Diets, cholesterol and statin myths - Dr. Jonny Bowden

Tune in to the latest episode of the Crackin' Backs Podcast where we welcome Dr. Jonny Bowden, a renowned expert in functional nutrition and a dynamic force in the fitness world. From overcoming personal challenges to achieving a PhD in functional nutrition, Dr. Bowden has dedicated his life to asking "why" and discovering how to live healthier through science-backed methods. 

In this deep dive, we explore the emerging field of genetic testing and its implications for personalized health strategies. Dr. Bowden shares his critical views on statins, challenging the conventional wisdom about cholesterol and its management. Expect a thought-provoking discussion on the need for a paradigm shift in how we perceive and treat heart health.

For our listeners navigating their prime in their 50s and 60s, Dr. Bowden reveals his favorite diet strategies that promise vitality and longevity. Younger athletes aren't left out; he addresses common misconceptions about diet, focusing on the balance between carbohydrates and protein, and tips for enhancing energy and sleep.

Moreover, Dr. Bowden weighs in on the debate between genetics and the environment in shaping our health and responds to questions about the role of ancestry in determining the ideal diet. He also evaluates recent studies on the benefits of Quercetin in reducing arterial plaque, providing actionable advice for heart health.

Confronting the challenges of sourcing authentic, farm-to-table food, Dr. Bowden offers practical solutions for those striving to incorporate real food into their diets.

This episode is packed with insights for anyone interested in optimizing their health through informed, innovative approaches.

Don’t miss this transformative conversation with Dr. Jonny Bowden on the Crackin' Backs Podcast—where health myths meet their match. To learn more about Dr. Bowden, to purchase his books and possibly book a consultation with him. Click HERE

We are two sports chiropractors, seeking knowledge from some of the best resources in the world of health. From our perspective, health is more than just “Crackin Backs” but a deep dive into physical, mental, and nutritional well-being philosophies.

Join us as we talk to some of the greatest minds and discover some of the most incredible gems you can use to maintain a higher level of health. Crackin Backs Podcast

Transcript

Dr. Spencer Baron: 0:01

Welcome to the cracking backs Podcast. Today we're joined by Dr. Jonny Bowden, a pioneer in functional nutrition, who transformed his life and now challenges conventional health wisdom. We'll explore the effectiveness of genetic testing, question the necessity of statins and unravel the myths about cholesterol. Dr. Bowden will also share his top diet strategies for vibrant aging and optimizing athletic performance in the youth. Plus, we'll discuss the impact of ancestry on diet, the benefits of quercetin for heart health, and how to truly enjoy a farm to table lifestyle. Get ready for a deep dive into Transforming Health Perspectives with Dr. Bowden. Got on the air today. It's good to have you. How are you doing out there? And he really in California I'm

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 1:03

really sorry to hear Southern California Yeah, last time.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 1:08

He's way miss from us. It's beautiful. It's sunny right now.

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 1:12

What's not the life right?

Dr. Spencer Baron: 1:16

To my jealous.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 1:20

A little more, a little more humility.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 1:23

That's for sure. Anyway. Well, Dr. Boden, it's great to have you on I understand you've grown quite the following your passion seems to grow every year for what you do. Let's let's go back to the very beginning and and understand what started this passion as a child and and we want to know more about nutrition and fitness from you.

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 1:48

Well, it certainly didn't start when I was a child. I was I had a previous career as a musician. And a professional musician in New York City. And I grew up kind of in sex, drugs and rock and roll era, Woodstock, all of that. And in my youth as a musician, I lived exactly the way you would think a New York musician would live. So I did every drug that was in the PDR. I was addicted to alcohol, cocaine, heroin, you name it, everything. Yeah, the whole the whole list.

Unknown: 2:23

And

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 2:25

somehow during that drug addled time, I managed to pick up a master's degree in psychology. And eventually, somewhere like I guess, in the late 70s, early 80s, I left that behind, I'll leave the story out, but you know, the transformation and you give it up and it's a different thing. And around 82, I got a little bit clearer. And I was I was touring with a musical theatre company was doing I did a lot of road companies like Broadway shows would go on national tours, or they'd go on what we called bussing truck tours, which were kind of a little lower, lower level tour in some smaller cities, but we would I would do a lot of those. And we were sitting down in some city, and, you know, worked with actors, and their job was to look great. And their job was to stay in shape. And there were a lot of actors, and we had a house, I think good opera house in Connecticut, where we were staying, and I said to one of them. We just had a boredom. You know, in between cigarettes health, what is this weightlifting stuff you're doing? Teach me one of these exercises. That's how it started.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 3:37

Notice shit. One

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 3:39

of these exercises turned into holy shit. This is what I was born to do. And I started within a year I knew where every gym was in every city, we would check into Dallas, Texas, I would go to Doug's gym. That was the I mean, this is way before just before the internet, there were no there was no Whole Foods, there were health food stores. And people who went to health food stores were known as health.

