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Guest: Dr. John Lewis

Release Date: 10/16/2023

Welcome to Trulyfit the online fitness marketplace connecting pros and clients through unique fitness business software.

Steve Washuta : How can polysaccharides help brain health? What is immunomodulation? And why should you understand it is achieving long term health and wellness actually a very simple concept. We talked about all this and more in the upcoming podcast.

Steve Washuta : Welcome to the Trulyfit podcast where we interview experts in fitness and health to expand or wisdom and wealth. I’m your host, Steve Washuta, co founder of Trulyfit and author of Fitness Business 101. On today’s podcast, I speak with Dr. John Lewis, you can find everything about him and Dr. Dr. Lewis le WIS nutrition.com.

Steve Washuta : He is an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Miami School of Medicine. He is also the founder and president of Dr. Lewis nutrition. He has over 180 peer reviewed publications and leading scientific journals.

Steve Washuta : And today we’re gonna be talking a lot about a supplement, which is called Daily brain care, polysaccharides and the specific blend he has, and all the research he’s done behind this. But in addition to that, we talked about overall health and wellness. We talked about some misconceptions in the nutrition industry.

Steve Washuta : It was a well rounded conversation. I’m sure I will have Dr. John on again down the road to speak about something else. With no further ado, here’s Dr. John. John, thank you so much for joining the truly fit podcast. Why don’t you give my listeners and audience a little background as to who you are your credentials and what you do day to day in the health space.

Dr. John Lewis : Thank you, Steve. It’s my pleasure to be here I’ve been at what I would consider are on a journey of health and wellness. For most of my life. Most of my adult life. I’ve had some injuries, data in sports, exercise, training, nutrition, all the above.

Dr. John Lewis : But for the last while at least half of my life, I’ve been much more focused on the health side, I started out where I was in early my career interested in, as I mentioned, sports and exercise training, but I kind of shifted once I got into well, actually, I should say when I left the drug free, competitive bodybuilding world, I really shifted to more of a health focus. I still bodybuilder every day, I still live that type of way every day.

Dr. John Lewis : But I really, I decided pretty early on in my life that I couldn’t make a career or living in bodybuilding without doing drugs and, you know, going completely down that road. And I just chose not to do that. So I spent the greater part of the last 25 years of my life in academics.

Dr. John Lewis : Although I left academics full time, six years ago, I had made some discoveries in using polysaccharides certain key nutrients that hopefully we’ll talk about in a moment, that spurred me to, to end up leaving academics. But I did spend, as I said, about two decades there at the University of Miami at the medical school, I’m a physiologist by training.

Dr. John Lewis : And I made some very key discoveries I hope to share with you in a moment. And I decided after just so many years of trying to get funding from the government or different foundations or even individuals, I just couldn’t see myself doing that anymore. And I certainly couldn’t see myself doing that for the rest of my career or my life.

Dr. John Lewis : Even I have colleagues who end up staying there till they’re in their late 70s or even 80s. You can’t tear those guys away. But I chose not to do that I I decided I had I had learned enough and I had reached a peak. Not that I couldn’t have continued maybe peaking.

Dr. John Lewis : But I think I had reached a peak in my academic career in my research career where I felt like I had enough opportunity and enough information to spread a broader message to people in the world that I felt like if I stayed in academics, I probably would not necessarily be hindered by it just wouldn’t be my it wouldn’t be I wouldn’t be able to make that my priority.

Dr. John Lewis : And so in business, now selling dietary supplements based on that research, not all of it, but some of it the most important parts of it, I feel like I have the opportunity to meet with folks like yourself and, and to go around the world at conferences or even locally community events and just be able to share this message of what I’ve learned and and so that’s what I do every day, I’m somewhere involved between education and customer service.

Dr. John Lewis : Just about every day at this point, I still have a research angle, if you will I still publish a little bit. It’s academic publishing is not my first priority anymore, or one of even one of my first two or three priorities. But it’s certainly still important to me. So I still do some of that. But But yeah, I’m somewhere between education and customer service pretty much every day today, our content creation. I guess that’s the third one. Sure,

Steve Washuta : yeah, you have to wear a lot of hats as a as an entrepreneur who’s in the supplement space, including doing your research and, you know, proving the naysayers wrong because there’s always a lot of those in the industry. But before we go into the supplements, specifically, I really want to ask you, was there like an aha moment in your research?

Steve Washuta : Or was this like cumulative was over time you kept seeing the same thing repeated over and over, that led you to build the supplement and you can talk about also sort of like the what it helps to do as far as brain health is concerned?

Dr. John Lewis : That’s a great question, Steve. I think for me, it was kind of a combination of the two actually. So it was a long evolution and like, as I mentioned, going through stages in my career where I kept sort of building on things that I had learned. And so I just evolved out of a long, you know, again, a long, long interest of having health and wellness and then exercise and nutrition as part of that.

