Talking with Dr. Debra Shapiro: Vegan diet and OBGYN medicine

Today I spoke with renowned OBGYN Debra Shapiro. Dr. Shapiro. is a Board Certified Obstetrician-Gynecologist who has practiced medicine in the Bay Area for 27 years.  She is vegan and began formally studying plant-based nutrition in 2013.  She has a Certificate in Plant-Based Nutrition from the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies and Cornell. www.anewviewoffood.com 

This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media.

 

TRANSCRIPT 

[00:00:10] Hi, I'm Patricia. And this is Investigating Vigen Life with Patricia Kathleen. This series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. Our inquiry is an effort to examine the variety of industries and lifestyle tenants in the world of Vigen life. To that end, we will cover topics that have revealed themselves as common and integral when exploring veganism. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who like myself, find great value in hearing the expertise and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals, you can find information about myself and my podcast at Patricia Kathleen dot com. Welcome to investigating Vigen Life. Now let's start the conversation.

 

[00:01:14] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. I am your host, Patricia.

 

[00:01:16] And today we are sitting down with Dr. Deborah SHAPIRO. Dr. SHAPIRO is a board certified opg Y n plant based physician and vegan lifestyle coach and educator. You can find out more about her on her website. A new view of food, dot com. Welcome, Deborah.

 

[00:01:34] Hello, Patricia. Hi. Thanks for having me. This is quite an honor.

 

[00:01:37] Absolutely. I'm so excited. And I really we've talked a little bit off the record. I find you're at your career and your history and your voice to be so prolific and profound. I'm really excited to have it added to that. The language that is becoming the platform of our podcaster for everyone listening. I'll offer a bio on Deborah. But before I do that, I'm going to get into a quick roadmap of today's podcast. Some of you who are looking for a trajectory can follow along. We'll first look at Deborah's academic background and early in professional life leading up to where she is now. And then we'll start unpacking some of her interest and work. She is obviously a huge career with her Ojibway and practice and then a huge passion of hers now as epigenetics and how it traverses some of the multi-generational platforms of the new studies being done and some of her observations, and that will unpack some of those things as well as give everyone nuts and bolts for everything that I just mentioned, for those of you that don't know what epigenetics is. And then we'll wrap everything up with looking at career advice and goals that she has, even for science and the future of the vegan lifestyle, as well as the work that she's doing in the services that she offers through her own personal website and brand right now through vegan lifestyle coaching and education. A quick bio on Deborah SHAPIRO. Deborah SHAPIRO, M.D., is a board certified obstetrician gynecologist who has practiced medicine in the Bay Area for 27 years. She is a she's vegan and became and began formally studying plant based nutrition in 2013. She has a certificate in plant based nutrition from the T. Colin Campbell, Center for Nutrition Studies and E. Cornell. Currently, in addition to practicing general gynecology at the Genentech Health Center, she is a vegan lifestyle coach and educator, Main Street Vegan Academy and a certified health coach through Health Coach Institute. Privately coaching clients so they can thrive on a whole plant food diet, reversing chronic disease and getting off medications is her passion. She is currently developing a group coaching program called The Pregnancy Advantage, aimed at assisting women physically and emotionally prepared for pregnancy. And I'm excited to kind of climb through all of those areas. I think that, Deborah, you have so many different aspects of your career that are currently happening, but they all have this very similar tone and tie in. But before we get to that, I'm hoping that you can kind of unpack just a brief overview of your academic and early professional life to this point.

 

[00:04:08] Sure. Thank you very, very much. Well, it took me a long time, actually, to decide that I was ready to be a doctor. I actually went a little bit late back to college. So I dropped out of high school. I had some early issues. My mom died young, actually, of medical complications and diabetes and cancer. And so that threw me into a bit of a tailspin. But when I finally got back into academics, I really did thrive. And I was inspired by a doctor in college. Since passed away, but she taught a class of female physiology and gynecology and she became my mentor. That was quite an inspiration. So you go to medical school and we learned almost nothing about nutrition in medical school. And so when I started my practice after residency too mean there was just nothing to be learned about approach. You know, the usual. So it's the number of calories and proteins and carbohydrates and thoughts and it's about it. Video I learned about, you know, things that we didn't we were never going to see, like protein deficiencies, the quasi work we're writing. So write all the things that we normally see, which are all diseases of obesity and over overfeeding. Did my residency in obstetrics and gynecology, which I loved and came back and sort of my practice and it was really from a patient that I started to learn about. Issues with diet and with wealth. So first, give a patient who had mercury poisoning and then it turned out that I had mercury poisoning as I've been eating too much fish because I was sort of transitioning, I was I was paying attention to what was going on in the world. And I was transitioning away from being of a foodie and eating whatever I wanted to. Eating more seafood and less and less meat. But that sort of backfired. And I ended up with mercury poisoning. And after that, a patient told me about Farm Sanctuary, and that's where I really started to learn about the plight of farm animals. And then that same patient told me, I really owe. I owe her everything. I've talked about her before. But then she told me about Michael Gregor's work and nutrition facts start work. And once I learned more about the science of plant based nutrition for reversing chronic disease and preventing chronic disease and preventing all the suffering that my family had endured, really, really think about it for generations. I I I just wanted more and more. So I started attending conferences, the international plant based nutrition health care conference every year. And DR. That's by the plantation project. And then I also became involved in the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. That's Neil Barnard's organization in D.C. And this conference I would attend. And I just tried to learn as much as possible that he Colin Campbell KORRIS Park, for example, is good for anybody. You don't have to be a physician or a nurse or anybody in medicine to take it. It's fine for anybody. And I would recommend that anyone is interested in being more it being the healthiest organ you can be. We could talk about why just being vegan isn't necessarily equating health. But if you want to be the healthiest plant based eater that you can be, then I would take that course.

