Calley Means
Appearances
The Charlie Kirk Show
Boomers and Banned Food Dyes
It's a huge deal, Charlie. The food industry is making the point that if you basically phase out ingredients that are banned throughout the rest of the world, it would impact 60 percent of food on grocery shelves in the U.S. They were saying that as if it was an argument not to do it. To me, that's an argument to do it. We have a huge problem where let's just take the food, guys.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Boomers and Banned Food Dyes
These are petroleum and coal tar. Every study and every piece of common sense would tell you that if a kid eats that every day, it's going to cause issues. It clearly causes ADHD. Every other country in the world has led to the conclusion that it should be out of the food supply. The FDA, up until the Trump administration, has been a sock puppet of big food, big pharma.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Boomers and Banned Food Dyes
And Charlie, it was momentous and extraordinary yesterday. As of 4 p.m. yesterday, the FDA said this petroleum-based dyes, that they were safe. Marty McCary got up there with Secretary Kennedy and said it is poison. They said the FDA and the U.S. government and the Trump administration is going to take common sense actions to get these no-brainer chemicals out of our food.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Boomers and Banned Food Dyes
Charlie, we talked about this a lot. There's a chronic disease crisis. President Trump and Bobby Kennedy talk about this all the time, right? We have 38 percent prediabetes rates among teens in this country. They're going to take common sense action, common sense wins.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Boomers and Banned Food Dyes
And we're going to look back on history at this year and this first hundred days of the Trump administration when finally the HHS, the FDA and the U.S. federal government stood on the side of kids.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Boomers and Banned Food Dyes
Zero nutritional value whatsoever. They literally had scientists in a lab figure out how to combine literal petroleum to figure out how to make that neon red and that neon blue. And this is really important, Charlie, because this is, I'm a free market person. This is actually a free market movement. This is correction of corruption. I always talk about it.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Boomers and Banned Food Dyes
The cigarette industry took over the processed food industry in the late 1980s and 1990s. They're the ones who really popularized these colorings. And they bought off the USDA to say they were safe. They bought off the FDA. They added 10,000 chemicals into our food. The cigarette industry owned 40% of the US food supply in the 1990s. So there was real corporate capture here
The Charlie Kirk Show
Boomers and Banned Food Dyes
to tell us that these ingredients were safe for the sole reason of making that color pop actually charlie it's amazing we've dug into this the u.s companies make the food make the fruit loops make all these foods in the u.s with watermelon juice with carrot juice and they ship them to canada and shipped into europe u.s exported food they make with safer ingredients
The Charlie Kirk Show
Boomers and Banned Food Dyes
So they've bought off the organizations here just to have that color a little bit brighter, knowing, knowing that it's harming kids. Actually, Charlie, Mr. Paxton, Ken Paxton in Texas, just filed a lawsuit against some of the food companies because he thinks that they knew this many years ago, and he's actually searching for evidence of that. But that's clear.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Boomers and Banned Food Dyes
I mean, the food companies knew what they were doing, and they said it's safe for kids. So... Again, just common sense. We've got a long way to go, Charlie. There's going to be win after win coming from Secretary Kennedy and President Trump. But but but these are no brainer actions.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Boomers and Banned Food Dyes
you hit on something else. So I'll name the names, the Consumer Brands Association, the American Beverage Association. These groups to this day are arguing petroleum based dyes are safe. And the American Beverage Association, Charlie, another huge win from President Trump and Secretary Kennedy. They've said we need to take soda off food stamps. Why is soda
The Charlie Kirk Show
Boomers and Banned Food Dyes
Soda, sugar-laden soda, the number one item on food stamps, $140 billion entitlement program that's supposed to be going to nutrition for lower-income Americans. We are literally subsidizing $10 trillion, excuse me, $10 billion a year from food stamps from the federal treasury to soda companies. The American Beverage Association just last week said it was anti-science.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Boomers and Banned Food Dyes
to suggest that subsidized soda for kids increases obesity. So these groups, the American Beverage Association and the Consumer Brands Association, which is where all these food companies hide, should absolutely be called out. You mentioned the dietary guidelines and Froot Loops not being healthy in general. That's very important. The U.S.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Boomers and Banned Food Dyes
government recommends Fruit Loops as part of a healthy diet. The NIH funded a study under Biden that said Fruit Loops and Honey Nut Cheerios were healthier than ground beef, than grass-fed beef and eggs. That's literally the guidance that's been coming out of the NIH. That study was also funded by food companies. A very important thing Secretary Kennedy is going to do.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Boomers and Banned Food Dyes
It's not regulation, but it's getting control of our dietary guidelines. We're Right now, the dietary guidelines recommend this crap to kids. They recommend added sugar as part of a two-year-old's healthy diet. They recommend ultra-processed food as part of a healthy diet. They say meat is bad and the best source of protein is beans. It is insane.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Boomers and Banned Food Dyes
President Biden said the top goal for the nutrition guidelines during his term was equity and inclusion. It should be about scientific rigor. Secretary Kennedy yesterday at HHS said a profound statement to me, Charlie. He said, sugar is poison. Now, that doesn't mean we're banning sugar. That doesn't mean you can't have your Coke.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Boomers and Banned Food Dyes
But we should not be recommending it from the government, and we should not be subsidizing it. That's the first two years of MAHA here, Charlie. We're going to get the scientific recommendations correct so parents can make informed decisions, and we're going to stop the subsidies. Right now, 90% of our agriculture subsidies go to ultra-processed food, corn, soy, wheat.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Boomers and Banned Food Dyes
0.4% go to fruits and vegetables. There's some basic market co-option that Secretary Kennedy, working closely with Brooke Rowlands, who's been a champion on this, is going to fix.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Boomers and Banned Food Dyes
We got Marty McCary, the FDA commissioner, the FDA commissioner who who issued and and Bonnie Hari on the White House. And we've got a full, full, full court press here. That's awesome.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Boomers and Banned Food Dyes
No brainer. We got Vani Hari here to food, babe, Charlie.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Boomers and Banned Food Dyes
three amazing big win, Charlie. This is something that really matters to moms. This is you see this, Charlie. And I know Turning Point saw this and you saw this early. This is an issue. I remember when Secretary Kennedy endorsed President Trump. It wasn't on front page news, but you were talking about the grassroots. X was talking about this is changing the country here, Charlie.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Boomers and Banned Food Dyes
And you saw that early. This food die announcement that matters to parents. You're seeing the grassroots celebration of this. But I think these common sense wins are just going to keep happening, Charlie. And I think it really matters to voters. And Something I said yesterday, you know, truly, where are the Democrats? We would love to be working with them. This is a bipartisan issue.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Boomers and Banned Food Dyes
But, you know, whatever happens there is fine. We're going to this administration is going to pound on common sense solutions like this.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
basically saying not what causes Alzheimer's, but to find little band-aids for Alzheimer's. Then the FDA approval process is totally dominated by big pharma. They pay 75% of the budget, and it costs $3 billion to get a therapeutic through, which only necessitates large pharma things, not innovative AI things or not innovative therapeutics from startups.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
Then the FDA approvals underlie the CMS codes, which are the backbone of our economy. 20% of our economy is basically driven by that, our entire healthcare system. So you have this CMS situation where outside groups, literally lobbying organizations, make logic that underlie our entire health care paradigm, which basically wait for people to get sick and then jab a drug gun in their throat.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
There's no reason, Charlie, we don't have more codes in Medicare and Medicaid to be more preventative or to have more root cause interventions. The goal of health care obviously should be the most efficacious way to prevent a reverse disease. As a statement of fact, the Medicare-Medicaid system right now is waiting for people to get sick and then drugging them and managing disease.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
That's by design and it's through corruption. It's through rigging every single step of the value chain. That's why Bobby has told Senator Cassidy, and he means this, the place you need to start is the NIH. You need to get the research on why we're getting diabetes epidemic rates, why we're so much sicker than Europe, whether the food dyes are healthy, which the FDA currently says they are.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
whether all these atrazine, which Alex Jones was right about, it's true. It is true. It is a huge estrogen. It changes our testosterone to estrogen.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
Not about everything, but about most of these things. This is definitive. It changes testosterone to estrogen. That is banned in every other country, and we are spraying it in our food. By the way, that chemical atrazine specifically comes from China, and it's not used in China. Yeah. So there's real national security implications here. So you start with NIH.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
Then that underlies the FDA approval process. You do regulate the FDA. You have more robust competition for the best therapeutics. And then you get to our code. The gold star, the big kahuna here, Charlie, is the medical codes. Those are totally captured right now. It's a boring part of the world.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
They didn't say those words one time in the hearing. So let's take them off the table. The bottom line, Charlie, is we've got to get the Republicans on board. And Bill Cassidy, to his credit, was direct at the end of the last hearing. And he said he's still on the fence. I think your tweet, Charlie, was pitch perfect. I think we need to take Senator Cassidy's word that he is a doctor.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
And I think what Bobby and President Trump and this great team he's put together, they can communicate. We've got you. We've got Joe Rogan. We've got independent media ready to carry the church. Megyn Kelly was sitting right behind Bobby at the hearing. We are ready to shine a light on this again and again and again and use the grassroots army to get Americans healthier.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
Cassidy said he's going to talk to Bobby this weekend. Cassidy's on the finance committee, and the finance committee will be voting, the committee that's voting.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
The health committee will not be voting on a committee. So it has to be advanced by the finance committee.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
Cassidy's on that committee and has some sway, but he's on both committees. Yes, but listen, I think we're looking good. He is going to be confirmed. This is an absolute campaign mandate. Bobby's going to be confirmed. I'm taking a lesson from you, which is not let up the gas. I'm taking that lesson I saw from you during the campaign. I might be sounding a little paranoid.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
I think we've got to give a positive message to Cassidy. We should be paranoid, Charlie. Because this is the biggest and most powerful industry in the country. Pharma spends five times more on lobbying than the oil industry. And if we can get this win, it is a huge, huge win for the American people.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
He does care about public health. And I think he's talking a bit past each other with Bobby Kennedy here. He says his vote's contingent on knowing that Bobby Kennedy is going to maintain trust in science. The truth, as we know as parents, we're not scared for our children's health because of Bobby Kennedy. We are scared because the American Pediatrics is pushing processed food on our kids.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
We're scared because they're pushing Ozempic and other drugs in our kids as the standard of care. We're scared because still the CDC is saying a six-month-old should get a COVID-19 shot. The public health authorities are responsible for the breakdown of public health. And you know this and I know this. I know you've been very close to Bobby throughout this process.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
He is helping his life's mission with President Trump is to restore trust in science. You've seen these meetings. I'm shocked. It would shock anyone. I'm not shocked. But behind closed doors, it's not about an ideology. It's truly about getting the NIH money to the best researchers. Yeah, that's what they want to do.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
I want to talk to the Maha moms, because as we both know, Bobby Kennedy, more than maybe any other cabinet secretary, came in there with a great coalition. It's incredible. You saw it visually at the hearings. I mean, thousands of Maha moms back in the halls.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
So I want to be really clear to everyone watching, because I know everyone's really fired up, and I think we understand the societal stakes of this nomination. Let's talk to Senator Cassidy with respect, as you did. I think we need to bring him along. The MAHA is a new movement that health is not about the intricacies of Medicare and Medicaid policy.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
It's about really getting to the root cause of why we're getting sick. And I think Senator Cassidy can be brought along on that. Private conversations, of course those are happening. Of course those are happening. I think he's an independent guy. He's obviously made some decisions we disagree with in the past. But voting to convict the president. But some big ones. This could go a long way.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
We're going to leave that. Listen, there's some really obviously water on the bridge going backwards. Looking forward, this is what I'd say to him. And honestly, Charlie, I think it's probably what's being said behind closed doors is that he's concerned with public trust in science. And Bobby Kennedy and President Trump, it's promises made, promises kept. And they had two promises in this campaign.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
It's to return to gold star research. And it was really a positive health future where 95% today of healthcare costs are managing chronic disease. We could have an incentive system where companies are incentivized to reverse disease, to promote longevity. I know me and you read a lot of health blogs and books. We can put that into medicine and incentivize and reward companies.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
Right now we have a crony capitalist system that profits when we're sick. So there's this positive vision forward that I think they're telling Cassidy behind closed doors. I'll say this, Charlie, and I believe this with all my heart. I believe a yes vote from Senator Cassidy and every Republican senator.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
I believe they will consider it one of the greatest votes of their career in four years at the end of the Trump administration. I'm not joking about this. I think President Trump will be winning the Nobel Prize. I think science is so we so lost right now. We know the predetermined outcome before we do this study. We are going to get back to asking tough questions.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
And President Trump, he said it again and again. We're going to figure out why the hell our kids are so sick. And we're going to steer research to that. That's what's going to happen.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
I mean, every parent watching, you and me, I am really, that's what got me into this, along with my mom's death. I am scared about the future our kids are walking into. One in 30 kids in California having autism? That's really, really scary. I'm frankly, to be honest, concerned about the pharmaceutical projects. I'm concerned about the pharmaceutical products that are shoved down kids' throats.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
40% of teens are on a pharmaceutical right now. We have 50% of teens overweight or obese, and it's 3% in Japan. The Biden administration held this number until after the election, but according to recent reports, 38% of teens are pre-diabetic. We have a devastation among children's health. President Trump held up this graph on the Joe Rogan podcast.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
It showed we are spending three times more per capita than Europe, which, by the way, has terrible health care policy on health and living 10 years less than our friends in Switzerland or Japan and seven years less than the Italians. There's something really broken about our health incentives. And Bobby Kennedy said it, Charlie. There's nothing more profitable than a sick child.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
The insurance industry, pharma industry, and hospitals make money when a child is sick with a chronic disease for a longer period of time. And they lose money when a child's healthy. That's the fundamental problem.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
And this was really galvanized, I think, you and many other people and these incredible turning point events during the campaign. It's not a slight on any one person. We all know good doctors.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
But as a simple statement of economic fact, because of the crony capitalism, because of the rigging of our CMS department and our FDA and our NIH, you know, the standard of care if a kid has high cholesterol is a statin. The standard of care if they're a little bit sad is an SSRI. That's all because of the corruption in our agencies, the corporate capture.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
Doctors aren't talking to kids about healthy eating or functional medicine blood testing or getting outside. These things could be incentivized with our medical system. It's not a woo-woo thing. We spend $4.5 trillion on healthcare. And just as a simple fact, 95% of that is after we get sick. It's managing disease. Again, I mentioned they didn't say the word obesity, diabetes, heart disease.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
Those chronic conditions are 92% of deaths in America right now. They said the word measles 25 times, the Democrats. 300 Americans, just 300 Americans a year died of measles in 1962 before the vaccine was invented. It's a problem. Right. But we're not focused on the main issue as a health care system. And that's the opportunity that Bill Cassidy, frankly, has with this vote. This is historic.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
I'm keeping it positive this 24 hours. We're making the positive element. But this is part of the I know. I know. I know that you believe. Well, well, well, the retribution.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
So she's implying that there'll be retribution. I want to make the positive spin is that there is a absolute realignment of Republican politics due to Donald Trump. A lot of reasons. But I was talking to John McLaughlin. I know the administration sees this. The Maha Moms is a huge part of it. I mean, it's been called one of the biggest realignments in American politics.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
And you were a big part of this, Charlie, with young people. But you saw that at the events. The young people were very animated about the Maha thing, about not poisoning kids and then drugging them for profit. The gender gap closed much more than we expected. I think it was supposed to be like 22 points and it was eight. It's my understanding. So the gender gap closed and then independence.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
I mean, if you said eight years ago that the degree of young people, independence and women were going to come to the Trump coalition, they'd think you were crazy.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
This was a multifactorial issue, but clearly because the Maha moment. And I would just say we cannot get worse than where we are right now. We are the sickest country in the developed world. Our public health authorities have totally let us down from Fauci on down. Not only that, there's a true, like, very optimistic vision ahead. I mean, Jay Bhattacharya at the NIH is just an incredible pick.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
Marty McCary at the FDA. I mean, it's just unbelievable.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
They're Senate confirmed, and I think they'll be great. And they're under the tree of HHS. Yeah. Yeah. And Bobby is an incredible manager. He's a magnetic personality, as you know, but he set the vision and he's going to let them run wild with the mandate to get money to the best researchers.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
And importantly, reorient our corrupt American Medical Association codes that say right now that a two-year-old can have gender transition surgery. Reorient the codes to incentivize longevity. We can do that. The whole sick care system we have isn't the free market. It's rigged CMS codes that incentivize us to be Dr. Oz will be doing CMS. And he's he's he's a hero. I really.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
I'm just giving my brass tacks here. I believe that Cassidy sends a signal to potentially other wobbly ones. And I do believe, I don't want to mince words, as Cassidy goes, so does the vote.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
That's my opinion, Charlie. And I think everyone here should be sending positive messages to Cassidy, positive, saying the opportunity for American health. You've got the wobbly ones who voted against Hegseth. And I really think Cassidy is going to set a tone here. I think we've got to get Cassidy.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
He said at the end of the hearing, actually very directly, that he was torn on this and was going to be talking to Bobby this weekend.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
Collins made some nice comments at the hearing.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
Oh, absolutely. Lyme disease is a huge issue in her state. Bobby's been a world leader on Lyme disease.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
No, it's true. Everyone look at it.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
Senator Bennett, who is a senator from Colorado, a Dem, who was one of my favorite Dems, just disgraced himself. He disgraced himself at this hearing. I know. And he's usually, I sometimes think he's kind of reasonable. He disgraced himself.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
I've learned a lot from you, Charlie. We've got to sprint through the finish line here. I think Collins looks good. I think Lankford looks good. Collins would be great. I think Lankford looks good, but we've got to get Cassie.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
Great to see you, Charlie. Just in from D.C.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
That's my read. And I think Cassidy is weathervane. I think he gives a signal if he votes no. I think it's a problem. Just the brass tacks are Cassidy's an influential guy.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
The doctor of the Senate. He's the chair of the health committee. And to his credit, he's been a long-term good doctor.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
There's no question in my head.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
There's no question in my head that he cares in his head about public health and cares about the American patient. I actually think there's this, it's almost a symbolic thing. He's the traditional system and Bobby represents this new paradigm. He's CMS policy. Bobby's how do we actually incentivize better health? So them merging together, I actually think could be successful.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
Yeah, and I know we all have opinions. Not the you better type stuff. No, it's not the threat. I mean, Cassidy said this. I think he said in his career he's never gotten more phone calls than he has this time from the Maha moms. They took down the phone number. Yeah, they're camping out at his office.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
I mean, I just want to say, Charlie, I mean, channeled by Turning Point and the campaign and now here, This grassroots mobilization around so many issues, but around health. I mean, it's pretty inspiring to see. I mean, there were moms that drove 10 hours with their kids to come to this hearing. It was it was pretty damn cool. And the senators have said they've seen nothing like it in a long time.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
So he's feeling that. And that, I would say, is both a positive and a negative. Clearly, there's going to be massive ramifications for any Republican. The votes know it's particularly with Bobby Kennedy. But yeah, I just want to say this to everyone. Right now, this is a big vote. We're at a fork in the road for American health.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
I believe it's a societally destabilizing situation we're in where we are 4% of the world's population, 75% of worldwide pharmaceutical profits, and 60th in life.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
Let's take the Dems off the table. I mean, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are two of the largest recipients of pharma dollars, total shills. They were talking about baby onesies. They were acting like they cared about children's health, but they didn't say the words diabetes, obesity, or heart disease, the things that are really the scourge of childhood health right now.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
And we are 60th in life expectancy.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Do "They" Want Americans So Unhealthy? ft. Calley Means
Let's get into what—and this gets into the positive vision we can all paint. Let's get into what Bobby can actually do. So how are drug prices 10 times more expensive? How are the United States' decisions on more drugs? Well, it's because you first drug the NIH research. The NIH research is 85% pharmaceutical R&D.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Encore: The Shocking Truth About Ozempic & The Effects It Has On The Body | Calley Means & Dr. Tyna Moore
Hmm.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Encore: The Shocking Truth About Ozempic & The Effects It Has On The Body | Calley Means & Dr. Tyna Moore
Yeah.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Encore: The Shocking Truth About Ozempic & The Effects It Has On The Body | Calley Means & Dr. Tyna Moore
Correct.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Encore: The Shocking Truth About Ozempic & The Effects It Has On The Body | Calley Means & Dr. Tyna Moore
100%.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Encore: The Shocking Truth About Ozempic & The Effects It Has On The Body | Calley Means & Dr. Tyna Moore
100% agree. Can I interject here?
