Ep. 328 Diabetes Prevention, Treatment and the Role of Nutrition with Dr. Ken Berry
- January 20, 2024
- No Responses
I am thrilled to have Dr. Ken Berry joining me on the podcast for the third time today. He was with me before on episodes 111 and 139.
Dr. Berry is a physician, best-selling author, and passionate health advocate with a no-nonsense approach to health and wellness. He has been practicing at the Berry Clinics since 2003 and is an active community member. He has written two books, Lies My Doctor Told Me and the recently published Kicking Ass After Fifty, in addition to various other resources, including Common Sense Labs Today. He also has a YouTube channel, serving over 2 million subscribers- one of my favorite go-to resources for my patients.
In our conversation today, we dive into the latest Lancet research on the impact of a diabetes diagnosis on life expectancy, along with insights from the American Diabetes Association regarding the costs of diabetes care. We discuss the need for proper diagnostic modalities to identify insulin resistance earlier and the labs Dr. Berry uses in his practice for identifying those at risk. We explore the recently recognized American Heart Association syndrome, CKM (Cardiovascular Kidney Metabolic Syndrome), and the role of GLP agonists, continuous glucose monitors, and glucometers. Dr. Berry also shares his views on plant-based diets, proper diets, and more.
“I’m here to help people have a healthy life, live a healthy life, and eat a healthy diet. That’s what gets me up every morning.”
– Dr. Ken Berry
IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN:
- Why does metabolic health continue to deteriorate in most of the general population?
- The staggering amount of disposable plastic used within the healthcare industry
- The importance of fasting insulin levels when diagnosing metabolic disease
- Why are blood tests essential for determining metabolic health?
- The benefits of glucometers and continuous glucose monitors for metabolic health
- How Dr. Berry’s health improved after following a specific diet and measuring his lab results for a month
- How misinformation gets spread within the health and wellness industry
- Why are doctors not informing their patients about the absence of long-term studies and deluding them with false information?
- The long-term effects of Semaglutide on the body
- How a proper diet can naturally lower lipid levels
- The limitations of the germ model for treating chronic disease
Connect with Cynthia Thurlow
- Follow on Twitter
- Check out Cynthia’s website
- Submit your questions to support@cynthiathurlow.com
Connect with Dr. Ken Berry
Dr. Berry’s books
Dr. Berry’s Private Community
Medical News article Mentioned
Here’s What to Know About Cardiovascular-Kidney-Metabolic Syndrome, Newly Defined by the AHA
Previous Episodes Featuring Dr. Ken Berry
Ep. 111 – Is The Keto Diet The Proper Human Diet? – with Dr. Ken Berry
Transcript
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:00:02] Welcome to Everyday Wellness podcast. I’m your host, Nurse Practitioner, Cynthia Thurlow. This podcast is designed to educate, empower, and inspire you to achieve your health and wellness goals. My goal and intent is to provide you with the best content and conversations from leaders in the health and wellness industry each week and impact over a million lives.
[00:00:29] Today, I had the honor of reconnecting with Dr. Ken Berry. He’s a fan favorite and this is his third podcast with me. He previously joined me in Episode 111 and Episode 139. If you’re not familiar with his work, he is a physician. He is a best-selling author and passionate advocate of health and his YouTube channel, which services over 2 million individuals, is one of my favorite resources to send patients to. He is active in his community and has been practicing at The Berry Clinic since 2003. He is known for his very direct, no-nonsense approach to health and wellness. He has two books, Lies My Doctor Told Me and the recently published Kicking Ass After 50. He has other resources including Common Sense Labs.
Today, we dove into recent published research from The Lancet about the impact of a diagnosis of diabetes lowering life expectancy, as well as a recent ADA statement, American Diabetes Association, and the estimated costs of diabetes care. We spoke about the need for proper diagnostic modalities to diagnose insulin resistance in an earlier state. We spoke about relevant labs that he utilizes in his practice and feels are very important for identifying those at risk. We spoke about the recent American Heart Association syndrome called CKM or cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic syndrome, the role of GLP agonists as well as continuous glucose monitors and glucometers. His thoughts on plant-based diets, proper human diets, and so much more. I know you will find this conversation invaluable and why he is a fan favorite guest.
[00:02:21] Well, Dr. Berry, always a pleasure to have you back on the podcast. Welcome.
Dr. Ken Berry. [00:02:25] Thank you so much. It’s a pleasure to be back with you, Cynthia.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:02:29] Yes. Well, I would really love to start the conversation focusing in on a topic that I know is, near and dear to both of our hearts, really focusing in on metabolic health. There was a Lancet article from September stating that every decade of earlier diagnosis of diabetes hastens the death and the life expectancy by three to four years. What are your thoughts here? We’re almost in 2024. What is going on with metabolic health? It does not appear to be getting better, it seems to be getting worse.
Dr. Ken Berry. [00:03:00] Well, metabolic health is actually we’re noticing drastic improvements in a certain subset of the population, but the vast majority of the general population, their metabolic health continues to deteriorate, which is very sad, but also very true. And the Lancet article is, I think, absolutely accurate. Now, there’re so many presumptions that the Lancet authors made so many kind of foundational understandings, paradigms of theirs that go into the writing of this article, and I think it’d be very helpful for people to break those down. But, yes, if you have either uncontrolled diabetes and this goes for type 1, type 2, LADA, MODY, any form of diabetes. If you follow no advice, you’re probably going to hasten your death even more than three and a half years for each decade you have it. But if you follow the standard advice, the state-of-the-art advice, the scientific consensus advice, then, yeah, you’re probably going to be knocking three and a half years off your life for every decade that you follow the American Diabetes Association recommendations. I think that’s probably true, if not worse. And there are more and more people are waking up every day that are like, “I don’t want to knock 10 years off my life because I had type 2 diabetes for 30 years. I’d like those 10 years of life, please.” I’d like to tack those on at the end. And there is a way to do that, but it’s not by following the ADA recommendations.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:04:37] Yeah. It’s interesting to me that the more I understand about a lot of these organizations, they’re not designed with metabolic health in mind. It’s designed to kind of potentiate this focus on pharmaceuticals, very little on lifestyle medicine. And you and I both know that lifestyle really is that first crucial piece to lasting metabolic health. And what’s interesting is the ADA had a statement published in its economic costs of diabetes care in 2022, the economic burden of diabetes. When I read this, I just about fell out of my chair. The total estimated cost is 412 billion dollars including over 300 billion in direct medical costs and over 100 billion indirect costs attributable to diabetes. That’s staggering.
