Hello everyone, I'm Diane Grissell.
I'm also known as Silver Disobedience, and this is the
Silver Disobedience Perception Dynamics podcast.
And we're recording an iconic Manhattan center, which is
really cool. I love the studio.
We're in TV too, so this is a lot of fun.
I have got a really fascinating guest.
He's one of the most knowledgeable people that I have
ever met about health and nutrition and longevity and just
plain looking good. What you're going to see when
you see him. His name's Doctor Fred
Pescatore. Full disclosure, he's been my
personal physician for years and has really helped me over the
years with losing weight after children, staying healthy,
staying strong. And we're going to be talking
about the myths that proliferate all over online.
And we're just going to have this free for all conversation,
which should be a lot of fun. Oh, and I also want to mention
he's the author of many, many books that you will want to
read. They cover a wide range from
dieting to asthma to think, how to feed your children to keep
them healthy. A really great selection to
consider. And don't be surprised after you
see him here today if you find him in a newspaper or magazine
because he is the celebrity, go to commentator.
Hello, Doctor Fred Pescatore. Hello, Diane.
Thank you so much for having me, and I don't know if I could live
up to that introduction, but we shall soon see.
Oh, I have no doubt you can and you do.
So let's just start with the fact that you, whether you go on
any form of social media, whether it's TikTok, Instagram,
Facebook, there is always some new diet trend that somebody's
touting. What is the first advice right
off the top of your head that you would say to someone when
they say I saw this new thing on Instagram that I want to try?
I would say stop, stop following Instagram.
No, I, you know, there are a lot of credible people on Instagram.
I'm not going to or TikTok, social media, let's just call it
that, right? There's plenty of credible
people I've even known to do things on there, so there are
credible people on there. You offer great cooking tips.
My cooking show. It's silly but fun.
But yeah, I mean, it's interesting.
I would have had a different answer last week than I have
this week about this question because I just wrote an article
for my newsletter about this study that just came out
comparing 8 different diets, whether it's Mediterranean, the
DASH diet that this the American Medical Association touts, you
know, just all sorts of eight different diets.
And they were looking at terms of does it affect longevity?
Oh. And the PEEP, no matter what
diet you looked at, the people who followed a diet lived the
longest. That is fascinating.
So it's just plain the idea of sticking to something.
That is all because. Your body gets used to it.
And I think because these diets are generally healthy, I mean,
there's certainly because no diet is going to tell you to eat
a ton of sugar, no diet's going to tell you to eat fast food.
None of those diets are going to tell you to eat those types of
things that cause chronic illness.
So I think if people, and I've said this forever, is that
people need to do things consistently.
And when people do things consistently, you can see
results. And I think this study just
proves it. And, and I of course have my own
diet that I follow and, and that I do and that I recommend to
others, as you know. But I have always thought, and
I, I say this to people all the time, is that there's billions
of people on the planet. We can't all follow the same
diet. We're not genetically made-up
like that. We all live in different
environments because we are part of our environments as well as
to what we eat. So, so I think that.
So the answer to that question is choose a diet.
You know, choose a lane and stay in it.
How does somebody go about finding that lane that fits
them? Well, yeah, I, I think, I think
the biggest obstacle, and I've been doing weight loss for over
30 years and diet and nutrition advice for over 30 years.
The biggest obstacle is I can't do that.
The I can't, I can't give up. XI can't live without Yi can't
do this. Well, you can, you just can, I
mean, it's that simple. We, we live in very fortunate
places, a lot of us. And, and you know, food supply,
well, as awful as our food supply is, food is, is certainly
plentiful for every budget. And I think that you've got to
be willing to just explore and say, well, this looks
interesting. That looks interesting.
Not oh, this looks interesting today.
I'll do it for two weeks. Then I'll then I'm going on
vacation for two weeks. So then anything goes and oh,
then my birthday's in another two weeks and then then I'll go
back on it. So it's really just say, I think
I try to tell people it's like if you have a goal, graduating
school was a goal for many of us, whether it's grade school,
high school, college and all the other schools I've been to.
But if you have that goal, you will do everything to get to
that goal. We don't think about that with
our health. Everybody says, I want to be
healthy, I want to live a long life.
I want to look like you, you know, all of those things.
Well, it takes a lot of work and it takes just, you know, because
if you have a goal that's here, I don't know if the, so if you
have a goal that's here and you want to go this way to get to
it, that's a lot of work, right? If you can just go in a straight
line, you'll get to that goal. And I think that's the hardest
thing for people to acknowledge. I had a I had a patient today,
young boy, 14 years old, 15 year old, something like that.
He is feeling, he's been on my diet now for two weeks.
He's been feeling the best he's ever felt in his life.
Like was on ADD, Medicare, like all the usual medications that
kids are on these days, ADD medication, anxiety medications,
stomach medications, because they're taking all those
medications that cause stomach issues on just a little bit of
ADD medication now has never felt better.
What did they say? The first thing they said When
can I go off this diet? Even though it's making him feel
so good. Exactly.
Oh, isn't that interesting? Yeah, that was the very first
question. When can I go off this diet?
And that's probably something you face a lot.
