He is an old friend, and at 69, I am the young friend.
He wrote to me on 2/18/23:
Greetings, Dr. and Ms. Yoho:
Today, with my Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, I walked the entire length of Fair Oaks Boulevard for the Black History Parade without pain or strain.
You are both the source of my ability to achieve this goal.
Robert, you introduced me to the powerful medicine of exercise. It took away the pain I had suffered from birth until I met you and your health coaching.
Ms. Yoho, you introduced me to the healthy eating that I am devoted to.
At 90 years old, I feel good, very good. And I continue to thank you. You vitalized my life.
—A grateful James
This story began in 1978 when my wife (then married to someone else) met Smith, a Ph.D. psychologist with a local practice. In 1981, I arrived in Los Angeles for medical training, worked as an emergency physician, then started a private practice. Around 1985, I saw Smith’s son in my clinic and did not charge him.Â
Dr. Smith came to my office because was having trouble walking up and down stairs. He also told me about his lifelong back pain. The only cause for his complaints seemed to be deconditioning.
I invited him to my gym and showed him how to use the exercise machines. I told him he needed to lift weights for 45 minutes two to three times a week. I recommended using each machine once for a total of 20 sets of about eight repetitions each.
I lost track of him for six months. One day he came in and told me that all his pain and walking problems were gone. He had been going to the gym twice a week and loved it.
During the last decades of Smith’s career, he was invited to join the California Medical Board and later the California Bar. These bureaucracies oversee the professional practice of law and medicine. I thought at first he might have some influence to protect my group of surgeons against the anti-competitive practices of the plastic surgery associations. However, Dr. Smith told me that when he was appointed to each position, the politicians explained the facts of life. Their rules were that you did as they told you, or you would be fired.
The second part of the story started a few years later during my enthusiasm for Dr. Greger and his vegetable diet. My wife became a vegan chef, and we were strict about it for over a year. Dr. Smith listened to us, became a vegan, and I gave him a copy of Michael Greger’s book, How Not to Die.Â
But because I lost strength, after a year our family started eating animals again. Smith felt great as a vegan and persisted. Over the years, as we stayed in contact, I concluded that he was part of the (possibly) five percent who could adapt to Greger’s eccentricities.Â
Dr. Smith says his other health secret is that he refuses to use prescription or over-the-counter drugs. He does not even take Tylenol (acetaminophen) for his shoulder arthritis. During my recent podcast with Paul Thomas, MD, I learned this drug has health hazards and should be used carefully if at all. Dr. Paul recommends discarding it but adds, since it is hazardous waste. to avoid flushing it down the toilet.Â
The exercise section from Hormone Secrets
Sam’s text: Hi, I wanted to tell you I work out with a trainer and have gained muscle and lost 15 pounds. I have been on the [homone] medicines for about a year and started working out eight months ago. Thank you for changing my life for the better.
(Note: Besides it’s other advantages, testosterone replacement is the most effective long-term weight loss drug for men or women ever invented.)
What exercise should I do while using hormones? For best results, easy weightlifting is compulsory. Use the machines at the gym for a minimum of a half-hour twice a week. This is enough unless you have a special interest. For either sex, your progress will be more rapid if you are on testosterone.
Start with one set of eight to ten repetitions using ten to fifteen machines. These are easy to operate, but get some advice if you are new to it. Try to use muscles from every part of your body during each workout: legs, back, chest, and shoulders. Splitting your routine between body parts on different days is only necessary if you get serious.
Lift light weights at first. Do not worry about getting big; it does not happen with this type of program. The machines are designed for safety and injuries are rare. Your body will noticeably improve within a month. Woody Allen’s saying applies here: “Ninety percent of success is just showing up.” You will also get a broad sense of optimism after your workouts no matter how you felt before.
Where I live in Los Angeles, yoga is virtually a sacrament. Back, shoulder, or neck pain will improve within a month after starting practice. Six to twelve months of hands-on instruction is helpful. The teachers get tiresome, but I like Baron Baptiste. One of his fans said that doing his workout for a half-hour daily put him in the best shape of his life.
“Flow” and “hot” yoga are challenging varieties. Bikram is one of the most demanding. This is a cult—I know because I was a card-carrying member for eight years. The heat in the rooms has crept up every decade and now is sometimes above 110 degrees—just too darn hot. Some instructors discourage drinking water during the workout, and students occasionally get heat exhaustion and pass out. They are dragged out of the studio and rushed to the emergency room.
