confused about Gundry diet

[TheresaB]

I just want to clear the record. Actually, it was SoCalGuy who wrote that about olive oil.

Thank you for setting the record straight, my apologies for misreading the quote attribution.

[SoCalGuy]

He has also been a proponent of consuming a liter of olive oil per week but that didn't work for me given my APOE 3/4 status. So his recipes may not work particularly well for people who have trouble with high amounts of fat.

Was the reflected in your blood panels? Gundry himself recommends APOE4s specifically consume lots of olive oil?

Gundry seems a little aloof to all the debates he starts.... of course he now poo-poos his Matrix book as containing bad advice because he wanted to appease his publisher for marketing reasons. But then what else might he agree to based on criteria other than what is best for his patients and readers? He's got a lot of products out and if you are on his email list each one is hyped more than the prior one. I largely ignore it but then what else of his am I to ignore? Leaves me a bit conflicted over some of his advice.

Yeah, the Gundry protocol did nothing for my blood panels. My big focus was Apo B, which is the protein that causes atherosclerosis. One of my first posts here was to see if anyone had any success in lowering their Apo B via the Gundry protocol and there were no replies. I can say unequivocally based on my blood panels that the Gundry protocol did not improve my Apo B at all.

Regarding Olive Oil consumption, Gundry promoted consuming 1 liter per week in this presentation to the AHS 16.


Many people with APOE 4 have trouble with saturated fat. It's why many of us quickly find out we cannot consume much if any coconut oil. Now if you are consuming 1 liter of olive oil per week you are consuming roughly 130 grams of saturated fat per week. This is 50% more than what is recommended to the general population, many of whom may have no real issues with saturated fat consumption. I can tell you it didn't work well for me at all.

As the saying goes, your mileage may vary, but I've never had inflammation issues so I didn't see the benefit to consuming the polyphenols along with a very large load of saturated fat. I prefer to use the method Dr.Valter Longo has developed by doing 5 day fasts every 6 months in order to keep inflammation low and insulin sensitivity high.

[TheresaB]

My big focus was Apo B

What is your APO B / Apo A-1 ratio? Ratios are typically more telling than an absolute number.

I've been a Dr Gundry patient for a few years now, following his dietary advice. My Apo B level in isolation has always been on the high side, but he's never been concerned with that, Dr Gundry has always looked at my ratio which has always been good. So my high ApoB level is Gundry approved because of my ratio and how my other biomarkers line up. Dr Gundry rarely looks at one biomarker in isolation.

Of course there's saturated fat in olive oil. Anything that has fat has some saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated. It's impossible to avoid saturated fat all together. So there needs to be a perspective of context. The overwhelmingly predominant fat in an olive oil is monounsaturated, followed by a small amount of saturated, and polyunsaturated.

Oil_fat_composition_comparison_smaller.jpg

All I can say is we all need to follow the path that's right for how one feels and that provide good biomarker results. For me, Dr Gundry's diet and being a patient of his has really helped my lipid markers, my inflammation, my insulin sensitivity, my gut biome, my thyroid function, on and on. But I don't just blindly follow Dr Gundry, also Valter Longo, Dr Bredesen, Dr Fung, Dr Nasha Winters, Dr Wahls' 3/3/3 protocol for vegetable intake as restricted to Dr Gundry's yes/no list, and others.

[SoCalGuy]

My big focus was Apo B

What is your APO B / Apo A-1 ratio? Ratios are typically more telling than an absolute number.

I've been a Dr Gundry patient for a few years now, following his dietary advice. My Apo B level in isolation has always been on the high side, but he's never been concerned with that, Dr Gundry has always looked at my ratio which has always been good. So my high ApoB level is Gundry approved because of my ratio and how my other biomarkers line up. Dr Gundry rarely looks at one biomarker in isolation.

Of course there's saturated fat in olive oil. Anything that has fat has some saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated. It's impossible to avoid saturated fat all together. So there needs to be a perspective of context. The overwhelmingly predominant fat in an olive oil is monounsaturated, followed by a small amount of saturated, and polyunsaturated.
Oil_fat_composition_comparison_smaller.jpg

All I can say is we all need to follow the path that's right for how one feels and that provide good biomarker results. For me, Dr Gundry's diet and being a patient of his has really helped my lipid markers, my inflammation, my insulin sensitivity, my gut biome, my thyroid function, on and on. But I don't just blindly follow Dr Gundry, also Valter Longo, Dr Bredesen, Dr Fung, Dr Nasha Winters, Dr Wahls' 3/3/3 protocol for vegetable intake as restricted to Dr Gundry's yes/no list, and others.

