Auto-transcribed and lightly edited for readability; speaker labels added by LIV3. Timestamps follow the SoundCloud player above. The views expressed are the speakers' own. Individual experiences described in the conversation are anecdotal, are not typical results, and have not been evaluated by the FDA.

00:00 Welcome and introductions

00:00Chemaine:Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of Find Your Model Health, the official podcast for those looking to optimize their long-term health and weight goals and understand how their body really works. I'm your host, I'm Chemaine Linnie, I'm a nutritional therapist, integrative health practitioner, a neurologist and hormone specialist and I'm very happy to have you back with me for another piece of your day. I hope you enjoy this podcast episode and you take away some quality tangible information

00:46Chemaine:but before we get into the topic I must remind you that the information in these podcast episodes is for informational purposes only and should not be taken as medical advice, please consult your health practitioner before making any lifestyle changes. Okay, let's get into today's topic. Hello everybody, welcome back to the podcast. Today I am chatting with Chris Mearns and I'm pretty sure I just pronounced your surname wrong but that's my accent. That was perfect. I think this is going to be an interesting conversation for people. We're veering away from hormones for a bit and looking at metabolic health in this conversation.

01:34Chemaine:I think this is going to be valuable for you guys because it gives you an inside look at one nutrient that is not commonly discussed. So Chris is a Canadian metabolic researcher and he has been doing a lot of research into the world of fructose over the last five or so years if I'm correct. And Chris, I would love you to actually tell us a little bit about your work before we get into the full conversation and where your research has led you.

02:07 How a systems thinker ended up studying fructose

02:07Chris:Sure, well I don't come from a background in medicine whatsoever. I'm basically, I would call myself like a systems thinker in a way. I came actually from tech so trying to find like holistic solutions from even working in VR prototypes, stuff like that. So my mind is always trying to find the big picture because I feel like there's amazing stories to be told when you start to find those connections that are otherwise obscured because everyone kind of works in silos. And so at a certain point I had a little girl and brain wandered in that direction.

02:53Chris:They started reading a bunch of different things and started to notice some patterns that were surprisingly not mainstream whatsoever. And it like, for example, like you can ask any child about their opinion about sugar and they all love it, but they also know they're not supposed to eat too much. But that should give us pause. It's like, why then? Like why do we all know that sugar is not good for us? But then we struggle to really moderate it and we don't really have a clear answer as to why sugar isn't good for us unless we're just talking about like, well, it's too much fuel, which sounds weird. Like that doesn't really hold logical truth. It's like if you put too much fuel in your car, then that's not bad for my car.

03:42Chris:It's just too much fuel. So some of those little logical questions started to pop up in what I was looking at and being able to examine the same story from so many different angles started to reveal a lot of unification and that's where things got exciting. And so five years later, here I am kind of in a position where I'm like finding myself not so much as like doing lab work, but translating, like finding synergies in existing research and showing that, hey, these are telling a very similar story and one that is actually might move the needle a little bit further. So that's kind of where I ended up. And then the rest is history, as they say.

04:28 Where did "don't eat too much sugar" come from? Gout and the disease of kings

04:28Chemaine:So when we say, when you mentioned, because I've heard you mentioned this another podcast and it got me thinking like, well, where did that idea come from in like sugar is delicious, let's not beat around the bush on that. It is pretty delicious. Um, and we probably shouldn't eat too much. We shouldn't eat too much of anything. Excess is where the problem really lies. But I was like, where did I learn that? Well, I learned it from my mom, my parents, my granny don't eat too much. Where my kids learn it from me. And then it kept going back, but it had to have originated somewhere. Where was that origination? Because even in ancestral and primal times, there was sugar available more so in the form of fruits, depending on what part of the world you were hunting

05:18Chemaine:and gathering in, but where did it become more mainstream? Like, where was that problem? Was that then the early 1600s where Gout was being experienced in kings? But then we could argue, well, they didn't move a lot. They tend to just sit on their high horse and dictate to everybody. There was a lot of beer and alcohol involved back in those times. Like, where did this originate from?

05:46Chris:That's a fascinating question. As far as to where we got our narrative from, I'm not really sure. I mean, like we know we give kids too much sugar and they go nuts. They get hyperactive and then they crash. So there's something happening there. But we didn't know the full story then. But I think there's something to your question about pulling the wheel back even further to Gout and the disease of kings. I think there is a strong reason to believe that that signal was an early signal of metabolic dysfunction. And not just, I mean, we'll probably get to this later, but you think of the excess that existed there is basically those were the only people that could have anything they wanted.

