Dr. William Li | Eat to Beat Disease: The New Science of How Your Body Can Heal Itself

Welcome to the latest episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast, where empowerment at midlife isn't just a dream—it's your reality! In this enriching episode, we're thrilled to bring you insights from the esteemed Dr. William Li.

Dr. Li isn't just any guest; he's a life-changing force in the world of medicine. From the prestigious stages of TED Talks to the informative panels of top news programs, Dr. Li has become the voice that's reshaping our understanding of health. His revolutionary insights have contributed to more than 40 medical treatments for diseases making waves in the waters of wellness.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg...

In today's discussion titled Eat to Beat Disease: The New Science of How Your Body Can Heal Itself, Dr. Li picks apart the essence of his New York Times bestseller which dives deep into the healing powers of food. This isn't a conversation about fad diets; it's a masterclass in how everyday nutrition can be your most powerful medication.

Imagine navigating midlife with a treasure map that leads to vitality and longevity. Thanks to Dr. Li, you won't have to imagine much longer as he reveals the inner workings of how the food you eat can help you combat illness, not just survive, but thrive.

For all you seekers of wellness and warriors of well-being, this episode is a beacon of hope, guiding you towards a life where diet isn't just about your waistline, but about staying one step ahead of disease.

It's time to get inspired and learn how to:

• Burn fat without starving yourself
• Heal your metabolism for good
• Use food scientifically proven to fuel longevity

Dr. Li's message is tailored not just for the health-conscious but for anyone who's yearning for control over their body's destiny. And for midlife women, this might just be the Hormone Prescription you've been waiting for.

Prepare yourself for a conversation that's loaded with practical advice, backed by rigorous science, and imbued with a dash of culinary magic. Are you ready to transform your midlife experience? Then grab a comfy spot, tune in, and get ready to Eat to Beat Disease!

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Featured in This Episode:

• Why your kitchen holds the key to disease prevention
• Dr. Li's groundbreaking research that's revolutionizing the medical community
• Strategies to nourish your body at the cellular level for lasting health
• A peek into Dr. Li’s latest literary masterpiece

 

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (00:00):

Natural forces within us are the true healers of disease. Hippocrates, stay tuned and find out your most powerful tool when it comes to mastering your metabolism at midlife with Dr. William Li.

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (00:15):

So the big question is, how do women over 40 like us, keep weight off, have great energy, balance our hormones and our moods, feel sexy and confident, and master midlife? If you're like most of us, you are not getting the answers you need and remain confused and pretty hopeless to ever feel like yourself Again. As an OB GYN, I had to discover for myself the truth about what creates a rock solid metabolism, lasting weight loss, and supercharged energy after 40, in order to lose a hundred pounds and fix my fatigue, now I'm on a mission. This podcast is designed to share the natural tools you need for impactful results and to give you clarity on the answers to your midlife metabolism challenges. Join me for tangible, natural strategies to crush the hormone imbalances you are facing and help you get unstuck from the sidelines of life. My name is Dr. Kyrin Dunston. Welcome to the Hormone Prescription Podcast.

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (01:08):

Hi everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kyrin. Thank you so much for joining me as we dive in with Dr. William Li to talk about eating to Beat disease. Eat to Beat Disease is the name of his New York Times bestselling book on the new Science of How Your Body Can Heal Itself. He also has another book, Eat to Beat Your Diet, burn fat, heal your Metabolism, and live longer. Needless to say, he is an expert when it comes to what to eat, how to eat when it comes to improving your health, and he is super passionate about food. He loves to cook like I do. So we had a really great conversation I think you're going to enjoy. He is gonna talk a little bit about the quote from Hippocrates that I shared with you in the teaser, and also another one from Bruce Li and another one about what discovery actually consists of and how it can help you when it comes to creating great health.

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (02:14):

I'll tell you a little bit about Dr. Li and then we'll get started. Dr. William Li is a medical doctor and internationally renowned physician scientists and author of the New York Times bestseller Eat to Beat Disease. His groundbreaking research has led to the development of more than 40 new medical treatments that impact care for more than 70 diseases, including diabetes, blindness, heart disease, and obesity. His TED Talk, can we eat to starve? Cancer has garnered more than 11 million views. Dr. Li has appeared on Good Morning America, C-N-N-C-N-B-C, Rachel Ray, and live with Kelly and Ryan. He's been featured in USA Today Time Magazine, the Atlantic O Magazine and more. He is president and medical director of the Angiogenesis Foundation and he's leading global initiatives on food as medicine. And he has a new book, New York Times bestseller, Eat to Beat Your Diet about burning fat, healing your Metabolism of living longer. And it was released in March of 2023. This is a super fan girl moment for me because Dr. William Li is amazing, personable, and passionate. I think you're gonna love him as much as I do. Please help me welcome Dr. William Li to the show.

Dr. William Li (03:29):

Well, thank you very much Dr. Dun, it's a real pleasure. Yes, it's

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (03:32):

A pleasure to have you here. I heard you speak at a conference a few years ago and I thought to myself, oh, I wanna have him on the podcast. That would be amazing. And you're very in demand. So I think it took me this long to <laugh> be able to get you on the show, but I'm super honored to have you here. Your books have transformed so many people's lives and really helped to move forward people's level of understanding about their diet, what they're putting in their mouths and their health, the outcomes they're getting. So I'm very curious, as a traditionally trained physician trained, how did you come to become so passionate and knowledgeable about eating to beat disease?