My HDL has never been very high so the Apo B/Apo A ratio was always problematic. I was only able to get the ratio into the ideal range by lowering Apo B.

[Jan18]

He has also been a proponent of consuming a liter of olive oil per week but that didn't work for me given my APOE 3/4 status. So his recipes may not work particularly well for people who have trouble with high amounts of fat.

SoCalGuy,
Just saw this post and am confused about what you mean by this. I am ApoE3/4, too, but thought we were still supposed to incorporate lots of olive oil (along with other monosaturated fat sources.)

What is it about ApoE3/4 that makes you say we shouldn't be consuming lots of olive oil? Did I miss something?

Thanks!
Barbara

[SoCalGuy]

He has also been a proponent of consuming a liter of olive oil per week but that didn't work for me given my APOE 3/4 status. So his recipes may not work particularly well for people who have trouble with high amounts of fat.

SoCalGuy,
Just saw this post and am confused about what you mean by this. I am ApoE3/4, too, but thought we were still supposed to incorporate lots of olive oil (along with other monosaturated fat sources.)

What is it about ApoE3/4 that makes you say we shouldn't be consuming lots of olive oil? Did I miss something?

Thanks!
Barbara

Barbara,

The site wiki says the following:

Saturated fats effects on CVD is generally clear as mud. For most people, saturated fats do tend to drive LDL higher, especially in E4s.

SFAs can suppress LDL receptor activity, resulting in reduced LDL clearance, and may also increase LDL production rate. (Siri-Tarino, P.W., et al, 2015).
SFAs may increase CRP in E4s. "We provide novel evidence of a divergent CRP response to SFA according to APOE genotype, with a significant increase in CRP concentrations after increased SFA intakes evident only in APOE4 carriers." (Carvalho-Wells, A., et al, 2012)
Dr. Gundry, a cardiologist with whom some of our members consult, does not recommend saturated fats, like coconut oil or animal fats, for his E4 patients because they tend to raise sdLDL.
Dr. Bredesen thinks coconut oil and preferably MCT oil can be very helpful for E4 carriers who are exhibiting symptoms of cognitive decline as it can address a reduction in cerebral glucose utilization inherent to our gene, which is exacerbated with insulin resistance, menopause, and age. As cognition and glycemic markers improve, he suggests maintaining mild levels of ketosis, but moving away from SFA and using traditional Mediterranean fats instead: high polyphenol EVOO, olives, nuts, seeds, avocados.
All that said, this is an easy dietary change to make - substitute healthy monounsaturated fat like EVOO, avocados, and nuts for higher saturated fat foods like coconut oil or land animal fats. For a scientific overview of how lipids respond to diet, see Mechanisms by which Dietary Fatty Acids Modulate Plasma Lipids (2005)
If you are Insulin Resistant or have Type 2 Diabetes, the advice about saturated fats is different and you absolutely should reduce saturated fat intake. In metabolic studies, saturated fat impairs insulin sensitivity and unsaturated fat improves glucose metabolism. (Lichtenstein AH1, Schwab US., 2000, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4532752/) Replacing saturated fat with monounsaturated fat improves lipoprotein and glycemic control in those with type 2 diabetes.

Link: https://wiki.apoe4.info/wiki/Cholestero ... n_the_diet

Dr. Gundry has suggested consuming a liter of Olive Oil per week. What I am saying is if you consume 1 liter of olive oil per week you will be getting 130g of saturated fat per week from olive oil alone. I took this from the Kirkland Olive Oil I use which Dr. Gundry has promoted as being a good quality olive oil.

I no longer consume that quantity because I didn't see any health benefit at all and I was concerned about getting that much saturated fat in my diet. I do still use olive oil, but only a tablespoon per day when making my omelette.

Your mileage may vary.

[TheresaB]

Just saw this post and am confused about what you mean by this. I am ApoE3/4, too, but thought we were still supposed to incorporate lots of olive oil (along with other monosaturated fat sources.)

Everything in context, don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Yes, olive oil has saturated fat. Everything with fat has saturated fat! And polyunsaturated fat and monounsaturated fat. There’s no avoiding saturated fat all together. The beauty of olive oil is it is high in monounsaturated fat. You’ve heard the expression 6 of one half dozen of the other, well with the olive oil we use, (Braggs organic, unrefined unfiltered Extra Virgin), it’s like 5.3 of saturated fat and 37.6 of monounsaturated fat. That's a lot of monounsaturated in comparison to the saturated.

Saturated fat is actually a good fat in my opinion, it just isn’t good for ApoE4s. We can’t avoid it all together, we need fat in our diet, and because everything with fat has all three types of fat, what’s important for us is being mindful of saturated fat and keeping consumption limited.

