Will Increasing Protein for Bone Health Cause other Health Problems? The Untold Benefits of Meat

Welcome back to the Dr. Doug show your resource for bone health hormone optimization and health span So meat has been villainized for let's call it the last several decades There have been claims that meat consumption will increase your risk of cancer type 2 diabetes Heart disease strokes gi disorders kidney disease obesity high blood pressure and on and on and on You guys have probably heard me talk about meat and how I feel about it And it's fun to refute these claims And honestly, I love digging into the evidence that kind of goes back and forth, but we're not doing that today today I want to have a conversation around what isn't talked about enough because we get stuck in this back and forth of You know the agriculture and the environment, you know, does it cause cancer does it not diabetes or not? One of the things we don't talk about a lot is really why we should be eating meat in the first place What are the top nutrients that you find in meat? That you don't find in any significant amount anywhere else so I want to talk about the top 10 nutrients that fit into that category and Really pay attention to this if you're not consuming a lot of animal products Not because I want to change your mind but because I want you to understand the things that you're potentially not getting so that you can add them in your diet elsewhere because Let's face it. You can't eat a plant-based diet that is well formed But you have to be very very intentional about it So before I get into these top 10 things if you think that we're doing a great job with this content, please click that subscribe button if you're on youtube or leave us a review if you're listening to this on a podcast the more reviews and Subscribes we get the more the algorithms will put this content in front of other people they're looking for improvement in bone health and muscle mass and Hormone optimization and health span overall so help us help others By clicking that subscribe button or leaving us a review on a podcast channel. Thanks so much three two All right, so the number one nutrient that is commonly left out of a plant-based diet is b12 B12 is critical for brain function dna synthesis red blood cell formation. All of those things are critically important Deficiencies will leave you feeling tired And foggy if you develop anemia and you have neurological issues Those typically occur after about you know, three years ish of being b12 deficient in diet So it can take a lot of time. In fact, I commonly see people that aren't eating a well-rounded plant-based diet This is around that kind of three to five year time span that a lot of people will peter out Of eating a plant-based diet because they don't feel good. The anemia is Commonly mistreated and confused with iron deficiency. So this is a really really important thing Uh, a lot of doctors are not getting the appropriate labs serum b12 Mma or methyl malonic acid to look at actual functional b12 deficiency Your iron level is very well may look low because you're also not consuming iron from red meat if you're not eating b12 Sources like red meat, but it's generally not an iron deficiency. Although it could be but more commonly it's a b12 deficiency So if you're adding iron in this is an important point, too If you're adding iron in it can actually be adding oxidative stress. It can make you feel worse It can cause immune dysfunction so many different things. So Recognize that b12 is found exclusively in animal meat There is no way to get this through plant products only through supplementation If you're not eating red meat red meat is the best source of b12. One of the best reasons to eat red meat All right. So number two is iron specifically heme iron So iron as I just mentioned has the potential to do bad things But we do need to consume some and we need to consume some that comes in a digestible and usable form So heme iron is found in high concentrations, particularly in red meat, but also in poultry and fish Heme iron is better absorbed and utilized than non-heme iron particularly in the the reacted iron that is present in a lot of Foods where it's added as a as an additive Those are essentially iron filings literally like chunks of metal that are added into Things like cereal and grains and other things when it's fortified with iron, so we don't want to eat fortified iron We want to eat real iron real iron and the heme form comes from particularly red meat But some other meats too so this concept of iron deficiency versus overload like I mentioned before is really really Complex, but again the better forms of iron you consume like heme iron. It's going to be better utilized It's going to be better metabolized. It's also going to come with other things that you need to metabolize iron like vitamin a and copper again metal shavings and grains metal shavings and cereal not going to have the same impact and can have a really Inflammatory and negative effect on your body So better to get iron from animal sources than from foods that are fortified with iron or potentially even plant sources Which are non-heme forms of iron All right, number three omega threes. That wasn't coincidental. Sorry for the pun omega-3 fatty acids like dha and epa are polyunsaturated fats that come from Specifically animal