Dr. John Lewis : But the aha moment was when a couple of people about 20 years ago, came into my life two to two people, one here in South Florida, the other one in the Dallas area, didn’t know these people, you know, they didn’t know each other. But they came into my life. And they they educated me about what they were doing with their own experiences with polysaccharides.

Dr. John Lewis : And Steven just completely not only changed my career, it completely changed my life. And it took me down a road of studying these polysaccharides and making some key discoveries that really have propelled me to where I am today.

Dr. John Lewis : So that was my aha moment. And the Lady Barbara Kimberly, here in South Florida was a cancer patient at the University of Miami, she was taking this hydrolyzed rice brand that completely saved her life after being given a terminal prognosis from having metastatic thyroid disease.

Dr. John Lewis : Starting taking this product after doing radiation, chemo, several surgeries, was still given only a six month progress and ended up leaving about a nine month period after that, and unfortunately, did eventually succumb but just you know, total, I mean, talk about getting on a pulpit. This lady just loved to talk about rice bran.

Dr. John Lewis : And then the gentleman, Dr. Raj McDaniel, in the Dallas area, Dr. Rich had been doing all of this work and aloe at the time that I met him, and was sharing me sharing with me all his experiences about this amazing, amazing polysaccharide from the aloe vera plant. And again, it completely changed my perspective on what polysaccharides are and, and the benefits that they could provide to us. And, and so I’m very grateful and actually dedicated to those two people who completely changed my life.

Steve Washuta : You sort of redefine through your own terms. What you mean when you say polysaccharide? Because you know, the average person, let’s say personal trainer and nutritional specialist, just maybe even general population who knows about this stuff says, what is what is Dr. John talking about a starch like glycogen like? What does he mean? Like, well, why? Why are these things special? What’s novel about the polysaccharides? That you are referring to?

Dr. John Lewis : Absolutely. And that’s really one of the things that I love to do, Steve, not only just for the fact that these polysaccharides can help people, but anytime you mentioned the word polysaccharide for most people, I know you’re not one of those, and I’m not lumping you in that bucket, but a lot of people have no clue what a polysaccharide is.

Dr. John Lewis : So as we know, you know, through mass media over the last, what, 1020 30 maybe even years set, the sugar has been vilified, right? I mean, if you if you hear the word sugar, you immediately think that, but polysaccharides are sugars. And so I always tell people don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, just because you hear the word sugar.

Dr. John Lewis : That is not an indictment. In other words, if if a product has high fructose corn syrup in it, sure, I’m right there with you, I mean, avoid that stuff. Don’t eat it don’t don’t consume it whatsoever. But when you talk about these complex polysaccharides, from aloe vera and rice bran that me and my colleagues have studied, man, those are two completely different animals. And so sugars are a sugar is not a sugar.

Dr. John Lewis : And so a sugar depends on not only the source, where it comes from, but also its molecular structure, which is just as if not even more important. And so these polysaccharides, when you look at all the sugars that occur in nature, be it monosaccharides, disaccharide, or poly are all you know, saccharides, that last group, those more complex ones, man, they are loaded with so much information to guide and direct our genes to tell ourselves what to do.

Dr. John Lewis : When we introduce those into the diet, I mean, I don’t know anyone who eats aloe vera. But when you concentrate those polysaccharides down into a powder after you’ve taken out the water and some of the other stuff that the algorithm produces naturally, and you concentrate just those polysaccharides and then introduce those into the diet, man, you get some really amazing effects. And that’s what I’ve seen now for going on 20 years.

Dr. John Lewis : So it’s it really comes down to it’s what the psychologists refer to as a teachable moment when you can talk about polysaccharides and put them in their true context. And not just once again, throw them out with all other sugars and say, Oh, no, sugar is bad for you. So these polysaccharides are very, very, I would say one of the top if not the top, arguably the top tool that you can put in your toolbox to help you keep keep your health and maintain it over the rest of your life.

Steve Washuta : So is this specialized sort of reduced form of aloe vera coupled with the rice bran and you can describe if that rice bran would be different than than your standard rice bran? Do they have like a synergistic effect? Is that what you put them together?

Dr. John Lewis : Absolutely. That’s a great question as well. So when we were looking at designing, you know, some of our clinical trials at the University of Miami, we were trying to not go down that typical road of pharma right like we have this we have this research Design, gold standard, if you will. It’s called the randomized, double blind placebo controlled trial that works beautifully for pharmacology.

Dr. John Lewis : Any pharmacology study that looks at that design, and tests one molecule for one mechanism of action for one disease or symptom of a disease, that design works perfectly for nutritional science forget, it does not work. And I know that we continue, I say we, as a scientific community, we continue debating about what the standard should be for nutrition.

Dr. John Lewis : I would argue that it’s almost impossible to meet that criteria, or to meet that threshold of saying that, you know, this is the kind of research that nutrition should be conducting. So with all of that said, we were trying to design in the case of people with Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis, we were trying to design a formulation that would meet the goal of providing the cells the raw materials that they need to function properly.