Once you know yoga basics, you can use online classes. Practicing thirty to forty minutes three days a week is all you need to be durable, flexible, and have excellent posture. If you do yoga at home, you will have no parking trouble, do not have to put up with other sweaty students, and you will not have to listen to the idiocy such as curing cancer with backbends. You might even violate a few rules such as wearing shoes, using weights, and listening to podcasts or music.
If you are motivated, the next step is to find a sport you enjoy.
Massage can help your mobility, especially deep tissue. Consider taking Advil before you go so you can tell your masseuse to be aggressive.
Vegan theology explained
I listened to Michael Greger’s evangelizing several years ago, spent hours on NutritionFacts.org, and became a strict vegan for a year. Dr. Greger is a self-assured, convincing salesman, but I soon learned he was an “ethical” vegan. One of my close friends who held the same ideas told me what this means. Like Greger, she said she cares more about “the wonderful animals” than her health. This was not me, so when I weakened, I quit the diet and recovered.Â
Dr. Joseph Mercola interviewed Mara Kahn on 2/20/21 about her book HERE (or HERE). She says vegetarianism is a healthy, venerable diet that emphasizes vegetables. It may include dairy, eggs, fish, and even occasional meat. Veganism is new. Donald Watson, the founder of England’s Vegan Society, coined this word in 1944 and concocted the idea of an “ethical” vegan after watching a pig get slaughtered. He concluded that killing animals was immoral and subsequently used his ideas to belittle vegetarians who ate so much as a piece of cheese.Â
Michael Greger holds “animal rights” dear as well. On his Nutritionfacts.org, he defines vegan diets as eating “nothing with a face or a mother”—no dairy, animals, or even fish. He and his ilk are evangelical about it. Since they want to convert everyone, they make dubious claims about how eating animals injures human health and even world ecology. For my rebuttal of the related carbon myths, download Cassandra’s Memo. If you start to fall for vegan propaganda, bear in mind that they think that tens of thousands of years of human dietary practices are immoral.
What about the health claims? Science is not always double-blind placebo-controlled trials. Since these large studies are nearly universally ruined by bribery from big Food, big Pharma, or other industry funders, “anecdotal” stories about one or a few patients are often more convincing. John Ioannidis, the renowned Stanford study design expert, adds that most trials of diet and health are worthless because they are too small, not randomized, or otherwise biased. (My paraphrase, not a quote.)
Maria Kahn has an anecdote related to mine. She was a strict vegan for 20 years and was weak, nervous, and insomniac. When she worked at a salmon processing plant in Alaska, her body told her to eat something new. She grabbed a fish, took it home, and had her first animal protein in twenty years. Kahn’s improvement was immediate. Her health soared, her muscles developed, and her “lights went on”—she became alert and optimistic.
This experience motivated Ms. Kahn to spend six years researching and writing her book debunking veganism. She learned it is a recent Western world trend that had at most only two million US followers. She also found that despite vegans’ religious fervor, few are strict about what they eat. India, for example, is touted as a paragon of vegetable virtue. But although it has many plant eaters, absolute vegans are rare. Kahn could not find a society in human history that survived long-term eating this diet.Â
Those who convert to veganism are healthy at first. But as deficiencies of B12 and other nutrients develop, most get sick and drop out. As they quit, they face shaming by their colleagues. If caught in a grocery store buying eggs, some have even lost their spouses.
Fish and animals contain critical nutrients. Omega-3 fatty acids are an example. These include Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), and alpha-linolenic acid (ALA). The first two are essential for growth and development of infants’ brains and are required for adult brain function. They mitigate inflammation, decrease blood pressure and heart disease, and the primary dietary source is fish. DHA improves learning ability, whereas deficiencies of DHA are associated with learning deficits. (Note: since ocean fish are now contaminated with mercury and other toxins, the current recommendation is to eat small ones that are lower on the food chain. Cold water fish such as sardines or anchovies are safest.)
Here are nutrition facts not mentioned in “NutritionFacts.org.
Two founders of the Vegan Society developed Parkinson’s Disease. When their blood DHA was measured, it was zero. Studies have backed the protective effect of DHA for Parkinson’s. I have an intention tremor, a related but less damaging condition. After I understood the above, I started eating sardines (ugh), oysters, and taking Ultimate Omega fish oil supplements. I will let you know how it goes. (Correction: Fish oil has health controversies and should probably not be taken long term. See the end of the next post.)
Since ethical vegans’ primary concern is animal welfare, this biases the nutritional research they do. Nutritionfacts.org’s literature surveys have the same problem. For example, Greger writes that fish oil supplements are discredited. He cites a single source. He recommends taking yeast or algae-derived) long-chain omega-3 supplements instead. During my vegan days, I parroted this absurdity to patients. You cannot easily get enough DHA from plant sources such as marine algae or flaxseed.
