383: Navigating the Pandemic and Beyond: Dr. Michael Greger's Insights Revisited

Welcome back to the Healthy Lifestyle Solutions Podcast! In today's episode, we're diving into the vault to revisit an interview with one of the leading voices in health and wellness, Dr. Michael Greger. While the original conversation occurred in early 2020, the wisdom shared remains incredibly pertinent in October 2023.

Back in 2020, we had planned to host Dr. Greger for an in-person event, which, as you might recall, was canceled due to the pandemic. Instead, we engaged in a virtual interview that explored pandemics' origins, their increased risks, and the critical importance of prevention and personal health. 

In this timeless discussion, we tackle the critical topics of zoonotic diseases, potential future outbreaks, and lifestyle choices pivotal role in fortifying our immune systems. Dr. Greger emphasizes that prevention is critical, highlighting the relevance of healthy eating, exercise, and adequate sleep.

Please enjoy this classic conversation with Dr. Michael Greger, and don't hesitate to share it with your friends and family.

Key Takeaways:

• Prevention Is the Best Medicine: Dr. Greger emphasizes the importance of prevention, highlighting how healthy lifestyle choices, such as a plant-based diet, exercise, and sufficient sleep, can strengthen our immune systems. It's essential to prioritize well-being to protect against future pandemics.
• The Ongoing Battle Against Zoonotic Diseases: The discussion delves into pandemics' origins, focusing on zoonotic diseases that originate in animals. Dr. Greger stresses the need to reform how we raise domestic animals for food to mitigate the risk of future outbreaks.
• Herd Immunity and Future Threats: Dr. Greger discusses the concept of herd immunity and how it's achieved through mass vaccination or infection. The likelihood of facing more severe pandemics remains high, and adopting a healthier lifestyle is a powerful defense against infectious diseases.

About Dr. Greger:
Dr. Michael Greger is a renowned American physician, nutrition expert, and author, best known for promoting plant-based diets and advocating for evidence-based nutrition. He founded NutritionFacts.org, a highly influential website that provides free, science-based information on various health and nutrition topics. Dr. Greger has authored several books, including the New York Times bestseller "How Not to Die," which emphasizes the role of a plant-based diet in preventing and reversing chronic diseases. His commitment to advancing public health through accessible and accurate nutritional information has made him a leading figure in nutrition and lifestyle medicine.

More about Dr. Michael Greger:
Website: https://drgreger.org/
Non-profit website: https://nutritionfacts.org/

Transcript

Dr. Michael Greger  00:00

wait to get disease and try to claw yourself back to health. It's better. You know, an ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure. And I'm so glad that you're there in Dallas to share this important information with folks down there and look forward myself to eventually getting back down to Dallas.

Maya Acosta  00:19

This is the healthy lifestyle solutions podcast and I'm your host Maya Acosta. If you're willing to go with me together we can discover how simple lifestyle choices can help improve our quality of life and increase our longevity in a good way. Let's get started for insists week, Russ and I are in Denver attending the lifestyle medicine conference. But you know what? Today we have a special treat for you an interview that's also a little bit of an oldie but goodie. Now, don't worry, it isn't your typical throwback. It's a conversation that remains incredibly relevant even though it originally took place back in 2020. We're excited to bring you a timely discussion with the incredible Dr. Michael Greger the best selling author of How Not to Die and how to survive a pandemic. Dr. Greger has been a trusted source of health and wellness information, and his insights are more pertinent than ever in the context of our ongoing battle against pandemics. You see back in 2020 we had the privilege of planning an in person event with Dr. Greger but well as many of you know the pandemic had other ideas. We canceled our meetup and as a result turned our conversation into this insightful virtual interview. And today as we approach the end of 2023 the Wisdom shared during that discussion is still strikingly applicable. Dr. Greger delves into the origins of pandemics, the ever increasing risks they pose and the importance of prevention and personal health. We discussed that zoonotic routes of pandemics, the potential for future outbreaks and lifestyle measures that can fortify our immune systems. It's a treasure trove of guidance all wrapped up in a conversation that's as fresh as the day was recorded. So sit back, relax and enjoy this timeless conversation we have with Dr. Michael Greger because some of the insights are just too valuable to go out of style. And please share this episode with friends and family. Let's listen in. So Dr. Greger we were a little bit disappointed that we weren't able to see you in person last month. And we were going to talk about the how not to diet book and instead we're actually going to talk about how to survive a pandemic. So thank you for your time today.

