Dr. Sean O'Mara

And it was a very interesting conversation that you had with Dr. Lustig. It's about stress. So stress causes through the mediation of cortisol. the contribution and composition and deposition of visceral fat within the abdomen.

And it was a very interesting conversation that you had with Dr. Lustig. It's about stress. So stress causes through the mediation of cortisol. the contribution and composition and deposition of visceral fat within the abdomen.

He calls it radioactive fat. And so it's this fat from the concept that it actually has inflammatory properties. It's not really radioactive, but it's the notion that it has the ability to influence tissues outside of itself. And the way it does that, Drew, is through inflammatory molecules. that it's constantly leaking and producing and sending throughout the body.

He calls it radioactive fat. And so it's this fat from the concept that it actually has inflammatory properties. It's not really radioactive, but it's the notion that it has the ability to influence tissues outside of itself. And the way it does that, Drew, is through inflammatory molecules. that it's constantly leaking and producing and sending throughout the body.

And so individuals who unknowingly have stress in their lives or who have stress in their lives but simply tolerate or put up with it will be unfortunately accumulating unnecessarily a visceral fat inside of them to the extent that they have it. Now everybody's body is a little bit different and some people respond to stress a little bit different.

And so individuals who unknowingly have stress in their lives or who have stress in their lives but simply tolerate or put up with it will be unfortunately accumulating unnecessarily a visceral fat inside of them to the extent that they have it. Now everybody's body is a little bit different and some people respond to stress a little bit different.

But to the extent that you can eliminate stress, you will eliminate the composition or deposition of visceral fat inside of people. So it's really an important discussion for people to be aware of. And then the final point that we see is, believe it or not, and it came as a surprise, is durational exercise, where we simply exercise too much.

But to the extent that you can eliminate stress, you will eliminate the composition or deposition of visceral fat inside of people. So it's really an important discussion for people to be aware of. And then the final point that we see is, believe it or not, and it came as a surprise, is durational exercise, where we simply exercise too much.

And so we see that people that are runners, and I'll pull up a nice scan of this. Here's an MRI of somebody who's a marathoner who had run eight to 10 marathons. a year, he had a lot of this visceral fat within him. And he had this very small amount of subcutaneous fat. So we call these people with low subcutaneous fat on the outside, TOFIs. So they're thin outside, and fat inside.

And so we see that people that are runners, and I'll pull up a nice scan of this. Here's an MRI of somebody who's a marathoner who had run eight to 10 marathons. a year, he had a lot of this visceral fat within him. And he had this very small amount of subcutaneous fat. So we call these people with low subcutaneous fat on the outside, TOFIs. So they're thin outside, and fat inside.

So this marathoner was filled with a lot of visceral fat. So we see, and it's probably two things. One, it contributes to visceral fat when you overexercise and the exact mechanism is not clear. But my theory is it's probably through elevated reactive oxygen species, ROSs that go around that are associated with exercise. If you exercise too long and too much,

So this marathoner was filled with a lot of visceral fat. So we see, and it's probably two things. One, it contributes to visceral fat when you overexercise and the exact mechanism is not clear. But my theory is it's probably through elevated reactive oxygen species, ROSs that go around that are associated with exercise. If you exercise too long and too much,

you enhance these ROSs from being produced. And so another example of this happening is a really nice before and after scan in a 58-year-old executive of a company who came in and he was having his repeat abdominal scan, his MRI.

you enhance these ROSs from being produced. And so another example of this happening is a really nice before and after scan in a 58-year-old executive of a company who came in and he was having his repeat abdominal scan, his MRI.

Yeah, so on the left side is an MRI scan. image of his abdomen and he's got a substantial amount of visceral fat within his abdomen. His muscles look pretty good and he was a pretty healthy guy. He was doing a lot of healthy things, 58-year-old executive. And this was a repeat itself. I don't have the MRI before it, but it was disappointing and alarming.

Yeah, so on the left side is an MRI scan. image of his abdomen and he's got a substantial amount of visceral fat within his abdomen. His muscles look pretty good and he was a pretty healthy guy. He was doing a lot of healthy things, 58-year-old executive. And this was a repeat itself. I don't have the MRI before it, but it was disappointing and alarming.