 

[00:07:11] Yeah, I got on their Web site not too long ago after I spoke with another guest that had done it as well. Years ago. Decades ago. And she said that and she just found it to be one of the most moving experiences for her.

 

[00:07:23] And then I got on the Web site and I did appreciate I think a lot of people consider certification to be something that even further, you know, your actual professional career with rather than augmenting both professional and personal. And they talk about on the Web site saying, you know, who is it for? And it talks about everyone from parents to just personal growth. You know, people interested not just in veganism or specific agendas, but that human health, you know, just one's own personal health, I think, is for everyone as exactly as you're saying. So that makes sense.

 

[00:07:55] I'm wondering your personal vegan story, because it's so enriched and intertwined, if you will, with education and your scientific pursuits.

 

[00:08:06] Did you find yourself acclimating to the lifestyle slowly as you were unearthing these things, or were they just solidifying what you had already done? Like when was the moment that you actually became vegan or was there a moment?

 

[00:08:19] You know, I've been criticized for talking about this because it's a little woo-woo, but I don't know how you feel about that. But I did have sort of a moment. I really just did wake up one morning and just announced to my spouse that I wasn't going to eat animals anymore. And I can't entirely. I can't entirely. Explain it. It was just a moment of clarity about the future and about what was necessary for me to feel good about myself and the world if everything that I learned from Farm Sanctuary and from from PCR.

 

[00:08:58] From the physicians to be responsible, responsible medicine, everything I learned from Michael Gregor's work and and Dean Ornish and Michael Klapper and I just there was just no reason after after hearing. It was just a level of understanding about both human health and the environmental health and the animal welfare that I just didn't want any part of it anymore.

 

[00:09:22] Yeah. And I think it's interesting, the relationship. It sounds trivial. It sounds rote. You know, when you say the relationship with a lifestyle when studying it as compared to actually engaging in it, it it changes your relationship with the understan knowledge that you've studied as well as the knowledge that you create, you know, the work you create after that.

 

[00:09:40] I'm wondering, did you have any health benefits when you kind of became completely vegan that affected you to that kind of testimonial standpoint?

 

[00:09:48] Absolutely. It was amazing. And mostly actually not just going vegan, but because when I first went back and I was roasting my vegetables and coconut oil and my cholesterol shot up and I didn't lose weight and, you know, I didn't have all the benefits, the symbol. When I learned how to cook, I took a cooking course. The Ruby Auro you XP Ruby Cooking School through forth the Forks Over Knives course, which was a three month course. They also have a one month and a six month. I learned how to roast on parchment without oil. I looked at it, learned how to cook without oil, and then I lost 20 pounds without trying, without any additional exercise. My cholesterol came way down, my total cholesterol became less than 150 and my mail deals were 60 or 70. My blood pressure, which had been really creeping up when I was on labor delivery, I used to I would check it sometimes and it was one fifty over ninety five really high and now it was 110 over 60. I even fainted one day in my job because it was so low and I stopped having to take a an antihistamine which I had taken for decades. Every single day, every day. I took Desertec for decades. I also used to have to go to the contractor every week for years, decades, also probably 20 years to get something tweaked. You know, I heard something and it would be you would just stay off until I had it put back. I used to go to a chiropractor every single week. I stopped. I haven't gone to the chiropractor in years. So I would see I would say, oh, my hemoglobin A1C came down.

 

[00:11:13] It sounds like you had a lot of really beneficial health attributes when you switched over just on a personal level. Did that inspire you? I was wonder with with M.D. in particular. Eastern medicine seems to navigate this a little bit differently. But Western medicine, if you can even diversify the two that way anymore, I think that they're kind of blending more and more these days. But it feels like doctors are a little reluctant to advise anything for their patients. You know, their clients, even anything that they might particularly believe in and practice. It's just this kind of held regard of Western medicine, this old staunch of like, you know, science is science. And we only advise based on like, you know, what we've agreed upon as a government or as a scientific community and all of those things. And I'm wondering if you personally experienced this change, if you currently had your practice when you were doing that, you know, you had over a 20 year long practice, private practice and women caring for women and dealing with LBG. Why N? And I'm wondering if you had the opportunity before wrapping up that chapter of your life to advise some of your clients looking into this kind of whole food plant based moment?

