easy to follow zone diet

meredith:hello, everyone, and welcome to cellularhealing tv. i’m your host, meredith dykstra, and this is episode 122. we have dr. pompa,our resident cellular healing specialist on the line, of course, and today we’re welcominga very special guest, dr. barry sears. before we jump in with dr. barry, let me tellyou a little bit about him. dr. barry sears is a leading authority on the dietary controlof hormonal response. a former research scientist at the boston university school of medicineand the massachusetts institute of technology, dr. sears has dedicated his research effortsover the past 30 years to the study of lipids. he holds 13 us patents in areas of intravenousdrug delivery systems and hormonal regulation for the treatment of cardiovascular disease.wow. dr. sears, we’re so honored to have

you. you’ve done such prolific researchin this area. i know you and dr. pompa are in alignment with a lot of your work on fats.we are so excited to discuss good fats, bad fats, toxic fats, cellular inflammation, andwe’ve got a lot to talk about. welcome to the show, dr. sears.dr. sears:thank you very much. dr. pompa:dr. sears, i could refer to youas barry, and you can call me dan. what a pleasure! you’re an icon in this regard.i remember years ago reading some of your work when you were talking about fats, andi don’t want to date you here. i’ll tell you, you tool a lot of criticism in the beginning.now we hear a lot about what you and i talk about, but back then, you were a forerunner,i’m telling you.

when you were talking about high fat, andhow fat heals, and just a lot of your work, and low carbs, and high fats, like i said,you paved the way. i think you’ve authored, since the zone diet, 12 or 14 books. am iright on that? dr. sears:that’s correct, 14.dr. pompa:your background is biochemistry. how did you get into this? years ago, howdid you get into this? dr. sears:it actually began with the deathof my father. died of a heart attach at 53. that’s obviously a young age, but he wasalso a world-class athlete. also, we had family history of heart disease. all his brothershad died in their early fifties of heart disease, as did my grandfather. i knew many, many yearsago that genetically, i was predisposed to

an early death from heart disease. i eithercould accept that fate or somehow try to basically change that fate. thatâ led to a greater journeyof the role of, really, lipids and hormones in all chronic diseases.â the zone diet nearly40 years ago. dr. pompa:yeah. you know, it’s amazing.it takes us, all of us, a story to really bring us into something alternative or atleast contrary to what’s out there in modern medicine, if you will, to buck the systemlike you have early on. it was the same with me. it took my story for me to step outsidewhat normal healing would be. i guess i don’t even know how to put it.i tell you, one of the topics that i love and that you love is the topic of cellularinflammation and also epigenetics. you said

the gene word, right? you and i both believethat hey, we have susceptibilities genetically, but you and i both believe that hey, it doesn’tmean you have to end up with a heart attack. i don’t have to end up with diabetes. idon’t have to end up with high blood pressure, although when i was in ninth grade, i hadit because my gene was turned on. i’m 50, and i don’t have high blood pressure, soi’ve turned off a lot of the genes. one of the things in your new work that idon’t believe was in the zone diet, but you really talk about these three areas thatreally are needed to downregulate cellular inflammation. it’s three areas that i believestrongly in, as well. you also give some different tests and ratios that we can look at – ourviewers and our listeners can look at on a

blood test to really get an idea of how you’redoing. i agree with these markers, and i use these markers. i love what you say in thesethree areas. just to put them out there – and i want to break them down individually, thediets, and we can talk a little bit about that.then polyphenols and flavonoids, which i don’t recall being in some of your earlier work,and them omega-3s and other fats. really, i think we believe that it’s – even beyondomega-3s, but omega-3s is definitely needed today. those three things, you say, “hey,when we put these three things together, that’s” – as i like to say, “that’s where themagic happens.” that’s what really downregulates the inflammation, and better put from yourperspective, that’s how you hit the zone,

right? let’s start there. how did you comeup with that? we’ll start with diet, even. dr. sears:my previous background was not nutrition.i have really had no training whatsoever, but it was in the area of intravenous drugdelivery for cancer drugs. dr. pompa:oh, wow.dr. sears:when you deal with cancer drugs, if you give too little of the drug, the patientdies of cancer. you give them too much of the drug, the patient dies of the drug. youtry to keep that drug, as with all drugs, within the therapeutic zone, not too high,but not too low. when the 1982 nobel prize in medicine was awarded in 1982, i realizedthat you can now begin to use food primarily initially with the fatty acids to maintaina zone of inflammation. we think of inflammation

as something that’s dangerous and evil.in reality, it keeps us alive in a very hostile world.dr. pompa:absolutely. dr. sears:if our inflammatory response wastoo low, we’d be an easy target for microbes, our injuries would never heal. if our inflammatoryresponse is too strong or we did not turn it off sufficiently, the body begins to attackitself. when we talk about the zone, we’re really talking about a [therapy] not by usinga drug, but by treating food as if it were a drug by taking it at the right dosage atthe right time, and for how long? the rest of your life.that was really the generation of the zone concept. i found out with time that unlessone controlled certain aspects of the diet