You see people thinking in terms of a diet as a temporary fix
instead of a long term. Commitment, or because that's
how we have so long thought about the word diet, I'm going
on a diet. A diet is just a nutritional
program that you follow. It's all a diet is, you know,
some may be low carb, some may be vegan, some may be
vegetarian. You know, those are just dietary
patterns that we follow. So it is the diet we're on, but
it's not, I'm going on a diet. I'm going on a nutritional
program. That's how I eat, right?
And I think that's how people have to start thinking about it,
educating themselves about it. And it's not, I'm doing this for
X. To achieve Y, No, Y is to live
the longest, healthiest life you could possibly live.
And to get that way, you've got a diet, you've got to exercise,
you've got to sleep, you've got to move your bowels, you've got
to do all those fun things. You're reminding me of what my
mother used to say, which was if, if I had, if I had only
known how long I'd live, I'd have treated myself better.
And my mother lived to 92 and could have run circles around us
all until pretty much the day she died.
But she would still just kind of throw that, you know, someday
you're going to realize if you treated yourself better.
You would feel better. And I think I mean your mother's
generation, my grandmother who also lived to be 97.
They didn't live in the toxic world we live in, you know, so
it was easier for them to be that way a lot.
I mean, yes, all of them didn't live that long.
There was a much shorter life expectancy.
But I think, I think if you took men out of that equation who
always have shorter life expectancies and really focused
on women's life expectancies of that generation, I'd wonder what
the life expectancy really was. Because we all have known so
many older women that have lived to their 90s and do beautifully.
You know, that is so interesting because when you think of the
generation of our parents, he had World War Two in the Korean
War, which I can't even imagine how those factors, if you got
out of service, how they still impacted your longevity in one
way or another. So it's really fascinating to
me. It's, it's, you know, I've been
reading, I've been doing a lot of writing about it's not all
about the number that you live to, it's about how healthy you
are getting to that number. And, you know, there's another
interesting statistic that came out.
You know, you're considered a healthy person.
If you can get to age 70 without having any major disease, then
you've sort of you've, you've sort of won the lottery.
If you what do you think about that as a statist statistic?
Do you agree with it? Do you?
I mean, I think it's, I mean there are, you know, and, and
the study just does go on to say, you know, between 70 and
not, you know, they will statistically live to be 90.
They will statistically live to be a healthier 90 then and a
healthier 85 or a healthier 95. So I mean, there's something to
be said for not having chronic disease, whether it be diabetes,
hypertension, overweight, obesity, even, you know,
arthritis and things like that. I think it's sad to me that all
these chronic illnesses that we face are things we do to
ourselves. Oh, let's talk about that
because I agree with you. You know, I've worked.
I'm, I'm, my heart is in really nutritional medicine.
Like what you put in is what you're going to get out of it.
And yet I've lived for so many years in the world of
biotechnology, which is which I think medicines are important.
There's a time and a place for everything.
Yet at the same time it's, oh, we're going to fix it instead,
you know, and chronic diseases, I want to say to people all the
time, if only you would just tweak XY or Z, but that gets
such resistance. I can't imagine your day and the
resistance you face. It's all day, all day.
Every day is resistance. Yeah, all day, every day.
I tell people, they ask me what I, what what to do.
I tell them and it's it's this, it's a negotiation, right?
You know, I had someone today say to me, well, what if I
wanted to go to McDonald's? What should I get?
I said water, I said that's it. And I said if it's in a plastic
bottle, don't even get water. Like walk away.
I said. I said I'm never going to
condone what you get in McDonald's because I will never
condone fast food. I said.
But if you want to do it, you know you're free to do whatever
you like so far. And the irony that you must face
is that you probably have people trying to negotiate with you as
to what they can have and not getting the full concept that
basically you're somehow subtracting from yourself each
time they try to negotiate with you.
I mean, I'm not sure what that equation is, but there's some
equation of. Course, you're not harming my
health by going to McDonald's like you're harming.
Well, I shouldn't say that, but you know you're harming your
health when you eat fast food, processed food, ultra processed
foods. I mean, I'm so happy now all of
that's coming to light and in and in the news.
We've been talking about ultra processed foods for how many?
My entire career I've been talking about ultra processed
foods, plastic. I haven't used plastic in a
decade at least. You were also the person I first
learned about the differences in the oils.
Yes. You know, I remember you talking
about macadamia, olive oil. Macadamia different oils versus
the traditional seed oils. Right.
You know, and it's all of these things play a role in our
health. And I'm not here to say you have
to be perfect, right? We're not perfect people.
None of us are. But if you have a concept, let's
say you do something 90% right, especially when it comes to
dieting, what a difference, what a difference is going to make in
how you feel, how you act towards others, how you present
yourself to the world, how, how you feel when you wake up in the
morning. It's it's just remarkable to me
when when people do those negotiations and it's really not
for their own good. If someone was to say to you,
what's the first number one thing I can do?
I'm not ready to change my life. I just want to feel better.
What would you tell them? Probably to exercise.
I think I would do that. I mean, what I would want to say
is just cut out sugar and processed foods, right?
That that's the best thing you can do for anyone.
But but what really what we're looking for really is to try to
decrease inflammation in our bodies.
And we're understanding more and more how inflammation, you know,
things like Alzheimer's disease, neuro inflammation, shocking,
you know, things like multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's, a lot of
the diseases we fear, they're all inflammatory related.
Heart disease is inflammatory related.
Cancer probably has an inflammatory basis as well.