products like fatty fish like salmon and mackerel and sardines They can be supplemented and even in people that eat animal products often have to be supplemented But always better to get them naturally if possible So consuming again fish like salmon mackerel sardines the smaller the fish the less likely to be contaminated But the benefits of epa and dha are significant. They have found to be very helpful in heart health inflammation reduction Neurosupport and cognitive function there is an omega-3 available in plants and this is an important point So I hear often that ala Is a substitute for dha and epa and i'm just going to use the acronyms because the full Word is really long but ala is an omega-3 that is available in plants But like all things that are available in plants that have to be converted into the active form or the animal form You have to convert ala into dha and epa for them to be utilized The absorption of ala the conversion of ala is quite variable across the population So it's really hard to say how much ala you would need to get adequate dha and epa So better to get it from food if possible, which again only comes from animals All right number four creatine So creatine is a powerhouse nutrient It is something that again is often supplemented because if we can really maximize creatine We can see tremendous benefit in energy production muscle strength hydration neuro function It is a really cool supplement and something i've been taking myself for years Again, always better to get through whole foods if possible. The only source of creatine comes from muscle meat. So creatine Present in muscle meat. You can get a lot of creatine if you're consuming animal products number five vitamin d Now most people are thinking that we need to take vitamin d in supplement form and sometimes that's true But there has been a push over the last several decades to really encourage people to consume a lot of what we call in supplementation form d3 It's not really d3 It is uh, one of many many forms of vitamin d that exist Uh, cholecalciferol is what we're supplementing widely across the board as vitamin d and it's not natural So we've been led to believe that this super physiologic dosing, you know, two thousand five thousand ten thousand I know people that are taking fifty thousand iu of cholecalciferol a day and I know doctors that recommend that much It'll drive your blood levels of 25 hydroxy d which is what most doctors measure 25 hydroxy d in blood Through the roof I used to do this, too But what we're finding in our practice is that when you get high levels of 25 hydroxy d which I would consider to be anything over 50 Potentially even anything over 30. You're going to start having a negative impact on some other things if you go back a couple decades Nobody cared if your vitamin d was anywhere near 30, you know 30 to 40 40 to 50 You weren't deficient until you were less than 30 In fact, you really weren't deficient until you were less than 20 We have over the past couple decades for reasons. I won't get into today That expectation has been pushed to be greater than 50. Now. It's greater than 80. I see people pushing for 80 to 100 The truth is that when you look at the literature supporting this concept that we need vitamin d supplementation and we need these super high Super physiologic doses the evidence isn't there Show me one study outside of osteoporosis One study that shows benefit clinically of vitamin d3 supplementation in the form of cholecalciferol for anything And you're going to struggle to find it. There is lots of conversation that it improves the immune system. It reduces cancer risk It has all these potential things but show me a study that proves it and proves that we need levels that high to do it So it's a really interesting space. So i'm not saying that we should encourage people to be vitamin d deficient We shouldn't but we should encourage people to get it naturally whenever possible because when you supplement with cholecalciferol You have a negative impact on vitamin a specifically retinol and we see this in labs now all the time It can have a negative impact on magnesium levels because we have to then Sulfate that cholecalciferol to convert it into the active form which your body doesn't have to do with natural vitamin d And you can also have a negative impact on iron metabolism and copper levels And so cholecalciferol supplementation is not without potential negatives We don't want people to be vitamin d deficient, especially people with osteoporosis But driving levels through the roof might have negative consequences that people aren't talking about So what do we do? We get it from natural sources if possible natural sources of vitamin d do exist They exist in animal products more specifically dairy and some other again fatty fish will have small amounts of vitamin d Mostly you're going to get it from the sun conversion of uvb from vitamin d precursors in the skin That get converted into vitamin d and then gets converted into the active form of vitamin d That natural process is much much better and it's not going to have negative impact on those other things that I just mentioned To be complete here. I also wanted to mention that in addition to fatty fish You can also get vitamin d from liver from egg yolks And again, I mentioned cheeses before particularly, you know, the more age the