06:32Chris:They could have sugar. They were the only ones that could afford it. They could have alcohol. They could have feasts any time they wanted it. So their caloric excess was rampant as well. And as we're starting to understand how fructose behaves more as a signaling molecule, we're also starting to see that the body produces it in endogenous ways and it maps to all of those things. So when we have alcohol, we're producing fructose. When we have high glycemic carbohydrates in excess, we're producing fructose. And of course we've got sugar. And so it's like, there, there seem to be like all of those excessive habits is basically allowing the body to say, Hey, I've got an opportunity.

07:21Chris:I'm going to try to take advantage of that opportunity. And I'm going to kind of shift my biology towards conservation because that's a very beneficial thing when you look outside the window in the wild. We, we live in a world that is not kind to wild animals. They are constantly looking for food. You give your dog a treat and he goes nuts. He's, he's so excited to eat it. And so we've all kind of got that wired inside us where we need to take advantage of, of opportunities of surplus. And maybe now that we live in a world where we can eat whatever we want, that the way that the mechanism looks is it's basically just sending that same signal all the time and fructose is basically what that signal is.

08:07 Comfort, movement, and why this is a fructose conversation, not an anti-sugar one

08:07Chemaine:So we're, we live in an era of comforts for sure. And I do think the feast famine kind of protocols have a lot of value in health and life, which again, back to primal days would have been more aligned with how we lived on a day to day basis. Um, and I suppose like none of us know a hundred percent for sure. Cause even archeology is never going to be a hundred percent, unless we can get a back to the future DeLorean, like we're not going to know for sure. So there's still a lot of guesswork there. And I want to make that clear to people. And there's of course, bio-individualities, but even in those old times of kings and queens, um, I do think that was, that's where the comfort

08:56Chemaine:living did start to evolve, at least in the echelon and upper class, they had servants because, and I think this is Chris going to be an interesting conversation because I am going to give you some pushback because a lot of my clients know. Um, I will practice a lot of different protocols with my clients, but I don't demonize sugar. I do keep it in balance. I only, of course have, um, the more nutritional optimizing health approach. I don't, I don't practice the sugar diet, but I have seen the literature and there is some valid like evidence there. And then I don't preach keto either, but there's some evidence there. So I tried to keep everything balanced.

09:41Chemaine:Um, and I just want to get that across cause we are really going to focus on fructose. We're not trying to demonize sugar overall. But, um, I do think that there is a lot more to the conversation when we're even looking at metabolic and mitochondrial health, because back to those kings, like they were doing nothing. They weren't cleaning their own chamber pots. They were doing nothing. So there is, even though excess sugar is going to be problematic, I will totally agree with that. There's then the comfort lifestyle. There's a sedentary, what are you doing for mitochondrial action? What are you, are you building muscle? So you have more mitochondria? Like there's a whole conversation, but today we're just focusing on fructose

10:26Chemaine:because I want to have this conversation as it relates to gout and uric acid and stuff like that and kidney stones, because that pops up a lot in my practice.

10:40 The cellular energy model: plugging the leaky bucket

10:40Chris:I completely agree with you. And I think that it is important to zoom out and look at the map because basically the more I dug into this, I started to appreciate that there's, there's been some quiet corners of metabolic research that actually suggest a cellular energy model as being the really, the real model of metabolic dysfunction, and this maps into that perfectly, where basically it's like, you can have a failure of cellular energy for many different reasons. You can have toxins, you can have environmental impacts, you can have genetic things, and basically when those cells start dropping energy, they become fragile and then the fragility spreads into that supporting

11:25Chris:system, and that's when we label it as a disease. That's when we call it fatty liver. That's when we call it cardiovascular disease, whatever it might happen to be. But, but if fructose is directly impairing cellular energy, then it deserves attention because it could be one of the major levers that we can control. You can't control your genetics. You can't necessarily, toxins can be difficult to control. But if fructose is this universal signal of, that is intentionally dropping cellular energy, then it's like layering something on top of everything else that we're dealing with. And that's where I think that this becomes really important because, because if you, okay, yes, you're right. We need to exercise. Firm believer in that.