 

[00:12:24] Oh, absolutely. Once I felt comfortable with the science. I actually put on a conference call at our hospital plant based attrition conference and brought in amazing speakers. Not only did I have, you know, Brenda Davis and Michael Klapper and John Robbins at our and our conference, but I also then brought in other speakers. Michael Greger came to speak. Juliana Haver, Neal, Neal Barnard. But it was amazing. The response from the response from my clinician colleagues was not all so positive and very, very discouraging. I remember quite a few. I can tell you it's it's discouraging. So once I had your board speaking and I was I was standing outside the room, he was going to do grand rounds. And I I was trying to encourage you to some of the doctors who were walking by to come in and hear him for grand rounds. And when cardiologists came up to me and I said, here he's coming in and you're in your border, and he said, Oh, Debbie Dominionist, diminutive Debbie, you're too naive. It's too extreme. No one will do this. And, you know, we always think, you know, cutting open someone's chest and pulling out things from your legs and, you know, that sort of extreme. The surgery when does for cardiovascular disease are number one killer, but which we know now from disorders can be reversed with a plant based diet and healthy lifestyle. So that was one there. There are others. I could tell you when I did what I did my conference, when I put on my conference afterwards, people came up to me and said, oh, this was so great. My friend didn't get to come when you gonna do it again? And marketing was right there, the marketing person. And she she said she kind of looked at it and said, you'll never do this again.

 

[00:14:10] That sounds like a challenge. I had a hundred and fifty people and I did 50 people and everybody loved it. And I'm believable.

 

[00:14:17] And also, just given the lack of I mean, you know, I would hope that in any community, let alone a scientific based one.

 

[00:14:24] The lack of education is a sure sign that, you know, that more research needs to be done and to have very little nutritional knowledge taught to M.D. on the whole, you know, as they go into medicine should just be a sign that more research should be done, reaching conclusions and things like that. Find make your own decisions. But to not research something and then make a decision that it is inapplicable or naive just seems in and of itself naive.

 

[00:14:52] So there is certainly a mountain of evidence. I know people can challenge it. There are people who are the what are they, the caveman diet and the high fat, high protein diets that the paleo and the pito to manage illness. We are reimbursed to manage disease. We're not really getting any remuneration for reversing disease. That would be amazing. You know, if you could get people if you got paid to get people off their medication. Not not to get them on more medications so their blood sugars are stable. But to actually get them or when I was when I was working at Kaiser, I saw people on six or seven. Most those Filipino patients were on six or seven medications if they were over 50 or Heiko, because the diets are really just this high saturated fat diet, high any diet. So, you know, a couple for their blood pressure goes, some for their diabetes and their high cholesterol and cut their cholesterol and and usually reflux.

 

[00:15:56] So there's a lot of different kind of climbed into a large area that even people who, you know, don't hold medical degrees have kind of started to come into the fasting and and even other other friendly communities with the vegan community, you know, talk a lot about these auto immune fighters.

 

[00:16:13] Right. And the vegan lifestyle is one of these things that's seen as something that goes into auto immune diseases which are across the board. You know, on this incredible spike in our population, at least in the United States. And and and how these things fight and switch it. I'm wondering if you can kind of speak to just briefly, like what are the number one things when you work with clients? And, you know, even from back during your OBIS, you in practice your current work with Genentech or even the work that you have privately on a new view of food dicom with some of your services where you coach, people don't like the top five things that you see an immediate turnaround with someone that you switch to a vegan based diet, a side, a whole plate.

 

[00:16:55] We try to we try to encourage people to be more of a whole package. Well, let's eat a lot of changes. You were asking before about my practice. So I was able. I'm definitely able to reverse some. And still probably bleeding disorders can be normalized.

 

[00:17:08] And definitely I've had a lot of success getting people to have more regular and lighter menses when they got off of dairy. Just minute, Roger. Just heavy menses. Yes. That would just be better. But also, polycystic ovarian syndrome is much better on a plant based diet and also watching out for something called Agee's. It is location and products. So that would be eating more raw and things that are not cooked at very high temperature, but especially meat. You can look up tables of agent use against location and products in the foods that have the most agent. These are going to be things like broiled sausages and your broiled processed meat as the most agencies. And then the least would be fruit, you know, raw fruits and vegetables. So yeah. But even so, it turns out that people who have polycystic ovarian syndrome have much higher levels of Agee's in their blood level than most. So getting. So if you want if you people are suffering from places school syndrome with with irregular bleeding, maybe only a few periods a year, they can also be heavy and have problems with hair growth. And and they're more at risk for developing diabetes later on and having heart disease later on metabolic syndrome, then getting them onto a plant based diet and reversing that by reducing Jacky's exposure would be great.

 

[00:18:23] Well, given that we have those correlations and in some cases causational, you know, aspects, when do you think it will start to infiltrate mainstream? When will I call up a girlfriend who said, listen, I was just at my Ojibway and she said, if you want to, like alleviate that heavy bleeding try, you know.

 

[00:18:39] Whole food plant based diet and that type of a. When do you think that that will permeate? If we have all these studies and all of the success rate, do you think that it's I mean, a lot of people will say it's you know, it's it's accurate studies, it's accurate testing, it's proof, but it doesn't seem that those are being taken with them as much brevity as some of the other industry back things. So as it as a clinician, when do you think that that time will start to infiltrate, especially with female based medicine?