The Dr. Hyman Show
Encore: The Shocking Truth About Ozempic & The Effects It Has On The Body | Calley Means & Dr. Tyna Moore
Let's talk about both sides.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Encore: The Shocking Truth About Ozempic & The Effects It Has On The Body | Calley Means & Dr. Tyna Moore
There is, yeah.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
huge, huge, uh, glucose spikes. Um, and then I think another thing that's been really interesting is, is showing people, um, combinations and alternatives of, of, of, of foods that they can do that will do better.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
So for instance, combinations, we see a lot of people log something like an apple and then they'll log an apple with like peanut butter and yogurt and that peanut butter and yogurt is adding of course, fat and protein. Sometimes they'll put some chia seeds on that. That's some fiber.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
And we've definitely seen that when carbohydrates, sort of naked carbohydrates like a fruit, are paired with fat, protein, and fiber, people do better. In terms of alternatives, we've seen some really interesting things. We just published an article on Chipotle. We see people logging all sorts of things at Chipotle. Some of them... disaster for glucose.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
Some of them virtually no glucose response, like an average of seven milligrams per deciliter, very low. So that the really, you know, minimal glucose spiking things is the keto bowl. This is a salad that has protein, you know, fajita veggies, guacamole, salsa, virtually no glucose spike, tons of nutrients.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
Burritos, on the other hand, with that gigantic tortilla, send people on average through the roof. So people start learning, if I'm going to go to McDonald's, if I'm going to go to Chipotle, if I'm going to go to Sweetgreen, what should I order that's going to give me the best, you know, bang for my buck in terms of blood sugar?
The Dr. Hyman Show
Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
And then I think the last thing I would- And everybody's different, right?
The Dr. Hyman Show
Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
That's definitely true. So these are more the population-based sort of things that we're seeing that can kind of give you, I think, a general gestalt of where you should start. And then, of course, it's about actually trying it for yourself and seeing what actually works. um, works for you.
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There may be that person out there that doesn't spike to a huge flour tortilla, but for most people, um, you know, knowing that getting the keto bowl is going to have totally stable blood sugar on average for the population, they can at least go in there and get that and see what it does, uh, to them. So it kind of, I think nudges people, uh, in the right direction.
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And then the last big insight that I think we're seeing is around This is so simple, but it's profound, is walking. We have seen that a simple walk after eating significantly reduces glucose responses. And we actually did an experiment with our members where we sent people a 12-ounce can of Coke, two of them. And we said, hey, if you want to do this, drink this Coke on one day.
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And then on the next day, drink the Coke and take a walk right after you drink it.
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And we actually saw across this population that of the people who completed both aspects of the experiment, the median delta of the glucose rise was 33% lower if you just took a walk. So that was going from an average of 162 milligram per deciliter peak to 132. Over the course of your lifetime, if you're doing this every day, that's a huge difference.
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Well, there's a lot of research that looks into this and it really comes down to the sooner the better. Anytime you walk after a meal, even if it's an hour or two, do it. That's fantastic. But because our glucose tends to peak within an hour after a meal, I would say what I would recommend to people is after a meal, finish the conversation, 15, 20 minutes, get up with the family,
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take a spin around the block, put the dishes in the sink, go take a nice stroll around the block and then come back. If you don't want to walk outside because it's cold, put on some great music and have a dance party in the kitchen or do a few squats. It's really just about moving, but these are significant effects.
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That's the general layout of some of the things that have been so interesting to me just from looking at this huge dataset.
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Well, I'll go off of just what we're learning in our data set because we could obviously, you and I could talk about this forever about general principles.
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Absolutely. Of the categories of things that at this point, based on what we've learned, I would not really eat anymore would be certain candies, which I'll go into each of these in more detail. cereals, certain cereals, soda for sure, fast food, and lots of common takeout. So when we look at candy, this is actually really interesting.
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The worst food in our entire data set of 51 million glucose data points is Skittles.
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Not surprising, because it's a refined carbohydrate. You know, obviously there's refined sugar in there, but it's also kind of a naked carb, right? It doesn't actually have fat, protein, and fiber. Like a Snickers bar at least has some fat and some protein. The Skittles are just like naked carbs. So the Skittles have an- Naked carbs.
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They're just on their own, you know, like, and you can think of like fat, protein, and fiber as kind of clothing the carbs. So Skittles have an average glucose rise in our data set of 83 milligrams per deciliter. So that's certainly going to take you out.
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Wow, that's huge.
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It's way more than a Coca-Cola. And you are going to almost inevitably crash after that type of spike. Because of course, when you spike that high, you release all this insulin to soak up that glucose out of the bloodstream. And that huge surge of insulin can overshoot. The body responds sort of in an exaggerated way. You take up all that glucose.
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And then people often dip to below their baseline and have that reactive hypoglycemia after the spike, which is when they feel shaky, tired, lethargic. Yeah, exactly.
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The beauty of achieving more of the gentle rolling hills is that you don't end up having that reactive hypoglycemia that can make you feel really crappy, that post-meal slump that people are often like, oh, I just need a cup of coffee or something. It's like, no, it's the Skittles. The other candies that are in the worst
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Part of our data set are Sour Patch Kids, Caramel Corn, Twizzlers, and Jelly Beans. So you notice they all are similar. They're all these kind of – Jelly Beans. Not chocolatey, no protein, no fat, just like straight congealed sugar basically. Yeah. So those are the candies.
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Yes, and the stick was made out of sugar too. Wasn't it like a candy stick?
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I mean, we use sugar as a pain management tool in hospitals. This is abhorrent, but when children undergo circumcision in the hospital in their first days of life, what do they give them for pain medication?
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this little dropper called a sweeties which is just sugar water that is the analgesic so it's like exactly like you said it literally is like a functional lollipop um yeah so that's candy so yeah so get get rid of the skittles um you know a snickers bar literally has half the glucose spike of skittles so it's it's pretty amazing then it's cereals oh my gosh
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Well, just to tell about the cereals, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Honey Nut Cheerios, Lucky Charms, about 60 or above on glucose responses.
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After Cinnamon Toast Crunch, it's the worst.
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Those, you know, I haven't checked those precisely in our data set, but when you look at just like the top 50 worst foods that people log, all three of those, I mean, these kids are going to school after having these spikes and crashes. And, you know, Mark, like a lot of them are probably eating a glass of OJ on the side, which, you know, these are isolated food logs.
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Yes. You said that it's like eating sugar for breakfast. I will up the ante here. It's much worse than eating dessert for breakfast. Peach pie has an average glucose spike of 46 milligrams per deciliter. Cinnamon toast crunch is 59. And they both have, of course, the refined seed oils and the flour. It's worse.
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Exactly. So you mentioned getting rid of the breakfast foods that have the refined starches. This has been one of the most fascinating things we've seen because all the common American breakfast foods are in the worst 100 foods that score. And these, just to run through them really quick, we're talking about this is in our worst 50 foods.
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Egg McMuffin, bagel with cream cheese, French toast, Pop-Tarts, cereal, English muffin, blueberry scones, cinnamon roll, Cheerios, croissant, toast with jam. Those are all above a 40 milligram per deciliter spike. So that's a big spike.
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Which is a lot.
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It's a lot. If you look at then the best foods in our data set, like very little glucose spike, you also see a handful of breakfast foods. And so these are the ones we want to eat.
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These are the foods that are highly processed, that have the ultra-refined ingredients. These are the foods that make up the vast majority of the calories we consume in this country. They have the ultra-refined wheat flour, the processed sugar, which of course has more than 50 names on the packages.
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Like what?
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We see frittata. We see avocado and egg, avocado and greens, chia pudding, Greek yogurt and berries. And we actually see this, a lot of people log this, I think because Kelly Levesque is sort of close in our network, but we get a lot of logs for the Fab Four smoothie, which is a smoothie that she has popularized, which is really balanced.
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It has very minimal fruit, a lot of protein, fiber, fat, and greens. And all of those that I just mentioned all score high. below 20 milligrams per deciliter. So you want to get it. I mean, it's basically, Mark, it's the vegan diet. People can read your book. But it's the beautiful sort of like nutrient-dense foods that none of those have refined carbs.
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And I think people sometimes assume that, oh, if I'm going to have a keto breakfast or a low-carb breakfast, I need to eat the animal products. That's not true. Half of those things I just mentioned don't have Animal products, the Fab Four smoothie, the chia pudding. You could do non-dairy yogurt with some berries, some avocado.
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And so that's just something important to remember, that breakfast is this one's straightforward. Don't eat those first things. Eat those things. Yeah.
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So it's so hard to tell which of the foods actually have processed sugar, but the answer is most of the ones that are packaged in the store. These are the foods with fructose and high fructose corn syrup, the refined seed oils like sunflower, corn, soybean oil.
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This is such a great question. You asked for some surprising foods that spike blood sugar. I want to preface this answer by saying that some of these foods, it's not necessarily that you should avoid them completely because they're actually nutrient-dense whole foods. It's that it's good to be aware of how they're affecting you so that you can figure out how to eat the food
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in some different way you know maybe eat a smaller portion maybe pair it more with fat protein and fiber maybe take a walk afterwards but um the the the intention is not to hear these foods and then say oh i can't eat that again it's not a good food so this is that brings me to one of the first ones which is certain fruits there are certain fruits that spike people on average a lot more than others the ones that we see in the data set are banana which is maybe not that surprising um but grapes
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grapes have an average glucose spike of over 40 milligrams per deciliter. Whereas like a mandarin orange, for instance, is like 20. So it's a very big difference. We also see even within fruits, like different types of oranges, A mandarin orange has a low spike. A sumo orange is almost double that. And I mean, those sumo oranges are like so unbelievably delicious.
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And, you know, it also could be kind of a size thing. But, you know, chop up those oranges, put them in some yogurt and add some zen basil seeds or chia seeds or something with tons of fiber. It's going to potentially blunt that spike. So fruit juice is not a huge surprise, but like orange juice, huge spike, average of 40 milligrams per liter.
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These are the foods that when we eat them in these super high concentrations that our bodies have never seen before in evolutionary history until about 50, the past 50 or 100 years. They completely wreak havoc on our core fundamental processes that allow our cells to function properly, which is our metabolism. And they disrupt our homeostasis.
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So I would say, of course, avoid liquid sugar, which I would consider juices to be liquid sugar. But certain fruits do have more of a spike than others for sure. The next one, corn on the cob. Average glucose spike of 46 milligrams per deciliter, which is the same... What if you lather it in butter? Well, maybe doing some grass-fed... And what if you have it with you?
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Yeah, I think it's a good point.
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Or grass-fed butter, you know, some really nice butter, some ghee... I actually put corn now – I only use corn really now within recipes because I know that if I eat corn alone, it's going to spike me. So for instance, I make these really great hearts of palm crab cakes. So they're crabless crab cakes, and they have some corn in there. They don't spike me. I eat it with an avocado relish.
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There's lots of other stuff going on. So I just have figured out how to balance it to not spike me.
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We also see big spikes to some foods that are totally marketed as low carb. Like I hate to throw some certain brands under the bus, but Smart Sweets, they market themselves as having significantly less sugar than other candy, but they have a higher glucose spike on average than a cinnamon roll. So that's where marketing, people are like, oh, they eat the low carb candy. Crazy.
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You got to test it on yourself. And then this one was interesting. So the fasting mimicking diet has become really popular.
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Yeah. And actually. Yes. Oh.
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This one in our top 10 worst scoring foods. So right next to Skittles is.
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The tomato soup has an average glucose spike of 53 milligrams per deciliter. I don't quite know.
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One of the soups.
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I will. I'm going to. I'll send in the episode. We have not met personally. But the thing is, their results of the data of that program are profound. And it is clearly evidence-based that it is extremely effective for improving cardiometabolic biomarkers. What I would say, though, is that there's probably a way to even more tweak that program if the ingredients were slightly modified.
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I don't think that glucose spike in the context of basically eating like 500 calories a day for five days is really going to hurt people. But we want to reduce glycemic variability. And it's probably pretty simple to swap out some ingredients there. So that's good information to have. And I think the last thing I'd mentioned that has really blown me away is the energy bars.
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We probably have over 50 different types of energy bars logged in the data set, ranging from Quest bars, Bulletproof bars, Cliff bars, Luna bars, all of these. And the spectrum is profound. Yeah. We see that.
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Totally. And they also, you know, they're walking to Whole Foods. And you know, you go to that aisle with all the bars. And it's like, it's just colors galore, beautiful packaging, all these claims on every box. Each one has a different thing. It's like, oh, this has no sugar alcohols. This has high protein. This one's organic. How the heck do you know what to choose?
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So those are the types of foods that you certainly want to avoid in order to prevent these diseases. And the unfortunate thing is that these ingredients... sneak into so many different foods, often foods that are marketed as healthy. And so we really are in a tough position right now. That summary was so phenomenal. We are dealing with two epidemics that are so interrelated right now.
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Well, in the future, we can look it up like this and figure it out. So for instance, like Clif Bars have a spike around 42 milligrams per deciliter. That's almost 10 points higher than a Snickers bar. Like I'm, I used to eat those.
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Um, go macro bars have a spike of around 44 milligrams, stress leader. And then you look at some of these others like, um, uh, bulletproof bars are like very low. Um, perfect keto bars. And so this is all just sort of anecdotal data. This is obviously not controlled trials.
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But what I get excited about is that that person in that aisle who has made the commitment to try to lose weight, to try to be healthier, is not at the mercy of the food marketing, of what the box says. They actually have some agency now in the face of unfortunately, industries that are not necessarily aligned with our long-term health. So those are some of the surprising ones that we've seen.
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Well, this is such an important question because I want to be very clear. Glucose is not the only biomarker that you need to orient your diet around. Right now, it's the only continuous biomarker that we have that can give us closed-loop biofeedback on nutrition. we don't have anything else that we can put on our bodies and see exactly how food's affecting us.
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You know, I think, of course, both you and I would probably love to see an inflammatory monitor, an oxidative stress monitor, you know, these things that also affect our health.
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Insulin. Insulin, of course.
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Of course. And so that's what kind of gets into the things that won't spike glucose, but you still should avoid for optimal metabolic health. The first and the biggest one is fructose. So fructose alone... will not spike blood sugar or insulin. But we know from the mechanisms of how insulin resistance develops that it directly contributes to insulin resistance through a really interesting pathway.
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Fructose is broken down into a byproduct called uric acid, which goes into the mitochondria, the seed of our metabolism in the cell, and generates oxidative stress, this damaging free radical activity that actually causes the mitochondria to become dysfunctional and process glucose less effectively and shunt glucose to fat storage.
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So then you start getting fatty liver disease because of fructose, and that fatty liver disease causes liver insulin resistance, which then makes you less...
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able to to stabilize and regulate your blood sugar so fructose has this really interesting side pathway that ultimately leads to more instability in glucose but will not show up on a cgm if eaten in isolation now of course it's a really important thing i just want to stop there because i just said something super important you know if you're for example eat
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We're dealing with the metabolic disease epidemic, which is the leading driver of mortality in In the Western world now, we like to call all these different metabolic diseases by different names, which may make them artificially seem like they have less impact. But really, like you said, the root cause is a problem with metabolism.