12:11Chris:You need good sleep. If you don't have good sleep, then your mitochondria are going to suffer too. That's why you wake up feeling horrible. Like you need, that's all, that's all signals of cellular energy. But the problem is we spend all our time and all of our resources in trying to figure out how we boost that without fixing the leaky bucket. It's like if, if we have a major part of our diet that is persistently causing a hole in our cellular energy, then we can keep filling it and keep filling it as much as we want, but we're always going to have that drag. And that's why I think this deserves a special place in the conversation where it's like, if we can actually plug the hole, then all of that extra work, including exercise, including getting good sleep.

12:57Chemaine:I think I lost you for a minute there. There we go. Yeah, you're back. I lost you in this leak. Yeah. Yes. So no, I agree. And there's a quote that I think we'll both agree on is quite valid. And it basically is. It's not so much what you add in that makes the difference. It's what you take away that really pulls that lever. And for some people, fructose could be part of that conversation and is a conversation that is deserving. So first I want to start with, because we'd said sugar so much, I know someone's confused somewhere. So what is fructose? What is it?

13:38 What fructose actually is: the other half of sugar

13:38Chris:Good question. Okay. So sugar is two simple sugars put together. So table sugar is two pieces. It's 50% glucose and 50% fructose. And we know what glucose does very well. Glucose fuels our brain and our muscles. It is our body's preferred fuel. And when we eat, when we eat it, it is stored as glycogen and it is immediately available. And it's yummy. It's great. It tastes good. Exactly. It's all these good things. And to that argument earlier, it's like, okay, if it's fuel, is it bad for me? We, I mean, we use glucose monitors. We try to track it because we kind of have this idea that too much becomes problematic.

14:23Chris:So let's circle back to that maybe. But basically at its core, it is fuel. If you don't have glucose, your brain, which consumes 20% of available energy will basically die. So you can't block glucose. And otherwise you'd have to try to survive on ketones. And I don't think you'd last very long in reality, maybe a few weeks.

14:48 Glucose as fuel, ketones, and the fridge-and-freezer analogy

14:48Chemaine:I'm so glad you touched on that because the keto people speak a lot about ketones. And I was like, say to my clients, you know, your brain can use ketones, but it's not the preferred fuel source because if it was, yeah, why is it when we sleep that our brain refills our, as I've referred to it, our glucose battery. And that's why if you don't sleep properly, you're going to have more cravings throughout the day. You're going to have more insulin resistance, but just to add to your list before you go on, um, cause I'll forget as we go along. Um, sugar in itself is the best medicine, especially for women to bring down the stress response. We know that we need sugar to support the adrenal glands, the nervous system, and

15:35Chemaine:for thyroid hormone conversion. And most women know this. I'm not so sure about men, cause you guys are like a completely different species, but women, when we're very stressed, the first thing we will gravitate towards is cookies or chocolate. And, and although we might feel guilty afterwards in that moment, you can just feel your body breathe and that stress comes down. So sugar can be a really valuable tool, which is why I always make a point that I'm, I don't try to victimize it or demonize it, but context is of course.

16:11Chris:Totally agree with you. Because if I think of it this way, like all of those cravings, everything like that, I don't think it's willpower. I do not, I think that there's a, probably a tiny little bit of a dopamine thing where it's like, of course we like it. It tastes good. That will never go away. It's it's in our biology. We have a preference for these tastes. However, I think that the primary drive is a, is an empty fuel signal. It's an energy thing. Yeah, it is. And so then like, yes, glucose plays a huge role in that. And so does ketones. Like I keep MCT oil around because a little bit of like exogenous ketones can make a big difference and just like, Hey, you know, my brain works again. You know what I mean? Like, so I think glucose should not be villainized and it is largely lately.

17:00Chris:It seems, but I think glucose is it's our fuel. We need it. And I actually liken it to, to maybe the difference between a fridge and a freezer. To me, it's like, if you're hungry, you go to the fridge and you grab whatever's easily available. And that, that to me is our glycogen. That is like the, the accessible glucose in our body. We query maybe even as much as 10 or 11 pounds of it. And we use it rapidly when those, when the glycogen runs out, that's when we tap into the deep freeze, we go down and we grab things out of the freezer, which is effectively our fat stores, but we need to thaw them out. We need to like pull, we need to make it available for our body.

