1. Nutritional Fundamentals
Max Lugavere
Nutritionist
歡迎各位。感謝您的光臨。這門課程的標題–我一直在嘗試決定我要如何構思它。與其深入淺出地探討營養科學，我認為更能善用大家的時間，以及我的生活重點和專業知識，我會說，是真正專注於營養的實用層面。如何利用營養的力量和各種生活方式的變數來達到最佳表現、更健康、更長壽等等。
我們會盡可能從高層次著眼於營養的可操作性，我認為這是非常有價值的。我們將討論營養的定義。我們要為它下定義。我們要討論食物的目的。我們要談談營養的各種成分、宏量營養素。有一種誤解認為，要完全瞭解營養學，您必須是博士或擁有某種高級學位。但我認為營養是一種健康素養，我堅信我們一直處於劣勢，因為我們將營養外包，就像今天生活中的許多其他方面一樣。
我們外包烹飪知識，我們外包金融知識。當我們的祖先是通才的時候，現在我們生活在專業化的時代，我認為我們在健康方面、在我們對許多這類議題的鑑賞能力方面都失去了一些東西。我希望你們每個人在聽完這場講座後，都能真正掌握營養學，以及如何利用營養來改善您和您所愛的人的健康。
我只想分享一下我的背景。我沒有走學術道路。我上了邁阿密大學，然後成為一名記者，在美國電視台工作了六年，擔任記者和現場製作人。大概做了六年，我媽媽生病了。我媽媽患上了一種罕見的癡呆症。我一直對營養學和健康充滿熱情，以至於當我開始上大學時，我實際上是走在醫學預科的軌道上。最後，我選擇了棄學。但當我母親生病時，我開始著迷於嘗試瞭解我們都容易患上慢性疾病的風險因素。
因此我開始著迷。我鑽研醫學文獻，並利用自己准媒體和記者的頭銜，與世界各地的科學家和專家接觸，以便向他們學習。隨後，我得以撰寫多本著作。我的第一本書在 2018 年面世。它叫做 「Genius Foods」。它現在已在世界各地出版。它是《紐約時報》的暢銷書。
雖然我主要不是技術意義上的研究人員，但實際上我已經可以發表科學文獻了。您可以在螢幕的中間部分看到，在螢幕的下方部分，我實際上與他人合著了一本臨床醫師教科書中的一章，內容是關於預防認知能力衰退的臨床實踐，重點在阿茲海默症和其他形式的癡呆(失智)症。這本教科書實際上會交到臨床醫師手上，所以我實際上能夠影響癡呆(失智)症預防的臨床實踐，這對我來說是非常令人興奮的。
癡呆(失智)症預防，這兩個詞，直到最近我們才真正能夠在同一句話中提到這兩個詞，並且被認真看待。光是我們對阿茲海默症的了解，就有 90% 是在過去 15 年左右才發現的。因此，這是一個快速發展的科學領域，但我們現在知道，您可以在日常生活中採取一些步驟，以優化腦部運作方式，並降低罹患這些疾病的風險。
我所做的一切，我的原因，都是由我在我母親身上看到的疾病所激發的。對我來說，誠實、透明、與大家分享最好的證據，已經成為我的人生目標。很高興您們能來到這裡。
關於老年癡呆症的預防，我只想談談這個問題。我經常談論大腦健康。這是我的熱情所在。但在大腦健康的傘子下面，有許多不同的領域會影響大腦健康。新陳代謝健康、身體成分、心血管健康、體適能–所有這些最終都會影響大腦，影響我們生理和生物學的方方面面。這真的是一個有趣的觀點和鏡頭，透過它來觀察構成人類健康的所有其他不同層面。
這只是要告訴你這不是偽科學。事實上，這篇論文發表於 2020 年的《柳葉針》（The Lancet）雜誌。柳葉刀》是我們醫學領域影響因子最高的期刊之一。預防的潛力很高。目前我們已經辨識出 12 種可改變的風險因素，顯示全球至少有 40% 的癡呆(失智)症病例是可以預防的。我認為可能比這個數字還要高，但這是目前的共識。
因此，一般而言，營養是提供或取得健康與成長所需食物的過程。相當基本。我認為每個人對營養的真正含義大致都有所了解。營養真的很重要，它可以很簡單，也可以很複雜，只要我們想讓它變得複雜。
當然，在研討會的過程中，我們會將層級分明。但是，這是一門超級賦權的科學。我碰巧喜歡它。我認為討論這門科學很有趣，因為它與我們每個人都息息相關。營養與我們每個人都息息相關。營養與不同年齡層的人都息息相關，而且營養也會隨著年齡層的變化而變化。在某種程度上，它會因您的性別而改變。它會隨著您的目標而改變。
您可能會聽到我重複幾次，沒有一個適合所有人的營養計畫。營養不是一頂帽子。營養不是一頂帽子，它也不是一刀切，而是量身訂做的。我們必須這樣想。
我認為您在社交媒體和飲食書籍上常見的錯誤是，人們傾向於把營養學說成是 「一刀切 」的科學，但事實並非如此。營養學非常複雜。因此，許多人認為營養學是一門「軟科學」。我們無法像測量物理定律、地質學或其他科學一樣，準確測量營養對每個人的影響。
這是很難研究的。事實上，這比藥物研究難得多，而且研究經費也少得多。在我看來，營養科學的很多方面其實都必須跳出科學的範疇才能找到答案。我們必須運用邏輯。我們必須運用常識。我們必須運用理性。我認為這是一個非常重要的思考方式。
當然，還有食物-食物的目的。食物在我們生活中所扮演的角色與營養所扮演的角色有很大的不同。營養的定義非常簡單。營養就是讓我們感覺好，讓我們擁有最好的健康。但是食物還扮演許多其他的角色。
食物是我們慶祝的方式。食物是我們彼此聯繫的方式。為所愛的人做一頓飯–這是展現愛的絕佳方式，也是傳達我們愛坐在對面的人的方式。我們從食物中體驗快樂。我們有與食物相關的儀式。當我們壓力過大時，我們會拿起最愛的食物。因此，食物在某種程度上就像是我們的朋友，當我們感到壓力或經歷不舒服的生活事件時。
因此，食物是一種我們不一定能夠分解成營養、提煉成組成部分的東西，因為它在我們的生活中經常扮演著不可言喻的角色，這種角色無法用言語表達出來。與食物相關的文化、個人偏好，還有許多方面都是個人化、個別化的。
問題是我們的食物供應已經超級工業化。我認為這是主要原因之一。這不僅是我的看法，我們的工業化食品供應是其中一個主要原因，也是其中一個根本原因，就是為什麼今天我們這麼多人身體不適，與健康搏鬥。我們的食物供應已經充斥著所謂的超級加工食品。
現在，區分不同類型的食品加工非常重要。大多數人一想到食物，就認為不是加工食品就是未經加工食品。但事實上，食品加工是一個連續的過程。
當您在超級市場買蘋果時，那是一種未經加工的食物。當您用刀切蘋果的那一秒鐘，您就在某種程度上加工了蘋果。您把蘋果切片，然後擠壓，製成蘋果汁；這是更進一步的加工。您使用那片蘋果，製成蘋果醬；這是更進一步的加工。你用蘋果製作蘋果味的軟糖，這是更進一步的加工。因此，食品加工是一個連續體。在一端，我們有超級加工食品，這也是我要一再提到的詞彙。而在較低的一端，則是未經加工的食物。再往上，則是微加工食品。