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It's so important. So going off of what else should we be thinking about, I would love to see a uric acid continuous monitor. Because then all of a sudden, if we could measure both those things, then we start to see a more holistic view of how food is affecting us.
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Because ultimately our mission at Levels is to help people know how food affects their bodies so we can reverse the metabolic disease epidemic. But right now there's still some blind spots. So like you mentioned, David Perlmutter is coming out with a book called Drop Acid about how fruit is affecting our health.
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We also in February are getting another book by Rick Johnson from University of Colorado that's called Nature Wants Us to Be Effective. fat, which is also all about uric acid. And so I think we're going to be starting to talk a lot more about that come February, which is awesome because fructose is absolutely killing us. There's just absolutely really no two butts about that.
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And like you said, it's not the fructose that comes in fructose. fruit, which is in a complex of fiber, in a whole food, slower to digest, and smaller quantities. It's the refined liquid versions that go into our processed foods and that we find in juice that we should really avoid. Because what happens is the liver knows how to process fructose, and it knows how to just produce...
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small amounts of uric acid that our body knows how to handle. It's when we overwhelm those pathways in a short period of time that we get the uric acid skyrocketing and create that oxidative stress. So it's really a lot about pacing. And they've even done research showing that if you drink a Coca-Cola
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slower, like over the course of an hour or two hours versus in five minutes, it actually has less of a damaging effect on liver because you have to think we're just made up of a ton of cells that are trying their hardest to process this stuff, right? And so if you can process and clear, process and clear, it's better than if you just jam it down your throat and
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overwhelm the enzymatic, you know, all these enzymes in the body that are trying so hard to get through it. And then you end up creating excess of these damaging byproducts that ultimately lead to organ dysfunction. So fructose is a big one. The second big one I would mention is the pro-oxidative stress inducing foods that come from more like refined fat.
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So it's like the seed oils that we talked about. Again, the name of the game is in many ways oxidative stress, which is this process that damages our mitochondria. So you want to avoid those refined seed oils that are in everything that's packaged.
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And you really be vigilant about looking at labels and trying to opt for things that only have oils like avocado oil, olive oil, coconut oil, ghee, butter that are less prone to oxidation.
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Not saying that based on our data set. None of these actually, these ones for this question, not talking about our data set. The thing is about... about the data set is that what we're seeing is the real time response to different foods.
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But the next layer of this onion, when we have lots and lots of people using this type of technology over long periods of time is we think we'll start to see the longer term, the lagging effects of how these other products like fructose and refined seed oils and excess alcohol over the longer term lead to glucose instability.
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When we talk about obesity, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer's, dementia, fatty liver disease. It's we know that all of these are related to dysregulated blood sugar. And in fact, nine of the 10 leading causes of death in the United States are in some way either directly caused by or worsened and accelerated by dysregulated blood sugar.
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A lot of that we just don't have much knowledge about because we haven't been looking at pre-disease very much in our medical system. We don't really study healthy people and how they go from healthy to pre-disease to disease because that's not the way that our healthcare system works. We wait until disease and symptoms emerges and then we react. And that's a problem.
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So I think we're going to see a shift here. and starting to understand. But this is more based on what we just know from the mechanisms, the fructose and the seed oils.
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Yeah. Well, I think the alcohol example is really interesting and is an important one to mention, especially both in relation to your last question and this one. Alcohol is really interesting because straight alcohol, like spirits, no mixers that have sugar, actually often cause people to see a decrease in their blood sugar on their continuous glucose.
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You mean, you mean me like tequila, not like wine, wine, wine actually fits in there as well. So wine, tequila, other sort of like hard alcohol, that's not mixed with anything. People often see that it blunts their glucose response. And this is a well-known phenomenon.
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Um, the way that alcohol acts on the liver is that it actually stops us from doing what's called gluconeogenesis, which is the process where, or it, it, it, inhibits that process where, and that's where we make glucose in the liver from other substrates. So it's one of the pathways that our body uses to make sure our glucose never gets too low.
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But when you block that, it can make glucose just look artificially a little bit lower because that's one of the streams of glucose going into the body. Food is another one, but you're turning it off. And so that's an interesting thing where it will not spike your glucose, but, and I
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But in excess, it should be avoided because over time, two or more drinks a day is associated epidemiologically with worse metabolic outcomes. Interestingly, if you look at the risk of alcohol and metabolic disease, it's actually a J-shaped curve, meaning that if you drink no alcohol –
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Um, people actually have, are in a slightly higher risk for developing metabolic disease, very minorly higher, but one drink seems to be associated with the lower, uh, the lowest amount of future development of cardiometabolic disease. And then after one, it sort of goes up. So it's a J shaped curve.
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This is not to say you should drink for your, for your metabolic health, but it is kind of an interesting thing, um, that you do see, uh, in the literature. Um, So that's sort of the case with alcohol. It won't spike your glucose, but an excess should be avoided. And another interesting thing about alcohol is that it of course disrupts the microbiome and can create some transient leaky gut.
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So to get to this question of what are the foods we need to avoid? void in order to prevent these diseases, one of the biggest things we need to do is keep our blood sugar in a stable and healthy range throughout the entirety of our lifetimes.
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It also, conventional wine is filled with pesticides and food additives that we know can impact the gut. And like we talked about earlier in the episode, gut health and microbiome diversity is one of the predictors of your response to different foods in terms of glucose response. you know, it gets kind of complex.
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If we could also track our microbiome, this also might help us understand our diets a little bit more. So we wanna, you know, certainly be thinking about microbiome and about environmental toxins when we're eating, even though some of those things are not necessarily gonna spike your glucose in real time.
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Eating pesticides is not gonna spike your glucose, but over time it can create the toxic damage to our cells that ultimately does lead to insulin resistance. And we know that certainly with several of these chemicals in our environment, like persistent organic pollutants, that of course are not going to spike glucose immediately, but which over the long term create cellular dysfunction.
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So kind of getting back to your question about how to pair foods and time them and sequence them, The key point is balance. You want to eat carbohydrates with fat, protein, and fiber. That is generally gonna blunt the glucose spike by slowing digestion, and fiber actually can sometimes block the amount of sugar you even absorb from the gut.
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Um, they've looked at studies, I think with, uh, with nuts, for instance, which have a good amount of fiber and the calories that are on the bag may not be the calories that you actually end up absorbing because fiber blunts some of that absorption. So I think of fiber as like a total magical life hack.
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The worst food in our entire data set of 51 million glucose data points is.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
And I end up adding, um, I end up adding chia seeds and I love this other type of seed called Zen basil seeds, which actually have more fiber than chia. Just sprinkle it on stuff. It's like a little superpower. Um, yeah.
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It is amazing. I mean, the shirataki noodles that you mentioned, which I think generally have like konjac root in them and some tofu, this root, konjac root, has so much fiber. It's actually eating this food has been shown to improve metabolic outcomes and reverse obesity. Yes, yes.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
And we have the power to do that by making smart choices about our foods and, of course, also pulling the other levers that impact our blood sugar, which is, of course, exercise, sleep, stress management, optimizing our microbiome. avoidance of environmental toxins that hurt our metabolic pathways.
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you could either eat like white pasta with refined white flour with very few nutrients or you could eat some konjac root which has tons of fiber and nutrients like that's the type of swap that a lot of our members are like it's kind of changing their lives like yeah i still get to eat my pesto pasta but And they taste pretty good.
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I'm so happy to know this because I eat them constantly. I have a, I have a recurring subscription to a, to new pasta, which is the brand like it, that, that makes these, these hundred, the only ingredient I think is cognac. So, um, The last point I'll touch on is the sequencing that you talked about, which is how to order your foods in what order to eat them to get the best glucose response.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
And this has actually been studied in a lot of peer-reviewed data as well. If you eat protein and fat before your carbs, people tend to have a significantly lower glucose response to those subsequent carbs. So it's kind of the opposite of what we do in the restaurant where we get the tortilla chips and the bread rolls before our salad and our main course. We should do exactly the opposite.
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We should be eating the roughage of the salad, put something, some good fiber in our bellies, maybe have the chicken. If you're looking at a plate that has chicken breast, a bunch of greens and asparagus and mashed potatoes, the way to do it is eat your salad before the entree, then eat the chicken, then eat the vegetables, wait two or three, four minutes, and then eat the mashed potatoes.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
That will likely have a better response than if you ate the potatoes first and then everything else. And so I think about that now when I'm kind of thinking about how to approach my plate or how to serve food at a dinner party. just simple shifts in ordering can make a big difference. It also can be satiating, right? So you eat that protein and that fat, which is more satiating first.
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You may end up finding that you don't want as many of the rolls or the tortilla chips or the mashed potatoes, um, after, after eating those things first. So.
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Absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, one of the things that I love to do is while I'm cooking, you know, I'll have some of these foods that you just mentioned kind of out on the counter for people to graze on. So things like things that I know don't spike glucose, but which have those those fat fibers. protein and fiber. So some of my favorite things is having an assortment of nuts.
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I would say that the foods that drive these cardiometabolic diseases are foods that disrupt our cells from doing what they need to do to function optimally and that then lead to insulin resistance, the physiologic process that ultimately creates the dysregulated blood sugar. The reality is that the average American wants to be healthy and is putting in work to try to be healthy.
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Um, we see that pilly nuts and, uh, pistachios and walnuts and macadamia nuts are some of the best ones that we see. Um, then I'll have some olives, which very little glucose spike, lots of fat, delicious. And, you know, some flax crackers or some seed crackers, which have so much fiber, um,
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And maybe have some sort of like a sardine dip or something, which has some fat, some protein, some omega-3s. So a little bit of like a really healthy charcuterie that is going to make people, you know, when we get to the meal, not necessarily want to dive into whatever carb is on the plate. So really simple, delicious stuff. And yeah.
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Another one I love to add is coconut chips, like the little dried coconut. They have virtually no glucose response and have a good amount of fat in them. So those are certainly some pre-meal stuff you could try or even things you can pack in your bag to have snacks throughout the day that have a low glucose response.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
Oh, I was just going to say one of the beautiful things about keeping your blood sugar more stable over time is that – and I'm sure I imagine you've noticed this in your own life. I certainly have – is that when you keep that blood sugar down and you get on top of your insulin levels, you end up being more metabolically flexible. And actually, that can really diminish that type of –
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that craving and hunger that we feel all throughout the day to have those snacks right like it's the spikes and the crashes that lead to this dependence on glucose where our body is more biologically equipped to process glucose than fat um so by actually keeping glucose more stable keeping our insulin levels under better control, we tap into fat burning much more effectively.
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And we all have several weeks worth of fat, even a lean person on their body that can help us stay satiated and not so viscerally hungry in between meals and not so dependent on glucose. So that's one of the other things that I really love about this technology is that it trains people to
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kind of manage like anger and manage their cravings and become, that is really what one of the side benefits of metabolic flexibility is, is not, you know, having that desperate feeling of like, I have to snack. And I've definitely had times in my life when I've more, I know I've been less metabolically flexible because I'm always looking out for where's the Hershey kiss? Where's the snack?
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We see that 50% of American adults go on a diet every year trying to lose weight. Of course, 72% of Americans right now are overweight or obese, but half the country is making the commitment and reporting that in a survey saying that they're trying to lose weight. And yet every year we are getting sicker, we are getting fatter, we are getting more anxious.
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What if I don't have food with me? And that's not really that's not really a great place to be in, you know. And so it's very liberating to to kind of be able to go longer between meals. And I was at a talk by Dr. Terry Walls at a conference just a few weeks ago.
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And she takes it to the extreme, which is that she's she's so metabolically flexible that when she travels, because obviously airports are just a disaster land for getting healthy food unless you bring your own. She just doesn't eat on travel days. Those are her extended fasting days.
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And she's trained her body to be so metabolically flexible over time that she can tap into her fat stores during those travel days and not have that kind of panic. And so that's definitely one of the things that motivates me as I keep my glucose more stable is I know I'm becoming more metabolically flexible.
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And therefore, I'm becoming a little bit more free from the dependency on always having a glucose hit.
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Yeah. Well, I have to admit, a lot of what I've learned about this comes from you. I mean, reading The Blood Sugar Solution, I think when I was in medical school, one of my favorite books of all time. Everyone should read it. But I mean, it's a wake-up call because that book is based on the research and it was not what I was learning at Stanford Medical School.
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That if a patient walks into the office and their glucose is 99, that Bill of Health, it's under 100. You're totally fine. You don't need to think about this. That is false.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
And we have learned there was a paper in The Lancet from, I think, two years ago that showed that fasting glucose is really a very lagging indicator of metabolic dysfunction and therefore probably not the best screening tool for us to use to identify people who are on their way to big problems.
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Meaning that it's not going to change until the train is really off the rails.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
And this paper was conservative, I would say, based on the methods and showed that it was about 13 years before your fasting blood glucose chart starting problems that you probably had underlying insulin resistance. So the body is so amazing. We... put all these stresses on it, like repeated glucose spikes.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
So there's clearly an effort outcome mismatch. And that's where I think the future.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
Each one of those glucose spikes is telling your pancreas, it's stressing your pancreas and telling it to create that insulin surge that takes the glucose out of the bloodstream.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
And as that happens repeatedly over and over again, and as your liver insulin resistance develops because you're eating so much fructose, these things are working together to basically make you less sensitive to insulin, to to create insulin resistance, which is the body's protective way of saying, whoa, too much insulin, too much glucose coming around. We can't get this all into the cell.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
We can't process it fast enough block, but the body is smart and adaptive. And the pancreas says, well, we got to get that blood sugar out of the bloodstream. So I'm just going to produce more insulin to keep driving that glucose into the cells. So you're having this rising insulin and
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
keeping that fasting glucose at a seemingly normal level while you march down this trajectory of worsening insulin resistance. Of course, we do not check fasting insulin in conventional medical practice. The ADA guidelines do not recommend checking it in virtually any patients, even if you have diabetes. And so we miss this window where the body's working so hard to overcompensate
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
Yeah, effort outcome mismatch. Yeah, that's a good way to talk about it. Right.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
while our fasting glucose remains low. But one of the, um, and only when that process really starts breaking down, do we start to see that fasting glucose creeping up where those compensatory mechanisms have essentially kind of gone off course. Um, so, so we really want to keep our fasting glucose in that lower normal range, more from 70 to 85, um, And there's large studies.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
And that is where I think tools that can empower people with information to actually make choices that actually impact the physiology that leads to chronic disease and weight gain is really going to shape and change the future of health care and really create this patient empowered, more decentralized form of health care.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
New England Journal of Medicine has shown that people in the lowest quartile or quintile, I forgot the exact data, but in the lowest range of normal blood sugar, so more in that 70s, have a much lower risk of future diabetes development than someone who's in the high normal range. And yet, for many of these people, their doctor is telling all of those people in that category that they're normal.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
So the cool thing about continuous glucose monitoring is that as you become more insulin resistant, you tend to have a more unstable post-meal level of glucose, like you spike higher to the same food. And so seeing sort of where you are in terms of your responses to foods can be a little bit of an early indicator of whether you're moving down the spectrum of insulin resistance.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
And Michael Schneider at Stanford has done amazing work showing that basically that we get more 24-hour continuous glucose variability as we march down that spectrum of insulin resistance, even in the face of a normal fasting glucose. The second thing, of course, and I'm just obviously preaching to the choir here, is ask your doctor to order a fasting insulin test.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
You want to make sure that fasting insulin is in a low and healthy range, which is a sign to you that your body is not having to do all this extra work and overcompensation in the face of silent insulin resistance. that's developing.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
Well, and that example we've seen several times in our members so far, we actually just recently launched a new offering for our members, which is a metabolic health lab panel that tests insulin. Because so many people were telling us, my doctor won't order this for me.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
where we don't just outsource our judgment to other people, to the food companies, to healthcare systems that give very generic recommendations to anyone. We actually are able to have the judgment about our bodies for ourselves. And I think that's pretty cool.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
So we have a way now where we send a phlebotomist to the patient's house and they get a cholesterol panel, a fasting glucose, a fasting insulin, inflammation markers, et cetera, so that you can start to see uh, that type of thing. But we, we had an amazing member.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
Um, she's actually, I, I will mention her by name because we actually recorded a podcast with her for the levels podcast, a whole new level. Her name's Betsy McLaughlin. She's actually an incredible business woman. She was a CEO of hot topic, which was a huge clothing company. Um, she's on the board of good American and bark and all these companies.
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She's a huge powerhouse, but she struggled with weight for like 40 years.
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years and she had some great functional medicine doctors and they ordered fasting insulin and her fasting insulin was like 35 fasting they didn't do the two-hour insulin tests like you were talking about but it was way too high like we want it somewhere between like two and six or so um for our fasting insulin so she couldn't get the weight off so she put levels she put a cgm on and basically what she did was um she
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
tested all the food she was eating and saw anything that spiked her glucose above 120 and then just stopped eating it. So she totally, yeah.