Dr. William Li (04:21):

Well, you know, those of us who trained in traditional medicine know how little nutrition actually is taught in medical school or during training, and that's certainly true in my own education. I had some secret sauce that I brought into the equation before I went to med school. I studied biochemistry in college and afterwards I took a gap year. And during my gap year before going to medical school, I traveled to the Mediterranean. I lived in Italy and I lived in Greece. And my interest all the way back then was in studying the interconnections between diet, culture and health. And what really interested me, and this is again, long before I went to med school, I was curious about how these cultures in Italy and Greece developed their food traditions and the seasonal eating that they did using whole plant-based foods, primarily long before these terms became popular and how much it meant to them culturally.

Dr. William Li (05:26):

In other words, people are eating, the children are eating what the parents are eating, who cooked what the Nonas or the grandmas are eating. And they passed these traditions and recipes down and it's been going on for hundreds of years. And, and that was really interesting to me because of my own background being Asian American. I grew up with cultural legacies that came from my own family and we saw lots of things mixing together, but I was always very curious about that link. And of course, being in the Mediterranean, I got to see people viewing food not outta fear, which is what we so often encounter. Oh, I don't know what I should eat. Should I be afraid of saturated fat? Should I be fearing dairy? Should I be fearing soy? I saw something completely different. And what I saw was people approaching food with joy.

Dr. William Li (06:16):

When people in the Mediterranean sat down for a meal, they usually sat down with company. And when they were, and the conversation they had inevitably when they were eating together was about the food that was placed in front of them and its tastes and the seasonality and how their mothers prepared or how their spouses would prepare the foods at home. And it made me realize as I then, you know, later went to medical school by contrast, how absent the idea of food and health in our culture and American culture was, and so I could never forget that. And as I memorized bugs and drugs, as you know, from medical training, my, you know, my, and as I observed all the terrible, crappy food and lifestyle, the diet, lifestyle of the medical student and the resident was just so terrible. I started to realize that there clearly was a missing piece of what modern doctors are trained on.

Dr. William Li (07:17):

And I think that the tide is changing a little bit, but here, hear me out for a second. What was missing was really the toolbox of the medical community. Before 1930, we had no antibiotics, we had no fancy drugs. You know, doctors going back in the beginning of the 19 hundreds and going back thousands of years really only had what was in the natural world and food and lifestyle as our only tools. And somehow in those last, you know, let's say 90 years, a hundred years or so, we lost sight of the fact that food is a tool in our toolbox. And so we have, we're training doctors to practice with inventions, medications surgery and radiation and all this other kind of stuff. And we've forgotten our roots and the roots of the food being a tool in the toolbox is so important because we now have the science.

Dr. William Li (08:13):

And I'm a scientist, I'm an internal medicine doctor trained for, for, you know, young and old men and women, healthy and sick. And I realized the huge wonderful opportunity was for people who had the scientific knowledge like me to dive, to do the deep dive, kind of like the, I could dive into the mosh pit of food using the same scientific rigor that we use for drug development to try to understand why foods are good for us, we know they taste good, now we have a better understanding of why they're actually beneficial as well. So I'm all about what foods to add and the new knowledge coming out of that rather than what foods to avoid. Although obviously there are some foods that one should avoid as well. Yes,

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (08:55):

Thank you so much for sharing that. You know, as you were speaking, a couple things came to mind. I recently watched a British series that I think took place in the 1800s. And whenever somebody felt ill, they gave them bone broth. They didn't call it bone broth, but they called it broth. Yeah. And so exactly what you're saying is something that I've observed and, you know, chicken soup, where does that come from? It's broth. Well, it's bone broth and then what you shared about traveling to Italy. And I have the pleasure of traveling to France with Walter Willette from Harvard. I think he's the author of, is it The French

Dr. William Li (09:34):

Paradigm? Yeah, I know Walter. Yes. Very good.

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (09:36):

Yeah. And to study why they don't have the, the cardiac and other diseases that we have based on their diet. And so that was really fascinating. So you just said that picking your food from a joyful place versus a fearful place, which I love. And really focusing on what foods to add. So what has been most surprising to you in the research that you've done in terms of what foods to add?

Dr. William Li (10:05):

Okay, so the wonderful thing about being a scientist is that we're always surprised because we're at, you know, as a scientist, most people think that researchers, scientists spend all their time getting together and dishing brainiac rocket science on each other. But in fact, that's not what real scientists do. When we get together with other scientists, we spend all of our time talking about questions that we don't know the answers to. And so we don't actually talk about what we know. We talk about what we don't know. And so for me, the opportunity to do research on food as medicine is a wonderful opportunity to continuously being surprised by what we're actually discovering. Give you some examples. All right. We know that berries are healthy, right? I mean, colorful berries eat the rainbow. I love strawberries, I love blueberries, I love blackberries. They're, they're good for us.