Dr. John Lewis : Forget looking for magic bullets, forget looking for that, you know, everybody wants to reduce it down to that one key, we have this very reductionistic attitude in general. And we’re always looking for that, you know, that one thing was telling, you know, John, tell me that one thing that I could do, there’s no such thing, he had to do lots of things.

Dr. John Lewis : And so again, we we had this just great idea that I don’t hope I’m patting myself too much on the back. But we had this great idea to combine these polysaccharides put that formulation together. And we just ended up with really dynamic results. 

Steve Washuta : Now I know you say one of the benefits of your supplement is brain health. But I feel like that’s a very vague term. So what do you mean by brain health? Is this cognitive function? Does this mean I can answer sad questions faster? Like how do we really analyze brain health?

Dr. John Lewis : That’s a great question too. So my colleagues and I have been using the this sort of generic umbrella term brain health for a while now. Not that we did. I’m not taking credit and we created it. But to your point lumping brain health are lumping all the people that have a brain let’s call it a brain health concern today’s society.

Dr. John Lewis : So whether you’re talking about children with either autism or ADHD, or add, you know, something along those lines in early life, all the way to the end of life neurodegeneration and of course, has major significant effects on cognition. And then all of us in between, you may have a veteran or an athlete, somebody that’s had TBI or concussion syndrome.

Dr. John Lewis : And then of course, don’t forget mood disorder, we’ve got an epidemic of people with depression, anxiety, bipolar ism, all those things. So when you look at that entire spectrum of our society today, literally everyone has the potential to be affected by something within brain health. But very specific to your question, I’m glad you brought this up.

Dr. John Lewis : The way we defined brain health in our research was exactly to your point looking at cognitive function. And I know, a lot of times people will, will associate cognitive function just with memory. But it’s way more than that.

Dr. John Lewis : So you have things like executive function, recall, the your ability to process information, your ability to have spatial orientation, these are all the things that go into cognition, not just your short term memory, and not just your long term memory. So I want people to understand that cognition is much more than just Oh, I forgot so and so’s name, or, Oh, I forgot that appointment. It’s way more than memory.

Steve Washuta : is self reporting part of your studies? What do you think about that? How do you use that? And you can sort of just just describe it from a researcher standpoint, like how one sort of self describes benefits from supplements?

Dr. John Lewis : That’s a great question. So in the research, actually, when we do cognitive assessments, we actually have a neuro psychologist or a neuro social worker, neurologist or psychiatrist, they’re too expensive. I mean, you don’t waste, you know, that physicians time doing cognitive assessments, but, but we always have like an as objective as it can be, I mean, it’s still a human assessing another human.

Dr. John Lewis : So you know, there is clearly a bit of a subjective component to that. But nonetheless, what we’re talking about is having a professional who’s trained in the ability to assess competition to assess another person with some kind of a tool or an instrument.

Dr. John Lewis : Now, in terms of like, you know, on the commercial side, if you will, that’s obviously very subjective. I mean, I would love to be able to have in my company, a very objective way of assessing, you know, that type of of change or improvement in people’s functioning in terms of, you know, not just cognition, but really overall quality of life, including, say, for example, sleep. I mean, obviously, we know, sleep and insomnia. That’s a huge issue in America today.

Dr. John Lewis : And then of course, stress management, that’s another big one. Those are the kinds of things that I would love to have, you know, sort of as a way that we could work that into our to our ongoing customer contact. Unfortunately, we’re just not that sophisticated enough yet.

Dr. John Lewis : But in terms of going Unlike the subjective to the object of the truly objective measures, what we can do is look at things in the blood, the urine in the saliva, usually it’s it’s in the blood, where we look at different markers, whether it’s, you know, something in immune function, inflammation, oxidation stem cell production.

Dr. John Lewis :  These are things that we have, for many, many years for decades now looked at in our work in terms of showing how these polysaccharides are so a bit so beneficial, primarily related to immune function, and then of course, inflammation and oxidation. But all these different markers are obviously very objective. You can’t fake your blood, right? I mean, you say sample and and that’s it, unless you’re exchanging samples, which obviously would be illegal with not at least unethical. So. So yeah, there, there are different ways that we can assess changes in people’s functioning both subjectively and objectively.

Steve Washuta : Do you recommend that the general public, take some biomarkers prior to taking a supplement like yours, or just I guess in in general, I always recommend that you that right, you want to have a baseline, I want to know what my particular levels were in, like, from everything from a CBC to a hormone panel that’s 25. So that when I’m 35, and 45, I can see a change because they are unique to me, it’s not just about the number, right, so do you do you recommend that most people have these biomarkers? Yearly? Bi yearly?