今天的主要問題之一，也是 「標準美國飲食 」的主要特徵之一。「標準美國飲食 」已不再是 「標準美國飲食」，而是 「西方化飲食」，因為我們已將 「標準美國飲食 」出口到世界其他國家，所以 「西方化飲食 」經常被稱為 「標準美國飲食」。
一般來說，有幾種方法可以識別超級加工食品。我們會講到這一點。但一般來說，您在超級市場的走道上就能發現它們。你走在大多數大型超市的走道上，看似保質期無限的保質期穩定、包裝好的加工食品，就是我所說的超加工食品。這些就是人們現在過度食用的食物。事實上，現在一般成年人的飲食中，約有 60% 的卡路里是來自這些食物：超級加工、保質期長的食物。我們將討論其後果。兒童的比例更高，約為 70%。
有一張很棒的照片。我不知道攝影師的名字，但有個攝影師做了一個計畫，他到世界各地去，看看一般家庭一週的日用品。這是英國的一個家庭，這是他們一個星期的日用品。你必須瞇起眼睛，才能看到未經加工或少經加工的食物。你可以看到一些水果在那邊，一些完整的水果在螢幕右邊。但一般來說，你在這張照片中看到的大部分物品都是包裝好的那種。您可以看到 Capri-Sun、麥片、薯片袋。這是英國的家庭。
在美國，情況也沒有多大不同。事實上，可能更糟一點。幾乎沒有新鮮的食物。你有披薩，那是一種超美味的混合菜餚，可能含有無數的工業化學物質。還有汽水和蘇打水。我倒是在那裡看到一些肉類。但一般來說，這就是大多數美國人的飲食習慣。只是過多的超加工食品。
我們將討論一些後果，但只是給你們一個感覺，我們現在看到這些食物的消費和慢性疾病之間的聯繫，這是很明顯的，但它總是好有數據。這是最近，也就是去年年中的一項研究，直接將食用超加工食品與癡呆(失智)症的風險聯繫起來。
我們發現，超加工食品的食用量每增加 10%，罹患癡呆(失智)症的風險就會增加 25%。因此，從大腦健康的觀點來看，這並非好事，但也有其他後果。
談到營養，基本上有幾個主要的–我猜您可以稱它們為帳桿–是我們要考慮的。營養的基本原則歸結為營養素。正如我剛才提到的，這是營養學的其中一個定義。談到營養素，我們通常可以將它們分成幾個不同的類別。
我們首先要談的是宏量營養素。Macro」是大的意思。所以這些營養素是我們通常從食物中攝取的主要營養素。一般而言，三大營養素是碳水化合物、脂肪和蛋白質。現在，每種營養素都可以再細分。
因此，碳水化合物不一定是碳水化合物。脂肪不是脂肪。蛋白質不是蛋白質。您吃下的脂肪不一定會成為您體內的脂肪，儘管它們有相同的字眼。攝取的碳水化合物有許多不同的種類，蛋白質的品質也有差異。因此，我們會將這些細微的細節拆解開來，但只是從頭說起，當人們說到宏量營養素時，一般而言，他們指的是這三類營養素中的一種：碳水化合物、脂肪和蛋白質。
現在，說到必需營養素，「必需」基本上是指我們需要這些營養素才能生存。如果我們得不到這些營養素，就會患上缺乏症。並沒有碳水化合物是必需的這回事，但這並不是說飲食中沒有碳水化合物是最佳選擇。碳水化合物非常好。我們需要碳水化合物來優化生物的許多方面，但您不會因為不攝取碳水化合物而患上缺乏症。
另一方面，脂肪是不可或缺的。某些脂肪絕對是必需的。您可能聽過必需脂肪酸。相對來說，我們每天所需的必需脂肪非常少。我們每天都需要攝取某些脂肪，例如您可能聽過的 omega-3 脂肪酸、omega-6 脂肪酸。這些是我們唯一需要攝取的脂肪，但這並不是說在飲食中增加更多脂肪也不是必要的。我們看到較高脂肪的飲食與較好的荷爾蒙狀況等有關。但是，我們再次討論的是必要與非必要之間的差異。
蛋白質是絕對必要的。蛋白質提供胺基酸，而您的身體就是由蛋白質構成的。因此，當您攝取蛋白質時，您的身體會將這些蛋白質分解成它的組成胺基酸。我們可以列出數十種胺基酸，但值得注意的是，有九種是必須的，而我們將討論在哪裡可以找到這些胺基酸。
基本上，蛋白質是絕對必要的。某些脂肪是不可或缺的，而碳水化合物是不存在的。但是您想要在飲食中包含這些食物的比例，同樣地，也是因人而異，取決於目標。不一定是必要的也不一定是次優的。我們只是想清楚區分我們談論這些不同營養素的方式。
說到碳水化合物，我們有簡單碳水化合物、複合碳水化合物，然後是纖維。纖維是碳水化合物的一種形式。我們過去認為簡單碳水化合物和複合碳水化合物在生物學上有很大的差異。我想大多數過了一定年紀的人都相當熟悉，簡單碳水化合物通常用來形容糖、單醣。特別是添加糖，當然並不健康，但我們開始發現，從生物學角度來看，攝取簡單碳水化合物和複合碳水化合物之間的差異，並不總是黑白分明，一個不好，另一個就好。
複合碳水化合物通常很容易被我們的身體分解，幾乎和簡單碳水化合物一樣快。因此，兩者的差異並不重要，尤其是在混合餐的情況下。但是您要知道，簡單碳水化合物，一般是糖類，您可以在舌頭上嚐到它們的味道。它們的味道是甜的。複合碳水化合物在舌頭開始分解之前，不會立即嘗到甜味。複合碳水化合物通常是澱粉類，主要存在於水果和蔬菜中。纖維在技術上也是一種碳水化合物，但是纖維不會被分解。
事實上，關於脂肪和碳水化合物，有一點必須說明的是，它們都是能量。您可以用不同的方式來形容它們都是為身體提供能量，但歸根究柢，它們都是能量。蛋白質在人體中一般不被當作能量使用。蛋白質是一種構造元素。
碳水化合物和脂肪通常都很容易儲存成脂肪。脂肪最容易儲存成脂肪。接著是碳水化合物，接著是蛋白質，蛋白質是人體最難儲存為脂肪的食物，因為蛋白質並不是真正的能量來源，如果您提供過量的能量，您的身體就會想要儲存能量以備不時之需。
纖維並不能真正提供能量。纖維通常被認為是無法消化的。相反地，它扮演著其他角色。它能讓我們吃飽，讓我們有飽足感。我們知道纖維是有益的，因為它現在對我們的腸道健康、腸道健康和腸道微生物群生物群所扮演的角色，也就是我們要談論的。
纖維通常主要存在於全植物中：水果、蔬菜等。我們看到纖維的攝取通常與長壽和較低的發炎程度有關，而且通常被認為對身體有益。我只想再次說明，沒有放諸四海皆準的飲食。一般人對纖維的耐受性不同，但從長壽的角度來看，纖維一般被認為是非常有益的。但我們可以談談為什麼纖維被認為是有益的。
接下來是脂肪。正如我所提到的，當然有一些必需的脂肪。很不幸的是，脂肪，我們稱之為脂肪，我們也稱身上的脂肪為脂肪，因為很多人都誤以為脂肪會讓人變胖。脂肪不一定會讓人變胖，雖然如果我們過度攝取脂肪，脂肪可能會讓人變胖。
但在脂肪的傘子下面，我們有不同類型的脂肪。我們有飽和脂肪。即使在飽和脂肪之下，也有許多不同類型的飽和脂肪。
數十年來，我們一直被告知飽和脂肪是對我們絕對有害的–邪惡的飽和脂肪。但是飽和脂肪有許多不同的種類，而且並非所有的飽和脂肪都會以相同的方式影響我們的生物學。例如，飽和脂肪存在於紅肉等動物產品中，就像我今天早餐吃的牛排；飽和脂肪存在於乳制品中；飽和脂肪存在於植物中，椰子脂肪就是主要的飽和脂肪，而且它們對我們的生物學有不同的影響。
