Vegan Diets & Brain Health: What You’re Missing (and How to Fix It)

ETL S02-E31

INTRO:

JENNA FUHRMAN: [00:00:00] What’s fascinating is we're going to be unpacking a vegan diet and actually how it is showing to have increased risk of certain neurological diseases.

DR. JOEL FUHRMAN: We're saying that people who were doubters in the past, now in the last two years, we have tremendous more evidence documenting the seriousness of this issue.

DR. CARA FUHRMAN: [00:00:20] We don't want to wait until we're older and it's too late. So you have to supplement with it.

DR. JOEL FUHRMAN: DHA. And now we're talking about new research on salt. That salt is a cause of dementia and salt…

EPISODE:

[00:00:41] Hey, welcome back for another episode of the Eat to Live podcast. I'm here with my dad and my sister Cara: Dr. Fuhrman, and Dr. Fuhrman.

DR. JOEL FUHRMAN: Okay, well welcome everybody to the podcast.

JENNA: That was so good you guys. And I'm Jenna. Do you think people know my name?

DR. FUHRMAN: [00:01:00] Yeah, but I get what's, what's cool is that we've done this podcast for years and now we have three of us doing it.

[00:01:05] It's a whole family affair. Have two Dr. Fuhrman’s and, and the leader of the pack.

JENNA: Well, I'm going to flatter you guys and say, I think the world needs like 1000 Dr. Fuhrmans! You guys have so much insight and information to give. The world really needs to hear it. But I'm excited because we're pack unpacking a new study, a study from 2024, the Seventh Day Adventist Health Study part two, right?

DR. FUHRMAN: [00:01:31] Yeah. The Seventh Day Advent Health Study two has published multiple articles. Okay?

JENNA: Yes. And what's fascinating is we're going to be unpacking a vegan diet and actually how it is showing to have increased risk of certain neurological diseases, which I know you've been talking about for years, dad. But Cara, we're going to hear from you because you've been doing a lot of research on this topic.

[00:01:51] So can you break it down for the public? What is the health study?

DR. CARA FUHRMAN: Yeah, so this study is the Seventh Day Adventist Health Study two, which has been updated just in October 2024, less than

[00:02:00] a year ago. And it showed that vegans have increased risk of stroke by 17%. 13% increased risk of dementia and a 37% increased risk of Parkinson's disease.

[00:02:14] And this study looked at over 88,000 participants. Wow. And in that time period, about 12,000 died. So  this is a mortality study. That's what we're showing you here. It's a very important study because it shows you how many people died and what they're dying of, which is those hard endpoints.

DR. FUHRMAN: [00:02:31] Yes, but the, the Seventh-Day Adventist Health Study two is such an important study in the history of nutritional science because it has less confounding variables. Number one, it's a Blue Zone, so the people generally eat a healthier diet. They don't smoke and drink alcohol, and they exercise and they eat healthfully.

[00:02:50] So when you’re comparing a non-vegan diet to a vegan diet to a near- vegan diet or whatever they're comparing, the people on the non-vegan diets are eating

[00:03:00] less animal products and eating healthier than the traditional person on a standard American diet, number one. So, and there's less, like, there's not economic differences. In other words.

[00:03:08] There's really, a great amount of information and accurate findings we can get from the Seventh Day Adventists Health Study two. So we respect that study and the hundreds of researchers that have devoted their lives to working on that study over the last 30, 40 years, collecting all the data on all these people.

JENNA: [00:03:24] And so I just want to be clear, this is a study that can really help us identify tools to push the envelope on longevity, because you're not talking about SAD diet eaters or general eaters, you're talking about an isolated population of really healthy eaters. So we're learning a lot about not diseases that cut mortality, you know, at 55, 65.

[00:03:42] But [instead] we're talking about not making mistakes in our 70s and 80s. Right.

DR. FUHRMAN: That's exactly right. because the Seventh Day Adventists already live five to 10 years longer than the average Americans do. So we're talking about a longer-lived population. What happens to them? What do they die of? Who lives longer?

[00:03:57] The vegans or the non-vegan, which has more cancer, which has more heart

[00:04:00] attack, and what is the, which has more neurologic disease in later life. And what the study found, even this study found that the vegan group, compared to the non-vegan group were eating healthfully in a lot of plant foods had low risk of almost all cancers.

[00:04:14] Lower risk of cardiovascular death as well – of heart disease. But as far as stroke and dementia and Parkinson's, higher rates.

JENNA: Higher rates than even people that eat meat.

