we don't really know the mechanism, but there's studies underway to to to try and and figure it out.

But doing so in humans is very challenging.

Dr. Mark Hyman
It is. I I understand that, you know, it's hard to control things in humans. Free living humans are hard to control. You need to put them in a lab and lock them down, which is what most people don't wanna have

Michael Goran
done to them. A lot of what we're talking about is evidence from association studies. But that... And and a lot of people will criticize that and say, well, where is the causation? It's just correlation.

It's just association. But you just can't do the studies. Right? I can't do a thirty year randomized trial controlling everything except for one nutritional factor and and study its effect over thirty, forty, fifty years. Right?

That... That's the study you would have to do. So it's it's an impossible bar to reach, and that's why we are left just looking at association or correlation studies because the alternative is just not feasible.

Dr. Mark Hyman
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Dr. Mark Hyman
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Dr. Mark Hyman
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Buncharge also offers free shipping on every red light face mask and a twelve month warranty, and the mask is HSA and FSA eligible for up to 30% savings. Get yours today. But when you add those all up together and you look at the Yeah. The weight of the evidence over dozens and dozens and dozens of studies over many decades, All of them point to the same thing. You know, the orders of magnitude might be different.

The methodologies might be different. The number of participants might be different, but the trend lines are all the same. Like, these things don't seem to be good for you and in fact, are actively harmful.

Michael Goran
So that's the sum of the evidence that it's consistent and systematically pointing in the same direction.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And we saw that with smoking too. I mean, there was no randomized controlled trial that tobacco smoke was bad for you. It was done through observational trials. Know, and the way of the evidence just was so great that the people who smoke had more lung cancer and had more heart disease. I mean, it was sort of you know incontrovertible.

You couldn't do an ethically designed study to determine that. But you know, when you look at the the the effects on the population, it was really clear. And I think you know, anybody who's out in the trenches seeing people who consume these foods, you see what happens.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I I wanna I wanna

Dr. Mark Hyman
talk about babies. Because you're a lot of your workers focus on on not just not just you know what happens in utero and the developmental effects of these foods and chronic disease but like formula. And for most people don't know and formula in America is mostly has been really locked down and there was a recent effort by the latest administration called Operation Stork Speed. I don't if you're involved in that.

Michael Goran
I was actually. Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. So I remember a friend of mine David Ludwig sent me a study which was on infant formula showing that most American formulas had the equivalent of like a soda or Coca Cola or so a day for babies in terms of amount of sugar they were getting, which is astounding. And I shared that with in, with the administration and I... And they were like, oh. And so they started this whole effort and I think you know you've been involved with that.

I'd love to sort of hear your thoughts. But you've done a lot of work on the difference in lactose based sugars which is what is in milk.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And lactose like

Dr. Mark Hyman
glucose, sucrose, lactose is a sugar, milk sugar versus corn syrup solids or corn sugars which is in what's most American formulas. Now in some form is in they're changing that. There are lactose based formulas from Europe. There some are American companies are starting to do this. But, you know, it's been a pretty locked down industry and we haven't even mainly import European formulas to America because it was a ban on that.

Because of the the formula industry. That's how, you know, it kinda crazy it is. We couldn't even buy healthier stuff if we wanted to for our babies because the government said we couldn't. So can you can you talk about this whole phenomenon of the differences in formulas? What these impacts have on on babies and kids?

And how it affects their health and metabolism, and and what we know about that and and other things such as, you know, the microbiome and and and then that affects as well.

Michael Goran
Yeah. I mean, so you're absolutely right. So most most formula... The majority of formula sold in The US is made with corn syrup solids as the sugar and not lactose. And just to be clear, lactose is two sugars joined together.

It's a molecule of glucose connected to a molecule of galactose. That's milk sugar, what we call a disaccharide. But most formula is made with corn syrup solids. Corn syrup is purely glucose, so there's no galactose. It's pure glucose.

It has a much higher glycemic index than breast milk and the lactose formula. So we started looking at this because we noticed in our study that a significant number of the babies that we were following were consuming these corn syrup formula. So we started asking how they were being affected. And so one of the first studies we looked at was just microbiome development significantly altered by six months of age. We're looking at later effects now.

We saw effects on eating behaviors and eating development. And then we went to to WIC, women's infants and children. They studied... You know, WIC WIC is a federal program that provides formula to low income mothers. And WIC is a, you know, huge government contracts that buy formula for different companies, including corn syrup formulas.

