Jay Feldman 0:11
Welcome to Episode 44 of the energy balance podcast where we teach you how to live without constant hunger and cravings, fatigue, brain fog, poor sleep and other low energy symptoms by maximizing your cellular energy. I'm Jay Feldman. I'm a health coach and independent health researcher, and joining me again today is my good friend Mike Fave. Mike and I have been studying health and nutrition together for a long time now, and Mike also draws on his experiences from working within the healthcare industry. Today's episode is part three of our series on autoimmunity, where we'll be discussing nutrition for autoimmune conditions. If you didn't listen to part one and part two of the series, I'd highly recommend you go and do that. In part one, we discussed alternative views of the immune system and autoimmunity, and also the problems with the mainstream and functional medicine views of autoimmune conditions and also their proposed solutions. And then in part two, we talked about restoring cellular bioenergetics and repairing the gut for autoimmune conditions, which is major part of restoring health in these situations. So in today's episode, we'll be talking about the problems with using fish oil and omega threes to decrease inflammation. We'll be talking about how you can lower stress hormones with carbohydrates and why this is key for autoimmune conditions. We'll also be talking about why fasting and low calorie diets end up making autoimmune conditions a lot worse in the long run, and we'll discuss why reducing the consumption of polyunsaturated fats or PUFA is paramount when it comes to autoimmune conditions. If you are new to this podcast, then after listening through this episode, I'd highly recommend you go back and listen through episodes one through seven, where we took some time to set a foundation for the bioenergetic approach to health. To check out the show notes for today's episode, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/podcast where you can take a look at the studies and articles and anything else that we talked about throughout today's episode, and if you are dealing with any autoimmune conditions or other low energy symptoms like chronic cravings and hunger, low energy or fatigue, chronic pain, weight gain, brain fog, poor sleep, hormonal imbalances or gut symptoms. Then head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, where you can sign up for a free energy balance mini course, where I'll explain why these symptoms and conditions really come down to the lack of energy. And I'll also walk you through the main things that you want to do as far as diet and lifestyle are concerned, so that you can maximize your cellular energy and restore optimal health and get rid of these symptoms and conditions. So to sign up for that free energy balance mini course, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, and with that, let's get started.

Obviously, the gut is a major part of this. And if we have this constant production of toxins from the gut bacteria or fungus, you know, things like endotoxin, which we know are really disastrous for energy production directly. You know, inside the mitochondria, it directly blocks certain aspects of energy production, particularly, particularly in the electron transport chain. It also causes a host of other problems and direct stress effects just from being identified. So you know, LPs or endotoxin is a major issue. But anyway, so fixing the gut or addressing proper gut health, or supporting proper gut health is a huge part of this. But even if we do that all perfectly, but we're not eating very much food, or not eating very many carbohydrates, or eating a ton of polyunsaturated fats or or missing out on certain vitamins or minerals, we're still going to have the same problems that that we would have, you know, in just with the gut issue, meaning that we're still going to have high stress hormones, we're still going to have low thyroid and low reproductive hormones. We're still going to be basically under the same conditions that lead to the autoimmune state. And so considering that, we also want to make sure that dietary and lifestyle wise, we're doing the things that help to move out of that state, that help to support energy production, which is, on the the most fundamental level, the direct way to drop stress, like to decrease stress and decrease inflammation, which are basically just signals of a lack of energy. And again, previous episode, you know, it was actually the first episode, or episode one of the podcast where we discussed this in a little bit more detail, about why we've why energy is so integral or to our health, and why we, you know, why we view it as kind of that fundamental component, but considering that, we want to make sure that we're doing everything that we can to support energy production and. One of the most important things there is that we're eating enough food overall, which means that fasting or any sort of starvation or caloric deficits are going to be basically slowing down energy production, increasing stress hormones, driving autoimmune states and driving degeneration in the long term. Again, there can be particular benefits here, like we discussed earlier, where if your gut is a problem, you can have some gut relief by not eating at all or by eating less, but that's not actually fixing the issue. So assuming that the gut issue is aside, you know, gut issues aside, assuming we fixed the gut, quote, unquote, then we, you know, if we're not eating enough, we're still going to be in that same inflamed, high stress state that's driving autoimmunity. So one of the most important things here to talk about all the time is just making sure that we're eating enough. Almost everything out there is suggesting otherwise that we should be eating less and exercising more. This is very commonly the case from all the kind of conventional perspectives. So for somebody who maybe isn't coming from the functional medicine perspective, but instead is coming more from the conventional perspective, where it's medications and just the general healthy lifestyle of eating less food and all salads and vegetarian and low fat, those are going to be things that are all driving these autoimmune states further. So.