 

[00:19:07] Well, interesting. Good, good questions. Good questions, because even though there is a lot of data about things like heart disease and diet and diabetes and even autoimmune disease for sure. The research specifically on women's health, this lag, I think, lagging behind. But there's a new college, the College of Lifestyle Medicine to the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. And they they're plant based. Absolutely plant based. But they're also interested in things like sleep and stress reduction and exercise and looking at the whole the whole picture of human health and the all the influences on it. And they are starting a women's health group within that. So it's true that I have reached out to a the American college verbage man and asked them about their recommendations, their dietary recommendations, because they're still recommending for pregnant women just three milk products a day. And when I asked them years ago, a few years ago about that, they said, well, we're waiting for the new dietary guidelines. So you you were right when you said it's the government that sets the tone and then the colleges sort of go along with that. Will that change? I don't know, because we don't you know, our Institutes of Health don't develop our dietary guidelines. It's the Department of Agriculture. Right. The USDA. Mm hmm. So we we give millions of dollars to support meat and dairy. So. Right.

 

[00:20:33] Which are. I mean, it's and that can all be economically really easily broken down.

 

[00:20:38] You know, I was just talking to a vegan bakery owner who said dairy eggs. And we are practically free. They're subsidized by the government. You know, and she said, if you ever want to a question, a food pyramid or anything else, look at like what they need to just funnel through our system that quickly. And that kind of breaks it all down into relationship as well as to how are our diet is being more mandated by even lobbyists and things of that nature for those groups.

 

[00:21:04] You know, it's not really what's best for the human body. And once you know that, it all works best know and you can go rogue. Right. Once you figure that out, you can decide you better be captaining your own ship. And I kind of want to climb into more of this, because I know that one of your passions is epigenetics. And before I let you just kind of reign all of your wisdom down on us, I want to tell you that I went through a bunch of different definitions regarding epigenetics. And before we kind of climb into it for our audience listening, I wanted to say that I found a couple of ones that I feel like simplistically define it, but you need to tell me if you agree with them. So one is at epigenetics is the nutrition sorry, the biology relating to or arising from non-genetic influences on gene expression. And then further on, it says, is the study of changes in gene activity, which are not caused by changes in the DNA sequence. And it is the specific mechanism such as that, that epigenetics works by specific mechanisms such as the DNA methylation. But I wanted to kind of climb into the way I perceive it as as a layperson. Is there any factors that are affecting our genetic makeup that are not like genetically encoded into our DNA?

 

[00:22:23] And so I wondered if you could correct some of that or kind of explain what we're talking about before we get into it?

 

[00:22:28] Sure. I did this because of the Internet. I did miss the beginning of it. OK. And you just say one more time.

 

[00:22:33] Yubari Yeah. No. Absolutely. So it's the biology relating to or arising from non genetic influences on gene expression.

 

[00:22:42] Your end to end, the way I internalize that is essentially talking about our genetics.

 

[00:22:49] We are a little frozen. Let me get back to that. Let me wait for just one second in my time again.

 

[00:22:58] OK, we're back again. Said the way I mean, I was just saying the way that I am, I received that is just influences and then genetic changes that our genes can have.

 

[00:23:08] People described it like an on or off switch, like something that is activating genetic markers and things of that nature, but not necessarily changing the genetic gene makeup.

 

[00:23:18] Razi NCG OK. Yes, absolutely. So Eppie genetics just sort of means on top of the genome. So all of the cells in our body that have a nucleus, all the nucleotide cells have the same DNA. These beautiful coils of genetic material, they're all coiled around these big stones.

 

[00:23:38] They're big molecules called histones are wrapped around that little caps at the end called telomeres that that keep them from unraveling. So this is the we have forty six pairs and two. Right. Yes. Twenty two sets of autism's and two sets of six chromosomes. Most of us. And do the same with the egg all the the cga 80 pairs. That's all they are. They're the same in every cell. But you know that what cell. Every different cell types do different things. Right. So they all the difference, all the different genes that are encoded in the DNA are not expressed in every cell. For example, your mouth make your celery glands, make saliva. Right. So they have Emilie's and your stomach cells like lining cells, make hydrochloric acid. And the cells in your cervix make a mucus, you know, cervical mucus so that, you know, it doesn't get confused. You wouldn't want your cervical cells to be making hydrochloric acid. That would be a disaster. Right. So so our body keeps cell DNA expression or expression very tightly controlled.

 

[00:24:48] And we've now learned that there are we learned so much more about this just in the last few decades, really. We've known since the end of the last century and the beginning of this century that lifestyle factors, including stress and what we eat and whether we exercise and even our thoughts or even how our moods affect affect epigenetics. And so epigenetics, it works by attack. Gene expression is controlled. Now we know by attaching a little. So there's a methyl group, for example, a C-H three, a little methyl group. And it depending on where that metal group is attached, the gene can either be turned on. Up, up, regulated or turned off.

