Defiant Health Radio with Dr. William Davis

If you lose weight by reducing calories--a diet, bariatric procedure, or pharmaceutical like a GLP-1 agonist--you will indeed lose weight at first. But long-term, unhealthy changes in health will develop: eventual weight regain, increased risk for heart disease, type 2 diabetes, dementia, frailty. And thare are now sufficient data to tell us that you also cut your life short by several years.  The...

Nearly 30 years of misinformation, disinformation, and misleading marketing have left most people confused: Do omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil reduce cardiovascular risk, dementia, and other conditions? Or are there adverse effects to expect, or greater benefits from other products? Let's cut through 30 years of imprecise thinking and get to the bottom of this question. Final conclusion: Om...

Many people take probiotics in the hopes that it will help reduce gastrointestinal struggles with excessive gas, bloating, diarrhea, constipation and other common complaints. Sometimes they help, sometimes they don’t. But why? Just what are probiotics and how are they created?  In this episode of the Defiant Health podcast, let’s discuss the ups and downs of commercial probiotics, why they are rea...

JJ Flizanes has worn a number of hats over the years as actress, physical trainer, and most recently what she calls an “empowerment strategies.” Her most recent focus is to therefore counsel people to identify obstacles to success. Having worked with thousands of clients and a source of prolific advice and learning resources, JJ works to pinpoint why people fail to achieve their goals in health, w...

Millions of people have been persuaded that the GLP-1 agonist drugs are the answer to their weight loss prayers. While they do work well in the near-term for weight loss, the long-term health price you pay is substantial with a future of increased risk for frailty, loss of independence, and premature death.  A better way is to manage the amount and location of muscle and fat, i.e., shape and body...

Yes, you can lose weight by reducing calories whether through a calorie-cutting diet, bariatric procedure, or pharmaceutical. But the effect is almost always temporary and followed by a return of weight followed by significant downturn in health. You were also likely not advised that losing weight by cutting calories, we now know through tracking of large numbers of people over many years, likely...

There are a number of people advocating a diet low in oxalates, essentially eliminating many green leafy vegetables, Brussels sprouts, asparagus, celery, most nuts, berries, cocoa, and numerous otherwise healthy foods. Unfortunately, this advice is misguided and based on an incomplete understanding of the evidence. While there is no harm in reducing dietary oxalates beyond inconvenience, lack of v...

Science journalist Lynne Peeples did something extraordinary: She spent 10 days in a nuclear bunker exposed only to dim red light but no blue or other visible wavelength of light. She also rid the space of all clocks or other time-indicating devices and even avoided having any human contact. What she learned opened up numerous questions on how to best manage our day-to-day light exposure, waveleng...

People who were previously ravenously hungry, struggling to be satisfied and tending to overeat, can find themselves miraculously back in control of appetite just by adopting a number of basic dietary strategies that begin with elimination of gliadin-derived opioid peptides that come from the partial digestion of wheat and grains.  Add a handful of other strategies and you will be freed from abnor...

There is a non-infectious epidemic occurring right beneath our noses. The likelihood that you are affected is around 50%. It's the epidemic of small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, or SIBO. In this episode of Defiant Health, I run through the rationale that reveals that, even conservatively estimated, more than 100 million Americans have this condition. Because of the natural permeability of...

My original recipe for SIBO Yogurt included three microbes chosen for their ability to colonize or germinate in the small intestine and produce bacteriocins, natural peptide antibiotics effective in killing the species of SIBO. The original formulation therefore specified L. reuteri, L. gasseri, and B. coagulans.  However, B. coagulans proved to be unreliable in generating the high microbial count...

I’ve personally struggled with insomnia for years, unable to sleep more than a few hours at a time, experiencing frequent awakenings, sometimes awakening at 3 or 4 in the morning and unable to get back to sleep. And I tried almost everything short of prescription sedatives: tryptophan, 5-HTP, megadose melatonin, GABA, theanine, the antihistamine diphenhydramine, self-hypnosis, YouTube videos that...