So we asked him all the other contributions of visceral fat and he assured us and we were reassured by his answers that he didn't have any of those other contributions. And here he disclosed to us that he was persisting in his running. He wasn't doing marathons, he was doing 10 mile runs five days a week. So 50 miles a week, which is a lot of running.

So we asked him all the other contributions of visceral fat and he assured us and we were reassured by his answers that he didn't have any of those other contributions. And here he disclosed to us that he was persisting in his running. He wasn't doing marathons, he was doing 10 mile runs five days a week. So 50 miles a week, which is a lot of running.

As a consequence of all the running, he had a substantial amount of visceral fat that was staying there. And what visceral fat distance running appears to do is makes the elimination of visceral fat refractory. So not only does it seem to contribute to visceral fat, but when you start doing things like cutting out processed foods and sleeping better, cutting out alcohol, and then you get

As a consequence of all the running, he had a substantial amount of visceral fat that was staying there. And what visceral fat distance running appears to do is makes the elimination of visceral fat refractory. So not only does it seem to contribute to visceral fat, but when you start doing things like cutting out processed foods and sleeping better, cutting out alcohol, and then you get

you have a harder time still getting the benefits of eliminating that visceral fat. So your body is resistant, holds onto that visceral fat more tenaciously if you're gonna be doing distance running. So what we advocated and asked this guy to do was to substitute in for his distance running sprinting. And so this guy went from being a distance runner

you have a harder time still getting the benefits of eliminating that visceral fat. So your body is resistant, holds onto that visceral fat more tenaciously if you're gonna be doing distance running. So what we advocated and asked this guy to do was to substitute in for his distance running sprinting. And so this guy went from being a distance runner

to a sprinter and he did so in just two months and was actually a little shy of two months and look at the dramatic elimination of his visceral fat. So this image on the right now shows a lack of white and he has much more dark present within his abdominal cavity. And then you can see the shape of his abdomen appears to be more oval and he has a six pack and his muscles have increased.

to a sprinter and he did so in just two months and was actually a little shy of two months and look at the dramatic elimination of his visceral fat. So this image on the right now shows a lack of white and he has much more dark present within his abdominal cavity. And then you can see the shape of his abdomen appears to be more oval and he has a six pack and his muscles have increased.

Nothing else changed in this Drew other than he simply substituted distance running for sprinting. And so we've seen this in numerous individuals who eliminate distance running and substitute in sprinting.

Nothing else changed in this Drew other than he simply substituted distance running for sprinting. And so we've seen this in numerous individuals who eliminate distance running and substitute in sprinting.

So it's a proximity to the vascular system that allows it to be distributed throughout the body. And then it has this untoward inflammatory effect in all the tissues. So keep in mind, chronic disease we hear about the common pathway of chronic disease is inflammation. And it's my clinical experience that visceral fat is behind all of that.

So it's a proximity to the vascular system that allows it to be distributed throughout the body. And then it has this untoward inflammatory effect in all the tissues. So keep in mind, chronic disease we hear about the common pathway of chronic disease is inflammation. And it's my clinical experience that visceral fat is behind all of that.

They just stop running. They don't do any more jogging. We recommend that they just simply do sprinting. It's a completely different form of exercise. I mean, it's hard to do. I'm a former distance runner. I ran cross country in school. I love distance running. I could not stop. I will admit to anybody in the audience today, I was addicted, in my belief, I was addicted to running. I loved it.

They just stop running. They don't do any more jogging. We recommend that they just simply do sprinting. It's a completely different form of exercise. I mean, it's hard to do. I'm a former distance runner. I ran cross country in school. I love distance running. I could not stop. I will admit to anybody in the audience today, I was addicted, in my belief, I was addicted to running. I loved it.

And I loved the endorphins it produced. And I would run 70 to 90 minutes every single day. I could not stop doing this. And many people are like that. So for me, I stopped doing distance running. I started springing. I get my clients, patients that work with me to do the same thing and dramatic improvement in the reduction of visceral fat when they start doing so.