因此，如果您聽到有人說飽和脂肪不好，毫無疑問地不好，他們可能不知道自己在說什麼。例如，在動物產品中常見的飽和脂肪中，有三種主要的飽和脂肪：棕櫚酸、肉豆蔻酸和硬脂酸。
硬脂酸是飽和脂肪的一個例子，通常存在於動物產品中，對心血管疾病相關的生物指標幾乎沒有影響。然而，您卻會一再聽到飽和脂肪不好的說法。
此外，乳製品作為一種食物類別，飽和脂肪的比例是其他食物類別中最高的。事實上，這非常有趣。無論您在自然界的任何地方發現飽和脂肪，無論您在任何地方發現任何天然食物來源的脂肪，都會有一些不同類型脂肪的組合。有些會有較多的飽和脂肪；有些會有較多的不飽和脂肪。但一般來說，它們會像隨從一樣到達，只是比例不同而已。
乳製品的飽和脂肪比例最高。它比牛肉和豬肉高得多，但我們在觀察性文獻中看到，食用全脂乳制品的人往往有更好的心臟代謝健康，這是一個悖論。我的意思是，如果飽和脂肪對我們如此有害，您難道不會看到那些經常食用全脂乳制品的人患上心臟病的比例不斷下降嗎？你沒有看到這一點。事實上，您會發現他們有更好的心血管健康。這被認為是由於乳制品中的脂肪被包裝成食物矩陣的一部分，這是我們將討論的東西。
飽和脂肪的另一個特點是，它們是所有其他脂肪中化學性質最穩定的，這意味著它們最能抵抗一種稱為氧化的化學降解。由於其化學性質，它們能夠非常緊密地堆疊在一起。這就是飽和脂肪在室溫下呈固態的原因。這就是飽和脂肪的化學鏈組織方式。這就是為什麼飽和脂肪的化學性質如此穩定。脂肪酸非常緊密地包圍在一起。這是其中一個原因，也是它們在室溫下呈固態的原因。
從飲食的角度來看，任何時候您看到室溫下呈固態的脂肪，我們都稱之為脂肪。我們不稱它們為油。我們稱它們為脂肪，就像稱黃油為脂肪而不是油一樣。油在室溫下呈液態，主要由不飽和脂肪組成。
一般而言，不飽和脂肪的化學穩定性比飽和脂肪低。賦予它們這種化學穩定性的是所謂的雙鍵。這讓它們更穩定，更不容易被氧化。脂肪酸的雙鍵數量基本上表示其不飽和或飽和的程度。
沒有雙鍵的脂肪是不飽和的，或者對不起，是飽和的，而有雙鍵或更多的脂肪是不飽和的。在不飽和脂肪中，我們有單元不飽和脂肪和多元不飽和脂肪。
現在，「mono」，顧名思義，表示一個，單數。單元不飽和脂肪有一個雙鍵。多元不飽和脂肪有一個以上的雙鍵。在不飽和脂肪中，單元不飽和脂肪，因為它們更飽和，意味著它們有更少的雙鍵，它們只有一個，它們會比多元不飽和脂肪化學上更穩定。同樣地，飽和脂肪是化學上最穩定的。不飽和脂肪的化學穩定性會比飽和脂肪低。在不飽和脂肪中，單元不飽和脂肪的化學穩定性較高，因為它基本上飽和程度較高。多不飽和脂肪的化學穩定性最低。
這與我們的生物學相關。它與食物有關，因為一般來說，多不飽和脂肪含量較高的食物 – 或者我應該說多不飽和脂肪含量較高的食品 – 將會更容易發生這種形式的化學降解，這可能會以深刻的方式影響您的生物學。
當談到完整食物時，您不必擔心這種區別；只有當我們談到加工食品時，這種區別才真正變得相關，因為無論您在自然界中找到這些脂肪，自然界已經為我們完成了猜測工作。大自然已將這些脂肪與適量的抗氧化劑一起包裝起來，以保護它們。同樣，在自然界中，無論您在哪裡找到多不飽和脂肪 (如我所說，是化學上不穩定的單不飽和脂肪)，您總是會找到必要數量的抗氧化劑來保護這些脂肪。
例如，在核桃中，核桃是一種非常豐富的植物性多不飽和脂肪來源，化學上非常不穩定，對吧？那麼，這是否意味著核桃是不健康的？不，因為核桃也是非常豐富的維生素 E 來源。無論您在自然界中哪裡看到多元不飽和脂肪，您也會看到必要數量 – 必要濃度的維生素 E 來保護這些脂肪。
問題出現在加工食品中，多不飽和脂肪已從食物基質中萃取出來，不一定具有抗氧化保護作用。這就是我們要討論的問題所在。但一般來說，這是您攝取脂肪的兩個主要來源：飽和脂肪和不飽和脂肪。
然後，我們有反式脂肪。在反式脂肪的保護傘之下，我們經常聽到反式脂肪對我們非常有害。一般而言，這是真的。反式脂肪對我們非常有害。這是因為在飲食中，反式脂肪主要是以部分氫化植物油的形式出現。
有人還記得這些嗎？舉手示意。事實上，它們在加工食品中使用非常普遍，直到我相信，大約 10 或 15 年前，美國食品及藥物管理局禁止使用它們。但是它們在食品供應–西方食品供應–中存在了幾十年，因為它們被認為是飽和脂肪的一種更健康的替代品。它們的行為與飽和脂肪類似，但卻被人為地操控，使其行為與飽和脂肪類似。製造商通常會做的是，他們會使用不飽和脂肪，如多不飽和植物油，然後將它們充滿氫氣，使它們表現得更像飽和脂肪。
過去幾十年來，趨勢開始轉變，但我們一再被告知飽和脂肪對我們不好。我們的管理機構在很大程度上將飽和脂肪妖魔化。食品製造商可以讓加工食品擁有原本富含飽和脂肪的口感和稠度，但卻以低飽和脂肪為名行銷。此外，它們的生產成本非常低廉，就像黃油或牛油一樣。部分氫化脂肪，基本上生產成本不高。因此，從食品加工的角度來看是非常吸引人的。
我們現在知道這些脂肪對心血管系統和大腦都有害。因此，儘管這些脂肪仍然存在於食品供應中，但基本上已被取締。我稍後會談到這一點；我稍後會談到我們現在還能在哪裡找到它們。
但我們必須區分：反式脂肪在某種程度上也以其他形式自然存在於動物製品中。某些乳製品和反芻動物肉類的脂肪也含有天然產生的反式脂肪，而這些反式脂肪實際上被認為是有益的。雖然這方面的資料不是很詳盡，但我們可以看到它們與人工製造的反式脂肪不同。
其中一個天然反式脂肪的例子是 CLA 或共轭亚油酸。它被認為具有一些抗癌特性、一些強化新陳代謝的特性，並與減肥有關，雖然我認為這方面的資料相當薄弱，但 CLA 是天然反式脂肪的一個例子。同樣地，它主要存在於反芻動物的脂肪和這些動物生產的乳制品中。
接著是蛋白質。蛋白質是我最喜歡的話題之一。蛋白質超級、超級重要。正如我提到的，它是不可或缺的。我們將討論蛋白質的時機和蛋白質的劑量，以及所有關於蛋白質的很酷、有趣、相關的東西。
但基本上，當大部分人想到肉類、蛋、乳製品時，他們會想到蛋白質。我們在植物中也能找到蛋白質。事實上，有一種錯誤的觀念認為植物沒有所有必需的胺基酸，植物蛋白質基本上是不完整的。動物蛋白質的確能提供所有必需胺基酸的適當份量，也就是即插即用的份量。動物蛋白質是我們在自然界中找到的最高品質的蛋白質，主要是因為我們是肉類，而不是如我所說的，我們是瘤胃動物。當我們攝取另一種動物的肉時，它有助於強化我們的肉質，這是一個很奇怪的想法，但它就是這樣運作的。
植物蛋白 – 所有植物都含有所有的胺基酸，但它們的含量各有不同。現在，如果您在以植物為主的飲食中攝取了足夠的蛋白質，只要您攝取的是多樣化的飲食，多樣化的植物蛋白質，這就變得沒有意義了。但如果您攝取的是動物蛋白質，就不需要擔心這個問題，因為動物蛋白質提供了所有不同胺基酸的適當比例，可以促進人體健康。