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I mean, this is not yet agreed upon by the medical or scientific bodies that be. Again, because we have not done longitudinal studies that show that certain post-neal levels ultimately lead to... We are actually doing a lot of that research right now.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
We're working closely with Sarah Gottfried at Thomas Jefferson University, Gerald Shulman at Yale, several people to actually look at what should our glucose be after meals. But from everything I've seen in the literature, it really shouldn't go above glucose. 110 to 120.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
I'd be curious to hear your threshold.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
It has been so incredible to start to see some trends emerge from this huge, anonymized, aggregated data set, really the first of its kind in the world. Like you mentioned, we have 51 million glucose data points, and this is just amongst our closed beta program, 16,000 people who have gone through our closed beta program.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
We have almost 200,000 people on our wait list, so you can imagine that 51 million is data points is going to get a lot larger when we start opening to more people. We have those 51 million glucose data points paired with 1.3 million food logs. We can start to see for the first time ever how specific foods across a population
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
are affecting, uh, glucose and, and creating this population data of a closed loop biofeedback. Um, you mentioned the individualized aspect of this. That is so true. And that paper that you referenced, um, personalized nutrition by prediction of glycemic responses that was done about five years ago in Israel showed how variable it is person to person.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
Uh, we could both of course, eat the exact same cookie and you and I could have a very different glucose response based on several factors like our microbiome, our underlying insulin resistance, et cetera. That's a really important aspect is for the individual, what kind of data they can get to really truly personalize their own data based on glucose response because of course,
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
we talked about this a lot in our last episode a more stable glucose level with more gentle rolling hills after meals avoiding the huge spikes and valleys that we see after eating large amounts of carbohydrates and sugar that's what we want we want the gentle rolling hills the low glucose response so you can start to see that in yourself and shape your diet very quickly on the population level
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
then we get to see something interesting as well that actually can benefit anyone, not just the people who have a sensor on. Because this becomes a database that really informs the nutrition industry like we've never been able to before, where we start to see radical transparency about what food is actually doing to people's bodies.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
And I personally think in five years, it's going to seem incredibly outdated, incredibly quaint to walk into the grocery store and choose foods based on what the box says, based on interests that are not aligned with your thriving and well-being. They're aligned with taking you to your bliss point, making you dependent.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
for it, making your dopaminergic reward systems want to keep coming back, but it's not aligned necessarily with your health. And so we're going to start to see this huge new way of choosing foods. I can imagine, you know, like a person with polycystic ovarian syndrome, for instance, a condition that we know is directly related to insulin resistance.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
And studies have shown that low carb diets, a healthy Mediterranean ketogenic diet for just 12 weeks can actually reverse PCOS. This was a study done just a couple of years ago. So there's people, and women are very savvy with their research, and they're going out and they're reading the books, they're reading these papers, and they know they need to keep their glucose and insulin under control.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
They know that just being prescribed a birth control pill and metformin is not the answer to their long-term health. And so they're looking for tools. And you can imagine that woman, her doctor says to her, oh, you don't have diabetes. You don't need to worry about blood sugar. You have PCOS. It's very different. They know, though. They've read. They do their research.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
People are very smart, very informed. They know they're going to work to keep their blood sugar down because they know that in the research that shows that it will help. Right. So they go to the grocery store now with this app, with something that they can actually look up every food they're buying and see exactly across tens of thousands of people what it's doing to people's blood sugar.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
So you go into the non-dairy milk aisle and you've got 15 different options. You've got oat milk. You've got almond milk. You've got cashew milk, blah, blah, blah. And it's like... what the heck are you supposed to get? And you think you're making a good choice because you're buying an unsweetened non-dairy milk.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
But the reality is from our data set that there are some of those that give you a monumental spike, even if they're unsweetened. oat milk, you know, and then there's others that actually have virtually no glucose response. So that person now can take their health into their own hand, make a consumer decision, not based on marketing that's going to serve their goals.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
And I am so excited for that world because people are going to start, I think, demanding from food companies to actually create products that are not creating a huge amount of glycemic variability or these ups and down spikes. And you can't hide from that data. And so I'm really thrilled of what that's going to do.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
So circling back to your main question of kind of like some of the themes that we've seen. Yeah, what do we see? I think one of the first things that's really interesting is our demographics, actually. So aside from glucose data, actually 52% of our beta members are women. And this is so different than what you hear in the mainstream media.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
There's a New York Times article about levels that talks about how this is for the worried well and the biohacker guys and the longevity crazy. And it's like, that is not the reality. The reality is this is mostly women in their ages of 30 to 40. So very similar to the demographic I was talking about with people who are at high risk for things like PCOS.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
And their primary reason for wanting to use a CGM, what they report to us is weight loss, followed by finding their optimal diet. Of men, in the 48% who are men, their number one goal is optimal diet as well. So people are clearly interested in finding what actually works for them. Okay.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
If you go back to what you're talking about with COVID, the CDC just announced yesterday, finally admitted that 75% of the people dying of COVID have four or more of these largely preventable cardiometabolic comorbidities. People know, they know now, and now it's finally coming out in the mainstream media that we've got to get the blood sugar under control.
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So that's one thing we're seeing is really interesting demographics. This is not the worried well, this is not the, you know, Like for the celebrity rich and famous, this is for people who want to just figure out their diet and lose weight, which is great.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
The second thing we've seen a lot of is that foods that are commonly touted as healthy or that we perceive to be healthy may actually be generating shockingly high glucose spikes. And I think we particularly see this around breakfast.
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
Like what?
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Encore: The Worst And Best Foods For Your Blood Sugar with Dr. Casey Means
Like breakfast foods, we certainly see snacks, common snacks, drinks, common takeout foods. And we can certainly dive into like the details on those. But it's amazing how some of these things that we just think are totally normal to just eat on a Friday night or whatever, they're actually or grab for breakfast or serve in school lunches at schools are actually causing these
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America’s Obesity Crisis: Is Ozempic a Cure or a Cover-Up? | Calley Means and Tyna Moore
That's how I remember the two.
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America’s Obesity Crisis: Is Ozempic a Cure or a Cover-Up? | Calley Means and Tyna Moore
So this... Do they all... Yeah, do they all get that?
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America’s Obesity Crisis: Is Ozempic a Cure or a Cover-Up? | Calley Means and Tyna Moore
Well, we talk a lot, the genetic arguments brought up a lot, and obviously, did genetics change in the last 50 years as obesity has absolutely taken over our country? But gene expression changes, right? So I think that's the thing that happens.
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America’s Obesity Crisis: Is Ozempic a Cure or a Cover-Up? | Calley Means and Tyna Moore
And I agree, Kelly. But they could change if that child is provided a whole food diet. That's right. Epigenetic changes can be reversed. Is exposed to sunlight.
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America’s Obesity Crisis: Is Ozempic a Cure or a Cover-Up? | Calley Means and Tyna Moore
So we have an Orwellian situation where we have such a crisis in America that children are in utero developing metabolic dysfunction because we're being, our food is so toxic and we've had a sedentary lifestyle and aren't looking at the sunlight and being, you know, sleeping, dysregulated sleeping, chronic stress with our phones.
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America’s Obesity Crisis: Is Ozempic a Cure or a Cover-Up? | Calley Means and Tyna Moore
So we have such a bad metabolic health environment that we have an epidemic of kids being born, you know, born with metabolic dysfunction. So it is societally vital. There's nothing more important than this. So we have an opportunity. It's not a both-and.
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America’s Obesity Crisis: Is Ozempic a Cure or a Cover-Up? | Calley Means and Tyna Moore
Are we going to, as a matter of public policy and as a matter of focus in that country, change that dynamic of changing our USDA guidelines to say that that two-year-old shouldn't be eating sugar? When you go the route of Ozempic, when you go the route that this is so bad that we need to jab those children at six. That's a different route. That's a different prioritization. It's not both hands.
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America’s Obesity Crisis: Is Ozempic a Cure or a Cover-Up? | Calley Means and Tyna Moore
But if we agree with the idea, if we actually agree with the science and that this drug is good and should be used as a standard of care, why not? I don't think any drug is good or bad.
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America’s Obesity Crisis: Is Ozempic a Cure or a Cover-Up? | Calley Means and Tyna Moore
Who is the right person, just generically? I'm just curious. Well, that's a great question.
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Encore: Mastering Your Metabolism: Expert Advice You Need
Yeah. So there's sort of four things that I think are kind of worth focusing on. There's the direct effects of high blood sugar. So you eat something and your blood sugar spikes, and then there's biological effects of that. And then there is a fourth thing, which is the long-term stuff.
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Encore: Mastering Your Metabolism: Expert Advice You Need
So in terms of those short-term things, like you drink a Coke and your blood sugar goes up from 75 milligrams per deciliter to 150 milligrams per deciliter, that blood sugar spike can cause glycation. It can cause oxidative stress. Wait, wait, wait.
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Encore: Mastering Your Metabolism: Expert Advice You Need
what is glycation so glycation is the process where sugar just sticks to things in your body it's actually just like sugar molecules sticking to things like fats and proteins and and dna and that can cause dysfunction it can cause those you know cellular um parts to be dysfunctional and so that's that's an issue we don't want that it can generate inflammation immediately too this huge surge of sugar is unusual for the body
The Dr. Hyman Show
Encore: Mastering Your Metabolism: Expert Advice You Need
you know it's like what what is going on why is why is this big change this sort of homeostatic shift happening um we don't want that and then it can cause oxidative stress which is sort of this reaction where your body's producing metabolic byproducts that are reactive and can be damaging to the cells so these unpaired electrons that go around and want to bind with things it's resting exactly
The Dr. Hyman Show
Encore: Mastering Your Metabolism: Expert Advice You Need
So big glucose spike, you can have immediate effects on oxyostress, glycation, and inflammation. And then the fourth thing is this thing that's happening both immediately, but also really has cumulative effects, which is the insulin surge. So when you have that big glucose spike, your pancreas is releasing all this insulin to help you
The Dr. Hyman Show
Encore: Mastering Your Metabolism: Expert Advice You Need
soak up the glucose out of the bloodstream into the cells so it can be processed and bring the glucose back down and what can happen there in the short term is that if you've got a big spike so that big up and down um the insulin can actually sometimes overshoot it can actually do too good a job in soaking up all that glucose and you can have what's called reactive hypoglycemia
The Dr. Hyman Show
Encore: Mastering Your Metabolism: Expert Advice You Need
which colloquially is known as the post-meal crash. So if you've had lunch and then after lunch feel tired and you want to have that second cup of coffee at 1 p.m.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Encore: Mastering Your Metabolism: Expert Advice You Need
and maybe you feel a little bit more anxious, that might just be the fact that your blood sugar has gone up, you've released all this insulin, the insulin's kind of overshot, you've crashed down, and now you're in this dip and the body's trying to get back into balance. And that that roller coaster with insulin.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Encore: Mastering Your Metabolism: Expert Advice You Need
Exactly. And so that's happening in the short term. And then that insulin process, going back to what we were talking about before, can over time lead to that insulin resistance, where the cells see that huge surge in insulin so frequently that they actually say, we can't keep doing this. This is too much insulin, and we get numb to it. And that's insulin resistance.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Encore: Mastering Your Metabolism: Expert Advice You Need
And then what happens is your insulin levels, they start creeping up because your body's trying to overcompensate for that block by producing more. And then that leads to so many of the downstream conditions that we've been talking about. When you've got this high insulin, one of the secondary effects of that, let's just talk about obesity.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Encore: Mastering Your Metabolism: Expert Advice You Need
insulin is a signal to the body that glucose is around for energy. And it's also a signal to the body that because there's so much glucose around, we don't need to use fat for energy. Glucose and fat are the two main ways that we produce energy in the body. And when that insulin's high, it blocks us from tapping in to fat burning. It says to the body, nope, you don't need to tap into fat burning.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Encore: Mastering Your Metabolism: Expert Advice You Need
We've got a bunch of glucose around. And so this is relevant to anyone who who is trying to lose weight or who has the excess belly fat because that insulin is a real block on helping us achieve those goals. And so for us to tap into our copious fats stores in our body, we need the insulin to be lower.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Encore: Mastering Your Metabolism: Expert Advice You Need
so by getting off that glucose roller coaster by eating foods that keep us more flat and stable throughout the day which is what we want for optimal health both in the short term and the long term we give our body a break from producing that insulin and that can have a real significant impact on our ability to um to lose weight to kind of get rid of that belly fat to tap into this alternate metabolic fuel source and to generate what we call metabolic
The Dr. Hyman Show
Encore: Mastering Your Metabolism: Expert Advice You Need
flexibility, which is this ability of the body to flip between using glucose when it's around and using fat when it's not around. And that state of being able to do both is a really healthy state. It's adaptive. But the average American with the vast majority of our calories coming from ultra processed foods, and I believe more than 70% of processed foods in the US have refined sugar in them.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Encore: Mastering Your Metabolism: Expert Advice You Need
And we've been told, of course, to eat six small meals a day. You are on, as an American, this up and down glucose roller coaster all day. And so you're really never giving your body this time in a low insulin state. So you really do have to be quite aware. think differently. I mean, the reality is, as an American adult, you're on a treadmill towards being overweight and chronic disease.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Type 2 diabetes used to be never seen.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
you know, among kids in their career. Right. It used to be called early onset. They don't call it early onset anymore. As Casey said, 33% of young adults now have prediabetes. I mean, this prediabetes is not some isolated thing. It's the branch of the tree. It's cellular dysregulation. And every single disease is going down. Alzheimer's is now called type 3 diabetes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
fundamentally is that we are profiting the biggest industries the biggest spenders in the country are profiting from kids particularly getting addicted sick and fear and then and then drugging them and profiting from that what what is the conversation like when you guys are formulating a strategy to try to pretend that opioids aren't a problem
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
If you don't have prediabetes or diabetes, you have a very diminished chance of having Alzheimer's. And, you know, so it makes total sense. But somebody from Harvard Medical School that specialize in Alzheimer's, their entire course load, their entire training, their entire focus is on accepting Alzheimer's that it's there, that it's growing, and then figuring out marginal improvements for it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
There's literally people that are the highest educated people in the world do not even understand what causes these diseases. They're just accepting that and making the cures for them, the marginal treatments for them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
The institutional design of the system, which was greatly impacted by Casey's Awakening, is that it takes good people and gives them plausible deniability. Nobody's in those back rooms conspiring and trying to be an evil person. They're literally talking to these junior staffers like me about the scourge of pain and how we have to get this innovation of opioids to the American people.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Now it's about obesity and trying to get Ozempic to 60-year-olds, which is now... the standard of care. In the rooms, it's about doing what's right and getting this innovation to the American people and everyone can kind of fool themselves. With the food, it's about getting cheap calories to kids.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
You know, it's not we're going to buy off and weaponize these academic research institutions like Harvard to say sugar doesn't cause obesity and then pay the NAACP to say lower income people need to be getting their government subsidized Coke. It's that we're promoting choice. And I really did believe that and people believe that. I think...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
This is where I think my experience ties is that on the foundational level why this is happening, it's because these studies are all funded by the chemical companies, by the food companies. We've almost been, I think, misled by the experts when it comes to chronic conditions and when it comes to nutrition to take leaves of our common sense.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Do we need to wait for a double-blind, placebo-controlled, human-randomized control study to know whether 0.5% of our brains being plastic is a good thing right now.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Do we need to have a human randomized control 10 year study to know whether an herbicide like glyphosate that's being sprayed on almost all of our food and our children's food that people have to wear hazmat suits to spray and kills every single organism in sight. Do we need to wait for a study?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Like, like we've been, we've, we've just as the medical system is siloed, we'd siloed all these questions and just taken leave of our common sense. Like, Animals in the wild, wolves in the wild are not getting chronic rates of obesity, diabetes, metabolic dysfunction.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
We're born with an innate sense of knowing what's good for us, of knowing that the sun is good, of knowing that steak is good, that broccoli is good. We can't overeat those things. The problem is we've been lied to by the professors at Harvard, at Stanford, at Tufts Nutrition School.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
that I believe are essentially, from my experience, PR for the food industry and the pharmaceutical industry that accepts all these things as a given. I mean, Tufts Nutrition School, 80% of their budget is from food companies. By our estimate, 50% of Stanford Medical School's budget somehow touches pharma.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
So just fundamentally, on the grassroots micro level, these industries have co-opted our institution of trust and let us... You ask why we're the only people speaking out, because... Because we've made it that evidence-based medicine really accepts all this disease growing and happening. And 95% of medical spending right now is on disease once it's happened. It's on managing conditions.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And there's no higher levels of trust in our society than the NIH, than the FDA, than Harvard Med School, than Stanford Med School. So all of them are enforcing this. And then it's really just interesting where their emphasis is.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
There's pings that's coming through in so many ways of people realizing this really isn't going the right direction. I think you see it with suicide rate among doctors, the burnout rate among doctors, the fact that every friend I have from Harvard Business School who went into the pharma industry, who went into the food industry, there's chronic rates of depression among elite business people.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Like I was just reading the other day that California, the medical board, is checking the licenses of doctors, putting them under review if they write five vaccine exception notes. You literally are on the verge of losing your license if you even go outside the orthodoxy on vaccines. But where is that level of emphasis? Where is that level of focus?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Where is that level of rigor around metabolic health for kids, around nutrition for kids? I think it is a big deal of kids getting polio, but 50% of teens are obese or overweight right now. We have prediabetes skyrocketing. The medical system knows how to focus on something. They know how to tell Congress that there's no cost too high for something.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
When it comes to pharmaceutical interventions, we're bankrupting the country with interventions once people get sick. I truly believe, and this gets to the solutions and how I actually think this is an optimistic story, people waking up, why it's an existential kind of knife's edge we're on right now. We can change this really quick.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
The issue is that interest that profit from us being in fear, that just fundamentally is a statement of economic fact, profit from us being sick, profit from us being depressed, profit from us being infertile. They have co-opted our institutions of trust and they've co-opted the clinical guidelines.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Like literally when I was a junior employee, I helped Coke funnel money to the American Diabetes Association. OK, the American Diabetes Association says that if you have diabetes, you don't need to worry about your sugar intake. They say it's not tied to food. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
The American Academy of Pediatrics right now is saying that if your child is overweight, slightly overweight, overweight, 12 years old. Dietary infertility, don't wait. It says do not wait to see if dietary infertility works. Ozempic. It's now being studied on six years old. The American Psychiatry Association, right? The psychiatrist, the standard of care. If your child is a little sad, SSRI.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