that omega-3 fatty acids by themselves wouldnot be sufficient. you about polyphenols. when i first wrote my first book 20 yearsago, there was really no knowledge of polyphenols in the scientific literature. that’s whythe zone keeps expanding because as we get new information on how nutrients affect hormonaland gene expression, you begin to incorporate them into the overall super-structure. inmedicine, we often talk about evidence-based medicine. what does that mean? it says, “showme the data.” dr. pompa:that’s right.dr. sears:we can use the same principles to talk about evidence-based wellness. it’snot basically looking at treating disease; it’s looking to maintain wellness as longas possible. we have many clinical tests that

can tell you how sick you are. we have veryfew clinical tests that tell you how well you are.that’s why i chose to work with those three markers. they’re really markers of wellness.you can walk into harvard medical school, and they will agree with you. your goal, whateveryou dietary choice or lifestyle choice, is to basically maintain those markers withinthe appropriate ranges that allow you to control wellness on a lifetime basis.dr. pompa:we’ll get into those markers, but let’s talk about these three areas.then we’ll talk about these three markers or ratios that you and i both like. look,you and i both agree that the average american today is eating far too many carbohydrateseven in healthy diets. even studies that i

read, doc, that look at low carbohydrate diets,i look at the amount of carbohydrates, and i see 200 grams of carbohydrates a day. isay, “my gosh!” that, to me, is a high carbohydrate diet, and they’re calling itlow-carb. what is the right diet? what have you found with diets just as some generaloverview guidelines? dr. sears:i think that one thing that we haveto be cognizant of, that calories still count. there’s no question about that. what youhave to do is have the right balance of protein, carbohydrate, and fat to control the hormonalresponses, so two things happen. you can restrict calories without hunger and without fatigue.if you can do that, that’s the goal to a longer and better life.dr. pompa:that’s a hormone thing. the only

way you can do that is if your hormones areoptimal. dr. sears:exactly, and that’s why we haveto look at nutrients. we have a very, very complex interplay. another one has to go down.dr. pompa:that’s right. dr. sears:each of those nutrients, protein,carbohydrate, fat will affect different hormonal responses. in many ways, you have to basicallysay, “are we all genetically the same?” of course not, but the blood can tell us howwell we’re doing on the individual basis that keeps those three hormones, which arechanging through our diet, within that appropriate therapeutic zone. if you can do that, thenyou’re not hungry, and then you’re not tired.why do people stop diets? they’re usually

hungry and tired. i’ll say, “that’sthe gordian knot you have to cut.” hunger is an incredibly complex neurochemical phenomenonthat starts in the hypothalamus. really, we look at our obesity epidemic, much of it isdue to inflammation of the hypothalamus and what is causing this distortion of hormonalsignals, and as a consequence, we’re more hungry, we eat more calories, and surprise,we get fatter. again, we have to look at inflammation at, really, the molecular level to understandto a greater extent our obesity crisis, our diabetes crisis, and our corresponding crisisin virtually every chronic disease today. dr. pompa:you know, doc, i always way, “look,the reason why people can’t lose weight today – we’ll call it weight loss resistance,even people eating well and exercising well

– it’s a cellular issue.” it’s a cellularinflammation issue. you’re right. particularly, i focus on what’s happening in that centerbrain, the hypothalamus pituitary, which drives the adrenals, which drives the thyroid, whichdrives – which influences appetite, and when you’re hungry or not.we know that this is a key component of why people can’t lose weight. i could not agreemore. this is a hormonal issue, but more specifically, it’s a cellular issue, which is affectingthe hormones, which is also affecting why people can’t lose weight, or even controltheir appetite, or just even being a fat burner. we preach that –dr. sears:i agree 100%. dr. pompa:yeah. that’s great. the diet isgreat. i think when we go over these three

things that you look at, i think it’ll reallyhelp people understand. is the diet that you’re on a factor? we understand that even toxicitydrives some of these markers that you’re looking at and also drives inflammation ofthe hypothalamus pituitary. that can even be another factor.okay. let’s get into the topic of the polyphenols, the flavonoids. this is some new stuff thati know that you’ve really been excited about and researched. we have the diet, and thenwe have polyphenols. most americans are really lacking this. talk about that.dr. sears:polyphenols are those chemicals that give fruits and vegetables their color,and for millennia, that’s all we thought they did. it turns out that our knowledgeof what polyphenols actually did had to wait

for basically new breakthroughs in biotechnologyto understand their impact as gene activators. basically, the polyphenols become gene therapyin the kitchen, assuming you take a therapeutic dosage. like a drug, you take a placebo dosageof polyphenols, you will get placebo effects. if you take a therapeutic dosage of polyphenols,you get to have some very exciting therapeutic effects. this is what is a very exciting thingabout polyphenols, as we can now get concentrates of higher levels, we can begin to see differentgenes being turned on depending on the intake of the polyphenols.at the lowest levels, which is still far beyond what most american consume, they turn on anti-oxidativeenzyme genes. at still higher levels, they turn off inflammatory genes. at still higherlevels, they turn on anti-aging genes. we

