Heart Attacks & Stroke Are Metabolic Problems | Dr. Brian Mowll

[00:00:00] Brian Mowll: Here’s what I’ll say though. Most people in that situation like yourself need to see something to say, Ooh, that’s not good. So maybe it’s a blood sugar reading that’s higher than you expect. Maybe you’re like, oh, I think I’ll try a CGM, you know, a continuous glucose monitor ’cause that should be pretty interesting to watch my blood sugar.

[00:00:22] And then you put it on and you say, whoa, why is my blood sugar 110 or 105 in the morning? I thought it was supposed to be in the eighties. Or, wow, my blood sugar went up 70 points when I ate that apple. What is going on? Right. Where it really should just go up, you know, nominally after a meal or after something like that.

[00:00:46] So you start to say, that looks weird. I’ll tell you, for me, years ago it was my blood pressure. I was going through a really stressful period of time, probably this is gone now, back 10, 15 years ago. But, I had gained quite a bit of weight, And my blood sugar was a little higher than it had been, but, you know, in the nineties, let’s say, not nothing where alarm bells were going off.

[00:01:12] But, I started to sweat at night, which I thought was really odd. And I didn’t know if it was just from the stress that I was going through, but, like sweat a lot where my pillow would be soaking wet in the morning type of thing.

[00:01:24] Dr Z.: Mm-hmm.

[00:01:25] Brian Mowll: Yeah. And one night in the middle of one of these sweat episodes, I went downstairs in my home and checked my blood pressure and it was like sky high, I don’t know, 170 over 110 or something. I mean, really high. And that was an alarm for me. And that was my moment where I said, I need to change something right away. And, and So I did.

[00:01:52] Dr. Z new: Hey friends, this is Dr. Eric Zielinski. Most people just call me Dr. Z. Welcome to the Natural Living Family Podcast. 

[00:01:58] Together we’ll uncover biblical wisdom and practical tools to help you and your family escape the confusion of this toxic world and walk in the abundant life God has promised. This isn’t about chasing trends or doing it all. It’s about renewing your mind, rejecting broken systems, and embracing God’s design for healing and wholeness.

[00:02:19] The truth is God has a beautiful plan for your life, and yes, your health matters to Him. Are you ready to get started? Awesome. Let’s dive in. 

[00:02:28] Dr Z.: Alright, Dr. Brian, thank you again, my friend, for joining me today. It’s awesome. Thank you, really. 

[00:02:39] Brian Mowll: Always good to be with you. I’ve known you for a long time, Doc, and our conversations are always interesting and inspiring, so looking forward to it. 

[00:02:47] Dr Z.: Well, it’s a bit nostalgic for me, doc, because it was about nine years, eight and a half years ago when we first interviewed for one of my essential oil summits, and that was a pretty cool experience diving deep in the healing power of cinnamon and cinnamon bark essential oil and the balanced blood sugar and increased insulin sensitivity. And since then, I’ve just come to really, really appreciate and respect you and your work. And as a family man and a man of faith, there’s so much that we resonate with.

[00:03:16] And so when I was going through, you know, who would I wanna talk to about heart attack and stroke prevention and recovery? You are top of list immediately because of the topic that most people don’t think. I mean, we need to work on blood sugar dysregulation as a core fundamental aspect of heart health. So go.

[00:03:35] Just teach as long as you wanna teach. By the way, folks, I personally have tried to bring in some of the most polished experts out there, and I wanna say polished speakers. Brian, you could talk for half an hour and that’d be great. So I do not wanna ruin your flow. I have some several questions I’d like to ask you, but I just want you to have the freedom to share because your expertise in this world is beyond renowned.

[00:03:59] And so thank you again for joining and blow our minds with your knowledge. 

[00:04:04] Brian Mowll: Well, thanks for that. Thanks for that. And no, it’s a good point because you really can’t talk about heart disease or vascular disease without looking at the overarching idea of cardiometabolic health. And I think to try to separate heart disease from cardiometabolic health, which I’ll explain what that means in a second, is doing a disservice to the understanding of really what causes it and that’s what I’m all about.

[00:04:38] I know that’s what you’re all about, is really understanding these underlying root drivers, these causes so that we can prevent it or treat it better when you know it’s already started to develop.

[00:04:52] And just to start off with, I guess something inspirational, I believe most cardiometabolic disease can be reversed. And, even once someone’s had an event, a heart attack or a stroke, there’s still a ton that can be done to turn things around and prolong their life. You know, as long as obviously that’s not fatal, they can make changes today and moving forward, that can totally change the trajectory of their lifespan and health span.

[00:05:27] But it comes back to fixing, improving, optimizing cardiometabolic health. So to say, how are blood sugar and heart disease related is sort of looking at it the wrong way. I mean, they are integrally related because they’re both part of the same thing, which is this cardiometabolic health spectrum.

[00:05:56] And I’m sure you’ve had other guests talk about it, but there’s been some recent research over the past few years that’s looked at US adults, cardiometabolic Health and it’s something like only a little over six, I think it was 6.7% of US adults are considered to have optimal cardiometabolic health. And that’s looking at risk factors for, cardiometabolic disease: things like high blood pressure, high blood sugar, large waist circumference, lipoprotein imbalances, and so forth.

[00:06:33] So we have to realize that we’re in very bad shape here in the US and I would argue really around the world and, we need to make changes. But again, the good news is with change, we can totally change that. We can totally turn that in a different direction. And that’s really what reverse is all about.

[00:06:55] Reverse is about let’s stop the negative momentum towards disease, turn things around and start moving back towards health. And you and I, I know from our conversations both believed that we were created, by God with, a healing potential and a health potential that far exceeds what we’re currently seeing with humans.