Dr. William Li (10:58):

They're anti-inflammatory. I think most people would actually know that. Okay, well, when I first dove into this food as medicine world, one of the things that I did with colleagues at the National US National Cancer Institute, this, my colleagues were actually doing drug discovery, trying to find new cancer drugs. And so in that process you have, as a researcher, you're not aware of what you're testing. So they call it blinded or masked. So you have no idea what you're testing to be objective. And you would throw these chemical powders or liquids into a test system to see if they would starve cancer by cutting off the blood supply. All right? That's what this project was all about. And what I did in a, what was considered daring back then, I decided to sneak about 20 different food extracts into the system. So maybe there were 50 drugs to test, and I snuck 20 extras.

Dr. William Li (11:51):

So there were 70 site things to test, and literally we were testing food versus drugs head to head in the same system for cancer discovery and drug development. Okay? Cancer drug treatment. I was so surprised to discover that strawberry extracts contain something called ACH acid. So you don't have to be a chemist, a chemist, but just know that people that are doing the research, we're beginning to figure out what these substances are. Allergic acid is a powerful anti-cancer substance because it cuts off the blood supply that's actually growing that could feed a cancer cell. And we validated and tested this head-to-head with cancer drugs. Okay? Now that was a big surprise. Fast forward to just a couple of weeks ago, I was surprised yet again that other researchers have been studying strawberries looking at the same types of substances, the IC acid. And now we know there's another group of compounds called pro anthocyanins.

Dr. William Li (12:49):

And guess what they've been shown to do in clinical studies. This is a study from the University of Cincinnati where they looked at about 30 men and 30 people with mild cognitive deficits. So not full on dementia, but heading in that direction. And they found that one cup worth of strawberries per day over the course of six weeks could improve memory and cognitive performance. Amazing. Now, and that's the same substance. So here it is, you know, strawberries have activity in the Cancer Drug Act along the lines of a cancer drug. Strawberries have activities and a clinical study along the lines of helping people who are having cognitive difficulties. If that's not foodist medicine, if that's not real research being conducted, I don't know what is. And these are the kinds of surprises that I literally get out of bed, right? Roll out of bed, and I've got like one foot in the past, you know, the same stuff that you and I trained on Dr.

Dr. William Li (13:49):

Dunson, you know, the bugs and drugs as I call them. Okay? Right. And, and, and the other foot in the future, because this is what we're discovering how the mother nature's pharmacy, pharmacy with the f not a pH, the mother's nature's pharmacy, is more incredible than we ever imagined. And so this is why I think I'm surprised by tea. Green tea is good for you, but so is a super fermented tea called P or tea. Guess what? P or tea is even a probiotic tea that improves metabolism studied in human trials. Amazing. And so every day I am surprised by something and it makes me smile. And it makes me happy to realize that we are able to lean into the foods that we should be adding to our system and learning more about that and not just vilifying foods, which has been really kind of like the cave we've crawled outta.

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (14:44):

Yes. You know, you mentioned poo or tea and I call it dirt tea <laugh> because it has a different taste, so you have to get used to it. But because of the health benefits, I remember when I first tried it, I didn't care for it, but I said, I'm gonna learn to like it because it's good for me. And now I love it. So I think that what are a lot of people's objections to eating in ways that are healthy? You know, I don't know anybody listening when's the last time they ate a fresh strawberry or a fresh green green or had something like a poo or tea. But people say it's expensive. They say it's time consuming. It's not convenient. They say it doesn't taste good. So how do you, you've done this beautiful research and really shown that these foods can help and bring them into your diet. These other foods maybe you wanna eat less of, but the practicalities of those cost in terms of time, financial expense, and then also the dislike. How do you help people get past those?

Dr. William Li (15:55):

Sure. Okay. So I wrote two books that became New York Times Best Sellers. Yeah. Eat to Beat Disease and Eat to Beat Your Diet. And one of the things that I did as I wrote each book is I created tables and charts of foods that have been scientifically and clinically shown to be beneficial to help boost your body's health defenses. These foods make you healthier, okay? And the evidence and the science proves it. Okay? So, but I took all the, I did all the heavy lifting for my readers. And so the tables and charts are there. What I tell people to do is if you take, if you crap go of my books and you just take a photograph, screenshot of the tables and charts, and please take a sharpie or pencil or, or whatever you're writing with highlighter and circle the foods among those 300 that you already like, you know, maybe some people don't like green beans or Brussels sprouts, but maybe they like peaches or maybe like berries.

Dr. William Li (16:51):

You know, if you start circling these things, I always say I have not found anybody over the last four years. I've been challenged that couldn't find something, some foods, in some cases, many foods, but they're circling like crazy. And I said, guess what? You have just won the lottery, the food and health lottery because you've circled the foods that are already good for you and you like them. You've said that you like them. So if you start eating healthy foods that you already like, you are way ahead of the game. 'cause You're, you already like the foods that are good for you, start with that. Go to the grocery store. And, and so that's one way of actually addressing the like versus dislike. I'm starting with you and I'm trying to find out in a very personal way, what are your taste preferences? Everyone's different. Everyone's got their comfort foods.