Mike 6:19
And it's not the it part of that is or a lot of that is mediated through the stress hormones actually inducing the immune profile. I want to say, point that out specifically, but just because people just to clarify, because it almost sounds like, oh, eating or doing interim fasting is going to give you an autoimmune disease, what you're saying more like just to clarify for people not saying that's what you're saying, but it's more that not eating or extreme caloric deficits or or a lot of fasting, or basically elevating adaptive hormones like adrenaline and cortisol over an extended period of time actually induces an immune profile that moves towards An autoimmune profile. It moves towards that inflammatory profile that that's that's the basis of what you're pointing out. I think.

Jay Feldman 7:07
Yeah, yeah. And so we see that into, like, in kind of two very immediate places. We see it directly with what happens when we're not producing enough energy that alone causes these danger type signals that activate the immune response, the kind of autoimmune type side of it. And then, as you're alluding to, also the stress hormones in cohesion with that signal have the same effect where they move toward, you know, basically they move the immune response toward the autoimmune type response. So yeah, considering that eating enough is going to be paramount here. We've talked about why eating more does not mean gaining more fat, assuming that you are doing all the things that help to support energy production and removing the things that inhibit energy production. So that's again, if you're changing the types of foods that you're eating growing slowly, which changing your foods in the way that we're outlining, that shouldn't be an issue. Again, if you're in an autoimmune situation, or if you have an autoimmune condition, and especially depending on how severe it is and where your health is at, you might be at a place where you have a lot of factors inhibiting energy production. And if you were to just start eating a lot more, you might gain some weight. So again, the key here is doing these things slowly and also making sure you're addressing those factors that would inhibit energy production, the problems with the gut would be one of the main things there. One of the other main things there would be the polyunsaturated fats. And you mentioned this a little bit earlier, that there's you mentioned that doctor that was doing basically linoleic acid depleted diets in and seeing that.

Mike 8:44
Full depletion as, from what I understand, it wasn't even full depletion is more just like eating a normal diet to a large extent, but avoiding linoleic acid as much as possible, because, and I want to point that out, because some people within the repeat community talk about like using these very specific diets to actually fully deplete linoleic acid, and it's like skim milk and orange juice and like hydrogenated coconut oil, and they weren't even going to that extreme in these diets. It was more just like avoiding nuts and seeds and avoiding the the PUFA oils as much as possible, the Omega six oils, your safflower, sunflower, canola, sesame, all basically limiting those as much as possible. And I think it was also eliminating like foods that were high in linoleic acid as well, like, if like chicken thighs that from industrial produced chicken or something like that. I think that was those were, like the basic strategies. I don't, I don't know all the specifics off the top of my head, because I didn't, you know. It's, I think there's more to just eliminating than just eliminating linoleic acid, but it's, it's interesting to see that they're improving so much with just that intervention. Yeah.

Jay Feldman 9:59
Yeah. Yeah, and something you said real quick made me think of earlier you were talking about properly prepared grains and legumes and nuts and seeds. And I just wanted to clarify that that generally means either fermenting them or soaking and sprouting them, which are processes that will help to deactivate the anti nutrients in there. They don't necessarily make them great foods, but they make them a lot better. So I just wanted to make that clarification. But yeah, in regard to PUFA, so it's, it's really pretty profound that you can see such a dramatic effect from just reducing Omega sixes in the diet in people with these with these autoimmune conditions. And then the research too, they see that full depletion, like essential fatty acid depletion, is what, what they call it is, has been shown to be protective against various autoimmune conditions, and basically, not only like prevents it from occurring, but also reverses it if it's already happened. So that's definitely noteworthy, and it's it's also understandable because, I mean, basically the polyunsaturated fats do the equivalent of the stress hormones. They the equivalent actions of the glucocorticoids and estrogen as well. And, you know, we see this again through every step of of function, every step of the physiology, where they basically make energy production much less efficient. And this is, this is all assuming that they're not even damaged, is that they're created, you know, basically making energy production much less efficient. And then they are shifting in the same way that the glucocorticoids do. They're shifting from the innate to the adaptive immunity, basically, you know, th one to th two for the like the T helper cells, and causing that same shift towards auto immune profile. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And this, and then at the same time, especially with the Omega sixes, you have their metabolites that are then also directly pro inflammatory. So you've got this. I mean, in the case of omega sixes, you've got all three of these happen, things happening at once, all leading to, basically, the snowball effect of destruction and and with the Omega threes, you have this because of their the icosinoids are produced from the Omega threes, which, in this case are quote, unquote, anti inflammatory. With the Omega threes, you get the short term benefit, but then you still get all the same long term problems, the same disruption and energy production, the same susceptibility to lipid peroxidation in the long term, and then you also get the same shift in the immune state. So in both cases, you have these long term issues in the Omega threes, you do have some short term benefit that people notice. They say they might notice that if they use really high amounts of omega threes, they feel better short term. But again, much like glucocorticoids, which in the short term have some anti inflammatory effects as well, long term, cause a lot of issues that are very well acknowledged.

