Part 2 of our round-table series on “American Health and Nutrition: A Second Opinion.” Dr. Marty Makary, Dr. Casey Means, and Dr. Chris Palmer discuss health care model failures, diet’s role in chronic illness, and the mental health crisis.
American Health Nutrition A Second Opinion – Senate Roundtable, 23 Sep 2024: https://vimeo.com/1018782955/fd45027f3f
Welcome back. We’re continuing our look into the American Health and Nutrition Roundtable with three doctors, Dr. Marty McCarey, Dr. Casey means, and Dr. Chris Palmer. Dr. McCarey, a surgeon and public policy researcher from Johns Hopkins offered a critical view on the structure of the US healthcare system. He described the current healthcare model as sick care, which profits from treating rather than preventing illness. As an example, he spoke about his work with pancreatic cancer. I’m trained in gastrointestinal surgery. My group at Johns Hopkins does more pancreatic cancer surgery than any hospital in the United States, but at no point in the last 20 years has anyone stopped to ask why has pancreatic cancer doubled over those 20 years? Who’s working on that? Who’s looking into it? We are so busy in our healthcare system, billing and coding and paying each other, and every stakeholder has their gigantic lobby in Washington, DC and everybody’s making a lot of money except for one stakeholder, the American citizen. He linked the surge in chronic diseases like diabetes and obesity to poor diet with ultra processed foods being a primary culprit. He also pointed out the absurdity of continuing to focus on symptoms rather than causes. Who’s working on, who’s looking into this? Who’s talking about it? Our healthcare system is playing whack-a-mole on the backend, and we are not talking about the root causes of our chronic disease epidemic. Dr. McCarey advocated for education and preventative measures to shift the focus from treatment to genuine health. Improvements. Next to speak was Dr. Casey means a Stanford trained physician and co-founder of the tech company levels. She pointed out that 93% of Americans suffer from metabolic issues affecting both body and mind. We know why all of these diseases are going up and we know how to fix it. Every disease I mentioned is caused by or worsen by metabolic dysfunction, a word that it is thrilling to hear being used around this table. Metabolic dysfunction is a fundamental distortion of our cellular biology. It stops our cells from making energy appropriately. According to the American College of Cardiology, metabolic dysfunction now affects 93.2% of American adults. This is quite literally the cellular draining of our life force. This process is the result of three processes happening inside our cells. Mitochondrial dysfunction, a process called oxidative stress, which is like a wildfire inside ourselves and chronic inflammation throughout the body and the gut, as we’ve heard about metabolic dysfunction, is largely not a genetic issue. It’s caused by toxic American ultra process industrial food, toxic American chemicals, toxic American medications, and our toxic sedentary indoor lifestyles. She went on to criticize healthcare’s focus on drugs and surgeries. I didn’t learn that if we address these root causes that all lead to metabolic dysfunction and help patients change their food and lifestyle patterns with United strong voice, we could reverse the chronic disease crisis in America, save millions of lives and trillions of dollars in healthcare costs per year. In instead, doctors are learning that the body is a hundred separate parts and we learn how to drug. We learn how to cut, and we learn how to bill. I’ll close by saying that what we are dealing with here is so much more than a physical health crisis. This is a spiritual crisis. Doctor means warned that without the needed changes, the US could face a national health collapse. The next speaker was Dr. Chris Palmer, a Harvard trained psychiatrist, researcher, and author of the book, brain Energy. He talked about the mental health crisis in the United States and highlighted the relationship between physical and mental illnesses. Metabolism’s impact goes beyond physical health. I am a psychiatrist. Some of you’re probably wondering why are you here. It also affects mental health because guess what? The human brain is an organ too, and when brain metabolism is impaired, it can cause symptoms that we call mental illness. He went on to talk about the alarming rise in autism and A DHD, and he linked these mental health conditions to the same root cause. It’s not surprising to most people that obesity and diabetes might play a role in depression or anxiety, but the rates of autism have quadrupled in just 20 years, and the rates of A DHD have tripled over that same period of time. These are neurodevelopmental disorders and many people are struggling to understand how on earth could they rise so rapidly. But it turns out that metabolism plays a profound role in neurodevelopment, and sure enough, parents with metabolic issues like obesity and diabetes are more likely to have children with autism and A DHD. This is not about fat shaming because what I am arguing is that the same foods and chemicals and other drivers of obesity that are causing obesity in the parents are affecting the brain health of our children. There is compelling evidence that food plays a direct role in mental health. One study of nearly 300,000 people found that those who eat ultra processed foods daily are three times more likely to struggle with their mental health than people who never or rarely consume them. It’s fascinating to see the clear thread followed by these three doctors as they share their knowledge and experience. Tomorrow we will hear from three more eminent speakers. As our week long look at the round table continues.
