A book that claims to reveal “hidden dangers” in healthy foods won’t even pass the breath test.
I got emails about The Plant Paradox, a book that supposedly featured expose “The hidden dangers in ‘healthy’ foods that cause disease and weight gain” – foods like beans, whole grains and tomatoes. Hidden Dangers? The author talks about lectins when coming to terms with the discredited blood group diet from decades ago. I checked it out on my video a while ago Blood type diet exposedbut it keeps coming back. The plant paradox was written from an MD but if you’ve seen my medical school videos including Doctors may miss their most important toolYou will know this is effectively an anti-credential when it comes to writing diet books, basically touting to the world that you have likely received little or no formal education in nutrition. Dr. Atkins was a cardiologist, after all. Even if we give The upside of the doubt is that it doesn’t even seem to pass the sniff test as I discuss in my video The plant paradox of Dr. Gundry is wrong.
When lectins are bad, beans are worst, so bean counters would likely find bean eaters to cut their lives. However, with legumes – beans, peas, chickpeas, and lentils – just the opposite can happen.found to be perhaps the “most important nutritional predictor for the survival of the elderly” in countries around the world. As Dan Buettner pointed In his work in Blue Zones, lectin-packaged foods are the “cornerstones” of the diet of all of the world’s healthiest, longest-lived populations. Plant-based diets in general, and legumes, the most lectin-rich foods in particular, are a common thread among long-lived Blue Zones around the world, as you can see in mine at 1:30 p.m. Video.
If lectins are bad, whole grain consumers should be confused with sickness when in fact “whole grain intake is.” connected with with a reduced risk of coronary artery disease “, the number one killer of men and women,” cardiovascular disease and all-cause cancer and mortality from all causes “combined. This means that people who eat whole grains tend to live longer and have fewer “respiratory diseases, infectious diseases, diabetes and all non-cardiovascular, non-cancer causes”. This is not only the case in population studies. As I showed in my video Can oatmeal help with fatty liver disease?you can randomize people into whole grain interventions and demonstrate cause and effect benefits. It’s the same with tomatoes. If you randomize women to a cup and a half of tomato juice or water every day, then all that nightshade tomato lectin “reduced systemic inflammation ”or Has Waist slimming effects, to reduce Cholesterol as well as inflammation mediators.
So if people told About the plant paradox, I thought to myself: Let me guess. He sells a number of nutritional supplements that block lectins. And what do you know His Lectin Shield capsules “help Your Body Fighting Lectins ”for only $ 79.95 per month. That’s only about a thousand dollars a year – a bargain for “pleasant bathroom visits”. Then of course there are ten more supplements for sale, for just $ 8,000 or $ 9,000 a year lick these lectins. Let’s not forget his skin care line. “Festivals + Sculpt ”for an additional $ 120 per month, which is much cheaper for you subscribe to to his VIP club.
Look, people keep asking me to comment on a new blog, book, or YouTube video, and I remind them that hundreds of thousands of peer-reviewed scientific articles on nutrition are published in the medical literature every year, and so are we can hardly keep up with these. But because people kept emailing me about this book, I decided to give it a try. He tells us: “to forget Everything you thought you knew was true. “(Diet books love to say that.) Okay. Ready? Chapter 1, Quote 1: “Eating shellfish and egg yolks will drastically reduce total cholesterol.” What ?! Egg Yolk Lowers Cholesterol? What kind of quote is that? I linked the paper that he did quoted on eating shellfish so you can see for yourself. By now you know how these studies are going. How do you show that a food lowers cholesterol? Remove enough meat, cheese, and eggs to drop total saturated fat – around 50 percent in this case, as you can see in my case at 4:15 a.m. Video. If you cut saturated fat in half, of course, the cholesterol level will go down. After removing meat, cheese, and egg yolks, researchers found a drop in cholesterol. However, this is the paper he uses to back up his statement that “Egg yolks are drastically reduced[d] Cholesterol. “That’s amazing! That’s the opposite of the truth. As you can see in mine at 4:36 VideoThe truth is if you do Add Egg yolks add to people’s diets, their cholesterol rises. How dare he say anything else? What’s more, it’s not like spitting out harmless stupidity, like saying the earth is flat. Heart disease is the number one killer of both men and women. His claims could actually hurt people.
So much for giving him the benefit of the doubt.
This is an unusual item for me. I usually try to stay out of the so called diet wars and just stick to bringing you the latest science. Around 100,000 articles on nutrition are published in the peer-reviewed medical literature each year, and we find it hard enough to keep up with them. However, let me know what you think: would you like me to devote more to these types of diets? reactive discussions?
You will find that I am Dr. Never really addressed Gundry’s thesis about lectins, but that’s exactly what I’m doing in these two videos: How to avoid lectin poisoning and Are Lectins In Food Good Or Bad For You?.
Here are links to the videos I pointed out in this article if you want to learn more:
What else can tomatoes do? See Inhibition of platelet activation with tomato seeds.
One of the main reasons whole grains can be so beneficial is their effect on our good bacteria. Check Good microbiome: Strike It Rich with whole grains and Microbiome: we are what you eat to learn more.
In health,
Michael Greger, MD
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