Dr. William Li (17:35):

Everyone, you know, everyone can remember something that mom cooked when we were kids that we actually really resonate with. That's cool because you're almost certainly going to find something good, and you're gonna find something that's healthy. Now, that's one thing. What about the cost? Look, there was once this idea that you have to eat organic and you have to eat local and you have to eat fancy stuff. Turns out that the research is showing that the dirt cheap stuff, not just dirt tea, but dirt cheap foods is actually good for you. Yeah. Nuts and seeds, you know, walnuts, pecans, almonds, all those kinds of things you can buy in bulk. You know, go to one of those big discount stores and buy them in bulk. Great for our gut health, which then improves our metabolism, helps our fat hormones, helps all kinds of other aspects in our lives. Lowers cholesterol. It doesn't have to be expensive.

Dr. William Li (18:26):

One of the least expensive things I can think of that I actually like and I, and I put into my own shopping cart is not fancy pants at all. I love navy beans. All right, Navy beans. You go to the middle aisle and you just get a can of this stuff. They're pretty inexpensive. Navy beans have lignins, they've got great soluble fiber. They eat super fast, super cheap, crack a pan, the crack thing over there, rinse 'em out. Okay? I rinse all that cloudy stuff away from it. All right? Stick 'em in a pot. Heat 'em up, throw some inexpensive herbs that you can get outta your pantry to light it up a little bit. And you got yourself a gut healthy meal that's good for your gut microbiome, shown by evidence that it's not only inexpensive, it actually works to improve your metabolic health.

Dr. William Li (19:16):

So I think that, you know, if you take a look at healthy food, it's not only for the 1%. I think in fact the elemental foods, the things that used to be widely available to everyone are, can actually be really, really healthy, including dried foods, which tend to be healthy. You can store them longer, you can buy them in bulk. And that's totally fun. Here's something a lot of people don't realize. I know that it's true that eating mostly vegetarian, all vegetarian, you don't have to be vegan, but a mostly vegetarian diet is gonna be healthier for you. But if you eat seafood, okay, you don't have to go to the fancy fish market to buy expensive line cuts, whatever. Okay? If you go to the middle of the grocery store and you just carefully look for little tins of fish, I'm not talking about cat food.

Dr. William Li (20:06):

Don't go, don't go to the pet food section <laugh>, okay? I used to think canned tuna was cat food because it smelled exactly like what we'd feed a cat. But there is a, in the Mediterranean, there's a long history of tinned foods, tinned sardines, tinned mackerel, tin tuna. They put a little extra virgin olive oil and they added some spices and herbs. They might put some like piquillo peppers or something in, you can find these in a grocery store and they're not expensive. You can buy a big pack of them, you can put 'em in a pantry. And man, do they make a tasty Omega-3 healthy oil final. Not only the Omega-3 fats, but also olive oil when they're cooked with that, you can just put that with a piece of crusty sourdough bread and have some raw carrots and you put yourself a real snack.

Dr. William Li (20:53):

And you know, wherever the girls, the girls dinner or the girls meal, like they talk about something like that, can be inexpensive and incredibly tasty and healthy for you as well. So I always tell people, don't let price be the obstacle. There's lots of things that are inexpensive that anyone can actually afford. Okay? And then the other issue about convenience, all right? I think that if you look on the internet today, you pick an ingredient, beans, kale, tomatoes, what have you, nuts, tree nuts. And if you want to actually find something, a simple way to do it, you don't need to bust open that old yellowed thick book that your mom used to keep around as a cookbook, right? <Laugh> passed around for generation, you, you know what I'm talking about, right? Yeah. All you gotta do is to go on a Google type ingredient, you know, collars or kale and type a recipe and type simple, how about 15 minutes, alright?

Dr. William Li (21:48):

20 minutes and hit search and type, click on the video and watch somebody show you how to do it. All right? It's easy to do. And so I think that we should, and by the way, there, I, I have to tell you, as somebody who enjoys cooking, I'm not only a scientist and a doctor, I actually love cooking. But to me it's joyful. It's relaxing. I get some time by myself, I'm creating something. Listen, if that actually fits your personality as well, there's nothing better than knowing that you're eating and feeding your loved ones, then your friends and family as something that you put together. And you know everything that you put into it, and you can make those decisions for other people and it tastes great. So again, I hear you point out the exact same things that lots of people talk about as obstacles to healthy eating. And from my perspective, they're not really obstacles at all. You just have to look at them in a different way.

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (22:41):

I love that answer and I wholeheartedly agree. I was blessed to be raised by a mother who actually was a trained chef. She trained with Anne-Marie Colman at the Natural Gourmet Cookery School in New York. And Anne-Marie was one of the pioneers in teaching people how to cook mostly. I don't think she dealt with meat at all, actually. It was vegetarian, healthy, tasty meals. So I learned at a young age how to cook healthy food. Of course, I went off to medical school and I came back and told my mother, ' we heal with steel mother <laugh>. 'cause I thought I knew better. It wasn't until I had my own health challenges that I went back to her and then really started to pay attention to how she cook healthy food that is delicious with healthy ingredients and, and really learns how to do it in an efficient, cost effective manner. Yeah. So I think it's something, it's a skill that anyone can learn. And abso you described beautifully.