17:47Chris:And that's really the process of ketosis is like breaking this, this, this frozen fat cell into ketones that our body can use as available fuel. So I kind of liken it that way where it's like we have two backup. We have a backup, a redundant fuel system, a hybrid fuel system where we have accessible sugar. And then we have a battery that we, that we walk around with.

18:14Chemaine:Well, you can only get that frozen fat if you are in a glycogen depleted state where the body has no, no option, but that's where the conversation around metabolic flexibility comes in, which I think you're alluding to is that if you don't have that metabolic flexibility, well, good luck, you're, you're really going to struggle and that's as well where my clients know there is a conversation to be at around the Randle cycle because the Randle cycle is very valid, but as I'm sure you've recognized, like nobody talks about the Randle cycle. I don't even think they teach it to dieticians or nutritionists. Like it's like, nobody talks about it, but it's right there in the literature. It's in Wikipedia, not that Wikipedia can be trusted, but it is there.

19:01Chris:Yeah, we, we need that metabolic flexibility. It makes, it really starts to change things. I mean, the fact that, the fact that like I can go like 48 hours without blinking on a fast is, is, it's, it's, it feels like a superpower. You know what I mean? Like that I could not do that before. My insulin response was, was too direct. It was like, I'd get hungry after a couple hours, but now I appreciate what real hunger actually is compared to now that what metabolic flexibility tells me it is. So, okay. That's glucose.

19:39 Fructose, insulin, and high-fructose corn syrup

19:39Chris:So that's the one half of the sugar molecule. The other half is fructose. And because fructose doesn't really produce the same insulin response, the research is largely not really paid that much attention to it. And, and I think another big reason for that is that the research has not often taken a long enough timeline. Look at what fructose does. So fructose is not a major caloric source. Um, but that's basically what we kind of assumed is like, okay, it's a, it's a calorie, uh, and so it's, it was almost as like inert half of sugar. And so it's 50% of your sugar molecule, but it's also, it bumps up to like 55% or so when you talk about high fructose corn syrup, the ratio just

20:25Chris:changes slightly, but we're still talking in the rough range of like 50%. So that is probably the primary source of dietary fructose. It's just sugar. What about high-fructose corn syrup?. Yeah. So, so that what changes there is that it's more bioavailable because it's liquid. Your body doesn't have to do mad. It's it's concentrated, which, which actually matters because it hits your liver faster. It's delivered faster. And that flux makes a big difference as to like the downstream impact. But in reality, it's still just 50% of the sugar.

21:02 The liver takes the first hit

21:02Chemaine:I, so I believe our mutual mentor, Richard Johnson, who we were speaking about earlier, I had heard him years ago discussing the glucose to fructose metabolic like pathways and mentioning that the difference with fructose is it doesn't need to go through these different steps to be converted into fat, that it just has a straight pathway to be converted into triglycerides and then go and have fun on your hips or your butt or wherever it's going to go. And that's something, well, not that the average person would understand conversions of like different molecules, but that it gets converted to fat a lot faster. So in the context of high fructose corn syrup or processed foods or pop or

21:52Chemaine:wherever we're finding these really high amounts of fructose, you can see where the connection there between metabolic dysfunction and obesity happens fairly quick.

22:05Chris:Yeah. And it happens first in the liver because the liver is sort of like our filter, right? The whatever's in our gut goes through the portal vein into the liver. And it basically tries to manage what the body is going to get. And because of that, it's soaks up, I think in the rough range of like 80% of your dietary fructose, which then explains why fatty liver is a very quick first response. If so much of that is so easily converted into fats through de novo lipogenesis, then then suddenly your liver is going to be the first casualty. And so, yeah, absolutely.

22:43 The delayed effect: ATP, uric acid, and mitochondrial fragmentation

22:43Chris:But I do think that whereas most people focus on the immediate effect of fructose, it's actually the delayed effect that has the bigger challenge. And I'll try to explain that. So when we eat fructose, what happens is it goes through an unregulated enzyme, so whereas glucose, it's very tightly regulated. Basically, the cell will consume what it likes and then it says, okay, I'm done. Thank you very much. But fructose doesn't have that, that, that, um, Cut-off points. Exactly. It just, it will consume as much as it possibly can, which is interesting because that means that flux matters. It means you can eat an apple and it doesn't really, really exit your gut.