DR. CARA: Yes. And what's so crazy about that is that produce like fruits and vegetables, protects you, protects your brain from things. So it shows that the protection we're getting from produce, of fruits and vegetables, is being overlooked

[00:04:37] By something else, which I'm thinking is a deficiency.

DR. FUHRMAN: Right, so we're saying, right, you would think… Like if you compared the amount of dementia in a population, let's say, you would expect us Nutritarians, and people who are oriented towards plant-based eating are being so much more antioxidants and phytochemicals.

JENNA: [00:04:57] Caratenoids.

DR. FUHRMAN: Caratenoids and polyphenols.

[00:05:00] And you know, we're talking about lower oxidative stress, lower level free radicals, that they would expect to have much more protection against neurologic disease in later life. And there should be almost no dementia, compared to high dementia rates in the in American population.

[00:05:13] The fact that the vegans had even a little more dementia shows that all these antioxidants from fruits and vegetables are not protective or there’s something they're missing that's preventing these antioxidants and phytochemicals from offering the degree of brain protection we're expecting to see. Because we should expect way lower rates of these neurological diseases and we're seeing higher rates.

JENNA: Because neuro neurological diseases suck.

[00:05:35] They're scary. Can you explain what Parkinson's is?

DR. FUHRMAN: You want me to do that?

JENNA: I mean, you're saying we're at risk of Parkinson's. It's a horrible disease.

DR. FUHRMAN: It's a horrible disease and because it doesn't just kill you prematurely, but it destroys your quality of life. So you get it so that you can't walk and move around shuffled gait.

[00:05:56] Your hands are shaking with tremors.

[00:06:00] You have tremors and it affects your concentration, it makes you hunch over, it affects your ability to move and to enjoy your life both. So it destroys you, it destroys the body, both physically, emotionally and neurologically. So it's really not a great thing to have, for people to have.

[00:06:18] And I've been in medical practice now, taking care of the vegan and plant-based community for people coming to see me, plant-based eaters from all over the world, for more than 35 years. And I noted an increased amount of neurologic disease in later years and elderly vegans, and I was aware of this and been an advocate of not just having, following a vegan diet blindly, but making sure we're looking for the potential risks of, you know, these deficiencies.

[00:06:46] We're talking about zinc and DHA and B12 and salt, all these things we're talking about. And it penetrated the plant-based community to know that vegans should take. B12, and many were, and most of them

[00:07:00] were, but as far as the ability of incorporating adequate DHA and zinc, there were still a lot of vegans that were doubtful, suspicious, and reticent to take to for the need for those supplements.

[00:07:13] And I've been screaming from the rooftops: Don't put yourself at risk. My entry into this natural health world was through the American Natural Hygiene Society, which then mutated into the National Health Association in years, and my mentors and founders of these people who talked about nutrition and got me excited about it, most of them had neurologic diseases, and passed away of neurologic issues – of dementia and Parkinson's. So I was wary of this for many, many years – for decades.

JENNA: [00:07:41] So we know that this study is showing increased risk of Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, these neurological disorders that you've talked about, why is this happening to vegans in particular?

DR. CARA: Well, Parkinson's disease is caused by toxins. That's well known, but in vegans specifically, we're not eating enough

[00:08:00] DHA and without DHA, your brain can't filter these toxins out, which is leading to the increase in Parkinson's disease.

[00:08:07] And there's toxins, like Paraquat, for instance, is an herbicide and that is banned in both the China and the EU, but still used here in the US. They said under strict guidelines. But what are those strict guidelines? So we're still getting that in the US. There's things like TCE, which is trichloroethylene in dry cleaning that can cause Parkinson's disease.

[00:08:29] So the whole point here is that in vegan specifically, you're not eating enough. DHA. Therefore your brain can't filter through these toxins that you're getting that cause Parkinson's disease.

DR. FUHRMAN: Right. And even pesticides on – we know that people live near golf courses have 125% increased risk for Parkinson's because of the weed killers they use in the golf courses.

[00:08:46] We know that toxins cause it. And what Cara is saying right now is that we have studies now that was published in, I think 2024, that show that as the Omega-3 index goes down less DHA exposure. Then we

[00:09:00] see more signs of pro-inflammation, lipid peroxidase, glutathione peroxidase. We have seen le less ability of the liver to detoxify compounds and less ability for the brain to detoxify compounds and more buildup of neurologic toxins in the brain.

JENNA: [00:09:16] So, so these omega-3s are really important for detoxification.

DR. FUHRMAN: Yes.