Dr. John Lewis : That’s Steve, that’s a great question as well, I definitely do as much as I can, you know, sometimes I get people that come to me, and maybe they’re very strapped financially, they don’t really have the means to do that type of testing. And sometimes, you know, some of those panels, some of those immune function, inflammatory markers, like different cytokines and growth factors, those, I don’t know, I mean, I’m no exporting insurance, but those I don’t think have been classically covered by insurance premiums.

Dr. John Lewis : So you know, you have to work that balance, I mean, I get plenty of people that have more money than they know what to do with. So certainly for those people that they have no problem in doing that kind of objective assessment, but I totally agree with you, like, you know, data are data. And when you have data, and you can track those changes over time, that’s very powerful.

Dr. John Lewis : And I do try to do that as much as I can, with customers and clients, it’s just, you know, a lot of times people are not really willing to go to that level, they just, they want to feel better, right? I mean, they’re their goal is they’re either struggling with something themselves, or they have a spouse or a parent or a child or someone else in the family they’re dealing with and, you know, it’s just, it’s, it depends, every, and I try to work with every customer, I really do.

Dr. John Lewis : I mean, I’m one of the things I pride myself on is trying to have as much of a personal relationship with as many people who want to do that, as I can. I mean, obviously, my time is limited to but But I agree with you, I mean, data are everything. And as much as we can collect data and be able to evaluate changes that to me that that’s where the proof is right? The proof is truly in the data.

Steve Washuta : You know, the supplement world is a bit of the wild wild west. And it’s tough, because there’s so many great supplements out there. And there’s so many bad supplements out there things are just being peddled behind some LLC.

Steve Washuta : And they’re not they don’t have the proper ingredients, and they’re being made in China. And we don’t know really what’s in them. Right if you haven’t third party tested. So it’s sort of a tricky industry. How do you handle let’s say, someone wants to use your supplements, and, you know, they have some sort of room issue, the room for arthritis.

Washuta : The rheumatologist is sort of unsure about this. It seems like obviously, you know, the science, you know, the mechanistic data behind this that you can prove otherwise. But do you pass that information along to your client to pass that on to the rheumatologist? How does that work?

John Lewis : This is a great question as well, I totally agree with you. As the old saying goes, it only takes one bad apple to spoil the bunch. I remember my dad or my grandfather told me when I was a little kid that that saying I never forgot it.

Dr. John Lewis : So you’re so you’re so right, Steve, I mean, we have I hate to you know, I hate to label people. I mean, in my research career, I’ve worked with some really good companies, in my opinion, standard process, biotics, premier research labs, life extension, I mean, they’re their companies, in addition to now.

Dr. John Lewis : You know, me my company work, there are people there are those of us who are doing it the right way, people that are putting money behind their products, saying here, you know, take, you know, take our product, we want it to be independently evaluated by you. And, you know, and I’m saying now, I’m putting, you know, going back a few years when I was wearing my research hat, so those are the people who you know.

Dr. John Lewis : It’s like I tell anyone else I’m sorry about being alone, long winded answering this question, but I tell people a lot when they asked me, Well, how do I know what product I need to take or what nutrient I need to take? To me it’s like any other decision, you have to do your homework, right? You have to look at as much as you can to try to find the companies that are doing it the right way.

Dr. John Lewis : And I hope all of my customers and the people who know me will think that John You know, Dr. Lewis nutrition, and we’re doing it the right way as well. So that’s one point, you know, just doing your homework, making sure that you know who the company is that you’re buying from. But number two, I agree with you, it’s so important to have all the information available to people.

Dr. John Lewis : So all of the studies we’ve published, we just had a new article published are, well, it’s been accepted by the Journal of Alzheimer’s disease from our Alzheimer’s study, I just got accepted 10 days ago, so that’ll be published, hopefully, in the near future. But absolutely, I mean, anybody who wants to see our research, and they can go to PubMed, I mean, it’s, it doesn’t just necessarily have to come from me, but I am more than happy to share with the customer with his physician, you know.

Dr. John Lewis : Anybody who’s working in association with that person to say, wait a minute, I want to see the information here. What is it that you know, this person is, you know, my patient is coming to me with this product, and I want to know more information about it. So yes, I absolutely share all that information, I’m happy to share, you know, certificates of analysis. I mean, obviously, my, my formula is a proprietary blend, that’s my own intellectual property, I don’t go to that extreme.

Dr. John Lewis : But in terms of certificates of analysis, you know, showing suppliers, I mean, all that stuff, my manufacturing partner is in Dallas, he’s Shawn hack. I mean, he’s a wonderful person that I’ve worked with for many years now. I think, you know, all of those things to be as transparent as you possibly can to your to the audience to the greater world is very important. And I think anybody that tries to, you know, finagle that or cover it up, that’s probably the people or the companies that you want to avoid.