Dr. Michael Greger  02:41

Happy to be here. Hopefully next time it'll be in person.

Maya Acosta  02:45

How do you this pandemic even happened? Over the last few

Dr. Michael Greger  02:48

decades, hundreds of human pathogens have emerged at a rate unheard of in the annals of human medicine. Say wait a second emerged from where mostly from animals. So the AIDS virus is blamed on the bushmeat trade in Africa. The Mad Cow disease was because we turned cows into carnivores and cannibals COVID-19 and SARS been traced back to the live exotic wild animal trade. But you know, our last pandemic, swine flu in 2009 arose not from some backwater wet market in Asia, but was largely made in the USA on pig operations in the United States. And thankfully, swine flu only killed about a half nine people. But the next time we might not be so lucky.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  03:40

You know, that's that that's something that I've had in my mind is that there's an acceleration of the incidence of these diseases. You know, you go back, the big one that I can think of back in the 20th century was the Spanish flu in 1918. And then there was this long period where we didn't have any major pandemics or outbreaks, and then suddenly aids in the 70s 80s. And then it's accelerating now that we're seeing it more and more often. What do you think's going to happen? I mean, are we going to continue to see this acceleration and, and how are we going to deal with it?

Dr. Michael Greger  04:15

Changing the way animals live on a global scale, you know, as devastating as COVID-19 is, may just be a dress rehearsal for an even greater threat waiting in the wings of chickens. According to the CDC, the leading candidate for the next pandemic, is a bird flu virus known as h seven and nine was 100 times deadlier than COVID-19 instead of one, and 250 cases die. h seven and nine has killed 40% of the people. In fact, in the last time a bird flu virus jumped directly to people and caused the pandemic. As you mentioned, it triggered the deadliest plague in human history, the flu pandemic of 1918, killing about 50 million people that had a tube percent fatality rate, right? What if we had a pandemic infecting billions where death was closer to a flip of a coin, right? But the good news is, there's something we can do about it. Just as eliminating the exotic animal trade and in these live wet markets may go a long way towards burning the next Coronavirus pandemic, reforming the way we raise domestic animals for food may help forestall the next killer flu.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  05:27

That's a good good point you make but the question is, will we do it? We see so much resistance from many people there, there may be people who are like minded, like us who understand there's a need for that reform, then there's other people who don't accept that that exists.

Dr. Michael Greger  05:41

Well, that's the silver lining of COVID-19 is that this is, you know, it's like a fire drill to wake us out of our complacency. Kind of like a dry run, you know, when we, you know, crowd together 1000s of animals, these cramped, filthy football field sized sheds to like, you know, beat to beat or snap to snap to top, their own waste is a breeding ground for disease, the sheer numbers the overcrowding, the stress, crippling their immune systems, the the ammonia from decomposing waste, burning their lungs, the loss of loss of lack of fresh air or lack of sunlight. And put all these factors together we have, it's really kind of a perfect storm environment. For the emergence spread the so called super strains of influenza, you gotta give these animals some breathing room, they're the ones that give us a little social distancing right now. But ultimately, taking a step back really need to accelerate the movement toward plant based options, plant based milks, plant based meats, plant based egg products. It's just too risky, to continue to, you know, to prioritize protein from animal sources.