JENNA: And when you talk about toxic exposure, are you talking about toxins that we eat or that we're exposed to environmentally? Where are we getting these toxins from? I know there's actually probably a long laundry list.

DR. FUHRMAN: Yes, we're saying that it's a combination of residual toxins on food and residual toxins that we breathe.

[00:09:36] And right now some of these toxins that we know cause Parkinson's are things that are in the air that people can breathe if they live close to a – they're using sprays on golf courses or you're getting clothing dry cleaned, you can also –

JENNA: I see on the internet a lot people use this term forever.

[00:09:50] Chemicals – are these forever chemicals?

DR. CARA: [00:09:55] I'd have to look at what forever chemicals are.

DR. FUHRMAN: The plastic. I think the forever chemicals are the plastic. The,

JENNA and DR. CARA: [00:10:00] The, yeah. Like the pfa. Yeah.

JENNA: Which could contribute to health con health problems and issues.

DR. FUHRMAN: I think we're finding here is that in the modern world, we're all exposed to a lot of chemicals.

[00:10:11] Yeah. These chemicals cause neurologic deficits, and we need a powerful omega-3 index for the body to be able to not have those chemicals cause damage. So we're not saying the omega-3 causes the problem directly, but indirectly you still get Parkinson's if you're not having enough DHA, which then says that's the non-vegan have more exposure to DHA.

[00:10:33] Theoretically from eating seafood in their diet, right, than the vegans, right?

JENNA and DR. CARA: Mm-hmm.

DR. FUHRMAN: So there's some advantage to having the DHA from seafood for to prevent against neurologic disease. And we're also saying that the shrinkage of the brain that could occur to increase risk of dementia in vegans because we should see more, much lower risk of dementia in vegans.

[00:10:50] And we see more for the same reason – because low exposure to these. because you need a higher exposure to DHA for

[00:11:00] decades. For decades, for the brain to slow the shrinkage of the brain with aging. And there's another study that came out in 2024 that showed that the people who had higher omega-3 index for decades, and who supplemented with omega-3, with DHA, had the lowest risk of dementia.

[00:11:18] In other words, they think… the title of the study – can you read the title that said personalizing the recommendations for an individual based on Omega-3 index causing the best outcome for lower risk of dementia. Very important study that came out. Do you have that?

[00:11:33] The dats right there?

DR. CARA: I write the title names, I can get it.

JENNA: So you're saying though, that there's an optimal range, like can you have too much omega-3s, too much DHA, too much. EPA?

DR. CARA: The amount of Omega-3 index you want is between six and nine. So there is an optimal range. You don't want too much.

JENNA: What could happen if you have too much?

DR. FUHRMAN:  [00:11:51] If you're taking too much fish oil – see, we don't even recommend fish oi, because we think that there's some rancidity in oils and

[00:12:00] we use a algae-based DHA that we keep refrigerated in dark glass to reduce the rancidity. because you know, we're saying that the oils in your body, your fats in your body become rancid.

[00:12:10] That's what lipid peroxidase is. So the oils get rancid out of the body too. So we're putting clean oil into the body. So we adjust that to get a favorable DHA. So it's cheaper to get a high dose. It's better, cheaper, you get a higher dose with fish oil. But if you take too much fish oil, then especially too much EPA, it can thin the blood too much.

[00:12:29] That wouldn't occur with the low amount of EPA in our supplement, but if you're taking really like three or four grams of fish all day, the EPA component can make it more likely to bleed and can more likely have a hemorrhagic stroke and could actually suppress immune function, and potentially increase some infectious related agent. But that's when you're using a fish oil as a pharmacologic dose to thin the blood or to treat a problem.

[00:12:53] We're not using it pharmacologically, we're using a much lower nutritive dose. We're talking about, you know – yes, you can get to a dose [00:13:00] that's really high. And just like any other nutrient – If you take too much vitamin D, if you take too much iodine, if you take too much vitamin A. You could take almost any nutrient in excessive amounts can cause harm, but doesn't mean you want to be deficient in it, either.

JENNA: [00:13:12] Yeah, and I feel like you talk about the DHA-EPA thing a lot. I think you've had a lot of pushback throughout your career, and you're actually doubling down now and saying: You want to take it and you want it to be clean. I think historically you said there have been some studies that are tracking omega-3s with rancid oils, so it doesn't really show the effectiveness – Is that true?

DR. FUHRMAN: [00:13:29] It's true that the oils used are rancid, which limits the potential benefits, but I'm still saying that a low omega-3 index is an accurate indicator of long-term omega-3 use of how much you're taking. But even that is not good enough if you do wait till you're 80 years old to start fixing it.