cheese the better We need vitamin d especially in the osteoporosis population to support calcium absorption, but it has to be done in context You also need other things like vitamin k which you can get from those same foods Vitamin d does have benefits So i'm starting to hear more and more people talking about this potential toxicity of cholecalciferol and I like that But I don't think we should throw the baby out with the bath water vitamin d deficiency is real And particularly for people that have osteoporosis. We do need vitamin d I just don't think we need really high levels of 25 hydroxy d because of the negative consequences of having A high precursor from an artificial form of that vitamin all right, so i'm going to stop here at number five and just mention that if you're struggling to put all this together because I get it. It is a lot of information If you're struggling to put this together, please consider joining our free master class Look for the link in the description on youtube If you're listening to this on a podcast, you can just go to the url. Dr Bonehealth.com And you can find a link to our master class, which is where we put together all this information We talk about things like supplements exercise hormones all of it We do it in about 60 minutes leaving about five to ten minutes for questions coming from Anybody that's watching the class so strongly encourage you to do that If you haven't done it, please do that now it helps you to just clarify all this stuff because I get it It's a ton of material All right. So number six Carnicine so carnicine is something that I actually used to give people in supplementation The literature behind using it as a supplement just isn't strong enough for me to continue to do that But I love the idea of it because carnicine is really a combination of two amino acids. It is alanine and histidine put together Carnicine is available in muscle meat as well like creatine and everything else i'm talking about for the most part But carnicine acts as an antioxidant it acts as a buffering agent And if you're not sure what a buffering agent is It is something that can have an impact on ph and you might be thinking but wait, I thought meat causes acidity No, it doesn't and this is another reason why carnicine acts to prevent glycation and you may have heard about people talking about ages or advanced glycation in products and how if you consume meat you're going to have all these ages and you're going to get diabetes and die early Nonsense, it's garbage. We've been consuming meat for thousands of years This is not you know new our body knows what to do with this and even The dipeptide carnicine is going to help prevent glycation. So meat knows what it's doing Your body knows what it's doing. It's been adapted to this for a long time ages are not new to us That's why we actually have the receptors for ages That's why we call them rages and people love that acronym, but don't listen to that. It's garbage Carnicine is also neuroprotective carnicine is anti-inflammatory. You might be thinking man. I thought the meat was inflammatory It's not it is anti-inflammatory carnicine also has anti-cancer properties, but wait, I thought meat causes cancer it doesn't please pay attention Carnicine in addition to all the other things can help to reduce inflammation reduce oxidative stress reduce ages All of those things and remember carnicine doesn't exist in plants All right. Let's talk about number seven Taurine so taurine is another awesome amino acid now. It is not considered essential That's why it's not in the eaa or bcaa list But it's often discussed because taurine has some really unique properties and there's some really great research behind taurine So taurine is a sulfur containing amino acid It's found naturally in the body and it's widely distributed in animal tissues And that's why we can get it when we eat meat. It's unique because it's not used to build proteins like other amino acids Instead it plays a lot of really interesting and critical roles in the body So let's just go through a couple of those So taurine helps to regulate the volume of cells by controlling the movement of water in and out you want to talk about hydration Taurine can help you to stay hydrated on a cellular level It's a key component of bile acids So if you're wondering what bile acids are they're what our body produces to help us to absorb and break apart fats Um, you need them for absorption of vitamins in the intestine and then it gets conjugated in the formation of bile salts Uh bile salts again are what we use to make To break down fats and to use fats that we consume through diet Taurine is also an antioxidant taurine has been shown to be cardio protective again, it is Remarkable all the things that you can put together from this one amino acid i'll continue on here So taurine can play a role in the development and function of the brain and the nervous system It's thought to have neuroprotective effects particularly With neuro injuries so people that have traumatic brain injury do well do they do better with taurine? Than without it's involved in the flow of calcium in and out of cells, which is not so much for osteoporosis But more for like muscle function enzyme activity neurotransmitter release neurotransmitter function It can have an impact on exercise performance by reducing fatigue