Eating for Better Sleep & Foods that Improve Metabolic Health | Dr. Marie-Pierre St-Onge

“You studied kefir, menoligosaccharides from coffee. Yeah. And now I'm going to ask you about ginger. When I was a graduate student, I was interested in functional foods and I was interested in those foods that provide health benefits beyond their nutritional value, right?”

“And then for my PhD, studied medium chain triglycerides. And then ginger, that was, that was something that I, that I offered to a grad student. At Columbia, it was interesting because, uh, the McCormick company had an advertisement in, uh, one of the nutrition journals, and they were going to donate, um, spices for research.”

“Things that I do don't come to me with something that's, you know, that I don't study, but, and then he did some research and he came back and he said, I think we should study ginger. And I'm like, okay, to do what?”

“And, uh. What did the study look like? A study where we looked at the thermic effect of food. Like, so people ate ginger root? No. Were they spicing their food? No. We dissolved ginger powder in warm water. And so that was one beverage. And then, uh, in the crossover, again, crossover design.”

“or five hours. And it's significantly elevated. Mm-hmm. With ginger. With ginger. Yeah. Wow. So we think through the capsaicin receptor, there's an increase in the thermic effect of food. So, yeah. So I was interested to see, are there little things that we could do, little changes we can make to our diet to boost energy expenditure relative to intake, you know, just to tip the scale?”

“Not in addition. Correct. Okay. Some ginger. Yeah. Are they additive? Are they synergistic? I think they could probably be additive because I think that the impact is through different mechanisms. Obviously no one's tested that. You know, it's interesting you bring it up this way because it makes me think of David Jenkins and the Portfolio Diet.”

“What's your general thought about low sugar fermented foods? I don't know if Kefir qualifies as low sugar, but based on Justin Sonnenberg's work at Stanford and others, I've been really bullish on this idea of sauerkraut, kimchi, full-fat Bulgarian yogurt.”

“Right, right, right, exactly. People get frustrated. Oh, that's an observational study. Well, I'm going to continue to eat low sugar fermented foods every day. I do think in a study like the one you described, occasionally there's just, there's, let me state this differently.”

“quackery associated with it. But of course, there are interesting things in different foods. I do think that the Sonnenberg and colleagues' work on low sugar fermented foods has been very informative for lowering the inflammatone even more than fiber. I mean, actually in that study, this is kind of the like, even Justin will kind of downplay this a little bit.”

“They ramped them up, but I have to say they ramped them up pretty high. Like even the low sugar fermented foods, I think they got them up to like four servings per day. Okay. It's a lot of kimchi. You're not familiar with it. Like it can be a little hard on the gut. Yeah. I actually take an enzyme.”

“You've done a substantial amount of work here in this area. And I have a bunch of questions. But first I want to talk about kefir. Yeah. I love Bulgarian full-fat plain yogurt. But it's right next to the kefir. And I'm always like, do I get the kefir? Well, I don't know. I love the Bulgarian full-fat plain yogurt.”

“Okay. I was intrigued by it because I thought there's, there's something that, I mean, you studied, it's interesting. You studied kefir, menoligosaccharides from coffee. Yeah. And now I'm going to ask you about ginger. When I was a graduate student, I was interested in functional foods and I was interested in those foods that provide health benefits beyond their nutritional value, right?”

“health benefits beyond their nutritional value, right? So kefir is a fermented dairy product. It would, we were studying it for its, a functional benefit on cholesterol synthesis.”

“And so we, we studied kefir for, I studied kefir for my master's degree. And then for my PhD, studied medium chain triglycerides.”

“You just don't want to eat too close to bedtime. Correct. Okay. What about these MCTs, medium chain triglycerides? These were very popular in the health and kind of biohacking space a few years ago. The whole bulletproof coffee notion, MCTs, butter coffee.”

“He had done prior work on this. But what we did was use purified MCT oil. So this is only liquid oil that contains 8-carbon and 10-carbon chain fatty acids.”

“Yeah. A couple of women felt it gave them headache. Just the smell of it, you know. So with the MCTs, big significant increase in thermic effect of food? That was statistically significant. Yeah. It was about 45 to 50, 60 calories.”

“per day over a certain period of time. We did find changes in body composition, improvements in weight status with medium chain triglyceride consumption. Lean mass to fat matter. Yeah. Interesting. And then we did a follow-up study of a weight loss study with medium-chain triglyceride.”

“reduce blood pressure in people by increasing intakes of fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, consuming low-fat dairy, more plant-based types of diet and can be, has been tested in a low salt or regular salt.”

“So it was high in soy protein, nuts, plant sterols, and soluble fiber. Yeah. It's going to be a tough one to get past most of the American public. I'll tell you as a public health educator, I don't care if it comes out in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New Yorker and everything in between. People hear soy. Yeah. Nuts they like, but easy to overeat.”

“something is very satiating whereas we can eat a lot of grains and nuts before we kind of go okay that's enough there seems to be this issue like how do you ensure cardiometabolic health”

“some nuts helps to prolong this satiety because then you get some protein some healthful fats and so i think that's important i'm not saying animal products are bad i think they're they're”

“Sonnenberg's work at Stanford and others, I've been really bullish on this idea of sauerkraut, kimchi, full-fat Bulgarian yogurt. Fermented foods are interesting. Yeah. Are you a proponent in general? I'm a proponent. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's important to feed your gut. I think that the gut microbiome is getting a lot of attention for all sorts of health benefits.”