immediate intervention, right? SSRI rates have doubled among high schoolers in the past five years, right? If your child's a little fidgety, the standard of care, right? It's not asking whether they're in the sunlight, not asking if they're too sedentary, not asking if they're being force-fed ultra-processed food, which would make any animal crazy if we subject them to what kids are subjected to.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
No discussion of that. It's just not in the clinical guidelines. So these doctors, these good people like Casey, go into the medical system. We're this magnet for smart people. We get them in for the right reasons. There's easier ways to make money. But they come in and they get saddled with one skill. They get saddled with a bunch of debt. And then they're realizing this is a rigged system.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Some people, few people, unfortunately, had the courage like Casey to drop out. I thought she was an idiot. I was like, what are you doing? We were kind of brainwashed to do the traditional system. I couldn't believe it. We didn't talk for a year. But it just is hard for people to understand that you can walk away from this because our society stamps these credentials on people.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Like what's better than being the dean of Stanford Med School? The dean of Stanford Med School right now was Casey's same specialty, head and neck surgery. And the way you rise up in medicine is you do a specialty, you focus on a couple inches of the face, and then he focused on a fellowship on an even narrower part of the body. Like that's how you rise up. You've siloed the situation.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Anything that's not siloed is considered not scientific, is considered wacky. They've called us the woo-woo caucus, talking about these nutritions. The medical system enforces this siloed view where diabetes, heart disease, depression, kidney disease, cancer, they're all separate things. If you have those conditions, you're seeing five separate doctors. They aren't speaking to each other.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
I think people are starting to realize this, but still, in these rooms, it's about doing the right thing. You convince yourself of that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
So the solution is truly just having the clinical guidelines of how diseases are assessed and how they're intervened changed to following the science, which is these are metabolic conditions. Ninety percent of the U.S. medical budget is tied to managing preventable and reversible lifestyle conditions.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
If we had people on Medicaid, instead of jamming with the Stans, jamming them with Ozempic, jamming them with SSRIs, lower-income people were going bankrupt from Medicaid, $1.3 trillion. It's growing. It's a bigger part of the budget than the defense budget. If we literally just ask how do we have that money to spur thriving, to incentivize exercise, to incentivize healthier food for these folks –
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
we'd be a transformed country. It's literally that simple. But it takes that moral courage. It takes Americans actually saying, no, I am going to go against the NIH. I am going to ask questions. But of course, we have violent, just reading, you know, back, what was it, 2022?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
I mean, the highest level, Joe, you know, I think we don't realize that there's a defining existential issue in our country where our major institutions have been captured. I think there's like pings of consciousness trying to alert us to this, like, you know, you having people on that are calling this stuff out, trying to ring the alarm bell and people flocking to this show.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Like every single public health official in America said you were like the enemy number one for talking about sunlight and talking about food and talking about healthy eating. COVID was a metabolic condition. COVID was a foodborne illness. Like if you were metabolically healthy, you did not die of COVID, like pretty demonstrably. And you were threat number one. Go ahead.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
you know, iconic class from the military industrial complex, from the healthcare industrial complex. I think Elon being the richest person, the world's trying to sell us something. It's like, let's get resources to these people calling these things out. I think it's like Donald Trump. Like, I've been thinking about this a lot. Why is he the defining figure of our lifetime?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Like, why have voters again and again and again gone to him and said, you know, this MAGA movement, like, Why are we like supporting this person, making him the defining person of our generation? What does he represent? He represents like putting finger on something that's just not quite right with institutions.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Yeah, I think Jamal talked a little bit about this, but I think it's so important because nobody realizes this. I think a lot of people listening to us years ago, it's just like this sounds conspiratorial. And it's just like what actually happened? And there's a couple like really important dates that happened that are historical that I think like set this structure really intentionally.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
The first was 1909, the Flexner Report incident. So literally John D. Rockefeller's personal lawyer wrote the report for Congress that basically set the standard today for medical education. And it literally says in the binding guidelines that holistic health and nutrition and anything about interconnections to the body is pseudoscience.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And I think the problem is we can't quite wrap our hand head around how bad it is and how so many people are complicit. But there's all these signs right now. And I think I think we're going to be brought to our knees if we don't realize this, that our institutions have been captured. Like to me, health care, what Casey talks about is.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
It says we need to name the condition and cut it out or prescribe it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
That is so crazy. But like rescinding the Flexner Report and having updated scientific education and standard of care guidelines based on what we learned since 1909 about the majesty of the interconnectedness of our body is a really good first start because we're binded under a law. Just demonstrably, just like, again, not conspiratorial. John D. Rockefeller's personal lawyer wrote this report.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Why? Because John D. Rockefeller is the father of the pharmaceutical industry and created pharmaceuticals from byproducts of oil production and was the first investor into Johns Hopkins and other major medical schools, University of Chicago, and started the modern education program for health.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
There were some big issues in the health of the Wild West, but he created Johns Hopkins and the standard of residency training as a way to silo diseases very intentionally, and then prescribe his products and interventions as the top pharmaceutical maker. And the medical schools that he created were basically a distribution system to him. Okay, so you get to World War II.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Up until World War II, around that time, the 1950s, 1960s, I would argue almost any medical miracle you can think of or any listener can think of was created before that time. It's all acute situations, emergency surgical procedures, sanitation procedures, antibiotics to make an infection not deadly.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Almost every medical miracle we can think of was something that was going to kill you right away, infectious disease. And then you take the pill or take the treatment for a finite period of time and you stop it or do the surgery quickly and you're cured. Those are medical miracles. And we had a lot of good things happen up until World War II.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Very intentionally, the medical industry saw the birth control pill in the late 1950s, 1960s. And the birth control pill was the first pill in world history that people took for longer than a couple weeks. It was the first pill ever that is like, oh, interesting. You can actually convince someone to take a pill for years, for almost most their life, recurring revenue.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And there was a huge emphasis of the medical industry to take the trust engendered up until 1960. RFK talks about this. We didn't spend money on chronic disease management. All medicine was acute issues. Chronic disease, diabetes, obesity, that was outside the doctor's office. They saw that you could medicalize chronic conditions. Today, 90% to 95% of spending is on chronic conditions.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
It's a really visceral example of something just not right with what's happening to food, what's happening to our kids' health. And I think it's happening to the military, too, or the military industrial complex.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
So what do we do? In the 1970s, literally the Sackler family, their grandkids and kids did the opioids. Their forebears created Valium. And 30% of women in the United States in the 1970s were on Valium, Time Magazine, Valium Nation, Mommy's Little Helper. So we started creating all these psychiatric conditions. We started medicalizing heart disease.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
We started medicalizing all these type 2 diabetes, started creating academic research totally funded by the pharmaceutical industry saying that type 2 diabetes isn't reversible, that it's basically genetic, heart disease, all these things, and started pilling them, started pilling them. Then what happened to food? Chronic disease wasn't that big of a deal in the 1970s, 1980s.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
You look at the graph. You look at the graph of all chronic conditions. There's just a sharp turn in the 1980s. It's literally almost to the year of the Surgeon General report saying smoking wasn't great. So the second that report came out, Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds were two of the largest companies in the world. It wasn't like Microsoft and Google on the top companies list.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
It was like cigarette companies. You know, dopamine is a really good thing to sell, which the tech companies do now. And they used their cash piles. And by 1990, the three largest M&A deals in American history, in world history, were cigarette companies buying food companies. So you had Nabisco bought by R.J. Reynolds. You had Kraft and U.S. Food buy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Like, I'm truly worried that we're on the verge of almost a societal level collapse with what's happening to our food, what's happening to our health, what's happening with the potential nuclear war.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And you see those graphs of all the food companies owned by like a couple companies? That was the cigarette companies. And they did two things very, very intentionally. They took over the institutions of trust to say ultra-processed food was healthy, and then they took their scientists and rigged the food itself to make it more addictive. Not to kill kids, but to make it more addictive.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
So you had that literal food pyramid, which said ultra-processed food is great, low-fat, carbs, base of the pyramid. That was constructed literally by the cigarette industry to promote their addictive products. And this weaponization of food, as I call it, it's not just like this conspiracy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Those two companies, Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds, were the two largest food producers in the United States. Like 50% of American food were created by cigarette companies in the 1990s. And they have got us addicted and weaponized this food, and all chronic conditions have just shot up.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
It's because that ultra-processed food, literally, by tobacco industry scientists, hijacks our evolutionary biology. Again, you can't overeat grass-fed steak, but these food, with scientists much smarter than any of us, That's what they're doing. They're shutting off our society signals.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
The byproduct of this cheap addictive food, which we don't even have research for yet, is that it's sprayed with all these chemicals. It's sprayed with 10,000 chemicals that are allowed in the United States when only 400 are allowed in Europe. to make the food addictive, to make the food cheap, to do the monocropping.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And that food is absolutely, and we don't need to wait for the research on this, these chemicals, these neurotoxins are destroying our cells, destroying our microbiome in ways we don't fully understand. So I just want to make clear to everyone, this has happened very intentionally. And it can be undone pretty quickly too, but we have to realize this isn't a conspiracy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
and i think we have people starting to realize this and they're trying to like lunge out for it um but we're being told it's alarmist we're being told it's a conspiracy theory and and to me that that's what we've kind of landed on this health issue let's just bring it down to the facts of what's happening to kids let's bring it down to just like let's forget the conspiracy theory what even anyone's saying this room let's look what's happening to our food and looks what's happening to kids because by the stats we're seeing there's something really dark happening like like
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
It's true corruption that happened deliberately.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
outside any conspiracy theory, just the statistics of what is happening to our health in this country and uniquely in America, it's dark.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
The only answer of double-blind placebo-controlled studies, which every guest comes on is just like that's just the gold standard. Everyone just accepts that that's what you need. A double-blind placebo-controlled study, the only answer is a pill, like essentially. You can't test psychedelics on that way. You can't test food. You can't test exercise. You can't blind those things.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
So anything that actually – recognizes the unison and the interconnectivity of why we're getting sick, can't be studied through a double-blind placebo-controlled study.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
You actually have the FDA that's basically created, you saw this with the recent MDMA decision, it's basically rigged that the only thing that can be approved through the top way we study things and approve drugs is a synthetic pill. That's the only thing that it can basically lead to through a double-blind placebo-controlled study.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
No, it's been exploding like every single other chronic condition. I'll just quickly go to ties to Casey's point she just made. This year in 2024 is the highest rate in American history of Alzheimer's, cancer, autoimmune conditions, heart disease, diabetes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Cancer, kidney disease, autism, every single chronic disease you can think of is at an all-time high, growing at an increasing rate as we spend more money to treat those conditions. So I think one point we're trying to make is that all of the NIH, all the FDA, it's all on accepting that trend as a given. It's totally wash their hands of it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And how do we find marginal pills to make this a little bit better? Not asking why. And that question about Alzheimer's, the point we're trying to make is that when it comes to chronic conditions, which Alzheimer's is, you have to really not quit.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
It's the Alzheimer's question. You have to ask why that's one branch on this tree, obesity, right? This tree. And we talk about, and I think Casey has this amazing framework, you can literally look at five biomarkers, the biomarkers of metabolic dysfunction, HDL, triglycerides, blood sugar, blood pressure, and your waistline. And I'm not joking. I'm not being hyperbolic.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
If we fired every single researcher and canceled every single grant in the U.S. government for all chronic disease research and all nutrition research and created all policy to maximize those five biomarkers in America, you, by definition, don't have type 2 diabetes. you almost have a 0% chance of getting heart disease. You have very close to 0% chance of getting Alzheimer's.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
You are not obese by definition. Literally, you go down every single chronic condition that is torturing American life. If you're diabetic, you're four times more likely to be depressed or suicidal because there are cells in our head and diabetes is cellular dysregulation. So literally, on the research and the science thing,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
I think there's great heroes who've been getting into the weeds on the research, but chronic disease is interconnected to basic lifestyle factors. I think this is a political issue, honestly. Every American needs to ask, is this an incremental issue where we need slightly better pharmaceutical interventions and slightly better research?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Or is this a radical shift of understanding how our bodies are interconnected and understanding that that needs to be a shift in medicine and, frankly, how we view the environment? Like, that is a question that we actually think is relatively urgent and relatively existential. Modern society is amazing. But as Casey said, this is dark right now.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Like, if you believe what Casey is saying about these statistics about chronic disease and you actually look at the math that we're growing two times with health care spending the rate of GDP. It's the largest and fastest growing industry in the country. The fastest growing industry in the United States is not AI. It's not tech. It's healthcare.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And as it grows, we get sicker, fatter, more depressed, more infertile. It is going to bankrupt the country and it's not slowing down. So if you actually believe this, believe we need a new paradigm, is it about getting better research or is it about actually saying the research is wrong? This whole paradigm of seeing chronic disease in silos is wrong.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
So I'm sure you can talk more about Alzheimer's, but it's interconnected.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
I'll just say there's kind of just a question with all we're hearing about these diseases. Is the reason Alzheimer's is skyrocketing because we don't have enough research and don't have enough drugs? Is the reason obesity rates are skyrocketing among kids because we don't have enough drugs or not enough research? That's the argument that's being given to us. We're literally being told.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
After the lessons of COVID, which the COVID lockdowns and what the pharmaceutical industry did with their co-option of our government with COVID was the most significant public policy mistake in American history, at least since World War II. In modern times, I think we can all agree on.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
We are still saying – and it's just people, I think, because we trust the medical system still so much, we are literally thinking societally that – that the fact that there's an obesity crisis among six-year-olds is a drug deficiency issue. It's a dark, I think, blind spot in our culture right now.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Yeah. So with Max, actually, with Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, with Marty McCary, Chris Palmer, a number of voices, we're engaging members of Congress. We're talking to helping whatever we can with RFK and Trump's leadership on this. But I had a somewhat out of body experience that kind of hits on what you're getting at. I was sitting across from the member of Congress
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
and I think it's the exact same issue on obesity, who introduced this Treat and Reduce Obesity Act. It has 150 co-sponsors, and it's to jam government-funded ozempics. So it starts with Medicare. 80% of people on Medicare, old people, are obese or overweight. So the second this bill is signed, You have open season on all people on Medicare.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And then the second something's approved for Medicare always goes to Medicaid for lower income people because why would an old person be eligible for something but not a poor person in the United States? So that immediately goes to Medicaid. That's the game. And then Medicaid, right, it's six years old. It's now being pushed for on six-year-olds.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
The second this bill is signed, $1,600 per patient per month, taxpayer money, which is why Novo Nordics is the ninth most valuable company in the world right now, this Danish company expecting 90% of their profits from the United States on expectation of this bill's passage. So we're sitting across from him. And I bring these things up. And I bring up a simple question of,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Why is this one-size-fits-all jamming Ozempic into the average American's arm instead of opening up flexibility to potentially explore regenerative food or exercise or incentivizing those things? It's not even fully anti-drug, but why is this? What clinician said this is the cure, like this is the one cure?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Because it's not opening up any money for food or exercise or any other modality that could actually cure the root cause of obesity. And he looked at me fully, fully serious and said, I'd never thought of that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And I told them that it's being pushed on kids and that there's an aggressive effort where Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford, the top obesity researcher at Harvard, was funded significantly by Novo Nordics and millions of dollars in research grants and went on 60 Minutes where the top funder of 60 Minutes is pharmaceutical companies and said obesity is a brain disease and a genetic. She said that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Top Harvard researcher. And she said, it needs to be aggressively intervened for kids. I said, there's open season on kids. The guy who introduced the bill, he said, that's not true. I'm going to put in the bill that kids can't use. I'm like, you'd be going against the FDA guidance on that. You can't do that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
I go, you understand, based on the JP Morgan estimates, where they literally presented the estimates of increasing obesity rates at the JP Morgan conference in San Francisco.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And all the investors clapped like seals, standing ovation, standing ovation as they presented a chart on rising obesity rates showing that as Ozempic increases in prescription rates, obesity in the United States will increase. Unpack that one for me. They show that graph and everyone claps because it's a lifetime drug, because it's a crash diet. It's liquid anorexia.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
It makes you not want to eat. Crash diets don't work, right? And of course, more than 50% of the people that even have insurance funding for it go off of it within six months because it's the highest rate of side effects of any mass drug prescribed in American history. But he didn't know all that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And he looked at me in the eye, the person who introduced this bill that is going to be one of the most expensive bills in American history, the market cap of the ninth most valuable company, the most valuable company in Europe. They passed LVMH, the fashion company. The most valuable company in Europe rests on this bill. This is the guy that essentially wrote it. He said, no, no, no.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
It's a short-term solve. Ozempic's a short-term solve. Look at me right in the eyes. I'm like, no. It literally says there's metabolic issues and it warns somebody going off the drug. It says you have to take it for life. He did not know that. The corruption is you have Brad Winstrup.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
If somebody wants to do something, if we want to change the world, email members of Congress, email Brad Winstrup, call his office and say, we think before we jab six-year-olds with Ozempic, we should fix our food system. This thought literally didn't occur to him. So what's happening with this corruption, what's happening with obesity, with Alzheimer's,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Is the corruption is like it doesn't even get to people even understanding that the boiling frog. It's just so it's just obviously we're just going to find a drug, not ask why people are getting Alzheimer's. Obviously, we're just going to jam 60 year olds with Ozempic and not ask why people are getting obese.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And they and then, you know, literally get talking points in the room as he starts thinking about it. Oh, it's hard. Dietarian instruments are hard. It's like what's happening now is hard. Like going to a playground with my two-year-old son and seeing every kid clearly having issues, clearly dealing with obesity, like 60 years old, you know, seeing processed food all over the playground.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Like what's happening now, poisoning ourselves en masse is pretty hard. So there are simple ways to do this. If Dr. Fauci in 2020 said COVID has strong metabolic links and we need to harden up our immune system, it's a problem. We're dying three times at a higher rate than the Japanese per capita. That's 16% of all COVID deaths are in the U.S. and we're like 4% of the population. Like-