但同樣地，植物性蛋白質，您會發現某些植物性蛋白質來源的某些必需胺基酸含量較低，這時您就必須結合它們。以植物性飲食為主的人通常會結合穀物與豆類等類似食物。植物性蛋白粉 – 您會經常看到豌豆蛋白與大米蛋白等混在一起。在以植物為主的飲食中，您確實需要湊合不同的蛋白質來源。但在含有足夠蛋白質的飲食中，這通常不是您需要擔心的事情。
此外，在雜食性飲食中的植物性蛋白質，如果您吃動物蛋白質，同時也攝取植物性蛋白質，這些蛋白質也會被計算在內，因為所有蛋白質最終都會被分解成氨基酸。當您食用某種植物時，您可能會攝取到較少的某種胺基酸，但您在另一種食物中卻攝取到較多的胺基酸。最後，這些都會被分解出來。您的飲食越多樣化，尤其是雜食性飲食，您就不需要太擔心蛋白質的品質。
蛋白質品質成為問題的地方在於限制飲食的人。對於素食者來說，蛋白質的品質絕對是個問題，尤其是對於低蛋白飲食的人來說。您攝取的蛋白質越少，就越要確保您攝取的蛋白質品質是足夠的。就蛋白質品質而言，動物蛋白質始終是最重要的。
但這對某些族群來說真的很重要。舉例來說，任何低蛋白飲食族群、年長族群，例如年長族群，往往會攝取不足的蛋白質。因此，蛋白質的品質、確保他們攝取足夠的蛋白質，是非常重要的考量。
這不應該被理解為醫療建議，但是因為醫療目的而限制蛋白質飲食的人，您要確保您攝取到高品質的蛋白質。如果您在低蛋白飲食中攝取植物性蛋白質，卻沒有經過深思熟慮，您可能會遇到麻煩。
第三種值得注意的蛋白質是膠原蛋白。膠原蛋白其實是人體中最豐富的蛋白質。我們現在可以在市場上看到許多的補充劑。膠原蛋白不被認為是人體必須的蛋白質，因為我們會產生膠原蛋白。不過，有越來越多的證據顯示，多吃膠原蛋白對我們的關節和生理的各個方面都有好處，例如傷口癒合。
我爸爸最近做了全膝置換手術。我爸非常不喜歡吃補充劑，但我讓他吃的其中一種補充劑就是膠原蛋白，因為有證據顯示膠原蛋白可以幫助傷口癒合。
膠原蛋白是維持動脈彈性的分子。因此，它是一種超級重要的蛋白質，雖然不一定是必需的，但是當我們攝取更多的時候，我們還是可以看到它的好處。膠原蛋白基本上是由三種胺基酸組成的重複迴圈，您不一定要記得：甘氨酸、脯氨酸和羥脯氨酸。除了色胺酸之外，它也含有一些必需胺基酸。因此，膠原蛋白其實與植物蛋白不同；膠原蛋白其實缺乏色胺酸。但同樣地，在有足夠蛋白質、食物和蛋白質多樣性的飲食環境中，您可以將膠原蛋白算作您的蛋白質，作為您每日蛋白質攝取量的一部分。
我們實際上看到，甘氨酸是膠原蛋白的主要部分之一，三分之一的膠原蛋白是甘氨酸，實際上在人體中扮演許多重要的角色，而不只是在膠原蛋白合成中扮演的角色。我們看到甘氨酸對新陳代謝的健康非常重要。它實際上可以用來改善睡眠。有少數研究顯示，睡前攝取甘氨酸實際上可以在某些睡眠品質的測量中提升睡眠品質。
所以，膠原蛋白是相當棒的。它主要存在於韌帶和結締組織的動物製品、內臟肉類，以及類似的東西，而我們以前會攝取更多的這些東西。如今，我們更傾向於食用動物的骨骼肌肉。有些人認為，我們沒有定期攝取更多的膠原蛋白，其實是錯失了機會。我認為膠原蛋白絕對是一種值得攝取的蛋白質。是的，我是它的粉絲。
當然，我們還有補充劑。膠原蛋白作為一種補充劑，現在已被廣泛使用。我們在市場上看到的是膠原蛋白肽，但也有其他蛋白質補充劑，它們的必需氨基酸組合更完整。
我最喜歡的蛋白質是乳清蛋白。乳清蛋白補充劑非常好。市面上也有植物蛋白補充劑。一般而言，我認為乳清蛋白是最高品質的蛋白質。它是非常優質的蛋白質。它是一種加工食品，但它是在製作乳酪的過程中產生的。因此，我認為它是經過最少加工的食物，而且我認為它是極少數經過超級加工或加工食物的例外情況之一–您可以透過食物加工獲得真正健康的產品。因此，並非所有的食品加工都是不好的。絕對有一些加工食品甚至是超加工食品的例子，可以讓您得到非常健康的產品，我認為乳清蛋白補充品就是一個例子。
此外，還有植物蛋白補充劑。現在，植物蛋白補充劑的加工程度更高，而且它們往往含有重金屬，這是一個問題。當您攝取植物蛋白補充劑時，所攝取的重金屬劑量可能不會太令人擔心，尤其是如果您並非一直攝取植物蛋白補充劑，但素食者會攝取大量植物蛋白補充劑。因此，對於這些人來說，這可能是個問題。但一般而言，我是蛋白質補充劑的粉絲。我要補充的是，您不需要成為健美運動員才能從蛋白質補充劑中獲益。一般來說，我不太喜歡吃補充劑，但蛋白質補充劑非常好。
我們在研討會的這一部分談到的所有變數，都是可以調整以獲得更好健康的變數：脂肪、碳水化合物–我們會一一談到，但只是想在深入討論之前打好基礎，建立一些定義。但我們是由食物組成的。我們所吃的食物，基本上就是您所吃的東西。
食物是一種資訊。它具有表觀遺傳能力，這意味著它實際上可以改變你的基因表達方式，想想都覺得超酷。
我們現在看到，世界各地人們所罹患的許多慢性疾病，如心血管疾病、癌症、癡呆症等，都與食物有關。很多人說食物是一種藥物。我同意這種說法。我認為我們必須注意食物能做什麼、不能做什麼。如果您患有慢性疾病，我認為食物的能力是有限的。但它真正發揮威力的地方在於某種程度上的預防和管理。所以，我非常相信營養的力量，我們會深入研究這些東西。
我們也知道，從身體組成的角度來看，食物是超級重要的。身體成分很重要。當涉及到長期健康、你的感覺時，肌肉和脂肪的比例與你的長期健康、你的感覺有著超級超級的關係，而食物在其中扮演著重要的角色。我希望和大家分享優化身體成分的方法。我們要談的有很多。
當然，還有營養在運動表現中扮演的角色。我不是運動員。我不是超級明星運動員或類似的東西。我認為知道如何利用營養的力量來增強您在健身房中付出的努力是非常重要的。所以，我們會談談這些東西。我想，我的研討會的入門部分就到此為止。
Welcome, everybody. Thanks for being here. The title of this course—I was trying to decide how I was going to frame it. Rather than do a deep dive into the weeds of nutrition science, I thought a much better use of your time and my life focus and expertise, I would say, is to really focus on the practical aspects of nutrition. How to harness the power of nutrition and various lifestyle variables for optimal performance, better health, longevity, and the like.
