Dhru Purohit Show
The Healthiest Foods To Burn Fat, Kill Disease & Slow Aging with Dr William Li
Wed, 08 Jan 2025
This episode is brought to you by Momentous, Birch Living, and Cozy Earth. The road to longevity doesn’t need to be complicated or rely on the latest gadgets and trends. Simple habits like eating wholesome foods, getting quality sleep, staying active, and engaging with your community can consistently nourish your body and mind for a long, healthy life. Today’s guest shares insights from his travels and research, revealing practical ways to incorporate these longevity secrets into our daily lives. Today on The Dhru Purohit Show, Dhru sits down with Dr. William Li to explore the top health-promoting foods Dr. Li has discovered during his travels. Dr. Li shares the latest research on the best breakfast choices to nourish, fuel, and heal your body, his approach to longevity, and the four key gut bacteria linked to long, healthy lives. He also reveals the foods that support these beneficial bacteria and boost collagen production and stresses the importance of reducing your toxin exposure. If you are looking for foods and habits that promote longevity, this episode is for you. Dr. William W. Li, MD, is an internationally renowned physician, scientist, and author of the New York Times bestsellers “Eat to Beat Disease: The New Science of How Your Body Can Heal Itself” and “Eat to Beat Your Diet: Burn Fat, Heal Your Metabolism, and Live Longer.” His groundbreaking research has led to the development of more than 40 new medical treatments that impact care for more than 70 diseases, including diabetes, blindness, heart disease, and obesity. He is President and Medical Director of the Angiogenesis Foundation, and he is leading global initiatives on food as medicine. In this episode, Dhru and Dr. Li dive into: Classic American breakfast versus breakfast in the Blue Zones (00:00:40) Coffee: one of the holy trinity beverages (3:44) The benefits of oats and bioactive (6:23) Processed versus ultra-processed foods (14:30) Never too late to change your operating system (24:05) Dr. Li’s approach to longevity (31:37) Gut microbiome in those who live long lives (52:27) Top foods that feed the four key bacteria associated with longevity (59:27) Releasing the hope molecule during exercise (1:06:00) The importance of self-reliance in judging what is right for you (1:14:30) Doubling down on the basics and key habits (1:17:15) Dr. Li’s thoughts on reducing toxins and microplastic exposure (1:20:27) Naturally boosting collagen in our diet (1:40:27) Exosomes and fatty acid profile (1:52:37) For more on Dr. Li, follow him on Instagram, Facebook, X/Twitter, YouTube, and his Website. This episode is brought to you by Momentous, Birch Living, and Cozy Earth. Optimize your energy and mental clarity with the purest form of creatine made by and used by the best. Go to livemomentous.com and enter promo code DHRU to get 20% off any order. To get 25% off your Birch Living mattress plus two free eco-rest pillows, head over to birchliving.com/dhru today. Right now, get 40% off your Cozy Earth sheets. Just head over to cozyearth.com/dhru and use code DHRUP for any order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is a classic American breakfast compared to a Mediterranean breakfast?
A classic American breakfast. You have oatmeal, maybe a huge Starbucks latte with like 30, 50 grams of sugar inside of there. You have people eating some eggs. Generally seems to be healthy. Depends on who you pay attention to. Some people say it's the devil. Some people say it's healthy. and a glass of orange juice.
I'm actually curious from your point of view, is that actually a healthy way to start the day? And contrast that with you were recently in Greece working on your next book. How do some of the world's longest living people start their morning off?
So first of all, let me take you back to my original exposure to the Mediterranean. This is long before people were talking about the Mediterranean diet. Okay. I had Finished college before going to medical school. I was very interested in understanding food, culture and health. And so I did a gap year. I went over to Italy to learn about food.
It was my first exposure really to Europe way of life, you know, in a place where it eats Mediterranean cuisine. Right. And in culture. And then I went to Greece. which is a place I've come back to again and again. I'm fascinated by the elemental nature of the life in Greece. It's not fancy for the most part. It's very simple.
And this has actually given me an insight into healthy approaches to food because simplicity is,
is actually something that seems to be a recurrent theme in people who live long and live well you know and so you know i love the fact that you brought up this idea of like the typical breakfast where you know you're you're stacking the drive-through and you know we didn't even talk about like how you get your uh coffee you know with the with a pumpkin flavor and all the whipped cream and
And, you know, your convection oven, you know, ultra processed breakfast sandwich and all that other kind of stuff that, you know, we see this all the time. I'll tell you what I've seen. I've seen in some of the healthiest people that come from the healthy cultures, they live pretty simple lives.
A great example is the people I've known from Greece, for example, they start their breakfast with bread. basically a simple cup of coffee and maybe a piece of fruit. And that's it. It's really, really simple. All right. And maybe some Greek yogurt. All right. And not a lot of it, like a little tiny cup of it with some crushed pistachios, maybe a little bit of cut fruit into it. And that's it.