hear a lot where new breakthroughs comingin from biotechnology to have gene therapy. we have gene therapy right now; we just haveto be able to use it. the key thing, you have to use a therapeutic dosage, and you haveto have, again, polyphenols that actually enter into the blood.most polyphenols do not. they’re very good for gut health, which is an incredibly importantaspect, too, but very few polyphenols actually enter into the blood to basically affect,now, the expression of our genes in our human cells.dr. pompa:i read that in your work, and i want to know how do we get those polyphenols?also, i think what i read – and you can tell me if i’m wrong – you need at leastone gram of those particular polyphenols a

day. is that correct?dr. sears:a minimum. that’s if you want to basically begin to turn on some of theanti-inflammatory genes. let me use some examples of what you might have to do to eat one gramof polyphenols per day. you could eat two pounds of vegetables. most americans willsay, “mission impossible.” i could basically drink 10 glasses of red wine every day. okay.meredith:some would like that. dr. pompa:that is not easier because i haveto deal with the alcohol part of that. dr. sears:that’s true. now, say, “i don’tlike red wine. it’s too bitter.” say, “okay. you only need 100 glasses of whitewine per day.” “i like olive oil” – a great source of polyphenols. plan to drinkabout three liters of olive oil per day. you

begin to see that trying to get polyphenolsfrom natural sources is a very difficult process, and that’s why these new breakthroughs inmaking polyphenols extracts, where you can concentrate the polyphenols up to very highconcentrations, allows you to do this. now, that doesn’t say, “i’ll never eatvegetables.” there’s a gazillion reasons to eat vegetables. it’s saying it’s theonly way to get the higher levels,â therapeutic levels. cocoa is an example. cocoa extractsbeen shown recently in nature and other journals that have very profound effects on cognitiveimprovement, but the effects are found in very high levels.we have to be thinking – using pharmaceutical thinking applied to food. we have to findthe therapeutic levels of the nutrients, which

are essential nutrients. there are essentialamino acids. we’d have to have an adequate level of protein in our diet to get them.there are essential fatty acids. we need to have adequate levels and the right balanceto maintain these eicosanoids, the hormones coming from these.likewise, i think within 10 or 15 years, we’ll come to understand that polyphenols are alsoessential nutrients. we have to have them in the diet, and we have to have them at adequatelevels, and enzyme reactions or hormonal formation, but gene activation. that’s a very excitingarea. dr. pompa:yeah.â most people watching aregoing, “i can’t do that. i can’t eat that many vegetables.” are there some specificsupplement choices that you recommend, or

are there some specific other things.dr. sears:you’ll see more of these extracts. surprisingly, in terms of cocoa polyphenols,one of the leaders in the field is mars candy bars. they’ve put many millions of dollarsinto clinical research to make polyphenol extracts and have published the data in termsof their ability to improve cognition. the data is growing out there.yes. mars wants you to eat more candy bars, but they’re also cognizant that within thecandy bars are very low levels of the polyphenols, which have allâ -inaudible-â health benefits.if you can concentrate them up, then you would have something that’s more powerful thanany drug because it can alter gene expression. that’s a very exciting aspect. they realizeit, and a lot of food companies are realizing

it. they have an opportunity to play withthe big boys. dr. pompa:a lot of people take these greenpoly drinks, and thenâ have very little affect on people’s health. of course, polyphenols;however, i don’t see the clinical support there. what’s your feeling on those things?dr. sears:you’re quite right. the number of clinical studies with polyphenols thatare meaningful, you can count on the fingers of one hand. i mentioned two already, withcocoa polyphenols. another one that basically has recently published in terms of reducingoxidative stress, taking people who are smokers. they create a lot of oxidative stress. bygiving a polyphenol extract from a certain berry, which is very water soluble, you couldsee within 30 days a significant reduction

in the levels of oxidative stress in the blood.when you stop taking the polyphenols, the levels of oxidative stress went back up again.the data’s there, and that’s data you can take to harvard medical school. you say,“here’s the data, but i have to have a therapeutic level of these polyphenols, andespecially those that can get into the blood.” just like a drug, if a drug is not water soluble,it will not enter the blood and have any therapeutic benefits. the same is true of basically nutrients.they have to somehow make the transitory aspect from our gut into our blood to have effects.polyphenols are, again, very tricky to work with because they have low bio-availabilityand a very, very short lifetime in the blood. if you can overcome both those aspects, younow have the ability to do very, very carefully

controlled clinical experiments that are basically– have significant clinical benefits that are not – say, “i hope you might get somebenefits.” you see it in a relatively short period of time. thirty days for a drug studyis a relatively short period of time. with polyphenols, basically if they get into theblood, you see significant effects, which are basically highly dose-dependent.dr. pompa:it still begs the question, “how do we do it?” how do we do it, which we– is there something we need to add? are there more foods that are highly, highly concentratedwe can eat? what is the goal here? how do we –dr. sears:i think the goal is going back to say, “what type of diet should we address?”your grandmother had a pretty good feeling.