Unknown: 4:06

Gov. Right, right, right. And

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 4:09

I just got bitten by the bug. And I was not one of these guys who had an epiphany found Jesus and it all change. I was the guy that went to the gym, do to send a benchpress go outside and have a cigarette on the break. So it was a process. It was a process. But I lost weight. I was I was a bad kid. I stopped smoking. I got a I have a slide. But I will show myself you know, one or two years into sobriety and I look like a bad old man. And then I showed myself speaking at the de basketball conference in 2018. And I literally I mean you can see it I look 20 years younger, I can't even believe you know the difference and that's 20 years later. So it took me that time and during the time that I was throwing myself into this, of being a middle class Jewish kid from New York who is academically oriented and his parents, you know, didn't think that you were a full human being without a PhD. The first thing I thought about was I love this field, is there a way to get a degree in it? And I found out that you could, if not get a degree in it, you could get certified you could become a certified personal trainer and I thought, well, that's first of all, the way I thought about it was not only would it be fun, but it would look so good on the playbill. The Playbill is the thing that they give you in Broadway shows and there's a little thing about the conductor and you know, and I'd have a bio and I thought it is also a personal trainer that what sounds so cool. So I go and I pick up a fairly easy to get certification, APA, aerobics and fitness Association. And I fall in love even more, and I go, I gotta get another one. And anyway, I picked up six, I got six certifications as a personal trainer, including the hard ones. The CSCS, the conditioning strength and specialist, the NASM National Association of Sports Medicine ACSM American College of Sports. I got them all six. And I had never trained to client. I'm in Manhattan, which is where I live 99 new one and I'm walking down Amsterdam Avenue. And I see a new gym is opening may got this big sign. That looks so cool. It's because Equinox coming soon. 99 new one. Yeah. Hiring now. This is the first Equinox everybody knows Equinox is now its biggest gym. But this was the first one small for an Italian family the ARCHOS they opened it, and they were hiring and I walk in. Just try it out. And I really will to this day never understand why I've connected with these people. But they liked me and they hired me. And I started my career as a personal trainer. The day that Equinox opened on the floor is the first equinox in Manhattan. And I was there for seven years. And I ultimately became the dean of the equinox Fitness Training Institute, which is basically the model for how they train trainers everywhere now. I was 100,000% in on low fat diet. I believed every piece of information we had been taught and all of our at that time. All trainers got whatever nutrition information they got from the American Dietetic Association, which I've said many times publicly was next to the American Diabetes Association, probably the most destructive organization. I was waiting for that. Yeah. Next macro, next to Jane Brody of The New York Times, but don't get me started. So I believed in low fat diets. I was the guy that if you ordered a egg white omelet as we did in those days, the dumbest nutritional experiment for the last 100 years, when I would order the egg white omelet, we would come back with a little bit of yolk, I would send it back because I knew that I would get a heart attack like that. That's who I was. And we all were that. All of us. This is 1991. We're coming off of stop the insanity season powder and infomercials with the low fat. Right? Right. All right. And what happened was, remember, we had no nutrition information other than you know what they teach you in personal training school, which is nothing. So we all believe this. And it was 1991 9292 the Atkins diet came out its final edition. It was originally published in 72. There was another edition, the third edition and final edition before he died, was 99 During the Atkins diet was getting a lot of publicity. And we would have clients would come in and they'd say, you know, Johnny or Chris or whoever the training was, this is just not working for me. I'm doing all this cardio among this thing. It's joyless, and I'm not losing any weight. And I you know, I have a golf buddy who lost 30 pounds and my hairdresser lost 20 pounds and now I'm gonna try this Atkins diet and we would be horrified. I remember at one point, trying to join a movement to get Atkins medical license revoked. As you can't do this, you might lose a couple of pounds. You will die. What are you talking about? You can't go this crazy Paul Ryan's guy that you They didn't listen to us. Can you imagine that? I remember one guy in particular, who had been really resistant to losing weight. I mean, just nothing worse than the guy comes back. And, you know, he's clearly like 20 pounds lighter and his eyes are shot, you know, right. You know how people look when they when they are healthier. I mean, I'm no medical intuitive, but you can kind of spot when the clearness in the eyes and the energy and the whole thing, and the guy was looking great. And he's telling me that he's going to his doctor and the doctors like, what are you doing? Your rates have dropped and your blood pressure is low and your waist sizes? What are you doing? And he said, Well, I tried the Atkins diet. I didn't say you can't do that. Okay, you. So that's where we were then. Right? I mean, and there's a I told you, I had a master's in psychology. And there is a concept in psychology, you gentlemen probably know what it is. Maybe the audience doesn't. It's called cognitive dissonance. And it means basically, that when there are two ideas that are totally contradictory, you cannot hold them both in your psychic space, you have to resolve the fact that, you know, this kid was the nicest kid that we ever met in the neighborhood. Oh, he went on top of the book depository, and just, you know, shot 20 people, those two things don't go together. So you have to kind of figure out how to make them congruent. So we had here a case of cognitive dissonance. A, the Atkins diet will kill you be this guy standing in front of me, and he looks damn good. One of those two things isn't true. Right. So I wanted to resolve his cognitive dissonance, I started to think about it and I, I had ventured into research. We didn't have to look up research on PubMed, then look up studies, and I see serum biomarkers are all improving on a ketogenic diet and winnaman. What does that even mean? And I'm looking at some of this, and it's not really adding up. And I began to think, why have we told these people all our lives to avoid animal products? Why have we told them to avoid saturated fat? The reason is because it raises cholesterol. Well, what if cholesterol doesn't cause heart disease? This guy's eating a lot of fat, he's not dying. What if we were wrong? Then the dietary recommendations collapse like a house of cards. And once I started to realize that I started to speak out a little about him, ask some questions about it. And all of a sudden, I was very popular teacher at conferences, I taught trainers all the time. I was I was, like I said, the dean of the equinox Fitness Training Institute. And I worked under Baba square, and we taught anatomy and kinesiology and no one ever criticized as a teacher, no one ever said, he's a he's, you know, he's not even a doctor. You know, they loved my teaching. Until I questioned the orthodoxy. Then it was like, Who is this guy's not even a duck. He's not even a nutritionist. He's a damn personal trainer from Equinox. What does he know? And like, there have been people in the past who have done this who said, okay, and they go back to school, and they get to credential so they can then say the same thing that they were saying before, except now you can't ignore them. The best case I know of that is Richard Bernstein, who wrote the diabetes doctor diet. He's a brilliant dietician, diabetes specialist, and you know, proselytize for all these wonderful things that you and I now know are true, undo. But he was an engineer, and nobody took them seriously. When he would ask his doctors why they were putting them on this and why they're doing this and it's not working. They said, Well, you don't know anything. You were an engineer. So he got his medical degree. And then he was able to say, You know what, so that's kind of what my model was. So I went back and I got first I got what was called the CN at the time of certified nutritionist. One year course wasn't really worth anything. But I got that. And then I realized that wasn't enough. And I went and got a PhD in what was then called holistic nutrition would now be called functional nutrition and functional medicine, nutrition or Integrative Nutrition. And then I got board certified. And I went to took about a year the American College of Nutrition had something called the certifying board of nutrition specialists, and it was possibly the most difficult exam I've ever taken in my life two days long. And I got brought certified and then I was able to tell everybody what I was suspecting was true before I had to do it, which is that you guys are full of it. All right. I kind of been doing that