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
This is a warning sign for our immune system. We need to shift the healthcare budget to getting fit, to incentivizing exercise, to fixing and talking to Will Harris and other regenerative farmers and consulting them on how to transform our food system, seeing that the medical system has co-opted what drugs are and what medicine is.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
It's nothing short of a moral blind spot that food and exercise aren't seen truly as drugs. They aren't seen as interventions from the $4.5 trillion we spent on medical systems. They do that in Europe. The Italians are three times less obese and diabetic than us. I don't think the Italians are more vigorous. I don't think Americans are lazier than Italians.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
There's something systemic happening where they spend three times less per capita on health care and two times more per capita on food.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Industry capture. I met with Nancy Pelosi two weeks ago. Looked her in the eyes because, you know, we've been helping RFK, helping Trump. And we should talk about that. I think there's a really, really important societal dynamic happening with that unison. But but I'm preparing as much as I can to foster this bipartisan conversation. I can tell you everyone in the room. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Like is horrified by the statistics. Right. But every time, their staffers are slithering behind them. And the healthcare staffers in Congress are waiting for their next job with the pharma industry or the insurance industry, and they really drive the place and make the bills. But a real problem with the corruption is these people making policies, literally chairs of healthcare committees.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
The simple ideas you're talking about, and we're trying to express on metabolic health, on this simplicity, really, of why we're getting sick, it's not being like corruption is leading them to deny it. It's like they just do not understand it. Like these meetings we're doing with – and this hearing we did with Max and Brigham and others, Julie Michaels and so many great people.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
It literally was giving these ideas to these members of Congress for the first time. There will be a lot more on this. But I truly – it's so simple. But literally letting your lawmakers know. I hear two things again and again from meeting with over 40 members of Congress. It's like I don't understand this. I don't know this. And my phone is not ringing off the hook.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
If I go against pharma, they're getting all the old people to call and say don't kill me. Right. Like, to me, this issue, why this issue is becoming so resonant is because we're all feeling, and I think it's actually, we're hitting on the most important issue in the country. I think it's why everyone's flocking to books on this issue. Why podcasts? Like, why your podcast is the number one podcast.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
I mean, I consider you, I've learned more about metabolic health and healthcare listening to guests on your show than I think Casey's probably learned at Stanford Med School. So it's like people left to their own devices are flocking to this, and we need to channel We need to make a statement with our politics. This is unfortunately a political issue.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Yeah. I mean, when I think about that story, I literally think about 2021, our mom abruptly dying of pancreatic cancer. She was taking a hike, got a pain in her stomach, got a text the next day after getting a scan saying she has stage four pancreatic cancer. We rushed to her side. She died 12 days later, just totally surprisingly. And Casey and I
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
on her grave site, literally hugged each other and said, we want to write a book and we want to make this and evangelize this, inspired by you and others. We want to evangelize this and add the chorus to prevent what's happening because so many Americans are on this pharmaceutical treadmill. And then the cancer is random. It's not random.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Like all these warning signs that were missed with my mom, her prediabetes, her high cholesterol, her high blood pressure, those were pilled, not seen as gifts to get to the root cause. And then she was Chopped down by cancer. This is happening to everyone. So we want to evangelize that. And we've been on the path as best we can with companies and evangelizing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And through these amazing podcasts like like Tucker, we got connected with people. So got to know RFK, got to know Democrats and got to know the Trump campaign. And in the past year, I will say this, the Trump campaign has been extremely interested in the policy of why kids are getting so sick.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And if you go back a year ago, President Trump actually at rallies to loud applause has been talking very similar points to RFK. So we got to know RFK sitting watching the first assassination attempt. I had like a spiritual what I can call it kind of out of body experience. And I felt the need to call Robert. I think what he has done is historic.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
The fact that he was getting up to 20% of the vote, highlighting this issue, tapping in, I think, to this consciousness and tapping into this stream that you're tapping into, I think it really showed something. And I had this vision for a year. Actually, it sounds very woo-woo, but I was in a sweat tent with him in Austin at a campaign event six months before.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And I just had this strong vision of him standing with Trump and how what RFK represents is actually what Trump represents and actually what almost every American's feeling, which is this frustration and this rigged thing and this thing that doesn't quite feel right that you can't quite put your finger on.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
We were born and raised in Washington, D.C. And I thought being a good young conservative was supporting the farm industry or supporting the food industry, defending those industries. So I went to Stanford with Casey. She studied biology. I studied political science and economics and went on campaigns, but then was a lobbyist. Everyone bipartisan in D.C.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And it was so clear to me that how RFK talks about health personifies this overall kind of institutional capture. It makes it real for people in a really visceral way because it's clearly impacting their kids. So That was all the context.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Pick up the phone, called him and just urged him, you know, as a supporter, as a lowly supporter to consider maybe this is the time as President Trump put his fist up. You know, with all this momentum, there's rare moments in history where the deck can change.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And I really felt and he felt like this could be a realignment of American politics because that that moment felt very heavy after the assassination. So we went back and forth and he asked to, you know, he's like, let me talk to him. So I worked with Tucker and we connected them that night. And here's the key point I want to make from my small vantage point here. They had weeks of conversations.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And there was not a discussion of polling. There was not a discussion of the horse race and how this would impact the race. These were tear-filled conversations about why kids are getting so diabetic, about why we have such obese children in the United States, about why we have a fertility crisis.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
This was a true connection of these two men and a true deep bond, which I think you're seeing out there on the campaign trail, that this transcends politics and Trump wants this to be a generational issue for him. And I just want to say something. I think we're at a big moment here. We're debating trivia. I think the two most existential issues are nuclear war or what's happening to our health.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And whatever you think, and I used to be a never-Trumper. Watching him care about this issue, watching what's happening with the RFK, watching what's happening of how that's resonating with voters, seeing from my small vantage point inside, there is tremendous connection of these two men and moral clarity of seeing what's happening.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And my question is this, and to anyone kind of considering voting in this election, Trump is going to say stupid shit. He is Trump. We know who he is. There's two important questions to ask. Who sees this corruption and institutional capture that's going to destroy our country, I think, to an existential level? And who is willing to suffer that blowback?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Who is willing to go up against these military-industrial complex, the healthcare-industrial complex, the education-industrial complex that's making us a non-competitive country? Like they are ready. Who is going to appoint? This is a question I have. Who do we believe is going to appoint people like RFK, people like Elon Musk? to stir stuff up. Who is gonna do that?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Like that to me is the foundational question. And I do consider this the most important election of my lifetime watching these two men, because it is so genuine. And there is like a genuine desire to truly transform, to see our broken corruption and institutions for what it is. And really, truly, I think prevent nuclear war and dramatically reverse
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Our health crisis, Trump has said that his one big mistake last time was personnel, was that the pharma and the ag slithered in and gave him the list of names. Everybody should ask, do you think RFK is going to have an influence on those names based on what Trump has said? And I think he is. And I think people like Elon are going to be involved.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
I think there's this coalition of people that are coming together and Trump's going to put in power and listen to. And this is a bipartisan issue. And no matter what happens, we have to solve this issue. But I will say this so clearly with the most conviction I can. We will vote.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
be on the verge, I think, of a health population collapse, societally destabilizing event, unless true executive leadership sees this corruption and this issue for what it is, and says we need a radical transformation in how we see agriculture and how we see health, our two largest industries. I think we have to have that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And every single member of Congress I meet with, including Democrats, say that in order for this issue to get done, we need a president to make this the priority to talk because that gives us air cover. And there could be transformational change if a president does that. So that's what I've seen from being in this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And I can tell you, President Trump has kept every promise to RFK and deeply cares about this issue.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Look what they're saying about free speech. Yeah. Right now. You know, you probably covered this. It's just absolutely wild. The free speech comes from the rigging of the scientific research. Bill Gates said this week that we need immediate A.I. to scour the Internet and take any vaccine misinformation out the out of the Internet automatically on any format, any private Web page. This is wild.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And he said, because the second that virus spreads in people's minds, the damage is done. So his number one use case for AI is to scour the Internet and remove any vaccine misinformation from the Internet. That is because the largest and fastest growing industry in the country has completely co-opted the most trusted vaccines. parts of the country.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
There's no higher level than the NIH, than Harvard Med School. They know that. Harvard Med School is a subsidiary of pharma, just demonstrably. The FDA is 75% funded by pharma. This isn't a conspiracy. And there's a revolving door. And you've got people like Scott Gottlieb, I think the people like Trump's talking about, still thinking he's going to have power.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
This person that goes straight to Pfizer. And you've got him and people like this. And I've met with many of them. Oh, this book is amazing. Good Energy is amazing. The food, you know, of course, we've got to get kids healthier. We've got to work with pharma. We've got to work with all the stakeholders, insurance companies. You know, we've got to be incremental here.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
There's a war right now between incrementalists. and radical change. We are living in a great time, but we have existential threats. And the question before everyone in this very important election is, do we need more incrementality or do we need a fundamental rethink of some of our major systems? I really think that's what's before us.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And as Casey said, I think we're in a good period of history right now, certainly, but we're facing, I think, more existential threats that I really think we don't fully appreciate.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
These are questions that... I can talk a little... This game is known, so it may be obvious, but I don't think people realize this. The reason there's such a fight against you is because it's this... 100 year change of information sources where the biggest issues in the country can no longer dictate right what the information sources are so when we when we worked for when I worked for pharma and
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
The advertising budget, all this stuff you hear about like how much they spend on cable news and 50% of TV news spending is pharma. It wasn't to impact consumers. It was to impact the news itself. Like the spend on news shows came out of D.C. lobbying offices, not the New York, like Madison Avenue, like advertising offices. It was like we're going to –
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
put our budget it was in the lobbying budget it was like we're going to pay off all the news so we have a direct line so if you're paying 50% and a huge funder of all the tech companies ads their ad companies then you've got a direct line and then you've got the Harvard study
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
So when you have the Harvard study that's fully funded by pharma or the food industry, like the food industry, processed foods spends 13 times more on foundational nutrition research than the NIH, but even the NIH is really conflicted saying that Lucky Charms are healthier than beef, literally.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
uh... you've got those studies so what so what is this person at the news station or or youtube to do when you got the harvard study right they've realized that you can weaponize this thing so that's how it's connect and then time and time and time again i hear from members of congress on major committees they're just that's the corruption that's for the corruption happens they got the lobbyists just throwing studies you know if you
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
restrictions on childhood nutrition, on federally funded school lunch programs, which is the top source, one of them, of calories for young kids. If you take sugary cereal like Lucky Charms off that, you're going against the science. You're going against the NIH. You can't be asking for farm fresh eggs. Farm fresh eggs are down here. Lucky Charms are up here.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Like, it's funny, these studies, but that's what they do with them. And then I hear time and time again from these members of Congress who are good people, but it's like, Callan, I'm a military guy, or I come from business. I don't understand this stuff. You just got to defer. So that's how the corruption works and that's that that's how the research connects to PR.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
But there's pings of that consciousness happening. That's why I think the leadership is so damn important here, Joe. It's like when this stuff is under the shadows and when the FDA is able to lobby to fund the organization that's supposed to regulate it, when the USDA is lobbying – excuse me, when food companies are lobbying – you know, to have the USDA not have any conflicts of interest.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
When these things, there's not attention on them, and Americans aren't being explained this, like, mass corruption that's compromising all of our scientific guidelines and standard of care where $4.5 trillion of incentives flows to. Like, it's hard. But I would push back.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
I mean, I just... I don't think it's fully formed in people's heads, but, like, I think people are, like, clamoring to put these pieces together. Yes. And that is what... That is... I think RFK standing on the stage with Trump and them grasping hands and saying, make America healthy. I think it was one of the biggest political realignments and important moments in American history.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Kennedy endorsing Trump like like I cannot. I think a lot of us feel it. Like, I think you see it on the ground. Like this Kennedy Trump thing is powerful. Like the media denigrates it. But like Kennedy is explaining this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
They're clamoring to this message. Watching RFK and Trump at a rally, it's the most electric political experience I've ever seen. It was the loudest applause I've ever heard. There's something visceral. When RFK starts talking about the CDC needing Dr. Jay Bhattacharya on there and the FDA...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
you know, and the NIH and starts naming those agencies and starts saying we're going to get to the bottom of why our food for our kids is poison and we're going to reverse childhood chronic disease by taking on this corruption. When they say that, it's electric. It's like a release. It's like a release. So it's everything.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Everyone's been listening to you, reading these books, trying to put the pieces together. I think RFK is more effectively putting the pieces together. And I think people ask, oh, President Trump, he eats unhealthy. No, no. President Trump's the foundation of his existence is taking on corruption. Like that is why he's on the political stage.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
That is why he's been the defining for whatever you think of in the defining political figure of our generation. Like because he's tapped into this frustration of voters that something isn't quite right. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And that they're good people, and if we can get this corruption out of the way, that he's staying in the way of this corruption, and we can unleash the American people if we get this corruption out of the way. That thesis is correct. What he has tapped into is the defining political trend of our lifetimes, this populist uprising that's happening throughout all the world.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
He has tapped into that in a very powerful way. He's talked for a long time about pharmaceutical corruption and these issues. He understands it innately. But RFK, really, I think better than anyone alive, is sharpening this issue. And he's arguing, as we're trying to argue, it's very simple. It's actually not that complicated.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
You just need to put, truly, as a first step, put Dr. Jay Bhattacharya at the CDC, right? Put someone who's not trying to get their next job at pharma, who's aligned with this fundamental agenda at the NIH, at the FDA, at the HHS. And then have people like Elon. Elon saying he wants to run government efficiency. He wants to look at how government's performing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
HHS is the largest and the most expensive department in all of government. What if someone like Elon, people like Bill Ackman, who joined this cause, what if they were given an executive order to analyze the HHS and against the goal of promoting health and thriving and disease reversal for the American people. You have the smartest people in the world doing that. I mean, you'd have radical change.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
If you can learn what the pharma has known for the past 30 years, that co-opting our institutions of trust, everything else is downstream of that. There's nothing upstream in culture or trust of those agencies because where do we go about that? Right. So they dictate everything. They dictate the nutrition guidelines. They dictate our agriculture incentives.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
They dictate our standard of care that's jamming a drug down 40% of teens' throats right now. If you can not co-opt them like pharma is doing, but get them back to unbiased science. The NIH right now, 95% of NIH grants they're spending is on marginal pharmaceutical R&D. It's literally an outsourced R&D lab for pharma. Every person listening would expect the NIH job is to do foundational research.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
That's literally what everyone's saying. It's not. Not at all. If you just with a swipe of a pen and leadership just demand day one that the NIH goes back to population-wide fearless studies about why we're getting sick. That's what we need. We literally need the NIH only asking that question. Why are we getting sick? What variables are tied to chronic disease?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Like, I have a company. I'm meeting with members of both sides. This doesn't change without executive leadership. It's just a factual statement. I hate that health is political. It's not. It's bipartisan. It is political in the next 40 days. This will not change if this issue resonates.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And if we believe that what's happening to our soil and to our bodies and to our kids' health is really the most important issue, it doesn't change without strong moral clarity and executive leadership, even if the person says stupid shit and tweets weird stuff.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
every single member of Congress. Let me make this super clear. I want everyone to understand this. It's powerful, these interests, but we all know this. I think we can feel this too. They're not monolithic. It's a paper tiger. We can overcome this. It's because there's not focus and marshaling of the American people and light on these things.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Every single member of Congress tells me, they said, the only thing that beats money is grassroots focus, is Americans focusing on the issue. The most powerful issue in American politics actually aren't money issues. They're grassroots issues. Guns, abortion, those aren't money issues. Those are issues that people are focused on and vote on.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
So what Trump and RFK are starting to do is really tie the foundation of Trump's candidacy, in my opinion, which is really taking the corruption out of the swamp. And there's other issues. Of course, we've got to get the border right, you know, defense, economic agenda. But health care is a glaring example of that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
where there's been a focus on the campaign and a promise of focus you know in real political i think uh... validity in focusing on that because people are getting really fired up about this i can express the stuff watch the rallies of our can trump there's real visceral political on focus on it so that if that anger right if that same energy stream that's leading people to listen your podcast and leading people to flock to you on
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And leading, you know, leading to I think people, frankly, to go back to church. I mean, millennials are flocking back to religion. I like like there's all these streams inside where people are kind of like trying to check if leadership can channel that. You know, these are paper tigers. These are paper tigers. But you need the president to say F you.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
to these industries that are profiting from kids being sick. And tell Congress, I'm giving you air cover. Tell those lobbies to get the hell out of your office. That's the message from the president. With that leadership. Now, are these powerful interests? Is this the biggest industries in the country? Right? Are these the most powerful industries in the country?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Yes, but again, whatever Trump is tweeting, whatever he's saying, you have to just ask yourself, and this comes from a person who used to be an ever-Trumper, who has the courage to stand up to these interests? Who has the courage? Does anyone think that Trump is afraid to put RFK, put Elon, put brave doctors in charge?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