So, so why are we not addressing the real causes of, of
inflammation, right? And that's the stressors we
personally do to ourselves. I mean, yes, we all live with
stress. There's not nothing we can do
about that. But the, but why would we feed
that? Why would we make it worse?
I, I think that's really, you know, the bottom line is what
goes on in my mind like you're drinking soda, really.
Well, that's one I mean. So maybe give up soda.
Maybe that's something simple, you know, they only have to be
simple steps. Give up X you know.
How about stop chewing gum with all the micro?
Quests because I do love to chew gum.
Oh the micro plastics in the 1st 20 minutes it gives up like
something like 683 on average. Micro plastics A.
Piece of gum. Every kind of gum.
Every. Kind of bumming my.
Head, whether it's natural gum or whether it's, you know,
unnatural gum, whatever you call it.
No, yes, I just wrote an article about that.
It's just it's crazy how much microplastic is released in gum.
I have never heard that and I really didn't want to hear that.
Oh wow, don't negotiate with me. I'm, I'm gonna, I, I can't
exactly, you know, that's my problem in life.
Once I hear something, I can't put the genie back in the
bottle. So now that's going to be
bothering me or I'll be living with, you know, cognitive
dissonance, you know, and like that conflict, that self
conflict of, oh, I can't put that gum in my mouth.
Wow. Yeah, microplastics and gum.
Yeah, well, gum's made out of petroleum and it's made out of
plastic, a lot of it. What about that?
What about that gum that tastes like it's right from the tree?
No. They tested natural gums and
they tested artificial gums. There's no way I'm getting
around gum here. Nope.
Wow. Nope.
OK, I might not ever invite you
back. Wow.
Every time I meet with you, you open up my mind to something
new. And like you, you can't change
it to me, once I know it, I can't go back on it.
And you know, here F1 has become such a popular show and it's
like, oh, is McLaren beating Ferrari?
And when you think about it, I always think in terms of the
human body and what we put into it.
And as great as those cars are, in a split second, the human
body's doing more than that F1 car is doing and you know, it's
lap or whatever. Absolutely.
We're an incredibly complicated machine.
I was just in Ferrari world actually.
You were. Last week fun, but yeah, that
was super fun. But anyway, that's off topic
but. Ferraris are never off topic.
They are a fine machine, but they're not as fine as the human
body we're talking. About, and, and if you think
about what the human body actually does, right, how we
have managed to, we don't feed it correctly.
So we don't, we, so we give, we're giving a Ferrari unleaded
gasoline, right? We, we breathe in things that
are terrible for us. We, we, we're just, I mean, we
don't sleep enough. Our digestion is really bad.
So if you think about what we do to ourselves and our life
expectancy still goes up every year.
So it's amazing how our bodies, you know, and along with, you
know, along with medical techniques to keep people alive
and whatever, whatever, but it's amazing that our bodies are able
to cope with all the change that has only occurred in the last
100 years. Like we were basically the same
up until 100 years ago, the way we ate, you know, we didn't have
the air pollution, we had the water pollution.
We didn't have any of that stuff up until about 100 years ago.
And everything changed, including our awful food supply.
When you see the bio hackers and the trend in biohacking, what
are your thoughts on that? My thoughts are I'm very
interested in it, obviously. I think there's certainly
something to all of it. We don't know yet, right?
And then, and only time will tell, but you know, there's,
there's an article that came out recently about santiotic cells
and how cells die and, and those types of things.
And I think that's what people are trying to do is to prevent
cells from dying, you know, and, and if we have biohacking on a
grand scale, you know, there's there's ethical concerns clearly
about that because, you know, maybe we want older people to
pass and younger people with different ideas to move into
those spaces and give the world a chance to grow in a different
way. But that's an ethical
conversation. But from a simply medical
conversation, I think it's fascinating.
I mean, the fact that we can look at things like metformin,
which is a, you know, an anti blood sugar, you know, a blood
sugar drug that increases longevity in mice.
I'm sure it probably increases longevity in humans.
But why? Because it keeps blood sugar
low, right? Because sugar is one of the key
inflammatory ingredients in our body.
Oh, that food nobody wants to acknowledge is a problem.
Absolutely. I think it should have AI think
it should have a big warning label and it should be hashtag
sugar kills on the on every ingredient and everything that
has sugar in it. But.
You know, it's interesting you say that.
I remember, Oh my gosh, it has to be almost 40 years ago
reading, I think it was written by Herbert Shelton possibly.
And you know, so we're going really back in writing.
What was he writing in the 8, the late 1800s, early 1900s?
And he was comparing sugar to a crystalline substance that sold
for thousands of dollars. And you know, you're reading
this whole thing, but you think you're reading about the heroin
trade, you know, or something like that because he's talking
about how it got smuggled across borders and and the price it
went for per pound when it was first out.
And then all of a sudden he says yeah, and we're talking about.
Sugar. Exactly.
Sugar used to be expensive. Sugar was a treat.
Very special occasions. People couldn't afford sugar.
And the addictive nature of it was acknowledged at some point.
Yes, acknowledged, but nothing done about.
It exactly So what do you think went into that history where it
kind of got ignored is it just plain manufacturing and.
I think it's manufacturing. I think it's got to do with big
pharma, probably because they don't have no interest in
keeping us healthy. I I.
They only have interest in keeping us unhealthy.