[00:07:19] Dr Z.: Amen. Amen. And I’m hoping you can unpack this concept of cardiometabolic health. It’s a newer term to us, but it’s not a newer term in the medical and, research community. So if you can unpack that a little bit, ’cause I’m sure many people listening right now, they’re like, what?

[00:07:34] What did you just say? Cardiometabolic, who? 

[00:07:37] Brian Mowll: And so the root of that metabolism, has to do with energy. So the production of energy breaking down our food into basically usable energy that drives our cells. So if you think about fueling your car with gasoline or electric power, whatever kind of car you have, you’ve gotta be able to take, energy and turn it into something that is usable. And that’s what the body does and that’s what metabolism is.

[00:08:08] The things that the body uses to make energy essentially are, the foods that we eat, and particularly what we call macronutrients. So carbohydrates, fat and protein, or their basic elemental parts, which is, glucose, fatty acids and amino acids. So we take those and we turn them into cellular energy, and that’s the process of metabolism.

[00:08:39] Metabolism can go wrong, though. There can be problems with our metabolic health and. We use the term energy toxicity. There can be a buildup of excess energy in the system, stored energy in particular, and that’s both stored glucose and stored fat.

[00:09:02] We don’t really store excess protein, we just eliminate it. But, especially the excess fat that gets stored in places it’s not supposed to be. And we can again, unpack that a little bit more, leads to this energy toxicity, almost like you’re filling your car up with gas and it just starts pouring out because you forget to turn it off.

[00:09:28] And so you’ve got all this excess energy in the system, and that starts to mess things up. It starts messing with our hormones. It starts messing with our ability to, regulate that energy, to use that energy. And, that’s all mediated through something called insulin resistance. So I’m throwing out a lot of concepts right now.

[00:09:53] We can start to unpack each of these, but what I guess want to get across first is this idea of, metabolism being normal and healthy. But when it goes wrong, when we have excess energy in the system, which usually comes from overeating, or overeating certain foods like processed, refined foods, which can be very addictive, not burning enough energy through physical activity and movement.

[00:10:25] Then a hormone imbalance from things like poor sleep and stress and other factors. All of that can lead to this energy toxicity in the body, which starts to negatively impact our metabolism. And then there’s a lot of consequences from that.

[00:10:44] So all the things you think about when you think diabetes: vascular issues, which can lead to eye problems and blindness, kidney problems, and kidney dialysis, poor circulation and poor wound healing, which can lead to amputation of feet and toes, sexual dysfunction because you have poor blood flow, to the, sex organs, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease because of the effects on the brain and what we’re talking about here today, the heart and vascular system in and around the heart and in and around the brain, which can lead to heart attack and stroke.

[00:11:24] So those are all consequences of a poorly functioning metabolic health system. 

[00:11:31] Dr Z.: Folks, I wanna bring this back and 

[00:11:33] I’m gonna walk you through, but Brian, one thing I’ve been trying to do is bring people to just the realization that the playing field has been leveled off thanks to AI. Artificial intelligence has really put more knowledge, better knowledge at people’s fingertips than ever before.

[00:11:52] You and I, we’re old school. We have combed through physical journals. We have combed through digital journals. We’ve come up with summaries and clinical practice ideas and protocols based off of what the literature says, and it’s taken us hours. I mean, if you had to guess, I don’t even know how many hours I’ve spent, but I’m assuming you’ve spent hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of hours combing through research.

[00:12:14] I mean, am I wrong? 

[00:12:15] Brian Mowll: Oh yeah, no. 

[00:12:17] Dr Z.: So look what just happened. You’re talking about Cardiometabolic Health. I type that in Google. So just look at here, AI folks, I wanna encourage you with something. Because as you’re learning through these interviews, but also everywhere else that you’re out and about doing things, especially something that you’re not familiar with, go and do a little fact checking with AI.

[00:12:37] And I love what this is giving us here because I wanna teach you maybe a tool that you could use. That you could then not just increase your learning, but to really hone in on mastering your ability to be your own doctor.

[00:12:51] Because oftentimes your doctor will not know exactly what she or he or talking about in terms of natural solutions to these things. And then if you’re armed with research, you can have a good discussion. So this is an empowerment session.

[00:13:04] So these factors, like Dr. Brian was saying, contribute to cardiometabolic health; blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, triglycerides, weight, absence. This explains the definition like Dr. Brian so eloquently did, but here’s where I wanna take you. This is where it gets fun.

[00:13:18] These are the references. This is what took us hours to find before AI put it together in a half a nanosecond. So I looked at this, I’m like, oh, this is from Harvard, legitimate institution, i’m not going to mommy blogger or doctor z.com. I’m going to Harvard. Right? And go here.

[00:13:37] How good is your cardiometabolic health? And it explains a study that Dr. Brian was just talking about. It goes into depth about what Cardiometabolic Health is, and here’s the key that we need to think about. Body mass index, weight circumference, blood sugar. Dr. Brian’s gonna be covering this in depth.

[00:13:55] But this is really what’s telling, just 6.8% of the US population have optimal cardiometabolic health. That’s one out of every 14 people. And then Harvard tries to explain what to do and what we can’t do. I just find this really empowering, Brian, because it literally would befuddle me to find a good research study and good basis for data to understand something enough where then I can communicate it to the general audience and now bard or chat GPT can do that in seconds.

[00:14:32] And by the way, y’all, if you’re searching something, and if it seems a little beyond your current vocabulary, don’t worry. Our first quarter of school was medical terminology. Like they taught us basics.

[00:14:42] You could tell AI, write in an eighth grader language or write at an eighth grade level language. And it will communicate with you in the way that you understand, which, by the way, is the typical AFR reading level.

