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hey everyone I have a very special guest

dr. Westman dr. Eric Lessman medical

doctor associate professor chairman of

the obesity Medical Association also a

doctor and Duke University

University right yes yeah that’s what I

thought so I’m really excited to have

you and just to ask you some questions

and by the way guys I I got dr. Westman

to speak at our summit the Quito House

summit I’m very excited I’m honored to

have you you have a lot of great data so

I know we’ve just talked before this and

you have some real really interesting

things that you’re working on some some

great things that we’re not gonna

actually tell them right now but we can

maybe tease them a little bit you you

just told me you said you’re doing some

research you stumbled on an observation

that’s quite profound and it has to do

with it’s like someone stalled right

yeah we won’t tell them what that is but

at the summit we’re gonna fully go over

that so I’m really excited and it’s a

very interesting I don’t I think that if

you’re not in a clinic setting you

probably won’t picked it up but the

thing I like about you doc is that

you’re in the clinic you’re working with

people one-on-one so you have a whole

different experience and some other

people that have you know became maybe a

key to expert through reading books you

know when you work on someone that’s

when you really figure things out so

thank you for coming on well my pleasure

and I’m looking forward to being at the

doctor Berg summit you know I was

visiting a clinic in China recently I

think the first Kido clinic there and

one of the people who had a website and

a big following Kido

I asked her so who do you follow in the

u.s. who do you know and she said well

dr. Eric Berg you’re having a reach way

beyond the US and I think they translate

a lot of videos into Chinese as well so

congratulations that’s good now I’m

gonna have to fly out there and meet her

absolutely it’s a bit of a hike it’s my

pleasure to come and talk and hopefully

answer questions that people have

you know after eight years of clinical

research at dude we opened the lifestyle

medicine clinic twelve years ago now and

we’ve been using the keto diet as the

main treatment cookie Bolin she says the

clinical experiences I mean as you know

in your practice you have to have

something worked for this person or

they’re not coming back

right you can’t just give out

information and expect everyone to

follow it perfectly and get it right the

first time but as well hope to share

some of the things that I’ve learned not

only from clinical practice with people

but we’re learning now about stalls and

about how to help people through them

and a lot of it has to do with how our

bodies adapt to ketosis or how the

ketones are and all that and I hope to

share

well I will share some data that no one

else has seen your some of it that’s

okay

I’m excited about yeah we want you to

share that fully you know yeah because I

when I was in practice it really it

pushes you to pushes to keep pushing

that bar up because you’ll have you know

um I don’t know you probably similar to

me that if if you’re not getting a

hundred percent results you’ll go home

and think about that small percentage of

person and didn’t get well and you’re

like okay we got to crack this case but

when we got in a keto and really made

that work those results just came up

higher and higher and higher so yeah I

know exactly what you’re talking about

it’s it pushes the bar to figure things

out now you I want to know your

relationship to doctor actions you I

think you knew him you I think you did

some research for him or tell me briefly

what what that experience was sure back

in 1998 so it’s been a few years my

first experience was through two of my

patients at the VA hospital here in

Durham North Carolina and they had these

phenomenal resource I results I asked

them why and how and they mentioned the

Atkins book and they were following it

so I tracked him down in New York City

and he invited me up to visit the clinic

and you know it didn’t convince me to do

it but it did convince me to ask him for

money for research so we asked dr.