They sell more product that way. I mean, now with the gang, but
you know, with the weight loss drugs, they're making more money
than they know what to do with, which I think is, you know, a
blessing and maybe a curse. I don't know.
I haven't figured that part out yet.
I'm still working on that. But but I do think, you know,
people don't realize that sugar is not supposed to be plentiful
and it's not supposed to be in everything.
Well, you know, it's, it's interesting.
I have to go to the weight loss drugs because I, because,
because you bought it up, you opened the door and we discussed
the operating systems of society here.
And I know people who I can absolutely say that I would, it
probably have to say I think it's changed their lives because
of how they're viewing themselves.
I mean, if you're carrying £100 or more and in a short period of
time you can get that off. And you know, they're, I, I am a
big believer with what you look like helps how you feel, how you
function, how people perceive you, whether you want to accept
that or not. To me, you're ignoring certain
social biology. If you ignore that people aren't
attracted to a certain look, whatever that look is, people
get attracted to certain looks. So to lose all that weight, I
think that's fantastic. But I really wonder about what
is coming after it, you know, what are going to be the side
effects that start to rise from these drugs, which are really
the effects of them. And that really concerns me.
You've, you've seen how a lot of the weight that's lost is, you'd
know the percentages. It's close to 40% of the weight
lost is muscle mass. But see, here's here's the
misconception about that. OK, I want to hear.
It from you, your conception about that is you have to
realize, let's think about a piece of steak.
Yep. Like, let's think of a nice rib
eye, all that delicious marbling and all of that.
That's fat in the muscle. When you take the fat out of the
muscle, the muscle shrinks. It's not the muscle shrinking,
it's the fat in the muscle shrinking.
OK, I I can't argue that one. That's an interesting point.
And, and a lot of people who are not, and not by people, I mean
practitioners or silly people that sell this stuff online, you
know, and. That online stuff's insane.
Ridiculous. But the point is, you've got to
be able to tell your patients because as you probably know, I
have many, many, many patients on these things and have for
years. They never get the saggy face,
they never get the droopy skin. They never get any of that.
Because you also have to tell people you got to exercise,
you've got to lift weights while you're doing, you've got to
increase your protein content, all of those things that will
keep that muscle. This is why you are essential to
the It's serious. I'm really serious because first
of all, I do know people who are getting this online, which is
insane. I interviewed a DEA agent not
too long ago who's telling me about how 2 grains of sugar, if
it was fentanyl, could kill you and how much is getting into the
drug supply that people are just because there's no manufacturing
controls and the fentanyl could be made in the same place the
fake Ozempic or Wagovy are getting made.
So he's saying stop ordering it online.
That's number one. But the other thing that's so
interesting about what you say is a lot of these people are
getting it from a doctor and not really under medical care,
nutritional health care. They're not getting that doctor
like you, who I know would make sure that person's paying
attention because you would give them the information to not have
your one meal a day be brownies because you're now all over the
place and you're like, I didn't eat all day so I can eat this
tray of brownies. Exactly, exactly.
But that doesn't decrease the inflammation in your body now,
does it? Right.
So it might decrease the weight, but it doesn't.
Now look, I think these drugs have the potential to change the
world, right, because they can decrease inflammation.
They can, which means they'll I get people off of blood pressure
medications, cholesterol medications, all a diabetes
medic, all except for this one drug.
So big shift. So while they may have been on
10 different drugs, they could be on one drug.
That's phenomenal right there in itself.
I got to concede because you don't have the potential
interactions because none of these drugs, you know, a blood
pressure drug is never tested with you know what a cholesterol
lowering medication in the same trial.
It's extremely rare, right? Right.
So I just think it's, it's, it's so I mean, these drugs now may
or may not help Alzheimer's, probably because of
neuroinflammation. They may or may not.
I mean, they do help kidney function, you know, which will
make your blood pressure go away, which will decrease
cardiovascular events, which will decrease stroke risk.
You know, all of these things. I think it's pretty remarkable
if we don't see some awful thing happening 10 years from now,
right? You know, but I would think, and
you know, if you think in science, science purely
scientific terms, the way you figure out whether a drug is
going to work is by how many it's called powering.
So I need 10,000 people to prove that that's called powering or I
need 5000. That would be the power.
So we have millions of people on these drugs now for at least a
couple years, Millions. Wouldn't we have seen something
by now? Well, the biggest thing we're
seeing which is very interesting is I saw a couple of food
manufacturing companies, I was listening to the quarterly
announcements by them and reading some of the quarter
quarterly reports and snack foods are way down in
consumption. Less people are buying them.
The cereal based foods have gone down in the snack kind of things
have gone down and I've heard more than one CEO say we call it
the Ozempic effect or the Wagovia effect.
Absolutely. I mean, I think, I mean, it's
changing the way people eat, which is not a bad thing at all.
You know, and I and I also don't believe that we need to worry
whether someone has to stay on it for the rest of their lives.
You just read my mind. I was going to ask you that.
Are these lifetime medications? For a lot of my patients, no,
because again, they're working with me.
I'm counseling them. They know, you know, let's say
they've been on it for a year, they know to instead of taking
it every week, they'll take it every eight days, every nine
days, every 10 days. They'll take it before they go
on vacation, They'll take it when they get back from a
vacation, just things like that. So they'll micro dose it because
the one thing people love about these medications is the food
noise going away. They're not thinking about
eating. They're not worried what they're
putting in their mouth. It's not that constant.
