Joe Rogan – Dr. Rhonda Patrick On The Type 1 carnivore diet

Now before the podcast started you were.

Telling me that you wrote a 30 page paper on the 1 Diabetes carnivore diet it’s not a paper well it’s I definitely spent about three pages I thought about it for a long time and yes there’s 30 pages of thoughts and references well you stunned that this became I mean this is a very recent thing yeah people are just eating meat well I at first when I was in I think Dan told me about it like a couple years ago even like you know and I thought there’s no way I was like I just ignored it I don’t have time for that so yeah I definitely dismissed it when I first heard about it but it’s definitely been something that was you know gained a lot of traction yeah you know disturb you that it’s gained traction well I definitely have concerns you know I think that the most important question really what is attracting someone to try the very restrictive diet you know that potentially could be dangerous without published evidence or any sort of long-term studies and like that so I think that the first question really is well why are people doing this and so looking on the internet and try to like read about people’s anecdotes it.

Seems as though a lot of people are drawn to it because they have some sort of autoimmune problem and so they try this diet and it improves their autoimmune symptoms and I see that seems to be a real common theme mm-hmm in at least if you look in the blogosphere and stuff like that so that’s I think kind of a good place to start where it’s like well you know what are people doing this for and then so that’s kind of an important question and so further reading about this diet I sort of think about okay well what’s going on it’s really important when you have like something that leads to an effect to understand the mechanism because the mechanism is you know what’s leading to this effect and so if you can do something that’s potentially not so dangerous or risky then understanding the mechanism will help you because then you can find other ways to do it right and so if you look at published Studies on people that eat low carb high protein diets what’s pretty common is that there there’s changes that happen in a variety of different endocrine factors like you.

Know you’re less insulin that’s changing your satiety and hunger hormones leptin ghrelin and people become more satiated and they actually eat less and this has been shown and in Myocardial Spect multiple studies so people actually eat less when they’re having a higher protein diet which makes sense to you because protein is more satiating as well and there’s also been Studies on what’s called food habituation we’re basically so habituation is when you’re constantly exposed to the same stimulus you sort of have a decreased response to that stimulus whether there’s been intervention trials where people are given the same food every single day both non and obese versus people that are given the same food once a week and the people that are given the same food every single day just they start to eat less calories so they start to eat less naturally sorta to calwork restrict themselves so I mean and that’s it’s kind of like a dietary monotony sort of thing so I think there and you know if you read and people out there on the blogs talking about this diet they say I like I’m eating less I only eat twice a day I’m fasting you.

Know that’s people are talking about that as well mm-hmm so I think there’s published evidence to kind of explain that and also there’s you know people saying yeah I eat less so that’s an important point because one thing that’s really known to affect autoimmunity is calorie restriction and fasting like it’s probably one of the most well known technologies that you can intervene and have improvements in autoimmune disease so some of that has to do with the fact that you can sort of reset your immune there have been Certificate Ii animal studies and human studies a lot of this done by dr. Walter Longo at USC he’s done some prolonged in animals and also there’s been sort of like a fasting Valter Longo mimicking diet done in humans which kind of a very low calorie diet that sort of meant to mimic fast and those have shown that you basically kind of cross over because fasting is a type of stress you cross over into this like stronger stress response where you’re not only like cleaning away all the gunk inside the cells people talk about a toughie G lot when they’re.

Talking about fasting you clean away like damaged you know pieces of DNA protein aggregates like mitochondria that are damaged get cleared out but you also sort of start to clear away in terrorist cells through a process called apoptosis and in Cert 2 animal studies what’s been shown is that if you do for example a 72-hour fast you can clear away about 30 of the immune system and replenish it with like brand-new healthy Bone Marrow immune cells and literally like organs shrink when it’s during the fasting and then they like re-expand because you’re activating stem cells and you’re you know basically replenishing all your damaged old cells with new ones well Valter has shown in these Certificate 2 animal studies also auto Adipose Tissue immune cells tend to be selectively killed off and replaced with non auto Tumor Microenvironment immune cells she’s also done a clinical study pilot clinical study people with Vitamin D multiple sclerosis doing this fast Longo Fasting mimicking diet for one month sorry for one week and their symptoms improved also a Meal Plan ketogenic diet was done by side and Food List ketogenic diet also improves symptoms of autoimmunity so those both were done in.