Dr. Terry Weyman: 14:45

story. You know, Jay, I gotta interject on some because I've listened to your energy and not only your your sharp brain, but now I want to inspire people I'm doing the math in my head of musician did Uh, how old are you 77. All right, people out there 77 years old at this kid, this kid is bucking rock in it with knowledge and energy. And so if you all are in your 50s and 60s and think life's over, this is gonna set the stage for the rest of stuff, because we're going to ask you some very relevant thought processes, and which, which is going to tell you how sharp his brain is. And he's already surpassing me, well, you've already surpassed me, which isn't that hard to do. So I asked you something that's becoming really popular. And that is genetic testing. And it's been starting to come around in just the last few years, and it's growing traction, and the testing can help you understand the unique relationship with our food at a cellular level. And we're gonna be one of the things Yeah, it used to be if your blood type now that you're there doing something now, you're right. It's not the Holy Grail, but is another tool that can be used. And we're seeing that used for food sensitivity and biomarkers. What's your thoughts on that?

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 16:11

Well, I've had a three genetic tests, I think genetic testing is a very promising and important portal. But like many things, I think the marketing is way ahead of what we actually know and can use. I mean, I've seen these things sorted they, they look at 30 genes, and they tell you what the ideal diet is, I think that's kind of nonsense, but they genetic testing can give you very great information, I as I said, I think that they're selling it, over selling it. And before it's really ready for primetime in terms of really like formulating a diet and stuff like that. But I'll give you an example of where genetic testing really can be helpful. There's a gene and God tried it, I think it's PKD 21, that will tell you how, if you have this gene, you are more disposed to have an inflammatory reaction to inflammatory substances. So these appear, it's sort of like this Teflon, Teflon pan, and you can have one with a Teflon pan is really the Teflon is really solid like it or there can be some scratches in it, or it can be just about ripped off. And that that gene tells you which of those is true. Now, by itself, it doesn't mean anything. But if you smoke, or if you have a lot of sugar, if you consume a lot of inflammatory substances, you are more likely to suffer the you know, to see your CRP go up and to see other inflammatory markers go up. So you might want to be particularly cautious about consuming things that are inflammatory. That would be one example of where that could be really useful. I don't know I haven't really seen diets designed around that kind of testing. I know that there are clinicians that I respect a lot Bryce Wilden candidate who does extensive genetic testing and it really helps him cater stuff to his patients. But I'm I have always been suspicious of the one size fits all when D'Amato came out with the blood type diet. Of course, I read. And if you remember, everybody was walking around going well, I'm typo. So I should be able to eat meat. And that's not at all what the guy said. The people who actually took his course, it was there were four types and about 17 subtypes for each one. And it was a very complicated and involved and personalized thing. It wasn't like, Oh, I'm not that bad. I'm a vegetarian. So I think the way this stuff gets marketed is very often a real bastardization of the original concept and what the original people like tomorrow actually said, because if you saw his blood type course, it was very, very thorough and difficult and clinicians went through it and it was a lot more to it than just what's your blood type? You're a vegetarian.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 19:13

No, yeah. Perfect. I'm also gonna switch gears kind of staying on that line, because we had a cardiologists that on the show that I know, you know, Dr. Jack wolston Love it, though. He's, he's fantastic. And he brought up what are your favorite topics? statins? Yeah, and, and so, and we know there's two types, lot of people just throw both types into one big group, but there's actually two types of statins and, and, and then that ties into what you alluded to earlier, the the cholesterol and the myths that go along with that and how all these are weaved into a modern thought process. All right, I Love blow apart this modern thought process and do a total a paradigm shift and get people thinking differently. So the floor is yours when it comes to the statins and the cholesterol?