We’re going to focus as much as we can from a high level on the more actionable side of nutrition, which I think is very valuable. We’re going to talk about the definition of nutrition. We’re going to define it. We’re going to talk about the purpose of food. We’re going to talk about the various components of nutrition, macronutrients. There’s this misconception that to understand nutrition fully, you have to be a PhD or have some kind of advanced degree. But I think nutrition is something—health literacy is something—that I strongly believe we ‘ve been disadvantaged because of the way that we’ve outsourced it, like so many other aspects of life today.
We outsource culinary literacy, we outsource financial literacy. When our ancestors were generalists, now we live in the era of specialization, and I think we’ve lost something in terms of our health, in terms of our appreciation for many of these kinds of topics. I want each of you to walk away from this lecture really having a solid grasp on nutrition, and again, how to harness it for the betterment of your health and the health of your loved ones.
Just to share a little bit about my background. I didn’t take the academic path. I went to the University of Miami, and then I became a journalist, where I worked for six years on television in the United States as a journalist, as a field producer. About six years into that role, my mother got sick. My mom developed a rare form of dementia. I’ve always been passionate about nutrition science and health to the point that when I started college, I actually was on a pre-med track. I ended up pivoting out of that. But when my mom got sick, I became obsessed with trying to understand everything that I possibly could about the risk factors that we all are vulnerable to with regard to chronic disease.
And so I became obsessed. I dove into the medical literature, and I exploited my title as a quasi-media persona and journalist to reach out to scientists, experts from around the world, so that I could learn from them. Subsequently, I’ve been able to write a number of books. My first book came out in 2018. It’s called “Genius Foods.” It’s now published around the world. It’s a New York Times best seller.
Though I’m not primarily a researcher in the technical sense, I have actually been able to publish scientific literature. You can see in the middle section of the screen, on the lower portion of the screen, I actually got to co-author a chapter in a clinician’s textbook on the clinical practice of the prevention of cognitive decline with a focus on conditions like Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. This is a textbook that actually gets into the hands of clinicians, of physicians, and so I’ve been able to actually influence the clinical practice of dementia prevention, which to me is super exciting.
Dementia prevention, those two words, it’s only really recently that we’ve been able to mention both of those words within the same sentence and be taken seriously. Ninety percent of what we know about Alzheimer’s disease alone has been discovered only in the past fifteen or so years. So, this is a rapidly evolving field of science, but we now know that there are steps that you can take in your day-to-day life that can optimize the way that your brain works and batten down the hatches so that you reduce your risk for these kinds of conditions decades down the line.
Everything I do, my why, is motivated by the sickness that I saw in my mom. For me, being honest, being transparent, and sharing the best available evidence with you guys has become my life’s purpose. Psyched to have you guys here.
With regard to dementia prevention, just to touch on this. I talk a lot about brain health. That’s my passion. But underneath the umbrella of brain health, you have many different domains that influence brain health. You have metabolic health, body composition plays a role, cardiovascular health, fitness—e verything ultimately influences the brain, every aspect of our physiology, of our biology. It really is an interesting vantage point to take and lens through which to look at all of the other different facets that comprise human health.
This is just to show you that this is not pseudoscience. This was actually published in The Lancet in 2020. The Lancet is one of the highest impact factor journals that we have in the field of medicine. The potential for prevention is high. We’ve identified, at this point, twelve modifiable risk factors, suggesting that at least 40% of dementia cases worldwide are preventable. I would say probably way higher than that, but this is where the consensus currently stands.
So, generally speaking, nutrition is the process of providing or obtaining the food necessary for health and growth. Fairly basic. I think everybody generally has a sense of what nutrition really means. Nutrition is really important, and it can be as simple or as complex as we want to make it.
We’re going to scale that hierarchy over the course of this seminar, of course. But yeah, it’s a super empowering science. I happen to love it. I think it’s a fun science to discuss because it’s relevant to all of us. There’s not one of us for whom nutrition is not relevant. It continues to be relevant across the age spectrum, and it changes also across the age spectrum. It changes depending on what gender you are to some degree. It changes depending on what your goals are.
As you might hear me repeat a few times, there’s no one-size-fits-all nutrition plan for everybody. Nutrition is not a hat. It’s something that, again, it’s not one-size-fits-all; it’s bespoke. We have to think of it that way.
I think a very common mistake that you see on social media, in diet books, is that people tend to present nutrition as if it is this one-size-fits-all science, and it’s not. It’s incredibly complicated. For that reason, many people actually consider nutrition to be a ‘soft science.’ It’s not something that we can measure in each person—the effects of—with pristine accuracy the way that we can the laws of physics, for example, or geology, or other such sciences.
It’s very difficult to study. It’s actually much harder to study than drug research, and it’s much less well-funded. In my view, there are many aspects of nutrition science that actually we have to think outside of the realm of science for answers. We have to use logic. We have to use common sense. We have to use reason. I think that’s a crucially important way to think about this.
Then, of course, there’s food—the purpose of food. The role that food plays in our lives is a lot different than the role that nutrition plays. Nutrition has a very simple definition. Nutrition is all about making us feel good, setting us up for the best possible health that we can have. But food plays many other roles.
Food is how we celebrate. It’s how we bond with one another. Cooking a meal for loved ones—it’s an incredible way to show love, to communicate that we love the person that we’re sitting across from. We experience joy with our food. We have rituals associated with food. When we are stressed out, we reach for our favorite foods. So, food, in a way, is like our friend when we’re stressed or going through uncomfortable life events.
So, food is something that we can’t necessarily break down to nutrition and distill to its component parts because it plays such an oftentimes ineffable role in our lives, a role that can’t properly be described with words. There’s a culture associated with food, personal preference, there are so many aspects of it that are, again, personalized, that are individual.