Another example of conflicts of interest is the 2009 American Diabetes Association position paper that advocates vegetable diets HERE. Two of the coauthors were vegan or vegetarian.Â
Studies of vegans mostly compare apples to eggs—nearly all evaluate people who eat some animal products, which render all distinctions moot. Literature reviewers face the same problem, for proper studies of strict vegans are as rare as unicorns. Nutrition “facts” about them are in their infancy.
These diets have no readily available B12. If animal sources are not eaten, and the believer does not supplement, their body’s stores are gone within five to seven years. Greger recommends his followers take B12 pills derived from plants such as flaxseed or algae. He forbids fish oil, for fish have faces, and dairy—eggs have mothers.
Vitamin B12 deficiency can cause severe and irreversible damage, especially to the brain and nervous system. Wikipedia:
At levels only slightly lower than normal, a range of symptoms such as feeling tired, weak, feeling like one may faint, dizziness, breathlessness, headaches, mouth ulcers, upset stomach, decreased appetite, difficulty walking (staggering balance problems), muscle weakness, depression, poor memory, poor reflexes, confusion, and pale skin, feeling abnormal sensations, among others, may be experienced, especially in people over age 60. Vitamin B12 deficiency can also cause symptoms of mania and psychosis. Among other problems, weakened immunity, reduced fertility, and interruption of blood circulation in women may occur (my emphasis).
Do vegans sometimes act “off” or even a little crazy? Could it be low B12 levels?
There was a gap between the start of the vegan fad in 1944 and the vitamin shops, fortified cereals, and more substantial knowledge about B12 in the 1970s. Recall that veganism was unknown before 1944. The first successful treatment of B12 deficiency was in 1948. Although there was earlier inferential data about B12, the structure was only worked out in 1955-56. The first synthesis was performed in 1972, but that process had no commercial application. By the 1970s, the vitamin became widely available as a supplement and was used in human preparations including the Meyers intravenous “cocktail.” Greger entered the scene in 2011.Â
Clarity about the vegan B12 problem developed slowly. Before the science was clear, if people survived as vegans for more than a few years, they had to somehow find out about the early supplements. Others eventually became ill with B12 and other deficiencies. Most must have eaten some eggs or fish and so were not real vegans. Like “Jack Mormons,” they claimed to believe but were not in the choir, just like today.
Nutrition science is incomplete, and other as-yet-unknown nutrients are likely missing from vegetables as well.
Further absurdities:
Some vegans maintain that “insect lives matter.” They conveniently forget that agriculture kills millions of animals, such as bees, insects, and small mammals. Kahn says that there is “no animal-free lunch.”
Another school of loosely related crazy thought says that plants are sentient, have feelings, and know when they are being eaten.
Maria Kahn concludes:
We need saturated animal fat and cholesterol. The original message that these are unhealthy is wrong.
Your body is talking to you. Listen to its advice!
We do not fully understand what foods are best or how it all works.Â
Postscript about cancer: I presented Dr. Nick Brandy’s ideas about cancer cures with vegetables a few months ago, and these may have merit. HERE is a similar story about Chris Wark, a man who developed colon cancer in his 20s. His tumor was classified as stage 3 C, which had spread to adjacent structures and lymph nodes. He had surgery, which cures half of the patients at this stage but refused chemotherapy. Chris attributed his survival to becoming a vegan, but he may have simply won the coin flip.
Spoiler:Â The vast majority of vegetable oils that Americans eat are inflammatory and damage health. Animal fats, in contrast, reduce the risks of cancer, heart disease, and neurological conditions including Alzheimer’s. I support this statement in an upcoming post, “Mercola Discovers the Dietary Rosetta Stone.”
The Cassandra’s Memo ebook is free HERE if you promise to send this download link to five or more others. With your help, we will educate some people sitting on the fence.
BONUS: I am also giving away the Hormone Secrets and Butchered by “Healthcare” ebooks using the same arrangement; you can download them free HERE and HERE if you send the links to your friends.Â
I added 2 Saw Palmetto caps to my vitamin/mineral intake 1 in the morning and 1 at night. You had kept telling me about hormones, which I never could tolerate at 74 I aged out of them, they hated my GI Tract. And kept telling the doctors NO thanks. Adding those two caps made a huge difference in overall well-being, more energy, and better concentration. While I still need my cane for balance, I can now shop with less stress, other than being frustrated with not finding the fresh foods on the shelves, produce I wouldn’t slop a hog with. They sure aren’t worth what our 1 store asks for them. That is an issue when 1 store dominates the whole end of your state. I don’t know which is worse, Krogers or Walmart. Overpriced, poor quality.