Dr. William Li (23:42):

Absolutely. And you know, listen, if you know how to change a tire in your car or put in or change your oil in your engine, if you know how to fix the gutter or the, or, or the, the drain sink, if you know how to plunge a toilet, you can actually, you're, you're smart enough to know how to actually cook something tasty. And I like them. I I love the idea. I don't know, I, I don't know if you're saying healing with steel, it refers to cookware, but like, you know, but oh, <laugh>. But, that's another way to think about it. You know, like, look, you don't have to go to the hospital and sit in the waiting room, you know, to be called by the nurse. I think that there are, look, I'm, I, we're both doctors and so I'm quite confident that we're on the same page.

Dr. William Li (24:26):

There are medical issues that you must go to your doctor for and communicate with your doctor for, and that only your doctor can really solve for you because it's not something you can really tackle at home. But on the other hand, healthcare, and I think you'll agree with me as well, it doesn't happen in the doctor's office or the hospital. Healthcare is what we, what people deliver for themselves between visits to the doctor's office, between visits to the ER, to the hospital or the infusion clinic or wherever you're going. You care for yourself. We do medical interventions, you know, in a doctor's office, we can do assessments, but the care for your health is what we do for, to all of ourselves at home. And, and food is just, you know, one of the several important things, because obviously we can't just think about this over simply.

Dr. William Li (25:14):

I mean, you've got exercise, you've got stress management, you've got sLip socialization, all things that are part of self-care. And, and look, everybody out there is in the world now, you know, in this new era of self-care, right? Where we know not to overwork ourselves, we know not to overload ourselves at work. Self-Care is really sort of a new era where we are taking responsibility for the amount of stress that that either we put in ourselves or other people, people put in ourselves. I think nutrition and eating well, and importantly, eating the things that you like that are healthy, all right? It's gotta taste good. That's how our, and it's just another thing to really think about and cultivate for yourself.

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (25:59):

Yes, I am saying that 2024 is the new self-love and self-care. It's like the next level. It's time to bump it up a notch and really make self-love an action word. It's a verb. And really meeting your needs and your wants and your desires to a high level, including your diet. I do know that a lot of women listening are dealing with what I call midlife metabolic mayhem. The 60 plus symptoms that women start experiencing over 40, the top two being fatigue and weight gain. So they're gonna wanna hear something from you about your second book, eat to beat your diet, how you heal your metabolism, burn fat, and live longer. So can you talk a little bit about the challenges for all of us, but maybe particularly for women over 40 with their metabolism and what's happening there and how they can work with their diet to assist them?

Dr. William Li (26:58):

Yeah, well listen you know, if you're a woman in your, in a, in the middle of your life and you're struggling with the actual issues or the questions about weight gain, weight management, fatigue, you know, all the things that, well, I think most people recognize, dread and maybe even accept that they're gonna have to contend with as they get into their forties and fifties and, and later in their lives. I have some good news. First of all, my book, Eat to Beat Your Diet, is not a diet book. That's a trick title. It's an anti-D diet book. I wrote a book about how you don't need to go on these intense, crazy diets that might actually help you lose a few pounds or maybe even more than a few pounds, but you can't stick to them. But how you can instead use the latest thinking about human metabolism, about body fat and the connections to our hormones or to our energy levels, to our ability to live rich, fulfilling lives in a way that we didn't recognize before.

Dr. William Li (28:01):

And let me explain this in a way that I think people can understand. All of us probably do something pretty similar, right? You get up in the morning, roll out of bed, take a shower, come out of the shower, and you're drying off and you probably got a mirror in the bathroom and out of the corner of your eye, you probably see on your naked body a lump or a bump that you are not happy with. It doesn't matter if you're a big person or a small body person. We all see this stuff, right? And then what's the thing you do? You go cur you curse. Like, ugh, I don't wanna see that. Then the next thing you do is what? Step on the bathroom scale. And that number that comes up isn't the one that you are hoping for you to curse again, all right?

Dr. William Li (28:38):

First thing in the morning, you've cursed yourself twice, right? And if this sounds like a familiar story, and I'm exaggerating a little bit, but I think most people resonate with it. 'cause I do the same thing. I used to do the same thing. We kind of associate our weight with our health. We associate body fat with something very negative. And we always talk about negativity and body fat. Look, we're, so, it's maybe part of our human nature. I don't care if you're a vegan or not, but if you actually go to a grocery store and you're wheeling, you're pushing your cart around and you're gonna be pushing it by the meat section, a butcher section, and you see that gigantic t-bone steak that's got like a thick rind of white fat around it. I don't care if you're like a, if you're, if you're like the, the biggest meat eater in town, everyone goes, Ugh, I hope nobody eats that.

Dr. William Li (29:25):

Right? So we're conditioned to think about body fat and the word fat in very negative ways. But what I wanna tell people in their middle age is that we don't always think about it, we don't always think about fat negatively. There's one situation I can tell you, everyone sees fat and smiles and you know what that circumstance is? That's when we see a baby or we see a pudgy baby. Mm-Hmm, you know, newborn, 1-year-old, big fat cheeks, double chin, rollie, polly tummy, <laugh>, you know, big fat arms and legs. You're smiling right now, right? I'm, I'm not smiling saying it, right? We, that's one situation in which fat makes us feel happy. So think about what that means. Somewhere in our brain, we recognize that body fat is actually a good thing. In fact, if you saw a baby that was long and thin, like a fashion model, like a runway model with thin thighs and thin arms, like, like sharp chiseled cheekbones, <laugh>, you'd be freaked out.

