Habits and Hustle - Episode 412: Dr. Mark Hyman: How Ultra-Processed Foods Are Fueling America's Obesity Epidemic

Episode Date: January 3, 2025

Listen to the full episode here: https://youtu.be/NHgsW0l4mf8?si=MXfk9odHeMwBEGRX  Have you ever wondered why America is the fattest country in the world, with 75% of the population overweight and 42% obese? In this Habits and Hustle bonus episode, Dr. Mark Hyman shares eye-opening insights into the root causes of this epidemic. We discuss how ultra-processed foods disrupt our biology, leading to cravings and overeating as our bodies search for missing nutrients. We also discuss the staggering healthcare costs of metabolic dysfunction and chronic diseases driven by the Standard American Diet. Mark Hyman, MD is a practicing family physician and an internationally recognized leader, speaker, educator, and advocate in the field of Functional Medicine. He is the founder and director of The UltraWellness Center, Founder and Senior Advisor for the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine, a fifteen-time New York Times best-selling author, and Board President for Clinical Affairs for The Institute for Functional Medicine. He is the founder and chairman of the Food Fix Campaign, dedicated to transforming our food and agriculture system through policy. He is a co-founder and the Chief Medical Officer of Function Health. He is the host of one of the leading health podcasts, The Doctor’s Farmacy with 150+ million downloads. Dr. Hyman is a regular medical contributor to several television shows and networks, including CBS This Morning, Today, Good Morning America, The View, Fox, and CNN. What We Discuss: Ultra-processed foods and weight gain America's obesity and chronic disease crisis Metabolic dysfunction prevalence in the U.S. Economic costs of preventable chronic diseases Fad diets vs. eating real, quality foods Reversing cognitive decline and Alzheimer's disease Rising rates of Alzheimer's and its root causes Toxins in the food supply and environment Differences in food regulations between the U.S. and Europe …and more! Thank you to our sponsors: AquaTru: Get 20% off any purifier at aquatru.com with code HUSTLE Therasage: Head over to therasage.com and use code Be Bold for 15% off  TruNiagen: Head over to truniagen.com and use code HUSTLE20 to get $20 off any purchase over $100. Magic Mind: Head over to www.magicmind.com/jen and use code Jen at checkout. BiOptimizers: Want to try Magnesium Breakthrough? Go to https://bioptimizers.com/jennifercohen and use promo code JC10 at checkout to save 10% off your purchase. Timeline Nutrition: Get 10% off your first order at timeline.com/cohen Air Doctor: Go to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code HUSTLE for up to $300 off and a 3-year warranty on air purifiers.    Find more from Jen:  Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen   Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagement Find more from Dr. Mark Hyman: Website: https://drhyman.com/  www.functionhealth.com use code HUSTLE100 to save Podcast: The Doctor’s Pharmacy

Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it. Hey friends, you're listening to Fitness Friday on the Habits and Hustle podcast where myself and my friends share quick and very actionable advice for you becoming your healthiest self. So stay tuned and let me know how you leveled up. Then I studied by Kevin Hall, looked at this very carefully and he did what we call a crossover trial, which is one of the best types of study designs. We took the same people, gave them a diet and then let them have a break,

a washout period, and then give them another diet for a few weeks. And then measure what happened. First part of the diet was eating real food. Well, yeah. Match for protein, fat, carbs, calories. Then they gave them ultra-processed food, and they could eat whatever they want. Eat whatever you want, eat as much you want,

it's not restrictions. When they were eating ultra-processed food, they ate 500 calories more a day, because their biology was dysregulated. Right. Kids who are iron deficient will eat dirt. The body is going to crave more food and want more food because it's looking for nutrients,

but we're looking for love in all the wrong places, right? Yeah. And so what happened is that you get dysregulated. And when you think about that, 500 calories a day in a week is 3,500 calories. That's a pound of weight gain. If you don't offset it with exercise. In a year that's 52 pounds of weight gain.

If you eat all your processed food, why is America the fattest country in the world? Like we have 75% of us that are overweight, 42% are obese. It's increased fourfold since I was born. And you've seen diabetes increase 400%. I mean, it's in the last 30 years, it's insane. And the metabolic dysfunction,

even if you're not overweight, because you could be skinny fat. In other words, you look thin, but you're actually fat on the inside. Right, your percentage is fat. Yeah, your body fat, where the fat is, if it's in your belly, visceral fat. That's 93.2% of Americans have metabolic dysfunction.

That means that 6.8% of us are healthy. And what does that mean? That 93.2% has either high blood sugar, high blood pressure, abnormal cholesterol, all by the way caused by too much starch and sugar in our ultra-processed diet, or they've had a heart attack or stroke, or they're overweight.

So- Yeah, that is unbelievable. Yeah, it's unbelievable. And so, we're killing ourselves, and it's the costs are staggering. I mean, the government, the US government pays 40% of the national healthcare bill, which is now $4.9 trillion.

Probably a good two trillion of that is totally preventable and is now being added to our federal deficit every year. And imagine what that two trillion can do for the economy, what we could do with social programs, how we could improve our infrastructure, how we could improve so many innovation, how we could fund different kinds of research. I mean, we're wasting that money

and most people don't realize that, you know, it's one out of every three taxpayer dollars is for healthcare. It's unbelievable. What I find to be unbelievable is that everyone seems to look for these quick fad diets or quick fixes, but yet like it's pretty, again, what you're saying is pretty basic, right? Like it's the same things that like, if they watch what they eat, quality of the food, inflammation, like these, it's not that hard.

It's not that hard, but yet people are trying to over, or they're overwhelmed with like all this like noise. Yeah. You know, the other thing I wanted to ask you about Ozempic or any of these or Gove's or whatever, can your body acclimate over time anyway? And so you end up even eating what you ate before you even started taking it. Sometimes, these drugs affect people differently.