Dr. Ken Berry. [00:05:27] Yeah. Another thing that I think and that’s a very apt figure, we need to talk about that. We need to have a public discussion about the cost of diabetes in the United States. But also, another cost that people forget is the environmental impact of that. A lot of my plant-based friends and vegan friends love to talk about the carbon footprint of raising beef or raising animals, but they don’t really want to talk about the carbon footprint of the healthcare industry. And when you’re mismanaging millions and millions of diabetics, they’re going to need lots of healthcare. They’re going to need lots of pharmaceuticals that are made in factories which have very large carbon footprint. They’re going to need lots of inpatient hospital care, which is going to have a huge carbon footprint. And so not only just the economic cost, the drain on our economic system, but the greenhouse, the gas effect, the carbon footprint effect, all the waste that’s generated by this healthcare and by the pharmaceutical industry, I think that’s also a conversation that needs to be had publicly.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:06:36] Yeah. It’s interesting to me, and I was having a conversation with my husband, who’s an engineer, he’s not a healthcare provider and I was giving him a medication that was being given subcutaneously, and he was watching all the tinker toys, you have to take off, there’s a package for the needle, there’s a package for the syringe, there’re these alcohol wipes. And he looked at me and he said, “This is for one injection on one person.” And I said, “Imagine the magnification of most individuals if they’re getting insulin.” And there are a lot of type 1s, obviously, but also type 2s that are taking insulin. Just the net impact, day after day of injections, swabs, pharmaceutical agents. One in four healthcare dollars in the US is going towards diabetes care, 61% of which is directly attributable to diabetes.
[00:07:25] So it really becomes this large net impact that I think a lot of people may not even be aware of. And certainly, you mentioned the environmental impact. And I think most individuals, unless they’re working in healthcare, they have absolutely no idea. Where do all these plastics go, all these health hazard bags, these health hazard containers? I recall that I have a child with EpiPens and he didn’t need his EpiPens and they expired and I couldn’t get rid of them. I tried to take them to the pharmacy, I tried to take them to pediatrician’s office, no one wants to take them. I said, “What am I supposed to do, throw them in the garbage?” They were like, “Yeah, just throw them in the garbage.” [chuckles] I was like, “This is going to go in landfill and just sit there till who knows when?”
Dr. Ken Berry. Yeah. The amount of disposable plastic used in the healthcare industry is gigantic. A lot of people think that we really did a big thing by banning plastic straws. And what you don’t understand is that average size hospital, just one day of existence of the average size hospital, the majority of the clinical procedures, which would become, literally, would be obviated if you reversed 90% of the cases of type 2 diabetes, you would protect the oceans, you would protect the environment from so many tons of plastic that it would make banning plastic straws kind of a laughing triviality. It’s just foolishness to think you’ve really done something when one day of a large hospital, their plastic waste is crazy. How many tons a year of plastic are generated by the healthcare industry? Most of it unnecessary, most of it made necessary only because of the bad nutrition advice and bad advice coming from organizations like the American Heart Association and the American Diabetes Association.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:09:10] It’s interesting, many years ago, there was a postdoc at the hospital system that I worked at, and he was Australian and he was an MD-PhD, really bright guy. And this is in the early 2000s. And he said, “Cynthia, I don’t know what it is about you Americans.” And he’s like, “And I say this in the most loving way possible because I think you all are great, but why do you wait so long to intervene on diabetes?” This is 20 years ago he was saying this and now those words really ring true to me, that we wait until people get diabetes. So what do you think are some of the biggest impediments to getting earlier diagnoses? Do you think it’s the kind of traditional allopathic model where you have to hit a certain metric in order to be said, “Okay, you’ve transitioned from insulin resistance to diabetes now let’s get aggressive.” Because we know that most diabetics are undiagnosed for five to 10 years before they actually fully present with full-blown diabetes.
Dr. Ken Berry. [00:10:04] Yeah. Well, I think it goes back even further than that. I think when the germ theory of disease became very popular a long time ago, we’re talking many decades ago, and it kind of overwhelmed the terrain model of disease. And the terrain model of disease, as presented by its creator, was full of holes. It’s full of inconsistencies and errors. And I’m not in any way advocating that we go back to the terrain model exclusively, but what we have to have is a hybrid model. When it comes to infectious disease caused by bacteria and fungus and most viruses, I think absolutely we should use the germ model of disease. But the problem is that mainstream medicine, many decades ago, decided, perhaps consciously, perhaps unconsciously, to apply the germ theory model to all of medicine. And that’s what we’re seeing. And so, if you have something like type 2 diabetes, then you need a specific drug for that or you need a specific infusion or a specific injection or a specific medical procedure for that. You have this problem, therefore, here’s this product that’s going to– The average person would think, “Oh, it’s going to reverse it or cure it.”
[00:11:17] No. No, no, no. No, it’s just going to manage and maintain it. Because the germ theory says that type 2 diabetes is a chronic progressive disease. And so, it’s very hard for doctors who have practiced under that paradigm their entire career, it’s very hard for them to go, wait a minute, maybe type 2 diabetes is just a chronic carbohydrate toxicity or a chronic carbohydrate overdose syndrome. Maybe if we stopped poisoning the human body with too many highly processed carbohydrates, maybe we should look at type 2 diabetes as a poisoning event. And so, when you adopt that paradigm, what’s the paradigm if someone has been poisoned? Well, you want to stop the offending poison. That’s the number one treatment. And then two, you want to do something if you need to acutely, to cancel the ongoing poisoning happening in the body. And so, it’s so hard for mainstream doctors and dietitians to understand, look, you’re following a model that never leads to remission. It never leads to reversing the type 2 diabetes. By definition, it does not lead to that.
[00:12:31] Many of the FDA-approved medications for type 2 diabetes, they got their FDA approval by being slightly better than placebo. So literally, if the medicine lowered someone’s hemoglobin A1c by 0.2% or 0.3%, boom, there’s your FDA approval. And they don’t have to prove that they’re better than any other drugs on the market. They just have to prove that they’re just a little bit better than placebo and not acutely dangerous. That is the bar that they have to cross to get FDA approval. And so, it’s very hard for doctors to understand this. And when it comes to type 2 diabetes in particular, you’re right. You can actually check certain labs on a patient and you can predict type 2 diabetes 10 years before they develop it. But in mainstream modern medicine, the average doctor acts like, “Oh, no, you don’t have type 2 diabetes, so nothing we need to do about this.” Even though their A1c is now 5.8, 5.9, it’s like it’s prediabetes. Cut back on the candy and soft drinks and we’ll check it again in a year. And then almost no mainstream doctor checks a fasting insulin level and that’s the key.
[00:13:44] If we could just get every doctor to start checking fasting insulin levels on any human, not just adults, but also children, if they have even one risk factor for type 2 diabetes, if they would just start checking a fasting insulin, that’s kind of your time machine. You literally can look into the future and go, “Oh, you’re headed straight towards type 2 diabetes. We have to make some changes now to the terrain, not only to your body, but your diets, because that’s part of the terrain.” And so, I was just watching a discussion between a very popular plant-based cardiologist and the guy was saying, “Do you check?” He’s like, “No. There’s only 15% of people, adults who have type 2 diabetes and maybe 30% who have insulin resistance.” And the doc on my side was going, “What? Have you checked fasting insulins?” No, we don’t typically check that. And so, there’s a very intelligent cardiologist who’s very concerned and is trying hard to do a good job, but is literally putting on self-blinders. Every day he hangs that stethoscope around his shoulders and he cannot see what’s right in front of his face, is that over 80% of adults in the United States have at least one marker of metabolic disease. If you add a fasting insulin to that, I would guess it goes up to 95% and that’s in adults.