And I loved the endorphins it produced. And I would run 70 to 90 minutes every single day. I could not stop doing this. And many people are like that. So for me, I stopped doing distance running. I started springing. I get my clients, patients that work with me to do the same thing and dramatic improvement in the reduction of visceral fat when they start doing so.

I mean, it's got this association or causality yet to be proven in many cases to virtually every form of chronic disease. So one of the interesting things I like to let people think about when it comes to visceral fat is if you have a malady, a certain form of chronic disease, just go on Google or AI and put in the search term, whatever you have, comma, and then list visceral fat.

I mean, it's got this association or causality yet to be proven in many cases to virtually every form of chronic disease. So one of the interesting things I like to let people think about when it comes to visceral fat is if you have a malady, a certain form of chronic disease, just go on Google or AI and put in the search term, whatever you have, comma, and then list visceral fat.

The other technical term for it is visceral adipose tissue. Adipose means fat. So a variety of terms are used to describe visceral fat, but it is a really bad player because of its influence throughout your body. So I think that's a pretty good introduction to its association with chronic disease.

The other technical term for it is visceral adipose tissue. Adipose means fat. So a variety of terms are used to describe visceral fat, but it is a really bad player because of its influence throughout your body. So I think that's a pretty good introduction to its association with chronic disease.

And then anecdotally, I would like to share that I studied it for seven years for the National Science Foundation, a grant that we received. And during that time, we looked at in 6,000 people, their chronic disease, things that they identified as forms of chronic disease they were suffering. And as we focused on eliminating visceral fat in those individuals,

And then anecdotally, I would like to share that I studied it for seven years for the National Science Foundation, a grant that we received. And during that time, we looked at in 6,000 people, their chronic disease, things that they identified as forms of chronic disease they were suffering. And as we focused on eliminating visceral fat in those individuals,

all of their forms of chronic disease either got better or completely reversed. It was amazing as they got rid of visceral fat and to the extent they did. So symptomatology and conditions reverse better if you eliminate more of that visceral fat and only partially improve if you just eliminate to a little bit. So that was absolutely shocking.

all of their forms of chronic disease either got better or completely reversed. It was amazing as they got rid of visceral fat and to the extent they did. So symptomatology and conditions reverse better if you eliminate more of that visceral fat and only partially improve if you just eliminate to a little bit. So that was absolutely shocking.

to see that something as profoundly connected to pathology and disease was never shared with me in medical school. We only learned about it through this study. But there's a lot of studies. If you Google visceral fat, and just like I invited people to go on Google or AI and look at its association with whatever condition they might be afflicted with, It's connected with so many conditions.

to see that something as profoundly connected to pathology and disease was never shared with me in medical school. We only learned about it through this study. But there's a lot of studies. If you Google visceral fat, and just like I invited people to go on Google or AI and look at its association with whatever condition they might be afflicted with, It's connected with so many conditions.

It's been very well researched, but the problem is I've never seen something so valuable in the research lane kept from practitioners, physicians. It's inexplicable how something as powerful as this biomarker is kept from medical schools. The curriculums in medical schools are standardized. I went to both a law school, I'm an attorney as well as a physician.

It's been very well researched, but the problem is I've never seen something so valuable in the research lane kept from practitioners, physicians. It's inexplicable how something as powerful as this biomarker is kept from medical schools. The curriculums in medical schools are standardized. I went to both a law school, I'm an attorney as well as a physician.

And I remember there are good law schools and bad law schools. But in the United States, there is no bad medical school. And that's because all the curriculum is set and they're very, very good professional schools. The downside to that is because that curriculum is set and standardized, We don't have really good curriculum and not so good curriculum. So it's all kind of cookie cutter.

And I remember there are good law schools and bad law schools. But in the United States, there is no bad medical school. And that's because all the curriculum is set and they're very, very good professional schools. The downside to that is because that curriculum is set and standardized, We don't have really good curriculum and not so good curriculum. So it's all kind of cookie cutter.

And ubiquitous in all these medical schools is a lack of awareness about visceral fat and some of the other biomarkers that we learned about in our study for the National Science Foundation in addition to visceral fat.