“okay we're talking about like the bread that just melts in your mouth, so and then the other thing was uh yogurt. I used to eat yogurt quite a bit and then the yogurt in the, here in the U.S. tasted sweeter to me the same thing the same”

“ways to appeal to the population of that country so yogurt was one where it's a little less sweet in canada than in u.s and it was less sweet even than in in europe than canada and u.s so there's”

“But I do think that things are changing. I think we're finding a lot more, for example, the yogurt, right? There was a lot more plain yogurt options than there were when I first moved to the U.S. So there's, you know. Things are changing. There's been a lot of resistance. And I think that the resistance has been sociological in the sense that,”

“are not as colorful you know if you're eating a slice of bread and it just dissolves in your mouth it's sugar it's not so good this is more of an editorial reflection again but it's also i was”

“moved to the u.s the first thing the dietician at my work told me was do not buy bagged bread i was like okay what does that mean don't buy bagged bread like i that's what i always do”

“no it's just you go to the grocery store you go to the bakery section they'll cut it up for you you ask what you want don't buy bagged bread like okay i'm not gonna buy bad bread so apparently she was talking about like too many additives doing too much sugar whatever okay we're talking”

“Whatever that is. Yeah, higher and saturated fat and sugars. Which seems to be changing now because of the GLPs. I feel like that's, you know, maybe it's a skewed perspective, but I feel like the typical American diet is, it might not be changing so much in content, but in volume, it seems like people are eating less.”

“But it just seems like people's appetites are down. Well, GLP-1s will do that, right? Yeah. Yeah. And we were talking about this the other day here. How many Americans have tried a GLP? The estimates are anywhere from like one in seven.”

“And we can't have people walking around hungry all the time. And the GLPs help with that. And it does get down to sort of like, do you include animal-based foods or not often? So how do you think, just from a public health perspective, that we can reconcile this?”

“chain containing first and the beef tallow. So it's like 20% of your fat from one of the two. So you have to pour it, mask it somehow. MCT, there's also this issue about laxative effect of MCT oil that, that.”

“That's reassuring. Yeah. So beef tallow, it was initially, beef tallow, because it has. A lot of saturated fat is solid at room temperature. So as soon as your food started to get a little colder, it would kind of gel on your plate.”

“And this is true, right? Well, by the way, I'm just going to say I avoid seed oils actively because I like olive oil and butter, mostly olive oil. I avoid seed oils. I don't like the way they taste. I love olive oil.”

“Barometer for what's better to use. I'm also not saying that people should avoid butter like the plague, right? So all in moderation is, is okay. Is there any reason to, I just can't find the argument for why anyone would replace olive oil with a seed oil.”

“We had created this functional oil that contained flaxseed oil also to be able to get some more, some omega-3 fatty acids in there.”

“So cooking process. So I think that's where people think that they. Should be using one type of oil for everything that they do, but some, or like you wouldn't put flaxseed oil, for example, and heat it up to very high temperature.”

“Sonnenberg's work at Stanford and others, I've been really bullish on this idea of sauerkraut, kimchi, full-fat Bulgarian yogurt. Fermented foods are interesting. Yeah. Are you a proponent in general?”

“These were very popular in the health and kind of biohacking space a few years ago. The whole bulletproof coffee notion, MCTs, butter coffee. And that's more or less faded away. I don't see a lot of people putting oil in their coffee these days or coconut.”

“fried in corn oil alleviate cardiovascular risk factors when substituted for low-fat and high-fat snacks. Yep. What? What? Yes. Tell me the data. I believe you. I'm just like, this is wild.”

“So implantables are also. If people think they might have apnea, is it just get a CPAP, pop that thing on? Is that the best line of entry? I think they should get tested. So how does one do that? Because that's the problem.”

“I actually take an enzyme. I think it's called DAO. Very inexpensive. A little. It's like a tiny, tiny pill that that for digesting histamines.”

“Tell me the data. I believe you. I'm just like, this is wild. This was funded by Frito-Lay. At that time, they had changed the oil that they were using to fry their corn chips. So this was Doritos, Fritos, Cheetos, and Tostitos. It's all the Tito's.”

“To learn more about her laboratory's research and to find a link to her book, Eat Better, Sleep Better, please see the links in the show note captions.”

“Yeah. I'm still afraid to take it. But I should take a little bit of it. But doctors now are prescribing supplemental fiber. Mm-hmm. And in a pretty high rate. From what I understand. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. People don't want to eat their fruits and vegetables.”

“there with you i love fruits and vegetables i'm a huge fan of uh i do eat meat half arginine i mean you know but and chicken and i'm not a big fan of fish i keep working on this but i can't seem to quite get there but but i i don't eat them in excess the things that i feel are very very easy for people to overeat are starch fat or starch sugar fat combinations it's just like”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's very specific to a product. Yeah, often very specific to a product. Yeah. You won't be held responsible for your answer, but do you supplement your diet with minerals like magnesium or anything like that? Or are you just completely careful food choices?”

“there's a health claim for oats, for example, right? So consuming fiber from oats reduces cholesterol levels. That's been demonstrated. Yes. So that's, that's a health claim. That's an approved health claim.”

“Olive oil has a lower smoke point than, than other seed oils. So peanut oil, for example, has a higher smoke. So you can fry in peanut oil. You wouldn't fry anything in olive oil. I wouldn't eat anything fried. Well. Yeah. So that's, that's a different question.”

“They hear plant sterols and like they're someplace else. This diet went on a head-to-head comparison with lipid lowering agent, right? Like a statin.”

“I looked into this and many, many people's doctors are now telling them, you should take a little bit of Psyllium husk. I always thought, by the way, Psyllium husk was like the husks. Like you had to like, they're like, you're going to eat like the seed husks. It's actually ground into a powder or something like that. Yeah.”

“now again i don't have the numbers on this but with Retatrutide and the other GLPs. I've never tried them, but a lot of people are finding it much easier, if not easy, to lose weight”

Also filed under GLP-1 Agonists