Dr. John Lewis : But I feel like, you know, for the most part, again, other than anything that I consider my IP, I’m an open book, I mean, again, you can go to PubMed, search my name, you can find all the articles that we’ve published that support what we’re doing today. And I don’t, I don’t want to be somebody that someone else points the finger and says, Oh, that guy’s you know, he’s trying to be he’s trying to sell snake oil, or he’s a bad person, you know, don’t buy his stuff. So

Steve Washuta : yeah, and I actually do think from a marketing standpoint, Dr. John, that it really helps that you kind of put your name and your face and your likeness, interconnected with this, not to say that there’s not some charlatans that also do that. But really, there’s no way to run from it.

Steve Washuta : Right? So let’s go ahead and say, This research was bad, or it was, you know, it was done improperly, right? You’re tied to that for the rest of eternity. So you have all the incentive to make sure that that you’re doing everything on the up and up and that this is actually works because your name and likeness is tied to it.

Dr. John Lewis : That’s right. Absolutely. I mean, again, it’s, you know, Dr. Lewis nutrition, as you said, I put my name on this. It’s not like, you know, I’m faking it. It’s not like I went to PubMed, and, you know, did some lit searches, and then said, oh, you know, this show does not show that let me throw this together and sell it.

. John Lewis : I think it’ll make me a million dollars or make me a millionaire, something. No, I mean, everything that we’ve done is published, it’s it’s freely available in terms of accessing it through the public through the domain of the National Library of Medicine.

Dr. John Lewis : And, and one other thing, I think, in fact, I just said this, I gave a little presentation at the Pembroke chamber, Pembroke Pines Chamber of Commerce meeting yesterday, I have been taking my own formulation for over 10 years, I’ve had my mother on it. As long as I actually a little bit longer than that, I’ve had my three and a half year old daughter on it, since she was six months old.

. John Lewis : My wife’s been taking it for the last couple of years. I mean, we all take this stuff, and I would be the biggest hypocrite in the world. If I was out here selling a product that I didn’t also take or that I didn’t believe in, I mean, what, what bigger hypocrisy would you be and, and the same is true for just overall my approach to health and wellness.

Dr. John Lewis : Anything that I lecture about, or any opportunity that I have to talk about, you know, my supplements, or the research or my, my philosophy and nutrition, or my philosophy and exercise training, I do all those things myself.

Dr. John Lewis : And if I look like if we were sitting here today, and I look like I weighed 400 pounds, and I was about to die of a stroke, you know, nobody would take me seriously, they think I was just a fraud or a hypocrite. And so I do, everything that I do, everything that I talked about publicly is exactly what I do in my own life every single day.

Steve Washuta : You talk a little bit about immunomodulation and how that pertains to polysaccharides and your supplement.

Dr. John Lewis : Absolutely immunomodulation. In fact, if I could do you know, we save we could do it over right. Like one of the things that I really became much more interested in is in life in my career was the immune system is just so fascinating to me how the immune system works and how it’s so much more than just our first line of defense against infection or invasion.

Dr. John Lewis : It’s actually if you use the analogy of the conductor with the orchestra, it’s actually the conductor. It’s it’s currently or I’m sorry, He’s constantly in contact with all the other major organ systems trying to keep everything else in balance.

Dr. John Lewis : And so immunomodulation it’s almost like, you know, constantly again, going back and forth, whether it’s with the central nervous system, the cardio respiratory system, the skeletal muscular system, the endocrine system is constantly going back and forth taking its cues, from what signals it’s getting mostly through our hormones, and through our peptides, and getting those signals and then saying, Okay, I need to either increase this factor or decrease that factor.

Dr. John Lewis : But immunomodulation is just simply its overall tanks. Your question is part of the concept of homeostasis, keeping us in balance, along with temperature, blood pH, acidity, alkalinity, all those other things, but keeping us regulated from the immune system perspective, so that it’s surveillance so that it’s ready to go.

Dr. John Lewis : So it’s ready to fight, again, in the case of infection, but much more so importantly than that is, as all of our cells go through this constant life and cell death process, we want our immune system to say that cell is dying, let’s, let’s eat it, let’s get rid of it, let’s knock it out, Let’s prevent it from turning into something carcinogenic or atherogenic, or something that will ultimately harm us.

Dr. John Lewis : And so immunomodulation just simply means keeping our immune system surveillance active and capable of defending us and keeping us healthy. And that’s really what immunomodulation is all about. And we’ve shown this time and time again, with our polysaccharides how effective they are for helping the immune system. achieve that.

Steve Washuta : You mentioned before, there’s not one quick fix, there’s not some special key that opens up all the doors here. I always say the phrase, I use the analogy, there’s not one right way to throw football, you can look at all these different quarterbacks that do it differently. But there are wrong ways.

Steve Washuta : They’re very bad ways to throw the football, right. So in your research over time, right, because you’re so interconnected. With looking at biomarkers, looking at overall health and wellness, looking at longevity? What diet Have you have you looked at?

Steve Washuta : Or what sort of diet plans that actually have major problems? Not we don’t need to say what what is the best way to go about things? But what are some of the worst ways to approach overall health and wellness from a diet perspective that you’ve seen that more out in the numbers?