And ubiquitous in all these medical schools is a lack of awareness about visceral fat and some of the other biomarkers that we learned about in our study for the National Science Foundation in addition to visceral fat.

Yeah, so the big five things that we have found that contribute the most to visceral fat, based on our experience with the National Science Foundation and using this MRI to evaluate it, is first and foremostly processed foods. So when you eat a lot of processed foods, and maybe I'll just pull up this image here to support that, that you contribute to visceral fat.

Yeah, so the big five things that we have found that contribute the most to visceral fat, based on our experience with the National Science Foundation and using this MRI to evaluate it, is first and foremostly processed foods. So when you eat a lot of processed foods, and maybe I'll just pull up this image here to support that, that you contribute to visceral fat.

So let's demonstrate for those watching here. the elimination of processed foods. If you simply only eliminate processed foods and you didn't do anything else. So you want to limit your confounders.

So let's demonstrate for those watching here. the elimination of processed foods. If you simply only eliminate processed foods and you didn't do anything else. So you want to limit your confounders.

In other words, we didn't do medications, we didn't do exercise, we didn't have this individual do a sauna, we didn't have them fast or anything else other than simply eliminate processed foods, processed carbohydrates in particular.

In other words, we didn't do medications, we didn't do exercise, we didn't have this individual do a sauna, we didn't have them fast or anything else other than simply eliminate processed foods, processed carbohydrates in particular.

Yeah, that would be included. So anything that really changes the form if it's not a natural process. So if you simply take an avocado and squash it and turn it into guacamole, that's a pretty natural process. But if you were to take something like wheat, grind it up, add some oils, and cook it, that would be a lot more processing.

Yeah, that would be included. So anything that really changes the form if it's not a natural process. So if you simply take an avocado and squash it and turn it into guacamole, that's a pretty natural process. But if you were to take something like wheat, grind it up, add some oils, and cook it, that would be a lot more processing.

So our guidance to individuals during the National Science Foundation was to only use natural kind of processed foods, squashing, changing the form with some kind of mechanical event as opposed to cooking or adding other ingredients into it. So we instructed this individual to eat food in whole form. So It would be meat and vegetables in non-processed form that he was allowed to eat.

So our guidance to individuals during the National Science Foundation was to only use natural kind of processed foods, squashing, changing the form with some kind of mechanical event as opposed to cooking or adding other ingredients into it. So we instructed this individual to eat food in whole form. So It would be meat and vegetables in non-processed form that he was allowed to eat.

And he did that, and he had this amount of visceral fat on his baseline, meaning when he first got started.

And he did that, and he had this amount of visceral fat on his baseline, meaning when he first got started.

Just in the abdominal cavity. So the visceral fat would roughly correspond, include fat outside the abdomen around the heart. So that's organ fat too. But it's quantified in this particular image through software that was captured and limited just within the abdomen. So this pinkish red color in the middle is your visceral fat. Your sub-Q fat is the yellow.

Just in the abdominal cavity. So the visceral fat would roughly correspond, include fat outside the abdomen around the heart. So that's organ fat too. But it's quantified in this particular image through software that was captured and limited just within the abdomen. So this pinkish red color in the middle is your visceral fat. Your sub-Q fat is the yellow.

We tracked and paid attention to the visceral fat because that is the more harmful substance. And yeah, sorry about that.

We tracked and paid attention to the visceral fat because that is the more harmful substance. And yeah, sorry about that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, just adding some clarity to it. So you can see from in just two weeks, even though you are not a radiologist and many who are watching this and able to see that, they can visualize that the visceral fat, the pinkish substance has been reduced. And so that's an important observation to be aware of. And that happened just by this individual cutting out processed foods.

Yeah, just adding some clarity to it. So you can see from in just two weeks, even though you are not a radiologist and many who are watching this and able to see that, they can visualize that the visceral fat, the pinkish substance has been reduced. And so that's an important observation to be aware of. And that happened just by this individual cutting out processed foods.