So we were able to look in thousands of of children in California based on which formula those mothers elected to to be provided with. And, again, about half those mothers elected to go with the corn syrup formula and half went with the lactose. And what we saw was that that by two years of age, three years of age, and four years of age, those babies who were consuming the corn syrup formula became more obese by three or four years of age. So that was a paper that we published a couple of years ago in a very large sample across all of California. And then we asked the question, well, if these babies are consuming corn syrup formula with a much higher glycemic index, surely their blood glucose must be dysregulated.

But to prove that, we had to do a study. So we recruited babies at six months of age, and we put glucose monitors on those babies. And some of those babies were being breastfed. Some of those babies were getting traditional formula with lactose, and some of them were getting the corn syrup formula. And so we published this paper earlier this year.

And the babies that were being breastfed, their blood glucose levels rock solid. You you would love to have that level of blood sugar regulation and very similar with the lactose formula. But if you... If I was to show you the glucose profile, the CGM output from the babies on the corn syrup formula, you would you would probably think I was showing you some... An adult with type two diabetes, an adult with a with with a shocking diet.

Their blood glucose levels were up and down all day long, really, really dysregulated. And so that was very significant. But but more interestingly as well, not all babies on the corn syrup formula had that. Only a subset, about half of the babies somehow were able to regulate their blood sugars. But half the babies on the corn syrup had that very dysregulated up and down all day long.

So it tells us that blood sugar regulation is much more tightly regulated with breast milk or with lactose formula. On corn syrup formula, there's some babies who for some reason are able to regulate, but from... For the others, hugely dysregulated blood sugars. And who know... We don't know what that's going to do long term to the baby.

That's another study we need to do, but it's not a great start to life.

Dr. Mark Hyman
We know that when your glucose goes up, your insulin goes up, and you're not measuring that because you don't have a continuous insulin monitor. Yeah. But surely that's having an effect. And we know

Michael Goran
that

Dr. Mark Hyman
prolonged hyperinsulinemia or elevated levels of insulin are are preceding almost all chronic disease and are are as causative. Whether it's heart disease, whether it's cancer, many cancers, whether it's dementia, whether it's, even depression, obviously diabetes, obesity. So this is a huge is a huge finding. I think it seems seems like probably in the formula world about half of the formulas in America consumed are the corn syrup solids. Is that is that right?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. That's more than half.

Dr. Mark Hyman
But only about 30 are lactose formulas? Or how how much are lactose formulas?

Michael Goran
It's about 55 to 60% corn formula and 45 ish lactose.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So from your work, it almost seems like those formulas should be regulated and actually, in my view, banned. If they are causing these these massive changes in metabolic effects on kids and glucose spikes that resemble someone who's basically, you know, got diabetes. There seem to be, like, a case for regulating these things. Don't you think?

Michael Goran
That's... Well, that's so... That's what I told the FDA. So I was I was part of operation Stork Speed. We had a we had a meeting with the FDA.

We wrote a series of papers that were published. We looked at all different types... Well, different aspects of formula that I wasn't involved with. I was focused on this issue. And the reason this came to be was because in the nineteen eighties, this was the last time the government issued regulations on what formula composition should be.

And in nineteen eighties, they said that there has to be a certain amount of carbohydrate in formula, but they did not specify what that carbohydrate should be. It had... There was no... It it it was not like a specific amount of lactose. It was just carbohydrate.

As long as it's grass... A grass approved carbohydrate, you can use it in formula. And so formula companies started using corn syrup solids because it's a cheaper ingredient. It dissolves better. It's easier to to to work within the factory, And they marketed it as gut healthy because it's gentle.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Gut healthy.

Michael Goran
Yeah. It was kind of ironic. Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's crazy because you're you're feeding all the bad bugs with those extra sugars and probably creating worse dysbiosis or gut imbalances in these kids who have these, you know, corn based sugars in their formula.

Michael Goran
Well, they did that because they made the case that babies who were having digestive issues on formula did so because they had lactose intolerance, which does not... That's that's how they marketed it for babies with lactose intolerance, which is nonexistent in the vast majority of Right. Of babies. And so it's a... That's that's really, you know, doubly ironic because lactose intolerance doesn't exist, and it's not good for the gut.

It's bad for the gut. Oh, wow. Anyway, the... These last week, saw that Operation Stork Speed was last June, so that's almost eighteen months ago. They did announce, I think, either this week or last week, a number of key changes in regards to micronutrients.

There's not been an announcement yet about the carbohydrate composition. Certainly, countries have recognized this. The EU has very specific regulations on on this as do other parts of the world. So we're still waiting for the rest of those guidelines. So I'm very anxiously waiting to see what they do with that.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I bet. I mean, in the EU, you're saying they don't allow corn syrup solids? They they only allow lactose, or what what what is the regulation over there?