It may take some searching, but almost everywhere now has organic farms that sell by subscription, and you get a weekly box of what’s in season. I am a bit leery of some non-vetted farmer’s markets, as I have seen some vendors buy rejected produce from the wholesalers and then display them in their booth as homegrown organic.
Not until the Farmer’s market opens, I live rurally, and the 1 market is a 2 hr round trip. I’m not going into Memphis any more than forced to. Between the shootings and carjackings, no one is safe anywhere. Since I can I tend to grow much of my own. Last year we were hit with 110-degree heat and little rain, so poor yields. I want to expand my garden this year. Have my soil and Black Cow-bought planters, but we are in and out of cold and rain, too much to work on that. This Climate junk has gone too far. We were in the Tornado swarm last week. California Snowpack at 221% of Normal, Among Deepest Ever
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/04/05/california-snowpack-at-221-of-normal-among-deepest-ever/
A dried-up Cali Lake from water diversion has reappeared. Tulare Lake Returns to California, Threatening Global Food Supply
https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2023/04/03/tulare-lake-returns-to-california-threatening-global-food-supply/
The thing with Kroger that really fries my brain is they have a crappy selection of canned vegetables, too.
True, I grew up on home canned, so the metal cans give my taste buds fit’s especially fruits. I use the ones with juice, but it doesn’t matter I still taste that metal can. This last summer I made my own Chunky Applesauce, Applebutter, and Apple Pie filling. Canned carrots, potatoes, and green beans survived. We made a trip to a Ripley, TN farm for 2 bushels of tomatoes. Good thing you get 3 years out of most home canned. And if I grow my own I control the fertilizers, usually what I compost. Their Extra Green green beans are better quality, I drain them, wash them, and use filtered water and a piece of Salt Pork. That comes close to what I grew up on. And limits the salt.
I avoid anything that says Carrageenan on it, it is a GI-destructive Seaweed. So my food selections are smaller. Which means more Carbs I don’t need.
10 companies control all food production, and 4 are Baby Food.
My whole family lived in town. My Grandma didn’t can, she worked jobs to support the family, Grandpa had died. My Mom didn’t can, she worked to support our family. Dad had a government job, but it didn’t pay as much as Mom’s teaching job. We were far from rich. I have always worked a minimum of 40 hours a week. I don’t have a clue how to can anything. It sounds like something I could do, but I learn better from being taught things like that. Just reading about them and trying to do it scares me. I’m afraid I’ll poison myself.
I am 71 and about 2 years ago I began having bio identical hormone pellets implanted in my hip area. They changed my life, and, obviously, in no way effect my GI tract. I get 125 MG of testosterone, and 10 MG estradiol every 3 months. I also take 300 MG of progesterone orally each evening. I will continue doing this until the Good Lord calls me home.
Dachsie put on her lawyeru2019s cap and looked for a good argument against exercise exhortations.
1 Timothy 4:8
For bodily exercise is profitable to little: but godliness is profitable to all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.
Have a blessed and holy Spy Wednesday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze1nAs8SBgw
Dr. Brant Pitre, the Jewish Roots of Holy Week, & Obi-Wan Kenobi
5:21 video runtime
Thanks, interesting article.
I want to know how we’re supposed to live for any length of time considering how they’re poisoning our food with toxins and now the MRNA vaccines. Several different reports now confirming that our animals will now be injected and it’s already in the vegetables and wheat products.
attributed to Julius Caesar, u201CAs a rule, what is out of sight disturbs menu2019s minds more seriously than what they see.u201D These risks are invisible, so our anxiety about them are likely be higher than their true danger. Smoking, for example, is worse than most risks except the covid vax. I think the danger in foods are preliminary and are unlikely to be as bad as the hysteria makes them out to be.
I pray to God you’re right because all of this food chatter is making me insane. It’s so difficult to control your food supply when you have limited access to grow your own and that doesn’t include proteins. At some point local farmers going outside of the system will be made to conform. Dr Mercola had an article out this morning about the other toxins (paraquat and diquat) they are spraying on our plants aside from glyphosate and apparently they are worse. It feels like a nonstop battle to survive these days. https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2023/04/05/paraquat-and-diquat-to-face-trial.aspx?ui=bb05f52df2ee257bc785f6b2f5d855827506a737fc4565b928685c4d7116d5d2&sd=20220405&cid_source=dnl&cid_medium=email&cid_content=art1HL&cid=20230405_HL2&cid=DM1376549&bid=1764484868
chickens are easy, turn out an egg a day, and end up being pets.