[00:15:06] Now, let’s talk about children 5-year-olds, 7-year-olds, 10-year-olds, 15-year-olds, if you checked a fasting insulin on every one of those children that has at least one risk factor for developing type 2 diabetes, you would catch it years before they even started doing any damage. But the average doctor is blind to that. And I wanted so bad to jump into the scene of that interview and say, “I would challenge you for the next month, doctor–” And I won’t name any doctors because I’m not trying to call people out. “For the next month, will you check a fasting insulin on every one of your patients?” And the cost of a fasting insulin now is $10, $15, $20, depending. And just that challenge alone, it would become impossible for that doctor to ignore the metabolic disease that’s right under his nose each and every day that he is currently blind to. And I think that as your message gets out there and my message and others in this space, just that one key change to medical practice, because it’s very hard to recommend a plant-based diet to people. If when you check their fasting insulin, their fasting insulin is 25 or 30 or 35 or 40 or even higher, you’re going to go, “Gosh, this doesn’t make any sense. I thought a plant-based diet was the healthiest choice,” but these people are all hyperinsulinemic when they’re following my plant-based diet and that can’t be good.
[00:16:28] And then they’re going to go to pubmed.gov and they’re going to type in hyperinsulinemia and they’re going to realize that hundreds of chronic medical diseases are closely associated with a patient’s level of insulin in their blood and that’s it. That moment, they either have to wake up or they have to consciously bury their head in the sand. And almost no doctor is going to make the conscious decision to say, “I’m not going to check any more fasting insulins because I don’t like the results.” Any good doctor is going to say, “I’ve got to learn more about this.” I was not aware that fasting insulin was this powerful of a proxy marker. And now that I know that I need to adjust my practice accordingly, I need to adjust the nutrition advice I’m giving accordingly and then that’s it. And so I think the degree to which we get mainstream medical practitioners, both doctors and dietitians, to start looking at the fasting insulin, that’s when all the foolishness stops. Because it can take 5 or 10 years for someone’s hemoglobin A1c to get up to 6.5.
[00:17:37] A lot of doctors don’t take prediabetes seriously. I consider it to be early type 2 diabetes. It’s not pre anything because studies at the University of Tennessee and Memphis and many other places have shown definitively that damage is being done to the kidneys, to the heart, to the brain, to the retina during prediabetes. You don’t have to wait until that A1c gets up to 6.5. Damage is already being done. And so, if damage is being done, then that by definition, is a disease. And so, you have to give dietary advice that’s going to get not only the hemoglobin A1c, back down to normal, but also that gets the fasting insulin back down to normal as well. And once you start giving that kind of nutrition advice, guess what, Cynthia? You’re telling people to eat a proper human diet, because if you’re eating too many carbohydrates, too many highly processed carbohydrates, you’re going to have hyperinsulinemia, and at some point, you’re going to develop prediabetes, which is eventually going to turn into type 2 diabetes. And then all the disastrous complications, not only for that individual patient, but also for their family members who love them, and also for the healthcare industry, who has them to treat those patients.
[00:18:49] And then for the country, the nation as a whole, who has to pay for that treatment. If people can’t afford their own treatment and then has to deal with all the plastic waste, all the carbon footprint that comes out of that, all of that stuff literally could be solved overnight if we said, “Hey, you got to check a fasting insulin.” If somebody has at least one risk factor for type 2 diabetes within months, that would tear down the entire problem that you and I are right now talking about.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:19:18] Yeah. I think it’s such a good point that a fasting insulin is very inexpensive. If your healthcare practitioner is uncomfortable ordering it, you could go to companies like, Own Your Labs. I have no affiliation with this company, but they beat Labcorp and Quest costs.
Dr. Ken Berry. [00:19:35] Yeah. I think ownyourlabs.com, also I’m not affiliated with them. I think their price now for a fasting insulin is $9 or $10.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:19:43] [unintelligible 00:19:43] your fancy coffee drink and go get your fasting insulin checked. And I think that it really begs to have the discussion about what are the labs that you feel, you’ve mentioned a few, you’ve mentioned the fasting insulin, the A1c, what other labs do you think are really indicative/helpful when you’re trying to differentiate who’s at greatest risk for going on to develop type 2 diabetes versus people that have a little bit of time to make some targeted changes immediately that can course correct?
Dr. Ken Berry. [00:20:17] Yeah. So the hemoglobin A1c is the preeminent test. Now, there are multiple medical conditions, multiple medications, and also personal habits that can affect your hemoglobin A1c I’ve got YouTube videos about that. I’m coming to like a glycated albumin much better, because there are multiple things that can make a red blood cell live a longer life or live a shorter life. We’re seeing in the carnivore community, many people’s red blood cells are living longer, and so they’re getting this falsely elevated hemoglobin A1c, of 5.7, 5.8, even 5.9 sometimes. And they’re like, “Wait a minute, I used to have type 2 diabetes. I don’t like where this is going.” But if you check a glycated albumin on these people, it’s stone cold normal because their nutrient dense carnivore diet is giving their red blood cells all they need to live for 120 and 130, maybe even 140 days. That gives it more time to glycate, and they’re getting a falsely elevated A1c. We also know that chronic overconsumption of alcohol can give you a falsely low A1c, but it doesn’t affect the glycated albumin level. I like the A1c for the average person, but there are some people that you need to check a glycated albumin instead. Because whether you’re eating the worst diet or the best diet, regardless of what medical condition you have, almost without exception, if you’re an alcoholic, if you’re smoking meth, it doesn’t matter, your glycated albumin is going to tell the truth.
[00:21:46] The next test, which you can tell I’m in love with, is a fasting insulin because it removes so much bullshit. Not only does it make immediately obvious that the American Diabetes Association’s recommendations, the recipes that they recommend on their website, is complete and utter bunk. It makes that immediately apparent. It makes all the recipes that DaVita recommends for people with chronic kidney disease, it makes that not only look like bunk, but it almost makes it look criminal. Like, why would you be recommending a recipe to someone with chronic kidney disease when the recipe itself is going to make their condition worse? I don’t know. That sounds unethical if not illegal to me. It makes also so much advice that are given by influencers on the Internet, on TikTok and Instagram and YouTube. It makes their advice foolish on its face. When you check a fasting insulin, you realize that that fruit smoothie or that yogurt bowl or that whatever beautiful thing that they’re saying you should drink or eat every day, that’s going to raise your fasting insulin, and that’s very, very unhealthy. And so, with that $10 test, the fasting insulin, not only do you shut up all of the mainstream health and nutrition advice, but also all of the alternate advice that many people who have– their eyes are open now. They’re like the American Diabetes Association, their recommendations are foolish. They’re dangerous actually.