What am I eating? What am I going to eat next to?
Am I going to eat with, you know, all of that food noise
that people have around food behaviors?
Why does that happen? Why does it go away?
We don't know. That's why they're studying
these drugs for for medical conditions.
I mean for mental health conditions as well, but it's
just quiet. It also from just in this is
strictly from patient population.
People want to drink less as well.
So drink alcohol less. So they're looking at, you know,
for alcohol use disorder. They're doing studies on alcohol
use disorder for this. So it just decreased the desire
to put things in your mouth. That's quite a phenomenon.
And we don't know why yet, but someone will figure it out.
I mean, if there's money in it, someone will figure.
It out now you're when you have someone come in and you're,
you're talking with them about their diet.
You we said, OK, let's try to eliminate XY or Z.
What would you try to get them to maximize?
Maximize. In addition to what they're
eliminating, maybe they're cutting out the soda.
What should they maximize? I mean, I think people need to
maximize. Besides exercise, we were just.
Talking, No, no, I think they need, they need to maximize lean
protein sources, whether that be OK, there's levels here, right.
So if we're going to start at a very basic level, the basic
level would be eat leaner proteins, more fish, more
poultry, that sort of thing, less red meat, increased
vegetables. I mean, even today I had someone
say, well, I want to go to the Ponderosa.
I'm like, I didn't even know they still existed.
But yeah, I want to go to the Ponderosa and I'll get my steak
and my baked potato. And then he looks at me, he's
like, oh, maybe not the baked potato, I'll have two vegetables
instead. Like, there you go.
You'll have two vegetables instead of a potato.
So I think so. It's increasing your vegetable
content, Good healthy oils like nuts, You know, people forget
about nuts. They think they shouldn't have
them because they were so fattening.
They're not fattening. They're part of a healthy diet.
So that's where. So if they had to lose weight,
that is where I would start first.
Absolutely, 100%. If they didn't need to lose
weight, you'd had in the legumes, you'd had in, you know,
healthy legumes, lower sugar fruits like berries and melons
and things like that. So so just to have a more
balanced, more colorful diet. Let's talk about steak.
OK, let's go back to that. Yeah.
Red meat? What are your thoughts on?
That I love red meat. I eat it all the time.
I'm not, I'm not, I, I don't. But my red meat is not only
grass fed, it's grass finished. So I know exactly where my cows
are coming from. I know the farmer who's who's
farming them. I know that they're past.
They're moved from pasture to pasture.
They're not like stuck in a pen somewhere.
And they're grass finished. And that's the most important
thing because grass fed is one thing and everybody's big on the
grass fed bandwagon because somehow that message has gone
through. But what people don't understand
is grass fed means up until the last month of that animal's
life, it has to be grass fed. The last month you could feed it
anything you want to fatten it up before slaughter.
That's very interesting, and I want to talk about eggs because
you have written a lot about eggs.
You have taught me a lot about eggs.
Let's talk about eggs and the kind of eggs people should look
for and why there's a difference.
Well, there's a very big difference in I mean, we're one
of the only countries probably in the world that uses has those
white bleached awful things, right?
They're just disgusting. The reason why, you know, the
reason why we have a bigger problem with, with bird flu and
having to kill so many chickens is because of the way we raise
chickens, stuffing them in a room.
And on this table there'd probably be 100,000 chickens.
Yeah, maybe, maybe 50,000. I don't know, but a lot like a
lot more than there. Ought to be.
I mean, if you see any of those videos, it's like a guaranteed
way to become a vegetarian. Exactly.
But I think eggs. So an egg that has come from a
hen like that has 16 times more inflammatory Omega sixes than
Omega threes. An egg from a from a chicken
from a hen that has gone out and eaten earthworms, roamed around
the yard, went back home to roost, like the whole thing.
That egg is 1 to 1, which is the way Mother Nature intended it.
So inflammatory and anti-inflammatory, 1 to 1, not
16 times more inflammatory than anti-inflammatory.
So it really is important how our food it gets to our table,
how it gets to our table, but also well, how the animals are
treated in the before any of their product.
Because whatever bad stuff the animals are doing gets into us.
If we're eating it from hormones in the, in the, in the milks to
all sorts of antibiotics in the in the food supply because that
because of the living conditions, they have to give
them so many antibiotics and all sorts of different things.
So, So it's, yeah, as we've mentioned about our toxic food
supply, that's part of the reason why I call it so toxic.
It's not like they're out to poison us.
It's just they are poisoning us slowly over time.
You know, there's a reason why one in 38 children are now on
the spectrum, 01 in 30. Eight that because you have
written books about kids and nutrition.
Yes, let's get into that. When I was in medical schools,
like one in 10,000 kids, yeah, were on the spectrum.
Then when I started writing about children 30 years ago is
11 in like 1 in 100. Now it's one in 38.
That's. Just I mean, I got goosebumps
all. Over and that's just in a
generation, that's in one generation went from one in 100
to one in 38. Yes, we are.
We know about it. We diagnose it more and maybe we
even push to diagnose it in schools so that schools can get
extra money and all of that stuff and extra time and blah,
blah, blah. So there is a little bit of
that, but it can't go from one in 10,000.