to put people that are distrustful of the military industrial complex in charge of our military. Does anyone think he's not going to do that? Does anyone think he's going to really stand their way and not take some blowback from these industries? He said this very clearly. The biggest mistake of his last presidency was not trusting his gut, was listening to the list of people from the industry.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
So from my opinion, from my small vantage points, what happens is you get bombarded with complexity, right? What the industries do, oh, you can't touch agriculture incentives even though they're broken. That's going to hurt farmers. You can't, you know, oh, health care. Oh, the PBMs. I'm hearing this all the time. The PBMs and the insurance companies, all these players.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
You have to have clarity of vision and an agenda, which President Trump and RFK are talking about, that's super, super clear. It's like we are going to get pharma funding out of the FDA. We are going to reorient with an executive order the goal of the NIH back to foundational research. We are going to disallow people that make nutrition guidelines for kids to take money from Kellogg's.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Like there's 30 things that you can do. And I think I think what President Trump has talked about and what he says is like, let's stay high level. We're not going to have nuclear war. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
We're going to aggressively call out and push on major policy objectives to take the corruption out of the health care institutions to attack the incentive that every single health care institution in America today makes more money when a child is sicker for a longer period of time. Just demonstrably. Insurance companies, they make 15% by law profit margin. They want premiums to grow.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
That's what's happening. Pharma companies make money on interventions when people are sicker for longer periods of time. Hospitals, as Casey talks about, makes money on interventions, does not make money when people are healthy. Medical schools make money from the sick care system. Just a clear-eyed set of objectives, I think it can fit on a small piece of paper.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
What you do is you have a lobbyist come in and say it's complex. Right. There's just simple questions. Why are we paying 10 times more for drugs than Germany? Why in the United States is 10 times more expensive to buy Ozempic than in Germany or Scandinavia? There's these simple, simple things. You can do that. Trump's talked about it. Biden's talked about it. It's bipartisan.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
It's not free market that we're paying 10 times more than Germans. We're the biggest buyer of drugs in the country. Why are we subsidizing the rest of the world and subsidizing the pharmaceutical industrial complex? That could be one stroke of a pen, right? One stroke of a pen to...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
uh... reset and say what we do know price setting you can charge whatever you want but we're not gonna be more than germans charger if you want we have every right to do that that's one stroke of pen and then you get the blow back you get all you're gonna hurt innovation it's not our job to fund innovation for europe like chart charges the same price you're gonna hurt um... you know you're gonna lead to drug shortages will have few like charge a higher price it's like you can do he but it but it's like literally just like clear focus and and i think trump like he's talking about this he's seen it
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
So, you know, to anyone kind of and I've gone through this process, it's like he we know who he is, but we also know that he's going to put good people in charge and not stand in their way and wants to be bold.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
goes to work for the food and the farm industry. And on one morning, I'm working with the farm industry to literally steer money to the dean of Stanford Med School, who's a pain specialist, to be put on an NIH panel to say that opioids in 2011, that the issues around addiction were overblown. And we actually helped engineer an NIH panel to issue a report to say, opioid's okay, pain is a crisis.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Many listeners are battling surely chronic conditions, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, et cetera. I don't think any listener in their head wants to be sick. I don't think any man wants to not walk their daughter down the aisle. My mom wanted to be healthy. She wanted to meet her grandchild, which she wasn't able to do. Think there's the slur and this lie. We are a free country.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
We should have sugary filled foods, right? We should have beer drugs should be legal, but we should not be subsidizing coca-cola with food stamps This standard of care is wrong. Like after my awakening with Casey. I thought what do I want to do with my life? I started a company and it writes letters of medical necessity doctor's notes for food and exercise and
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
We realized something that nobody in the healthcare system knows. Casey didn't learn this at Stanford.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Our company, TruMed, this year will do 500,000 gym membership recommendations from providers. We initially got a lot of questions from the industry because they've never heard these letters of medical necessity. We've walked in the law.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
As much as Pfizer has tried when I worked for Pfizer, the definition of medicine in the IRS tax code is not a synthetic pill made by a large pharmaceutical industry. The definition of medicine is something that's recommended by a medical practitioner for the prevention, reversal, cure, mitigation of a condition.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
The problem is that they've co-opted what medicine is in our brains, and at Stanford Med School, nobody understands this. So we've actually been educating members of Congress about this. But there's $150 billion in these HSA funds, and this is a message to everyone. Our company's doing it, but I would say it's much wider than that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Go to your doctor and demand a letter of medical necessity when they're taking out the prescription pad for the statin, for the metformin, for the SSRI. Study after study shows they have two cohorts of people. They've got people that exercise and eat whole foods, and then they have people that do antidepressants and go to therapy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
the people that don't go to therapy no drugs but exercise any better food demonstrably better outcomes in depression so i think it is all over its road and this is an important thing i think from conservatives liberal it's not it's not about lecturing americans the answers of lecturing americans what do you mean they're buying books there no listening to doctor human a lot of people on a health journey with our clinical incentives we should be incentivize in the clinically appropriate
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
intervention for what health issues we're facing. We are facing a chronic disease metabolic health crisis. It's nine out of 10 killers of Americans and 95% of medical spending. So just clinically, and Europe is actually doing this, right? If you have PCOS, infertility,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
in Europe, most countries, you get a subsidized keto diet because PCOS, which is the leading cause of female infertility, is insulin resistant. It's basically on the diabetes spectrum. And the most effective intervention to reverse PCOS and become more fertile is going on a 12-week keto diet. So what happens in the United States?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Doctors, good friends, and actually my good friend that I always reference is an OBGYN from Harvard now is educating his patients about this, and we've had good conversations. But doctors from Harvard Medical School who are OBGYNs do not know when they're sitting across from a patient who's infertile what causes PCOS. It's immediate.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
The standard of care, the standard of care is immediate jamming hormone pills down that woman's throat and on a quick route to IVF. IVF should absolutely, of course, be legal, but that's an invasive procedure. procedure, right? And no woman listening, I'm sure, who's going through the traditional medical system and most women, many, it's an epidemic right now, PCOS, they're not told this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
They're not told this. So the key and the policy here is opening up flexibility for Americans to work with their doctor, to trust that they don't want to kill themselves. Sometimes drugs might be the answer. But we're way, way over-indexed on that right now.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Like, could you imagine what would happen if, you know, Americans who are pre-diabetic or their kids are obese had the ability, instead of the $1,600 that we're mandating for six-year-olds a month of government-funded money to get Ozempic, if that could give mom the choice? Give mom the choice. We would have a transformation of our food system.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And yeah, so that's what I kind of decided to push on in my life. And really, every American, the most defiant thing you can do personally, 80% of people have an HSA and FSA account. Max those out. If you're battling a chronic condition or even trying to prevent a chronic condition, get your eight sleep, get your athletic greens, get your gym membership. Talk to your doctor about it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
We want a revolution of people actually demanding – something Casey and I talk a lot about, acute versus chronic. This is very important. If you are about to die with an infection, a burst appendix, a gunshot wound – Go to the doctor. Go to the doctor. Take pause on chronic. Kids are being now kind of, you're anti-science if you don't get on those metformin, statins, SSRIs, Ozempic.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
The studies are being kind of shaming those moms, these poor moms on Medicaid, single moms trying to make ends meet. Medicaid is just a disaster. We poisoned poor kids and then jammed drugs down their throat. Moms don't know what to do. Um, we just, we, uh, we just have to incentivize and just ask that question. And, and, and, and every patient should know you have the ability to, to step back.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Your, your kid's not going to die tomorrow if they don't take the statin. Like there's another route you can go. And our, we have a chapter, don't, uh, don't trust your doctor. What is it?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
We don't incentivize cigarettes for kids.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Regenerative ranchers like Will Harris, you know, who's a hero. And truly, I mean, if people want to do something before the election, they're trying to slide the Farm Bill five-year extension under our noses right now. They're trying to vote on that right now because they're trying to get it in before Trump gets in because they know Trump's going to blow stuff up.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
If you want to call your member of Congress, take one minute, ask them to do food and, you know, not have just government-funded Ozempic before fixing our food system, the Treat and Reduce Obesity Act, and tell them it needs to be a one-year extension on the farm bill. This is happening right now. I'm getting literally from heroes and members of Congress are asking me to talk about this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
They're trying to jam this farm bill that it's 90% subsidizes ultra-processed food ingredients. I mean...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
We're just we, you know, as a conservative growing up, as a conservative growing up, I used to work for, you know, conservative think tanks used to pay us to along with the NAACP. Excuse me. We used to pay conservative think tanks, the pharma industry. So we rig the system, and then we pay conservative influencers to say it's nanny state to question the rigged system.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Think about how screwed up that is, right? We rig the system beyond recognition, tens of millions of dollars of lobbying spending to ensure that sugary drinks, that diabetes water is on food stamps. And then the moment you question that... you get attacked by the conservative influencers saying you're nanny state. We are still in that situation.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
We're waking up, and I think Trump's really realigned the parties to where when I grew up as a young conservative, it's like you trust the farmer, trust food without question, and it's totally against orthodoxy on the conservative side to question any corporation. That's changed, which is a very good thing, but you still have little remnants of that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Fixing a rigged market is not an attack on the free market. It's a necessity. The pharmaceutical industry spends five times more on lobbying and public affairs than the oil industry. There's five pharmaceutical lobbyists for every single government official. The healthcare industry, just as the economics, is the highest funder of TV news. They're the highest funder of politicians themselves.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
literally by far. They're the highest spender on research. They fund the regulatory agencies themselves, right? They fund the NAACP and civil rights groups and weaponize issues like feminism, racism, and body positivity very strategically to get us to shut up. They are just demonstrably, the healthcare industry is the lifeblood of every single institution that we trust in America.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And to question that is not nanny state. That's something Trump and RFK have kind of bashed through. We need a reset. We need to come together with the farmers. You know, with the brave people in health care and have a reset. And I would just ask you, does it feel like it's a marginal issue or does it feel like, you know, we kind of need to have almost a spiritual reset here?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And that's kind of I think we can like if we keep focusing on this and keep pushing, I think we can really unleash what everyone wants, honestly. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
This is it sounds complicated. This can be unwound very quickly. Nobody wants this. You need executive leadership, strong executive agenda and then a strong legislative agenda. priorities. And you need, with the executive agenda, to have transformational change eventually get to some real bipartisan.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
But I would argue, just listening to what Casey's talking about in these systems issues, we all think, oh, we got to... Who are the experts, the uncorrupted medical experts who can figure this out? I think people like Elon Musk are much more important healthcare thinkers, systems thinkers.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
We need systems thinkers to literally just start top down, looking at these agencies, looking at the web of incentives, and asking, what is something that makes sense to spur American health and disease reversal? We spend $4.5 trillion. This is on Parson, right? We spend $4.5 trillion. It's growing at double the rate of GDP on basically managing Americans poisoning themselves.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
It's like, how do we successfully use that money to reverse these trends? It's actually when you get down to it and start going down these rabbit holes, there's some major things you could do that are very dramatic. And it does get to core bureaucratic change. And you get to incentive change. You get to reorienting the incentives of these industries.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And you get to eventually where all the money is, which is where are the subsidies going to and where are those $4.5 trillion of health care spend going to? And you just have to demand that that follows the science and go to the right standard of care. And frankly, again, I can't stress this enough. Just let Americans choose. Give the Americans the information. Like, fearlessly.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Let's give them the information on diabetes. Let's give them the information on obesity. Let's give them the information on the 72 vaccines. Let's give them the information on everything. And trust that the American people aren't suicidal enough to just want to kill themselves. We've infantilized the American people with our healthcare industry.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And I think there's actual cultural and spiritual ramifications from that. We have told, the USDA says that it's dangerous to grow food in your backyard. Right. Literally, there's a war on on whole food. Bill Gates says it's pseudoscience, as you said, that, you know, trees help with global warming. He's literally putting up sun blockers.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
He's saying that it's anti-science to say that the future for developing country and feeding them is anything other than lab grown meat and ultra processed food. Like we're in a bizarro world here. We need moral clarity.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Do we need studies to tell us that regenerative ranching and more natural processes and not raping our soil to where there's only 40 crop cycles left and try to out hack everything and spray poison over all the crops? We just need to get back to basics.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Well, just just think about these congressional meetings. And it's not a blink of an eye that that podiatrist, Representative Winstrup. Bill, Ozempic, $1,600, trillions of dollars in ramification. Not even a blink. He didn't even read the bill.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
He didn't even read the bill. And then we get lectured at the next meeting. about how not poisoning kids is too expensive.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
All the other comorbidities that kid is going to have because they're not addressing the root cause.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
There's no reason for this. Like you just hear this and if it makes sense and you ask like, how can this be undone? It's just like it truly like this could be undone. Like it's just it's just because we haven't had focus on it. But like you can get this done in a year. Like I truly believe that RFK, you know, and Trump will focus on this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
Everyone wants this. Everyone wants this. I mean, again, we are idealistic, but this is a legacy issue. It's not a partisan issue. Again, I think that executive leadership, we have to be clear-eyed. If we don't have moral clarity and people that are going to say, go away to these industries and have clear, level-headed thinking on what's actually happening, we're screwed.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
But there are members of Congress and there's bipartisan appetite. Again, we've been meeting with dozens of them. I've been getting personal DMs from members of Congress on this journey, people are clamoring for answers here. And I do believe that a focus on chronic disease reversal can be a banner bipartisan initiative that will go down in history.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
I think in a history book, if we're still around 100 years, we'll talk about this moment where we... I mean, the shame we'll have for what we did to kids on obesity, like childhood obesity. there's no greater moral standard in our country. It's like 3% in Japan. It's like 50% of teens are overweight or obese here. So just like, what are we doing?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And I think the most important thing we can do today is steer our medical dollars to these root cause metabolic interventions like exercise. We could do that right now with HSAs, FSAs, which is why I started TrueMed.com. Everyone listening should look at your HSA, FSAs. You can go to TrueMed.com, figure out how to spend that money if you qualify on real medicine.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
If we can get our dollars to real medicine and away from waiting to get sick for pharma, we can do some major things. And most people are doing their HSA contributions right now. Inchronicdisease.org is something I set up. It just connects you with your member of Congress with some scripts to talk about this. I do think if people are compelled, we talked about the political.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
There's a real spiritual level here. And I think getting a little bit more involved, just calling your member of Congress for a couple minutes does make a difference. So I'd urge that inchronicdisease.org. Thank you. Thank you.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2210 - Calley Means & Casey Means, MD
And then later in the afternoon, working for food companies, working for Coke, steering money to institutions of trust, steering money to the NAACP to say that taking Coke off food stamps was racist. Coke soda today, to this day, is the number one item on food stamps. What I realized
The Megyn Kelly Show
Ending Chronic Disease, Forces Fighting RFK and MAHA, and Power of Functional Medicine, with Dr. Mark Hyman | Ep. 1044
100%.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Ending Chronic Disease, Forces Fighting RFK and MAHA, and Power of Functional Medicine, with Dr. Mark Hyman | Ep. 1044
If your concern is obesity, then we should be talking about obesity. We shouldn't be talking about obesity for SNAP recipients who have social determinants of health beyond just what they eat.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Ending Chronic Disease, Forces Fighting RFK and MAHA, and Power of Functional Medicine, with Dr. Mark Hyman | Ep. 1044
I mean, who knows what the general public considers unhealthy.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Ending Chronic Disease, Forces Fighting RFK and MAHA, and Power of Functional Medicine, with Dr. Mark Hyman | Ep. 1044
You're crossing a line right there. You're crossing a line. God bless him.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Declares Victory Over Houthis, Biden's Media Tour, US Spying on Greenland: AM Update 5/8
Did five years of head and neck surgery training. And at the end of that training, before launching out into being a private practice or academic attending physician, I looked around me at what was happening in American health more broadly and realized that even though I'm working hard in my lane as an ear, nose, and throat surgeon, More broadly, American health is just getting destroyed.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Declares Victory Over Houthis, Biden's Media Tour, US Spying on Greenland: AM Update 5/8
It's getting destroyed. Chronic illness is exploding across the lifespan. And that's not something that I really learned about in medical school. At the best institutions in America, the hospitals, the medical schools, we're not talking about why. We're talking about how to medicate these conditions. We're talking about how to operate more on these conditions.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
Oh, it's great to be here, Megan, and great to see you yesterday.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
Megan, there's a lot weighing on, I think, the country right now. We're at a true inflection point for American health from your first interview with Bobby years ago, putting him on the national scene or really helping with that to that incredible endorsement with Donald Trump of bringing millions of Maha moms to this coalition that elected him. We are at a fork in the road for American health.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
And I'll just be really blunt. The takeaway from this hearing is that road goes through Senator Bill Cassidy. Senator Bill Cassidy is a very influential senator. He's a doctor, he's a physician, he's chair of the health committee. And I'll just be blunt, as Bill Cassidy votes will go the way of Maha and RFK.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
And I'd love to, if it's okay with you, Megan, make a direct plea to Senator Cassidy, because I know he cares very much about public health and trust in public health. And I know he is legitimately still considering this vote. And I think everyone needs to focus their attention on him right now. I'd love to make a couple points to him. Please, go ahead.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
So Bill Cassidy, by all accounts, is somebody that, as I said, deeply cares about trust in public health. And I really do believe that the so-called Maha movement, this loose coalition of folks that came together that are really concerned about children's health.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
And Dr. Cassidy, who's a person who's spent decades working on health care and health policy to help patients, I think they're talking past each other. The crux of Dr. Cassidy's deliberation is around trust in public health. And I want to just make a couple points to him as a parent. Speaking, I think, trying to channel what brought Bobby Kennedy into popularity and into helping President Trump.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
The public health crisis and the trust in public health is not because of Bobby Kennedy. Just speaking as a parent, there's anxiety among every single parent in this country. I mean, kids are looking at kids. There's autism rates that are skyrocketing.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
we don't know why autism is skyrocketing i'm scared as a parent of a three-year-old about autism it's now one in 30 in california the nih and the public health authorities have not come to a conclusive answer on why autism rates are going through the roof kids are subjected to an unending array of environmental toxins and toxins in our food
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