 

[00:25:28] OK. Is this the same concept as they talk about with triggers when you have this underlying genetic propensity towards, let's say, type 1 diabetes and they're you know, they're doing all these studies, these massively large studies, generational studies right now that I know of with that particular disease. And they you have a marker and they talk about triggers and they're trying to figure out, you know, which triggers social, environmental diet, all of those things kind of playing in stressors, things like that. And and I'm wondering if it's the same thing that we're talking about here. It's having like a propensity, but not necessarily like a signed sentence.

 

[00:26:02] Yes. Another good example of that is, I believe what we call the Nigerian paradox, that there is a gene that code that increases your risk of of Alzheimer's. It's called the EAP, a EPO, A for EPO, a for a little. And there's actually. A very high rate of that in in places in Africa like in Nigeria. And yet they don't have high rates of Alzheimer's because of their diet. I mostly plant based diet the whole time through diet. So I think that's exactly right. That your your DNA may code may code for things. And you may have you may be genetically inclined to have something it runs in your family, but you can change that. And that's why we say that our genes are not our destiny. They're absolutely not our destiny.

 

[00:26:53] Yeah. Thank God. And I don't know, because I don't. I'm sure we exist as a species. But I'm wondering, what kind of research are they doing now?

 

[00:27:02] You've you know, you've expressed to me off the record that you have this kind of interest in the generational span of what doing and, you know, looking at epigenetics and eating this vegan diet in utero and like all the way through. Can you talk to some of your research or some of your interest in those areas?

 

[00:27:19] Right. I think the first thing that I heard about was Dean Ornish, his work on reversing early stage prostate cancer. And, you know, Dean Ornish published in 1990 in The Lancet, his landmark study, Reversing Heart Disease, The Lifestyle Heart Trial, where he showed that our number one killer could be actually reversed using a plant, usually a plant based diet. He wasn't present at that time. He was letting people have little bits of animal protein, I think nonfat yogurt, but also exercise 30 minutes, six times a week, an hour of either meditation or yoga every day and a support group. And he showed that heart disease could be reversed, which is really a game changer. And that should really be what everybody and every cardiologist we talked about before with every cardiologist is telling their patients, but they're not. So. But moving on after that, he actually showed that he could reverse early stage prostate cancer. Currently, he's working on see whether you can reverse Alzheimer's, early stage Alzheimer's. But let's just go back to this prostate cancer, because it was amazing. We took 93 men and divided them into with early stage prostate cancer. So they had they didn't need surgery when they came to him. They a lot of people with prostate cancer, it's early. They watch they watch ultrasounds. They watch their PSA. And they just watch you wait. Right. So we have that group of men and divide them into two groups. And one group got a very low fat 10 percent that plant based on it. One hundred simply based on the 30 minutes of exercise, six days a week. The support group and the meditation and stress and stress reduction, meditation or yoga. The other group just had routine care.

 

[00:28:50] And what he found was at the end of a year, there were people in the watching weight group that actually needed surgery. But what he saw when he when he did PET scans, he could see that the tumors had actually reduced in size in people in the in his group that were in the study group. But more importantly, and this was so amazing after just three months, three months. It's only been a long time. You know, three months, over 500 genes changed expression. You had 453 genes that promoted cancer that were turned down and 48 genes that protected against cancer were unregulated. So this is amazing. After just three months. Yes. Yes. And then I was looking at something called the Canadian ice storm. Yes. You can look at project. Project Ice Storm online is quite amazing. So in nineteen ninety eight, I mean we've known about epigenetics. We've known about this even before this. I should say because there were studies looking at the Dutch, the Dutch famine. So we there were a lot of studies also on on mice. And what I found this to be even more interesting. So in nineteen ninety eight, there was a tremendous ice storm in Quebec. They let people many, many people lost power. It was minus 20 degrees for 40 days. That was tremendous social stress and upheaval. And people were stuck in Trenton, you know, women in buses. And it was really it's just very stressful time. And they decided to follow the offspring of women who were pregnant during that time.

 

[00:30:33] And what they found was remarkable. Hundreds of genes. They've been following these children for years. You know, 19, 20 years because it was 1998. So involving these kids for a long time. And what they found was they could actually they could they could tell that there were more changes depending on how much more stress people experience. So there's there are these heat maps where they look at people who had more stress versus less stress on actual stress versus perceived stress like post-traumatic stress syndrome, as opposed to actually losing power for many, many days. So and they just find that there were more children, more children with auto immune diseases, more shoulder with metabolic diseases where we're children with with autism. On the autism spectrum. So over I mean, hundreds of genes change expressions. And these were genes also. They coded coded for glucocorticoid activity. And also immunoglobulins. So with your immune system, the T cells.

 

[00:31:31] So, yes. So what you eat and what happens to you? So what do we know what you eat. But also. What you endured during your pregnancy can show up for generations and not only these children. So this is what's interesting. If you're having especially if you have a girl, if you have a child inside of you as a female child, then what happens to you during your pregnancy affects that child's ovaries and the eggs developing inside the ovaries. And that's what affects the next generation. And that's how really in a way you are what your grandmother eats. You know, your genes and your gene expression has been affected by what happened to your grandmother.

 

[00:32:11] Right. And so my next question and always charging forward and wondering how we use that to our benefit. Is there a way conceivably.