who knew she was at the cutting edge of biotechnology?she told you four things. she said that, one, always eat your vegetables. she didn’t say,“eat your toast. you can’t leave the-” â the second thing, you have to have someprotein at every meal. how much? about the amount you can put on the palm of your hand.next thing she said, “you can’t leave the house until you take your tablespoon ofcod liver oil.” that’s the most disgusting food, still is, but every child in americantwo generations ago – now, probably three – had to have a tablespoon of cod liveroil. that tablespoon contained 2,500 milligrams of omega-3 fatty acids.the typical intake of omega-3 fatty acids today in america is 125 milligrams. that’sa 95% drop in one of the primary essential

nutrients of the body. we wonder why our healthcareis out of control. your grandmother had a very, very – a clear idea because she wasbasically the repository of millennia of observations of what works and what doesn’t work. now,we basically have some research to back it up, and say, “you know, grandma was right.”meredith:i love it. i just took my cod liver oil right before the show, so i’m feelingreally good about that. dr. sears:don’t feel too good because unfortunately,today, all fish are contaminated with things like pcbs.meredith:oh, man! dr. sears:the worst contaminated fish oilin the world is cod liver oil. meredith:what do we do?dr. sears:that’s why you have to now – sometimes

refined is better than natural in terms offish oils. there is no fish in the world today that is not contaminated and primarily pcbs,were banned worldwide in 2001, but are persistent. to get, basically, now the benefits of omega-3fatty acids without the toxic side effects of pcb is to concentrate and refine the fishoils. the thing about the polyphenols, yes, youwant to eat lots of vegetables primary for the fermentable fiber. if your gut microbesaren’t happy, you’re not going to be happy. dr. pompa:that’s correct.dr. sears:to get adequate levels, if you can’t eat the two pounds of vegetables per day – andit’s really not that hard. i try to do it every day, myself. if you think it’s toohard, then think about refined polyphenol

extracts. here’s another dirty secret: everybodyloves chocolate. i know no one who doesn’t love chocolate, but here’s a dirty secretof the cocoa industry. all chocolate is contaminated with cadmium.the only way you could basically get rid of the cadmium is to concentrate up the cocoapolyphenols. now you have cocoa polyphenols in high concentration, which are cadmium-free.who’s been the leader in that so far? mars candy bars. who knew? who knew that the evilones were actually trying to make the world healthier?dr. pompa:that’s a good idea. dr. sears:then we have to have the final analysisguidelines because everybody is genetically different. that’s why i go back to my threemarkers of wellness. this is not a multiple-choice

question. either you’re well, or you’renot well. you might not be sick enough to call – have chronic disease, but you’reno longer well. you look at these three markers, which lookat three different aspects of your diet that can be modulated until you’re in the appropriaterange for all three. only at that point are you considered well. by all the availablecriteria, probably less than 1% of americans are well. they’re running out of control.dr. pompa:yeah. let’s talk about the markers. we talked about the diet,â obviously the importanceof healthy fats, omega-3 because hey, we’re not getting a lot of these things. beforewe get to it, i have to ask this question: what about these people in – i visited atribe in africa. these people were in the

bush. i was the first american white guy theyever saw. they had no disease. it was a remarkable thing to see.they had just come down out of the mountains. the men went off hunting in the day. the womenwere gathering. they didn’t ever have a grain in their life. they didn’t grow. itwas really unique to see. it really took me back and even changed my paradigm about whatamerican’s do. these men would go off hunting. they didn’t eat breakfast. they would go,and they would run, and they would come out, and they would come back with the game, andthings later in the evening, and they ate a big meal.obviously, they were getting game that contained high levels of omega-3 in perfect ratios,right? they were eating some – they were

gathering some different things, so therewas their vegetable intake. do you believe they were hitting these marks, they were hittingthese polyphenol levels because of the wild animals easier than we are today with processedfood? dr. sears:no. actually, it was the women whowere doing the polyphenol gathering. by basically gathering plants, which are rich in polyphenols,they are basically supplying the polyphenols. animal contain, actually, very low levelsof polyphenols. dr. pompa:i’m kind of fill in the blank.here’s the diet, here’s the good fats in the perfect ratios, and then here’s thepolyphenols. dr. sears:we, again, eventually have to goback to science. actually, in 2010, there

was a very, very good article in the britishjournal of nutrition, where the top paleolithic researchers basically did their very in-depthanalysis to the best of their knowledge of what the paleolithic diet in east africa wouldhave been 15,000 years ago. they came up with a answer, about 40% carbohydrates, about 31%fat, and about 29% protein, but their estimate of the omega-3 intakes were between 6 and14 grams a day of omega-3 fatty acids. meredith:wow.dr. sears:massive levels, but those massive levels would basically help you modulate theinflammatory response. that’s why when you see the african indigenous people, they werenot chronically ill, but they did age. that’s why there’s a difference between aging – weall will age.