Yeah, that's a huge. To one in 38, that's, that's not
just, you know, the way we're looking at it, that's a big
difference. Something is going on.
What do you think that something is right?
Those children are exposed to chemicals from the minute
they're conceived. From the moment they're
conceived. Yeah.
What was it? I can't remember the exact
statistics, so I'll give it roughly 2 generations ago, cord
blood had no chemicals in it. This new generation and probably
the generation, I think it's the generation before them, not Gen.
A. Not alpha but ZI guess average
court number of chemicals in cord blood is over 600.
Oh my gosh. Yes, so there's a lot of
chemicals that we're inadvertently exposed to, like
touching this table chemicals because it was cleaned.
What it's cleaned with is a chemical, you know, so so I'm
not saying we have to live our lives in a bubble because we
can't. I just want people to be aware
of it, right. Maybe not choose your your water
from a plastic bottle, right? You know, choose it in a glass
bottle. Might be heavier to carry around
but it's certainly better for your health and it'll build your
bones strength. Find that exercise all over the
place. Absolutely.
Oh my gosh, you know when you when you hear about all the
kids, you know, and the rise in attention deficit hyperactivity
disorder, we've got the nutritional component.
How much do you think is social impact on the kids with
technology with the lack of running around these days or the
over scheduled schedules that so many kids are under?
It's all of it, right? Is it not all of it.
I mean, I so again, we have a human body that's very
resilient. We know that.
We've talked about that before, but we're now putting these
generations into a mix that has never occurred before in
history. That over scheduled mix that
that everybody knows what they're doing at every step of
them at every moment in their lives because they want to
remember when we were kids and we like wanted to find the
coolest club or the coolest thing to go to.
We wouldn't. We had to find it.
And then we wouldn't tell people because we didn't want them to
find it. Exactly.
They just go on Instagram and TikTok and just let's go to this
and let's go to that and let's do this.
They do everything in mass, which is a different phenomenon
for me. I'm not used to it at all.
I like things being kept, you know, sort of a little more
private, a little more private. A lot more private.
But I I think they're under pressures we'll never understand
and they come from a not so healthy place.
Yeah. So you know neuro inflammation,
right? And that's.
You know, I wonder about their neuro inflammation just from the
stress of looking at themselves constantly in pictures.
I mean, I, my, our kids will say to us or particularly me,
they'll say, mom, you know, how come you don't have any
pictures? You know, from high school?
I'm like, cuz Betty Reese didn't bring her 110 Instamatic camera
to that event. I mean, it cost a lot of money
to, you know, buy the film that was your whole week of
babysitting money cubes, yes. However, yes.
They were so expensive. Yeah.
And even when they became the one, the 35mm disposable, it was
still, it cost a lot of money to get that film developed and you
made sure you got the picture as best as possible.
And I'm sorry you still cut off everyone's head.
Exactly. Exactly.
You know, now kids are constantly looking at
themselves. They're looking at every angle
of their face. Ironically, Josh, who's the
chief engineer here at Manhattan Center, said to me today.
The same thing my brother said to me yesterday, you know, Are
you, we never thought about whether you're we're filming on
your preferred side or not. I'm like my preferred side.
I mean, I take a lot of pictures but I never really think about
my preferred side. It's just, you know, the kids,
do they, do they know what their preferred side is?
They know what the lighting they're supposed.
To have is. Can you imagine the stress of
that starting at a young age? I know when I see a 8 year old
posing my heart breaks. I know, I know it's, it's, it's
a real tragedy, but it's, it's unfortunate that, you know,
they're living through that, but maybe that's what they know.
And, and, and it's going to be OK.
That's the only thing I can think is that it'll be OK
because they will learn how to move through this and navigate
it, and they will. That's the one thing about
humanity, you know? Moving forward, I mean, they
blame us for a lot of problems and, and I get it, you know, I
get it. We did just poison the world in
a lot of different ways and put money ahead of everything.
And we live in in that culture. And they're I think a lot of
them are trying to fight against that or or at least be more
socially conscious about things and be more sustainable,
etcetera, etcetera. You know, all the all the new
buzzwords about that. I think kids are really trying
to correct some of the things our generation has done, but
they will navigate it. And I think it's just our
generation is still clinging to the power, the power of big
pharma and the power of big food and the power of big
manufacturers. And, you know, until we figure
out how to get their power away and not make it about them, but
make it about humans, you know, we're not doomed.
But it's a battle. Yeah, it's, it's interesting now
with the new administration and that the possibilities that we
might see a shift. It's going to be interesting to
watch, you know, how the new shifts might happen in the food
supply in what you know gets approved with the FDA.
Will things come to market faster?
Should they come to market faster?
Should people have access to clinical trials like we saw with
Duchesne's? You know, the boys that weren't
allowed to get into that trial and weren't allowed to continue
it because it hadn't been FDA approved.
You know, that moral and ethical aspects of, jeez, it was helping
those boys. Why the hell couldn't they have
stayed on? It was experimental all the all
along. But no, the trial had to come to
the end. It was.
But but that's science. Yes, that is science and that
has to occur. Agreed.
That doesn't mean that doesn't mean, you know, the doctors like
myself have worked around that for a long my entire career I've
worked around the system. But you can't break the system
because you won't get the real answer.