 

[00:32:21] You know, since we know this and we don't know the full of factoring and the brevity quite yet, but is there a way, likewise, to start stacking the deck in our favor? Looking that you have, you know, this history and family with heart disease or diabetes or whatever it is and start eating according to that, like would it be likely stressors and things that we can't you know, I mean, the born a middle, the pandemic. You know, it's it's stressing the entire world out. And so there's things that you can't control on that.

 

[00:32:50] So the ones that you can control, I'm curious, like if you think that likewise, as these these markers are set off in other ways, could you think it's possible to stack the deck in one's favor? Dietrichson Dietetics Lee through either in utero or as your existing like on this earth right now? Absolutely.

 

[00:33:08] I mean, that was what we talked. That's that's what I meant when I said that Dean Ornish was able to show that these genes change expression. And in three months, you know. Absolutely that he did all four things. So this is important because Dr. Eskelsen was able to reverse heart disease in his cohort of patients with just diet. He wasn't asking people to exercise. He wasn't giving them support groups. So that's true. And that's why we have that data. But what's interesting about about this is we know that your emotions make a difference. And so even though I agree with you, this is a very stressful time. And honestly, I'm not sure I would be encouraging people to be pregnant right now. There's a lot of uncertainty about the effects of this virus on pregnancies and getting care and having access to care and and just the stress of it, it seems it seems like a stressful time. But this is definitely the time to get ready for a pregnancy if you have that time. This is the time to get rid of all the toxins. This is the time to to start eating organic. If you can't find it, this is the time to make sure that you're not. You know, there's a point, glyphosate, that that herbicide roundup in the umbilical cords of babies and DDT is still found in breast milk. So there's some incredibly persistent organic compounds that are that are still in the food chain. And so that's why Greger even talks about detoxing from fish for five years because of the dioxins and the and the p_c_b_ easily. Mercury is out of your system. Over a few months, because the Half-Life is 100 days, I was able to get my mercury level down when I saw patients. I was probably the only obese way that was testing mercury levels in women who were pregnant. And I was finding very high mercury levels in women who were having fish. You know, a few times a week, a cockatiel says you could have fish twice a week. I would. I would really worry about that. So some things we can't control. But something's you can. So paragons and phthalates and and P and BPA. And, you know, these are the things to clear out of your system.

 

[00:35:16] Absolutely. And I think that's why a lot of people we do a lot of, you know, crisis control and and crowd management, you know, things like that with disease in our lives.

 

[00:35:27] But I think looking at a preventative level is really where the next gen should be coming from. You know, this idea of like, let's not treat the disease when it comes, but rather prevent it. And looking at one's own history and even like the I think it's exciting when we when we go back to utero and you mentioned you kind of alluded to earlier, but female science hasn't received 1 1 100th the amount of study, you know, which is ironic because we're responsible for like the proliferation of the species. But and I think I'm hoping in the next you know what, in my daughter's generation like this starts to become very unearthed and we learn more about it because it's exciting. And I think it's a it's it's a new way to look towards what we're doing and the next generation coming up. I'm wondering, given that and given my love for prediction and things like that, if I can take you there really quickly and ask you, what do you see for the future of kind of everything we've been talking about in consideration of epigenetics and as well as as vegan diets and things like that, do you have you surmise like a different platform or people becoming more aware? I know even in the reception of this early podcast. People have been very, very open to I call them unlikely vegans. There's been a lot of people who are looking at things because they're coming to it from, you know, having survived heart disease and all these different things. And I'm wondering if you have some kind of a prediction as to what that might mean for the future of like this whole plant based vegan diet and medicine or anything that you're doing?

 

[00:37:00] Well, there are some very positive signs. Michael Klapper is going around to medical school. Do you know when Michael Klapper used to work at True North is a fantastic doctor. He's fantastic man. Ethical begin and plant a specialist. Michael Klapper, K.L. AP Fantastic. He is going around to all these medical schools to teach medical students about plant based nutrition. And I know some medical schools already that are having classes where students with patients where they're actually cooking. So part of medical school is now in a kitchen, which is fantastic. Yes. And and there are, I believe, the. It was the A.M.A. that actually has said that processed meat should not be in hospitals anymore. I mean, it's it's optional, but it's hard to get meatless Mondays in our hospital. But but I think I think we're moving in that direction because we know from an environmental standpoint that we can not continue to eat meat as we've been doing. We just can't. Now, in terms of being 100 percent vegan, you know that that may not be for everybody. But I think the world will definitely be moving in a more plant based way. Otherwise it will not. We will not exist. I was reading a report and I would recommend everyone read this. It's the it was Walter Willets report. It was a Eat Lancet report. E a t all capital and then Dash Lancet. So Haiti is a Swedish nonprofit that's focused on sustainability. And the Lancet, of course, is the most is the most prestigious medical journal. And they they commissioned they commission many papers over the years. And last year in 2019, they decide to focus on health and the planet and sustainability. And so the Lancet commission report is called Home for the Poor.

 

[00:38:51] It's called just for the planet or.