[00:23:16] And so, then everybody starts looking for an alternative. That’s human nature. It’s like, “Well, that’s obviously not the solution. Where’s the solution?” And millions upon millions of people find this pretty influencer on Instagram, and they’re like, “Oh, okay, I’ll do that.” And so, I’m going to buy all of their supplements, and I’m going to start drinking this fruit juice smoothie, and I’m going to start making these beautiful yogurt bowls. Well, a fasting insulin for $10 you realize that’s not the answer either. And you don’t need all those supplements, because none of those supplements are going to help your fasting insulin level. They might lower your blood sugar a little bit, but they’re not going to affect the A1c or the glycated albumin much, and they’re not going to affect the fasting insulin level at all. And so, really, with those two tests, you can ferret out and ignore 95% of the bullshit coming at you from all directions, both mainstream medicine and alternative medicine, naturopathic medicine, holistic medicine, all that. Those two tests just eliminate the bullshit. I’m going to start calling them bullshit eliminators, [Cynthia laughs] because if you check an A1c and a fasting insulin, and they’re not both normal, you’re doing something wrong. Whose advice are you following?
[00:24:27] And I don’t care how many thousands of dollars you spend on supplements or infusions, if those two numbers are not normal, you’re not metabolically healthy. Another great marker is triglycerides. And so, if you’re following a diet and it’s making your triglycerides higher than 150, that’s bad advice. You need to reassess that nutrition advice. Another is the HDL cholesterol level. If you’re following an advice and your HDL is very low, if you’re following a lifestyle that causes your HDL cholesterol to be very low, that’s bad. You should stop that. And so, really, there’re five tests. Of course, you want your fasting glucose, but that can be misleading in many, many, many ways. You want a hemoglobin A1c, which can be misleading for a few people. If you’re one of those people, and most people if they’ve researched their own medical conditions and the medication they’re taking, they know if they have something that affects their A1c level, then you’re going to check a glycated albumin. And then people who really are invested in their health are going to check a fasting insulin, and then most doctors are going to check a lipid panel, but they’re only going to focus on the total cholesterol and the LDL cholesterol, very often completely ignoring the triglycerides, which are absolutely a proven marker of metabolic health, and the HDL cholesterol, which is also very strongly associated with being metabolically healthy if it’s normal.
[00:25:50] With those tests, you can bypass so much in the way of personal suffering from chronic diseases yourself, then you can obviate all the suffering your family is going to do as you chronically suffer from type 2 diabetes or another metabolic condition. They’re going to have to come visit you after you’ve had that amputation. They’re going to have to take care of you when you get home with that amputation. You’re blind now. They’re going to have to take care of you or they’re going to have to pay somebody else to take care of you. You’ve had that heart attack or a stroke, you may have severe kidney failure, or you have the post stroke sequela. Now you’re in a nursing home or assisted living. Who’s going to pay for that? It’s either going to be your family or it’s going to be your nation, neither of which I think the average person would like to burden. Nobody wants to be a burden. But if you follow bad nutrition advice, then at some point you will become a burden to either your family or your nation.
[00:26:45] That is inevitable. If you follow bad nutrition advice for too long and nobody wants to be a burden. We want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. And so, I think just those few tests are going to give you more information than you would get from spending thousands of dollars, reading hundreds of books, signing up for hundreds of coaching programs and this and that and the other, or donating to the American Diabetes Association every year and having a fundraiser for them and blindly following their nutrition advice.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:27:17] I think this is such an invaluable conversation because I think in many ways, when people get a metabolic health diagnosis, they’re told they have diabetes, they have PCOS, they’re hypertensive, they’ve got cardiovascular disease, etc. They assume that this is just a process of aging. I hear that from so many people. They think it’s normal to slowly become insulin resistant. They think it’s normal to have aches and pains. They think it’s normal to be on 20 different medications. And in cardiology, we had patients on 30 to 40 medications, because you’d put them one and then they need two more to correct the side effects they got. You put them on a diuretic and then they have low potassium, so then they go on potassium, then they get gout. I mean, it’s kind of like it becomes this very overwhelming system that we’re working within, but everyone that’s listening can do these labs, [crosstalk] and everyone can have an honest conversation with themselves. So we talk about lab work, we talked about some of the statistics, what are your thoughts on glucometers and CGMs? And the reason why I’m asking is that I take heat almost every single day on social media, “How dare I suggest that someone who does not have diabetes monitor their blood sugar?” I mean, lately it’s been a lot of physicians who’ve come after me, but in particular, there’s a vegan cardiologist who likes to come after me specifically for this purpose. Where do you feel like CGMs and glucometers can beneficial for our patients to better understand the net impact of nutrition and stress and lifestyle?
Dr. Ken Berry. [00:28:48] I think they’re invaluable. I think you can’t even put a price on their value for somebody who does not have type 2 diabetes. And I’ve also gotten some kickback and typically plant based or vegan friendly cardiologists. They’ve actually accused me of doing harm to people. Like, you’re going to cause eating disorders in people by recommending glucometers or continuous glucose monitors to people. And there’s actually a new research study out, I’m sure you’ve seen it, that shows that people without any diagnosis of type 2 diabetes at all, they benefit metabolically from wearing a continuous glucose monitor for a few weeks. You immediately start to see what causes blood sugar spikes. When you eat it, it causes this. When you eat this as an alternative, it only caused this. That’s brilliant. I would love to put a continuous glucose monitor on every single living human being on the planet for two weeks and say, learn from this. If something spikes your blood sugar, that’s junk. You don’t need to be eating that on a daily basis, maybe for your anniversary or your birthday, that’s fine to have a little bit of that. But on a daily basis, you don’t need to be eating anything that spikes your blood sugar.
[00:30:04] And we’re talking about people who have no diagnosis at all. We’re talking about young, metabolically healthy people in their teens, in 20s, 30s. You put a CGM on them and that’s another great way to say immediately, “Oh, man, you ate this. You drank that fruit juice smoothie that influencer recommended. Your blood sugar went up to 190. That’s a huge red flag, that’s bad nutrition advice. You ate that beautiful yogurt bowl and your blood sugar went to 210. That is a huge red flag that that is not a part of a proper human diet.” And so, I think I find it almost conspiratorial, Cynthia, that some of these plant-based and vegan cardiologists are so opposed to this. And I don’t think that they’re consciously trying to keep people in the dark, but it makes me worry about their unconscious motivation. Like, “Why are you so worried that people will see that the foods that you’re recommending spikes their blood sugar to above 140? Why are you worried about that so much that you’re coming after me personally.”
[00:31:09] I always hesitate to assign mal intent to people and I don’t think it’s conscious. I think they mean well and I think they truly believe that a plant-based diet is the proper human diet. But it’s worrisome, isn’t it? It’s weird that they’re so aggressively against continuous glucose monitors. And I think as more research comes out on CGMs, I think that they’ll have to back away from that stance and they’ll have to shut up about that, because it’s going to become clearly self-evident that when somebody wears a continuous glucose monitor for two or three weeks, they learn about their diet. They learn, “Oh, I shouldn’t eat that very often at all, because man, look what that did to my blood sugar.” And even young, metabolically healthy people, after a couple of weeks of wearing this. There was a study done with Harvard medical students who were uniformly in their 20s and every single one of them reported, I had no idea that ‘fill in the blank’ would do this to my blood sugar. I’m going to eat less of that in the future. And I think if you put this on 20 something year old anybody, whether they’re a Harvard medical student, or whether they’re currently unemployed or on unemployment benefits, they’re going to be like, “Oh, my God, I had no idea.”