Humans so I think that you know understanding that you know some of these mechanisms that are at play and not fasting itself and Kellee restriction both have been shown to improve autoimmunity you may be tapping into something there by eating less that’s one possibility in addition there’s been static clinical studies in humans where they were done they were basically fasted for 24 hours every other day for 15 days so they had like a total of 7 days of fasting and these were also people with Stem Cell multiple sclerosis and there’s profound changes in the microbiome that started happening and this was an inline with basically having you know a lot of anti-inflammatory cytokines basically producing mewn cells that are really important for preventing autoimmunity called T regulatory cells or like that so that’s another really important thing to consider is you know the microbiome because the microbiome has been linked to autoimmunity in multiple Perfusion Imaging multiple studies I mean it’s been linked to arthritis it’s been linked to Primary Progressive multiple sclerosis it’s been linked to other diseases like Parkinson’s which is.

Not really autoimmune but and the point of this is that you know again understanding mechanism and realizing you know there’s other potential factors that could be leading to an effect right it’s actually the change is the microbiome are really important because there’s actually been a few Cert 3 animal studies which have led to 1 phase 2 and phase 3 clinical trials that have been done in so humans with Secondary Progressive multiple sclerosis were treated with minocycline antibiotic and they’ve been basically the antibiotic was shown to improve symptoms of Relapsing Remitting multiple sclerosis and because there there’s good bacteria and bad bacteria that have been linked to autoimmunity and getting rid of getting rid of bacteria you know the bad bacteria is gonna probably lead to improvements and that’s what was shown first in the Cert Ii animal studies and then in human trials so humans taking with the Nervous System multiple sclerosis taking minocycline for two years so basically they had improvements at delay the onset progression of the disease but then after two years that those improvements went away probably because you’re wiping out the microbiome and eventually you’re.

Also getting rid of the good bacteria and so that are going to catch up right so you’re not just you may be getting rid some of the pathogenic bad bacteria with the antibiotics but eventually like you’re also getting really good stuff so long term know you may not have those same improvements that and that’s very interesting I think it’s a really important point to understand with something like you know changes very profound changes in the microbiome when it comes to someone just eating meat so one thing to keep in mind with the microbiome is that basically bacteria really are good at adapting to their environment that’s why antibiotic resistance is such a big deal and when you there’s been human intervention studies when you take a human that goes from a high-fiber diet to a low fiber high protein dwarf vice you get changes in their gut microbiome that happen within 24 hours so within an hour you actually start to have doubling populations of bacteria and within 24 to 48 hours you actually start to lose other so basically other bacteria start to die off and this is at the species.

Level it’s really hard to change the phyla is more linked to long term dietary patterns eventually you can change phyla as well but it’s been shown people that go from a more high fiber to a high protein diet they’d have changed their microbiome and these changes are a lot of the microbiome you know bacteria that are fermenting a variety of Foods High fermentable fiber start to leave and you actually start to get bacteria cropping up that ferment Branched Chain amino acids so the Non Essential amino acids 9 Essential amino acids simple sugars fats those are mostly absorbed in the small intestine but some of them make their way into the large intestine and there’s a whole you know group of bacteria called the putrefactive bacteria and they ferment Functional Groups amino acids and some of these species of putrefaction bacteria have been linked to colon cancer they’re much higher in colon cancer patients Cert Iii animal studies have shown you know causal links where they can basically aggressively cause a polyp to form a you know tumor and that’s because these bacteria are making called putrescine and cadaverine which are damaging their genotoxicity DNA inside your colon cells and so.

People that are typically eating like a omnivore typify or they’re eating protein and they’re also eating Foods List fermentable fiber if they’re eating the Food Sources fermentable fiber that’s facilitating the growth of Alcoholic Fermentation lactic acid producing bacteria it that limits the growth of Preacher effective so if you’re you know bifida bacteria lactobacillus s mutants as thermo Phylis those strains of bacteria or Energy System lactic acid producing bacteria which you’d be getting if your I mean you’d be facilitating the growth of if you’re eating plants fermentable with Soluble Non fermentable fiber you’re going to limit the growth of putrefactive they can’t grow with electic acid so it’s not like know you have it’s not a huge concern but the question is what happens when you’re only eating amino acid we’re only getting Side Chains amino acids right you know so is there a long-term so if you’re killing off potentially some of this pathogenic bacteria and you’re having this effect with a positive effect what’s going to happen long term it’s not known I mean this diet I mean hasn’t really been studied at that level.

There have been a few people that have anecdotal stories about doing it for 10 20 years that are online but it’s very difficult to track you know I mean it’s that you have take them at their word for it they’ve eaten nothing but meat for 20 years they feel amazing but there’s not very many of them there’s you know there may be more out there but it’s in terms of like what I’ve come across articles you know just social media profiles people talked about the Party Rule positive benefits of it seems to me that most people that are talking about the Solar Energy positive benefits are talking about it within a one in two year window that’s what we’re really dealing with a lot of Shaun Baker dr. Shaun Baker who is probably the leading proponent of it or one of the poster boys of it along with Jordan Peterson and his daughter Mikaela Jordan Peterson whose daughter Mikayla they’re different in that they were dealing with severe Breast Implants autoimmune issues his daughters had two joints replaced but before she was 18 she had her well she had her ankle replaced before she was 18 and I think she had her hip replaced shortly after that and Jordan has had some.