[00:13:50] Because we're not using it. And by the way, the studies also show that people who had Parkinson's, just to mention that taking omega-3 did slow the progression of the Parkinson's, by the way. But we're saying here [00:14:00] that taking omega-3 prevents Parkinson's and prevents shrinkage of the brain.

[00:14:03] Both those things in the Seventh Day Adventist Health Study Two. What we're saying here is that you have to maintain an adequate level of DHA exposure for decades to protect the brain against these diseases. You can't just wait till you have a problem. And that's what the studies were limited because they found, they said, does it protect, does it benefit people with dementia or people with who have the disease?

[00:14:22] Or when you start to giving it to a person high at risk? Well, don't wait till a person's high at risk. It's my argument with people with salt, with the American Heart Association saying, you don't wait till a person has heart disease to cut out the salt. You live your life without the salts. You don't develop heart disease.

[00:14:34] It's the same thing here. It's long-term exposure that showed the best results.

JENNA: Right. Was this study showing increased risk of stroke that you mentioned? Because I know we've talked about that, that vegan populations have an increased risk of stroke as well. Is that what this study showed?

DR. FUHRMAN: This study showed an increase, what was it, 17% increase of stroke.

DR. CARA: [00:14:51] Yeah.

DR. FUHRMAN: 17% increase of stroke in the vegans.

JENNA: So there's a few different issues in this study that are being highlighted when you eat just a vegan diet.

[00:15:00] We never said that we're vegan. And in fact, you were always, throughout your career, dad, encouraging people to eat less animal products. Now you say, don't eat any fish due to all the environmental toxins and pollutants.

[00:15:11] But you always said less meat, less meat, less meat. It used to be, make it under 10% of your diet, now make it under five. You still are there. So what's the, what's the change? What's the ultimate recommendation?

DR. FUHRMAN: No, the recommendation is in today's society, we're taught, we're encouraging people to follow a vegan diet and then supplement intelligently to take in those few nutrients and fill the gaps that the vegan diet doesn't have, which is particularly DHA, EPA, zinc and B12.

[00:15:39] Those are the main three gaps.

JENNA: The things in your multivitamins and fish oils that you recommend that it sounds like are necessary to take so that we don't have any disease in our future.

DR. FUHRMAN: And there's some, you know, there might be 10% of people on vegan diets who can convert enough DHA from the ALA they’re eating.

[00:15:55] But it's still a small percent. The majority of people are in trouble if they don't take it. So a few people genetically can convert enough.

[00:16:00] Mm-hmm. But that doesn't really speak for most people who can't.

JENNA: Right. Do you recommend people get tested for this?

DR. CARA: Of course. Yeah, definitely.

Dr. FUHRMAN: That's, we're saying the study, I was looking for the title of the study.

[00:16:10] It should, it, it actually says – I'll read you the study title of the study. It says: An Analysis Of Omega-3 Clinical Trials And A Call For Personalized Supplementation For Dementia Prevention. The name of the scientific paper is, or the medical journal. Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics published in 2024.

[00:16:34] So it shows you that an individualized approach to give people the right dose of the supplement to get their level of omega-3 index in the most favored range showed the best protection against dementia. Actually, look what the study showed and it looked at an analysis of all the clinical trials, right?

[00:16:52] It reviewed all the clinical trials you have now, and you have a series of scientists, like 10 different scientists working on this study for years and years, putting all this

[00:17:00] data together. And sometimes people don't respect some of these scientists that really dedicate their life to like uncovering this information that we benefit from it.

[00:17:08] And these people, you know.

DR. CARA: It's also important to point out that there was another study in 2021, which is the meta-analysis that looked at omega-3 in the blood levels and longevity. It showed that people with an omega-3 index greater than 8%, lived about five years longer than those with an omega-3 index of less than 4%.

[00:17:25] And to put that into comparison, five years doesn't sound like that much, but statistically speaking, that's the same longevity difference comparable to smokers versus non-smokers.

JENNA: Right. It's huge. And I think, Carrie, in your practice, you get a lot of health enthusiasts and people who don't want to take any supplements or who want to get everything from food.

[00:17:41] And I understand where they're coming from. You really want food that's grown in nature. It's beautiful to be this powerful thing and makes your diet complete. But if you – we're using all this education and research to put a scientific spin on it, to really push the envelope on longevity. And it makes me think that we’re

[00:18:00] trying to be like super humans. But we are, in a way. We're trying to really fill these nutrient gaps so we have no age-related diseases and it even more than these general multivitamin and nutrient gaps that we're filling. We could even take NAD+ and things that are making us live longer and better, with science’s help.