[00:32:18] Because people by definition, a human being by definition, wants to be healthy. They want to make smart decisions. But if they’ve been diluted and misinformed their entire life, how can they possibly be trusted to make smart decisions? And the vast majority of people in their teens, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s have been misinformed by authority figures who they should be able to trust. They’ve been misinformed. And when you put something like a CGM on them for two weeks or four weeks, immediately they’re like, “Whoa, I had no idea. I will change my behavior immediately.” And I think, first of all, doctors don’t believe that patients want to be healthy. I think that they uniformly, almost without exception, believe that patients are lazy and dumb and don’t care. That’s what the average doctor believes. And I don’t believe that’s true at all. I think the average patient wants very much to be healthy. They want very much to improve their health, but they don’t know how because they’ve been given so much false information, so much misinformation, that in many cases, they have given up. It’s like I don’t think any of this crap works. I’m just going to eat whatever I want and I’ll just take all these pills and injections, because I don’t even know what the truth is anymore, and I don’t think anybody knows.
[00:33:36] But when you prove yourself, like you do every single day, and like I do, and like other people who are in our sphere of influence, when somebody says, “Okay, I’ve tried 400 diets, I’ve listened to every health influencer out there, I’ve listened to the ADA, the AHA. But I’m just going to suspend my disbelief, and I’m going to just do what Cynthia tells me for a month or two. I mean, what could it hurt.” Okay. At the end of that month or two, guess what? Their metabolic disease is measurably improved. It’s measurably better. Not just subjectively, because subjectively they’re going to feel better. Yeah, but they can check black and white lab values and go, wow, just in a month, my A1c went down that much. Just in a month, my fasting insulin went down that much. Maybe there is an answer. And so not only are you giving great nutrition advice that’s going to protect their health and improve their health and protect them from that three and a half years of lost life per decade, they’re going to feel better too and they can immediately test. Well, let’s see if Cynthia Thurlow knows what the hell she’s talking about. Let me check an A1c and a fasting insulin and my triglycerides. Let me check a CRP. Let me check these labs. Boom. They are demonstrably better in a month or two or three.
[00:34:55] That’s the verification people are looking for, and when the average patients, and I’m talking to doctors right now as well as my patients. You think your patients are dumb and lazy and don’t care, but you give them a system like the proper human diet. In a month, they can see black and white differences in their labs. And when they look in the mirror, they can see a difference in just their appearance generally, and they know how they feel each and every day, they can notice. “I feel so much better. I’m less mentally foggy. I just feel better.” People are hungry for that. People are on fire for that. And once they understand the foundational principles of what Cynthia is talking about, what I’m talking about, or any other number of people, they’re like, “That’s it. That’s how I’m going to eat for the rest of my life.” And they’re immediately, not only are they highly motivated to learn as much as they can and to implement as much as they can into their daily lifestyle and their daily diet. Now, they’re almost a missionary. They’re out telling their friends and family spontaneously, sometimes annoyingly. [Cynthia laughs] Because if the people aren’t ready to hear it yet, but they’re not like, “Dude, you got to stop eating that. You got to stop drinking that. That’s going to make you metabolically sick.
[00:36:09] And I’ve been practicing medicine for over 22 years now and I have never had a patient who becomes a missionary for a prescription medication or for a medical procedure, like they do when they understand the principles of a proper human diet, they implement it. They see not only, I feel better, yeah, I feel better, I look better, my clothes fit better, but also all of my objective markers. When I have my labs checked, they’re all better. My blood pressure is better. My blood sugar on this continuous glucose monitor is better. My A1c is better. Fasting out albumin, all that’s verifiably better. I can’t even argue with it. They’re sold. They’re like that’s it. And so, I’ve never seen patients become missionaries for like, “Oh, I took glyburide and now I’m out on the streets telling people, “You need to take glyburide” Nobody’s doing that. Because glyburide lowers your A1c 2 to 3/10ths of a percentage point, has a whole host of side effects and it costs money. Nobody’s going to promote that because the only people are going to promote pharmaceuticals are the pharmaceutical companies. And let’s just talk about this for a second, the FTC just sent out a letter to several influencers on social media and said, “Hey, you’re taking money from the American beverage lobbying company. You’re getting thousands of dollars and you’re not saying on your post, this is a sponsored post, and these influencers are saying things like, you can drink Coca Cola in moderation. It’s fine.” Well, guess what? They got a check to say that, and then they didn’t disclose that to the followers who love and trust them.
[00:37:50] And you can look these people up if you’d like to. And almost all of them are registered dietitians, that’s why they got a letter from the FTC, because they are in a fiduciary responsibility position. You’ve got initials behind your name. You can’t just be taking $1,000 from Coca Cola and then saying, “It’s fine to drink Coca Cola in moderation.” The FTC will fine you for that. And I think 12 of them got letters saying, “Hey, you need to cease and desist immediately or you can write us a check either way. So many people don’t realize that kind of stuff. And these influencers are more and more very concerning. They’re starting to say, “Well, obesity is genetic or type 2 diabetes is genetic.” And the plant-based cardiologist I was talking about earlier, he tried to say that type 2 diabetes was genetic. And the guy he was having a discussion with was like, “What are you talking about, dude?” Hundreds of thousands of people have reversed their type 2 diabetes back to normal by eating a proper human diet. How can you even pretend that that’s genetic?
[00:38:54] Now you may have a 1% or 2% predisposition to obesity or 1% or 2% predisposition to type 2 diabetes. Yeah, absolutely. You might have that little tiny genetic predisposition to develop those, but that’s never going to make you obese. It’s never going to make you type 2 diabetic. Only your diet can do that. And inappropriate dietary decisions made on a daily basis for many many years are going to give you those things. So that’s what I want people to watch for is now the influencers are saying it’s genetic that you’re obese, it’s genetic that you have severe obesity, it’s not your fault. But there is an FDA-approved medication that can fight against your genetics. It’s genetic that you have type 2 diabetes, but there is this new drug that you can use. To me, that’s dastardly. They should be embarrassed that they’re saying such things coming from a position of authority that their follower base gives them. It’s very concerning and I don’t think it’s going to end well for some of them. But people have to be on the alert for this kind of misinformation that very often is being put out there by mainstream associations and mainstream news media.