And I actually embarked upon that myself and found myself feeling so much better by not loading in calories and loading in additives and loading in all that other stuff. Listen, I grew up like most people who are probably watching or listening to this, you know, hey, it's really great to have a big thing, a big topping of whipped cream with like all these fancy things on it.
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Chapter 2: What are the health benefits of coffee?
I don't have every day. Other than the coffee, there's probably no single thing that I do every single day because I love diversity. And, you know, like in my books, I've written about 200 or 300 foods. I love to choose from them. You know, it's kind of like I feel like I'm the kid in the candy shop of health every single day.
From the time I wake up and the choices I make, I just have a lot of fun picking things that I love that are good for me.
You know, I think that really the message of what you're sharing here is that it's not good and bad foods. Generally, when you're talking about whole foods, minimally processed, and actually it goes back to how processed is it? If it's super adulterated, you can take anything that actually could be a great food for you or a part of a healthy diet.
If somebody is largely eating whole foods, getting their steps in, doing some resistance training, and they want some oatmeal and that's their preferred way to get carbohydrates and it's not filled with a ton of sugar, but even if they want to put a little bit of honey or maple syrup and they're putting nuts in and other stuff, they're going to be a healthy person, right?
It's only when we rely heavily on these ultra processed forms in all areas of our life. You mentioned how coffee can be great for us. And there's some people out there that are drinking coffee and it's truly maybe 30 grams, 20 grams of sugar every single morning, day in and day out. And that's not the only thing that they're doing. There's food dyes in there. there's syrups, there's other stuff.
And then that leads to the next thing. They might have two lattes in a day. Then there might be a lot of processed foods in the diet. So it's really about how we approach these things.
That's what I'm hearing from you. Well, you're right. I mean, I think you hit the nail on the head. But one thing I want to do for anybody listening to this is to try to bring a little bit of discipline and clarity to this idea of the use of the word processed and ultra-processed. Because I think it
I think we, you know, those of us who talk about it all the time, we understand what we're trying to say. But I think when people are listening, sometimes there's some confusion. What's, you know, what's processed versus ultra-processed? And what I tell people is that we very rarely eat raw ingredients one at a time. Maybe an exception is a salad bar.
you know, or a fruit plate, you know, you're eating one, every forkful is like one thing, a little thing of lettuce, a little tomato, a little watermelon or a pineapple. Most of the time, the foods that we eat, the food I enjoy is cooked, prepared, you know, whether it's Chinese food, Indian food, Mexican food, Spanish food, Italian food. It's prepared.
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Chapter 3: How do oats contribute to health?
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That's a big one to unpack. And I'm in the middle of doing the research on it is sort of to say, what are we learning new about longevity that hasn't already been covered or isn't really well worked out? And what are some of the things that people believe about longevity that may not be entirely the way it actually is? So a couple of things. And I think that, you know, I'm a real practical guy.
I'm a pragmatist. So I like to explain things in ways that are easy to understand. So first of all, we all want to live as long as we possibly can. And to me, longevity is living as long as you're possibly able to, but as well and having a good quality of life along the way. Right.
So everybody wants to live as long as they can, but you don't want to be living to whatever crazy numbers that people are spouting, 150, 200, 300 years old. You know, like you see, you hear these numbers from the sort of the people who are ultra biohackers, who are, you know, really dreaming of super longevity, right?
Like I've even heard the term, I think Peter Diamandis said this, escape velocity of aging. How do you escape? So you're just going to live forever. And I think it's an intriguing idea, but I think it misses the point of our humanity.
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Chapter 4: What is the difference between processed and ultra-processed foods?
Oh, you know what? I love to explore new foods. Yeah. So sometimes I will just go, you know, so most of these, the travel you're talking about to Italy or Greece or Japan or whatever, I'm, I'm researching, I'm actively researching and I'm going to markets, I'm going to restaurants, I'm talking to people, I'm trying to find out something new. And I, and I listen to people.
So if somebody I meet in, in the Mediterranean encourages me to try a food, And it might have some animal fat in it. It might not look so healthy. But they really want me to try it because they're really proud of it. And they think that this is something that's important for me to know about. As I research it, I'll sit down and try it.
And I'll feel like I'm walking on the ledge a little bit because it doesn't look that healthy. And you know what? It's part of my experience. I'll get to sample it. I might not eat it again, but then I've actually tried something new. So I'm never afraid to try a new experience that can give me a better insight into the world, but also into myself and how I react to it.
Yeah, that's an important philosophy. So it may be hard to get back on track because I threw you off by asking about your uncle, but I had to because that's just sounded so fascinating. But you were talking about some of the myths that people think, and some people think it's genetics. Some people think that, you know,
It's really that one day we're going to find a magic pill that everybody could take, which I want to say that I do appreciate some of these, what I call longevity explorers. I don't think it's how we all need to necessarily live our life, but I appreciate anybody in any category that's like looking for the extreme of something, because who knows what benefit might come to society for that.