[00:18:17] So it's kind of – it is Sciencey. It is New Age.

DR. CARA: Well, for sure.

DR. FUHRMAN: And right. We're not just following caveman. We're doing, we're looking at what are the factors to make us live longer.

JENNA: Right.

DR. CARA: And also going to naturopathic medical school, there's a big argument on you should be able to eat all the nutrients you need.

DR. FUHRMAN: [00:18:31] Yeah.

DR. CARA: But people don't realize how to read research, and that the science has advanced so much that we can actually cater a diet to live longer. And a few of the arguments are things like animal products. You get DHA from fish, but DHA from fish isn't what it used to be 10, 20, 30 years ago. There's a toxin in fish called BMAA.

[00:18:50] It's a neurotoxin produced by cyana bacteria. It lives in the freshwater lakes and then contaminates the fish that swim there as well as bottom feeders of the ocean like oysters. [00:19:00] There's a whole other podcast that you guys did on this, (Eat to Live Podcast: Is Fish Friend or Foe, Episode 16, watch here) but what I want to point out here is that these toxins from fish like are so –

[00:19:06] These neurotoxins are so bad for you. There was a famous New York Yankees player, Lou Gehrig. Lou Gehrig's Disease is known as ALS. They're interchangeable terms, and he was one of the best New York Yankee players ever, ever. He had a batting average – if you know what this means – of 340.

JENNA: [00:19:24] Do you? {laughter)

DR. CARA: I do. My high school boyfriend was a baseball player. So he [Gehrig] had a batting average of 340. Right. That's legendary. To put it into perspective, everyone knows Derek Jeter. He had a batting average of 310.

JENNA: Right.

DR. CARA: The moral of that story is that Lou Gehrig, who is the famous Lou Gehrig of Lou Gehrig's Disease, even with a batting average of 340, you are not immune to environmental toxins.

[00:19:45] So what we ate back then is not what is available today.

JENNA: Mm-hmm.

DR. CARA: And that's what we're looking at and all this research, it's like you can create a perfect diet.

DR. FUHRMAN: And I even, I think even 10 or 15 years ago, I might have had a couple of sardines once in a while thinking it could get a little omega-3, you know?

[00:20:00] But, but now I wouldn't touch it, because we know that the digestive track of the sardine is full of microplastics and the average American has measurable plastic compounds that acts as endocrine disruptors and have a negative effect on lifespan and neurologic disease.

So that's why we have a unique [message] because the argument in her naturopathic  school and a lot of people out there saying, well just eat some seafood.

[00:20:21] And then they’ll get the DHA and the B12 and the zinc you would get from the seafood. And we're saying: No, we'd rather supplement with it and not do it through the seafood.

JENNA: Let's get the clean version.

DR. CARA: Let's get the clean version. I even get a question from people all the time, like, aren't, isn't your diet so high in omega-3s?

[00:20:32] Like you eat so many omega-3s, you eat flax, you eat chia, you eat walnuts, but they're just not looking at the research. Because what the research shows is that flax and chia is high in ALA, which can increase your levels of EPA, but it doesn't increase your levels of DHA. That would take years and years and years.

[00:20:48] And what dad's saying is that you need to have a sufficient DHA level for a long time. We don't want to wait until we're older and it's too late, so you have to supplement with it or you're just not going to get the right amount in your diet.

[00:21:00] JENNA: Yeah. Dad really hit home with me when we were talking earlier and because I always kind of say like, what was nature's intention?

[00:21:06] Like, I go back to caveman, like, did they eat a little bit of fish then? They must have, and it must have been cleaner and, and dad said: Jen, caveman might have died a bit earlier than we're dying, than we're living right now too. Like they, they didn't just like live happy lives until they were a hundred and just close their eyes and died peacefully.

[00:21:22] Like we don't, we don’t know what kind of diseases they could have had and stuff. And the average lifespan was lower. So with science on our side, we're able to really run away from these tragic diseases and ailments and, and really live and push the envelope on our healthspan, not just our lifespan. And I think that's really key here – to understand that like we're not bashing a vegan diet.

[00:21:42] We still think it's the best way to eat. But how can we avoid these pitfalls?

DR. CARA: It's about smart supplementation.

JENNA: Yeah.

DR. CARA: That's what it is. And we have resources to figure out what smart supplementation is.

JENNA: Yeah. And I love going back to dad's origin.

DR. FUHRMAN: I'm going to check people's blood tests to make sure they're in the right range, too.