[00:40:09] Nobody cares about your health. Everybody just, they want your clicks and they want your dollars. That’s literally all they want from you. They want your eyeballs on their news story or their ad, they want you to click on it and they want you to send them $7 or more. Literally, that’s all they care about and all the donations they get if they’re a nonprofit like the American Diabetes Association, who gets millions of dollars each and every year from big food companies and big pharmaceutical companies. They don’t give a damn what your A1c is in reality. They just want your money. And so, people have to protect themselves, because you only have one life. And if you waste that life listening to the wrong authorities, you and your family, that’s who’s going to suffer.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:40:54] Yeah. It’s really interesting. I recall from our last conversation you were using, and so many good points, that you just made 140 mb/dL. So when people are, whether they have a fasting glucose, they’re looking at CGM data, glucometer data, 140 is about the max you ever want to see on a device, because when you go over 140, you’re damaging the intimal lining of your arteries. You are damaging the very delicate blood vessels to your eye. You’re damaging arteries and capillaries and distribution beds in your kidneys. You’re damaging your heart. And so, I wanted to make sure that I talked about that, because more often than not, I get asked the question, “What’s your threshold?” Like, if you were to go have cake on your birthday and have nothing else in your stomach? And I always say, if my blood sugar goes above 120, that’s unusual for me, and I really want to know what’s driving it. So, 140, I know, based on our last conversation and I 100% agree with you about our patients, they are not dumb and lazy. These are individuals who want to do better. They want to be healthy. They don’t want to be on a bunch of medications. They don’t want to feel poorly. They don’t want to beholden to a system that really is focused on pharmaceuticals for a lot of lifestyle issues.
[00:42:13] And so, one of the things that I found really interesting that’s relevant to this is there was a recent AHA, so American Heart Association has a new diagnosis. They’re now calling the cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic syndrome or CKM. This is a presidential advisory group for circulation. This is a consensus statement. They identified that the cost of this metabolic syndrome that has now evolved is 1.7 trillion annually. It is characterized by the metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance, and also these high triglycerides. And what I found interesting was they talked about lifestyle modifications, which I was like, that’s great, but what I didn’t love is the early use of medications, specifically these GLP-1 agonists, so let’s talk about that for a second, because I know there’s a lot of interest. I know we have influencers, we have very thin people in Hollywood that are using GLP-1s to stay really thin. But they’re marketing this for our metabolic syndrome patients, and they’re de-emphasizing, which I believe they’re going to focus more on the meds as opposed to lifestyle changes. What are your thoughts on the GLP-1 agonists for this particular population?
Dr. Ken Berry. [00:43:23] Yeah, great question. So let’s talk about that syndrome that they’ve just discovered. What’s another thing that you could call that? Metabolic syndrome.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:43:32] Yup.
Dr. Ken Berry. [00:43:33] Right. What’s another thing you could call it? Hyperinsulinemia. So when you call it what they called it, it makes it sound like this crazy sciency complicated thing. The average person is going to be like, “I can’t even pronounce that, much less. I don’t know what to do about that.” It’s kind of the same way with metabolic syndrome. You’re like, “Well, syndrome kind of sounds like maybe it’s genetic. I don’t know.” But it’s all these different, seemingly unconnected things. But when you boil it down, it’s all hyperinsulinemia. Now they’re like, “Oh, hyperinsulinemia. Okay, so that’s high insulin. Okay, let me look that up. You can google that.” Even if you’re a truck driver with an 8th grade education. You can google that and go, “Oh, elevated insulin.” Okay, so I wonder if there’s a test for that, lo and behold, yeah, on ownyourlabs.com, you can get that checked for $10. Okay, so what causes hyperinsulinemia? Well, in one person out of a million, it’s an insulinoma. But in 99.999% of people, it’s eating too many carbohydrates in your diet. Okay, so just the average. Let’s stay with our truck driver. He left school at 8th grade. He’s like, “Okay, so what foods caused my insulin to go up? Okay, he looks that up, now he’s got a list. Okay, I’m going to stop eating those foods.” Well, guess what? That huge syndrome that the American Heart Association is wanting to talk about, our 8th grade truck driver can cure that if you call it by its true name and simplify it as much as possible, it’s hyperinsulinemia, that’s what it is.
[00:45:11] And so that’s why I try to simplify these things as they evidently are trying to complicate it. Oh, metabolic syndrome was too easy to understand, let’s call it this new syndrome. And then, of course, it’s genetic. I mean, how could you even have a condition with that many letters in it, that many syllables? It must be genetic. So I just need to take these GLP-1 inhibitors. And so, this is the new pharmaceutical darling. This is one of the things many of the registered dietitians on social media are promoting now, many of them paid by the pharmaceutical company, many of them not disclosing that. Attention FTC, if you’re watching this, they maybe need to get a letter in the mail as well. Many doctors are talking about GLP-1 inhibitors and they are absolutely being sponsored, either directly or indirectly by the pharmaceutical corporation. They’re not disclosing that. Maybe the FTC needs to look into that as well. What you’re basically doing is you’re taking the patient’s ability to improve their own health. You’re taking it completely away from them. When you give it a name like this. Then you also hint around that it’s obesity and type 2 diabetes and this new syndrome, they’re all genetic. Nothing you could do about it. So just take this weekly injection. And, yes, it’s expensive as hell. And, yeah, there’s a black box warning on it. And yeah, there are literally no long-term studies in humans showing if there’s any long-term consequences of taking this.
[00:46:42] We literally don’t know. We are actually doing a long-term experiment in humans to see if there’s any terrible side effects. You are the experiment, the patient. When you go to the pharmacy and get that, we’re depending on you and your doctor. If anything, really terribly bad happens to you, we want you to report that to your doctor. Your doctor is going to report that to the database and then in 10 years, we’ll do a study of all you guinea pigs, I mean, patients, and we’ll see if there’s any long-term ramifications of injecting this medicine weekly. That’s literally what’s happening right now, Cynthia. And the average patient has no clue that they’re part of the long-term study. There’s never been a long-term study proving these medications to be safe from long-term use in human beings. Every doctor listening to this– part of informed consent would be telling your patients, “You know, there’s no long-term study showing this is actually even safe for human use. I wanted you to know that upfront now, do you still want the prescription or not?” Why are doctors not informing their patients of that? I don’t really know, because I would and I know you would if I were like, “Well, there’s no long-term study on this. So therefore, if you still want to continue knowing that, then that’s informed consent.” But doctors aren’t doing that, especially the doctors on TikTok and Instagram. They’re not saying there’s never been a long-term study. So they’re deluding people to try an experimental substance made in a chemical factory that you inject into your body without knowing if it’s safe long term. There’re probably adjectives you could use. I would encourage people to choose your own adjective for that. What would you call that? Some people would call it evil, some people would call it shortsighted, I don’t know, you pick your own.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:48:27] It’s interesting, at Thanksgiving, a family member mentioned that they bought stock in semaglutide and they wanted to know my opinion. And I said, “Well, I know that I have colleagues that are using it short term with their patients and giving them a very short-term use.” But my greatest concern especially because most of my listenership are women and men north of 40. What’s happening as we’re getting older, we’re losing muscle mass. We know based on the research that’s been done, most of the weight that people are losing is related to loss of muscle mass. And if muscle is this organ of longevity, then what are we setting ourselves up for? Like, maybe you’ve lost 20 pounds, but it’s going to take you a long time to gain the muscle back that you’ve lost. And it’s so important for insulin sensitivity.
Dr. Ken Berry. [00:49:16] Yeah. And I think your relative, that’s probably a brilliant financial investment, but I would not recommend it to a family member to actually use. I would recommend a proper human diet. But, yeah, I think right now, over the next 10 years, it’s probably a brilliant investment, but that doesn’t make it ethical or moral. I think back in Nazi Germany, there were some corporations that it would have been very wise to invest in back then that were making things like explosives and poison gas. That doesn’t make that investment ethical or moral, but you probably make money on it, yeah.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:49:51] Yeah. It’s interesting, in my prep for the podcast, I was reading about endogenous, so the GLP-1 that our body makes internally, the half-life is about two minutes.