Mike 12:47
Well and especially with the Omega three omega six. If you've been living on sunflower oil or canola oil your whole life, with high amounts of omega six, and you start introducing higher amounts of omega threes. Like it's not, it's not debatable that there's shown benefits with that in the research. However, from our the perspective we're pointing out here is that's not ideal. It's like in that case, you might as well just take a bunch of aspirin or anti inflammatory drugs and inhibit the the inflammatory, the production of inflammatory mediators, because the idea behind the Omega three omega six is that the Omega three is basically in producing the pro resolvings and these other eicosanoids, or oxy Lins, all these, these different mediators that have a resolving effect and an ant, an opposite effect of the inflammatory mediators produced The Omega three has produces mediators at opposite to the inflammatory mediators of the Omega six. And so if you've been loaded up on that, on the Mega six your whole life, then when you start using the Omega threes, you basically number one. I think they they out compete at the enzyme level for cycle oxygen ace and like epoxy oxygenase. And then they also produce like opposite mediators. So it's sort it is a strategy to deal with that, but at the same time, you still have to mitigate. Okay, the omega threes have a and they increase lipid peroxidation, because they're susceptible to lipid peroxidation, and then they also have some negative effects, in general, on metabolism. And this is we're talking long term, because there are short term studies showing the benefits and whatnot. And then there are some interesting studies showing some immunosuppressive effects from the Omega threes. And there's some studies hinting at that in different ways. But even what the recent we were just talking about it before, the mouse study, where, basically the the the animals were given a Citrobacter rodentium, which causes colitis, and on the Omega six heavy diet, they developed like a pretty strong colitis. On the Omega three heavy diet, they didn't develop colitis, but they wound up going they wanted. Having increased mortality from sepsis because the Omega three is impaired their ability to basically deal with the liquid polysaccharide or the endotoxin from the infection. So they didn't have inflammation in the colon because the Omega threes blocked it, but then they died from sepsis because they weren't able to mount an effective immune response to deal with the endotoxin and whatnot. So it's, it's, it's, you know, the colon's fine, and then they died. So it's sort of, now, we're not saying that's always going to be the case for people, but it's just bringing caution to the to the idea, this blanket idea of, well, Omega six are good and are bad, and omega threes are good. And it's like, there needs to be context. They both have lipid peroxidation. The other thing that I see pointed out a lot too, is like, Oh, we this. These omega threes didn't cause a lipid peroxidation when they took it with this antioxidant, astaxanthin or or all this vitamin E and stuff like that. It's like, in some studies with vitamin E, they do still have lipid peroxidation, I don't know specifics on astaxanthin, and then in the other thing is, if the Omega threes get stored in the tissue, are they still stored with the antioxidant? And then when you have to release fatty acids during a stress response, is the lipid peroxidation just not going to happen? Like, what is, what's the function? What happens if you have high amounts of omega threes, or high amounts of omega six is being incorporated into the into the cellular structure, besides just being stored in fat, are they still not going to undergo any type of lipid peroxidation? So those are the questions that I still you know, that I would still ask in in response to some of these questions, the lipid peroxidation is a problem. And then I mean, some of the known metabolic effects are a problem. And then when you seeing immunosuppression in some of the Omega three studies, and it's it's also a question. And in the context of, even when you look at historical trends in Omega three consumption, we didn't have these ridiculously high intakes. And then there's populations that were healthy without having high amounts of omega threes in the diet. And then even the ones that did have high, high amounts of omega threes, which is usually the Inuit or Eskimo populations, they still had heart disease and heart issues and all these problems that omega threes are supposed to protect against. And I think you actually have an article talking about this that links to an article where researchers are basically saying, Yeah, we didn't find high amounts of strokes or issues in the Inuit or Eskimo population with high because they're but people initially thought is because it was high amounts of omega threes. But then what they started to realize eventually was that, well, they just weren't going to the hospital to get diagnosed, because there's not that many hospitals in the Arctic. Or they were like, having the they were having the events, but they weren't. They weren't going to to the hospital when they had the when they had a small stroke or they had a heart attack, and then they were basically looking at EKGs and different diagnostic tests with these, with these populations on these high fish oil diets. And obviously they had other components in their diet too. So it's not just about fish oil. So that, you know, I'm not trying to make a correlation via causation here, but they also found in their exam results that they had had previous heart attacks and previous strokes, and they found it on EKGs and different diagnostics. So it's important to keep that whole picture in mind around the Omega threes. And the reason I belabor the points with these is because there's a lot of contention, not only in the alternative paleo sphere, but now the mainstream is getting into the idea of omega threes, and they're using it in pharmaceuticals for high dose supplements that they're just giving people purified Omega three in a pill. So it's like, oh god. Well, it's problematic on number levels, because a lot of Omega three supplements are rancid. Like, if you're getting your nature's way Omega three from CVS or something like, how likely is that to be rancid or oxidized already, before you're even taking it right?

Jay Feldman 18:52
Very likely. I mean, that's there's there's studies showing that that a lot of the supplements are already oxidized. Yeah.