But as you rightfully point out, over 35 weeks, this guy goes from having a dad body, 68 years old, and he also has muscle with

But as you rightfully point out, over 35 weeks, this guy goes from having a dad body, 68 years old, and he also has muscle with

fat infiltrating the muscle we call that adverse muscle composition or myosteatosis the technical term for it where fat starts depositing within the muscle of your your your body and by the time 35 weeks are up this guy goes from a dad bod to looking like a collegiate swimmer look he looks like somebody in his 20s he's reduces visceral fat that much and uh he actually uh

fat infiltrating the muscle we call that adverse muscle composition or myosteatosis the technical term for it where fat starts depositing within the muscle of your your your body and by the time 35 weeks are up this guy goes from a dad bod to looking like a collegiate swimmer look he looks like somebody in his 20s he's reduces visceral fat that much and uh he actually uh

improved his musculature, and he did so without any exercise. So the elimination of visceral fat was profoundly facilitated by the elimination of processed carbohydrates in food. So you ask what causes visceral fat, that's a big one. And then I don't have an image of it, but a second one we get into is is alcohol.

improved his musculature, and he did so without any exercise. So the elimination of visceral fat was profoundly facilitated by the elimination of processed carbohydrates in food. So you ask what causes visceral fat, that's a big one. And then I don't have an image of it, but a second one we get into is is alcohol.

Yeah. So a good name, because people hear about visceral fat, it's often described other ways like deep belly fat, but some cool names that I like to refer to it as invisible obesity, because it's the kind of fat that you don't know about. So it's invisible, it's deep in your abdomen. Another term that I've heard that is I'll give credit to is Carl Lenore's superhuman radio.

Yeah. So a good name, because people hear about visceral fat, it's often described other ways like deep belly fat, but some cool names that I like to refer to it as invisible obesity, because it's the kind of fat that you don't know about. So it's invisible, it's deep in your abdomen. Another term that I've heard that is I'll give credit to is Carl Lenore's superhuman radio.

So somebody that drinks, the more you drink, and you could, I could throw, have you start pounding, become this heavy, heavy drinker. We're not going to see visceral fat for a while, but the more you drink, the more your metabolism is burdened and your capacity to have a healthy response to the caloric intake becomes compromised. So

So somebody that drinks, the more you drink, and you could, I could throw, have you start pounding, become this heavy, heavy drinker. We're not going to see visceral fat for a while, but the more you drink, the more your metabolism is burdened and your capacity to have a healthy response to the caloric intake becomes compromised. So

Well, the calories do make a contribution, but it's really more of its metabolic impact. Alcohol, when it's ingested, behaves differently because of its biochemical composition than any other forms of calories. So if you're ingesting fruit or rice or protein or meat or some other form, it's not going to have as much impact on your metabolism as alcohol.

Well, the calories do make a contribution, but it's really more of its metabolic impact. Alcohol, when it's ingested, behaves differently because of its biochemical composition than any other forms of calories. So if you're ingesting fruit or rice or protein or meat or some other form, it's not going to have as much impact on your metabolism as alcohol.

So we have our clients eliminate, we recommend that they either cut back, scale back on alcohol or completely eliminate it. And those that eliminate it completely have better results in eliminating visceral fat than those that continue to drink. And to the extent that you continue to drink you become more resistant to the elimination of visceral fat.

So we have our clients eliminate, we recommend that they either cut back, scale back on alcohol or completely eliminate it. And those that eliminate it completely have better results in eliminating visceral fat than those that continue to drink. And to the extent that you continue to drink you become more resistant to the elimination of visceral fat.

So somebody who comes back and has disappointing results between their scans, we will ask them about alcohol use. But for the most part, what's really interesting is people, when they get scanned, really are very, like I said earlier, very open to changing their lives more than any other time.

So somebody who comes back and has disappointing results between their scans, we will ask them about alcohol use. But for the most part, what's really interesting is people, when they get scanned, really are very, like I said earlier, very open to changing their lives more than any other time.