Dr. Ken Berry. [00:50:03] Yeah.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:50:04] Contrast that with the half-life of these drugs, which is much longer. I mean, sometimes they’re dosed twice a week, sometimes once a week. Just think about how powerful it is to suppress all these downstream effects in the body.
Dr. Ken Berry. [00:50:17] Yeah And here’s another problem with the GLP-1s, you have GLP-1 receptors in your brain and you have them in your gut. You also have them in your kidney, you also have them in your liver. So of course, the pharmaceutical companies are wanting the effects that come from the receptors in the gut and in the brain. But do we know what happens when you engage those receptors in the human kidney or the human liver? Where else are GLP-1 receptors? They’re pretty much everywhere in the human body. Now, is that a problem? Was that looked into? Do we know what happens when you activate those receptors with long-acting GLP-1 receptor agonists? Do we know? No, we don’t know. We have no idea. And so, if their GLP-1 agonists were specific to the receptors in the gut and the brain, that’d be less bad? I wouldn’t be as worried. But I’m telling you now, I am very worried about the long-term ramifications of these medications. I think that this is going to end very, very badly. I don’t think we have any clue what happens to the human kidney when you activate those receptors long term, every day, constantly. I don’t think we have any clue, but I think we’re going to find out and we’re going to find out in this long-term experiment that’s being performed on patients who have not given their consent to be in this experiment. Any young district attorneys out there listening? I don’t know. Sounds unethical to me, maybe illegal.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:51:52] That’s such a good point. Now, there were a couple of questions that came in specific to lipids and looking at diagnostic tests like a CAC, a coronary artery calcification score, looking at the specialized carotid CIMT, what are your thoughts in terms of when in your workup with your patients, are you leaning into these diagnostics that are giving really good information about what could potentially be going on? Are you looking at ApoB’s? Is that something that you focus in on with your patients? Because I know the LDL is starting to kind of seemingly fall out of favor. We’re starting to focus more on the ApoB portion. What is your knee jerk reaction when you have someone that’s at higher risk, someone that’s working diligently on insulin sensitivity, they may be prediabetic. Where are you using those diagnostic tests?
Dr. Ken Berry. [00:52:47] I have a very low threshold for ordering CAC scores and CIMTs and CT angiograms of the heart, depending. I think that effectively, anybody with a single risk factor should probably have those tests performed because they’re so safe, they’re so non-invasive. And then the CT angiogram of the heart, you’re going to use that for people who are at higher risk. But I have a very low threshold for ordering those. I think they’re super underutilized. Now, the CAC score is not a perfect test, but if you blend it with the CIMT, then it becomes a pretty darn awesome test, both of which are completely non-invasive. There’s really no risk of having those two tests performed in concert. And you glean so much information about the patient’s current status. And I think typically the main use of those is either to follow the patient or perhaps sometimes more importantly, as a wakeup call where you can show them on your computer monitor. Look, “Dude, this damage right here has already been done. Some of it may even be permanent. This is important. This is serious. You need to change right now and stay changed for the rest of your life.”
[00:54:02] In many people, that’s that little extra bit of motivation they need to go, “Okay, that’s it. PhD forever, I’m never strained again.” So now ApoB and Lp (a), and all these other sexy markers. The problem I have with these markers is, first of all, I consider them to still be somewhat experimental. I don’t think that we’ve been checking them long enough. I don’t think we have a large enough patient database. I don’t think we have enough meaningful research showing that they are a useful proxy marker for heart attack and stroke. That’s my first problem with them. My second problem with them is the vast majority of physicians, if they check an ApoB and an Lp (a), what’s going to be their solution if they’re abnormal? It’s the prescription pad. There’s not going to be any discussion because, I mean, ApoB and Lp (a), that sounds very genetic, doesn’t it? And I think there’s some new– and LDL cholesterol is a dead model, and it’s about to be really dead when the new research study that my friend has done, he’s lowered his LDL cholesterol more by eating Oreo cookies than Crestor or Lipitor or Zocor can lower, okay. And so, once that research gets out there and people start laughing at cardiologists when they recommend Crestor or Lipitor, they’re like, “Dude, I’ll just eat 12 cookies a day. Why would I want to take a pharmaceutical for that?” The LDL is dead.
[00:55:27] Nobody’s going to be talking about that anymore in just a few more months. The only doctor is going to be the doctor who’s not on social media and doesn’t keep up with his or her reading. That’s the only people that are going to be trying to scare you with LDL cholesterol. It’s going to be just a dead model. And so now they’re like, “Okay, I guess they tried for a minute to talk about TMAO.” Remember that? You don’t hear much about TMAO anymore because it was shot in the head by multiple, just egregious, foolish things that would elevate TMAO. But now their sexy darlings are ApoB and Lp (a). That’s the ones they want to talk about currently. But there’s some research in the pipeline, Cynthia, and when it comes out, is going to make them look just as foolish as trying to talk to somebody about their total cholesterol.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:56:11] Yeah.
Dr. Ken Berry. [00:56:11] It’s like, “What are you talking about, dude?” So I’m not a big fan of those. I used to really love the NMR LipoProfile with all the particle sizes and numbers. The more I look at that, it’s like, “Why? Why even check that? Why do I care?” Because I know that if my patient adopts and sticks to a proper human diet, all those numbers are going to go where they need to go anyway. I think all of that trying to talk about these little particles and these little markers, it’s the dying gasp of the germ model of disease when it comes to trying to treat a chronic metabolic disease with the germ theory model. It just doesn’t work. It’s never going to work. All it’s going to do is make the big pharmaceutical houses billions of dollars. It’s going to make you as a doctor, basically, you’re going to be castrated as a doctor. You’re not going to have any meaningful effect on your patients. But now you’ll have a good effect on the pharmaceutical houses’ bottom line. They’ll probably even bring you some free lunch, maybe even take you to a steak dinner. But you’re not going to have any meaningful benefit, any meaningful impact. You are basically impotent as a healthcare provider if you continue down this road of the germ model when it comes to chronic health, it’s a dying model. Literally the end is in sight. But you can’t see it if you’re not looking, because all you see is the advertisements on CNN or Fox News that are all Big Pharma ads or if you get on social media, you see all of these influencers who are getting checks from the Coca Cola and Pepsi either directly or indirectly or getting a check from some other corporation who doesn’t give a damn about your health. They just want to make money.