I like your thought process on this!
Looks like the salk institute or UCSD was doing the mRNA into plants research. Sorry i can’t find my link.
Doc, any thoughts on mRNA surviving cooking and digestion?
Seems doubtful but I’m no specialist. This seems more like Veternary vaccine fraud to me.
FYI: https://gregreese.substack.com/p/american-farmers-to-begin-injecting
Do what is asked in this video: https://dailyclout.io/eat-your-vaccines-mrna-gene-therapy-is-coming-to-the-food-supply-this-month/
A few chickens supply a lot of protein and they act like pets
I agree that veganism is a trainwreck for health (for most people). I also agree with the notion that animals raised in industrial settings are horribly mistreated and the food products that come from then are subpar. When I became aware of this dilemma, I started slowly switching over to purchasing foods that are more in line with my values. We raise our own chickens/turkeys, catch our own salmon and we buy other meat, eggs, and dairy from local farms that raise animals in an amazing way that is both good for the environment and provides a quality life for the animal. I will purchase industry raised meat and dairy on occasion (like when I travel and can’t find any alternatives) but I try not to let much of my money support an industry that is all about making food as cheap as possible at the expense of the environment and the quality of life for the animals. I also grow as much of my own food as I can and support other local growers. It’s a bit more expensive and a lot of work but the benefits to my health, the benefits to our local community’s economy and the health of the environment – is worth it. It’s also a very rewarding lifestyle that makes me happy. Spending time with
my children and grandchildren in these pursuits is so fun. There is nothing better than enjoying the fruits of your labor, watching things grow, and filling up freezers and shelfs with healthy meat and other wonderful foods. Many of these skills were lost when we traded them in for convenience, but we are now realizing the cost to our physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental health for that convenience and it’s a high price.
With Factor V, you canu2019t take even bio-identical hormones. Although not medical advice, any ideas?
Consult someone in Worldlink Medical about that. I like Dr. Wilgarde in Palm Springs, phone number 760 320 4292. Not sure if he does virtual consultations. This “no hormones with factor V” sounds like an internist’s myth, but that opinion is worth what it cost you.
Thoughts only, not references or data. This is another story we disbelieve unless it happens. Sounds like a psyop to me. Humans are resilient
Dr. Yoho: avoiding allopathic doctors, what is the best way to test for B12 and other vitamins/nutrients? Is there a specific panel you suggest?
B12 has standard tests you can access anywhere and that most internists are conversant with. Deficiency is unheard of except for vegans, where it is common.
Lifeextension.com may have panels
Yes, Dr. Mercola has hit the nail on the head, I believe, in telling us to avoid seed oils! Looking forward to your post about that!
I do reposts every other one so it will drop in about a week. I put up to 30 hours in these. Best
First stop is hormone eval. Download Hormone Secrets from the link at the end of any post. Study it and try to figure out what you need. Get your blood tests at life extension. Com “male hormone panel” find a doc as described in my book. Let me know how you do. Best wishes
Thanks Dr. Yoho. Excellent post.
Thanks for your continued presence in the comments
Hmmm… there is some confusion here. Diets are not nutrition. “Diets” assume that our traditional nutritional model is valid, which is a questionable assumption.
Vegetarian and vegan are mostly ethical concerns, vegetarianism mostly religious in nature (Hindu, Jain, Buddhism, and some Christian denominations (e.g. SDA). T. Colin Campbell became the pioneer of plant-based nutrition. I went through all of them, my parents became vegetarian when I was 2.5, I became more omnivore starting in my late teens/early twenties, but after age 50 I started drifting towards vegetarian or vegan, but at age 65, I switched to #WFPB, based initially on Dr. Esselstyn’s book “Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease.” Then I studied Campbell and pretty much anything I could get my hands on, and took Campbell’s nutrition course through eCornell.
This year (at age 72) I switched to a new PCP, and when I came in to discuss the results of my first physical, the conversation became about how I did it, what was my secret. I will now be teaching a class on Whole Foods Plant-Based nutrition and Cooking techniques there. BP 143/79, BMI 25, Total Cholesterol 132, and so on.
Thanks for your input. Lots to unpack here. I’ll just mention one thing. I’ve become convinced the cholesterol story is almost a complete truth reversal and that higher cholesterol is a marker for better health and less inflammation. As you have seen, I have been heavily influenced by Mercola.