Michael Goran
They do allow it, but only up to a certain amount of... A much lower amount. So... And that's what that's what I think. Well, I think it should be banned altogether, but we ought to be able to have a lactose requirement for formula that simulates what's in breast milk.

Right? I mean, that's Mhmm. What formula is supposed to be doing. It's supposed to be simulating breast milk, which is lactose. So we ought to have a a a lactose content requirement for for formula.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So so you're seeing these continuous glucose monitors show these spikes in sugar in people and these babies having these corn syrup solids as the sugar or carbohydrate in their formula. Are you are you also seeing that the... These kids have over time worsening metabolic effects on their health as a result of this? In other words, has there been studies that show that, you know, kids who have these corn syrup solid formulas tend to be more obese and more diabetic and have more health issues than kids who are fed lactose based formulas?

Michael Goran
We're doing some analysis now on that. Again, now we can't... I wouldn't wanna do a trial. Like, I can't do a trial recruit babies and put them on corn syrup for him and see what happens. That would not be ethical.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Even though you can buy it in the

Dr. Mark Hyman
grocery store.

Michael Goran
We're doing follow-up studies. We have a cohort of babies we've been following. We know exactly what they were consuming in early life, and now we're looking at some outcomes at six years of age. It may... Again, it may take longer to develop.

I don't know. But we... Interesting. We don't have the data yet. We're analyzing it.

At six years of age, we have glucose monitoring in those kids, and we're we're going... We're looking at how their glucose regulation at six years of age is affected by which type of formula they were on in earlier life. That's that's some of the analysis we're currently doing.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So wish we should learn more about it, and I think we'll learn more over time. But, you know, what strikes me is so funny and actually tragically funny is that it's unethical to recruit kids and babies and put them on the formula that is ethical to sell in the grocery stores and the drugstore. So you can buy it. It's ethical to buy it. Yeah.

But you can't actually do a study on it because it's unethical to do the study on these kids. Well, wait a minute. Something's kinda screwed up with that. Right?

Michael Goran
It's... Yeah. It's it's so ironic.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Wow. It... So it wouldn't passion institutional review board because it's not safe to put kids on this formula, but it is safe to sell it to them in the grocery store and the drugstore and for kids to be on this formula. That just makes me crazy.

Michael Goran
Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
In terms of these these these these metabolic differences, that you're seeing with these these kids, are you seeing these changes in metabolic health as a result of these glucose patterns later in life yet?

Michael Goran
Yeah. We we haven't we we haven't we haven't studied that yet.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So I I think, you know, intuitively, it's obvious to me, like, okay. When you... If you drink a lot of soda, you're gonna get OB... Obese, fatty liver, diabetic, and so on. But you...

And you have to do these studies to prove what was often the obvious thing.

Michael Goran
Yeah. It's it's crazy. That... That's why we ended up doing the study in six year... Six month olds with the CGM because I was talking to this about someone and they said, yeah.

Well, where's the data? And I'm like, I don't... Do I need the data? Like... They're like, yeah.

I was like, okay. We'll do a study.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. I mean, do I need the data that feeding a baby a can of Coke a day is a bad idea?

Michael Goran
Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Probably. Probably not. Well, on the on the flip side of

Dr. Mark Hyman
this, you know,

Dr. Mark Hyman
I think I think there's a there's also a silver lining in understanding this because there's a real move to try to get schools and kids and and have better nutrition. And and I think, know, some of the data I've seen has been compelling. Some of the most striking data was in in juvenile detention centers where they took kids who were, you know, obviously disturbed and had behavioral issues and violent and aggressive. And they swapped out what they were feeding them in the juvenile detention centers, which was all this processed food and junk food to healthy real food. And they saw like a 97% decrease in violence, 75% decrease in restraints, a 100% decrease in suicides, which was the third leading cause of death in teenage boys.

So that that's just remarkable to me. And I know you work with Eat Real, which is a nonprofit that's run by friends of mine, my my doctor Jordan Schlain, Robert Lustig, and Nora LaTore who's who's runs it. And and and they... You work collaborate with them to look at what happens when when schools that they've been in to improve school nutrition. What happens when these

Michael Goran
kids

Dr. Mark Hyman
eat this better food to their academic performance and to their behavior? So I I... I'd love you to sort of share some of what you learned from looking at the data in these kids who've actually started to eat better in schools based on some of the... This work that these these nonprofit's doing?

Michael Goran
Yeah. So, again, this is not a trial. We're we're trying to get the trial funded. So so so what we did was we looked in... It really works all across the country now.