I do agree, you know, and that's to me, one of the most
disturbing things we've seen. What has become science hasn't
been debated the way we need it debated.
Science needs, we have to debate science.
You know, we can't just take, you know, dogma and and you
know, the science, the science to me has usually often been
there. It's the other stuff like the
myths that we talk about, right, That, you know, this is good for
you and you know, Instagram says this is good for you, then I'm
going to be doing it all. You know, that's the stuff that
we live our lives in. We don't really live our lives
in the science. We live our lives in the
pseudoscience. And and that's the part that
worries me. You know, the, the other part
that worries me is that there are so many billionaires running
the show right now. Where, how are they going to
continue to make their billions without pharma and without food
manufacturing, without this, without us being sick, without,
you know, all of that. See, I don't know where any of
this goes. It's a good question from here,
it's a really good question. But you know, I like things are
being questioned. It's just, I'm afraid they're
just being what I'm personally is that they're being surfacely
questioned and dismissed offhandedly.
Like there are two long term trials being done right now at
Columbia that are serious risk for being defunded at the
moment. And they're ongoing trials that
have been going on for seven years and their endpoint is 10
years. And without these long term
trials, we don't really know what really happens.
Right, Right. You know, I mean, the, the, the
nurses health study, which that has been going, that has taught
us so much stuff. Yeah, what if that were just cut
off and stuff and the funding would just disappeared for all
of that? We've learned so much from
things like those 3040 year studies, the Framingham Heart
Health Study, the Woman's Health Initiative.
There's another one that with physicians and nurses, you know,
so there's so many things that we've learned from long term
trials and to lose funding for those is makes me a little
nervous as a, as a scientist. I I would agree there.
There's a lot, a lot of point there.
And the other thing that I've observed over the years, though,
is when the study proves something out, how that evidence
can get squashed. Oh, without a doubt.
Which is, I mean, I have done crisis management, yes, I've
done crisis management for a lot of different companies when all
of a sudden they proved something out and some other
bigger player on the other side said, well, you know, that
funding for that is ending now. And it's like, well, wait a
second, we know what this just proved.
You know, this drug needs to be dosed differently for diabetics
or women versus the men that were in the clinical trial that
all weighed 220 lbs or more. You know, we're going to kill
off these women on this heart medication, which I'm not going
to go into because I really don't want to get bought into
the lawsuit, but I was involved in it, you know, from the crisis
management perspective. So like the stuff that gets?
Yeah, but that's that's America or I'm not sure that's going to
ever change. I mean, that's that's, that's an
unfortunate part of things. But you know, it's like
companies, I mean, you've worked with companies your whole life
as well. I mean, one company buys a
smaller company that has something that might compete
with them, so they buy it and then.
Off the go. Away it goes.
And you know, look, that's the way we work at this point in
time. But, you know, from a health
point of view, I would like to believe that what there's still
some science that people can believe in and that we don't
throw, throw the baby out with the bathwater.
So that's how you say it. Yeah.
Because there are, there are
some, there are some good vaccines, not 32 of them before
the child's one month, one year old.
Yeah. Maybe that's the problem?
Yeah. Maybe not at each individual
vaccine has to go, but maybe it's how we administer them, you
know, So just we should be critical thinkers and critical
thinking has gone away, really has gone away.
You know, I, I, I personally believe we really saw that
during COVID. You know, I remember wanting to
write in a blog when all of you know, when everyone was getting
told we're getting locked down and this is going to happen and
that's going to happen. And I remember I wrote a blog
called The Emperor Has No Clothes.
And my husband said to me, you realize you published that our
lives are all going to change one way or another.
And I did not publish it. And I admire the people who did
speak up. And then I probably, you know, a
year and a half, 18 months later, I started to be more
vocal because I thought there's so many things happening right
now that if during my 27 years of reviewing clinical trials, if
I did any of this crap, I'd be in jail.
So it's like so many things flipped in the other direction.
And I'm, you know, of what could be discussed or what couldn't be
discussed. I mean, you can take something
like ivermectin, which one day I have no idea if it's in or if
it's out or if it's like if it's just for animals or if it's not
for animals. But why can't we all read it?
Why can't we all read it and make a decision for ourselves?
It's the suppression that drives me freaking crazy.
Yeah, yeah. No, information should not be
suppressed. Yeah, I mean, you have, I'm a
big believer and I always, I do this with patients all day long
as I'll give them the information.
You make whatever decision you want.
But here's the information and you make your own decision.
I mean, you want my advice, I'll tell you my advice is, but
here's the information. At the end of the day, it's your
life and you have to make that decision.
So I think, I think the same holds true for so many different
things. You know, during COVID, one can
argue that it was a worldwide health crisis and none of us
knew what we were doing. The science was brand new.
You know, you, you make mistakes along the way in, in situations
like that. And it's only when you could
look back and say, oh, yeah, that was wrong, that was wrong,
that was wrong, Maybe that was right.
You know, it's it's, it's a funny.
It's more the comical nature of things like, OK, so you can walk
into a restaurant and at six feet you have to wear a mask,
but the minute you go to the three foot level you can take
the mask off. I'm like, you're kidding me.
I mean, I know a principal of a school who had to have
kindergarteners, you know, stay. First it was 6 feet away from
each other, Then it was 3 feet. Like, it's an impracticality.