Maya Acosta  06:54

And that's given us an opportunity to kind of showcase the benefits of plant based foods, kind of like what you're saying, that's the right way to go. And we've had people reach out to us and ask us to share more content about that make videos and help people to crossover from eating these animal based foods to plant based foods, you kind of when addressing the topic of nutrition, what you're saying is that the immune system needs to function at an optimal level. And that's what we can do right now. That's one way that we have control over the situation, right?

Dr. Michael Greger  07:27

Absolutely. All right, consider the underlying, you know, pre morbid conditions for COVID-19, severity and death, hypertension, high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, type two, diabetes, all of these conditions, can be prevented a recipe even reversed with healthy enough plant based diet and lifestyle. And it's important to realize it's not just obesity, even just being overweight, having a BMI of 28, which is like, you know, being 175 pounds at the average American height of five foot six, that puts you at nearly six times the odds of a severe course of COVID-19, the average BMI in the United States 29. So even being skinnier than the average American, you may have so much excess body fat, that the level of systemic inflammation in your body is such that you could end up in the hospital or worse. That's why this is the time to take care of yourself. This is the time to you know, get sufficient sleep, to keep active to reduce stress to stay connected, I'll be it. You know, remotely to friends and family and start cleaning up your diet not just for preventing chronic disease down the road, but in bolstering your ability to withstand the current infectious disease threat.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  08:44

Well, what I liked about what you just said, too, is you've you're talking about nutrition, but you're also talking about other lifestyle issues as well.

Dr. Michael Greger  08:50

Yeah, no, no, absolutely. I mean, yes, indeed, diet is the most important thing we do in terms of morbidity and mortality, but it all comes together I mean, and for immune function, sleep and exercise is critically important. Even, you know, one single night or one bad night's sleep can really impair one's ability. You do the simple experiments where you drip cold virus into people's nose and you think well if you drip the virus drip strange your nose and it'd be like 100% chancy, you'd get the cold. No, because people have immune systems, they can fight off the virus, but you just keep them awake for one night. There's a dramatic increase in the in the infection rate, and I have a video about that. So little things like that. Look, I have a video about talking about the role broccoli sprouts can, can, can play in influenza, you drip in influenza virus into people's nose, and you randomized them. In fact, there's a double blind randomized controlled trial broccoli sprouts versus alpha was breads. And we found that those eating broccoli sprouts not only had a The less, you know, virus covered from the nose, the less virus induced inflammation, significantly improved natural killer cell anti viral activity all from just eating broccoli, amazing effects, simple tweaks, common sense measures, you know, you don't have to go out and get some fancy supplement or something. Just take care of yourself and your family.

Maya Acosta  10:22

We admire the fact that you're one of the founding members of the American College of lifestyle medicine, and my husband just became board certified.

Dr. Michael Greger  10:29

Fantastic. Thank you gratulations.

Maya Acosta  10:33

When you talk about exercise, you mentioned IGA. And that found in the saliva. Can you talk a little bit about how that plays a role in helping us with respiratory issues,

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  10:44

I guess within the context of protecting against say the Coronavirus or any viral can that help?

Dr. Michael Greger  10:49

Yeah, so So IGA is the is a Thai class of antibodies that protect our mucosal surfaces meaning our mucous membranes, our eyes or nose or mouth, that is often where respiratory viruses first attach to then infect us and cause illness. And so presumably, of the fact that even just you know, running around for 10 minutes, you can get a significant improvement in IGA production, suggests that would protect you against respiratory disease, you certainly see that you can randomize people to various levels of exercise. And you can show a significant boost in a variety of dimensions of immunity is not yet been put to the test for COVID-19. But encouraging people to exercise just as has benefits, no downsides. And so I certainly encourage people to do it, it's interesting, you have the same thing on the other side, um, you can actually overstress your body marathon runners have a higher risk of upper respiratory tract infections after a marathon because their body is kind of so so depleted, or that you can do the other way and so but you can randomize them to you know, healthier diets significantly decrease the risk of infection by bolstering the mutism at both ends of the extreme. But yeah, but you'll only help your immune system, doing moderately intense exercise like walking, I recommend 90 minutes a day.