Mike 18:57
Exactly. And even with the even people are talking about, like flaxseed oil and the benefits of flaxseed oil, that's another thing that's come to pass now. And it's like the good quality flaxseed oils are stored in amber bottles at like in in either in a refrigeration sections with nitrogen in the bottle to prevent oxidation. It's like they can't even like, if you took it out of the refrigerator and you left it by itself for a little while, you would have a rancid oil.

Jay Feldman 19:23
So, so what you're saying is, what happens when you eat it haha

Mike 19:28
What happens when it goes into your body? Right? So I think it's there's a lot of conflict going on right now, and that's why I like to belabor the points around omega threes and Omega sixes, because while and even with the doctor who was doing the low linoleic acid diet, I think he was also adjusting by supplementing with either fish or omega three supplements to counteract the effects of linoleic acid. And it's like, okay, the omega threes may help. They may actually help in some situations. And. But if you're having an immunosuppressive effect, you may, you also may that, like you might, it's maybe along the same lines as using the pharmaceutical drugs to cause immunosuppression to deal with an autoimmune disease. It's not it's what else could be going on. And I guess, what a good point. I guess you can go on from here, but I would say, What? What do you think would be good strategies to eliminate or deal with a high like a high amount of omega sixes over time?

Jay Feldman 20:28
Yeah. So, so before getting to that real quick, I did want to add on. So a couple of points. So, so one is just that the if you're going to make the argument that the Omega threes are not oxidized internally, if they're taken with these other antioxidants and whatever, when we're looking at these conditions, you already see lipid peroxidation as a symptom. So you already see that in MS and Parkinson's and Alzheimer's so and so if we're saying that these people are the ones who should be taking the Omega threes, then even if you're going to say in a perfectly healthy person that they're not they aren't going to become oxidized, which I think is very questionable. And these in people, in these situations, they're definitely very likely to be oxidized. So that's something to consider. Another thing to consider is that even if they aren't oxidized, there are still problems with intact, perfectly healthy omega threes, a in our bodies. And this is we've talked about this in previous episodes, and I've got some articles that I'll link to, but basically the amount of omega threes that we have in the structure of our cells, like in the we'll call it, the cellular membrane and the mitochondrial membrane, that is the more omega three in there, the greater association with faster aging, shorter lifespans and less efficient energy production. And then, of course, we know that the Omega three lipid peroxidation products are associated with virtually every single chronic health condition and degenerative condition. So.

Mike 21:57
We need to be more fluid though, Jay, your membranes need more fluidity, right? So things can get past them. They're too sturdy.

Jay Feldman 22:10
Yeah, and, and so you drew some great parallels with omega threes and the again, the immunosuppressive drugs, which I think is so clear. I mean, omega threes used to be used for immunosuppression when people would get skin grafts or transplants, or at least, I don't know if that was all. There's some of that that's been in humans and some has been in rats. So they're basically used just like glucocorticoids were. And now you can basically see them still being used in that way. Or like some of the more you know, some of the stronger immunosuppressive drugs. And as you said, that might bring some relief at the moment, but what other problems is it causing? You know, we know that there are massive side effects to the glucocorticoid medications in high doses and long term, or low doses, long term, but long term, you know when they're when we're exposed to them chronically, because they have long enough to have that, you know, for us to see that degenerate, degenerative effect clearly, and then that's increased even further in the more intense immunosuppressive drugs. So, yeah, I mean, when we're comparing omega threes to those is basically not necessarily comparing, but basically just saying that they parallel them, maybe in a slightly less intense way, depending on how much you're getting, it sounds like a pretty, pretty bad idea for you know, it sounds like the exact opposite of what we want to be doing, as far as supporting metabolic health and supporting our energy producing systems and preventing damage and preventing a breakdown in structure and preventing autoimmunity, and you mentioned earlier, like, what can, what should we do instead, more or less.

Mike 23:46
I mean, especially if you have high omega six that's in this, in this condition, I know, because we're also going to get into other stuff for that we can do to for treatment options, yeah, yeah.

Jay Feldman 23:57
I mean, one thing I would say is start to change the type of fats that you're eating favor the more saturated fats, the fats from ruminant animals, beef and bison and goat and lamb and from dairy, assuming that you're that dairy is not triggering, you know, you know, triggering for your causing an immune response. And then also the fats from cocoa butter and coconut oil are all good options. Additionally, you can use supplemental vitamin E, if it's you know, high quality, in kind of moderate doses and...

Mike 24:30
The natural form, not the synthetic one, right, right? Yeah.

Jay Feldman 24:35
I don't have too much else to add, as far as maybe some aspirin. Yeah, yeah. Well, so aspirin can be helpful too. Another thing as well is supporting liver health, because one way that we can get rid of these polyunsaturated fats is through basically liver detoxification, through glucuronidation, and so that just depends on general liver health and general metabolic health. So I mean all of the supplements that we have discussed and we'll be discussing happen to help the. Health too, because it's just a major kind of aspect of just general metabolic health, but so making sure your liver is functioning well is, is always helpful too. As you said, aspirin can be helpful. Anything that's going to to help to drop free fatty acids, more or less. So vitamin b3 or niacinamide would be helpful. Caffeine would likely be helpful, which is also very supportive of liver health. So I don't know, were there any other particular ones you wanted to add as far as PUFA go.