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 20:12

Well, I don't think that's the place to start when we talk about heart disease, but let's start with it anyway. Because the whole idea of statins is based on a premise that I think needs to be examined, which is lowering your cholesterol. Mr. Jones, it's 206. We got to put you on. But let's just talk about the standard. So statins. Stephen. Hi, Steve Sinatra was the cardiologist with whom I wrote the great Cholesterol Myth. He was my co author who died. Steve would prescribe statins once in a great while. We will never anti statin. I'm going to I'm going to actually quote Joe Rogan on this because I have a feeling that you guys won't like roll your eyes. But Joe Rogan said this about vaccines, and I'm gonna say the same thing about statins. I'm not anti vaccine, I'm anti propaganda. That's what he said. I agree with him. I'm not anti statin. I'm anti over marketing over prescription, overselling, and propaganda. So you had a drug here that showed some promise, in a very specific population, which was middle aged men with previous orders. So it was a drug that was developed for secondary prevention. In other words, Mr. Jones, you had a heart attack, let's keep you from getting a second one. That's secondary prevention, primary prevention is you never had a heart attack. And let's keep it that way. So they were never tested in the beginning for primary prevention, they were tested for secondary in a very specific population, and they did show some promise for them. The companies did exactly what a toy company would do an electronics company, would they did a brand extension. Yeah. Okay, great. We got the middle aged men with previous heart attack. That's not enough. Let's get the older women. Let's get that 13 year olds, let's get to 18 year olds who we can tell their parents, you know, what is the market share for heart disease, you don't want little Jimmy to get heart. Let's stop it early on with 13 year olds on statins you had you had God, I can't remember his name. But he is a very distinguished doctor who I used to really, really admire for me in different reasons. And he went on national television and said, This drug is so good, it should be in the water supply. So you have that. Yeah. And you have your I play tennis, I'm a tennis player. So I play every day. And I play literally, with people in the age range of teenagers to 82 year old. And I would see the older guys have played with come in with every symptom you can imagine. Muscle pain, memory loss, libido is a thing of the past, all related to the status and to why you understand you're 75 years old, and evidence shows absolutely zero effect and suddenly five year olds and over. Oh, no, my doctor said you know, my cholesterol is 206. So in the reason that, I mean, one of the reasons that people don't really realize the extent of the side effects of statins is because doctors don't report them. And we know that because there's a fantastic study from Stanford by Beatrice Gollum, where she literally categorized all of the statin side effects, and then looked and found that 65% of doctors don't we put them in, you know why they don't report them because they don't believe their patients. And you know why? Because they have been successfully marketed to by the statin manufacturers. So what happens is the guys I play tennis with, they go back to their doctor, and they said, Doc, I'm forgetting my wife's name. Since you gave me this question. There's still more interesting. mild cognitive impairment has nothing to do it. Or get these joint pains that I never had before. When when you put me on Lipitor, oh, no, no, it's not that it's just mild arthritis. It's what's what's to be expected. So they don't believe it's not that they're being vicious. They don't believe that they have been successfully marketed to buy the companies that make them and they don't think the side effects are they think their patients are wrong. So you got 65% of doctors not reporting the side effects. Now. You and I would take a experimental drug with a long list of potential side effects if we thought it would save our lives. If you and I had God forbid, some very, very obscure kind of cancer and they said, look, we got this experimental drug. It does all these things. We're not sure but it's the only thing that's going to sign me up. But that's not the case. There were so many people on statins who are not benefiting from them at all. They're not even in the population you would expect to benefit from them and they have shown almost no benefits instead. At least a few sometimes what you'll do is you'll get a study in which the statin group, there are two less heart attacks in the statin group, but they don't report it. What they bury somewhere in the results is to also two more deaths from something else like cancer, diabetes. So as John Abramson from Harvard said, once, is it a successful drug? If you don't have from a different disease? No, it really isn't. So, there's, there's a lot that's wrong with the marketing of statins. Now, what do they do? Is there any good side to them? Yes, they thin the blood slightly, as Steve used to say they make the blood a little less like ketchup and a little more like red wine. They're mildly anti inflammatory. And since we have an epidemic of inflammation everywhere in the world, I think we can use all that up we can, I believe you can lower inflammation with fish oil and vitamin E and gingko, way better than you can with the statin but okay, that's all I got. It's a little bit of an anti inflammatory, it's a blood thinner, it's a little bit helps prevent platelet aggregation good, it does those things. There are people in unmined in my neck of the woods on this issue who think that statins would be even better drug if they didn't lower cholesterol, and they just did the other stuff. So they're not useless. And and it's only because we're such a segmented society with such tribalism on every side that we you're either anti statin or your post that and there's no gray, there's no nuance, and we are like, yeah, use them if they're appropriate. But this insane idea that you use our current can, that's why I said sentence isn't the place to start, because we use an outdated cholesterol test in order to get the data to prescribe them. I think anyone who's taking a statin based on that, for on triglycerides, HDL, LDL and glucose is practicing is it's medical malpractice. It's an idiotic way to prescribe a drug. That's like prescribing a treatment plan based on if you're short or tall. It's 1963. Medicine, we now know this 13 different subtypes of LDL, you really going to do good and bad. I mean it first of all, there is no good and bad cholesterol. Let's start with that. If you look under the microscope at cholesterol, it is exactly the same molecule whether it is an LDL or an HDL, it's not good or bad. It's like AMA, the example I use is I'm a passenger, I'm in an airport. If I get on a plane to Philly, or if I get on a plane to Hawaii, I'm the same Jonny Bowden, I'm just on a different plane. So cholesterol is cholesterol, whether it's an HDL or an LDL. And that really brings us to what we should be looking at in cholesterol tests, which is the L in LDL or HDL, the lipoproteins. Cholesterol doesn't by itself get caught in the artery walls, lipoproteins do lipoproteins get damaged. If you are running a marina and you want to prevent boat accidents. What do you want to know you don't want to know what's in the glove compartment of the boat. You want to know how many boats are in the water. That's what causes accidents, the more boats the more likelihood to crash. Cholesterol is the cargo it sits in the boat. It's the boat that we shouldn't be looking at. And guess what we have tests that we've had for over a decade possibly longer. That will tell you precisely they're and doctors don't prescribe them. Why because insurance companies don't cover them. So you have the NMR particle test, you have the cardiac IQ, you have the LP IR test quest labs gives them what's the other one a lab coat gives them they are widely available everywhere. But insurance companies generally don't cover them. And so doctors don't prescribe them. And they're prescribing based on good and bad cholesterol which is insane. And I'll give you a personal example. I've had perfect LDL, HDL, you know, total cholesterol all my adult life 175 I mean under well under 200, good LDL numbers. whatever year it was that I discovered that that was a an antiquated test and I got the real test. My risk factors were much higher. It was all obscured by LDL and HDL. But it when you looked at my what they call particle numbers, which is how many LDLs it was in the red. When you look at what type of particles are they big are they small, that's another dimension that is not looked at at the cholesterol test. The big fluffy molecules, the LDLs are big and fluffy. They don't do the cardiovascular the neutral. They're not good. They're not bad. They do no harm. Little small atherogenic ones. Those are the bad guys. They're inflamed. The oxidizing and Cortney endothelial wall extractants process blog posts they are the bad guys. You don't know that from LDL, you will only know it from a more A granular test that looks at the size. So well, when you have mainly big fluffy ones, they call it pattern A and that is fairly benign. When you have nasty little dark, you know, inflamed molecules of LDL, that's called pattern B, I had pattern B, that's not seen in the HDL LDL test. So, you know, number one with a board is stop testing in this old fashioned way.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 30:29

What were the first three, what were the three tests that you suggested that aren't typically or traditionally ordered that I couldn't hear the first one? Well,

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 30:37

we the size of the particles, I think the size of the particles is important. And I think the number of particles is important. Now. There are doctors I respect such as Peter or TIA, who stopped using that advanced test because of two reasons. One, they felt were inconsistent results, too. They just gave up on getting doctors to prescribe it. So they use as a surrogate for that the April be number which is a decent surrogate, I mean, it tells there's an April B protein that wraps around every LDL VLDL, all the ones that have a tendency to become bad or become problematic. And by knowing your AP number, you kind of have an idea of how many lipoproteins are in the water. So it's, it's okay. But we got to go beyond good and bad cholesterol testing. It's just really, it's so in the past, and yet we use it, because it's a $31 $31 billion, your business, they're not changing it.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 31:37

Brilliant. Wow. That was fantastic. Thank you for sharing that. Let me ask you about diets, then let me ask you about strategies for, let's say, 50 and 60 year olds, what would you suggest as far as just an orientation of the types of diets that you do like?