They've done the most work in California. And in the state of California, we're able to download from the state of Department of Education all of the test scores for all of the schools for all of California. So it's publicly available data that that we that we pulled. I have I have a data wizard on my team who's really skilled at doing this. And what we did was we looked at the pattern of of academic performance in all the schools that got real, all the school districts in California that got eat real, and compared

Dr. Mark Hyman
them

Michael Goran
with all the other school districts across all of California that didn't get eat real. And we had to control for socioeconomic status, free lunches, and stuff like that. And... But the data was, like, it was pretty clear outcome that we showed that a sustained improvement in the percentage of kids who met or exceeded academic standards for English language and arts in the schools that got Eat Real relative to the other schools. And so this is some of the first evidence, observational evidence that Eat Real is not just going to have an impact on health and diabetes risk and obesity risk, but also potentially going to improve school performance.

And so I'm talking now about healthy nutrition in school, not just as a health outcome, but also as good educational policy. And so that's now the trial that we wanna do to get more convincing evidence on that. And it's really good timing that you... We're talking about this because yesterday, I was just I was just in the Fullerton School District. Fullerton School District just was awarded their their certification from Eat Real.

They've gone through a program. I was blown away by what they're doing. They have a

Dr. Mark Hyman
centralized

Michael Goran
facility where they are processing all of the food for 20 schools in their school district. So there's... They're feeding 5,000 kids a day through this one kitchen. Wow. And they're making everything there.

They're like... There was... I was standing next to these trays of granola, and I'm like, what... What's all this granola for? We just made the granola.

They're making their own granola.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Right.

Michael Goran
They handed... They were making focaccia bread, and they handed me a sample of focaccia. I took one bite of it. I was like, this is a really unusual focaccia. Was made with whole wheat.

Right? It was a whole wheat focaccia. That's the kind of food that they're making. And so they're making not all of their food from scratch, but the vast majority of it now is... And they're able to do this because they have this centralized kitchen that's doing it at scale for for all these kids every day.

So, I mean, I was blown away by the... By what they're doing. And and and we we had the school lunch. It was delicious.

Dr. Mark Hyman
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Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. It's possible to do. It's possible to do. It's just not... It's it it needs to be for...

Within the school budget. I mean, I I think within the school budget, within this nutrition guidelines, it's it's doable. I mean, I I actually, had a friend who's Jill Shah who who started a nonprofit in Boston called MyWay Cafe, and they they went into Boston public, schools, and they showed most of them didn't have any kitchens. They just had microwaves and deep fryers. They brought in processed packaged foods, wrapped in plastic, reheated in plastic to kids from other states.

And and they... This this woman said, you know, maybe we put kitchens in these schools, and we teach the the kitchen staff how to make the food, and we get chefs to design the food within the school budget guidelines and the nutrition guidelines from the federal government that maybe it'll work. And they found that it in fact it did work and they were able to do it and kids loved it. They didn't throw the food out. They ate the food.

It tasted good. It wasn't more expensive. I mean, all the mythology that it's it's expensive, that it's difficult, that it's hard. It's just it's just a matter of will. And and so they were able to show this and then the mayor of Boston scaled this across the schools in in Boston.

I think this is just... There's models like this all around the country. There's, eat real. There's other other nonprofits also working in schools, but it it is important and parents can be advocates in this way. Sometimes, you know, you you just wish the policies would change, but if they don't...

As individuals, we can make a difference. We can make a difference in our own homes. We can make a difference in the places where our kids go to school. We can make a difference in a place where we work. So that there are ways to change our environments, although although it is hard when you when you're kind of fighting against the tsunami of of the ultra processed food that's out there everywhere you turn in America.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Love love

Dr. Mark Hyman
to serve. So maybe have you end up with is helping us understand if people had like three practical evidence based dietary strategies that could make a difference in their long term metabolic health, their longevity, their brain health. What what would those things be from your from your research and and your understanding of the science?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Michael Goran
I think we touched on them. I And think liquid sugar should go. I think liquid sugar is probably... We had to pick one thing that has the most damaging effect on health. I think that's something that needs to to to be reduced.

You touched upon just, you know, doing more scratch cooking. Like, you don't have to, like, suddenly become a chef and cook everything from scratch, like your own granola and your own focaccia like they're doing in Fullerton. But if you can just start to move the needle towards doing more scratch cooking and less reliance on processed and packaged foods, I think that the evidence shows that just starting small and sustaining and growing from that can have an impact over time. Moving towards more reliance on real foods and scratch cooking and less on packaged foods would be the second one. Usually one to three.