[00:57:57] So I think that we’re very near a tipping point when it comes to chronic medical conditions and metabolic disease. I think we’re very near a tipping point where the average person is going to be like, “That’s all a load of bunk. I’m not doing that. I’m going to focus on the food I eat and the junk I avoid, and I’m going to focus on living a proper human lifestyle.” And I think that is going to lead directly to the bankruptcy of billion-dollar corporations. And it’s not that I’m against the corporations, it’s that I’m for the health of my individual patients and for all of the other patients out there on social media who happen to listen to me. I’m for their best help. That’s what I’m here for. I’m not here to make a million dollars. I’m here to save a million lives, to save a million legs from getting amputated, a million eyes from not going blind, a million kidneys from not having to be on dialysis, a million granddaughters and grandsons not having to go visit their grandparent in the nursing home because it’s not fun to go visit your relatives at a nursing home. Nobody wants to do that. So you’re literally tearing apart a family because of the improper nutrition advice that grandma or grandpa got. I mean how unethical, how immoral is that? I don’t know. It feels very immoral to me. But yet, a lot of influencers are taking a check to promote a lifestyle and a diet that’s going to lead directly to that.
[00:59:29] And so I have great hope that as more and more people wake up and then they start to impact their friends and family and say, “Hey, you need to listen to this podcast, Cynthia Thurlow, you need to watch this YouTube video by Dr. Berry. You need to buy this book by Professor Ben Bikman.” The more that word of mouth spreads, I think it’s a matter of time. I think the dominoes are beginning to fall and I think eventually there are going to be large corporations that are sued out of existence, that are probably litigated out of existence and perhaps even criminally prosecuted out of existence because of the dastardly behavior over the last few decades. And I’m happy to see that, because ultimately, I’m here to help people have a healthy life and live a healthy life and eat a healthy diet. That’s what gets me up every morning.
Cynthia Thurlow: [01:00:16] Well, I’m so very grateful for the work that you do and the empowering message that you share with your community and obviously with my community. I know that you recently co-authored another book. I have your first book, Lies My Doctor Told Me, which is one I recommend frequently. Let my listeners know about the new book. Obviously, I think it’s conditioned for individuals that are north of 50, so you and I are in that demographic. But what’s in there?
Dr. Ken Berry. [01:00:42] I actually have two new books. One is called Kicking Ass After 50. And I wrote this with my good friend Zane Griggs, who lives in Nashville. He’s been a fitness instructor for decades. He’s 52 or 53 now. He looks amazing. He would put any 35-year-old to shame. I’m also in fairly good condition. I don’t go to the gym, but I do work on the farm. And so, we decided to write this book. And it is written towards men, but every principle in it applies directly to women who are either over 50 or if you’re in your 40s then you can hear 50 coming and you don’t want it to be what you’ve seen your mom and dad’s 50s to look like. It doesn’t have to look that way, regardless of where you’re starting from right now. You can be that 50-year-old that everybody’s envious of. Okay. You can be that 50-year-old that the grandkids, they beg to come to your house because they know you’re going to be in the backyard kicking the soccer ball with them, or you’re going to be doing that craft with them because you feel good and you’re healthy and you’re still physically active and you still got plenty of muscle mass and your bones are very strong. You might even be in the backyard climbing a tree with them because you’re not worried about osteoporosis, even though you’re 55 or 60 or older.
[01:01:58] I’ve got one guy in our private group, he made a shirt that says, “Kicking Ass After 70,” to echo the book. He’s like, “I’m over 70 and my grandkids, they literally want to come live with me because we’re outside doing stuff. I’m not in the recliner. I’m not on the sofa. I’m up, I’m active, I’m happy, I’m engaged.” People used to realize that our elderly were the repository of wisdom and knowledge. But now we’re like, “Oh, they’re old and washed up. Put them in the nursing home.” That’s not and so if you hear 50 coming or you’re over 50, that’s what young people think about you. There’s only one way to prove them wrong and that’s to read this book and start living this life and prove them wrong. And then I know you and I were talking about all these labs earlier. If anybody wants to know more about labs, I got this little book called, Common Sense Labs, that I wrote with my good friend Kim Howerton. Kim was misdiagnosed. She had hypothyroidism. Twelve doctors 20 years to diagnose her. She was given every pharmaceutical in the book. She had hypothyroidism and they just missed it over and over and over again. So she was motivated. I was motivated as a doctor to say, “Hey, check your damn fasting insulin.” So we basically put all those labs in this book that tells you not only what labs you need, also why you need them. So when your doctor says, “Well, I wouldn’t even know what to do with the results.” [Cynthia laughs]
[01:03:24] There’s a paragraph that literally tells your doctor, this is what you do with the results. This is why you should order that or if your doctor says, “Well, your insurance ain’t going to pay for that.” We got the ICD-10 codes in here that will get it paid for if you can’t afford to go to ownyourlabs.com and get them yourself.” So Common Sense Labs, I’ll send you a link to that. It’s on Amazon. There’s also an audible version of, Kicking Ass After 50 that’s got a bunch of bonus content. Basically, in between the chapters, Zane and I shoot the shit talking about this particular topic or another and how people have gotten it so wrong for so long. And so, there’s an audible and a paperback on Amazon of Kicking Ass After 50. There’s a paperback of Common Sense Labs. I think it would be difficult to do an audible of a lab book, so there probably is not going to be an audible of that.
Cynthia Thurlow: [01:04:13] Oh, I love all the contributions. And to tell you, we could have easily made this a three-hour podcast because-
Dr. Ken Berry. [01:04:19] Yes.
Cynthia Thurlow: [01:04:20] -I had so much prep, so many questions, I’ll have to have you back for a fourth time to talk. People wanted to know about women, the things that are happening in our bodies between perimenopause and menopause and insulin sensitivity, and how things start to shift with these hormonal fluctuations. Please let my listeners know how to connect with you. How to connect to your amazing YouTube channel, which is prolific. And you have an amazing community there. Obviously, we’ll put links to your books as well.
Dr. Ken Berry. [01:04:46] So I’ve got this little YouTube channel-
Cynthia Thurlow: [01:04:49] [laughs] It’s not little.
Dr. Ken Berry. [01:04:50] -that I try to give good nutrition and good medical advice on. If I’m feeling particularly snarky, you’ll find me on Twitter. If I’m feeling loving and helpful, you’ll find me on Instagram or Facebook. And then we have a private community now with thousands of people because there’re a lot of stuff I can’t talk about on YouTube or I’ll get a strike. And so inside of our private community, we answer all questions, some questions on YouTube. I’m like, “We can’t really talk about that here, but we can talk about that in the private group.” Some people just need a tribe of people around them with a common goal. That’s what our community is. And so literally, it’s $5 a month to get in the door. That’s how much it costs, if anybody’s wondering. So, yeah, again, I’m not trying to make a million bucks here. I’m trying to save a million people, but I do got to pay the bills. So $5 a month, you can, I guess, shoot me if that seems offensive, but we try to keep it as affordable as possible.
[01:05:45] And so that’s what I’m doing. I’m working on about three other books right now that are in the works that will be out sometime within the next three months to 13 years. I don’t know, blame it on my ADHD, but I’m always trying to help people improve their health. Simply, simple steps, eliminate this, add this, and it almost always does not include a prescription medication. And it almost always does not include an expensive supplement. You don’t need any of that crap to start to improve your health today, right now, as soon as you click the end button on this interview, you can start improving your health or you can start helping somebody you love improve their health.
Cynthia Thurlow: [01:06:26] I love the message. Thank you again.
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