[00:14:54] So with that said, let’s dive deep into this more, and I appreciate all that you brought in. Let’s go into the role of sugar dysregulation and insulin resistance in heart disease specifically, we’re in the context of heart attack and stroke prevention and from there we’re gonna be talking about more stuff.

[00:15:11] Brian Mowll: Yeah, that’s great and such a great tool and I love that you pointed that out for people.

[00:15:16] So insulin resistance, I believe is the central pathology, if you will, the central problem driving most cardiometabolic disease.

[00:15:31] And I would throw even overweight and obesity in there, although there are a certain percentage of people, probably somewhere around 15% who are still considered metabolically healthy even though they’re obese, because their blood sugar is normal and their blood pressure is normal and so forth.

[00:15:53] So genetics play a role. There can be people who have a normal BMI, which is not the greatest way to evaluate health, but it is, something that’s fairly well known, so a BMI, let’s say of 23 or 24, which is considered normal weight and can still have quite a bit of insulin resistance and even developed diabetes. There are people who have lower BMI, like BMIs closer to what would almost be considered underweight, like let’s say a BMI of 19 who, in certain situations can also become insulin resistant.

[00:16:39] Dr Z.: Hmm.

[00:16:40] Brian Mowll: And there are people, who have high BMI again, like I mentioned a minute ago, who are overweight or even obese who do not have insulin resistance. But those are the fringes. Most people, like 75 to 80% of people, there’s gonna be an association between weight, especially central weight.

[00:17:02] What’s called central adiposity weight around the midsection and type two diabetes or insulin resistance, metabolic dysfunction. The connection is usually due to visceral fat and what we call ectopic fat. So when you gain weight around the midsection, especially.

[00:17:30] Again, that can be partially genetic. There are also hormonal considerations. For example, cortisol, which is stress hormone, tends to direct fat storage toward the midsection, toward the viscera. Estrogen, the main female hormone tends to direct fat storage in women, mostly to the hips, thighs, butts, breast tissue. So, it’s protective.

[00:18:01] As women go through menopause and their estrogen levels drop, oftentimes we’ll see they start to get that, central fat gain pattern where they start to gain fat around the midsection. So hormones play a role as well. And you know, there’s more to it than those two, but those are examples.

[00:18:24] As we gain weight around the midsection, we tend to lay down more visceral fat. Visceral fat is excess energy, fat, that’s stored in fat cells, what are called adipocytes. Fat cells, so bags of fat, but they’re stored not right under the skin, like the fat that you can grab and jiggle. But underneath the muscle, underneath the abdominal muscles around the organs.

[00:18:59] And what makes that fat particularly dangerous is that when the body releases that, it goes right to the liver first. And so it’s gotta get through the liver before it gets to the rest of the body.

[00:19:18] And as you get more and more of that fat going directly into the liver, especially in an environment, a poor food environment where we’re already overeating or not eating an optimal diet or not, moving enough, or we’re eating too often. And again, we can unpack all of these factors, the liver gets overwhelmed and that fat starts to build up in the liver.

[00:19:45] As that fat builds up in the liver, we see things like elevated levels of lipoproteins, LDL, particles and triglycerides in the blood. That’s why that’s one of the factors we see insulin resistance because that fat in the liver starts to sort of numb the insulin receptors. The signal doesn’t get through when those fats build up in those liver cells. And so we become insulin resistant, and then that leads to high blood sugar and other issues.

[00:20:21] So it’s that visceral fat that tends to drive a lot of this problem. Once we get this buildup of visceral fat and that fat starts going to the liver, and then building up there, we have what’s called ectopic fat. So ectopic fat is fat, again, that’s stored in the body, but this time it’s not in fat cells.

[00:20:47] It’s in other places where it’s not supposed to be stored. So inside liver cells, inside our organs, inside the pancreas, in and around the heart, inside of our muscles. If you’ve ever eaten like a Wagyu steak or a really fatty steak, all that fat that you see is in and around the muscle cells and those cows are, bred that way. By feeding them a certain way to become very fatty and to make their muscles very fatty.

[00:21:25] Well, those muscles are highly insulin resistant. They don’t respond to insulin very well, and insulin is the hormone that helps us utilize glucose. It brings our blood sugar down so when we’re not responding to insulin, blood sugar starts to rise and we end up with high blood sugar and then eventually type two diabetes.

[00:21:45] So. Having that extra weight around the midsection is really one of the cardinal features of insulin resistance. Again, the amount of fat you have can vary quite a bit.

[00:22:00] Hey, friend, real quick, if you’ve been listening and thinking, I wanna live this way, but I need help, well, that’s exactly why we created the Bible Health Academy. It’s our monthly mentorship and training hub packed with Bible health solutions, non-toxic living strategies, and the like-minded community you need to walk in the abundant life God designed for you.

[00:22:19] Dr. Z new: Whether you’re brand new to natural living or ready to go deeper, this is where transformation happens from the inside out. Visit biblehealthacademy.com to learn more. We hope you’ll join us.

[00:22:32] Brian Mowll: There are people who are, again, normal weight. And I think we’ve all probably seen people like this. They look sort of thin overall, but they’ve got a little bit of a belly, right?

[00:22:44] Dr Z.: Mm-hmm.

[00:22:45] Brian Mowll: Like the distended belly.

[00:22:47] Those people are what are referred to as TOFI. It’s thin on the outside, fat on the inside. TOFI.

[00:22:55] Dr Z.: Skinny fat. Yeah. 

[00:22:55] Skinny fat.