 

[00:38:58] Eat food in the Anthropocene, which is the time, the geologic time where humans have had the most impact was actually from 1950. Pretty amazing. So. So that report is pretty amazing. And they basically say that or we in the West have to eat like 90 percent less animal products. So they allow they allow for very small amounts. But if we're going to feed the 10 billion people that are gonna be on the planet by 2050, we have to really change how we how we produce food, how we get it to people. So I think the only way to do that is play is being played bass. I mean, just think about the amount of land that it takes. There's this amazing graphic and I know I probably am preaching to the choir here because you guys know. But if you look at something called Good Bath One, a one online food bath one to one. It's from the plantation project. And they show how two football fields worth of land is good. You do know this because they when you tell others that this is a really fun thing, just to look at two football fields worth of land can feed one person for a year on an animal based diet. The two football fields worth of land can feed 14 people on a plant based diet. It's pretty amazing. So you could be one or two feet 14. So if we're going to keep populating the earth with more people, which I know we are, then we have to pay attention to having enough food for all. And that's going to be the only way we can feed everybody is a plant based diet.

 

[00:40:29] Yeah, absolutely. Well, and it's also raising expectations. I think that a lot of people who don't have any issues that I may say have with it the meat industry, the concept is, is that you're actually breeding a, you know, a lifestyle into your children before you depart that they cannot maintain.

 

[00:40:45] They will not be able to. The amount of meat consumed globaly all over the world in China and on all places, the amount of meat in the majority of people's diets is not sustainable for the next two generations. So you're simply, you know, imparting your children with this desirous lifestyle that they won't be able to maintain. And so I think that any parent would agree that we want to kind of impart this this way of living that's sustainable, you know, that they can continue doing. And so and that's a good thing.

 

[00:41:12] It's fantastic. It's so profound. It's so important. That's such a great point. Yeah, because it's not sustainable. I don't know why you would now think about raising your children on on hotdogs and burgers and French fries. Just food also that's going to make them just so unhealthy. It's the stuff I grew up on. I grew up on spam and I, you know, TV dinners and I was raised with horrible food.

 

[00:41:36] Yeah, I read on your Web site, am I a little bit about your background? I really appreciated the candor in which you kind of open up again.

 

[00:41:43] I don't know if it's just my friends or my history with MMD, but they tend to be a little bit more tight lipped about their personal testimony. And so it was really wonderful to kind of read yours on your own, get your background on your Web site. And I want to turn to finally looking at that before I let you go today. Your Web site is really interesting. It's got it. It's got a very honest look at things. And then you also provide this this coaching opportunity for people that I want people to know about before I let you go. And one more time, your website is W WW A New View of food dot com and you provide coaching services and education. I'm just hoping you can kind of tell everybody listening what services you provide and who it who would be applicable to kind of come and speak with you.

 

[00:42:29] Right. Right. Well, first of all, I would talk to anybody. Please download my free e-book. Why you plaints. It's a free e-book that you get onto my my mail list. And I send out newsletters every once in a while. Not too often. You won't. You're too much for me. So do you will be bothered. But I think the I have some videos on their Web site that you can see my eye. Ideally, I love to work with ethical vegans who want to shift to a more healthy whole plant food diet because I have certainly worked with vegans who are eating more. I mean, I've heard the word junk food vegan and so people use that. Some people hate that term. And I'm just saying that people who are eating incidentally be good food like Oreos and chips and French fries and Coke. And I mean, these are big foods, but they're not optimal. And that's true even for the mock meats. I mean, people who are eating a lot of processed organized food, this process, it's still not optimal. So to optimize your diet so that you're really you're doing you're clicking off all those boxes from Dr. Gregor's daily dozen. That's what I really want you to to be able to do so that you will be as healthy as possible, especially before you can see. That would be amazing. So that's why we started this new I started this new program with Gene Schumacher, who's another coach, cleverly scope's and also a chemistry teacher. And that's good. That's the pregnancy advantage. So that's really to help women get prepared for pregnancy, to get rid of the toxic. To to get off of the saturated fat. Did you know that saturated fat, even from things like coconut oil, etc., got especially from animal products, but also oil? It affects the fetal brain and and and it causes damage in the fetus as well. So it's so being being obese from whatever cause is going to cause damage to the fetus. So getting you to an optimal weight, getting you eating optimally and feeling so comfortable with cooking this way that you can cook for your family and cook for your child and raise them just the way you are raising your children. Right. Really loving it. Like what's behind the whole the rainbow, loving, eating the rainbow. That's what you want to do.

 

[00:44:37] Is the pregnancy advantage? Is it all aspects? Is it an education? Is it a cooking? What areas are you kind of.

 

[00:44:44] Right. And we're getting ready to launch later this month. But it's a it's going to be an online coaching program. And we're going to be helping women with with everything, with with that cooking, with cooking. Gene Schumacher has a fantastic YouTube channel and and a Web site as well. It's called the Weight Loss Advantage or Web site. The Weight Loss Advantage. And she's been doing wonderful things for years and has interviewed incredible people on her, on her YouTube channels are really, really proud to be working with her because I think she's been fantastic. I think she's lost over 100 pounds herself. So we both know what what can happen when you when you do this.