The problem is that the food—our food supply has become super industrialized. I think this is one of the major reasons. This is not just opinion, but our industrialized food supply is one of the major reasons, one of the foundational reasons, why so many of us are unwell today, struggling with our health. Our food supply has become overrun with what are referred to as ultra-processed foods.
Now, it’s really important to make the distinction between the different types of food processing. Most people, when they think about food, they think it’s either processed or unprocessed. But there’s actually a continuum of processing.
When you buy an apple in a supermarket, that’s an unprocessed food. The second you slice the apple with a knife, you are processing it to some degree. You take that apple slice, and you squeeze it, you create apple juice from it; you’re processing it even further. You use that apple slice, and you create apple sauce; you’re processing it even further. You take the apple, and you make apple-flavored gummy treats with it; you’re processing it even further. So, food processing is a continuum. At one end, we have ultra-processed foods, which is a term that I’m going to come back to again and again. And at the lower end of the spectrum, you have unprocessed foods. And then, just above that, you have minimally processed foods.
One of the primary issues today—and ultimately, one of the defining characteristics of the Standard American Diet, which is no longer just the Standard American Diet but is now, in many ways, the Westernized diet is how it’s often referred to because we’ve essentially exported it to other nations around the world—is that our food supply has become ultra-processed.
Typically, there are a few ways to recognize ultra-processed foods. We’ll get into that. But generally, where you find them in the supermarket is in the aisles. You walk down the aisles of most major supermarkets and the shelf-stable, packaged, processed foods with seemingly infinite shelf lives—those are the ultra-processed foods that I’m talking about. These are the foods that people are now over-consuming. Indeed, ultimately, basing their diets around to the tune of about 60% of your average adult’s calories today come from these kinds of foods: ultra-processed, shelf-stable foods. We’ll get into the consequences of that. For children, that proportion is even higher; it’s about 70%.
There was a great photo essay that was done. I don’t actually know the name of the photographer, but some photographer did a project where he went around the world and he looked at a week’s worth of groceries for your average family. This is a family in the UK, and they’re a week’s worth of groceries for them. You have to squint to see the unprocessed or minimally processed food. You can see some fruits over there, some whole fruit on the right side of the screen. But generally, the majority of items that you see in this photo are of the packaged sort. You see the Capri-Sun, you see the cereals, you see the bags of chips. This is a UK family.
In the US, it’s not much different. In fact, it’s probably a little bit worse. Barely any fresh food. You’ve got pizza, which is a hyper-palatable mixed dish loaded with probably innumerable industrial chemicals. You’ve got soft drinks and sodas. I do see some meat over there. But generally, this is how most Americans are eating. Just an overabundance of ultra-processed foods.
We’ll talk about some of the consequences, but just to give you guys a sense, we are now seeing the connection made between the consumption of these foods and chronic disease, which, is pretty obvious, but it’s always good to have data. This is a study that came out actually very recently, last year, middle of last year, linking directly ultra-processed food consumption with risk of dementia.
We see that for every 10% increase in ultra-processed food consumption, there’s about a 25% increased risk in the development of dementia. So, it’s no bueno from the standpoint of brain health, but there are other consequences as well.
When it comes to nutrition, there are a few major—I guess you could call them tent poles—that we want to think about, basically. The more essential tenets of nutrition come down to nutrients. As I mentioned, that was one of the defining aspects of nutrition. When it comes to nutrients, we can generally break them apart into a small number of distinct categories.
The first one that we’ll talk about are macronutrients. ‘Macro’ means big. So these are the big nutrients that we generally get from the foods that we eat. And generally speaking, the three macronutrients are carbohydrates, fat, and protein. Now, each of these can be broken down further.
So, carbohydrates aren’t carbohydrates necessarily. Fats aren’t fats. Protein isn’t protein. The fats that you eat don’t necessarily become the fat in your body, even though they have the same word. There are many different types of carbohydrates to consume, and protein quality differs. So, we’re going to break down these into the nuanced details, but just off the top, when people say macronutrients, generally, they’re referring to one of the three categories: carbohydrates, fats, and proteins.
Now, when it comes to essential nutrients—’essential’ basically means that we need them to survive. If we don’t get them, we’re going to develop a deficiency disease. There’s no such thing as an essential carbohydrate, which isn’t to say that carbohydrate inclusion in the diet isn’t optimal. C arbohydrates are great. We need carbohydrates to optimize many aspects of our biology, b ut you wouldn’t develop a deficiency disease by not consuming carbohydrates.
Fats, on the other hand, are essential. Certain fats are definitely essential. You might have heard of the essential fatty acids. That is actually a very, relatively speaking, there’s a very small amount of essential fats that we need on a daily basis. We need to ingest certain fats like omega-3 fatty acids you might have heard of, omega-6 fatty acids on a daily basis. Those are the only fats that we need to ingest, which isn’t to say that adding more fat to the diet isn’t essential either. We see that higher fat diets are associated with better hormonal profiles and the like. But again, we’re talking about the difference between essential versus non-essential.
And then, protein is absolutely essential. Protein provides amino acids, and your body is made of protein. So, when you ingest protein, your body disassembles those proteins into its constituent amino acids. There are dozens of amino acids to list, but of note, there are nine essential ones, and we’re going to talk about where to find those.
Essentially, protein is absolutely essential. Certain fats are essential, and there’s no such thing as an essential carbohydrate. But the proportion that you want to include each of these in your diet, again, varies from person to person, depends on goals. What is not necessarily essential isn’t necessarily suboptimal. We just want to be clear to make the distinction between the way that we talk about these different nutrients.
When it comes to carbohydrates, we have simple carbs, complex carbs, and then fiber. Fiber is a form of carbohydrates. We used to think that there was a big difference biologically between simple carbs and complex carbs. I think most people past a certain age are pretty familiar with the fact that simple carbs are often used to describe sugars, simple sugars. Added sugar, specifically, is certainly not healthy, but what we’re starting to see is that the difference biologically between consuming simple carbohydrates and complex carbohydrates isn’t always as black and white as one is bad, the other is good.
Complex carbs can often be easily broken down by our bodies almost as quickly as simple carbs are. So, the difference is moot, particularly in the context of a mixed meal. But just so you know, simple carbs, generally sugars, things like that, you can taste them on your tongue. They taste sweet. Complex carbs don’t immediately taste sweet until they start getting broken down on your tongue. They’re generally starches and things like that found in fruits and vegetables, primarily. Then fiber is technically a carbohydrate, but fiber we don’t break down.
Actually, something that should be said about both fats and carbohydrates is that they’re both energy. You can describe them both as providing energy to the body in different ways, but ultimately, they’re both energy. Protein isn’t generally used as energy in the body. Protein is a building block.
Carbohydrates and fat can both generally be pretty easily stored as fat. Fat is the most easily stored as fat. Then you get carbohydrates, and then protein is the most difficult for your body to store as fat because protein isn’t really an energy source, and your body wants to silo energy for later if you provide it with an excess of energy.
Fiber doesn’t really provide energy. Fiber is generally thought of as indigestible. Instead, it plays other roles. It fills us up; it makes us feel satiated. We know that it’s beneficial because of the role that it now plays in the health of our guts, gut health, and the gut microbiome biome, which we’re going to talk about.