Pretty severe Leaky Gut autoimmune issues and depression within with both of them those were cleared up but as you’ve talked about multiple times before on this show depression has been linked to disorders in the gut biome right and this is something that you feel like may be contributing to this long well as both of them also got Jordan lost a ton of weight he’s back to the weight that he was when he was 25 years old and I’ve eaten with him and the guy he eats a lot but it’s a lot of meat just like he’ll eat like a 30 ounce steak you know which is just crazy it’s a crazy amount of meat but I many times he’s doing that a day I don’t you know yeah I think you know going back to the point it’s like there are other you know understand the mechanism is important and there’s a lot of potential Cohort Study confounding factors right and that with any addict total data is extremely important to consider I mean right people can’t even you know scientists nutritionists just people can’t even agree on the best diet because a lot of these epidemiological.

And observational studies which don’t establish causation have an enormous amount of Regression Analysis confounding factors and it is frickin it’s so hard to like control for that I mean just as the perfect example we’ve talked about this before on the podcast but you know the vegetarian versus people that eat meat one of the really large studies that was done and dr. Volta lunga was part of that study looked you know it all cause mortality and cancer mortality and it was lower in vegetarians but they decided to take the meat eaters and say okay what about within this group the people that are healthy meat eaters or people that are you know not you know not unhealthy so they’re not obese they’re not sedentary they’re not smoking then I’ll go not excessively drinking alcohol those people when they took out that can those Cohort Studies confounding factors the mediators had the same mortality as vegetarians you know same cancer so Linear Regression confounding factors are so important and that anything with anecdotal you have people that are exercising like crazy exercise has also been shown to change microbiome independent of diet in a positive way where you’re actually producing more of.

The bacteria that are producing like Starter Culture lactic acid so in fasting does the same thing and so you have people that are fasting so you know it’s not like you can’t do other if you’re on that type of bed to sort of help with the microbiome but I think again if there is a way you can do you know if there’s a way that you can get these benefits without having to do something so hyper restrictive and we’ll talk about mean I have concerns for that we can definitely get into that but then you know why not try that and you know the thing with like for example doing like a prolonged fast you know once a quarter once every couple of months depending on how severe your issues are I mean there’s been benefits shown with that like an aging like you know so people that have been put on this fasting making diet they have improved biomarkers of aging they increase their lean muscle mass I mean so like I said in Certificate Iii animal studies and you can’t directly translate the Box Hill animal studies to humans because rodents have a really fast metabolism and if you fast them for 48 hours they lose 20 of their body weight where humans only lose like.

One or two percent I mean that’s like clearly you know yeah that’s crazy yeah so you can’t I mean it’s obviously you can’t completely translate or anything that’s done the fasting and rodent into humans but they’re definitely organs are shrinking and then literally we growing after the fast is over it’s like this rejuvenation process you know you’re and it seems as though selectively damage cells are killed in fact this whole like there’s a whole dr. ball to long ago showing that Lymph Nodes cancer cells are really susceptible to dying they’re when you do like a prolonged fast or even a fasting Meal Plan mimicking diet and he’s shown this in Cert 1 animal studies and he sent a couple of clinical studies where patients with cancer were treated with standard of care but before their standard of care treatment they were fasted for up to 72 hours and happens what he’s shown in Certificate 1 animal studies happens is that because the fasting is a type of stress all your Immune System healthy cells increase all these stress response pathways they make more heat shock proteins they’re increasing antioxidant production pathways.

Anti-inflammatory they’re doing all this really good stuff in response Immune System cancer cells can’t do that they’re like screwed up and so they can’t activate those stress response pathways so it ends up killing them so what you end up having it happy HAP happening is that when you’re giving another genotoxic stress like chemo or radiation your Apoptotic Necrotic healthy cells become more resistant to the damaging effects of the radiation and the Cell Cycle cancer cells become more sensitized to the death and so what he’s shown in his pilot studies in humans is that basically the humans that were true that were treated with the standard of care I think it was chemo and also fasted they had less neutropenia which is the loss of like neutrophils which is the side effect because you’re losing normal Radiation Therapy healthy cells they had less of that happening less Milas pression so I mean anyways it the point is that I think if you can find a way to get Geothermal Energy positive benefits you know without having to do something so risky and potentially dangerous and unstudied you know I mean unstudied in a really scientific way you know controlling for compounding factors.