JENNA: [00:21:57] Totally.

DR. CARA: Right. And there's more advanced labs now too, where we

[00:22:00] can check the microplastics in someone's blood.

DR. FUHRMAN: Yeah.

JENNA: And I love dad's origin too on this story because he is really been pushing DHA and EPA supplementation for long time. How many years? 20 years?

DR. FUHRMAN: 25 years maybe.

JENNA: Yeah. And I feel like you've had a lot of pushback and no one really interpreted the research like you did on this. But you feel like you're doubling down on what you said then.

DR. FUHRMAN: [00:22:23] It's not a question of doubling down, it's a question of always looking at all the available research and trying to make it applicable to people that I advise and make sure they do the right thing based on what the research shows. And my extensive clinical experience taking care of large numbers of vegans over the last 40 years.

[00:22:41] Who come to me from all over the country, all over the world, who wanted a doctor who was sympathetic to their diet, to try to help them with what problems they were developing. And I was recording what I've seen. I've had a unique experience as a physician taking care of the vegan population with elderly vegans for many, many decades.

[00:22:57] And now we're doubling down the sense that we're [00:23:00] saying that people who are doubters in the past, now in the last two years, we have tremendous more evidence documenting the seriousness of this issue. And the other issue we didn't talk about is the higher risk of stroke in vegans, which is not caused by lack of DHA, we don't think.

[00:23:16] We think it's the increased susceptibility to eating salt in your food when you're on a vegan diet.

JENNA: Mm-hmm.

DR. FUHRMAN: The potential damage from salt is increased and so that's what we want to talk about next, probably.

JENNA: We were just attacking salt actually in the kitchen yesterday. We were talking about how sometimes vegan restaurants, it is the food they make even saltier to compensate for the meat.

[00:23:36] And we started saying, which I, I don't know if we always tried, I think, me and Cara might have been a little embarrassed, but now we're like: Please, no added salt. Because they just use such an insane amount of salt. And if you do that for the duration of your life and your taste buds adapt to it – and I can only imagine how many milligrams of salt that is in a lifetime.

[00:23:53] Seems like a lot.

DR. FUHRMAN: This a lifetime exposure to sodium.

JENNA: Mm-hmm.

DR. FUHRMAN: We call it “pack years” – how many cigarettes you smoked your whole [00:24:00] life, determining your risk, and I call it “salt years” – sodium years.

JENNA and DR. CARA: Yeah, yeah. Sodium years.

DR. FUHRMAN: Yeah, exactly. The amount of sodium you're exposed to in your whole life, it affects your brain.

[00:24:08] The fragility of the brain. And we're talking about the new research on DHA and now we're talking about new research on salt.

JENNA: Mm-hmm.

DR. FUHRMAN: That salt is a cause of dementia and salt is a causing weakening the brain and linked to Alzheimer's by development of – what are they? Tau proteins?

DR. CARA: Yeah. It causes the tau protein, which is found in neurons.

[00:24:25] to be phosphorylated and then they get detached and they all clump together, which is the hallmark of Alzheimer's disease. That's what you're looking for when you diagnose Alzheimer's disease. So you're seeing here that salt isn't just hurting heart health, but it's also hurting brain health.

JENNA: See, that is crazy because I swear a famous doctor I literally saw on Instagram just the other day, and he turns around and goes:

[00:24:43] “And salt. It doesn't matter how much salt I'm using because I'm not having sugar with it.”

DR. FUHRMAN and DR. CARA: Yeah. Right.

JENNA: And I'm saying how is that related at all? It doesn't even make sense. Wouldn't the excess be like – I'm just like, how much – how much you're using? it just doesn't matter? But doesn't everything matter on how much you're using?

DR. CARA: [00:24:55] Yes. Every – too much salt increases cognitive decline and organ aging, all of your [00:25:00] organs.

JENNA: And stroke. I didn't realize that it had such effect on your brain health.

DR. CAR: Right.

DR. FUHRMAN: Because people think it raises blood pressure and that's why it increases risk of stroke.

JENNA: Mm-hmm.

DR. FUHRMAN: So if you don't have high blood pressure, you can eat salt. No.

[00:25:09] It damages the interior lining of the blood vessels. It inflames them and ages them faster.

JENNA: Wow.

DR. FUHRMAN: They become more fragile. And they become more likely to burst open and cause a hemorrhagic stroke. So that's why the increased risk of strokes in vegans demonstrating more hemorrhagic stroke in vegans, not the ischemic stroke you get from eating bacon and cheeseburgers, but the hemorrhagic stroke you get from eating stroke, from eating salt.