[00:22:55] Brian Mowll: Yeah. And that is just as dangerous as someone who looks or appears obese. Again, there are people who are obese who don’t have any visceral fat or have very little visceral fat. That’s largely determined by genetics where we store our fat, but some of it is determined by what we eat also, stress levels and things like that. but again, those are the extremes. Those are like the 20%, 15 to 20% on the edges. Most people we’re gonna see a pretty good correlation between that, belly starting to distend and getting a little bit larger. You don’t have to have a big beer belly, by the way. Sometimes it’s just, it feels a little bit harder than it used to. Not your ab muscles, but you know, the distension of the belly and your pant size is starting to grow a little bit. If you were always someone who had a 32 inch waist as a male and now you’ve got a 34 inch waist or a 35 or a 36 inch waist, you probably on your way to developing insulin resistance.

[00:23:58] And you could use that same, uh, example for women.

[00:24:02] Dr Z.: Brian, let’s you’re talking to me now, okay? I’m 44 years old. You call it my dad bod, my father figure, I have six kids. My wife’s pregnant with Baby Z, number seven. I have found my time of the day shrinking, shrinking. I wanna be present as a dad. We have a global Bible health ministry. We’re always here concerned about, and always trying to create and help people give solutions to their health problems. I work hard. I try to play hard. I try to be present with my family and wife. And then that one thing called exercise is the easiest thing.

[00:24:37] Just, it’s an hour, it’s a half an hour. It’s time. Time is money. Time is family, time is wife, time is life, right? And so I have, it’s was a couple years, that 32 inch waist when I married my wife turned to be 33, then 34. And I call ’em my fat pants and I’m like, I had to change.

[00:24:56] But it wasn’t until I got so uncomfortable that I started to look at my body, not realizing that I was on the road to insulin resistance.

[00:25:04] I’m curious with that in mind. Maybe I’m asking this in a way where I already know the answer, but you’ve worked with thousands of people. I mean, you’re the diabetes coach for crying out loud, right? You’ve coached thousand, thousands of people here. Yeah.

[00:25:18] Have you found it more difficult to convince someone like me who’s skinny fat versus. Or who was not anymore, thank God. ’cause I’m working on it too. Have you found it more difficult to convince that person of change versus someone who’s obviously obese because the obesity’s, like in their face more than, a little bit, an extra inch or two?

[00:25:41] Like, can you talk a little bit about that? Can you maybe help convict some people that hey, you gotta take those two inches seriously.

[00:25:47] Brian Mowll: So here’s what I’d say. The two inches may or may not be important. For some people they’re not. You know, some people can have a couple inches of extra fat. It’s subcutaneous fat. It’s like their, love handles grow a little bit, maybe they have a little bit of extra fat on the belly, but they’re fine, you know, metabolically, I’m talking about.

[00:26:07] Other people are not. So, it’s a great question. It’s hard for me to answer because I never try to convince people to change. And people come, I mean, you know how it works. You said you put yourself out there, you put information out there like this, and people who want to find you, find you. And, you know, that’s what we’re trying to do.

[00:26:30] Here’s what I’ll say though. Most people in that situation like yourself need to see something to say, Ooh, that’s not good. So maybe it’s a blood sugar reading that’s higher than you expect. Maybe you’re like, oh, I think I’ll try a CGM, you know, a continuous glucose monitor ’cause that should be pretty interesting to watch my blood sugar.

[00:26:52] And then you put it on and you say, whoa, why is my blood sugar 110 or 105 in the morning? I thought it was supposed to be in the eighties. Or, wow, my blood sugar went up 70 points when I ate that apple. What is going on? Right. Where it really should just go up, you know, nominally after a meal or after something like that.

[00:27:17] So you start to say, that looks weird. I’ll tell you, for me, years ago it was my blood pressure. I was going through a really stressful period of time, probably this is gone now, back 10, 15 years ago. But, I had gained quite a bit of weight, And my blood sugar was a little higher than it had been, but, you know, in the nineties, let’s say, not nothing where alarm bells were going off.

[00:27:42] But, I started to sweat at night, which I thought was really odd. And I didn’t know if it was just from the stress that I was going through, but, like sweat a lot where my pillow would be soaking wet in the morning type of thing.

[00:27:55] Dr Z.: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:55] Brian Mowll: Yeah. And one night in the middle of one of these sweat episodes, I went downstairs in my home and checked my blood pressure and it was like sky high, I don’t know, 170 over 110 or something. I mean, really high. And that was an alarm for me. And that was my moment where I said, I need to change something right away. So I did. I started fasting and started cleaning up my diet and stopped drinking for a long time and all that stuff. And lost a bunch of weight and worked through the stressful situation and got back to good metabolic health. Which again, inspiring that it can be done. And we’ve helped lots of people do that.

[00:28:37] You’ve gone through that yourself. But the point is, usually there’s something there that more than just, oh, I gained, five pounds or eight pounds and went up a pant size. There’s usually something there that’s going to be that aha moment; a lab result, a symptom, something that’s gonna grab your attention and say, this isn’t right.

[00:29:05] And for people who are generally healthy or have been healthy, it can be something sort of small, you know, like seeing a blood sugar of 110 instead of 85. I say that’s small, I mean I think it’s significant, but there’s tons of people running around with blood sugars in the low one hundreds who just don’t care. And many doctors who say, ah, we’ll keep an eye on it, it’s, not in the diabetes range yet, you’re fine. So for many people, that’s totally acceptable.

[00:29:33] But for somebody who has always been healthy values, their health wants to be as healthy as possible, that can be a major wake up call. And so that’s what I found is there’s something, when people contact me and say, you know, I think I wanna work with you. The people who are fairly close to an optimal body weight or whatever, it’s usually they saw something that grabbed their attention like that. 

[00:30:02] Dr Z.: And I hope. I hope we could be more proactive. And folks, this is where, yeah. Dr. Brian and I professionally differ in our approach because I approach this as health evangelism.

[00:30:14] Brian Mowll: Yeah.