Dr. John Lewis : Well, this will probably, you know, not maybe not make some of your listeners happy. But I would say that one of the biggest problems that I have is the overconsumption of red and processed meat. I know that, you know, the carnivore movement has really gotten popular in the last few years.

Dr. John Lewis : But man, I gotta tell you, I mean, those folks are ignoring a lot of inflammation around what happens when we consume red and processed meat. I mean, it was what 2015 When the who came out and said, right and process me, I think it’s red is a likely carcinogen and processed meat is is a carcinogen.

Dr. John Lewis : And they were particularly referring to GI or colorectal cancer. But when you look at all these different compounds that are created, they’re all doing bad things. Now, if you’re eating raw meat, I mean, maybe you’re avoiding some of that stuff, because you’re not cooking the meat and turning mostly the fatty acids that are being converted into these heterocyclic amines and poly cyclic, hetero amines, they’re just very, very carcinogenic.

Dr. John Lewis : In addition to that these things also end up creating gene ADOX, which are very, very bad for us. So basically, what they’re doing is they’re cutting into your DNA, and then they’re causing your genes to malfunction, and then ultimately, DNA malfunction, Gene malfunction. That’s one of the hallmarks of starting the process of cancer creation.

Dr. John Lewis : So that is pretty irrefutable. And I just, you know, I scratch my head a lot thinking, you know, I don’t care what you eat, I mean, you know, that’s up to each person and his or her right to choose what they want to eat, that’s fine. But to just foolishly ignore this branch of science to me just doesn’t make any sense.

Dr. John Lewis : I mean, I’m all about it when it comes to saying, Well, you know, a lot of people are maybe not eating enough protein because they’re eating way too many processed carbohydrates. Okay, that’s fine. That’s a fair argument. And you know, this whole thing about insulin resistance, and even Alzheimer’s now being called type three diabetes. I mean, there are lots of different things, you know, going down this this trail of glycaemia.

Dr. John Lewis : But I think there has to be a balance and I just think that, you know, the carnivore crowd, they’re taking it too far. I mean, and oh, by the way, in addition to not, you know, nodding or not recognizing all that branch of science, they also, they also seem to be saying that fiber is irrelevant. Well, again, that’s a that’s a very, to me a very weird argument.

Dr. John Lewis : I mean, we need non digestible fiber to help pull out all the stuff that our body is processing as it is It metabolizes the foods that we that indigestible fiber helps to pull all that out and help us to helps us to poop better. And I mean, again, that’s a pretty well established branch of science that shows that fiber is necessary for us to help prevent colon cancer.

Dr. John Lewis : So I mean, those are two things to me, in this new craze of carnivore that just don’t, they I’m sorry, they just don’t they don’t resonate with a long branch of science that’s, that’s been shown and repeatedly shown and continues to be shown. So those would, those would be two areas where I would caution people.

Dr. John Lewis : And then a third one, not necessarily as much diet related, but some combination of behavior. And supplement related is related to to vitamin D, we have about 70% of Americans who are either insufficient or deficient in their vitamin D level. Well, Vitamin D is so important, it’s not really even a vitamin, it’s actually a pro hormone.

Dr. John Lewis : But it has been shown to interact with over 3000 genes at this point out of our roughly 40,000 genes that we have, and I’m sure as science continues, as people continue looking at vitamin D, that number will only grow, go up and increase.

Dr. John Lewis : And so you know, not getting out in the sun. I mean, trying to for those of us in South Florida, we have no excuse. Of course, if you live in the northern latitudes, you obviously have less sun exposure. But even if you can’t get out in the sun much, I mean, my goodness, take a vitamin D supplement, it’s cheap. It’s one of the cheapest products on the market.

Dr. John Lewis : And man, it will make a huge difference in your life, not just for your bone health, but literally for everything, whether it’s your brain, your heart, your liver, your skin, your kidneys, your lungs, I mean, everything is affected by your vitamin D status. So that’d be a third area that I would that I would throw in there that people are just tragically missing out on.

Steve Washuta : Yeah, just to go back to your point on the carnivore diet, the tribalism seems to be at an all time high in the nutrition world, right. And I think part of it is that people are all pushing against each other. And it’s not even about the science. It’s about my group, right? I’m, I’m only vegan, I only eat meat, I only you know, this, never have dairy never have this never have that. I don’t know how much of it’s actually science based.

Steve Washuta : But what I will say what I also see, which is a problem and you can you could comment on this is that you can feel a particular way if you’re if you’re just trying to be introspective about your body by eating something in the moment. But that doesn’t necessarily represent what that’s doing for your body long term. So you’ll see people like oh, hey, I had some flax oil, and I put my brains out.

Steve Washuta : So I’m never gonna have flax oil. Again, it’s like well give your body wasn’t, maybe your body wasn’t ready for that amount of flax oil, maybe you’ve never put in, like put a an oil like that into your system, you haven’t been eating that, that sort of food. And I think that also goes with the carnivore movement.