Fiber is generally found primarily in whole plants: fruits, vegetables, things like that. We see that fiber consumption is generally associated with longevity and lower levels of inflammation and is generally thought of as being good for you. I just want to be clear that, again, there’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all diet. People generally have different fiber tolerances, but it is generally thought to be very beneficial from the standpoint of longevity. But we can talk about why fiber is thought to be beneficial.
Next up, we have fat. As I mentioned, there are certainly some essential fats. It’s unfortunate that fat, we refer to as fat, and we also refer to the fat on our bodies as fat because a lot of people are under the misconception that fat makes you fat. It doesn’t necessarily, although it can if we overconsume it.
But underneath the umbrella of fat, we have different types of fats. We have saturated fats. Even under saturated fats, there are many different types of saturated fats.
A saturated fat, we’ve been told for decades, are unequivocally bad for us—the evil saturated fats. But there are many different types of saturated fats, and not all saturated fats affect our biology the same way. For example, we have saturated fats in animal products like red meat, like the steak that I have this morning for breakfast; there are saturated fats in dairy; there are saturated fats found in plants—coconut fat is predominantly saturated fat—and they all impact our biology differently.
So, if you ever hear anybody say that saturated fats are bad, unequivocally bad, they probably don’t know what they’re talking about. For example, among saturated fats that are commonly found in animal products, there are three primary saturated fats that you’ll find: palmitic acid, myristic acid, and stearic acid.
Stearic acid is an example of a saturated fat that’s commonly found in animal products that has little to no impact on biomarkers associated with cardiovascular disease. And yet you’ll hear again and again that saturated fats are bad.
Also, dairy as a food category has the highest proportion of saturated fat of any other food category. Actually, this is pretty interesting. Wherever you find in nature saturated fat—wherever you find any natural food source of fat—is going to have some combination of all of the different types of fat. Some are going to have more saturated fat; some are going to have more unsaturated fats. But in general, they tend to arrive like an entourage, but in different proportions.
Dairy has the highest proportion of saturated fat. It’s much higher than beef, it’s much higher than pork, and yet we see consistently in the observational literature that people who consume full-fat dairy tend to have better cardiometabolic health, which is a paradox. I mean, if saturated fat is so bad for us, wouldn’t you see people that regularly consume full-fat dairy just dropping off of heart disease left and right? You don’t see that. In fact, you see that they have better cardiovascular health. That’s thought to be due to the way the fats in dairy are packaged as part of the food matrix, which is something that we’ll talk about.
The other thing about saturated fats is that they are the most chemically stable of any of the other fats, meaning they are the most resistant to a form of chemical degradation called oxidation. Due to their chemical nature, they’re able to stack together very tightly. This is the reason why saturated fats generally are solid at room temperature. It’s just the way the chemical chain is organized with saturated fats. It’s why they’re so chemically stable. The fatty acids are just packed together very tightly. It’s one of the reasons, and it’s why they’re solid at room temperature.
From a dietary standpoint, anytime you see something that is a fat that’s solid at room temperature, we call that a fat. We don’t call them oils. We call them like butter is referred to as a fat as opposed to an oil. Oils tend to be liquid at room temperature, and they are primarily comprised of unsaturated fats.
Unsaturated fats, generally speaking, are less chemically stable than saturated fats. What gives them that chemical stability are what are called double bonds. It just makes them more stable, less prone to this oxidative process. The number of double bonds that a fatty acid has basically indicates its degree of unsaturation or saturation.
A fat with no double bonds is going to be unsaturated, or I’m sorry, saturated, and a fat with a double bond or more is going to be unsaturated. Among the unsaturated fats, we have monounsaturated and polyunsaturated.
Now, ‘mono,’ as the name suggests, means one, singular. Monounsaturated fats have one double bond. Polyunsaturated fats have more than one double bond. Of the unsaturated fats, monounsaturated fats, because they are more saturated, meaning they have fewer double bonds, they only have one, they’re going to be more chemically stable than polyunsaturated fats. Again, saturated fats are the most chemically stable. Unsaturated fats are going to be less chemically stable than saturated fats. Among the unsaturated fats, monounsaturated is more chemically stable because it’s essentially more saturated. Then polyunsaturated is going to be the least chemically stable.
This is relevant to our biology. It’s relevant when it comes to food because, generally speaking, foods that are higher in polyunsaturated fats—or I should say food products that are higher in polyunsaturated fats—are going to be more prone to this form of chemical degradation, which can affect your biology in profound ways.
When it comes to whole foods, you don’t have to worry about this distinction; this is a distinction that only really becomes relevant when we’re talking about processed foods because wherever you find these fats in nature, nature has done the guesswork for us. Nature has packaged these fats with the appropriate amount of antioxidants to protect them. Again, in nature, wherever you find polyunsaturated fats, which, as I mentioned, are chemically unstable, monounsaturated fats, you always will find a requisite amount of antioxidants to protect those fats.
For example, in walnuts, walnuts are a very rich plant-based source of polyunsaturated fats, chemically very unstable, right? So, does that mean that walnuts are unhealthy? No, because walnuts are also a very rich source of vitamin E. Wherever you see polyunsaturated fats in nature, you also are going to see a requisite amount of—a requisite concentration of—vitamin E to protect those fats.
The problem arises in processed foods where you have polyunsaturated fats that have been extracted from the food matrix and don’t necessarily have that antioxidant protection. Then that’s where you run into problems that we’re going to talk about. But generally, those are the two primary sources of fats that you consume: saturated and unsaturated.
Then we have trans fats. Underneath the umbrella of trans fats, trans fats, we often hear, are really bad for us. And generally speaking, that is true. They are very bad for us. That’s because the primary occurrence in the diet where they would appear, historically, would be in the form of partially hydrogenated vegetable oils.
Does anybody remember those? Show of hands. They were actually very commonly used in processed foods up until, I believe, about 10 or 15 years ago when the FDA banned them. But they were in the food supply—the Western food supply—for decades because they were thought to be a healthier alternative to saturated fats. They behave similarly to saturated fats, but they’re artificially manipulated so as to behave like saturated fats. What manufacturers would typically do, they would take unsaturated fats, like polyunsaturated vegetable oils, and they would pump them full of hydrogen so that they would behave more like saturated fats.
For the past few decades, the tide is beginning to turn, but we were told again and again that saturated fats were not good for us. They were demonized to a large extent by our governing bodies. A food manufacturer could give processed foods the texture and the consistency of food that was otherwise rich in saturated fats but market it as being low in saturated fat. It was also—they were dirt cheap to produce, un like butter or tallow. Partially hydrogenated fats, where they cost nothing to produce, essentially. And so very appealing from a food processing standpoint.
We now know that those kinds of fats are poisonous to the cardiovascular system and to our brains. And so, those have been essentially outlawed, although they still exist in the food supply. And I’ll talk about that; I’ll talk about where we can still presently find them later on.
But an important distinction needs to be made: trans fats are also naturally occurring to some degree in other forms in animal products. Certain dairy products and the fat of ruminant meat also contain naturally produced trans fats, which are actually thought to be beneficial. The data is not super strong on this, but we see that they are different than the kinds of trans fats that were man-made, artificially created.
One example of a naturally occurring trans fat is referred to as CLA or conjugated linoleic acid. It’s thought to have some anti-cancer properties, some metabolism fortifying properties, it’s been associated with fat loss, although I think that the data on that is pretty weak, but CLA is an example of a naturally occurring trans fat. Again, it’s found primarily in the fat of ruminant animals and the dairy produced by those animals.