[00:30:14] Dr Z.: And I’m trying to convert you. I am.

[00:30:16] Brian Mowll: I got you.

[00:30:16] Dr Z.: I’m trying to inspire you. And I love Dr. Brian’s approach. He’s just like, Hey, let the information convict you. I’m like. If there’s such a thing as hitting you over a health Bible, I’m trying to do it right now because you know what your first symptom of a heart attack is?

[00:30:29] A heart attack. 

[00:30:30] Brian Mowll: Mm-hmm. 

[00:30:31] Dr Z.: That’s a fact. And my pastor, and this breaks my heart, literally just happened a week ago. My previous pastor, you know, from Michigan, we moved down to Georgia, love him, still. Still visit the church when we go back home. He just had a massive heart attack.

[00:30:44] Brian Mowll: Mm-hmm.

[00:30:44] Dr Z.: Triple I think bypass surgery, like he’s still in ICU, it’s been a week.

[00:30:49] And he’s been carrying this tire around his waist for about, I don’t know, 20 years plus. And he knew he had to break. He knew he had to make change. He had this yo-yo diet thing going on, and him and his family have always struggled with health and then “boom”. It just, he was fine. He was fine. You know, some issues here and there.

[00:31:08] But the first symptom of a heart attack is a heart attack. And so in the context of stroke prevention and heart attack recovery and prevention, I wanna encourage y’all, take it seriously. And we’re gonna cover a little bit more into the fat.

[00:31:20] So Dr. Brian, I’m really hoping you kind of unpack this fat concept. ‘Cause  we have, and many experts differ on this concept of, okay, what causes fat? Is it a high fat diet? What is the key? Is there another mechanism? I know that you take a differing approach than other people, which is why I want you on. And that’s something I wanna encourage y’all with, is I don’t believe, other than my faith shares with me, the Bible is the only source of empirical truth.

[00:31:46] But the Bible doesn’t talk about this. So what do I do when on the concepts that the Bible doesn’t talk about?

[00:31:51] I go to my friends, I go to my colleagues, I go to research, and there’s always differences of opinion, and I embrace that. I don’t believe there’s one end all source of truth at all. And I feel what I wanna leave you with here is to listen very seriously.

[00:32:08] What Dr. Bryan has to say about fat specifically? And take that into context with what you might’ve heard other people say and be like, okay, what resonates with you? Talk to your healthcare provider about this. Find out what you think will best fit your lifestyle. Something that you can maintain for the rest of your life.

[00:32:24] Because if we tell you, you all have to be vegan raw for the rest of your life, 99.9% of you won’t do it, and it’s not a very compliant type of diet. Likewise, ketogenic diet carnivore isn’t very sustainable for most people forever. That’s a very extreme.

[00:32:39] So let’s remove the extremes for a minute, and can you help us find balance here?

[00:32:45] Brian Mowll: Yeah. No, I love that you positioned it that way. And I also wanna applaud you for your mission because we need that. You know, we do need sometimes to go out and spread the word. Spread the message to people who might not otherwise be thinking of it and hearing about it. So thank God for people like you who are doing that. I appreciate you And hopefully I’m doing that here with you today a little bit.

[00:33:09] Dr Z.: You are.

[00:33:10] Brian Mowll: But. So…

[00:33:13] I love that you framed it that way because I do think extreme diets can teach us things and may even be beneficial for short-term application, therapeutic application. But I don’t think it’s a good idea to live on them for the rest of our lives.

[00:33:33] I think that we do wanna find balance. We do wanna find something that I would consider more sustainable for most people. Are there people who can eat a strict vegan diet for their entire life? Yes, there are certainly, and there’s ways of doing that and staying very, very healthy.

[00:33:52] Are there people who can do the same thing with a carnivore diet? There are. You know, there are examples of people who do that. But the large majority of us aren’t gonna fall into either one of those camps.

[00:34:04] So we wanna find something that I think is a little bit more balanced, where we’re not cutting out major, food categories, right? Because, at least natural food categories because, yeah, we wanna have a variety in our diet. We want to be able to do this, and we want the majority of people listening to this to be able to do this.

[00:34:25] So, you asked me about the fat. I frame this as. Most insulin resistance is driven by an over accumulation of fat, first in the viscera around our organs, then in the liver and in the muscles, which drives insulin resistance. That insulin resistance leads to high blood sugar and eventually type two diabetes.

[00:34:48] So what causes us to accumulate fat in our midsection and in our liver and muscles?

[00:34:57] Let’s first talk about what it’s not doing it. What’s not doing it? It’s not vegetables. Because there’s lots of people who eat tons of vegetables, who are metabolically healthy and don’t get over fat.

[00:35:11] It’s not meat because there are tons of people who are eating a carnivore diet and eating all meat who are lean, fit, and metabolically healthy. And if it, if meat caused the over accumulation of fat and type two diabetes, carnivores would all be diabetic. So it’s not meat, it’s not vegetables. What is it?

[00:35:34] Well most science points to, it’s overeating. It’s the overeating of energy of any type of food, but there are specific foods that are much easier to overeat. Now, I don’t want this to sound like I’m making an argument for calories in calories out because I think there’s a lot of flaws in that.

[00:36:01] But, I am saying that if you consume too much energy for your body’s needs, you will become energy toxic. You will store that energy and eventually you will store too much energy. What I don’t like about calories in calories out is I think that trying to measure the exact amount of calories in our food and trying to measure exactly how much calories we’re burning is nearly impossible for most people.

[00:36:29] Dr Z.: Oh, for sure.

[00:36:30] Brian Mowll: So it is about energy balance, but not necessarily in a way that we can sit down with a calculator and some apps and figure out for ourselves easily. So which foods do we tend to overeat?