They do. And they say, you know, I've never thought about giving up alcohol, but now I see that stuff inside of me. And they give up alcohol. They give up processed foods. And the third thing that causes visceral fat is impaired sleeping. So if they have a sleeping disorder, if they have obstructive sleep apnea or they are apneic at nighttime,

They do. And they say, you know, I've never thought about giving up alcohol, but now I see that stuff inside of me. And they give up alcohol. They give up processed foods. And the third thing that causes visceral fat is impaired sleeping. So if they have a sleeping disorder, if they have obstructive sleep apnea or they are apneic at nighttime,

we bring this to attention, their visceral fat, suddenly they get a lot more serious about using maybe their CPAP machine or going in and getting evaluated for CPAP or obstructive sleep apnea, or they work on improving their sleep hygiene, becoming more attentive to how they may be impairing the sleep. A lot of people don't value sleep.

we bring this to attention, their visceral fat, suddenly they get a lot more serious about using maybe their CPAP machine or going in and getting evaluated for CPAP or obstructive sleep apnea, or they work on improving their sleep hygiene, becoming more attentive to how they may be impairing the sleep. A lot of people don't value sleep.

They see this huge amount of visceral fat that they have inside of them. And so with that awareness, suddenly they start going to bed earlier. They start cutting out all the stimulation and other things. And that we could do months of shows on sleep. But suffice it to say that impaired sleeping has a major contribution to visceral fat. The fourth one... surprises people.

They see this huge amount of visceral fat that they have inside of them. And so with that awareness, suddenly they start going to bed earlier. They start cutting out all the stimulation and other things. And that we could do months of shows on sleep. But suffice it to say that impaired sleeping has a major contribution to visceral fat. The fourth one... surprises people.

And it was a very interesting conversation that you had with Dr. Lustig. It's about stress. So stress causes through the mediation of cortisol. the contribution and composition and deposition of visceral fat within the abdomen.

He calls it radioactive fat. And so it's this fat from the concept that it actually has inflammatory properties. It's not really radioactive, but it's the notion that it has the ability to influence tissues outside of itself. And the way it does that, Drew, is through inflammatory molecules. that it's constantly leaking and producing and sending throughout the body.

And so individuals who unknowingly have stress in their lives or who have stress in their lives but simply tolerate or put up with it will be unfortunately accumulating unnecessarily a visceral fat inside of them to the extent that they have it. Now everybody's body is a little bit different and some people respond to stress a little bit different.

But to the extent that you can eliminate stress, you will eliminate the composition or deposition of visceral fat inside of people. So it's really an important discussion for people to be aware of. And then the final point that we see is, believe it or not, and it came as a surprise, is durational exercise, where we simply exercise too much.

And so we see that people that are runners, and I'll pull up a nice scan of this. Here's an MRI of somebody who's a marathoner who had run eight to 10 marathons. a year, he had a lot of this visceral fat within him. And he had this very small amount of subcutaneous fat. So we call these people with low subcutaneous fat on the outside, TOFIs. So they're thin outside, and fat inside.

So this marathoner was filled with a lot of visceral fat. So we see, and it's probably two things. One, it contributes to visceral fat when you overexercise and the exact mechanism is not clear. But my theory is it's probably through elevated reactive oxygen species, ROSs that go around that are associated with exercise. If you exercise too long and too much,

you enhance these ROSs from being produced. And so another example of this happening is a really nice before and after scan in a 58-year-old executive of a company who came in and he was having his repeat abdominal scan, his MRI.

Yeah, so on the left side is an MRI scan. image of his abdomen and he's got a substantial amount of visceral fat within his abdomen. His muscles look pretty good and he was a pretty healthy guy. He was doing a lot of healthy things, 58-year-old executive. And this was a repeat itself. I don't have the MRI before it, but it was disappointing and alarming.

So we asked him all the other contributions of visceral fat and he assured us and we were reassured by his answers that he didn't have any of those other contributions. And here he disclosed to us that he was persisting in his running. He wasn't doing marathons, he was doing 10 mile runs five days a week. So 50 miles a week, which is a lot of running.