Mike 25:28
I think, I think dropping the dropping PUFA in the diet as low as possible is helpful. I think even with people. So I think even with people who are going to drop it as low as possible, I think eating seafood is helpful with the diet in general. They talk about ratios and some of the research. So the idea isn't, and I want to make this clear, is the idea isn't to keep your eat so much seafood to account for all your high amount of omega six content. I think it would be better to try and keep both low, and then just make sure that you're not eating like way more omega six to then omega three, even while both are low, which would just mean incorporating seafood periodically, whether it's shellfish or whatnot, and not loading up on higher omega six foods. That I think that's the best strategy overall, regardless of what point of view come from, if you think omega threes are good, or you think that, or basically you think omega threes are good. So whether or not you think that they're good or not that I think the as the strategy that would cover both would be to keep it low, and keep all PUFA low in general, and just make sure that your ratio between omega three and Omega six would be in a good place. I think I do think vitamin E and aspirin are helpful? I think having adequate go ahead...

Jay Feldman 26:44
I was just gonna say yes, if somebody is is holding that belief very strongly that the Omega threes are good, I guess this is a better alternative. But..

Mike 26:52
I've just seen so many people, yeah, I've seen so many people hold it so strong. And yeah, I just like to make the the point that you're gonna I think eating seafood is helpful anyway. Now, without, obviously, like some of the ones you mentioned, without going to, like, out of your way to eat, you know, five grams of Omega three a day from X amount of salmon or whatever, whatever it is, whatever the option is, like, I don't think supplementing any of them is an ideal situation, but I do think eating seafood is helpful. So I think even if you were in the camp that omega threes were helpful, if you're going to eat seafood on a regular basis, then I think you wouldn't have to worry, especially if you're keeping your omega six on the lower end. And I just put it that way, because the diet that we discuss, that we often promote, is having seafood in the diet, whether it's shrimp, scallops, oysters, clams, mussels, whatever it is, they have a decent amount of Omega three, small amount, small amount, but they have enough for what the need is, for what the proven, the supposed physiologic need is. So you're going to reach it anyway. And then keeping Omega six with as low as possible would really be the ideal strategy. And so that even regardless of whether or not we disagree, because then I know for a lot of people, they're going to be like, Okay, that's fine, but there are a lot of people who are really on the Mega three band camp at this point that that it's or bandwagon, I guess would be better. It's the strategy works either way. The strategies, I think, is still makes them make sense, regardless of what your your particular bandwagon is at this point in time.

Jay Feldman 28:25
Yeah, no, I agree, and I want to clarify too, when I said holding that belief too strongly, man, I don't think that you're necessarily dogmatic. If you obviously, if you just don't believe what we say, it doesn't make you necessarily wrong. We could be wrong too. So yes, for people who still are of the belief that omega threes are necessary and beneficial in some amount which we don't agree with, then, yes, I agree that that's at least. I think a good approach is what you laid out for somebody who's who's in that position. So, yeah, no, I agree there. I think it's unavoidable.

Mike 28:53
They're on a like the idea of going zero linoleic acid or zero omega three, linolenic. I mean, linolenic is a little easier, but DHA, EPA, whatever it is, it's just not feasible in the context of a diet. That makes sense. I mean, for for most situations, I mean, I'm saying to go apps to absolutely zero, like this. On the context of a whole foods diet that's nutrient dense and that avoids a lot of irritants and isn't high in PUFA, you're still like, you're still gonna have PUFA on those foods, even if you were vegan or whatnot. You would you from if you're eating vegan and eating a lot of leaves or certain fruits or or different components like that, you'd still could have a degree of omega threes, although they do talk about issues with omega threes on those diets, but you would still have some type of Omega three in the diet. It's not completely unavoidable, unless you start doing some some lab based diets or like extreme dietary interventions, which I don't think either of us think is very helpful in the long run, or sustainable. I don't think only living on skim milk in orange juice as well is is very sustainable, not from even the physiologic versus. Perspective, but just from, like, a mental sanity perspective, and I've seen a lot of people try to do it, and I haven't seen good results from it. That doesn't mean don't try it if you don't want to, but I think that's just important to point out that, like, regardless of what your camp is with the situation you they're unavoidable, and so in the strategy regard, based on the research, is to still keep them on the lower end. There's not going to be a point where having 10 or 20% of your calories, calories as omega three makes sense. I don't think any studies even bore that out and show that that's a good idea. That even when people make arguments against omega threes, it's like, well, this study used 20% calories, it's like, or so it's like, okay, yeah, you're right. That's a that's a ridiculous amount of Omega three in the diet. It's not a good thing. So most of them talk about much, much lower amounts, and that I I just, I've seen a lot of debates on it recently. That's why I'm like, I'm going because a lot of people are like, that's like, a big thing in this year right now. So I want to point that out. And then...