Atkins to fund our first study there was

good and so then we went back in

Rockville asked requested that he do the

next one and that paper was in the

annals of internal medicine at Mall one

packed 2004 Willie ANSI my colleague at

Duke was now the director of the Duke

died in fitness center was the first

author on that paper but so you know I

was intrigued and then as a clinical

researcher I’m compelled to collect data

to look at the safety so I knew it could

work two of my patients had it work that

was pretty clear but what was not clear

is the safety of it and you know even

today people fear eating fat you know

not rationally is that scientific people

have that fear and so you can imagine 20

years ago but

people are really afraid of it and I

really didn’t know the hornet’s nest I

was getting into which was probably a

blessing I probably never would have

done the first studies so yeah there’s

so many patients and then I never worked

for dr. Atkins or something mistaken

belief about that but I asked for money

and actually he passed away slipped on

the ice in New York City right as the

second paper was coming out in the

annals of internal medicine so he never

got to see that but you know he knew the

results that were happening in his

practice so years passed and the

scientists who were doing the Kido

research were asked to become authors on

the new Atkins for a new you book it’s

an author on that book Stephanie and

Jeff Bullock are co-authors with me Wow

well that was published in 2010 and so

yeah it took me a while to warm up to

the idea this could be safe and

effective and now I have to believe that

part of the explosion of keto low-carb

high-fat lchf is because there’s such a

scientific basis for it you really can’t

credibly push back against it I’m there

always be people who criticize it didn’t

have their own agendas and all that but

the science base is really solid now Wow

now what’s really interesting print I’m

what I’m impressed about you you’re in

the clinic your medical doctor you’re

used to doing medicine but your your

treatment is cicchitto genic diet so

you’re not writing prescriptions all day

long right I take them away from people

just changing the food so mind blowing

now your your determine of the obesity

Medical Association right well I’m I’m

past chairman oh okay every year it

changes so I’m still as an ex-officio on

the board but I’ve been through the

leadership of the obesity medicine

Association which is the largest group

of obesity medicine doctors so so the

question I have is

you have this viewpoint on mainstream

obesity and then you have this your

viewpoint or the new viewpoint we’re

talking about keto what are these guys

fighting and are they accepting it would

be going wow this makes sense or they

like well you do your thing I’ll do my

thing what is the how is the interaction

with that viewpoints yeah well we’ve

been teaching the ketogenic diet or low

carb diet variations of that for about

10 years association meetings so most of

the doctors are familiar with the diet

they don’t always use it solely in the

practice but this group of doctors as

again the requirement that what they do

has to work many of the cash practice

outside of insurance and if what they

did didn’t work they wouldn’t do

whenever job right right like the

government where you point out your

results yeah yeah or even just a doctor

in an insurance or HMO plan what they do

doesn’t have to work right we still get

paid but so yeah the kids I would say

you know a small fraction of the obesity

medicine Association members use the

keto diet calm now maybe 5% now a Gary

Thomas I’m just to talk about how it’s

spreading Gary who wrote good calories

bad calories years ago is working on a

book about doctors using the ketogenic

diet I heard him give a talk this last

weekend and he’s actually found over 100

doctors over 100 doctors talk freely

about using it and so the times are

changing wow this is this is really good

news I didn’t know that that’s very

exciting because that’s really unless I

mean people trust a medical doctor to go

there they want to get something that

works and I mean once you put him on

this so many other factors clear up you

guys are you know so now I also want to

bring up another point that’s

interesting before the discovery of

insulin

getting you know before all this

medication the people diabetes I guess

it was like 1914 to 1921

what did he use back then to actually

help people with diabetes yeah a hundred

years ago before there were any

medicines doctors used this kind of diet

diabetes and to help people lose weight

so yeah I have a old book now a tattered

pages from a book that was given to me

from 1923 and in there the list of foods

is very similar to the list I use and so

right right patient I’ll bring that up

and although some people don’t want to

know that it’s nothing that it’s not new

so there’s double-edged sword there you

know this is new I’m not gonna do it

actually we’ve learned a lot since then

not only how to do it for lots of

different people but also the mechanisms

of how it works and you know the idea of

ketosis wasn’t really understood at all

so but this is nothing new

Wow that’s fascinating and then the

other point I want to bring up is we

talk about normal sugars people have

this confusion you don’t know what that

means they might sit like 80 units

whatever tell us the amount of sugar

that you would see in a normal healthy

person for all of their blood which we

have about a gallon and a third of blood

how much sugar is actually in there to

could be considered normal yeah so this

is this calculation is so simple and

it’s using algebra from you know middle

school algebra now so you take a hundred

milligrams per deciliter with normal

blood glucose and multiply that by the

thousand milligrams per gram ten

deciliters per liter and you understand

they’re about five liters of blood and

an adult that works out to about five

grams of glucose in the bloodstream at

any given moment if you have so that’s

about a teaspoon of sugar in the

bloodstream at any given moment and if

you double that you

diabetes and so we’re actually it’s a

amazing that we’re not all diabetic you

know insulin from the pancreas is

working working hard to keep the blood

sugar down but I’ve had endocrine

professors tell me that they never

thought of that before or yeah so yeah

the mainstream energy and doctors aren’t

really taught much about the diet and

but they’re very knowledgeable about the

medications I’ve kind of lost touch with

using listen cuz as you mentioned before

I take medicine away from people because

come on it so guys I don’t know if you

just heard what he said basically five

grams that’s one teaspoon is normal

blood Sugar’s two is diabetes I mean

that’s you can let that sink in a little

bit because an average American probably

consumes more than 25 at least 25

teaspoons of sugar every single day

which is incredible how they well they

do have done they have pre-diabetes I

mean 65 percent of the population has

has it incredible incredible doctor I

know you got to get back to your

patients I just wanted to ask you some

couple questions and say hello and also

tell everyone we’re gonna both be at the

summit coming in October 13 and 14 I’m

very excited to have you out and thank

you so much for doing this talk my

pleasure I think this is gonna be the

best summer ever thank you awesome

okay we’ll see you later