dr. pompa:sure.dr. sears:i’ve never gone to a parking lot and seen too many cars which are 25 yearsold in the parking lot. it doesn’t mean we have to develop chronic disease.dr. pompa:that’s right. dr. sears:chronic disease is a consequenceof unrelenting inflammation below the perception of pain.dr. pompa:no doubt. dr. sears:one way to address that is by havingadequate levels of omega-3 fatty acids to not only lower the inflammation, but to starta whole separate process we only know now, recently, called resolution. we think of inflammationlike a burning log that eventually dies out to embers. that’s not true.the inflammation will continue. the turning

off the inflammation is a completely differentresponse. it’s called the resolution response. we have the inflammatory response and theresolution response. the resolution response is 100% controlled by the levels of omega-3fatty acids in the blood. if we don’t have those levels, we cannot turn on that resolutionresponse mediated by hormones, very powerful hormones, that basically bring the levelsof inflammation back to equilibrium. dr. pompa:then let’s look at the eskimosof years ago. they weren’t getting many polyphenols, but however, their good fattyacid levels were very, very high. did it offset the need for more polyphenols because of theirincredible fatty acid ratio? dr. sears:the answer is probably yes. that’sone of the reasons why i became interested

in nutrition as an academic researcher becausei read the early epidemiological studies coming out of greenland, and saying, “somethingis odd here.” these people are eating lots of saturated fat, and they basically seemto have no heart disease, and no diabetes, no depression, no multiple sclerosis. okay,they’re bleeding to death a little faster, but they also seem to die of bacterial infectionat a higher rate. they’re getting a lot to basically stop diseases we associate withinflammation. this is, now, nearly 40 years ago, but perhapsthey were getting too much that they were now depressing the immune response so theycould not fight off microbial infection. to put all your eggs in one basket is a foolishstrategy. saying, “i’m going to put all

my eggs” – it’s all the fat. no. youhave to bring the polyphenols and the balance of hormones, so you have to take all of theseand begin to work them around. that’s why i have those three markers of wellness. itwas just basically in the fatty acids for your body, but you have to have all threesystems working in sync to have really optimal health.dr. pompa:yeah. i agree. i totally agree. let’s talk about it. let’s start withthe fat ratio, the arachidonic acid versus the epa ratio. i think you were – 1.5 to3 is the recommendation, somewhere around there. talk about that marker.dr. sears:that marker actually comes out of the looking at the world’s longest-livedindividuals who have legitimate birth records.

these are the japanese. within japan, there’sa subgroup, the okinawans, which have even the greatest longevity. that’s the ratioyou find in the general japanese population and even a lower ratio, close to the 1.5,down in the okinawans. interesting about the okinawans or japanesein general, their levels of bad cholesterol are identical to americans, yet their ratesof mortality from heart disease is seven times lower. their ratio of arachidonic acid/epamarker of inflammation is also seven times lower. again, -inaudible-â of the problemor disease. this is why i could explain why the japanese rates of heart disease is solow, and explain why the levels of heart disease were virtually nonexistent in the greenlandeskimos, and also in terms of basically the

african tribesmen because the levels of thewild game would be higher in omega-3 fatty acids and much, much lower in omega-6. theywere doing, by natural hunting techniques – of inflammation in the blood.dr. pompa:yeah. that’s a great indicator. then the next one, of course, the triglycerideradio. triglyceride, which is one that i love to look at just to look at, really,â and insulinresistance. that’s what i love about it. two simple numbers that are on those bloodtests and you can get an idea of your insulin resistant or your particles of cholesterol,which is a big deal. talk about that ratio. dr. sears:that’s another ratio, and that’sone that is another easy-to-extract one. again, as you said, as the ratio of the triglyceridesto hdl decreases, ideally under 1, which virtually

no american has, then you start to see yourldl particles become these big, fluffy beach balls, which will never hurt you. as the ratiobegins to increase, you now have the ldl particle become these small baseballs that can killyou. dr. pompa:that’s right.dr. sears:that’s one answer. from my standpoint, the best rationale for that marker, it givesyou an indication of insulin resistance in the liver. insulin resistance is somethingthat is really a poster boy for, really, hormone resistance in general. the hormones are interactingwith the receptors on the surface, but their signal is not getting through. when that happens,everything goes to hell in a hand basket. dr. pompa:absolutely.dr. sears:if you’d like to have your hormones

talking to all your hormones, then reducingthe ratio of triglycerides to hdl under 1 is your best marker. you’re doing a goodjob. dr. pompa:yeah. i love that ratio, myself.it gives us such a good indicator despite looking at total cholesterol, despite lookingat all these other parameters that most doctors are looking at. i agree with you. we haveinterviewed jeff golic on a past show, and he agrees with that marker, that ratio, aswell. this is also one of my favorite markers, thehgba1c, which doesn’t just look at glucose in the moment, but it looks at glucose overtime. i always say if you want to age faster at the cellular level than anybody, just keepelevating your glucose and insulin. hgba1c

absolutely is a player. you like people 5and under. hey, i even give people a little more latitude. i said, “at least, let’stry to get you below 5.4.” you like it even under 5. talk about that.dr. sears:you’re right that it’s a marker of glucose in the blood, but it’s reallya better marker of oxidative stress. we can measure oxidative stress by a number of ways,but they’re not easily done. the glycosylated haemoglobin is easily accessible and througha drop of blood. people hate to give a venous puncture. that’s why you have your annualphysical every five years, but a drop of blood, i can do that.that drop of blood will tell you, really, the great extent of basically oxidative stressin the blood because its oxidative stress