Jay Feldman 30:58
Real quick, too, you kind of clarified this, but I would just want to make it I just want to make it I just want to point it out or emphasize it that you were saying, Keep PUFA as low as possible. But also it's not unavoidable. So again, I guess I would say, if you're eating the foods that, for the most part, are not high in the polyunsaturated fats, but you're getting some of these polyunsaturated fats, it's okay. So like, eggs are okay, even though there's a little bit of PUFA in there, obviously, not 12 a day, but Right, right? And like meat, seafood, butter, all these are going to have some amount of PUFA. That's okay. I don't want you know, because, as you said, you can get really far into fully depleting PUFA entirely. And as you said, hydrogen, a coconut oil and fully skimmed milk. I don't think that those things are necessary or helpful. I mean, I don't think there's anything wrong with hydrogenated coconut oil, but all I'm saying is that the small amount of PUFA is okay. It's just in general not eating sources that are high in it.

Mike 31:50
Yeah, there's a bunch of factors to consider with the diet. So if you're going to go on a hydrogenated coconut oil and skim milk diet, you're going to and orange juice, you're going to have issues with meeting nutrient requirements, meeting and then also meeting caloric intake without having some digestive issues. That's what I found, at least, and also feeling satiated, yeah, um, and maybe having some gut issues with that as well. So it's it. There's a lot of factors to intake when just when discuss, when trying to figure out, you know, some ideal or basic dietary principles. So it's in and with those based on the ones that I see, I think that PUFA on the dive is unavoidable, and the strategy that I think to implement, or that I think makes sense to implement, regardless of what camp you're in with PUFAs, to keep both low and then to maintain some type of, some type of arbitrary ratio that the research has found helpful, which is like one to three, or one to one, or something like that, which that that just eat some seafood, basically, yeah.

Jay Feldman 32:52
I don't even think you have to concern yourself with it. Yeah, yeah.

Mike 32:55
So and was maybe with some autoimmune conditions, it might be helpful to really focus on it, like what they found with MS heaping PUFA, as low as they can, yeah.

Jay Feldman 33:04
But I think a few grams is okay. Like, I don't know how I mean, as you said, they weren't fully depleting it. And I'm sure if they if they...

Mike 33:13
They couldn't, because then patients wouldn't stay on the diet you can't follow. If you can't do the protocol, no matter how well you write it and all the theory behind it, then it just doesn't make sense. Yeah, you can, and at least in my experience, you can write the best workout in the world. But if the you can't do the workout every day, or whatever you've written, then it doesn't really matter. You have to do, what, what can be done, what, what you're able to do. And I think that's a really important point. And in a lot of cases, getting PUFA down to zero. It's just not something that a lot of people can or want to do.

Jay Feldman 33:47
Well... And again, I still don't think it's even ideal, but so so just to clarify at least, what I'm saying is that whether it's six grams or eight grams a day, or four grams or six grams, are not as concerned, as long as you're not you know as you're avoiding the foods that are high in PUFA and eating the foods that are much more saturated and fat. And, you know, as we've kind of laid these things out, so, yeah, yeah.

Mike 34:07
That's fine. That's a fair I think we're saying when the principles that we've just laid out is help as helpful, you know, this is sort of little getting into the nitty gritty. I just like to get here, because I, I feel like there's a lot of, especially in the alternative sphere, there's a lot of people on that bandwagon. And I think it's important to point out the the DIS like, even if you have the discrepancy This is it still makes sense. And I guess so if you want to talk about like, specific strategies for for autoimmune diseases, like specific supplemental strategies besides diet. To recap, for diet, we have animal proteins, and this is pretty much our the dietary principles are pretty much the same for a lot of chronic diseases.

Jay Feldman 34:51
There's one that we didn't get to, that I want to touch on, which is we talked about eating enough. But another major component here. Is getting enough carbs specifically and making sure that they're balanced throughout the day and keeping blood sugar steady. And yeah, this, this is important for virtually everything. But we just talked in regard to autoimmune conditions about how tightly correlated the stress hormones are to this autoimmune state, and the our blood sugar is basically a barometer of how much fuel and energy we have available, and when it drops, that's the most immediate way that our bodies are raising the stress hormones. And so because of that, having stable blood sugar is incredibly important. At the same time, most of what we're told in the functional medicine approach and in the mainstream approach to stabilize blood sugar, whether it's eating nuts and seeds for protein and fat, or having just some protein, having salad with chicken or fish, whatever it is, all those things, as far as regulating blood sugar go, are basically the opposite of what we should be doing, and all rely on increasing stress hormones to maintain our blood sugar. So again, we've talked about this in a series of episodes before that I'll link to but basically, if our blood sugar is not being supplied by carbohydrates and starts to drop down because we use that sugar as fuel all the time, then basically the only place it's coming from is is from protein, and that can come from dietary or glycogen, yes, yeah, but it's also coming ultimately from carbohydrate at some point, yeah, or again, protein, but basically yes, if it's not coming from carbohydrate, then it has to be produced through stress pathways. And so the idea that we should be stabilizing our blood sugar, blood sugar by eating protein is absurd, is ridiculous.