increasing fat burning decreasing muscle damage It can potentially reduce homocysteine, which is a biomarker we use Again, the list just goes on and on and on So taurine is actually kind of become our replacement for carnosine because taurine has better research behind it And it can really do some amazing stuff All right. So let's talk about this next one. So conjugated linoleic acid cla Cla is another type of polyunsaturated fat. So it's a pufa It's an omega-6 and you might be thinking but wait, I thought omega-6s were bad and they can be they can be inflammatory but they just need to be balanced and we need to get them again from food rather than Big chunks of them in highly processed food and then they're going to be processed better Cla is found naturally again in meat In dairy particularly of ruminants like cows and goats and sheep the bacteria in their stomachs stomachs plural That aid in the digestion of grass also produce cla So studies show that cla can help reduce body fat by increasing the rate of fat oxidation and increasing energy expenditure Some evidence does suggest that cla can actually help increase muscle strength and lean body mass There's research that shows that cla might have a protective effect against certain types of cancer including breast prostate colorectal It does this by inhibiting cancer cell growth and inducing apoptosis That's cell death of cells that we don't want to live anymore Cla has also been studied for its potential to improve heart health by reducing risk factors for cardiovascular disease Like ldl cholesterol and triglycerides. That's a concept for another day Um, but we'll take it for what it is Um cla might also be anti-inflammatory and there's some animal studies showing that cla can actually enhance immune response so again, like All of these potential things and you can see how these things overlap and then adding them And if you were to try to add all these things through supplementation, you'd have like a massive stack But you get them through your food and you don't have to worry about that Number nine is retinol. I mentioned retinol before when we're talking about vitamin d Retinol is really important because retinol is responsible for actually the function of vitamin d It's responsible for the cellular action of vitamin d So vitamin d has to go in and actually go not only into the cell but into the nucleus and you have these nuclear receptors And you can't utilize vitamin d appropriately without vitamin a cholecalciferol blocks vitamin a so vitamin a is really important That's another reason why we shouldn't have too much vitamin d and we should do as much natural vitamin d production as possible Vitamin a is also responsible for optimal vision immune function skin health a lot of things that vitamin a does Important point about vitamin a you might be saying but wait, there's vitamin a beta carotene in plants true Beta carotene is a precursor of vitamin a it has to be absorbed and converted just like all plant things that can become animal things It has to be absorbed that's going to be variable based on genetics And then it has to be converted also variable based on genetics So the amount of beta carotene that you would need to get an optimal amount of vitamin a It might be not too much, but it might be Ridiculously high and you just don't know you can measure vitamin a in blood You can measure vitamin a in functional tests or you can just get vitamin a through meat and through liver And you can get it through natural forms like that. Cod liver oil is a great way to get it through supplementation as well And finally number 10 Zinc so a lot of talk about zinc over the last couple decades Especially since the pandemic zinc does have benefit for immune function copper metabolism wound healing and more Zinc comes from animals and plants, but it's more bioavailable when it comes from animals You can get a little bit from plants, but if you're gonna have a hard time absorbing it Um, and again, you'll see that consistently over and over and over. All right, so in conclusion Animal products get a bad rap and i'm the first to admit animal husbandry Agriculture needs a massive overhaul, but let's not throw the baby out with the bath water Animal based foods are what propelled our species to dominance. It's what put us at the top of the food chain They are what made us who we are. We need to understand that eating what we are designed to eat is not wrong We should encourage better practices like regenerative agriculture. We should Stand up for that. We should be vocal about that But in order to make change you have to be healthy yourself. You have to be energetic. You have to be powerful Let's stop looking at highly processed foods as a rational alternative to meat They're not they're a marketing strategy for food companies disguising garbage as health food Don't be fooled by these well-funded sickness provoking maleficent companies disguised as green industries and health food saviors There is no substitute for meat. Let's work together to create a better world around animals and around meat production All right, that's it. I'll step off my soapbox Thanks friends and remember that you are created for greatness. So seek optimal not average Don't be afraid to be extraordinary because you are and that's what it takes. 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