 

[00:45:25] Yeah, I had it set so perfect. Again, it's always shocking to me. As someone who, you know, who has had children and that it's it hasn't it wasn't done.

 

[00:45:35] You know, it I'm not I'm not terribly young, but I'm not terribly old. I'm forty three. I have no children. And this was not around. And I had my first child in San Francisco, very metropolitan chic city. And there was, you know, and people were getting dullards and things like that. But nobody was advising as to how to, you know, pick up or clean up one's lifestyle as you became pregnant or prior to it. There was I looked into everything. I'm a nerd. You know, I looked into all sorts of research. If someone had been having this kind of a platform or hosting this kind of rhetoric, I would have eaten it up. And it's just amazing to me that we're just twenty twenty and we're just getting to the point where we are trying to advise people who are looking at conceiving or have already conceived, you know, as to the best path to what to fuel themselves with. You know, your website, you have a quote about, I believe, mushroom, but perhaps it's on your website. You're looking at a bunch today, but isn't.

 

[00:46:29] And food is not necessary. What is it? It's medicine is not necessary when you have good food or is that yours? And I probably lifted it from somebody. I'm dizzy. Yeah. And the concept is the old adage, which is what I really guide my particular journey by, which is let food be thy medicine.

 

[00:46:48] It's the it's the ultimate form. And it seems so rote. It's of course, of course, of course. But it's the one thing we're actually putting into our body, you know, and it's the one thing that we're actually trying to create life force on. And so if not, take it a little bit more seriously or think about whether or not your body's registering yellow number for as food or just as some weird additive is crucial.

 

[00:47:10] It's it's just amazing what I eat growing up and never gave a second thought about. And now and my family suffered. It's it's very, very sad. Sister with cancer all they all had cancer of the generation before all of them had cancer. If they did, they live long enough. They had two cancers. My father had two cancers. His brother had two cancers.

 

[00:47:29] It's something that can be changed. And so I think when you look at the humanity of it, you know, it's it's this kind of desperate cry of everyone to just consider things for a second who is so much suffering and people don't realize is so much suffering.

 

[00:47:41] The earth is suffering. The animals are suffering. When I read recently about the pigs and they just said things like hundreds of thousands of pigs are going to be depopulated. And I mean, I just started crying. I mean, I couldn't I couldn't really handle it. It's a big and it's this is a very, very hard time. And I'm sure your listeners would understand. Right, because your listeners are beginning. I mean, I don't live really in a vegan world. I'm really the only I don't really have any even friends, even though I try very hard. But it's it's a very, very tough time for the planet. It's a very tough time for people. And the human toll on the way we're eating, I mean, yes, French fries taste good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's enough already. Enough French fries.

 

[00:48:28] Yeah. And the emotional attachment to food should doesn't really outweigh the emotional attachment we have to loved ones in life. You know, it's just that I think that people come to that realization after they've gotten contracted the disease, you know.

 

[00:48:41] And so I think that looking at these preventative measures, what you're doing with the pregnancy advantage, I can't wait for that to launch and just have a look at it. And just having some of these people in these conversations with people in these populations, particularly next generation. Things that are like really coming out to be game changers. No pun intended on the movie, but, you know. Yeah, great.

 

[00:49:05] But but I think, Zada, things are changing. And when I go to these conferences, you know, when I went to the interview, the first or the second international clip is Nutritional Care Conference. About seven years ago, there were, I don't know, 50 or 60 people. Now there's over a thousand. I don't know what we're gonna be able to do now. It'll probably have to be online. But because I don't I don't think we're really going to be able to get a thousand twelve hundred people in one hotel anymore for an event where we all sit online and eat. But still even done the piece CRM conference on the International Conference on Nutrition and Medicine. He also had over a thousand people last year. And these are these are doctors and health care professionals. So the word is getting out, but it's slow because, again, as we mentioned the beginning, doctors are not rewarded for keeping their patients healthy. They're rewarding. They're rewarded for managing disease. And I think that would it would be amazing if it could shift. I've worked on committees in hospitals before to see, you know, people are rewarded for testing hemoglobin A1C every month or every three months or whatever they have to do. But they're not necessarily rewarded for getting people off of medications.

 

[00:50:10] Yeah. And I think that once that switch is that's when we'll see the true switchover from how we view food and medicine and health care. Right? Yes. Which should be free. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I want to say thank you so much for your time today. Deborah, we're out of time.

 

[00:50:28] But I really do appreciate all of the wisdom that you've imparted with us today. And also, just to your candid tone, I really appreciate it. I know it's hard to be alone in a universe like being, you know, someone who is a whole plant based food vegan in Western medicine. But I think you're doing it beautifully. And I really appreciate your time today, Patricia.

 

[00:50:50] Thank you so much for having me. This is so wonderful. I'm so glad that you're doing this podcast. I can't wait to hear them. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

 

[00:50:57] Absolutely. And for everyone listening, we've been speaking with Dr. Deborah SHAPIRO. You can locate her online at W W W a new view of food dot com. Thank you for giving us your time today.

 

[00:51:10] And until we speak again next time, remember to eat well, eat clean, stay safe and always bet on yourself.  Sainte.