allows the linkage of the glucose and theamino acids, lysine primarily, and you have a long-lived aspect. if you look now at theoverall most important thing, lack of death. i like that. it’s a very easy endpoint.basically, you see longevity maximized at about 5.0. now, we use that marker for lookingat diabetes, but the data is quite clear. as you increase levels from 5.0 to 5.2, 5.5,5.8, your doctor’s saying, “you’re normal.” the blood’s saying, “nuh-uh.” basically,our mortality’s increasing. why? oxidative stress is increasing. basically now activatethe genes that now make the anti-oxidative enzymes. how to do that? i’ve got to consumea lot of polyphenols. dr. pompa:yeah. i love that. yeah, no doubt.i know that when we interviewed joe mercola,

he loves the marker looking at serum ferritinlevels as something that can really drive oxidative stress. what’s your feeling onthat, and what would be your number on a blood test looking at serum ferritin?dr. sears:i think serum ferritin can basically – obviously, it’s a mediator of oxidativestress, but rather than – there’s not too many ways you can lower it other thanbasically giving a lot of blood transfusions. dr. pompa:that’s my problem. yeah.dr. sears:most people say, “hey, if i don’t like taking the venous puncture every year,i’m not going to take a blood transfusion, either.” now, that being said, if you haverelatively high levels, that’s okay, i say, “if i will increase the intake of polyphenols.”even though the iron in the ferritin can act

as an oxidative mediator, you could basicallyrate that reaction not by antioxidants, but again, by the polyphenols activating the genenrf2 that makes more of the more powerful anti-oxidative enzymes.you say, “i can live with that. i know how to treat it through the diet. i just needto increase more polyphenols in my diet.” what does that mean? i eat more vegetablesjust like grandma told me. dr. pompa:that’s always my thing. there’snowhere in nature we should be losing blood. again, there has to be another answer thatwe look at in nature. some people genetically just obviously run higher levels, ferritin-wise,right? dr. sears:diet as a way of basically addressingand circumventing a genetic aspect. that’s

likeâ my head about 20 years ago, but i’mstill here because i have taken the opportunity to overcome by the diet, using the food asa drug, a genetic propensity for an early death from heart disease.dr. pompa:yeah. yep, absolutely. those three markers, i think they’re great. i couldn’tagree more. the last two, triglycerides and hdl, that’s in every blood test that mostpeople are running. dr. sears:totally free.dr. pompa:hgba1c, easy test, right? add that to any blood test. the arachidonic acid andthe epa ratio, a little bit different. can they add that? how easy is it to add that?my blood tests have it, but most don’t. dr. sears:most don’t, however, the firstuse of the ratio of arachidonic acid/epa as

a marker of inflammation was published in1989 in this very obscure journal called the new england journal of medicine by some ofthe top harvard medical researchers. it’s been around for, now, more than 25 years,and is routinely used in medical research. it just is not routinely used in diagnostictesting. there are a number of independent companies that can do that for you. if i tookonly one blood test in my entire life, that would be the blood test i’d want to take.dr. pompa:yeah. that’s great. that’s great information, great advice. again, i thinkit gives some people, our viewers, a goal, some goals to hit, and some markers to lookat just to gauge your health, not just to. meredith, i know you have questions, as well.meredith:i always have lots of questions.

since we’re on the topic of fats, i wantto go back to the omega-3 piece. what are your suggestions there for a proper amountof omega-3s to take to decrease inflammation? i know we don’t want to take too much, wheredr. pompa used to say we go into omega-3 dominance, but we don’t want to have too little, either.what are your thoughts there, dr. sears? dr. sears:you’re quite right. we’re talkingabout a zone. let’s start with basically a pretty good starting point. your great-grandmother,when she gave your grandparents a tablespoon of cod liver oil, that’s 2,500 milligrams,a good starting point. now, is it the ideal point? probably not.how do you know what’s the right amount? that ratio of arachidonic acid to epa willtell you. are you taking enough not only to

reduce the inflammation, but to activate resolution?can you possibly take too much? the answer is yes. again, that’s why it allows us,in this area where i call evidence-based wellness, to titrate the individual and to titrate themso they can be optimized for their genetics. now, some people can get in that appropriateratio with, maybe, probably three to four grams of omega-3 fatty acids. that’s whatthe japanese take routinely in their diet. others may need 10 grams of the omega-3 fattyacids. those are very large amounts, but they are also therapeutic amounts. that’s whywe have to begin looking at wellness and diet as using the same guidelines as we do withdrugs. we have to take a therapeutic amount, and we can use blood to tell us whether we’regetting close to that amount or not.