Mike 36:33
So your blood sugar will be stabilized, but it's like, how are you stabilizing It?

Jay Feldman 36:37
Exactly. You're stabilizing with the stress hormones, which is basically going to drive all these conditions even further. And when you take a something like low carb, you know, low carb diet to stabilize your blood sugar, that's exactly what you're doing. Is you're just keeping a high baseline level of stress hormones to drive gluconeogenesis, which is the production of sugar to maintain a steady blood sugar. So when we're talking about maintaining a steady blood sugar. We're talking about doing that without, not only without requiring the stress hormones, but also by directly lowering the stress hormones. So when you take in a moderate amount of carbohydrates that your body can metabolize well, and you're eating them on a relatively consistent basis, every three or four hours or so you're you will have, you know, increases and decreases in your blood sugar, but it's always going to stay in at least a pretty moderate level. And it's never going to dip down too far. When it dips down too far, those stress hormones are released to bring it back up. And you know, that's when we're supposed to eat, so we really want to eat kind of before that happens, so that we're maintaining our blood sugar at a moderate level. That's going to also directly oppose the stress hormones. So high high blood sugar, not high blood sugar is a symptom of something like insulin resistance and diabetes, where we're not metabolizing the carbs, but elevated blood sugar, while we can metabolize carbs, is a is a really good way to keep the stress hormones down. Yeah, it's very protective. So, and again, an important clarification is that when it's insulin resistance or diabetes and you're seeing high blood sugar, that's because of two reasons. One is because of elevated stress, where it's all through gluconeogenesis, excessive gluconeogenesis, that's leading to high blood sugar. If it's fasting blood sugar, or if it's after a carbohydrate containing meal, it's because our bodies aren't using those carbs well, and it's causing this massive build up where they're not being used in the cells, and then you can't have, you know, there's no, no space, basically, in the cell for more glucose to come in. It builds up in the blood. And those are going to be situations where you're going to have high stress hormones and high a lot of issues, and high blood sugar. But it's not the blood sugar itself that's causing the problem. It's just a symptom.

Mike 38:40
The whole process is deranged at that point, right? Right? You have high insulin, and then you have high gluconeogenesis and high blood sugar occurring at the same time. It's, it's a nightmare from a metabolic perspective, perspective, as far as handling sugar, it's not indicative of a lot of people think, Oh, it's just because there's too much sugar. It's like, well, there's sugar, but your cells aren't using it. Yeah. Are you going to finish more? I didn't want to No, go ahead, John, I was going to say the other thing that with this stuff is when you have irritation in any type of the autoimmune conditions, like if you have gut irritation, or you have allergic response, or you have a trigger with something that that you eat, one of the best ways to deal with that trigger, especially in my experience with things that have irritated my gut, or anything like that, is taking in some sugar. It literally has, particularly from fruit juice, it has like a direct anti stress response, and it usually cuts the response to me. And I find that when I'm things are irritating me a lot, or something like that, it one of the major effects is that it will lower blood sugar, and I'll feel that change. I'll start to get for for me, I'm aware of what my what it feels like when my sugar is dropped, when my blood sugar is dropped, and so I can sense like, oh, I ate something and really irritated my intestines, and I feel my blood sugar dropping if I drink some juice. That tends to alleviate, to a large extent, the those effects so, and I think that's important, that for. Lot of people understand, because if you're if your blood sugar's all over the place where you're chronically low and trying to have it adjust with adaptive hormones, while you may feel better for a while, for a little while, with the adaptive hormones over time, you're also like relying on those hormones or pushing in a particular direction, part in immune system wise and metabolically. So it's important to understand that maintaining blood sugar is important. And then I think you talked about the importance that fruits help maintain blood sugar better. I guess we met, we talked about in another episode, but the combination of glucose and fructose together has a more stabilizing effect on the blood sugar, and it also seems to fill liver glycogen a little bit better, which is another important factor for regulating blood sugar. The other thing that's helpful is having a balanced meal. And I don't mean that in the in the traditional, modern sense that they that they put out there, but

Jay Feldman 40:56
Meaning like vegetable, certain portion of vegetables and grains and...