As a consequence of all the running, he had a substantial amount of visceral fat that was staying there. And what visceral fat distance running appears to do is makes the elimination of visceral fat refractory. So not only does it seem to contribute to visceral fat, but when you start doing things like cutting out processed foods and sleeping better, cutting out alcohol, and then you get

you have a harder time still getting the benefits of eliminating that visceral fat. So your body is resistant, holds onto that visceral fat more tenaciously if you're gonna be doing distance running. So what we advocated and asked this guy to do was to substitute in for his distance running sprinting. And so this guy went from being a distance runner

to a sprinter and he did so in just two months and was actually a little shy of two months and look at the dramatic elimination of his visceral fat. So this image on the right now shows a lack of white and he has much more dark present within his abdominal cavity. And then you can see the shape of his abdomen appears to be more oval and he has a six pack and his muscles have increased.

Nothing else changed in this Drew other than he simply substituted distance running for sprinting. And so we've seen this in numerous individuals who eliminate distance running and substitute in sprinting.

So it's a proximity to the vascular system that allows it to be distributed throughout the body. And then it has this untoward inflammatory effect in all the tissues. So keep in mind, chronic disease we hear about the common pathway of chronic disease is inflammation. And it's my clinical experience that visceral fat is behind all of that.

They just stop running. They don't do any more jogging. We recommend that they just simply do sprinting. It's a completely different form of exercise. I mean, it's hard to do. I'm a former distance runner. I ran cross country in school. I love distance running. I could not stop. I will admit to anybody in the audience today, I was addicted, in my belief, I was addicted to running. I loved it.

And I loved the endorphins it produced. And I would run 70 to 90 minutes every single day. I could not stop doing this. And many people are like that. So for me, I stopped doing distance running. I started springing. I get my clients, patients that work with me to do the same thing and dramatic improvement in the reduction of visceral fat when they start doing so.

I mean, it's got this association or causality yet to be proven in many cases to virtually every form of chronic disease. So one of the interesting things I like to let people think about when it comes to visceral fat is if you have a malady, a certain form of chronic disease, just go on Google or AI and put in the search term, whatever you have, comma, and then list visceral fat.

The other technical term for it is visceral adipose tissue. Adipose means fat. So a variety of terms are used to describe visceral fat, but it is a really bad player because of its influence throughout your body. So I think that's a pretty good introduction to its association with chronic disease.

And then anecdotally, I would like to share that I studied it for seven years for the National Science Foundation, a grant that we received. And during that time, we looked at in 6,000 people, their chronic disease, things that they identified as forms of chronic disease they were suffering. And as we focused on eliminating visceral fat in those individuals,

all of their forms of chronic disease either got better or completely reversed. It was amazing as they got rid of visceral fat and to the extent they did. So symptomatology and conditions reverse better if you eliminate more of that visceral fat and only partially improve if you just eliminate to a little bit. So that was absolutely shocking.

to see that something as profoundly connected to pathology and disease was never shared with me in medical school. We only learned about it through this study. But there's a lot of studies. If you Google visceral fat, and just like I invited people to go on Google or AI and look at its association with whatever condition they might be afflicted with, It's connected with so many conditions.

It's been very well researched, but the problem is I've never seen something so valuable in the research lane kept from practitioners, physicians. It's inexplicable how something as powerful as this biomarker is kept from medical schools. The curriculums in medical schools are standardized. I went to both a law school, I'm an attorney as well as a physician.

And I remember there are good law schools and bad law schools. But in the United States, there is no bad medical school. And that's because all the curriculum is set and they're very, very good professional schools. The downside to that is because that curriculum is set and standardized, We don't have really good curriculum and not so good curriculum. So it's all kind of cookie cutter.

And ubiquitous in all these medical schools is a lack of awareness about visceral fat and some of the other biomarkers that we learned about in our study for the National Science Foundation in addition to visceral fat.

Yeah, so the big five things that we have found that contribute the most to visceral fat, based on our experience with the National Science Foundation and using this MRI to evaluate it, is first and foremostly processed foods. So when you eat a lot of processed foods, and maybe I'll just pull up this image here to support that, that you contribute to visceral fat.

So let's demonstrate for those watching here. the elimination of processed foods. If you simply only eliminate processed foods and you didn't do anything else. So you want to limit your confounders.

In other words, we didn't do medications, we didn't do exercise, we didn't have this individual do a sauna, we didn't have them fast or anything else other than simply eliminate processed foods, processed carbohydrates in particular.