[00:36:46] These are foods that are processed, refined, energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods. Foods that are, think potato chips. Where you combine starchy vegetables, potatoes, with fat, fried oil, heated oil, fry the potatoes, put salt on them, which makes them highly palatable.

[00:37:14] Which is just a way of saying we want to eat a lot of them and basically shuts off our brain’s satiety signals. So we have hormones in the body that tell the brain to stop eating, to turn off the hunger reflex. And these foods basically hijack that. They, stop it from working properly.

[00:37:38] So, foods that are highly palatable, and by the way, foods are engineered by food engineers to be highly palatable and highly addictive. This is something that hopefully we’re gonna see change in the near future. But, the color, the packaging, the marketing, the mouth feel they call it, like how it feels in your mouth.

[00:38:04] The flavors and the flavor combinations.

[00:38:07] Dr Z.: Yep.

[00:38:08] Brian Mowll: These are all engineered by scientists who work for big food manufacturers to make you want to eat a lot of that food, and they make your kids want to eat a lot of that food and ask you to buy it for. So I don’t think they’re evil people, but I think that, they’re very good at their job and that’s what their job is.

[00:38:34] And I do think it unfortunately, is sabotaging our health in this country. Because, we are overeating these foods. And it’s candy, it’s snack foods, it’s processed and refined carbohydrate foods like, you know, breads, pizza. Pasta to a lesser extent, but, that can be part of it as well. It’s pancakes and waffles and all this stuff that, you know, french fries that we eat a lot of as Americans.

[00:39:07] Because it doesn’t shut off the satiety signals. So we just want to eat some and more and more and more and more. So I don’t believe that there’s anything magical about a low carb diet or a plant-based diet, or a keto diet, or a carnivore diet, or a vegan diet, or a Mediterranean diet.

[00:39:31] I think whatever magic is in those diets, it’s avoiding those highly processed, highly palatable, energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods, eating foods that are more satiating and filling, and fixing those signals coming from the brain to the body so that you eat when you’re hungry, you stop eating when you’re full and you don’t overeat anymore.

[00:40:01] Once you do that, you can start to burn the stored energy out of your system. And that might mean losing weight. But it means losing that fat around the midsection, around the organs, in the liver, in the muscles, becoming more insulin sensitive, and then regaining control of the blood sugar. 

[00:40:21] Dr Z.: I’m glad you said it that way.

[00:40:22] I’ll tell you folks, it brings things into context. When you look at the blue zones, those areas of the world, and I’ll mention this a lot by the way, but I think we need to study these people. I think we need to study those areas of the world where they have the highest concentration of centenarians, those who live upwards to a hundred and beyond and have the longest life expectancy.

[00:40:41] And you see consistencies. And one thing, it’s part of their culture is not to overeat. And that is one thing that we struggle with. And Brian, that was really my thing. I found myself very subconsciously, but also was consciously overeating. And we have a very, very clean diet. Like, I mean, but you could still overeat something good.

[00:41:02] You could have too much of a good thing. And it dawned on me like, I love nuts. I love nuts. And we are about, if I had to guess, I’m personally about 90, 95% plant-based. I just, that’s where I land. I’ll have meat or fish a couple times a week. I feel good about that and it fits my lifestyle and my research and who I am right now.

[00:41:21] I feel it’s a biblical kind of diet, which is always going back to that. And I lean on nuts a lot for the satiety aspect, the cravings, they’re great, they’re sweet, but they’re not loaded with sugar. They’re high in protein. Yummy, right? Yummy cashews, yummy pistachios, great heart health, great, wonderful health for all that.

[00:41:41] But you know what hit me? I was working all day in my office here and all day, like eight hours and I barely took a break. It was one of those marathon sessions I know many of you can relate and I was just hungry. So I go to my little closet here with my little snacks and I saw my organic, grain free, nut granola, and I ate the whole bag ’cause it was just a handful size. It’s like the super yummy stuff sweetened with maple syrup.

[00:42:08] And then a couple months later, I started doing more prayer and consideration like, what’s going on with my tummy? Like I started gaining my little tummy weight. I told you that. And then I felt God speak to me I really do. He said, you’re eating too many nuts. I’m like, what? No, that’s crazy. Like literally, I had a conversation with God about nuts.

[00:42:25] I go to my bag of favorite granola, which is the best thing. Healthiest granola you could get if you like that kind of thing. 1500 calories I ate in just one sitting. Now again, calorie in, calorie out. I didn’t burn that in exercise.

[00:42:42] And then I had a full dinner afterwards, and then I did everything else. I probably consumed 3,500 calories that day. And I was like, I’m not burning 3,500 calories. My BMI, my basal metabolic thing gets me to the point where I should probably have about 1800 to 2000 calories. And that hit me. It hit me. I was like, I’m overeating.

[00:43:01] Too much of a good thing. So I wanna encourage y’all, this is a huge takeaway because I’ve known many, many a vegan and vegetarian who are grossly overweight ’cause they’re just eating junk. Too much of it and vice versa. So that is a huge takeaway y’all.

[00:43:16] And I want to leave you with this mindset that you gotta give your body time to be full as you eat. So consider when you’re about 70, 75% full to do what the Japanese do and push yourself away from the plate and give your body a minute to respond to the leptin and ghrelin, the hormones Dr. Brian was talking about, to really help you realize.

[00:43:37] And also practice the discipline of realizing that you’re eating to live, you’re not living to eat, and everything will change. And just by that one takeaway, which is probably the most valuable thing you’re going to hear right now for you.

[00:43:49] Brian Mowll: Absolutely.

[00:43:50] Dr Z.: Then you could figure out what diet to get on. Right there, that’s number one. So Dr. Brian, this has been awesome. I have a couple things that I know people need to hear and I don’t know if there’s enough time to discuss one or more, two things, but, do you have a quick minute or do you have to go?