The FDA, which is fully bought off by the pharma and food industries, 75% of the drug approvals at the FDA are funded by pharma. They said, we don't even know the chemicals in our food. There's 10,000 chemicals in our food that aren't allowed in any other country. And the red dyes and things like this, the FDA still tells us are safe. We're trying to ban one. There are still many other
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
chemicals like that that are totally inappropriate. Kids are walking into a treadmill of drugs. Right now, the American Academy of Pediatrics is saying that the standard of care for a 12-year-old is ozempic if they're overweight or obese, and they're studying for as low as six. The health authorities are saying that if a kid is sad, they need an SSRI. SSRI rates have
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
doubled in prescription rates among teens in the last five years. They're saying if they have high cholesterol, it's a statin. Statin rates have doubled in the past 10 years among teens. Metformin, ACE inhibitors, all of these drugs our kids are getting on as they're getting more sick. The standard of care is totally clearly rigged where 40% of our teens are on a pharmaceutical product.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
And there's 4.6 billion pharmaceutical prescriptions written per year that clearly aren't working. And I'll be honest, I'll just be blunt, Megan. As a parent, I'm concerned about vaccines. We have a different schedule in the United States than other countries. As Bill Cassidy said today, it is not appropriate for a kid to get a hepatitis B vaccine, which is an STD on the first day of life.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
If the mother tested negative for that condition, that is not the mandate right now. It is a mandate for for first day of life, that is the CDC guidance. So what Senator Cassidy said even today contradicts the specific unambiguous CDC guidance. There are questions to ask all these things.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
And again, when we come to the issue of trust, I would plea to Senator Cassidy from knowing Bobby Kennedy, from seeing Bobby Kennedy, I have never,
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
ever heard him say that he wants to get in there and exert his own opinions he has consistently said and he believes this to his core his opinions even if he has differing personal opinions on certain pharmaceutical products than senator cassie are meaningless when he gets into the hhs he and president trump
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
are strongly strongly uh their help it on restoring trust in science on getting money to scientists who do not have conflicts of interest and unleashing them to do true scientific inquiry on why we're getting so sick he means it when he says to senator cassidy that he wants to retort stress and tides.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
And the crux of Senator Cassidy's final message and his final question to Bobby Kennedy is, will Bobby Kennedy definitively say unambiguously that vaccines don't cause autism? And Bobby Kennedy wouldn't answer that question directly. I think it's inappropriate.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
Go ahead, Kelly. Megan, this is, honestly, it's hitting on one of the most important, I think the most important issue in the country, which is trust in our institutions and trust in science. The way to increase trust in science is not for the HHS secretary to make a religious, basically opinion, a fully 100% firm opinion one way or the other.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
It's for the HHS secretary to say, Senator, we are going to continue to conduct science on every question, particularly the most taboo questions, particularly the questions that we've been told are settled science. How many times do we need to be reminded of the corporate capture of institutions, the breakdown institutions?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
Is it that controversial to say that vaccines can be one of the greatest inventions in American history, but also the fact that the two largest vaccine makers, GlaxoSmithKline and Merck, have settled billions of dollars of criminal penalties in the past five years, and their findings should be continually subjected to science, that in order to gain trust in public health,
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
we need to be able to ask questions and have continued trust in science this is the key question it is inappropriate for and against frankly bobby kennedy's nature to give a specific opinion and he's not coming in to hhs with opinions he's coming into hhs to set a process where the metric of success is that according to gallup polls and other polls americans trust science more americans trust vaccines more
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
The absolute implosion of public trust and public health is not because of Bobby Kennedy. It's because of the public health authorities themselves. And I think Bo Cassidy understands and knows that.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
Yeah, the reason there's low trust in public health is because we've infantilized the American people. We've made something like vaccines a religious issue where you can't ask questions, where it's either or. It's binary. When there's 72 shots, there's different formulations to each of those shots. I mean, these are questions we should be able to ask. I think it's much wider than that, Megan.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
I think what I'd really stress to Senator Cassidy is that The lack of trust is warranted and pervades the entire system. Clearly, the American Medical Association codes, which underlie our entire health care logic, are totally broken. I mean, right now, the science, according to the American Medical Association, which underlies Medicare, Medicaid,
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
is that a two-year-old can undergo gender transition surgery and gender-affirming care. That is the stated medical scientific consensus in the documents that underlie American insurance reimbursement. That should continue to be questioned. This is the judgment, right? I mean, it shouldn't continue to be questioned.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
It should be immediately called out as an absolute sin and an absolute crime against humanity. But that's the judgment of the science right now. The American Medical Association, which is the most powerful group in the country, I would argue, because they control the logic for 20% of our economy and every single doctor that we all have. is a pharmaceutical lobbying organization, by definition.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
It outsources decision-making to these specialty groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics, where the two largest funders are formula makers and the American Academy of Pediatrics is now questioning whether breast milk is as good as formula. And drug makers. So so so so like so like. Oh, yeah.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
Again, this is not because of Bobby Kennedy. It's much, much larger than vaccines. We are dying as a country. We are decimating our children's future with not just autism, but 40 to 50 percent of teens being overweight or obese, 38 percent of teens having prediabetes.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
The New York Times recently reported on the front page that cancer rates are at an all-time high among American children, and nobody knows why. Bobby's saying, let's figure out why. Let's get the NIH away. He's willing to look. Nobody's willing to look. I mean, we all know it should not be a controversial statement that there are side effects to every drug. We know vaccine injured children.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
That's not a should not be a heretical statement. They should not be hiding. We should be acknowledging that we should be working on therapeutics for those kids. We should be coming out with the data. But again, it's much wider than that. We don't know what's in our food. We are totally being misled on the standard of care for our drugs.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
I talk a lot about my mom, who was on five different chronic disease medications based on 15-minute appointments. It was high cholesterol. Take that stat. High blood sugar. Take that metformin. No problem at all. This is normal. 50% of 65-year-olds take this drug. It's fine. She was robbed of curiosity based on our medical logic of what's going on metabolically in her body.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
And it eventually led to cancer, which is a metabolic disease in many cases, too. We have lost the plot. But instead, you pointed this out yesterday. I'm just going to be honest with you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
I want Senator Cassidy to know this, and again, we should all be communicating to him in the next 48 hours with love and an understanding that I know in his heart he wants what's best for patients. But I will say this, I have never heard the word measles uttered in a private meeting with Bobby Kennedy. It is not what the focus is. There is no plan to do anything other than raise
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
faith and trust in our standards of care.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
It's even more than that. Bobby, the meetings with the with Trump and Bobby. are about truly getting money to the best scientists in the world and not standing in their way at all to getting the American people the truth and with no preconceived outcomes. Right now, science is conducted where we already know the answer. That's most of the FDA studies that underlie our drug prescription processes.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
He wants true unfettered science and absolutely not standing in the way. The words measles, I've never seen uttered. What I have seen in my small vantage point, you know, watching this movement form is true emotion around reversing and preventing chronic disease. It was just shocking to me, Megan, yesterday. I honestly couldn't believe it. The words obesity, diabetes, and heart disease were
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
were not uttered one time by the Democrats. I would just say to Senator Cassidy, you've got this partisan weaponization of culture war issues like abortion, where pharma is funding Mike Pence's group to attack Bobby on abortion, like vaccines, which pharma clearly sees the wedge issue for Bobby. This is what they do. I saw this. They're hijacking these issues. The Democrats are falling for that.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
They've said the word measles 25 times. But if Someone in this country cares about children's health. Right? 230 million Americans are battling chronic conditions, many of them kids. Measles is important, but even before the invention of that vaccine in 1963, 300 to 400 Americans per year died of measles. Now, I am not dismissing that, but that is just not where Bobby's focused.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
I just can't stress this enough. He wants, of course, great science to be conducted on pharmaceutical products, particularly pharmaceutical products created by literal criminal enterprises that have settled billions of dollars in criminal penalties over the past five years. Of course, who would disagree with that? I don't think Senator Cassidy disagrees with that.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
I don't think Senator Cassidy disagrees with resetting the NIH to understand the complex milieu of issues that are impacting our metabolic systems.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
by our metabolic health our microbiomes and leading to skyrocketing rocketing rates of every chronic disease to reach an all-time high this year that is what bobby wants to do that involves food that involves the impact of sleep that involves the impact of movement that involves the impact of chronic stress that involves the impact of light and yes it involves the impact of the full
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
4.6 billion pharmaceuticals that we are prescribed in the United States per year. It involves investigating scientifically whether we are getting an ROI on the fact that we are 4% of the world's population, but produce 75% of the worldwide pharmaceutical products while ranking 60th in life expectancy. Something is clearly not working.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
And the first phase of Maha that Bobby's talked about is not having opinions. It's getting to the truth. Bobby understands that there's no way we're going to get past this existential moment for American health without bringing Bill Cassie along, without bringing the American people along. That can only happen with great science.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
The best way for Bobby to blow up this movement, he understands this, is to come in gunslinging with opinions. He is not doing that. He's made that clear. And I can tell you that is in his heart. He wants President Trump to win the Nobel Prize for resetting science because science is not in a good place right now in this country.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
No, I'm just going to say this again, and I can't stress this enough. Of course, as he said, he's already hearing from the maha moms. He saw those maha moms behind you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
at the hearing, Megan, but by all accounts, and we all need to understand this, the Maha movement, it's this, what you've been unpacking, what Casey and I have been unpacking with so many leaders in the medical freedom and in the health reform space have been talking about for decades. It is...
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
a bit of a of a learning curve to understand we're talking not about the details and intricacies of medicare medicaid policies we're talking about the overarching incentives that are leading americans to get sick and and i i would just say to bill cassie i would everyone to call him it's just there's a real positive opportunity
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
to have absolute gold star trust in science for Bobby to come in there and not be gunslinging opinions, but really work with senators bipartisan to restore trust to American science. And, you know, there's a positive
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
a path ahead um we would love to have bill cassidy uh in his expertise in this maha movement i'm sure maha moms help him get re-elected which i know he wants to do i mean there's a real positive this is this is a growing movement the maha movement is the most potent political force in politics right now You know, the gender gap was supposed to be 22 points for President Trump. It was seven.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
You had just staggering amounts of independents and young people coming to the Trump coalition. This is a true opportunity to improve children's health, and it's a real I'm political opportunity, quite frankly, because I want Maha to embrace Bill Cassidy and I want them to help Bill Cassidy, quite frankly, get reelected.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
I want to show the Democrats who had zero interest on that panel on public health, get the Democrats, you know, more Maha, more preventative. This is a true fork in the road, and we can't mince words. Every emotion, all the work that's gone into this, all the energy behind Bobby, it does go through the structure of our systems.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
It goes through one man right now, and that is Bill Cassidy's decision in the next 72 hours.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
I think this is an existential moment. I'm not going to mince words. There are people that are not Maha that are already vying to replace Bobby, funded by Pharma and ready to completely reel back this movement. They are already angling. This is a fork in the road moment for American health. I think we had to get... that 2024 election, right?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
I thought that election day was the most important day of my life to get President Trump to write the BS we're seeing. I actually think we would have had a hard time coming back if he didn't win. This is a very, very important moment for American health.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tulsi vs. the Establishment, Kash on Hot Seat, and RFK's Final Push, with Glenn Greenwald, Calley Means, and More | Ep. 996
And we need to express to Bill Cassidy and all the senators the incredible opportunity to improve children's health and the disaster if we continue down our current road. So thank you, Megan.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Truth About Elon's WH Exit, Trump Unveils Tariff Plans, Bombshell Biden Reporting: AM Update 4/3
The NIH, whose goal is to promote American health, has overseen a devastation, just an abject devastation in American health over the past 20 years, with disease rates skyrocketing in America, leading the world of almost every single chronic disease.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Truth About Elon's WH Exit, Trump Unveils Tariff Plans, Bombshell Biden Reporting: AM Update 4/3
It is insane. It is insane. It is insane for you to insinuate that the thing standing between us and better health is more government bureaucrats. That is what everyone is saying. Is that funny? Is that not true? Has there been one single chronic disease medication in modern American history that has lowered rates of the chronic disease?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Truth About Elon's WH Exit, Trump Unveils Tariff Plans, Bombshell Biden Reporting: AM Update 4/3
The administration has put out guidance that they want to direct and cut indirect funding. That fundamentally means more money is going to researchers. The guidance that Bobby Kennedy and the Trump administration put out means more money is going to frontline researchers to do research.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Truth About Elon's WH Exit, Trump Unveils Tariff Plans, Bombshell Biden Reporting: AM Update 4/3
There is a very clear signal, demonstrably, with what is happening, which is that government bureaucrats are being disempowered and more money is going to actual researchers. They are hissing. They are hissing about changes to a system that has caused absolute devastation to American health.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Truth About Elon's WH Exit, Trump Unveils Tariff Plans, Bombshell Biden Reporting: AM Update 4/3
Yeah, one thing Bobby Kennedy is not going to do is entertain comments from food entry lobbyists using food prices as an excuse to continue poisoning children. I know a lot of you guys are doing that, and I think if you really back up, that's an evil argument. That's the only argument the food industry is making right now.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Truth About Elon's WH Exit, Trump Unveils Tariff Plans, Bombshell Biden Reporting: AM Update 4/3
They're trying to hold a gun on food prices to literally not even dispute the premise that Americans are being poisoned. We have 10,000 chemicals in our food that are not allowed in the other country.
Today, Explained
How America went MAHA
In the first half of the show, we talked to Callie Means, who's an advisor to RFK Jr. And Callie told us that Americans will agree on much of what he is saying, that as a population, we are sicker more often than we should be for longer than we should be. What do you think of the points that he makes?
Today, Explained
How America went MAHA
Let's say that RFK is confirmed and he is the new leader. He is the new head of the Department of Health and Human Services. What does he want to do to that agency? What has he said?
Today, Explained
How America went MAHA
Callie went on to co-author a book with his sister, Dr. Casey Means, called Good Energy, and he founded a company called TrueMed. Today, he maintains deep skepticism of big food and big pharma, and he contends that these industries have economic incentives not to make Americans well, but to keep us sick.
Today, Explained
How America went MAHA
How challenging will it be to make reforms within the food system?
Today, Explained
How America went MAHA
Helena Bottomiller-Evich of the Food Fix newsletter. Miles Bryan produced today's show. Jolie Myers edited. Andrea Christen's daughter and Rob Byers engineered. And Laura Bullard is our fact checker. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.
Today, Explained
How America went MAHA
I probably did say that. Kennedy makes two big arguments about our health, and the first is deeply divisive. He is skeptical of vaccines.
Today, Explained
How America went MAHA
Kelly, what do you hear as the main pushback against you? What do your critics argue?
Today, Explained
How America went MAHA
Science disagrees. The second argument is something that a lot of Americans, regardless of their politics, have concluded. He says our food system is serving us garbage and that garbage is making us sick. Coming up on today explained a confidant of Kennedy's, in fact, the man who helped facilitate his introduction to Donald Trump, on what the Make America Healthy Again movement wants.
Today, Explained
How America went MAHA
I've seen some of the ad hominem attacks. I wonder if you can explain that aspect of your message. Why does everything, because you know that many people will be turned off by kind of what they view as conspiratorial thinking. Might it make sense to temper this a little bit? Do you think part of the problem is, like, you know, it sounds a bit nutty, someone might say, right?
Today, Explained
How America went MAHA
I'm going to push just a little bit further on this, Kelly, because there are statements of fact that you are making. Yes. And they will pass a fact check. It's it's the idea that pharmaceutical companies want to keep us sick. I didn't say that. Companies want to keep us.
Today, Explained
How America went MAHA
Well, the economic incentive is the want. I mean, it's America. It's a capitalist society.
Today, Explained
How America went MAHA
Nominee Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr. went before the Senate today in fiery confirmation hearings.
Today, Explained
How America went MAHA
I think that many people would agree with you that when there is money involved, the incentives to grow, to grow the company can lead to perverse outcomes like a lot of sick Americans. You are the founder of a company that sells, among other things, supplements, fitness classes, fitness equipment. I was on this morning. You have some good sales.
Today, Explained
How America went MAHA
You personally have an economic incentive in this, too. And I wonder, is there any part of you that thinks maybe I should just be the guy that says the thing but not try to make money off it?
Today, Explained
How America went MAHA
President Trump appointed a seed oil lobbyist to be chief of staff of the USDA. He fought Obama-era rules to cut ultra-processed foods from school lunch. He made RFK eat a Big Mac for a photo op. In the 2024 election, President Trump overwhelmingly won in America's farm-dependent counties. Those are areas where there is a lot of farming.
Today, Explained
How America went MAHA
And so you would assume the president has to really take care not to alienate big ag. Do you think President Trump really is genuinely invested in the Maha movement?
Today, Explained
How America went MAHA
There is an area here that is deeply divisive, and it will come up again and again, we can predict, in Mr. Kennedy's hearing. And that is his views on vaccines. So he has said before that he believes autism comes from vaccines.
Today, Explained
How America went MAHA
He runs a nonprofit, Children's Health Defense, that consistently cast doubt on vaccines, on the schedule on which they're administered, on the ingredients in them, on whether they protect or actually cause chronic illnesses. Do Mr. Kennedy's positions on vaccines concern you at all?
Today, Explained
How America went MAHA
You know, our parents are old enough to remember polio. We're in the millennial generation and polio feels like it was a million years ago. It really wasn't. Americans broadly are susceptible to conspiratorial thinking. One of the concerns that I know you don't like the word conspiratorial, but let me let me offer you the concern as I've heard it articulated.
Today, Explained
How America went MAHA
Americans are going to decide they don't trust vaccines broadly. They are not going to vaccinate their children. And that will happen. That will return us to a generation and a time that most people just don't want to go back to.
Today, Explained
How America went MAHA
Let me ask you a last question. If Mr. Kennedy is confirmed. Maha, the Make America Healthy Again movement, is very close to being inside the system, maybe even in a couple of years being the system. And some people might say, well, that's when the work gets really hard, right? It's easier to be an outsider than it is to be an insider.
Today, Explained
How America went MAHA
Do you have any thoughts on that, on what it might be like for this, at the moment, outsider movement to operate on the inside? Do you think it'll be tough?
Today, Explained
How America went MAHA
Callie Means, the book is Good Energy. The company is TrueMed. Thank you so much for taking the time for us today. We really appreciate it.
Today, Explained
How America went MAHA
Before we go, you heard Callie say that the health care industry is the biggest in America. In fact, the biggest industry in America is quite hard to determine when you get right down to it. The biggest funder of academic research is not, as he said, the health care industry. It is, in fact, the federal government.
Today, Explained
How America went MAHA
Regulators and media do get a lot of money from the health care industry, but it is not their biggest funder. And now, a note from our funders.
Today, Explained
How America went MAHA
You're listening to Today Explained. Callie Means is an informal advisor to RFK who went viral on Twitter about two years ago with this explosive claim. Callie had worked as a consultant for Coca-Cola, and he said that he'd witnessed Coke give millions of dollars to various groups to ensure that sugar taxes failed and that soda was included in food stamp funding.