Unknown: 32:02

So I've written a lot

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 32:04

about diets I've met my not my first but one of my earlier books was called Living low carb. And it was literally an analysis of 38 different diets that existed at the time I wrote it now that books now in its fourth edition, and we've a lot of those diets don't even exist anymore. So we really streamlined it down to categories of diets, or ketogenic versus paleo versus, you know, as opposed to the Goldberg diet and this diet in the South Beach diet in the Atkins diet just into categories. But this is what i This is the dietary advice that I give on every podcast, because I'm always asked that what's the best diet? So the first thing I say is that there is no best time. There is no best diet, there is a best fit between diet and person. And that takes a little bit of investigation. And there's a lot of factors that go into that. But people have thrived on almost every kind of diet, you can imagine. I am very, very far from a vegan. But I am not going to deny the evidence of my senses that there's a guy named Joe Furman, he's like your ages, maybe early 60s, late 50s. He looks amazing. He's an advocate for vegan diets. God bless him. It's rare, but it happens it there are people who do well. And the point is that there are people who have survived on diets very, very diverse in nature. What they have not survived on, but there is no culture in the world who has survived on a high sugar high pressure diet. So my advice on diet is really, first of all, at 77. My mission now is to simplify things for people, people are swimming in contradictory information, and a lot of BS, and they're confused beyond belief. I see that in my private practice, I see that nice talks and Facebook lives everywhere. Just complete confusion. So I want to bring it back to basics. This is the best dietary advice you will ever, ever get ladies and gentlemen. And if you follow this, you can forget everything else. Eat

Unknown: 34:08

real food.

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 34:11

Now let's define what we mean by real food. It's not Chaotix it's kind of its food that if you showed it to your great, great, great, great great grandmother, she'd know exactly what to do with it. When they showed supermarket food to the Blue Zones, people. They

Unknown: 34:29

literally said what is this?

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 34:33

What would he do with it? juice in a box TV dinner? froze? I don't understand this. Okay, so real food is food that would spoil if you left it outdoors, right? A Twinkie or be there in 2000 years or hamburgers for you know a few hours. That's real food. Now if you start with that, the rest is all the tails. Now you can play with the macronutrient distribution but real food and in fact, Jeffrey bland who was a girl to just about everybody who has an internet presence in the health food in the health world and we all studied with Sedwill food trucks of trumps everything Trump's diet macronutrient distribution, you know, vegan carnivore, whatever I mean, you because you can eat a vegan junk food and you can eat carnivore junk food. So it's really about are you eating real, actual food, and I used to, I used to narcissistically call it the Johnny Bolden for food goods, food, you could have hunted,

Unknown: 35:38

fished gathered, period.

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 35:42

You don't have to go out and hunting and fishing. But if it was huntable fishable, pluggable off a tree or gather rubble off the ground, it's probably good for you. And the rest of it, you can play with.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 35:55

I used to have a saying that the office if God made it, you can eat it. If man made it, I would be nervous.

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 36:03

Yeah, I think that's a that's clever. And but it's probably a little of an overgeneralization. I mean, even like processed, we say processed foods, so but there are methods of processing that are minimal and perfectly healthy. There's a company that makes venison in Hawaii, and they they make venison sticks, you know, so they have to, they have to be processed and dried and a little bit of salt. It's very minor. But that's processed food. I mean, my whey protein drink is processed food. I mean, there are processing methods that are benign. You know, fermentation is processing in a way. It's not processing, but it's allowing something to happen to the food. But that's a big difference in Pringles. That's another category, then, you know what I'm saying?

Dr. Terry Weyman: 36:55

That's fair. Yeah, that's fair.

Unknown: 36:59

How do you feel about how do you feel about fasting?

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 37:05

I'm totally I've taught a course with my partner, and I designed a course called metal fasting, and we taught for about a year, I think it is, I don't even think of it as fast anymore. It's just the way I eat. I mean, I don't eat in the morning, I play tennis every morning, six days a week, two hours a day. And I do it on an empty and black coffee or an empty some coffee and cream. And I don't eat my first meal, sometimes even later than I usually it's probably one o'clock, but but sometimes it's even as late as four. So I kind of am in a fasted state a lot of the time.

Unknown: 37:40

So more intermittent.

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 37:44

Oh, yeah, yeah, I've never been able to do like the big spiritual, fast, three days, two days, you know, lots of autophagy all that good stuff. But But I think you get a benefit from less food. And I think that there are lessons from the intermittent fasting community that everybody can use, that really stand up to the research and, and pass the smell test and been clinically observed to be very beneficial. And those are very, very simple things. Don't eat between meals. I mean, that really does matter. You got to give you, we didn't talk about this yet. But my biggest passion is getting people to understand insulin resistance, which is the metabolic plague of the 21st century. But the point is, it allows fasting allows insulin levels to get back down to normal blood glucose levels to get back down to normal. It's kind of like, I think my email boxes just credited like this. It's a way of saying I'm turning off the computer, why answer the email that's in the box that I can just clean that out before the new batch comes in. And that's kind of what intimate investing does. If you're eating all day long, your insulin never goes down. And insulin is a fat store tone. So yes, I think that one lesson is don't eat between meals. The second lesson is left four hours go between meals. That's the ideal time. And the third lesson is don't eat a couple of hours before that before bed. If you could do those three things, I don't care if you're intermittent fasting or not. But that is, you know, even if you're eating three meals a day, but let four hours go between meals and lead to go before