Steve Washuta : You’ll hear some of these people say, you know, every time I eat like salads and vegetables, I feel full, I just don’t feel right. I’m gonna eat meat, I feel good. It’s like, okay, well, these short term effects and fields doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s better for your body in the long term, we also have to look at biomarkers.

Dr. John Lewis : That’s right. Well, and to your point, I think, I haven’t seen any studies yet on clinic or clinical trials on, you know, outcomes related to just going purely carnivore, I think, but within the the Keto movement, you mentioned, keto, I think, obviously, I mean, that helps people lose weight in the short term, and it does some good things for glycemia.

Dr. John Lewis : But what we don’t know is, what is the effect of eating a very high fat diet like that over, you know, years or decades? I mean, that’s a very unanswerable question at this point. And so again, I don’t, I mean, to me, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense to be, to your point, like this tribalism that we have today in nutrition.

Dr. John Lewis : It doesn’t make a lot of sense to be pushing so many so called definitive answers, when really the, the answers are not even known from a long term perspective. I mean, if you need to go into ketosis to kickstart a weight loss program, hey, do it. But how many people are going to actually sustain eating 60 or 70% of their diet in fat? I mean, I know I couldn’t do that. That’s just way, way too much fat for me. I I don’t know how many people can do that.

Steve Washuta : Yeah. And it’s not in a vacuum too. So you know, adherence to a diet is why it works. But you’re supposed to stick to something and a lot of different diets work. If you stick to the plan, at least short term just for weight loss. Let’s talk about forget about health, let’s just say weight loss.

Steve Washuta : You can you can figure out different diets that work. But the problem is you have to look at your life and your day to day to like if you have a family if you have kids, so I cook for my family. Is my three year old going to eat the same thing that I’m going to eat? I don’t know, likely not half of the time, she’s gonna throw it across the room.

Steve Washuta : So what exactly am I eating? What does my family eating? And can you adhere to this particular diet? And I think people are short sighted in that right? They try to work for a little bit. Okay, can you do this for the rest of your life? You’re gonna say no pizza ever again. I think that’s going to be fairly difficult to do.

Dr. John Lewis : That’s right. Well, I’m glad you mentioned that I actually I gave a lecture last year at a conference where I was asked to present on the safety of different weight loss diets. And, you know, at that time, I mean, I’ve read several articles about intermittent fasting, which is another recent craze that people seem to be going through.

Dr. John Lewis : And actually, Steve, there were in the I think there were three clinical trials that I reviewed, there were no differences, ultimately, in weight loss, which was the primary outcome between whether you were going intermittent fasting or time restricted eating, or a standard, you know, just sort of basic macronutrient diet, like what American College of Sports Medicine has recommended for gosh, eternity.

Dr. John Lewis : Or going high fat or going high protein, not one thing made a difference at the end of the day over whether it was a 90 day period, a six month period or a 12 month period, you had like, you know, these tiny little variations in the amount of weight loss and that was it. So all these people that want to hang their hat or die on the Hill have this certain specific way that you’ve got to lose weight, and no one thing will do it, man. They’re, again, they’re not, they’re not following what the science is saying. They’re actually really exposing themselves as just being a tribalist.

 Steve Washuta : It’s sort  of piggyback off that leads into my next question. I recently was reading and then also watching about centenarians all over the world, in different populations, people living healthfully like into into their hundreds. And there seems to be a bunch of correlative ZZ that almost look like they’re causal, because they’re everywhere. And it’s that they’re eating whole foods of some sort.

Steve Washuta : And some are different, certain populations are eating more, let’s say sweet potatoes, because that they grow naturally. And others are eating more fish, because that’s easier for them to get, but they’re all eating whole foods. They’re all they all have some sort of purpose. We’re not just sitting around, whether it’s a religious purpose, or at Community purpose, whatever, whatever that may be.

Steve Washuta : They all they all have outdoor activities that they do on a regular basis. And and I guess, interconnected with that none of them are sedentary. They’re all moving around. Right. And this seems to be the the obvious statement, right, is that this is all we need? Would you agree with that? I know, I know. It’s also good for us to look into all the specifics and the mechanistic things. But isn’t it really just good to take a global picture and say this is health health is not really that difficult. We’re just not doing the things we’re supposed to be doing?

Dr. John Lewis : Once again, Steve, I totally agree with you I, in fact, again, just mentioning, mentioning that speech I gave yesterday to the Chamber of Commerce, Mother Nature has, at least from a nutritional perspective, I mean, obviously movement and stress management asleep, things that we can more control as opposed to what Mother Nature provides us, but what Mother Nature provides us, you know, in in our environment.

Dr. John Lewis : I mean, we have the answers when it comes to eating things that can help to protect us. And yeah, I agree with you, I mean, for the most part, we have the ability to make choices to say, I’m going to exercise today, rather than being sedentary, I’m not going to smoke, I’m not going to drink alcohol, or I’m going to drink very little of it, all these different things that we can do.