Maya Acosta  12:19

Wonderful. And so getting enough sleep exercising, nutrition. You mentioned a study with 83 volunteers where they tested a vaccination. The volunteers were between the ages of 65 and 85. And there was a control group and the experimental group, they were given three servings of vegetables, fruits and vegetables daily. And there was a significant difference in terms of how protective than nutritious food was right?

Dr. Michael Greger  12:48

Isn't that amazing. And this wasn't cutting out meat. Just adding a few servings of fruits and vegetables to one's diet can so boost one's immune system, they got a significantly improved antibody response to the vaccination. That's one of the problems. So elderly individuals are those most at risk for respiratory infections. At the same time, their declining immune systems may make vaccines less useful. Um, their body is less protected against a vaccine, and they're the ones we need to be most protected. And just by giving a few extra servings of fruits and vegetables, all of a sudden vaccination worked better because their immune system was more robust. And again, what are the side effects? Just good side effects, right? Fruits and vegetables have all sorts of benefits anti inflammatory antioxidant benefits through for all the organ systems of the body. But you won't hear about any of this because no one makes any money off of it, right? I mean, if the benefits and fruits and vegetables can be fit into a pill, that would be a pill you would buy some stock in.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  13:57

And there certainly are a lot of people trying to sell us pills telling us that they have

Dr. Michael Greger  14:00

those benefits. That's true, but they pale in comparison. Yeah, it's

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  14:04

frustrating for me, everyone comes to me asking about, Well, should I take this pill on that pill? And I go, Well, why don't you just eat the vegetable instead?

Dr. Michael Greger  14:12

So I'll not supplement aisle. Can we

Maya Acosta  14:14

talk a little bit about obesity and world and the risks that are involved with that?

Dr. Michael Greger  14:19

Yeah, the excess risk from having excess body fat, we're actually not sure exactly what's going on. We do know that those with excess body fat, particularly abdominal fat, that deep visceral fat, have higher levels of inflammatory mediators like C reactive protein, which suggest to have higher levels of this low grade smoldering inflammation. And since most of the damage in the lungs done during a severe COVID infection, it's actually not caused by the virus directly, but actually caused by our own immune system. Having that, that that pro inflammatory milieu may accelerate that damage, and also maybe something called Epic cardio fat, there's actually fat on the heart itself. And in obese individuals overweight individuals who have excess body fat also have more epicardial fat, and maybe the fat on the heart itself may be contributing to the inflammation in the chest. And then there's something called obesity hypoventilation syndrome, where you just have so much excessive fatty tissue in the upper body, you're actually restricted in terms of your breathing capacity. All of those may be contributing to this dramatically higher risk. In fact, it's one of the reasons we think why the United States is suffering disproportionately around the world. Yes, in northern Italy, they had a relatively older population, and suffered because of it. Well, here in the United States, we have one of the fattest populations. And unfortunately, that is putting people at risk, not just down the road from diabetes, and osteoarthritis and on down the list. But right now, from infection, look, we have all been telling people to start eating healthy, living healthy for years now. But it's really come to a head now. And hopefully, this will stress to people how important it is to stay healthy, you can't just wait to get disease and try to claw yourself back to health. It's better, you know, ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure. And I'm so glad that you're there in Dallas to share this important information with folks down there and look forward myself to eventually getting back down to Dallas, and sharing this as well. So but but for those people who are interested in losing weight, I keep its keep wanting to say my latest book, but as of Tuesday, that's not my latest book, how not to diet is two books go. But yeah, all the information, you need all the tips, tricks, tweet techniques to accelerate the loss of body fat. And so I would encourage people to check out that resource. And I believe that's the talk I was gonna give down Dallas. And I still may very well do that. Maybe we'll reschedule for the spring. Yeah,