Then protein. Protein is one of my favorite topics. Protein is super, super important. As I mentioned, it’s essential. We’re going to talk about protein timing and protein dosing and all the cool, fun, relevant stuff with regard to protein.
But essentially, protein is what most people think of when they think of meat, eggs, dairy, things like that. We find protein in plants as well. It’s actually a misconception that plants don’t have all of the requisite amino acids, that plant proteins are essentially incomplete. Animal proteins do provide all of the essential amino acids in their appropriate amounts, in their plug and play amounts. Animal proteins are the highest quality proteins that we find in nature, primarily because we’re meat and we’re not rumined into animals, as I mentioned. When we ingest the meat of another animal, it helps to fortify the meat that we’re made of, which is a weird way to think about it, but it’s how it works.
Plant proteins—all plants have all of the amino acids, but they have them in varying quantities. Now, if you’re consuming enough protein on a plant-based diet, that becomes moot, so long as you’re consuming a diverse diet, a diverse array of plant proteins. But that’s not something that you need to be concerned with when you’re consuming animal protein because it provides the appropriate ratios of all the different amino acids to promote human health.
But again, plant proteins, you’ll find certain plant-based sources of protein that are low in certain essential amino acids, and then you have to combine them. People on plant-based diets will often combine grains with legumes and things like that. Plant-based protein powders—you’ll often see pea protein mixed with rice protein and things like that. You do have to cobble together different protein sources on a plant-based diet. But in the context of a diet that contains adequate protein, it’s generally not something that you need to worry about.
Also, plant protein in the context of an omnivorous diet—if you do eat animal protein and you’re consuming plant protein as well, that protein does count because, at the end of the day, all proteins are broken down into its constituent amino acids. You might be getting less of a certain amino acid when you consume a certain plant that you’re getting more of in another food. Ultimately, it all comes out in the wash. The more varied and diverse your diet is, particularly if it’s an omnivorous diet, you don’t have to necessarily worry about protein quality so much.
Where protein quality does become an issue is for people that are on restrictive diets. For vegans, protein quality definitely becomes an issue, and particularly for people on low-protein diets. The less protein you consume, the more you want to make sure that the protein quality that you’re consuming is sufficient. Animal protein, again, is always at the top of the list in terms of protein quality.
But this becomes really important for certain populations. For example, anybody who’s on a lower-protein diet, older populations, so older adults, like elder adults, tend to under-consume protein. So, protein quality, making sure that they’re consuming adequate protein, is a really important consideration.
This shouldn’t be construed as medical advice, but people who are on protein-restricted diets for medical purposes, you want to make sure that you’re getting high-quality protein. If you’re on a low-protein diet and you’re consuming plant protein and you’re not doing it thoughtfully, you could run into trouble.
The third type of protein of note would be collagen. Collagen is actually the most abundant protein in the body. We now see it on the market in terms of numerous supplements. Collagen is not thought of as an essential protein because we produce it. But that being said, there is mounting evidence to suggest that by eating more collagen, we see benefits to our joints and to various aspects of our physiology, like wound healing.
My dad actually recently had a total knee replacement surgery. My dad is very supplement averse, but one of the supplements that I got him to take was collagen because there’s evidence that collagen can support wound healing.
Collagen comprises the molecules that keep our arteries elastic. So, it’s a super important protein that’s not necessarily essential, but again, we see benefits when we consume more of it. Collagen is essentially a repeating loop of three amino acids, which you don’t really have to remember: glycine, prolene, and hydroxyprolene. It also contains a few of the essential amino acids with the exception of tryptophane. So, collagen is actually unlike plant protein; you actually are lacking in tryptophane with collagen. But again, in the context of a diet with enough protein and with food and protein diversity, you would count collagen as your protein, as part of your daily protein intake.
We actually see that glycine, which is one of the primary parts of collagen— one-third of collagen is glycine—actually plays a number of important roles in the body independent of the role that it plays in collagen synthesis. We see that glycine is important for metabolic health. It can actually be used to improve sleep. There have been a small number of studies that have shown that glycine before bed can actually boost sleep quality in certain measures of sleep quality.
So, collagen is pretty great. It’s found primarily in the ligaments and connective tissue of animal products, organ meats, and things like that, which we used to consume a lot more of. Today, we tend to consume more the skeletal muscle of animals. Some people believe that we’re actually missing out by not ingesting more collagen on a regular basis. It’s definitely, I think, a worthwhile form of protein to ingest. Yeah, I’m a fan.
Then, of course, we have supplements. Collagen is widely available now as a type of supplement. We see them on the market as collagen peptides, but there’s also other protein supplements that are more complete in their essential amino acid profile.
My favorite protein is whey protein. Whey protein supplements are great. You also have plant protein supplements on the market. In general, what I will say is that whey is the highest quality protein. It’s extremely high-quality protein. It is a processed food, but it’s made in the cheese-making process. So, I would consider it minimally processed, and I would consider it actually one of the few exceptions where ultra-processed or where processed foods actually are—you can actually get a really healthy product with food processing. So, not all food processing is bad. There are definitely examples of processed foods and even ultra-processed foods, where you actually yield a very healthy product, and whey protein supplements, I think, are an example of that.
Then, you also get plant protein supplements. Now, plant protein supplements are a lot more processed, and they tend to harbor heavy metals, which is a problem. The dose of heavy metals that you’re ingesting when you ingest plant protein supplements might not be all that concerning, especially if you are not ingesting it all the time, but people on vegan diets are consuming lots and lots of plant-based protein supplements. So, for that population, it could potentially be a concern. But in general, I’m a fan of protein supplements. You don’t need to be a bodybuilder to reap the benefit from protein supplements, I will add. In general, I’m not a huge supplement guy, but protein supplements are great.
With all of the variables that we talked about in this portion of the seminar, these are all variables that can be tweaked for better health: fat, carbohydrates—we’re going to get into all of it, but just wanted to lay the groundwork and establish some definitions before we dive in. But we are made of food. The foods we eat, you are what you eat, essentially.
Food is a form of information. It has epigenetic capacity, meaning that it actually can change the way your genes express themselves, which is super cool to think about.
We see now that many of the kinds of chronic diseases that people are suffering from around the world, cardiovascular disease, cancer, dementia, are responsive to food. Many people say that food is a form of medicine. I would agree with that. I think we just have to be mindful of what food can and can’t do. If you have a chronic disease, I think that the capacity of food is limited. But where its power really shines is with regard to prevention and management to some degree. So, I’m a huge believer in the power of nutrition, and we’re going to dive into all of this stuff.
We also know that food is super important from the standpoint of body composition. Body composition matters. The ratio of muscle to fat mass that you’re carrying with you, all super, super relevant when it comes to long-term health, how you feel, and food plays a major role in that. I hope to share with you guys ways of optimizing your body composition. There’s a ton to talk about there, which we’re going to cover.
And then, of course, the role that nutrition plays in exercise performance. Now, I come at this as somebody who’s not an athlete. I’m not a superstar athlete or anything like that. I think that knowing how to harness the power of nutrition to augment the effort that you’re putting in the gym is super important. So, we’re going to talk about all that stuff. But that’s it for this portion of, I guess, the introductory portion of my seminar.
陳旭@perth 