Dr. Spencer Baron: 39:20

I remember years ago, there was a conversation about the grazing was a favorable approach, you know, and then fasting was yeah,

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 39:30

I taught that God I Mia, culpa, I taught that crap. In Equinox it's great for the food companies. Yeah, let's mini meals and grazing. It's a horrible ad. It guarantees your insulin levels will always be up it guarantees that there'll be a snack industry because everyone you know, many meals, first of all, Americans don't know what a mini meal is. That just has not processed in our brains. Everybody was eating six meals. Today, not many meals of tea, you know, and those 100 calorie snack things that they sell. I mean, that's all based on the theory that calories are all the man. So if you just keep them down to calories, you can eat whatever you want. It's it's, it's just grazing is a terrible idea. Like, it's just one of the one of the really bad ideas.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 40:24

All right, I have a question. Because you just hit on something. You have these teenage kids, all the way up to maybe even 30. And all they talk about is I want to gain weight they want especially the boys that 18 to 24 I won't gain weight, I want to bulk up I like it. So they just calories, calories, calories, and they're constantly eating. I have Spencer has two boys. I have two boys. They're constantly eating and, and it was interesting. My son lived in Portugal. And he goes, I wasn't that hungry. When other than Portugal here, ie in like an hour later, I'm starving again. So like, can you talk a little bit about not only the American food and why he was hungry here, and he's not hungry, and in Europe, but the other thing I want just these kids, I even know a kid that takes goes to this goes to sandwich shop and it gets Doritos and shoves it with Doritos, because he goes, adds more calories to the sandwich. You know? Can you talk a little bit about how we can change this mindset for these kids who want maybe think they know it all? And too? Are you? You're

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 41:31

asking me me seriously on its way out on my pay scale? How do we change the American mindset? To something hard?

Dr. Terry Weyman: 41:44

I've given you an error, I'm trying to shoot it right.

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 41:48

The thing is, I think that the the good news, if there is any good news in that is that they go out of that, you know, their their bodies at 18. And 19. And 20 can survive a lot. I mean, I survived heroin addiction, like, you know, you can you can, you can survive a lot of that. And there is some truth to the fact that if you're trying to bulk up, you need to eat more food. They they're not thinking in terms of what are the metabolic effects of this food? And what are the hormonal effects of food or which ones are most likely to help you build muscle, which is protein, they're just thinking about more food and more calories. And yeah, hopefully, if we can educate people about nutrition and the metabolic effect of food and the hormonal effects of food, we can make better choices. We have a very close friend who's a dancer and a bodybuilder. He's constantly I mean, the whey protein because he can't keep weight on. And you know, in order to put on any muscle, he just sent me 1000s of calories. And I know he has a lot of sympathy from older people Oh, it's really hard like you got they're trying to eat more calories to gain weight. Obviously, this is not our demographic that we see as clients, those people are trying to do the opposite. But it's really based on the same idea. And a lot of those people are trying to do it with the same cockamamie notions. If I just eat less calories, I'll be fine. And that's just not true. It's, you know, one of the first lessons I learned at Equinox as a trainer was at the feet of Barry Sears, who will design books, the MIT scientists that that wrote the zone and that whole series of books and food, his hormones. Calories have a hormonal effect, you got to look at what the what the hormones that are being stimulated by the food are doing. So you eat 1000 calories of starches, Cheerios, your insulin is gonna go off to hearing 1000 calories of steak, not so much. And 1000 calories a bad it's not even going to move the lead on. So you got to look at the hormonal effect. And kids are not doing No.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 44:02

What about the processes when they're in Europe, they eat and then they're satisfied. They hear they eat the same food and they're not satisfied?

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 44:12

Well, there's a couple of things about that. First of all, we have a lot of social cues for constant eating and snacking news seven elevens in those snack shops and people walk in the street and eat in the car and there's a lot of advertisements and cues and social support for eating all kinds of foods all day long. Which I have not observed as much in overseas.

Unknown: 44:39

Second of all, food

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 44:41

it vices and always rice and wheat isn't always wheat. And they're not one monolithic thing. They always say well, the Chinese and Japanese eat a lot of rice. I've been to both China and and Japan and let me tell you how much we're Ice the an ice cream scooper form a tiny little ball of ice in the middle of a plate of seafood and miso soup. And, and salmon. So yeah, they eat rice, but they don't sit there and eat New York takeout Chinese food, you know quite some time. And even the wheat, if you read read the wonderful book Wheat Belly, by William Davis the cardiologist talks about how different types of wheat, you know dwarf wheat, the kind of wheat we have here, these things, they're not all the same. You can't really just say, well eat that there. And we eat that here and how come it's a problem because we eat a very different version very often of these things. And, you know, they've been, they've been genetically altered to be sweeter, and you know, to grow faster, and whatever else they do with that stuff. And that isn't always the case in Utah. So they're eating a lot more traditional foods, they may both be called rice, and they both got but it's not quite the same thing, you know, of the past in Italy, the tan made, they don't eat Manzoni out of the can. So yeah, they're both postures, but I don't think that they both send the same information to the body.

Unknown: 46:13

Perfect question. And there's

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 46:15

a lot more fiber knows maybe another reason why your son is more fallen Portugal, and he is in the Bible is wasteland of fast food in America, you know? Yeah.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 46:26

Yeah. You started to touch off on, we touched off on a lot of diets, actually. But how much does ancestry dictate what you should be eating? You know, where you came from?

