Patrick Holford: Simple Wisdom for a Healthy Life

The latest iteration of the highly influential Lancet Commission on dementia prevention, authored by numerous professors from around the world, led by University College London’s psychiatry Professor Gill Livingston has, for the third time, ignored the hardest hitting evidence for homocysteine lowering B vitamins, misrepresented the science on omega-3 and concluded that the evidence for ‘unhealthy diet’ didn’t meet their high bar for inclusion as a modifiable risk factor. Several eminent professors are up in arms and have written to the Lancet. In this podcast I interview three of them – Professor Joshua Miller, Professor of Nutritional Science at Rutgers University; omega-3 expert Professor William Harris from the Fatty Acid Research Institute (FARI) and Professor Richard Johnson from Colorado University’s School of Medicine - to explore how the establishment continue to side-line nutrition. Read more on Alzheimer's, Dementia and brain health [https://www.patrickholford.com/topic/alzheimers-and-dementia/] on my website.  Read the Lancet report [https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01296-0/abstract].  More about Food for the Brain [https://foodforthebrain.org/].

I’m talking to Steve Bennett, author of The Fibre First Diet, a book which proposes that simply re-ordering the foods you eat can trim your waistline and prevent diseases. We get under the hood of what’s really going on and how to gain control of your weight and health without feeling deprived. We will explore insulin resistance and how to reverse it, what really drives hunger, quick solutions to cut your cravings and why not all fibres are created equal. Also, the Japanese fibre that doctors prescribe to help reverse diabetes.   Find out about his book The Fibre First Diet. [https://www.primalliving.com/en-gb/product/the-fibre-first-diet-by-steve-bennett/aiqc65/]    Find out more on weight-loss and blood sugar balance [https://www.patrickholford.com/topic/weight-loss/] on my website.

Keeping your brain young is a science. Ageing happens because of oxidation (think wrinkly skin). Nowhere is there more oxidation activity than the brain because your brain uses more energy than any other organ and generates more oxidants. There are 7 key antioxidants which, together recycle each other. These are vitamin C, E, glutathione, anthocyanins, co-enzymeQ10 and alpha lipoic acid. There’s a second line of defence involving B vitamins and minerals such as selenium and zinc. In this podcast I’ll be talking with the antioxidant expert Associate Professor David Vauzour, Dr Filip Van Hulle, a leading expert in CoQ10 and brilliant analytical chemist Dr Konrad Kowalski who has developed a simple test to find out how your brain is ageing and what to do about it. What anti-ages your brain also anti-ages your body. Listen to this podcast to add years to your life and life to your years. Find out more about how to Upgrade Your Brain [https://www.patrickholford.com/upgrade-your-brain-take-action-now/].

In this podcast, I bring the three top scientists who know more about fats and the brain than any others - Professor Michael Crawford, visiting Professor at Imperial College London and head of the Institute of Brain Chemistry and Human Nutrition, Professor William Harris from the Fatty Acid Research Institute (FARI) and neuroscientist Dr Simon Dyall, a director of of the International Society for the Study of Fatty Acids and Lipids -  to get inside our brains. I’m most interested in the point of disagreement, the contradictions, the evidence that doesn’t fit the model. So often, by stirring things up we learn something new. Is it all about omega DHA? So why is evidence for EPA sometimes working even better for mental health? What about phospholipids? Is it all about choline, which is just one of five phospholipids. Where does vitamin D, a fat based hormone fit in? These are some of the topics we explore. Find out more about the Upgrade Your Brain campaign [https://www.patrickholford.com/upgrade-your-brain-take-action-now/] on my website.

My guest today is Dan Kittredge, who knows more about what makes food nutritious than anyone I know.  Dan Kittredge has been an organic farmer for more than 30 years and is the founder and executive director of the Bionutrient Food Association (BFA), a non-profit whose mission is to “increase quality in the food supply.”  Known as one of the leading proponents of “nutrient density,” Dan works to demonstrate the connections between soil health, plant health, and human health. Out of these efforts was born the Bionutrient Institute, which has engineered a prototype of a hand-held consumer spectrometer, designed to test nutrient density at point of picking or purchase.  He has decades of experience literally testing growing methods and measuring the nutrient density both in plants and livestock. As people extol the benefits of organic, zero-dig, regenerative farming and the harms of our herbicide and pesticides laden food supply, Dan has actually been measuring and working out what farmers and growers have to do to get the healthiest soil for the healthiest plants. Not only am I honoured to have Dan as my podcast guest but also he’s coming to our farm in the Black Mountains in June to teach us, and others, how to grow super-nutritious food. See foodforthebrain.org/kittredge-workshop [http://foodforthebrain.org/kittredge-workshop]