I had a patient who, I didn't prescribe it, but he was telling me he lost, he did Ozepic for six months, he lost two pounds, it didn't really make him feel great, he had all these side effects, he switched over to what I told him to do, he lost 60 pounds and he's reversed his diabetes and he's on his way back to full health.

You keep on saying patients, do you still see patients? Yeah, I saw two this morning, and he's reversed his diabetes and, you know, he's on his way back to full, full health. You keep on saying patients. Do you still see patients? I saw two this morning. I had a whole patient day yesterday. Yeah. So you actually still see like one of them. I'm a doctor. Yes. You know, but this is about like the- I don't just play one on TV. No, you don't just play. Listen, this is very refreshing. I thought of all the people,

of all the doctors, you wouldn't have time because do you know how many times I've seen doctors sit in the same chair you are and they are, they're doctors, yeah, I guess they have a certificate, but they don't practice, they write books and they like to do media and they like to do all these other things. It keeps it real. It keeps you humble.

It keeps you learning. But people don't like to do it. Like it's impossible to find, like the big joke is that I can't find a doctor. I love it. I mean, I love taking care of people. It's so, I mean, it's amazing. You actually are, like, would you take another patient? I need a doctor because there is such a shortage of doctors. You're a lie girl.

I know, I know. Like what is the waiting list for that? Like, do you have like a crazy waiting list? I wish I could see everybody. I really wished. I mean, it's the heartbreak of my life. And I can't tell you, I probably get five to 10 texts, emails, requests every day.

My mother this, my friend this, I'm sick this, and like people who are close to me. And I'm like, I just wish I could help everybody. And I can't. And so that's really why I co-founded Function Health. Right. To give people that. Was to take what I know and make it accessible, not to a few hundred or thousand people, but to millions and millions.

We have an 8 billion person problem. That's exactly true. Right. And what I, what we're creating at function is something that is revolutionary. It's why we're the fastest growing healthcare company in the world. We're creating something called medical intelligence. You know, you have chat, GPT, and all this, but think about where you take all your own data and all your data is sorted through with the use of technology.

Because now we can process, I mean, just in your microbiome alone, there's 100,000 terabytes of data. I don't even know what a terabyte is, but it's a lot of information. It's a lot, I guess, yeah. So no human mind can comprehend all that. So we're able to take all this data and actually understand what's happening to you and input it all into the system and then gives you a predictive model

of where you are in the trajectory from wellness to illness because things don't happen overnight, right? For example, we were mentioning some of these Alzheimer's tests, p-taus-217 or 80-40 or neurofibrillary light chain. There's other biomarkers and we're now able to see from a blood test that you could be developing early cognitive injury, brain injury, that you don't even know about because you're not symptomatic.

You can tell with brain imaging, up to 30 to 40 years before you get Alzheimer's, that you're starting to get trouble in the brain. But now with these blood tests, we can detect it. And then you can do something to intervene and actually reverse that trajectory. That's never been possible before. How is that even possible?

I thought there was no cure that you couldn't, well, can you give us a couple? Well, there is, of course there is. I mean, you know. Like what? Give us some things that we can do for our brain health, brain fog. This is, this is, this is actually fact. I mean, if you look at the studies being done at the finger trial, the pointer trials, these are large scale clinical trials using aggressive lifestyle intervention,

risk factor modification, and actually slowing that, showing not just reverse, slowing down or delaying the progression of Alzheimer's, but reversing. How? How can we reverse Alzheimer's? What you eat, I mean, exercise, dress management, sleep optimization, the right nutritional optimization, hormone optimization, addressing all the root causes, toxins, the gut microbiome. I mean, it's a process, it's a deep involved process. And I've written a book about this called The Ultra Mind Solution about 15 years ago.

It was way ahead of its time, still ahead of its time. And colleagues of mine like Dale Bredesen have taken that and really upgraded it. And he's got a recode program now. He's written a book called The End of Alzheimer's, which talks about the root causes. This is not just happening in a vacuum. It's not just a random event.

Why have we seen Alzheimer's increase by 150%? Why? Tell us. Why? Because we have the shitty diet, which is sugar. I mean, they're calling Alzheimer's type three diabetes now, which is insulin resistance. Why?

We have 93% of the population have some degree of insulin resistance. But why? This one I don't understand. Toxins, environmental toxins. There's more education out than ever before, right? We're more educated, you'd think, like there's information out there. How is it, instead of getting less obese,

we're getting more obese. Instead of getting healthier, we're getting more sick. When all we, we are overloaded with people and information, like the health industry, longevity industry, it's a trillion dollar business. Yeah. We live in a toxic cesspool of food and toxins. I mean, it's just the truth. I mean, the food industry has produced a food that is making us sick and making

us die early. And it, and we also have completely unregulated environmental toxins in the society that people are just polluted, polluted. You know, if we were food, we wouldn't be safe to eat society that people are just polluted. If we were food, we wouldn't be safe to eat as human beings are so polluted. Why is it different here than the UK? Well, in other countries, they don't allow the same ingredients. I mean, you might've heard the recent,

your ruffle about Kellogg's and these are friends of mine. I was gonna ask you about that. Yeah, I mean, like, it's ridiculous. Like in Europe, they have regulations. They have something called the reach legislation in the European Union, which limits the use of chemicals. So here, the way it works is, if you're a company, you get to use whatever you want and you get approved

as generally recognized as safe. And then you only get to have it taken off the market if it's shown later to be harmful. So innocent until proven guilty. As opposed to you have to prove this is safe before you put in the food.