[00:44:06] Sure, yeah, absolutely.

[00:44:06] Okay. Anything else we need to do to button that up or you think

[00:44:09] Brian Mowll: I was just gonna say that, nuts and cheese are probably the two natural foods that seem to bypass the brain’s satiety mechanisms the most.

[00:44:22] Dr Z.: Mm-hmm.

[00:44:22] Brian Mowll: So be careful with nuts and cheese. Some would argue that cheese is not a natural food, but nuts and cheese, because they’re very energy dense, they’re high in fat, and they do tend to be sort of addictive, you know, for some people. And I’m like you, I love nuts. I could sit down and eat a giant bag of almonds in an hour and put away, at least a full day’s worth of calories. 

[00:44:44] Dr Z.: So really, and

[00:44:44] Brian Mowll: I get it.

[00:44:45] Dr Z.: Next thing you know, it’s in your granola, it’s in your smoothie, it’s in your nut milk. It’s in everything. Like if you live a natural lifestyle, nuts are in everything.

[00:44:53] And cashews, by the way is the key. If you’re a vegan, you’re overeating, possibly, cashews because it’s your cheese. It’s every aspect of what we do. So, whoa. That was huge.

[00:45:04] So, okay, let’s bring it back home. What’s the secret cause of hypertension?

[00:45:10] Brian Mowll: Insulin.

[00:45:11] So high insulin acts on the kidneys and, causes your kidneys to retain minerals, electrolytes, which will cause you to have more fluid in your vessels, it raises blood pressure. So, if you have high blood pressure, get your insulin tested.

[00:45:32] If your insulin is above five fasting, you need to get your insulin levels down by becoming more insulin sensitive.

[00:45:40] Dr Z.: Hmm. You mentioned this before, but anything you wanna mention or wrap up about, uh, CGMs and tech in metabolic health that people can actually take away and maybe possibly do at home or with their healthcare provider?

[00:45:52] Brian Mowll: Yeah, I mean, even if you don’t have diabetes, I would definitely get a blood sugar meter and check your blood sugar sometimes. You know, check it, first thing in the morning, check it after meals and make sure that it’s, within at least a pretty healthy range.

[00:46:07] So we use a range of, 76 to 92 milligrams per deciliter fasting. So basically in the eighties is considered a normal baseline blood sugar. So first morning fasting, or if you haven’t eaten for five or six hours, it should be in that 80 range.

[00:46:27] And after meals, we generally don’t wanna see it go up more than 30 milligrams per deciliter. If it does, it should come back down very quickly and it shouldn’t drop too low. So like, let’s say you have just a smorgasborg of fruit and your blood sugar goes up by 70 or 80 points.

[00:46:45] Dr Z.: Mm-hmm.

[00:46:45] Brian Mowll: If it comes back down in 30 minutes and it doesn’t bottom out, it comes back down to where it was before, let’s say in the eighties or low nineties, that’s fine. Really not that big of a deal.

[00:46:56] It’s that what we call area under the curve. How high does it go and how long does it stay high? That’s where it becomes more and more dangerous for your health. So, uh, those are great. If you can get a C-G-M, continuous glucose monitor, which are becoming more and more accessible, it’s a wonderful tool.

[00:47:16] I highly recommend that everybody wears one for at least a couple of weeks. The sensors usually last, two to four weeks, and you can learn a ton about not only your blood sugar, but your physiology and your response to exercise, sleep, stress, foods, by watching your blood sugar responses. 

[00:47:37] Dr Z.: That’s brilliant. Is there a way that people can get this over the counter on Amazon or something, or do you have to get this through?

[00:47:44] Brian Mowll: Yeah, so I think it’s on the road to becoming ungated.

[00:47:48] Dr Z.: Yeah,

[00:47:48] Brian Mowll: accessible without prescription. Right now in the US I believe you still need a prescription, but there’s lots of telemed companies out there that help people.

[00:47:57] Dr Z.: How about this stuff?

[00:47:58] Brian Mowll: Find that, 

[00:47:59] Dr Z.: How about this stuff here? Like, I mean, I’m on Amazon here. I mean, is this, 

[00:48:03] Brian Mowll: These are glucometers and, yeah, so these, and you can get these on Amazon, Amazon. 

[00:48:07] Dr Z.: Would these work possibly?

[00:48:08] Brian Mowll: Just a blood sugar meter.

[00:48:09] Okay. That’s it. 

[00:48:10] Dr Z.: So you can go on Amazon. Is there, I don’t wanna put you on the spot, or if you have a relationship with a company, is there one that you would recommend?

[00:48:17] ’cause this is like 20, 30 bucks. I mean, IMDK blood glucose monitor. At the end of the day, can someone just pick up anyone on Amazon that has decent ratings or would you recommend looking at something specifically?

[00:48:28] Brian Mowll: Yeah, yeah. The one that we recommend most is by Abbott, A-B-B-O-T-T.

[00:48:34] Dr Z.: ABBOTT. Okay.

[00:48:35] Brian Mowll: Yeah. They’re the ones who make the Libre CGM, but they also make blood sugar meters. There’s one called the Neo. 

[00:48:44] Dr Z.: Okay. 

[00:48:45] Brian Mowll: Um. 

[00:48:47] Dr Z.: The Neo. 

[00:48:48] Brian Mowll: Yeah. Okay. So you’ll see the Freestyle Libre two system there. Yep. Yeah, that’s their CGM system. Okay. And that’s what most Telemed companies use.

[00:48:57] Dr Z.: Okay.

[00:48:57] Brian Mowll: It’s a good one. It’s easy to use. Works well. And they also have blood sugar meters. They’re the ones that I found to be the most accurate.