Dr. William Li (30:22):

You'd be freaked out, right? You go, you would, you would, you would run the other way. You would say, there is something seriously wrong with that baby, and you'd be completely right. Okay? So to understand body fat and metabolism and hormones in middle age, it's really helpful to do, to go, go way back and realize what body fat does for us when we're younger. Now, a lot of people don't know this, but our body fat and our hormones are really tightly interconnected. And our body fat and our health meaning good health, beneficial health, are tight, tightly, tightly tied together. All right? Now I gotta explain this. Most people don't know this, but if you go back, Dr. Duston back to med school, you remember we were sitting in embryology class and they were teaching us about how humans from dad sperm meets, meets mom egg, mom's egg and AEB of cells.

Dr. William Li (31:13):

And we had to memorize all the things that actually happened. Well, when the organs form, all right, one of the first organs that form are blood vessels. And that makes sense because every organ's gonna need blood flow to remain alive. The next tissue that really forms are nerves. 'cause That's the electrical system of the house of your body. And we all need electrical wires to power up our organs. All right? A third tissue organ that forms is body fat. Body fat is one of the early first organs that form. And by the way, at this point in our lives, we don't have waste lines. We don't actually have chins yet. We're still kind of forming our overall shape as humans. And you know where the body fat forms is as a ring around blood vessels. So when body fat starts forming, it forms as a cushion around our blood vessels.

Dr. William Li (32:07):

And you go, why would that be? Why is body fat forming on blood vessels? Well, it turns out, and we now know this, that our body fat, which is sometimes called adipocytes, adipocytes, adipose tissue, so we know, call fat tissue, these adipocytes the cells of fat around are living around blood vessels because each of these fat cells, adipocytes, are actually fuel tanks for the energy that we need to run our body. And where does the fuel get loaded? Into the fuel tank from our blood vessels? Because the food that we eat goes into the fuel, goes into the blood vessel, and the blood vessel loads them into the storage tank, which is our fat cells. And that's why fat starts forming around the blood vessel. So all around our blood vessels, all throughout our body, there's fat that actually starts forming. Now obviously the fat forms elsewhere as well, but it shows you just how important body fat is.

Dr. William Li (32:58):

Now, later in life, as we develop as teenagers, I mean, look, little boys and girls, five year olds, seven year olds, pretty much they look all the same, right? They're, they, they have the same body type, but later during adolescence, puberty, hips form, breast form, chests form, you know, facial features start reforming as well. That's where the future adult us begins. We start to look like the future adult who we're gonna be. And our body composition changes and fat starts moving in different places to where it needs to go. And we've got three kinds of fat that form, all right? And I'm telling you this because people who are middle age need to understand fat didn't form because you had too much to eat over Thanksgiving dinner, okay? Or that you went to that restaurant and you had, you know, you had too much on your plate.

Dr. William Li (33:43):

This is actually fat that is healthy fat. I'm talking about three types of fat that form, even when we're young teenagers and into young adults, you know, kind of the best shape of our lives. We've got subcutaneous fat that's under the skin sub under cutaneous skin fat. That's kinda like a wetsuit that protects us, that's healthy, helps to shape us. Then you've got visceral fat, which is gut fat, visceral meaning gut packed inside the tube of our body. So if you think about it, you could have a thin tube or you could have a big tube. People with large bodies have big tubes, but even people who are thin, who are thin, have thin tubes. And when, and the visceral fat can, it grows inside the middle of the tube of the body, you can't see in the mirror. All right?

Dr. William Li (34:28):

It's not the muffin top, it's not the double chin. It doesn't wobble under your arm. It's deep inside your gut. All right? And you need some of that. And then there's brown fat. And this is something that I think is really interesting is that brown fat, which we used to only think was in animals and babies, is a thin layer of fat. We're not talking about wiggly jiggly wobbly fat. That's not under your arms. Brown fat is quite different. It's paper thin, wafer thin, and it's pressed not close to the skin, but close to the bone deep in our tissues. We got some of it behind our breast bone. We got some of it around our neck. We got some of it a little bit in our belly, some of it behind between our shoulder blades. Brown fat is like an engine, like the stove top in your kitchen that uses gas.

Dr. William Li (35:16):

You want to blow some water. What do you do? You turn the crank, it goes click, click, click, click whoosh, you get the flame going on. That's what brown fat does. Brown fat metabolically whooshes fires up to create heat, right? For our body, and it draws that energy from our white fat, starting with a visceral fat, which so that you, so we, our fat controls fat. Now what happens? And there's all kinds of hormones that a fat is normally producing. This fat, healthy fat produces at least 15 different kinds of hormones. Adiponectin is one, is one that even helps our body absorb insulin and, and helps us release insulin and draw in our glucose so we have energy. So I'm bringing this up because people complain about not having enough energy. All adiponectin gives us our energy because it takes the food that we're eating and stores that energy into our fat cells.