Mike 41:00
Yeah, that you need to have the my food plate, which is like some grains and some vegetables and a very small amount of of protein, preferably light meat, whatever it is, nothing like that. But it is something that is important, that's born out in the research as they talk about the glycemic index and all this type of stuff. You can adjust glycemic index very easily with adding fat to a meal, or adding protein to a meal, or adding fiber to a meal. So it is, there is a strategy there where maintaining blood sugar is it's easier if you have some fruit and some or maybe some cooked vegetables or raw like a raw carrot, and then having some protein and some fat together will help stabilize so the you have the fiber, the protein and fat together, whether it's a steak with, I don't know, some cooked spinach on the side that was cooked in coconut oil, and then a glass of juice and and, and a raw carrot or an orange or something like that, that'll stabilize blood sugar a lot better than if you just had juice or if you just had juice and skim milk. Those, the fat helps a lot, and the fiber helps a lot for stimulating, for not stimulating, but for regulating blood sugar and helping to prevent drops. And I think what a lot of people find is when they go on super low fat diets, and they do a lot. And this is where I think we realized it was when we did, or at least for me, but we did a lower fat diet, and when we were doing a lot of just juice on the lower fat diet, we were finding our sugar was dropping a little bit more. And then even on a higher starch diet, with with less fat, less protein was still there, but less fat and less, I guess, fibers or or whatever the you would feel that blood sugar high, really, from white rice, you get that blood sugar high, and then you would drop. You would drop eventually, and, you know, you start feeling a little cold, and you start getting, you could feel a little bit sweaty. And I so overall, stabilizing it is better. And I think the best way to do that is have, like, a full meal. And then also you can have, you know, in between meals, if you you can having a little juice or something like that isn't an issue either, but I think having full meals is helpful.

Jay Feldman 43:05
Yeah. I mean, just to clarify, I was never low fat like you were, but I do think having enough fat is is really helpful for balancing out blood sugar, in many instances, because certain aspects of our body are or certain parts of our bodies are going to be using fat at rest, and so if they're forced to use glucose, you're going to run through it a lot quicker. I do think it's okay to have some carb based snacks, for example, if it's a small snack before a meal or something like that. I don't you know, but in general, I do think more of a Yeah, before a workout or something, whatever it is, yeah. Yeah. So I think in most instances, having at least carbs and fats together maybe adding some protein depend, you know, a balanced meal of carbs, fat and protein, I do think is best for an actual meal. But there are instances where just carbs and fat, maybe before bed is a snack to help you go to sleep, and, as you mentioned before, overnight or something. Yeah. So, so it really depends. But as you said, just carbs alone and a super low fat diet, I do think is not great from the blood sugar regulation standpoint, unless maybe you have a super small amount of muscle mass or you're just constantly eating throughout the day. I think it can be pretty tough. So.

Mike 44:10
Yeah, but I like that meals at regular intervals too. I think it's important.

Jay Feldman 44:16
Yeah, like we generally say, about three or four hours between meals, three maybe three to five depends on.

Mike 44:22
What's depend on how many you're eating and what's going on.

Jay Feldman 44:25
Yeah, sometimes less if, if your blood sugar's really dysregulated and you need smaller meals more frequently, that can be helpful for a period of time, yeah.

Mike 44:32
Or you have digestive or issues or something like that, and you can't eat so much and and the one meal or whatever.

Jay Feldman 44:39
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I like that. You pointed out how, how carbs are basically pretty directly anti stress and pro energy and pro metabolic. And of course, it's as if they're metabolized well, but I think it's really noteworthy, and people will, you know, you can experience it and feel it if you're feeling stressed. Of course, everybody goes to carbs. There's a reason. For that carbs

Mike 45:00
And salt, yeah, and fat, yeah.

Jay Feldman 45:04
If you're feeling like you have low blood sugar, if you're feeling real irritable or hangry or something, you have some carbs, you know. Or if you've just experienced something stressful and you have carbs, it tends to feel a lot better. So I think that that's some good just immediate evidence that you can feel when you're experiencing that. But yeah, it's such a huge part to supporting metabolism, increasing thyroid function, keeping stress hormones down, and of course, all of those things are directly related to autoimmune conditions. All right, that's going to wrap up part three of this series on autoimmunity. In part four of this series, which will be the final the final episode, we'll be discussing supplements for autoimmune conditions and immune health, and we'll also discuss the role of stress in these autoimmune conditions. If you did enjoy today's episode, please leave a like or comment if you're watching on YouTube or a five star rating on iTunes or a review, all of those things really do a lot to help support the podcast, and I very much appreciate it to check out the show notes for today's episode. Head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/podcast where you can take a look at the studies and articles and anything else that we discussed throughout today's episode, and if you are dealing with any autoimmune conditions or any other chronic health conditions, or if you're dealing with any low energy symptoms like fatigue or chronic hunger and cravings, or weight gain or brain fog, poor sleep, hormonal imbalances, gut symptoms. Then head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, where you can sign up for a free energy balance mini course, where I will walk you through the main things that you want to do to restore your cellular energy, and I'll also explain why that's the key to resolving these symptoms and conditions. So to sign up for that free energy balance mini course, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, and with that, I will see you in the next episode.