You’re walking down the street, minding your own business, just out to run some errands. You’re wearing a black jacket, running shoes, a baseball cap. You pass the doors of a bank. Suddenly, the bank’s doors fly open and a man runs out, a man wearing a black jacket and a baseball cap. You see him running at top speed, disappearing around a corner. Moments later, two policemen burst through the ban...

It’s truly an exciting time. The information and science surrounding the microbiome is exploding. It seems that a day doesn’t pass without some new, interesting insight emerges on microbiome questions,  providing us with unprecedented insights and strategies to get better control over health, weight management, aging, etc. Look at what we are accomplishing, for example, with our cultivation of L....

When the first Wheat Belly book was released in 2011, it quickly leapt to centerstage, gaining a huge worldwide following. Millions of copies of the book were sold in 37 countries, the conversation was featured in major media from network news to Dr. Oz to . I don’t believe that this was due to my personal charm or charisma, but because it worked: people experienced unexpected and substantial heal...

While CT heart scans are becoming increasingly popular to generate a coronary calcium score as a gauge of coronary atherosclerotic plaque and thereby risk for heart attack, there is actually a treasure trove of other useful information provided by the scan—but often not reported to you.  In this episode of the Defiant Health podcast, I therefore help make you aware of the wealth of information pro...

Inulin is a common fiber, the fiber found in root vegetables like onions, garlic, shallots, asparagus, jicama and many other foods. Humans lack the digestive enzymes, however, for metabolizing inulin, but microbes living in your gastrointestinal track are able to metabolize it. When beneficial microbes metabolize inulin, they convert it to fatty acids with numerous beneficial effects on gastrointe...

Here are what I call "The Guardrails of Diet,' i.e.., metabolic markers that tell you whether your diet is genuinely healthy or not. Too many people put too much stock in either a single marker like blood glucose, or the wrong marker like LDL cholesterol that takes you down the path of health disruptions: weight gain, visceral fat expansion, protein glycation, insulin resistance, formati...

Conventional healthcare and dietary advice are, unfortunately, virtually useless in providing effective strategies on how to manage blood pressure naturally and nutritionally. They have, for instance, the DASH diet that can reduce systolic and diastolic blood pressure by a few millimeters but not more. They provide bland advice like lose weight or move more. Yet there are effective strategies that...

Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, or SIBO, is now rampant, a virtual nationwide epidemic, a condition now carried by around 50% of the population. If you have food intolerances, fibromyalgia, restless leg syndrome, are overweight or obese, have irritable bowel syndrome, an autoimmune condition, atrial fibrillation or numerous other common conditions, it is highly likely that SIBO is either th...

Bakers, breadlovers, even purported health information authorities such as the Mayo Clinic all spread the claim that all the problems associated with consumption of foods made of wheat are eliminated or significantly reduced by sourdough fermentation. Is this true? In this episode of the Defiant Health podcast, Let’s take each of those claims made, one by one, and examine the evidence to see if th...

We’ve been urged to include plenty of dietary fiber in our daily routines, fibers that come from vegetables, legumes, grains and other plant sources. But there is an animal-sourced fiber that has nearly disappeared from the modern human diet: hyaluronic acid.  Hyluronic acid has nearly disappeared from the diet because it is primarily sourced from animal products, especially organ meats like brain...

LDL cholesterol, apoprotein B, saturated fat, TMAO, statin cholesterol drugs: Over the last 40 years, we have been inundated with misguided advice on how to reduce your risk for coronary heart disease, i.e., risk for such things as heart attack, need for heart procedures such as stent implantation or bypass surgery, or sudden cardiac death, serious and often life-threatening events. Has it worked?...

Go to any supermarket and you will see the impressive variety of products in the dairy aisle labeled "yogurt." You have a mindboggling collection of choices: non-fat, low-fat, full-fat, flavored, unflavored. Single-serve cartons, quart containers, squeezable tubes, jars. Will consuming any of these products change your life in any significant way? Will you be heathier, have better bowel...

The practice of immersing your body in ice water is growing in popularity based on claims of improved mood and well-being, muscle recovery after exercise, even longevity. But this ignores the well-established fact that sudden cardiac death is a real risk due to coronary spasm, causing heart attack, and unstable heart rhythms due to a situation called autonomic conflict. There are a growing number...