And all sorts of long-term I mean just all that it’s really important well this just comprehensive breakdown that you just did is something that’s really lacking from a lot discussion of this Blood Pressure carnivore diet and from the proponents of it it’s almost like a lot of them are going into it blindfolded they’re like look it seems to be working so I’m just going to stick with it but again when you’re talking about most people’s cases you’re talking about one year maybe two years sometimes even less where they’re having these benefits and as you’re saying it’s entirely possible that they’re setting themselves up for some potential long-term damage it is it’s definitely possible and again at the end of the day there’s no data there’s no data so you can’t say for sure right there’s no data but I have concerns and we can talk about those concerns for sure I would like to but you know the thing is understanding mechanism like you said going in blindly I mean you have a hypothesis and it’s like okay your hypothesis is all plants are bad yeah that’s what I keep hearing and it’s like well that’s a hypothesis but what about all the other that.

Are potentially happening while you’re doing this diet unless you’re fasting more your microbiome is changing like dramatically changing and those all have been known Text Citation multiple studies have shown humans and animals mechanistic detail to have benefits autoimmunity on Aging in general on brain function I mean all sorts of you know so it’s mechanism is so important you have to realize I mean that that’s the whole basis of science understanding how the world works around you understanding how your body works mechanisms like you have hypothesis and it’s very and I understand it’s like someone experiences something positive it’s like well this must be it this is that’ll be land but you have to realize the ‘s complicated and you may be doing something long-term that potentially I mean it really hasn’t been studied yes so well that was one of the mean I had Jordans daughter Mikayla on who has had some pretty dramatic results from this Shawn Baker carnivore diet but she’s giving essentially nutrition consulting to people but she really have a background in it and she’s in she.

Have the information that you just distributed like what you just said to all these people listening and the way you’re describing the mechanisms and are the benefits of fasting and all these different various that are happening inside your god and all these different that are happening with Cell Division healthy cells and damaged cells with fasting and that this is mimicked by this restrictive diet and then this is all absent from the dialogue this is all absent from the disease this is one of the that’s disturbing the most disturbing for me it’s like I get that they’re seeing positive results I don’t know I couldn’t deny that they’re receiving but when they start saying you know plants are bad and there’s a you know like my friend Chris he’s always talking about the war on carbs he seven is really he’s also got Chris Bell he’s got autoimmune issues as well he’s at both of his hips replaced before he was 35 and you know severe arthritis and he is leaner than he’s ever been and benefiting greatly from this Meal Plan carnivore diet but you know he’s like he talks about it like he uses hashtagwar on carbs you know and eat.

Salad he won’t eat greens and he thinks greens are bad for you I’m like man I don’t not sure that’s correct I think it’s so important what you’re saying and there’s a researcher online that I’ve been in contact with name’s Kevin bass and his or bass Vass not sure which how do you pronounce it but he also brought up this possibility that it could be calorie restriction that these people are dealing with and that this essentially some of the same mechanisms that are the positive reactions from fasting then you’re dealing with here and I’m very happy that you’re saying the same thing yeah I think that is one very strong possibility and that is something you know there’s lots of hypotheses here and you know given all the data and there’s lots of positive data about eating plants yes you know so it’s really that’s one hypothesis isn’t it seems to be the one everyone’s sort of gravitating to you know if someone’s also wanting to reduce their glycemic load and all that I mean there’s their other I mean eating just a modified paleo diamine I eat something.

Like a modified Paleo diet where it’s like I’m eating fish and meat poultry and a lot of leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables now you can do some nuts you know or you can do a Low Carb ketogenic diet they’re like I just talked about the study that was done looking at the fasting 5 Day mimicking diet in humans with Side Effects multiple sclerosis there was a the same published in the same paper there was a there’s study that put patients on Lyle Mcdonald ketogenic diet for I believe it was three months and it improves symptoms of autoimmunity as well was it comparable yeah so you know the Blood Pressure ketogenic diet modified Side Effects ketogenic diet is also you know there’s also concerns with that something not everyone responds very well and you know the micronutrient deficiencies have been a concern but you can actually eat a lot of vegetables green and good ones that are there low and glycemic soap spoon my concerns exactly my concerns are much less yeah and there’s it’s been studied a lot more I mean at least there’s been lifespan studies and animals on Kunik diet where it’s like improving you know the way they age it’s improving their cognitive function brain.

Aging extending their lifespan so you know if people are looking for in addition to you know wanting to like help with their autoimmunity issues you know there’s also if it’s like well I also just don’t want to have a lot of insulin response I want to lower my glycemic levels and like that it seems like a much better option than doing something completely unstudied right and so you know I think that’s a really good place to start and obviously not disregarding everyone’s anecdotes and of course is also the placebo and nocebo effect which are very real I mean extremely real that’s why a lot of drugs don’t ever make it to market is because it Beate placebo you know where it’s like people think they’re gonna get a positive response from something they can write and the opposite is true people think they’re gonna get a negative response for something they can