Right?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Goran
The third... I mean, I think the third is just we need to learn more about the developmental process and appreciation of the subtle developmental things that are happening very early in in the process that just because we're not seeing an impact on obesity or diabetes doesn't mean to say that nothing's happening because of diet. There's there's there's subtle things germinating from very early in development that are going to ultimately impact whether that's dysregulated blood sugars at six months of age. Who knows what the long term impact of that's gonna be, but it's probably not good. Or an altered microbiome by 12 of age or or lower subcortical brain volume by six years of age.

These things are not good signs for development, and we need to appreciate that there are there are these subtle but significant impacts that are happening before actual disease progression emerges.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. These are such important points. And I think, you know, the the one thing that that in some ways solves a lot of it is people learning how to take back their kitchens. Kitchens have been hijacked by the food industry. We've insinuated all the, you know, ultra processed foods into kitchens.

Most people don't know how to cook from scratch anymore. Most people have a lot of ultra processed food in their house, and you know, I had to to reheat or to you know, put in the microwave. And and, we've we've lost the art of cooking. We've lost the sort of lineage of of people knowing how to cook. And and and I I I I've shared this story before and I'll just briefly share it when I was I was in this movie called fed up with, Robert Lustig actually.

Then we were both in that movie and it was it was in I guess, twelve years ago. And I went to South Carolina with his family and I and then they were very very open, brave, sick, diabetic, the father's 42 on dialysis, you know, already from diabetes. The son was 1650% body fat where it should be 10% and they never cooked a meal on their trailer. They was five of them that lived in there and they they never learned how to cook from scratch and and I I literally showed them how to cook one meal. Here's how the basic...

How's your chop a vegetable. Here's how you roast a potato. Here's how you like stir fry something. Here's how you just simple things like here's how you make a salad dressing from scratch. And you know and I was like okay good luck.

Here you go. Here's a here's a cookbook and a little guide on how to eat well for less and and they did it. I sent them a cutting board and knives because they didn't have any and they were able to lose a couple 100 pounds in the first year as a family and the father got a new kidney. The the son ultimately lost a 132 pounds and went on medical school is now a doctor. And and no, I...

It just gave me hope. Meant if Jamie Oliver had this whole idea, they were just going to kind of a campaign to teach people how to cook. And if he was like, we're basically one meal away from changing everything in America, people actually knew the basic skills. And I think it's it's something we don't really talk about enough. And I I'm I'm a doctor, but I I do do videos on how to cook things and how do you make healthy food that tastes good, and is affordable and is is is reasonable to make.

And it it it you can do it. I'm... And I and I have a whole video series on how to do that. Obviously, if you have more money is better but but, it's it's not impossible and I think it ends up being much cheaper if people understand really how to how to make real food from scratch. It doesn't have to take that much time.

It can be just a few simple things you learn how to make. Three meals, three breakfast, three lunches, three dinners, and you just like kinda rotate. It's not had to be that complicated.

Michael Goran
After that a little bit because it doesn't even have to be cooking. I mean, something that I call kitchen processing. Like, let's take a very simple example, like, yogurt. Like, instead of buying, like, a processed yogurt that has sugar and flavorings and emulsifiers, just buy a big container of plain yogurt and add your own Yeah. Flavorings, add your own mashed banana or blueberries or a little bit of syrup or something, probably cost less and you've you've cut out the whole factory processing piece of it and you'll get a healthier product.

So, I mean, I think those simple messages are are really important and good place to start.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I agree. I think it's just doesn't have to be that hard. And, and I think we make it over complicated, but it it is it is important that people take back their health and take back their kitchens and, you know, start to advocate for themselves and their families even if the government hasn't and isn't. I mean, ultimately we'll get there but you know it's it's a very slow process. And you and I both been working in that and it's it's like molasses but it's you know hopefully over time things will shift.

Well, thank you so much for your work Michael for your dedication to space, for helping us understand the role of ultra processed foods in our health and our children's health and their development and and and sort of creating the groundwork for a real real change, meaningful change in policy. So thank you so much for everything you do.

Michael Goran
Thank thank you. It's my pleasure. Thank thank you for for all you do and bringing bringing this information out to the broader public. I think that's an early important part of the process.

Dr. Mark Hyman
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Dr. Mark Hyman
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Dr. Mark Hyman
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Dr. Mark Hyman
is separate from my clinical practice at the Ultra Wellness Center, my work at Cleveland Clinic, and Function Health where I am chief medical officer. This podcast represents my opinions and my guests' opinions. Neither myself nor the podcast endorses the views or statements of my guests. This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided with the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services.

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