Yeah, that would be included. So anything that really changes the form if it's not a natural process. So if you simply take an avocado and squash it and turn it into guacamole, that's a pretty natural process. But if you were to take something like wheat, grind it up, add some oils, and cook it, that would be a lot more processing.

So our guidance to individuals during the National Science Foundation was to only use natural kind of processed foods, squashing, changing the form with some kind of mechanical event as opposed to cooking or adding other ingredients into it. So we instructed this individual to eat food in whole form. So It would be meat and vegetables in non-processed form that he was allowed to eat.

And he did that, and he had this amount of visceral fat on his baseline, meaning when he first got started.

Just in the abdominal cavity. So the visceral fat would roughly correspond, include fat outside the abdomen around the heart. So that's organ fat too. But it's quantified in this particular image through software that was captured and limited just within the abdomen. So this pinkish red color in the middle is your visceral fat. Your sub-Q fat is the yellow.

We tracked and paid attention to the visceral fat because that is the more harmful substance. And yeah, sorry about that.

Yeah.

Yeah, just adding some clarity to it. So you can see from in just two weeks, even though you are not a radiologist and many who are watching this and able to see that, they can visualize that the visceral fat, the pinkish substance has been reduced. And so that's an important observation to be aware of. And that happened just by this individual cutting out processed foods.

But as you rightfully point out, over 35 weeks, this guy goes from having a dad body, 68 years old, and he also has muscle with

fat infiltrating the muscle we call that adverse muscle composition or myosteatosis the technical term for it where fat starts depositing within the muscle of your your your body and by the time 35 weeks are up this guy goes from a dad bod to looking like a collegiate swimmer look he looks like somebody in his 20s he's reduces visceral fat that much and uh he actually uh

improved his musculature, and he did so without any exercise. So the elimination of visceral fat was profoundly facilitated by the elimination of processed carbohydrates in food. So you ask what causes visceral fat, that's a big one. And then I don't have an image of it, but a second one we get into is is alcohol.

Yeah. So a good name, because people hear about visceral fat, it's often described other ways like deep belly fat, but some cool names that I like to refer to it as invisible obesity, because it's the kind of fat that you don't know about. So it's invisible, it's deep in your abdomen. Another term that I've heard that is I'll give credit to is Carl Lenore's superhuman radio.

So somebody that drinks, the more you drink, and you could, I could throw, have you start pounding, become this heavy, heavy drinker. We're not going to see visceral fat for a while, but the more you drink, the more your metabolism is burdened and your capacity to have a healthy response to the caloric intake becomes compromised. So

Well, the calories do make a contribution, but it's really more of its metabolic impact. Alcohol, when it's ingested, behaves differently because of its biochemical composition than any other forms of calories. So if you're ingesting fruit or rice or protein or meat or some other form, it's not going to have as much impact on your metabolism as alcohol.

So we have our clients eliminate, we recommend that they either cut back, scale back on alcohol or completely eliminate it. And those that eliminate it completely have better results in eliminating visceral fat than those that continue to drink. And to the extent that you continue to drink you become more resistant to the elimination of visceral fat.

So somebody who comes back and has disappointing results between their scans, we will ask them about alcohol use. But for the most part, what's really interesting is people, when they get scanned, really are very, like I said earlier, very open to changing their lives more than any other time.

They do. And they say, you know, I've never thought about giving up alcohol, but now I see that stuff inside of me. And they give up alcohol. They give up processed foods. And the third thing that causes visceral fat is impaired sleeping. So if they have a sleeping disorder, if they have obstructive sleep apnea or they are apneic at nighttime,

we bring this to attention, their visceral fat, suddenly they get a lot more serious about using maybe their CPAP machine or going in and getting evaluated for CPAP or obstructive sleep apnea, or they work on improving their sleep hygiene, becoming more attentive to how they may be impairing the sleep. A lot of people don't value sleep.

They see this huge amount of visceral fat that they have inside of them. And so with that awareness, suddenly they start going to bed earlier. They start cutting out all the stimulation and other things. And that we could do months of shows on sleep. But suffice it to say that impaired sleeping has a major contribution to visceral fat. The fourth one... surprises people.