Plus, there are additional reasons for eating olive oil. In my very first consult with Dr Gundry he said, “Olive Oil is your best friend” and this was after telling my husband and I that animal fats (highly saturated) are not our friend. As a patient of Dr Gundry, he told me that as an ApoE4, he’d like to pack as many polyphenols in me as he can. Dr Gundry’s concern is with sdLDL, the cholesterol that oxidizes, and ApoE4s tend to oxidize more aggressively. He told us the polyphenols in olive oil binds to oxidized cholesterol. He said unfiltered EVOO is best because the unfiltered has particles that bind to oxidized cholesterol. Olive oil also helps with glycemic control, an important issue for ApoE4s. Industrial seed oils (which olive oil is not) raise inflammation, something ApoE4s are also already susceptible to, so I'd much rather have olive oil than canola oil, corn oil, etc.

Given this context, I have no concerns eating generous quantities of olive oil, but that's just me, we all have to form our own opinions based on research and biomarker results.

[Jan18]

He has also been a proponent of consuming a liter of olive oil per week but that didn't work for me given my APOE 3/4 status. So his recipes may not work particularly well for people who have trouble with high amounts of fat.

Thanks, SoCalGuy.

By your reply, I now understand your post and I appreciate knowing we all need to figure out what works for us individually within Gundry's and Bredesen's protocols. Figuring out how not to ignite the AD is not a "one recipe fits all" for us, in terms of food's affect on our "36 holes."

I appreciate your time!

Barbara

[Jan18]

Just saw this post and am confused about what you mean by this. I am ApoE3/4, too, but thought we were still supposed to incorporate lots of olive oil (along with other monosaturated fat sources.)

Hi TheresaB,
I am grateful for your reply. Thank you for adding your perspective and for the information Gundry gave you at your first meeting with him. Very helpful.

Where do you get Braggs Olive Oil? I guess I can just Google it. I buy mine from an olive oil and vinegar store across the street whose olive oils adhere to, according to the owner, some olive oil rating organization that is highly esteemed. It is pure olive oil, but I'll have to check if it is unfiltered and unrefined. On my first visit to her shop, she told me way more information than I needed to know, but it did sound as if her oils were high quality and certainly 100% olive oil.

I would be interested on your thoughts about the Blue Zones. I've read that the island in Greece that is one of the Blue Zones (and obviously eats a Mediterranean diet) has much lower incidents of AD. I wonder if they can attribute that to the diet or perhaps that group of inhabitants and their descendants might have lower than average incidents of ApoE4 for some reason?

Also, the conclusion the author of the Blue Zones book came to was that what the various zones had in common were "greens and beans." Yet Gundry has outlawed beans. In fact, I am a bit perplexed about lectins, overall. Are they dangerous because they pass the blood-brain barrier and wreak havoc in our brains? I thought I'd "heard" someone on our website say they are only outlawed if they prove problematic for an individual.

If you have time, can you give me your evaluation?

I'm also confused about "occasional" foods we are told we can have -- is that once a day, once a week, once a month, once a year? Or is "occasional" different for each person, depending upon how your biomarkers fare?

Thanks!
Barbara

[TheresaB]

My apologies for this slow response, I was on an extended weekend get-away with limited internet.

Where do you get Braggs Olive Oil?

We get Braggs Organic, Extra Virgin, unfiltered, unrefined olive oil at a specialized grocery/supplement store around here called Natural Grocers. They are a chain and in many areas but not everywhere. It can also be found on Amazon. I don’t know if it’s the best EVOO, but it does seem to be good quality.

I would be interested on your thoughts about the Blue Zones.

I’ve not read that book or studied Blue Zone populations, so I really can’t comment too much. Certainly diet has a lot to do with their longevity, but so do many other factors that they likely have in common:

• -inheriting good mitochondria and gut bugs from mom
  -being born vaginally vs cesarean section
  -getting breast feed, being exposed to clean air, water, and light (as in lots of sunshine – not artificial light)
  -following circadian rhythm, being active during daylight hours and not subjecting lots of blue light when it's dark out and getting good quality sleep
  -eating in alignment with the seasons (as in fruit when in season, not year round, and not the super sweet fruit we get at the grocery store) and calorie restricting when food is scarce
  -having a good, supportive social life
  -keeping active throughout lifetime – not going to the gym and running 10ks, but working the fields, tending the goats, whatever – just moving
  -And of course, diet. The folks from blue zones eat fresh, real, whole food, not processed, long shelf life, sugar charged, fructose corn syrup added, preservatives added, dyes added, etc. Also the oils they use are “virgin” such as in olive and coconut oil, not made with chemical processing, Their meat comes from natural sources, not artificially fed grains to fatten them up and treated with antibiotics.
  

  the conclusion the author of the Blue Zones book came to was that what the various zones had in common were "greens and beans." Yet Gundry has outlawed beans. In fact, I am a bit perplexed about lectins, overall.