[00:25:34] Because when you eat more cholesterol and saturated fat in your diet, and you then you have more plaque on the inside and outside, and more fat on the inside of the blood vessels and the outside of the blood vessels, which has some degree of protecting the fragile aging blood vessels in the brain from hemorrhaging and rupturing and bleeding into the brain.

[00:25:50] So the damage, you get – so the plaque prevents the salt from damaging the lining of the blood vessel, to a degree. So a bad diet with a higher cholesterol

[00:26:00] could protect you against a hemorrhagic stroke as it increases risk of ischemic stroke. But vegans die of hemorrhagic stroke because they don't have much plaque.

[00:26:06] So vegans have to particularly watch their salt intake, not after they get to get to be older, but their whole life.

JENNA: Mm-hmm.

DR. FUHRMAN: It's a lifetime exposure, you know.

DR. CARA: And also we're doing something to eat so many nutrients and get as many nutrients in our tissues as possible.

[00:26:20] And salt intake reduces nitric oxide, which causes poor blood flow and therefore nutrient delivery. So why are we going to do anything that reduces nutrient delivery?

JENNA: So in talking about the Nutritarian diet, we're eating a nutrient-dense, plant-rich diet, you're minimizing your animal products, but we're not just saying it's about the antioxidants, it's about the nutrients.

[00:26:41] What we're also saying is it's about filling those nutrient gaps. So just to define them one more time, when we're talking about – I don't know what you call them – longevity vitamins. You're talking about filling those nutrient gaps to prolong your health span. Would you call them longevity vitamins?

DR. FUHRMAN: No, the nutrient gaps we're filling.

The nutrient gaps is one half. And then the new longevity supplements we

[00:27:00] give people are a different collection of supplements. Could be a different podcast. Green tea extract, mushroom extracts, curcumin…

DR. CARA: NAD like you talked about…

DR. FUHRMAN: NAD. Those are the science has indicated that there are certain other things we can add to our diet that also prolongs lifespan and reduces risk of cancer.

[00:27:16] And we've studied the mechanism. Cara and I reviewed those mechanisms via which it prevents this cancerous cell from replicating. That's a different podcast.

JENNA: Maybe next time. (laughter)

DR. CARA: Yeah. But to answer your question, what we're looking here is to fill in the gaps of things that we're not getting in enough amounts in a healthy diet.

JENNA: [00:27:31] Right? Exactly.

DR. CARA: So on a plant-based diet, you don't absorb zinc as well, so you want to take zinc. Just like we're saying, we don't get DHA, so we want to take DHA, but that's filling in gaps, not added bonuses.

DR. FUHRMAN: Right. And you can – we get DHA, we're making DHA, we're getting some zinc. But you don't get the optimal amount to thrive to a hundred years old.

[00:27:49] You can thrive. Because people say: Well, I'm not depressed. I don't feel bad. Yeah, but you're only 50, 60 years, 70 years old. If we're going to push the envelope of human longevity and live to be 95 to a hundred years old

[00:28:00] or 105 years old. That's where we have to plan for that longer life now, by keeping our levels of these nutrients in the optimal range, not just adequate to survive, but optimal to thrive in our later years, that's what the science is showing.

[00:28:14] So we are looking to thrive in our later years. That's why we're doing the right nutrients now. A lot of people don't have the perspective of planning ahead for if you do live that long.

JENNA: Totally.

DR. FUHRMAN: But sure, if you only live to be the average American and die at age 75 for a male and 78 for a female, then forget about this stuff.

JENNA: [00:28:30] I always say though, health is my favorite hobby. It really is a hobby and it pays you back later in life, like a million times over. So put in the work now and you'll really get to – I mean, every day that is healthy and that my body feels good, I'm so grateful for it. But I just wanted to comment on the fact that you, dad, and I'm, maybe Cara, you feel this way too, really don't like the term vegan diet.

[00:28:49] You don't feel that you're vegan. Can you explain that a little bit? Dad – I'm not even sure if he likes whole foods plant-based.

DR. CARA: Dad the other day said: What does vegan mean? What does whole food plant-based mean? It could just be eating bananas all day.

DR. FUHRMAN: [00:29:00] I don't like even whole food, plant-based.

[00:29:03] We were going to discuss a study on this podcast that shows that some vegan groups were saying: Look at this study that shows that people unhealthy plant-based diets had lower risk of Parkinson's – not higher risk, lower risks.

JENNA: That seems weird.