You can't keep kindergarteners from not climbing on top of each
other. Nut but you know, sometimes you
know the way I look at it, especially with the restaurant
thing. Do you think some of these rules
were made so that businesses could stay in business, right,
Yes. So it wasn't necessarily.
Even though it was crushing them financially, I mean.
If you think about it, if a virus is floating around in the
air, whether you're here or here doesn't really matter where that
because you can either breathe in it or not, right?
One way or another, you're either going to breathe it in
and your body will fight it off or you're not going to breathe
it in because it somehow flew over your head or whatever.
But I think a lot of times we had to make adjustments.
And again, it's the adjustments that we had to make throughout
this that crazy five years just to satisfy so many different
special interests, right? You know, and, and to keep
people working and to keep people floating and to keep
people alive. And it's a messy time.
And I hope I never lived through another one like that again.
I refuse for sure. I refuse.
I'm not going through it again. I don't know what I'll do, but
it's an official statement right now.
My life will not change like that for five years again.
Nope. You know, just when you try to
keep track of things that happen in your life and you see someone
like, you know, and it's like, Gee, when was the last time I
saw you? It's, you know, about a year
ago. And then it's like, no, no.
It's that blur. It's that five year blur.
Yeah, like when the your producer asked me when I was in
this building last. Like I I always forget about
those COVID years because I try to ignore them.
I want those years back. But anyway, yeah, it is what it
is. It happened and it's over.
Thank gosh. And let's move on from.
What is something that you think if if I'm watching this episode
and I want to start to step my life into the most healthy
direction I possibly can? We talked about exercise.
We talked about some of the things we can eat.
Are we eating more vegetables, more protein?
Is there a balance you think people should aim for or is it
again very personalized in some? I think it's very personalized
because you have to, as we talked, as we started the
conversation, you've got it. Any diet you choose, as long as
you stick to it is going to be a good one, right?
You're going to be healthy, you're going to live longer,
have less strokes, all of it proven scientifically.
So what I would say to that is, is, is really be honest with
yourself. Just be honest with yourself.
Ask yourself hard questions and be honest with yourself.
Can I give up X? Can I add Y and can I do it
because, you know, those New Year's, New Year's resolutions,
right? I'm going to stop smoking.
I'm going to stop drinking. I'm going to stop eating.
Well, yeah, that'll last for about a day, right?
You can't put too much burden on yourself.
You know, people have to be kind to themselves.
And, and I think a lot of us forget to do that is that we
have to give each other grace and we have to give ourselves
grace and, and being healthy as part of giving yourself grace.
And, and no matter when you start on, on, on this health
journey, whatever it may be, you're going to slip, you're
going to fall. Just know, as long as those
slips and falls get further and further apart, you're on the
right path. That is great advice.
I want to ask you a personal question.
Sure, you've written a lot of books.
I have. If if we were going to tell the
audience which one they should start with, which would be the
book you would recommend for people to start reading, to
start to grasp your breath of knowledge?
I think I would recommend the Hamptons diet.
Oh, that's a good. One, because it talks all about
oils and fat, you know, it talks really about the food supply,
about oils and it was my best selling book.
So it's written very easy for everyone to understand.
It's got great recipes in it, you know, so it really.
And you had the subsequent recipe book as well.
I've got them both in my kitchen.
So, yeah, so it goes, I think, you know, I think that would be
the place to start. I mean, I have a lot of other
books that are just about, oh, if you have this and what
supplement do you want to take? I mean, there's those types of
books too. But again, I like that to be
more individualized. So those are sort of, I don't
know, those are good books, but they're not.
I would start with something that gives you a little bit more
understanding and comprehension of the whole.
And you have a newsletter, too. I do right?
Can anyone sign up for? That newsletter?
It's free. Okay, because I'm going to make
sure the links to that newsletter are below.
Great podcast. Yeah, it's free.
Yeah. Sign up.
You'll get a newsletter four days a week that I write.
Yes, yes, it's a lot, but I do it.
Now, and your office is still here in New York City, so people
can book time with you. Yeah, but still here in the
some. Really good wake up call,
personal information and. And it's not just about diet.
Like we could have literally talked about any topic.
Yeah. Oh wow.
And we have talked about so many topics over the years.
Yeah, we have, you know, so I don't.
But but I think what people don't, I hope people are
beginning to understand, is, you know, what your grandmother told
you was right, You are what you eat.
So, you know, that is the cornerstone.
That is my bedrock of of health. You are what you eat and then
everything else gets built on top of that.
So yeah. Oh, this time went too fast, but
what a closing statement. You are what you eat.
Thank you Doctor Fred Pescatore for a great, great conversation.
Thank you Diane for having me. It's been great fun.
Everybody, there is going to be lots of good information that
you can find below this podcast. So you can follow Doctor Fred
Pescatore. You can get in touch with them.
You can grab his books. All the links will be below.
I highly recommend you share this podcast and subscribe to
watch future ones. And this is one.
There was so much information. I'd probably watch it two or
three times if I was you. I'm probably going to because I
really enjoyed everything you had to say and I like to have it
sink in. So thank you everyone.
Thank you, Doctor Pescatore. What a pleasure.
My pleasure. Thank you.
Thanks. Hit subscribe and share this
episode with your friends and even better, play it while
you're at the gym working out. Exercise that was stuck with
Doctor Fred recommended on top of being good at choosing what
you eat.