The GeneFood Podcast

Despite a shifting scientific landscape, dietary cholesterol is still a hotly debated topic. Joe Rogan and Chris Kresser eat eggs every day, while the plant-based community still loves to highlight the supposed dangers of dietary cholesterol. High cholesterol has historically been associated with poor health, but is there a range where cholesterol levels get too low? Our guest in this episode of the podcast believes the combination of a genetic predisposition combined with a strict vegan diet caused him to develop a dangerous cholesterol deficiency. A former assistant professor of Nutrition Science at Brooklyn College, Chris Masterjohn, Ph.D. is one of the smartest minds in nutrition.

Chris shares a fascinating story of how going vegan caused him to develop nutrient deficiencies which led to a battle with mental illness and anxiety. Chris’ subsequent focus on nutrient-dense, animal-based foods restored his health and changed his perspective on how the foods we eat play a large role in cognitive function. We cover a wide range of topics with Chris and he takes a number of controversial positions in this episode, including who shouldn’t eat eggs, nutrient deficiencies that are most likely to arise on a carnivore diet, whether “fancy” blood testing metrics like LDL-P are necessary to gauge cardiovascular health, why some people fail on vegan diets and much more.

Histamine. It’s an important neurotransmitter found in the brain, in the gut and even in the food we eat. Commonly associated with allergic reactions, there’s more to histamine than meets the eye. In this episode of the podcast, we get into all things histamine. We discuss the genes that play an important role in clearing histamine from the body, the link between histamine intolerance and leaky gut, how to determine whether your histamine levels have gotten too high, supplements to consider for quieting down the immune system and keeping histamine in check, and whether low histamine diets are sustainable.

What if physical location was the single biggest factor in your health? Many of the debates in the health world center around food choice. One food food is said to be inflammatory, another healing. However, location is almost never discussed. Our guest for episode #7 says that the "inhaled factor" far outweighed the "edible factor" in his road to healing from chronic fatigue syndrome. Erik Johnson is the co-author of a Beginner's Guide to Mold Avoidance and the founder of a movement known as the Locations Effect, a system for using pristine natural environments to help calm down the immune system so the body can heal from chronic illness. In this episode, we talk to Erik about the mold avoidance protocols he used to transition from debilitating chronic fatigue to climbing Mt. Whitney in the span of just 6 months.

In the nutrition world, perhaps no other genetic marker has gained as much attention as MTHFR in the last few years. MTHFR "mutations" have been linked to a host of diseases including autism, breast cancer, and cardiovascular disease, but is there credible science supporting these associations? In this episode of the podcast, we bring in Gene Food's resident geneticist, Dr. Aaron Gardner, for a wide-ranging discussion on what to do if you find out you have an MTHFR variant. We touch on strategies for using B vitamin supplements, lab work that can clue you in on MTHFR function, dietary interventions, and what the best studies say about MTHFR. The episode also touches on other genetic markers such as APOE4 and whether a high fat diet is a good idea for carriers of this much-discussed genetic marker. At the end of the show, we get into omega-3 fatty acid metabolism and the histamine genes.

In this episode of the podcast, we sit down with Dr. Joel Kahn, an integrative cardiologist with a practice in both Detroit and Atlanta. Dr. Kahn has become well known as an outspoken advocate of plant-based diets as a nutritional intervention for both preventing and reversing heart disease. Dr. Kahn has appeared on the Joe Rogan podcast as well as the popular Vegan documentary What the Health. He has also been featured several times on the Doctors as well as many other national television programs. In this episode, we cover a lot of interesting topics with Dr. Kahn, including:

• The latest thinking on healthy fats
• When we can expect the release of the next Vegan documentary, Game Changers
• Ex-Vegans and Vegan YouTube culture
• Vegan bodybuilding
• Do Vegans have better sex?
• Nutrient deficiencies on Vegan diets, especially Omega-3s
• The most important labs for measuring heart health and more

How do you know you're taking the right supplements, or even worse, could your supplements be making you sick? Supplements, otherwise known as nutraceuticals, can have tremendous efficacy for millions of people when taken at the right time at the right dose. However, there are also circumstances where the marketing of supplements far outpaces the science and in many cases, people aren't getting the quality they are being sold on. In this episode of the podcast, we interview our industry insider who rose to fame in the Most Fish Oil is Garbage post about what to look for in a good supplement and why some of the most popular supplements aren't always worth your time and money.

Are you concerned about your family’s increasing exposure to toxic chemicals? This episode is for you. From the kitchen to the bathroom to dining out and even your children’s bedrooms, learn practical tips you can use to make your lifestyle a little greener.

Dr. Neil Nathan, a physician in Northern California, treats some of the most sensitive Lyme and mold patients in the country. In this episode, we cover strategies for recovering from mold toxicity, the role of methylation, micro-dosing supplements, whether we should be concerned about mycotoxins in food and much more.

Are you considering a ketogenic diet? Learn the benefits, potential risks, implications for heart health, how to choose supplements that aid ketosis, how genetics affect the way high fat diets impact different people and whether a ketogenic is a good solution for APOE4 carriers.