[00:49:06] Dr Z.: Okay.

[00:49:07] Brian Mowll: But, most major companies, their blood sugar meters have to comply with accuracy standards and so forth. So most of ’em are pretty good.

[00:49:16] Dr Z.: Okay. Okay.

[00:49:17] Brian Mowll: So, I mean, I’ll just say I wouldn’t get one that, that connects directly to your phone. Like, in other words, there’s something that goes into your phone that directly measures the blood sugar. Those I found to not be very effective. but if it’s a meter, like the ones you were just showing

[00:49:38] Dr Z.: Yeah.

[00:49:38] Brian Mowll: …and it communicates to the phone through Bluetooth or whatever, that’s fine. Those, you know, those are the ones that work the best.

[00:49:43] Dr Z.: Okay. So this is a good place for people to start. ‘Cause I know what I would do. I would just go on Amazon and buy the $20 cheapy thing and just try there.

[00:49:51] Brian Mowll: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:49:51] Dr Z.: But at least you’re getting the ball rolling. Um, any other cool tech ideas or recommendations you can give to people? 

[00:49:59] Brian Mowll: Um, that’s probably the best.

[00:50:01] And, and you know, I think it’s a good idea to track your food for a little while. Like, you looked at that label and found out you’re eating a ton of calories in granola.

[00:50:11] Dr Z.: Mm-hmm.

[00:50:11] Brian Mowll: Sometimes we just don’t realize what we’re eating. Again, I went to cheese and nuts, but if you eat like, like I could easily eat half of a bar of cheddar cheese, as a snack.

[00:50:22] Dr Z.: Yep.

[00:50:22] Brian Mowll: And that’s a ton of energy. I mean, that’s a ton of calories. And if you don’t, if you’re not aware of what’s in your foods, you could easily be overeating energy, over consuming energy and just not realizing it. 

[00:50:36] Dr Z.: I recommend this y’all. My buddy is a, master personal trainer and he just won. 

[00:50:41] Brian Mowll: Yeah.

[00:50:41] Dr Z.: Some natural, like no one’s doing hormone testosterone, fun stuff. This, he just won a body lifting competition. Like he just, it’s unhealthy what he got down to like two and a half percent body fat. It was ridiculous.

[00:50:55] Brian Mowll: Wow.

[00:50:55] Dr Z.: But he’s just like jacked, right? So here he is winning these contests, but this is his marathon. This is his Mount Kilimanjaro. This is what he wants to do in this stage of life.

[00:51:03] But he turned me onto this, MyFitnessPal. This is so, and by the way, a lot of our natural foods are in here. So whether or not you’re doing whatever, paleo, keto, whatever, or vegan, a lot of your favorite foods that you might be buying or even at restaurants, you’d be surprised, but you would be shocked.

[00:51:21] I would encourage y’all, I would would encourage y’all to try this out. This is free, completely free. I’ve never upgraded to the paid version, so I don’t even know. I know you could do special things. But I did everything, and I tracked my food.

[00:51:33] I went through a six week challenge. I tracked my food and Jason, my buddy, walked us through this experience. Brian, I lost 10 pounds. I’ve kept it off. And so that was my issue.

[00:51:46] It was like, it was just basically all around my tummy, my couple extra inches. I’m back to my fighting weight and there’s some other areas I want do, ’cause I want to be my healthiest, strongest, but I realized that I was on a path to potential destruction.

[00:51:59] I didn’t want to. It was my wake up call when I couldn’t put my pants on right. And I was like, this isn’t good for me. I’m not doing. I’m not doing this, right? I’m not going back to the store to get another set of pants, like something’s gotta shift.

[00:52:11] And so it was literally just six weeks and it wasn’t extreme. I just realized, no joke, I was just eating too much. And I shifted a couple different kinds of foods. Not much. At least if you feel you’re eating a clean diet, great. But if you still have some fat issues or you think you’re, if you’ve tested, you have high blood glucose or you think you might be like me, skinny fat, then look at your calorie intake and see.

[00:52:39] I mean, you might be surprised. And that extra glass of wine or that extra handful of nuts, there’s 500 calories are right there. And that took five minutes to consume. And boy, you do that every day in a week. It’s a pound of fat, literally. Right? Right there.

[00:52:53] Brian Mowll: Right.

[00:52:53] Dr Z.: So this is my takeaway for you. I’m glad. I had no idea where you were gonna go with this discussion, so I’m really glad you did this and I’m learning y’all with you.

[00:53:02] Um, because I’m not the diabetes coach, right? I do what I do at Natural Living Family with my wife, helping people with DIY living, non-toxic living with essential oils. So thank you for taking me to school, my friend. Anything last minute?

[00:53:14] Brian Mowll: Thank you.

[00:53:14] Dr Z.: Any words of encouragement or love you wanna share with the audience before we go?

[00:53:17] Brian Mowll: I just want to appreciate you for sharing all this knowledge with people. Thank you, my friend. 

[00:53:22] Dr Z.: That’s awesome. Well, folks, as always, this is Dr. Eric Zielinski. My hope and prayer’s that you and your family truly experience the abundant life, and we’ll talk soon.

[00:53:29] God bless.

[00:53:31] Thanks for listening to the Natural Living Family Podcast. Hope today’s conversation encouraged and challenged you to live a healthier, more abundant life. Tune in next week for another life transforming discussion. 

[00:53:41] If today’s episode blessed you, please share it with a friend and leave a review. This helps more families discover the hope and healing found in God’s word. For show notes, transcripts and resources from today’s episode, visit natural living family podcast.com. And as always, this is Dr. Z. My hope and prayer is that you and your family truly experience the abundant life.

[00:54:02] God bless. Talk to you soon.