Do you agree with that?
Yeah, no, totally. I mean, listen, I think that these explorers that are biohacking and trying supplements, inventing their own
formulation or doing like real bench research to figure these things out and then trying it for themselves they are the the the modern day kind of pioneers like not everyone's going to be right not everyone's going to and some people are going to meet a untimely fate you know they didn't expect That's all part of exploration.
I think that's the great, you know, one of the themes that I keep coming back to, particularly, you know, I'm writing my next book. I'm writing about a theme that will be very much involved with longevity. One thing that keeps on coming up is humanity. You know, like we want, we don't want to be inhuman. We want to like, and live forever. We want to be more human.
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Chapter 5: Is it ever too late to change your health habits?
It's an urban legend. And definitely like researchers just kind of made it up is what I heard.
No, actually, it's a marketing company that made it up. A step counter, right? In the 1960s, a Japanese step counter, basically a pedometer company, developed, hired an ad agency and they created a campaign. Calling it 10,000 Steps. It was something that, you know, it was a jingle that worked for them.
And somehow that wound up becoming embedded in the public consciousness and passed around like the old game of telephone until we started to, in the medical community, quoting it. And, you know, in the health and wellness and fitness community, quoting 10,000 Steps. Actually, it's not as it doesn't have to be as high as 10,000. It's going to be very individualized.
It's probably closer to between five and 7,000 steps to be able to be just generally healthy. But it depends on your age, depends on what else is going on in your body. Right. And so this is, again, where I think the goddess in the details, what we hear about and talk about. I mean, if I could make a, you know, an editorial comment here, because I am affected by the same thing.
We live in this incredible age where we can listen to podcasts like this one and many others. We can flip on a television and scroll through a million different options. We are able to use social media and get a lot of information all the time. How do you sort through all that information? And how do you know what's misinformation? How do you know what's urban legend?
I mean, I just told you that 10,000 Steps is an ad jingle from the 1960s that is still being bandied around. All right. And people, a lot of people believe those. All right. I think the key thing is try not to, you know, I think, again, this is a little bit of that self-reliance. Whatever you hear, if it's interesting. Have a healthy amount of skepticism. Check it out yourself.
You know, talk to other people. And a lot of things, especially in a health and wellness community that get talked about, Might not be ready for prime time. Might be a great idea, but not for you. It might be an urban legend. You know, oh, don't eat soy because it's going to cause breast cancer. Tomatoes have lectins. You know, you and I have talked about this before on your show.
There's so many of these things out there. I kind of feel like my responsibility, and I know you've done an amazing job about this, is to have really level set conversations about what we know. And what we don't know, and wherever possible, bash a myth whenever you can.
I think that's what people, that's what's helpful for people, especially when you talk about these aspirational areas like longevity.
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Chapter 6: What are the key gut bacteria linked to longevity?
So again, I sort of try to be more selective of buying foods that are not pre-packaged in plastic. It's
It's tough. It is very tough. Because even like my wild caught salmon or my grass fed beef, even if you get it at Whole Foods in like, you know, or like an Air One or whatever in this sort of deli section where it doesn't look like it's touching plastic. If you go behind and you see when they're getting it initially, it's wrapped in plastic.
With the Galaxy Watch 7 or the Galaxy Ring and the Samsung Health app.
This is actually a modern conversation, Drew, that I think needs to be had. And hopefully there will be people in government and people in the private sector and companies. They're going to want to come together and have this intelligent conversation to say, listen. This is a new discovery. We didn't realize this was happening.
What do we do collectively to make better decisions so that the public is actually going to be less exposed to these toxins, even if it's impossible? If I ever have hesitation about the plastic thing, I just, in my mind, I'm picturing a credit card. Do I want to be eating that this week? No. So I'm just, you know, I'm going to try to make another decision.
But, you know, plastic food containers, you know, you've got leftovers. What do we used to do? You go to the, you know, Tupperware. I don't think that company is around anymore, but not good. Don't put your food in a plastic container. All right. And then you put it in the fridge where you may have had leftovers. foods that you cooked in glass or metal or, you know, cast iron or whatever.
And now you have just put it into a plastic container overnight to marinate with the plastic. And then you're going to heat it up the next day in the microwave. And now you're going to actually put more or cook it or heat it up, you know, in the plastic. No, don't do it. So I always say, toss out your plastic storage containers. I know they're cheap. I know they're convenient.
I know they're light. I know they're things that you can easily take to work for the next day if you're trying to heat up some lunch. But please, just get glass containers. It's okay if the top is plastic, honestly. It's not going to touch the food for the most part because it's really hard to find a glass top. Nobody's going to be carrying around a glass box everywhere they're going.
But minimize the amount of plastic. Those are avoidable things. And the other thing that I heard recently
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