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 46:38

I think it makes a difference. I mean, you know, is there in prior swaths of I think it makes a difference your ancestry in the sense that there are swaths of the population that are lactose intolerant, some that are less so and some that are completely? Yeah, I think I think some of that matters, but I do think that the individual kind of Trump's the, you were talking about genes earlier in gene testing, I have a slide that says I didn't make this up. But I use it because it's brilliant. And it's genes loads the gun, environment pulls the trigger. So for example, let's say I have a gene, I don't even know if such a gene exists. But the gene says that if this guy's lungs, you expose the cigarette smoke, he's almost certain to get lung cancer, because not everybody does. There are outliers who smoke a pack a day and die without lung cancer, you know, it happens, right? So let's say I have the lung cancer gene. It's like a light switch. Dude, if I don't smoke, who cares? It's stat gene says that I will, I will be very susceptible to the bad results of cigarette smoke because my lungs are weak or like we talked about that inflammation gene in the arteries, right. But if I don't do the thing, if I don't turn the light switch on, it's wired to go on the ceiling. I'm just not going to turn on the switch. So we have I don't think genes or destiny. There are mono genetic diseases, like you get one gene. If you look at the draw, you got this gene. Sorry, dude, there's nothing we can do. Cystic fibrosis is one Huntington's chorea is another that's about the list. I can name I mean, very, very few Moto G diabetes is not one gene, there may be 50 genes that will predispose you, and it's all an algorithm. If this happens, that more is more likely to happen. And it's not just you got the gene, you got the disease. So you know, we get the genetic card we are dealt, we can't do anything about but I'm all about taking the cards you have and playing the best hand.

Unknown: 48:47

Huh. Good luck, that

Dr. Spencer Baron: 48:50

quick little question about quercetin. Quercetin

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 48:53

is a flavonoid that the main sources are onion and apples. And it is a very powerful anti inflammatory and I am very very in Miami heard of it and it is in my daily routine and has been for years during the pandemic when everybody was asking what should we take but you will resolve my list of top seven things to take as anti inflammatory.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 49:21

Perfect, Johnny, we're gonna wrap it up. But But thank you, thank you, we're gonna start wrapping up but I want to ask you five rapid fire questions that we typically ask of our guests then we are going to I have a feeling you're gonna do real well with these questions and they're there. Some of them are erroneous, but you know, I'm sure you'll come up with a quick answer for each one.

Unknown: 49:45

Are you ready? I'm ready, man.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 49:49

Okay, let's hear question number one. When you were a personal trainer, what was the most awkward experience you had with a client?

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 50:06

Honestly, when you say when when you ask that I can't think of one. I didn't really have awkward experiences. Okay. I've had difficult clients, I've had clients whose purpose was to prove that I couldn't help them that we call them uncoachable. But I've never really had an awkward or embarrassing moment with a client and I was pretty. I had pretty good relationships with clients and I didn't really have any, any I'm not avoiding the question. Believe me. I can't think of one.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 50:43

All right, all right. I've gone on to question number two. Are you ready? What is your personal food weakness? Ice cream

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 51:01

and possibly Tate's chocolate. Okay.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 51:07

Love it. Question number three regarding pitbulls and parents out of these two completely different animals have significance in your life.

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 51:19

Well, I am going to have to give you a visual aid for this you're going to give me one second

Unknown: 51:25

ready

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 51:30

this is a sign that hangs up in my kitchen I don't know if you three versus reversing it says it's not a home without a pitbull. That's how our houses that's awesome. And we don't have parents but we love them. We follow them on Instagram Hamlet is one of our favorites. And we don't have them because a we don't think they'll get along with the dogs and B because they live like 80 years and they'll survive you know outlive us and we don't want to deal you know like that. Right but love parents love it both have had people for 30 years. We have two of them.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 52:14

So why why the pitbull as a breed

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 52:21

I think I am generally drawn to misunderstood phenomena.

Unknown: 52:29

i

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 52:35

They are very misunderstood, read. There are many things in life that are misunderstood Robert F Kennedy being one of them. And I've always been kind of attracted to wait a minute, this isn't exactly what you're saying about it. And my wife and I just we love the faces we look I'll give there was a movie of Brad Pitt movie once upon a time in Hollywood. And he had a central casting Pitbull in this movie was like, the most frightening people you'd ever seen in 20 years, we flipped the head the big thing and there was a scene where they're in his house and the camera rolls and you see this Pitbull and the whole audience guests and my wife and I go, Oh, we just we love the bass, we love that, you know, the very, if if they are raised, right, they are the sweetest dogs in the world. You just have to know what you're doing with them. You don't leave them alone and chained to the backyard. And then people do all these awful things. They're very people. And they need their people and they need socialization. And once they are I will trust ours with one of our pupils loves babies and tries to kiss every baby in the restaurants in the street. So not all but properly ways. They just wonderful dogs and they're funny looking. So I don't know, we like we like them with a little funny faces.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 54:06

All right. That's great. Question number four. What do you feel as far as physical challenges that everyone over 50 should

Unknown: 54:15

attempt?

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 54:20

I don't think there's anything that everyone over any age should I am very. I'm not a big fan of the shoulds. I think that there is some basic stretches that people 50 should do on a regular basis that are very, very good. It's a general thing. Two or three, you know, basic, whole body stretches. I think it's very important. I think one of the things we've learned in the last 10 years or so is how under appreciated muscle is as an organ of longevity. And there are people of Gabriela Lyons who, whose podcast is really all about muscle is The Internet is the organ of longevity. How do we preserve that? Peter Thiel talks about it and outlive, how do we preserve it? How do we build it? And and I think that probably the take home lesson from that is that we are not consuming enough protein and the government recommendations, what a surprise have been wrong, and really weigh under estimating how much protein we really need for optimal well being. So I would say, you know, some form of muscle maintenance is pretty important when people over 50 Very good.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 55:37

Yeah, question number five. Last one, Johnny, what is your go to book that you read? And you can read over and over again?

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 55:59

We talking about nonfiction and fiction,

Unknown: 56:02

any book? Oh, open. fair game. Oh, man,

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 56:12

I, that's a very hard question. There is there are a couple of novels that I've read multiple times. That always delight. And in terms of nonfiction, I come back a lot to the moral animal, which is a really good book about evolutionary psychology. And I haven't read out live twice. I've only read it once. But I have a feeling I will go back to that book and read it again. I think it's the best book ever written on anti aging. outlive and I'd have to, I'd have to think outlive by Peter Thiel. Yep.