for the amount of omega-3 fatty acids, thatratio of arachidonic acid to epa is an excellent one. for the amount of polyphenols i shouldbe taking, the glycosylated haemoglobin is an excellent one. for the control of my dietto control insulin resistance, the ratio of triglycerides to hdl. each one is measuringdifferent things, and you’re trying to bring them into alignment like the planets. whenthey’re in alignment, now you’ve known you’ve done everything possible to maintainwellness for a lifetime. meredith:do you think that cod liver oil’sbetter than a high quality fish oil or a krill oil?dr. sears:cod liver oil, as i mentioned earlier, is probably the world’s most contaminatedfood with pcbs.

meredith:right.dr. sears:i would rank it pretty low on the list. krill oil is really not a fish oil.it’s really phospholipids, which means they can’t really be purified nor is it freeof pcbs. again, it does have pcbs, not as much as cod liver oil, but obviously less.the refined omega-3 fatty acids, you can get them in much higher concentrations, but mostimportantly, with the right conditions, you can remove the vast majority of the pcbs.i would rate them on that basis of saying we get increasing levels of pcbs as you takemore, but the blood will tell you, “are you taking enough of any one of those threewhether it be cod liver oil, krill, or refined omega-3 fatty acid concentrates?”meredith:you said you love olive oil as a

good fat. what about coconut oil and mct oil?what are your thoughts there? dr. sears:coconut oil is, again, a mct oil.that means medium-chain triglycerides. i give it a b minus the good points of coconut oil.one, it has virtually no omega-6 fatty acids. that’s great because that’s one of thedrivers of inflammation. two, it does contain saturated fatty acids like lauric acid, whichhas some anti-microbial benefits, so it’s good for the gut. okay, two good reasons whyi give it a b minus. now we have some negatives. as a medium-chaintriglyceride, it will go directly to the liver via the portal vein. it’ll be rapidly absorbedthrough a different pathway than long-chain fatty acids. in the portal vein, it’ll beburned quickly to carbon dioxide and water,

but in the process, you’re using up a lotof the glycogen in the liver, so you’re basically putting the body into a ketoticstate. you have no reserve. it’s your liver, the glycogen levels in the liver, that youreserve to stabilize blood sugar levels. you’ve taken kind of the reserve out, and in theprocess of basically having the medium-chain triglycerides. that’s why i give it kindof a b minus. i give vegetable oils like safflower oil,sunflower oil, i give them a d. compared to a d, a b minus is pretty good. in terms ofrefined fish oils, i’ll give them an a. it’s just not olive oil; it’s extra virginolive oil. it’s the extra virgin olive oil that has the polyphenols. i give that an aminus. again, you pick and choose your fats.

dr. pompa:typically, the olive oils that havethat very grassy aftertaste, those are your higher polyphenol oils, just so people know.meredith:they kind of burn in your throat. dr. sears:it’s the polyphenols that givethe olive oil all of its health benefits. it’s not the fatty acids; it’s the polyphenols.dr. pompa:yeah. meredith:i love a good olive oil that burnsthat back of my throat. it’s so good. dr. sears:it’s a very easy test. most goodolive oil never leaves italy. the stuff that gets over here is the worst of the worst.how can you tell it’s good olive oil? you put some olive oil on a spoon. you put iton the front of the tongue. it should taste like butter, and back of the throat, and withinseconds, you should start coughing. that’s

great olive oil because it’s rich in polyphenols.dr. pompa:that’s exactly right. dr. sears:that’s why you get the cough.it tastes like butter. it basically is low in free fatty acids.dr. pompa:great. meredith:what a good taste test, too, becauseso many of the olive oils on the market today are mixed with other toxic vegetable oils,correct? dr. sears:oh, yeah. it’s called adulteration.it’s been around since the roman times. the romans had the same problem. basically,olive oil has some great health benefits, but it’s easily adulterated.meredith:do you have a favorite brand? dr. sears:in america, a brand that basicallyis fairly accessible, it’s called – i

want to use the right pronunciation, lucini.you find it in whole foods. dr. pompa:i like that one.dr. sears:it’s a great olive oil. it’s readily available. it’s going to cost youabout $20 a bottle. dr. pompa:yep. yep.dr. sears:that’s a good rule of thumb. if it doesn’t cost $20 a bottle, you’re probablybeing ripped off. meredith:yep. you get what you pay for, right?dr. sears:it seems to always work out that way.meredith:yeah. to kind of bring it all together, too, i’m wondering if you could kind ofwalk us through a day on the ideal diet that you think – i know there’s customizationinvolved, of course, for each of us, as we’re

bio-individuals, but if you could kind ofwalk us through the meals through the day that you think would be really heart-healthy,beneficial from your research. could you just kind of let us know what you think there?dr. sears:okay. a typical day in the zone – because one thing we haven’t talkedabout in this interview is really the importance of fermentable fiber for the gut. we don’tbasically feed our microbes in the gut – we’ve got some real problems in terms of basicallya leaky gut, and that leads to metabolic endotoxemia. dr. pompa:yep.dr. sears:it says i have to have, now, adequate protein, adequate essential fatty acids inthe right balance, adequate polyphenols, and adequate fermentable fiber. how do i basicallytry to structuralize this to do this and get