I think saying that “greens and beans” are the key to longevity is an oversimplification, as would saying all lectins are bad and everyone should stay away from them. Again, everything in context.

Dr Gundry is not against lectins per se, but his experience in treating thousands of patients in his restorative medicine practice after his career as a heart transplant surgeon and gaining expertise on immunity has taught him a lot about autoimmunity. Dr Gundry has indicated that everyone is sensitive to lectins to some degree and much of that sensitivity is related to the health or lack thereof of the gut. For those with a healthy gut, the sensitivity is often minimal and unimpactful with the benefits of the micronutrients and polyphenols from the food source outweighing the negatives. But some are more sensitive than others, and Western populations seem to be particularly sensitive given our practices, diet, and consuming food generated by industrial farming:

• -The use of antibiotics in western medical practices has been pervasive, thus degrading gut biome and integrity.
  -Our sensitivity to lectins has raised greatly due the recent introduction to chemical and other body disruptors. Such things food additives and food preservatives. The introduction of NSAIDS pain pills in the early 1970’s. Stomach Acid Reducers (Prilosec, Prevacid, Nexium) plastic food packaging/containers (like those containing BPA), petrochemical fertilizers introduced after World War II, herbicides, biocides, food that is now Genetically Modified (GMOs), skin-care products, hand sanitizers, on and on. These are compromising today’s body to deal with lectins.
  - We eat a lot more lectins today than in the past, largely because the dietary guidelines changed in 1980 resulting in greater carbohydrate consumption.
  -Foods today have been modified and contain more lectins than that same food product did that our parents/grandparents ate.

Those in blue zones eating greens and beans probably don’t suffer leaky gut issues and probably aren’t nearly as sensitive to lectins as we are.

In a December 2017 interview https://articles.mercola.com/sites/arti ... ealth.aspx Dr Gundry stated he’s not against lectins and even said he is fine with reintroducing lectins for the benefits after leaky gut issues have healed.

Excerpts from Dr Gundry in the interview.:

You know, I’m not against these things. [lectins] In fact, I’ve got a bean recipe in my book. All I’m saying is that we have to be very cognizant of the lectin content in grains and beans, and that there are ways to destroy lectins, by pressure cooking the beans. It makes them perfectly safe if you want to eat beans.

I’ve been doing this for 15 to 17 years now. I’ve amassed a rather impressive file of thousands of patients. As time went on, I had better and better tests to look at the inflammatory response of the immune system. I wrote about that in response to removing or introducing some major dietary lectins. I didn’t do this with an agenda. I didn’t have a grudge on my shoulder against lectins. If I could eat mashed potatoes, French fries and phenomenal French bread every day, I’d probably be a happy guy. I would probably be a lot sicker, like I used to be. But I have nothing against these things. It’s just that as the data came forward from thousands of people, very distinct patterns emerged, reproducible patterns. I could reintroduce these things and literally watch the immune system get turned on again. Then I could remove some of these factors and watch the immune system calm down. There was clearly a cause and effect.

Almost every author in the autoimmune space, absolutely removing major lectin-containing foods is kind of part and parcel of the treatment of autoimmune disease. You look at Dr. Izabella Wentz or Dr. Amy Myers. Dr. Dale Bredesen is now on my program. Dr. David Perlmutter removes lectins. You [Dr Mercola] recommend removing lectins. I mean really, anybody who talks in this space and not remove lectins – everybody else is removing lectins. I think that’s a very important part of treating autoimmune disease. Certainly, I’ve written about this and shown it in actual patients.

I think that when you look at traditional cultures that have not been inundated by antibiotics, by nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), by proton pump inhibitors with all of our personal care items, then I think you can make the argument. In fact, these guys’ defense system against lectins is pretty doggone intact. They have a really good tolerance for lectins. On the other hand, our defense system in the West has been decimated….

Everybody’s a little bit different. But I think, like I say in the book [Plant Paradox], that once we kind of get the gut back in shape, that we solve the leaky gut problem – we could see it on lab tests – then it’s time to – if you want to reintroduce dietary lectins – start with small vegetables, peel and deseed them if you want to. Certainly, pressure cooking solves the problem for most people. But I have no problem and actually urge people to start reintroducing dietary lectins.