Dr. John Lewis : Ultimately, or I think, to your point, the reason why these, these blue zones have shown that these people live a very long and not only a long life, but actually a functional and happy life, they, again, that as you mentioned, they have a purpose, they do things every day.

Dr. John Lewis : So I agree that a lot of this is already known. I think what’s fascinating, and that was one of the reasons why I did switch more of majors from exercise and physical activity to nutrition was because I felt like many of the things in the Exercise Science World With all due respect to those folks are kind of known, like, we just know that, you know, in terms of movement, you know, it’s almost like duck, you know, you need to move today.

Dr. John Lewis :But, you know, if it comes to like somebody who’s in professional sports, or some kind of competition, you know, there might be some, you know, one two to five percentage of increase where efficiency becomes like the real key to the answer to some question. I mean, I think those are the kinds of things that are maybe interesting in nutrition, or I’m sorry, in exercise and exercise physiology.

Dr. John Lewis : But on the other hand, like when it comes to nutrition, to me, that’s where the world is still kind of, I guess a bit in the dark in terms of what’s some of these nutrients, maybe even certain plants that haven’t even been looked at from a therapeutic value perspective yet, I mean, I’m sure there are plenty of those, unlike aloe vera, or tumeric, you know, some of the plants that we know that are already so beneficial.

Dr. John Lewis : I think, to me, that was what got me more interested in nutrition was some of those unknowns and some of those things, you know, as we mentioned polysaccharides, a few moments ago, where that’s an area where people commonly don’t know much about. So I think those are areas that are ripe for continued nutrition, or I’m sorry, continued research in nutrition. But in general, I think it’s not really that difficult to understand why people are sick today versus in the blue zones where people are not so sick. It’s just just Look at the difference in behavior as you said,

Steve Washuta : you don’t have to divulge company secrets here, Dr. John , but What is the process of getting an aloe vera plant, which I assume you can not just eat? If you found one growing to getting it bottled up? Is it an extract of some sort? Is it a specialized process? How does that work?

Dr. John Lewis : That’s correct. So a lot of times when I talk about our era, people say, Well, I can just you know, outgrow it, and I’ll cut a leaf off and eat some jail or something. And, and so you know, there’s nothing wrong with that. I mean, in fact, if anything, take that gel and apply it topically to a sunburn or a cut or a wound or something.

Dr. John Lewis : But yes, you’re absolutely right. I mean, the polysaccharides are a very small component, or by percentage weight or volume of that gel. So the gel is about 98 and a half 99% water, and so you have to strip all that water out. And then of course, you have other things in there too. You have amino acids, fatty acids, other vitamins and minerals.

Dr. John Lewis : So you try to get as much as you can of those out to you have the Alwyn that latex like material that obviously you don’t want to consume, otherwise you’ll get diarrhea from that. But really the key for like what we do in our in our formulations is taking the ACE man and the acidulated.

Dr. John Lewis : Poly manos de manos, it’s got several different synonyms, it all means the same thing. But getting that polysaccharide concentrated into an amount that has a therapeutic value. And that’s where just again, consuming the aloe vera leaf gel is not going to do it. You have to have it concentrated in it’s not like I’m not talking like hundreds of grams.

Dr. John Lewis : I’m actually talking about a few 100 milligrams, which is really nothing in comparison to you know, several 100 grams that people eat in their in their diet every day. So it’s actually by comparison to how much energy you consume. It’s a very, very small amount.

Steve Washuta : Dr. John, this has been great information, can you point my listeners to where they can find your supplement and maybe more about what you do and what you’re talking about.

Dr. John Lewis : I’d be happy to Steve, thank you, it’s the best information cite for our listeners would be to go to Dr. Lewis nutrition.com. That’s Dr. With note period, Lewis le WIS nutrition.com.

Dr. John Lewis : Our flagship product is daily brain care that’s based on again, all this research that we conducted at the University of Miami, and we have our address, phone number, email address, they’re all listed in the in the website, if anyone would like to contact me, I’m always happy to again, have a personal, personal relationship with people.

Dr. John Lewis : But we have a lot of information on there. We don’t have the articles published on the site. We don’t want to violate any copyright issues with the journals, but I’m happy to send those out. But I do have summaries of all of the articles.

I’ve got videos, I’ve got blog posts, there’s testimonial videos, product reviews, I mean it’s a it’s a lot of information there. So that’s the best place to find me and the best place to learn more about my work and our products.

Steve Washuta : I will put links to the site in the podcast description. My guest today has been Dr. John Lewis, thank you for joining the podcast.

Dr. John Lewis : Thank you, Steve. It’s been great. I really appreciate it.

Steve Washuta: Thanks for joining us on the Trulyfit podcast. Please subscribe, rate, and review on your listening platform. Feel free to email us as we’d love to hear from you.

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