Maya Acosta  17:13

that sounds great.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  17:14

You mentioned the things that put people at more at risk for COVID-19, which is obesity, hypertension, diabetes, and coronary artery disease. Well, guess what, that's the same thing that my patient population has, which is vascular disease, atherosclerosis. And so I think it just drives home the point that all of these things are kind of part of our inflammatory state that we're putting our body in, and the damage we're doing. And I love the fact that there's, it's not that we have to come up with a million different solutions to the problem, there's literally one solution to the problem, right. And that's to be healthier through a better diet.

Dr. Michael Greger  17:55

So for the last 100 years, from 1919, to 2019, every single year in the United States, the number one killer of Americans was heart disease. But that wasn't true in 1918, and probably won't be true for 2020. But you're right, the exact same diet, that can that can prevent arrest and reverse these chronic conditions like coronary artery disease is the same kind of diet that's going to reduce our risk of pandemic infectious disease as well.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  18:28

Now, I would like to ask another thing, too, there's, you address kind of a three pronged approach to, to working on this. Can you kind of build on that for me?

Dr. Michael Greger  18:39

Well, I mean, if we want this, I mean, the only way the pandemic ends, is unless the virus just disappears, which would not be unprecedented. But the the way most pandemics end is this concept called herd immunity, where a critical portion of the populace becomes immune to the virus and infection can only, you know, churn through a population if there's enough susceptible individuals, for the viral sparks to jump from one person to the next. But immune individuals, those who can't get it, or can't transmit it act as firebreaks for the disease kind of control rods in a nuclear reactor to break the chains of transmission. Now, ideally, this is accomplished through mass vaccination. Vaccines are a way to fight fire with fire using the virus to fight the virus by acquiring the benefits of infection immunity without facing the risks, disease and death. Now without a vaccine, a herd immunity is only achieved the hard way through mass infection. But look, you can't get the virus unless the virus can get to you. That's why I talk about all the just common sense measures we can take to reduce our risk during this part. Curious time.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  20:01

One more thing I'd like to ask you, and maybe put on your future prediction cap. And what's your thoughts on? I mean, it's inevitable. You said this, this is just a warm up for us. So how soon are we going to see something big? What is it going to be like? What's the likelihood of something even worse happening?

Dr. Michael Greger  20:19

Oh, well, I mean, there's a good likelihood it'll be worse because right now we're dealing with a category two pandemic, the CDC has a pandemic severity. Gauge, very similar to kind of the hurricane Severity Index categories, one through 519 18 was a Category Five, a 2%, fatality, swine flu, and to the US, nine, that was a category one. Right now we're dealing with a category two 0.4% case fatality rate. But I mean, as you can see, though, I mean, we're at the lower end, right. And so we are certainly, certainly at risk, we have h five and 187, and nine, these very deadly bird flu viruses. Some of the deadliest pathogens known, you know, similar to what you'd get with untreated HIV or Ebola, right around a 50% case fatality rate. And these are pathogens that can infect, you know, a significant percentage of the world's population within a matter of months, should they acquire easy human to human transmissibility, which would simply end civilization as we know it. I mean, as bad as COVID-19 is, there's still groceries being restocked in the shelves, we still have electricity, water is still being purified. You know, doctors and nurses are still showing up to work. This is as pandemics go, a relatively mild pandemic, we got lucky. We may not get lucky next time. That's why we need to do everything we possibly can to reduce that risk. And that call comes down to what we as a species are putting on our plate. And so I so appreciate all the work you're doing down there in Texas, and look forward to joining you maybe next spring.

Maya Acosta  22:08

Thank you. And thank you for putting together this whole package of how to survive the pandemic.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  22:13

Thank you very much. Dr. Greger You take care.

Dr. Michael Greger  22:15

Absolutely. Stay safe. Good work.

Maya Acosta  22:19

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