Dr. William Li (36:09):

All right? And then we burn off that fat cell when we move around, and that's what gives us energy in our brain, in our muscles, everything. Okay? Now what happens is that if you actually overload the body's fat stores, if you overeat, you put too much fuel in your body, your body, like unlike a car where if you put too much fuel and it just splashes right out of the fuel tank, what does it do? Run down the side of your car, around the tires, and pool around your shoes. Now you're standing in a dangerous, toxic, flammable mess, right? In a gas station in your body, if we actually overload fuel, okay? By overeating, we just make more fuel tanks, those fuel tanks being fat cells. And so we, the more we eat, the more fuel we store, the more fuel we store, the more fuel tanks we need, the more body fat we need to make.

Dr. William Li (36:54):

And that's really why over consumption of food, good or bad actually will lead to more body fat being created. And the body fat that gets created, you can see it in the mirror, okay? Those are the lumpy, bumpy things, or they can actually grow in the center of your body around visceral fat. This is the fat that wraps around all your organs, because when you overeat and you have too much fuel and you've got too much fat wrapped on your organs, that fat becomes starved of oxygen. It becomes inflamed. It's like a forest fire that gets ignited inside your belly, you can't even see it. It's steep inside. And that inflammation rushes out throughout your body. And what it, one thing it does is it inflames fat upsets the, it derails the hormones like the fat hormones, like adipokines adiponectin. When that hormone gets derailed, you can't use it, you can't absorb your fuel.

Dr. William Li (37:48):

Well, and guess what? Now even though you have, you're loaded with a lot of fuel, you're not using a lot of fuel, you are tired, you're fatigued. So gaining too much weight leads to fatigue, inflammation accompanies it. All right? So overeating is one of these things that we need to really be careful about. Now, the other thing that happens in middle age, people go, oh, my metabolism's gonna slow down. There's something I can do about it. It's my fate, right? And indeed, people's bodies change. Women and men, but especially women, I think they notice it a lot more when your body shape changes, when you hit your mid forties and into your fifties you know, I don't know what I can do and I'm looking just like my mom did. All right? So the fact of the matter, it used to say, I've gained too much weight because my metabolism has slowed down.

Dr. William Li (38:31):

Nothing I can do about it. Right? Wrong. We used to think slow metabolism causes excess body fat, but in fact, it's the other way around. Too much body fat slows down your metabolism. And we know this from a seminal research study that was conducted just in 2021, published in the Journal of Science, one of the most credible journals in the world, where they found that all humans only undergo four phases of metabolism in their life and in the middle phase of metabolism. All right? So when you're born, everyone's born with the same metabolism. One year old, it shoots straight up from one 8-year-old to 20 years old. Your metabolism comes down to adult level. And then from 20 to 60, this is exactly where middle age occurs. 40, 45, 50, 55. Human metabolism is designed to be rock stable. It is not hardwired to go down. We are not programmed from birth to have a slow metabolism.

Dr. William Li (39:28):

We hit our middle age. And so anybody listening to this, you gotta realize everything that we thought has just been the story has been changed because we now realize that we are, our bodies are hardwired. It's our birthright to have a normal stable metabolism in middle age only at age 60, 60 to 90 slows down a little bit, okay? But not huge. It slows down a little bit. Now, what happens is that if you gain extra body fat, if you have extra fuel consumed, all right, and you're not moving, and that extra fat causes the inflammation disrupts the hormones, the fat hormones we're talking about here, you know, dip, pectin, ghrelin, I mean, these are all kinds of lectin. These are all hormones that are affected by, that are needed and healthy for us when we have the right amount of body fat and energy.

Dr. William Li (40:14):

But when we have too much of it, not only does that slow down our metabolism, but the excess inflammatory fat derails our hormones. When you derail these hormones, it's literally taking a train, okay? And just chucking it off the rails. Now it all, all heck breaks loose. And now you don't know if you're hungry or not hungry. Well, maybe I'll just eat some more. No, you know, you're eating more food now, you're eating more fuel. It's making everything worse. And then it, and the excess body fat slows down your metabolism. So the explanation for people who are middle reaching, middle age to say, I'm fatigued. I'm gaining weight. I don't know what to do, I don't think I have a choice. One of the things that modern research is showing us is that number one, you can actually try to restore your body's metabolic setpoint.

Dr. William Li (41:01):

It might take time to do it, but one thing to do is actually to burn down excess body fat. And to do that, you want to eat less e even intermittently fast and be a good way of doing it. Second, you wanna eat good quality food. 'cause You don't wanna be eating food that's just gonna blow up that inflammatory fat. You wanna eat good quality food, less of it, stay away from the ultra processed stuff, the added sugars, the added, you know, carbs. Then what you wanna do is exercise. You wanna stay physically active. You know, a body in motion stays in motion as the old law of thermodynamics or physics. And so you wanna actually stay in motion walking exercising. You don't need a trainer. You just need to stay active. You're gonna be burning down some of that extra fuel. You need good quality sLip because our metabolism burns down extra fuel when we're in REM sLip. Good quality sLip. All right? Now, why, by the way, why is all this not happening to us? Why is it so difficult to do this when we are in our mid forties, for women watching this? Think about it, how complicated our lives are at middle age when you are 20. You know, you might be struggling with various things, ideas, but you might have seen something like a mountain, but really a mold hill compared to what you're dealing with in your 40 bucks, all right? Yes.