the least number of calories so you’re neverhungry and never tired? the morning might be an eight egg white omelet.now, that’s about 30 grams of protein. i’m 6’5” so that’s – you need about 25to 30 grams of protein. that’s high quality protein. that’s all pure protein. second,it’s boring, so i add some guacamole to it. there’s some polyphenols. now, whatabout the fermentable fiber? i make a small dish, very small dish, of slow-cooked oatmeal just like grandma did. that’s a hormone winner. how do you know? watch the next fivehours; you’re not hungry. now, the time to eat is when you’re nothungry. now, five hours later, it’s noon. this is a good time for basically eating apiece of grilled chicken, a lot of vegetables,

and maybe a small piece of fruit for dessert.if you eat lunch at 12, you usually eat dinner about 7. that’s more than five hours, soat 5:00, have a little hormonal touch-up, maybe a small piece of fruit – i mean small– but i need a protein chaser, maybe a piece of cheese. at dinner, a piece of grilled fish,some more vegetables, a small piece of fruit for dessert.surprisingly, if you can maintain – you really need to maintain peak mental and physicalperformance. now, i’ve worked with many olympic athletes, won at this count, 25 goldmedals in the last five olympics. they’ll need a little more protein, not that muchmore. they’ll need more carbohydrates and more fat. the olympic athletes i have workedwith who have won those 25 gold medals never

have consumed anymore than 2,500 caloriesper day. the average male will need to consume aboutmaybe 1,500 calories. if you follow those dictates, it is hard to eat all the food.that’s why your grandmother said, “you can’t leave the table until you eat allyour vegetables.” for the average female, it’s about 1,200 calories per day.dr. pompa:when we look at all the studies about living longer, it is the ones who eatless, right? ultimately, caloric restriction, we always say, doesn’t work because youcan’t just force yourself to eat. when you’re hungry, all of a sudden, you break.dr. sears:all bets are off. dr. pompa:yeah. all bets are off. metabolismgets lower and lower. one thing that i love

to do is eat less often. i don’t eat breakfastin the morning. i intermittent fast. at the end of my day, i eat far less than the averageperson. i’m not hungry. my body burns its fat very efficiently. i could even exercisein that state. at the end of my day, again, all my numbers, really good. all the numbersthat you mentioned, very good. intermittent fasting does this hormonal shift where youraise up testosterone. your body becomes so much more efficient – glucose,hcb. we see all these things drop. i like to say try not to eat less because most peoplecan’t, but if you eat less often, your body adjusts into that. that’s another subjectfor another day. i tell you, i loved your information. i thought you give some greatadvice that i think everybody needs. one diet

is not for everybody. we know that.having some of these markers to look at for people, i think it’s great because it reallygives us a gauge of how we’re doing. i think it gives us a gauge of trying to increasethese polyphenols, which i’m a big believer in – all the healthy fats. you’re right.we need those saturated fats. we need this. you know, today, people are not getting cleansources of the omega-3. imagine people eating grain-fed meat day in, day out. it’s loadedwith the wrong fats, the high omega-6 fats. they’re not getting good quality fish, andthe fish they do eat is polluted. doc, this is what we’re dealing with.dr. sears:it’s the tale of our times, and that’s why the more knowledge your viewershave, the more they can make the right choices.

the future of medicine is not going for moredrugs; it’s going back to saying the ultimate drug, which the food we take – and reallybasically going back to the beginnings of modern medicine when hippocrates said, “letfood be your medicine; let medicine be your food.” his words are still as wise todayas they were 2,500 years ago. dr. pompa:yeah. absolutely. yeah, no doubtabout it. finding clean sources of these things are key. i always tell people, “look, ifyou just try to eat as much organic as you can – if you just try to eat grass-fed meats,your omega-3 ratios are going to be in the zone.” if we’re eating wild –dr. sears:there, but that’s why – going back to what you said, you said, “there’sno one diet for everyone,” but there are

one set of markers, i believe, of wellnessfor everyone. dr. pompa:i love that. i do. i love that becausei agree with all of those markers. they’re great. thank you so much. meredith, i’llturn it back to you. doc, you’re an icon. you’ve done so much for health. you reallyhave. your books, you were one of the first out there taking the hits. you made it easieron us, you know. come on. we love you, and we appreciate your information. thank you.thanks for being on this show. meredith – meredith:yeah. thanks, dr. pompa, and thankyou, dr. sears. this is such an informational show. i know our viewers are going to lovethis. i’m wondering if you have anything else you’d like to share, and if you cantell our viewers where they can find out more

about you, as well.dr. sears:yes. i want to thank you for the opportunity of being on your show. again,if they’d like to find out more about the concepts of, really, evidence-based wellness,i might recommend them going to one of my websites at zonediet.com.dr. pompa:perfect. meredith:awesome. thank you so much, dr. barry.it was a pleasure to meet you and for you just to share your wealth of information.thank you so much for joining cellular healing tv. thanks, everyone, for joining us today.we hope you learned a lot. i know i sure did. thanks, everyone, and we’ll see you guysnext week.

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