The Livelong Newsletter: Feature Edition

Hi Livelongers,

It can seem like all diseases are fundamentally different.

But what if they aren’t?

According to Dr. Robert Lufkin, an Adjunct Clinical Professor at the USC School of Medicine and author of the new Amazon bestseller Lies I Taught in Medical School, many diseases share the same root—METABOLIC DYSFUNCTION.

Having healed himself from multiple serious chronic diseases, Dr. Lufkin breaks down:

• Poor metabolic health and the chronic disease crisis

• Common foods which may worsen metabolic health

• Long-term and life-shortening dangers of metabolic disease

• How to achieve metabolic health

  … and more.

We love to hear from our community. Please share your feedback, stories, questions, testimonials, ideas, and more with us at [email protected].

The Interview 🗨️

Erin (Livelong): I'd love to know about the title of your book Lies I Taught in Medical School?

Dr. Lufkin: The title is intentionally provocative…but it also underscores a basic principle about science and medicine: It is constantly changing. Medical knowledge and science is constantly evolving, and what we thought was true may not be true as we learn more and more and more…that's kind of the kernel for the title of this book.

Erin (Livelong): You suggest that metabolic health is key to longevity. What is a healthy metabolism? What is the biggest reason for why someone's metabolism would become problematic? 

Dr Lufkin: In the 21st century, we're facing a tsunami of diseases that–although they were present earlier—were not anywhere as prominent as they are now. [This is] to the point where 80% of our health care dollars and time is spent on a group of diseases called chronic diseases (...which go all the way from obesity to diabetes, to heart disease, to cancer, to Alzheimer's disease to mental illness [and] hypertension). 

The problem is, when Western medicine applies the pills and surgery that are so effective for acute injuries [on chronic diseases], they fail to address the root cause of the basic underlying factors that drive it, and that is metabolic health. I believe that these diseases are all driven by common metabolic factors. So if you slow down or even reverse those diseases, an interesting thing happens: your longevity increases.

Erin (Livelong): How can something such as metabolic health impact a completely different part of the body, such as the brain (i.e., Alzheimer’s)?

Dr. Lufkin: On a basic level, metabolic disease is inflammation and insulin resistance, and those 2 things are the root cause for all the chronic diseases. 

Inflammation is good in the short term, but the bad kind of inflammation is chronic inflammation…that's what happens with metabolic disease. Insulin resistance [occurs] when our body stops or slows down its response to one of the most important hormones, insulin, which tells our body to store fat and grow. 

Alzheimer's disease is an inflammatory process of the brain that is related to diabetes. It's referred to now by many experts as type 3 diabetes because of this link to glucose metabolism, [which] is tied to insulin resistance. When glucose metabolism becomes impaired, it's usually due to insulin resistance, the cause of type 2 diabetes and the driver for all these things.

Erin (Livelong): Carbohydrates are common topic of contention in health. Can you 1) break down their function, health profile, and how they impact metabolism?

Dr. Lufkin: There are 3 food groups (3 macronutrient groups). The first 2 are fat and protein—these are essential for life, and if we don't eat food with either of those, we will die—and the third group is carbohydrates, [which] contain sugars and starches. They're immediately broken down, for the most part, into sugars early in our digestion, [and] they are not necessary for life.

The hormone insulin tells our body to store fat and tells our cells to grow—it drives many things—and insulin is primarily stimulated by carbohydrates. In other words, fat and protein don't really significantly affect insulin. 

By eating carbohydrates, you are getting unnecessary calories and you're driving insulin and glucose spikes that ultimately can contribute to insulin resistance and inflammation. Part of a metabolically healthy diet is to reduce the number of carbohydrates that people consume. 

Erin (Livelong): There are proven longevity diets, like the Mediterranean diet, that lean toward being carbohydrate-heavy. Are there differences between types of carbohydrates and their impact on insulin?

Dr. Lufkin: Yes. Refined carbohydrates have been processed essentially to remove fiber concentrates the effect of the carbohydrate or sugar, so it will spike the insulin higher. Probably the worst things to eat are refined carbohydrates, like sugars and processed flours or processed rice—unprocessed are better.

Some carbohydrates contain fiber that is insoluble or soluble—we really don't digest it much and they don't contribute to calories, but it is valuable to our gut microbiome and doesn't spike insulin much. 

I also believe that many people also have a low-grade inflammatory reaction to gluten and other proteins in grains, which drives inflammation. For that reason I avoid grains altogether. And in the U.S, most grains are soaked in a weed killer called glyphosate, which is illegal in 30 countries around the world because of its health concerns.

Erin (Livelong): What is the idea behind fasting for health? Why is it a powerful tool against disease, according to the literature?

Dr. Lufkin: At a basic level, anytime I eat something and swallow something, it activates a normal protective mechanism on my body (a reaction to foreign material), and that's inflammation. So if I eat all the time, inflammation is turned on all the time. One thing I could do to turn down inflammation (a basic cause of metabolic dysfunction or related to) is not eat all the time.

The other thing fasting does is it turns a basic primitive metabolic switch, arguably the most important biological switch in all biology, called mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin). Fasting turns this switch from an active state (an ‘on’ mode) to an ‘off’ mode. This tells the cell to NOT grow, but to repair. Repair is a good thing because it turns on autophagy and [helps] to get rid of senescence cells (old, dysfunctional cells).

Erin (Livelong): How would you respond to studies, like the recent study from the American Heart Association, which identified that there are significant health risks linked with fasting?

Dr. Lufkin: As a scientist, I always want to keep an open mind and even disagree with the current thinking. With any study, it is always important to look at who's paying for it and how it may influence it, but I also urge people to read the study and look at the detailed structure of the report.

The problem is that this was an oral presentation at a scientific meeting, which did not get the level of peer review or scientific scrutiny that a paper would get if it were published in a journal. Also, the paper was a correlative study, which means that correlation could be determined from it, but not causation…there were a lot of flaws with the study. 

Erin (Livelong):  Do you have any closing thoughts?

Dr. Lufkin: These diseases are exploding, they're only getting worse, and mainstream healthcare is not treating the root cause. But I'm looking forward to the future—I'm optimistic, I'm cheerful, and I'm upbeat because I think the message in this book is that it's a new era for us, as patients. 

We, as patients, can take control of our lives [and] our health. We become the CEO of our own body. We begin to exercise and do the things that actually can reverse metabolic disease–specifically lifestyle–and those are the things we get to decide every day.

Click the link for exclusive access to a FREE chapter from Dr. Lufkin’s new book, which is available for purchase on Amazon. We do not receive commission for your purchase.

Longevity Media LLC
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-Erin Hunter, Chief Editor, Livelong

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