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (42:15):

Right?

Dr. William Li (42:16):

Okay. So back then you were working out, you were looking good, you were fitting into whatever clothes you wanted, and you had plenty of energy and you know, you could do whatever you wanted and you didn't seem to gain weight, but you're active, all right? Now, fast forward the decades, and now you're in your mid forties. We got so much going on, all right? And I'm just trying to talk to people like, you know, who are listening, like, like real people, right? I mean, look, you got your spouse to worry about. You got stressors with your family life. You got your kids to worry about, you got your mortgage, you got your job to worry about, your boss worried. You get your car payments. And then, oh, by the way, if you follow anything in the news, we're worried about the election, worried about the war, worried about, you know, what kind of sickness is going on.

Dr. William Li (42:58):

Look, there's a lot of stressors going on, okay? And those stressors make it really hard for us to focus on making good decisions about the food. We choose quality food. Those distractions make it very difficult to eat smaller quantities, smaller portions. In fact, they're so distressed, so stressed out, we eat a lot. Those distractions make it hard to exercise and stay active. Those stresses prevent us from getting good quality sLip, which interferes with metabolism. So it's not that our fate is hardwired in our body, and when you hit 45, that's it, baby, you're screwed. No, the reality is that we got a lot going on. So we have to sort of tease apart some of the things that are gone and start to just calm down a little bit and make the, some of the good decisions, starting one by one that can help our body reset to the metabolism, to the fat, to the hormonal interactions that our body needs to give us energy, to give us the shape that we want to have, and to be able to allow us to live and thrive as we get older.

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (44:01):

Yes, thank you for that very comprehensive, detailed explanation. I think everybody probably got a lot out of that. And really the way you're describing it is that the communication has completely gone offline because of your current metabolic condition. And there are things that you can do to restore proper communication, right? I always say hormones are the communicators and you can get them reestablished. I loved inter, I love intermittent fasting and exercise and many of the other things that you've shared. Thank you so much for sharing this wisdom with everyone. You make it sound very approachable and doable by almost anyone, which it is. And so I love that. We'll definitely have links to your books in the show notes. You have a wonderful Dr. Li's Friday five handout, which we'll have a link to in the show notes. You wanna tell them a little bit about that and where else they can find you online?

Dr. William Li (44:59):

Yeah. Well, listen, my mission is to get good information about people's bodies and how food interacts with them in a joyful way. That's my mission, is to really impact as many lives as possible. So I have a website, Dr DR William Li l i.com. Please come to visit my website, take a look at the information that's on it. My books Eat to Beat Disease. You can buy them anywhere books are sold. You can order them online very, very easily. I do courses, I have online courses you can find on my website. I run them every month. And this is a deep dive into your body and the foods that can activate your body in ways that are delicious and effective so that you don't have to fear your food. You can love your food and love your health at the same time. And I'm, and I put out newsletters.

Dr. William Li (45:44):

These are free newsletters that you, or just contain facts and information. And you know, I'm inundated with information all the time. I just wanna get, I wanna do the heavy lifting for the public. For you guys who are listening, I'll, I'll try to, you know, bury the stuff that's BS and I'll try to surface the stuff that's really useful that you should know. The difference between medical research involving drug development and biotech and pharmaceuticals is that, you know, even if you hear about that stuff, you can't do anything about it. Most of the people in the public, but if you, for food is medicine research, when there's something important there is immediacy. I told you that eating, you might be surprised. Soy foods, like at a Mame or tofu can lower the risk of breast cancer, or tomatoes can lower the risk of prostate cancer if you're a man. Hey, guess what? That is something that after you hear that you can make a decision right away lickety split to add something good to your health. And so please know, I welcome people to my community. I've been teaching these online courses. We've got thousands of people from more than 80 countries that have taken my course. And so I, I just love the idea of trying to create as much impact as possible. And thank you for having me on. Well, thank

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (46:58):

Thank you for being here, and thank you for listening to another episode of The Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kyrin. I know you have loved today's episode. I know you're gonna add strawberries to your diet. I know you're gonna add tomatoes. I know you're gonna look at Dr. Li's books and read them and get some powerful information. Maybe join one of his courses. And really, your most powerful tool when it comes to your health and your hormones is the food that you put in your mouth. I cannot say that you literally are what you eat. Your hormones are what you eat, you are what you eat. So this is the most powerful tool that you have at your disposal to make powerful changes in your health for this year. Like I said, 2024 is the year of self-love. So do it right, make it an action. It is a verb. Take the actions that will get you where you want to be. Thanks so much for joining us, and until next week, peace, love, and hormones, y'all.

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (48:00):

Thank you so much for listening. I know that incredible vitality occurs for women over 40 when we learn to speak hormones and balance these vital regulators to create the health and the life that we deserve. If you're enjoying this podcast, I'd love it if you give me a review and subscribe. It really does help this podcast out so much. You can visit the hormone prescription.com where we have some free gifts for you, and you can sign up to have a hormone evaluation with me on the podcast to gain clarity into your personal situation. Until next time, remember, take small steps each day to balance your hormones and watch the wonderful changes in your health that begin to unfold for you. Talk to you soon.

 

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