Unknown: 56:55

It's good book. Yeah,

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 57:01

I did a big library. Every few years, I have to, like, clean out the 1000s of books that you know, and, and those are some of the books that have survived. They survived time and time again, when I you know, when I clean out the library, and but yeah, that's a great question. And it's the only one that ever stumped me. When I mean, the word, I read the Daily stoic every day, that's probably a book I'll read over and over and over and over again. I use it as a daily daily stoic Ryan Holiday. And it's a book of daily meditations from stoic philosophy and you can read, you know, one, one per day, January 1 to December 31. And I've been using it for five years. So I guess, I guess that's actually the book that I would come back to. And Senecas book how to die.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 57:58

That's a good one. Yeah. All right. Really? Which is really how to live. Right, right. Yeah, that's it. That's good. Can

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 58:07

I plug my practice or my website? Or my books at least? Oh,

Dr. Terry Weyman: 58:11

we're getting there? Yes, of course, we of course you can. I was fit. First off, thank you, we're gonna finish off. Joy, this was oh, and I'm like writing notes down and all that kind of stuff. So and the fact that we're in the same neighborhood, we're gonna be, I'm gonna be calling you we're gonna be having lunch. But I want to finish with this. And then yes, the floor is yours to plug whenever you want. But finding real food farm to table is not easy as it sounds I want that's true. For some people, like in the Midwest, or in the cities and all that they struggle with that. So you can you just give some final advice for the people that struggle with that, and then weave it into what you're doing now and your books?

Unknown: 59:06

Well, I mean,

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 59:09

there's always a trade off between convenience and quality. I mean, that's true. I used to be a stereo equipment fanatic music and it was true van. I mean, you get all of them in one box. It's not as good as when you have separate preamplifier amplifier. You know, so every time you have a certain amount of convenience, you'd sort of sacrificing. And if you live in a food desert, that I mean, that again, is beyond my pay scale. How do we fix that? I don't really know. But you try to eat the stuff that doesn't come in boxes as much as possible. You try to read the ingredients and if there's a lot of ingredients you can't pronounce, try to move on to stuff you can understand. It's like Warren Buffett says about investing, if I don't understand what a company does, or invested. If you can't understand what's in The food donated, it's got 8 million chemical names, it's probably not good for you. I don't know what other good advice to give to people who live in food deserts. I think that's a big political problem and economic problem and, and a demographic problem. And you know, all you got is a 711. Beef jerky, I guess I just, I just, I am stumped by that. But it's always possible to find better food. Like even in a food desert, there's, it may never get too good, but there's really crappy and just a little crappy, and then just kind of, okay, go through the Okay, if that's what you do. And people kind of know that they know that, you know, Pringles is not is not. Right. And to the extent that people can understand that, you know, one of the things when I were when I've worked with addicts, is you have to find out what the thing they're looking for is when they're addicted, and give them something else that will do it. It's the same thing as they teach you as parents with kids, the kid screaming out for water every night, he doesn't want water, he wants you, he wants attention. So if you find a way to get attention, that isn't destructive, and doesn't, you know, drive the family crazy, like reading a story, you can get rid of the behavior. I worked with a guy who was completely addicted to pot, I mean, in in ways that you wouldn't think you could be addicted to pot, but he's in the 10% of the population who really, really gets addicted. And it never worked to tell him information about what that was doing to him or any work is to find out a way to get the pleasure, or even the escape that he was getting from pot in a different way. So so many of us get our sensual pleasure, from crappy food, find a better way to get don't get rid of the pleasure, just find a different way to get it. So I think when we start to realize how much of eating is automatic, and is just for the tasting just to the you know, boredom, and just for all those reasons, and that comes down to self awareness, and then it's difficult thing to teach. But that's kind of the path that I think you got to go on with that and understand what is it that when I during the pandemic, I really saw this because we couldn't go shopping and we couldn't you know, and I watched myself on the phone just reaching out. What am I do the half this is unconscious. I'm not even hungry. You know what you got to look at that?

Dr. Terry Weyman: 1:02:41

I think yeah. All right, tell us what you're up to.

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 1:02:46

My website is Johnny bolden.com, Gio and NY no h and Johnny. I'm at Johnny Bowden and I do at this point, I do private consultations. But I do a very special kind, they don't see people 10 times in a row and I don't look at their Pujari we do strategy sessions. What What information do you have that maybe isn't serving you what is stopping you from reaching your goals, whether it starts with nutrition and health, which it always does, or maybe something bigger, I've had sessions where guy comes in and says I've just gained 30 pounds since I broke up with my girlfriend, I used to go to the gym, and I used to do this and I go tell me about the girlfriend. And we spent a half an hour on that. And he told me six months later, it was the greatest life changing session ever. So I talk about anything and everything with people. It's about a one hour session, I do those and you can book them on my website. I love doing that. Because the people who come to me have to kind of do an obstacle course to get there. They're gonna go there, that website, I'm not cheap. It's all that stuff. But they really want my input on their situation. I love working with people like that. So I do those. And of course, I did things like this. So it in my book is The Great Cholesterol Myth. I hope everybody will read it. And that's, that's it for my promos.

Unknown: 1:04:04

There you

Dr. Terry Weyman: 1:04:05

go. And I will put all the links to all that in your description. And for the show and make sure everybody knows how to get to you and find you so they'll have to weave so dramatically to find you. So, thank

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 1:04:17

you so much. It was so fun, guys. I really appreciate the invitation. I was so delighted to do

Dr. Terry Weyman: 1:04:24

you have a great day and thank you for helping people, man.

Dr. Jonny Bowden: 1:04:28

You're welcome. Bye bye, guys. Oh, don't think

Dr. Spencer Baron: 1:04:35

thank you for listening to today's episode of The cracking backs podcast. We hope you enjoyed it. Make sure you follow us on Instagram at cracking backs podcast. catch new episodes every Monday. See you next time.