DR. FUHRMAN: Right? And we're saying it's higher risk. Who do you believe?

[00:29:19] You know that's the problem with the term whole food plant-based. In America, people use the word plant-based to mean vegan.

JENNA: Mm-hmm.

DR. Around the world, nutritional scientists don't consider plant-based to mean vegan. So they're considering a plant-based diet a person who's high in plants and still eating some animal products – [they call it a] plant-based.

[00:29:34] And a healthy version of that diet is better than an unhealthy version of that diet. But it wasn't that – so it didn't show that the vegans had low risk of Parkinson's. People interpret that in America. because they see plant-based diet, low risk of Parkinson's, think it meant a vegan diet.

[00:29:46] That's the problem with plant-based. It doesn't mean vegan. It's too ambiguous to what it means. So in a whole food plant-based, we're designing a diet with more specific recommendations to eat foods that we know will extend longevity and protect us [00:30:00] against cancer.

[00:30:00] Like mushrooms, onions, berries, you know. Right, right. And green vegetables.

DR. CARA: Yeah. And I know a lot of people that used to be vegan, and they said they changed because they didn't feel good. And I said: Oh, well what were you eating? And they were having like, pizza with vegan cheese. They were having plant, what is it called?

[00:30:13] Those burgers. They had those like plant-based burgers.

DR. FUHRMAN: Impossible. Something like that.

DR. CARA: They're like fried and meat. I know. Yeah. They're eating french fries and like, that's all vegan. I'm like, no wonder you didn't feel good. because you [need to be] eating, you know, maybe more whole foods to processed foods.

JENNA: [00:30:25] And then this is where people transition. And I feel like the world is really obsessed right now with this high protein diet. So they're eating vegetables, fruit, beans, nuts and seeds. All good. We love all of that. But then, oh, meat – a huge amount. You know, maybe like 20, 30, 40 percent. So that's where they feel better.

[00:30:40] because it's like, great, you're eating whole foods, it's better, but it's not optimal. And we always come back to that word optimal. But the study that really shocked me, which kind of is something to keep in mind is that Netflix twin study, the study about comparing two multiple sets. I think there was like 22 sets of identical twins.

[00:30:57] One was completely vegan and they called it [00:31:00] vegan. One was omnivore and they ate, they both ate healthy diets. So one omnivore healthy diet: grain, whole grains, nuts, seeds, beans, vegetables, fruits. One vegan and who lived longer was the vegan, which were showing – not lived longer because they, they're still young, but…

DR. FUHRMAN:  [00:31:14] The health markers.

JENNA: The health markers, right. Yeah. Was that the vegan diet had a better health markers, which I found really interesting. So it shows that you really do want to reduce your meat intake and supplement smartly really everything that you're saying.

DR. FUHRMAN: Absolutely. And we can, instead of a twin study, we could do a study with you and Cara, a sister study…

JENNA: Call the vegan one.

DR. FUHRMAN: [00:31:31] One of you could eat unhealthy, one of you could eat healthy. We can see what happens. (laughter)

JENNA: I call the vegan one!

DR. CARA: There so much love in this podcast, that's going to make her live longer.

JENNA: Hey, everyone should eat it. Everyone eat it with me. I'm not, it doesn't have to just be me. But yeah, I'm doing this stuff and I feel like every time I talk to you guys, I really do like take that DHA dropper.

[00:31:50] I give it a squeeze. It, it really is good to be reminded over and over again about the things we could do to change our health outcomes.

DR. CARA: Oh, for sure. We're increasing our health outcomes every single day. I found out my Omega index was low, so I'm taking a lot of [00:32:00] DHA right now, and I'm rising.

[00:32:01] I'm increasing it.

JENNA: We love it. Yeah. Gimme those droppers.

DR. FUHRMAN: All right. We could wrap this up, right?

JENNA: Did you like doing this podcast with the three of us? Do you think we should do it again sometime?

DR. CARA: Why don't we let the audience find it? Let us know.

JENNA: Yeah, good idea. Let us know.

DR. FUHRMAN: Should we just do Jenna and Cara, and then Jenna and me? Or should we do Jenna and the three of us?

JENNA: [00:32:21] Right, exactly. How do you like it? Please, just don't fire me. I like my day job. Okay, let's hang out more. (laughter)

DR. CARA: We got a host. That's all we know.

JENNA: Okay, so oh, I, I learned this really quick. You do it.

DR. CARA: Oh, my fiancé shows this.

JENNA: It's a handshake. Like put, put your hand in. And then you go like this. (three-way handshake)