23:30Chris:Your, the, the impact on your liver is nil in many cases. However, when that flux is there, when you have too much, then suddenly what happens is the ATP within your cell becomes converted into uric acid, which is inflammatory in the cell. And that little burst of inflammation is where the problems happen. So many people focus on say like, okay, it's got this transient drop in ATP. It makes, it makes your cell tired, but it goes away. And so then that's fine. That's not the problem with the problem is the long-term impact where it's like, if you've caused inflammation in your cell, then what will eventually happen is your mitochondria will restructure into kind of a conserving

24:19Chris:posture where your, it doesn't kill your mitochondria. So fructose is not a toxin, which, which is part of the story. It's like, if this happened in a brief period, then we would know, okay, well, I don't should need it. It's a poison, but that doesn't happen. What happens is basically the mitochondrial network starts fragmenting. So we know we like always picture them in these little beans, but in reality, they fuse together into like a network when they're really healthy and performing well. And that allows this, this incredible performance of doing their job of converting fuel into energy. And so what happens when we introduce too much inflammation in the cell is it starts fragmenting and it doesn't do as good of a job of converting

25:05Chris:fuel into energy. And now if you picture it, what you've basically done is create a bottleneck within your cell where you have fuel building up because your body is going to continue feeding, but the cell produces less and less available energy, and then that less and less available energy is going to send an emergency response to your brain that your cells do not have enough energy. And so then that's where this concept of cravings might actually come from is your brain reading this little scenario and saying, I'm running out of fuel and so I better eat more. And then what does that do, but causes a stronger fructose signal, which means stronger reactive oxygen, stronger inflammation within the cell.

25:55Chris:And so it just compounds the problem, becomes a feedback loop. And so over time, what you end up happening is you have more and more glucose building up, you have high glucose fuel because it can't be, it can't be used by the cell. And then where's it going to go? Into fat stores. And meanwhile, you've got this cellular system that starts scaling into more and more fragility because these cells are inflamed. They are not going to do their job as well. And so you've got kind of both sides of the picture where you've got fat building up, you've got metabolic dysfunction emerging, and you've got cravings as a result, where you end up in this loop, just kind of

26:41Chris:explains caloric access at the whole time saying it's, it's, it's amazing to me, it, it becomes this perfect system.

26:49 A survival mechanism, eco mode, and the craving loop

26:49Chemaine:Well, it reminds me of like our wonderful Canadian wildfires. They start off small and then they just spread and spread. They get out of control. And this concept that you're discussing, as I would term it, my clients, it's your body's survival mechanism. It's trying to keep you alive. It's not trying to hurt you, but at some stage, you as a person have to take responsibility and come along and break this cycle.

27:18Chris:Which goes back to what we talked about earlier. It's like, we are now in an environment where we are in the same position as those like kings of old, where we can have whatever we want, which then now puts the onus on me to say, I'm going to stop this loop. And that's really hard because you're sending a signal to your brain the whole time that you're starving. I mean, and it's legitimate. Like if your cell literally is not producing enough energy, like that's not a, you can't just willpower your way out of that. That is a real problem. And, but the problem is that the signal it's telling you to do compounds the problem. And so effectively we just weren't designed to live in a way that didn't

28:05Chris:have that abundance, like ebb and flow where, where things did get tough and our body weight would drop. And it's like, it's like in every other system, conservation is beneficial. Like you get in your car and I'm going to have eco mode on because I'm driving a couple of hundred kilometers and I, I don't want to be wasting fuel to get there, but at a certain point, basically what we're doing is we're just constantly driving in eco mode in our, in our, in our bodies without realizing that actually our bodies have a much higher performance level that we're just not accessing.

28:43 Does exercise make the difference?

28:43Chemaine:What do you think the differential factor is between people who have good metabolic health, as we would refer to them, and that tolerate mountains, not mountains, but a nice amount of sugar, including fructose, fruit, and maybe they have some treats at the weekend and their metabolic action is pretty strong compared to those who don't have this metabolic health, but I would argue, well, there's an inflammatory conversation, but again, back to, and not that I talk about exercise all the time, I don't, but I would argue that may be that differential factor.

29:24Chris:Exercise, I think it could be a differential factor for sure, because basically what you're doing is you're telling, when you eat a lot of sugar, telling your body to conserve. And so if you're also telling your body to be a high performing animal, you're going to be fighting back against that. And then if you're also eating foods that are going to kind of moderate that, if you're, if you've got a strong antioxidant like vitamin C or if you're eating a lot of fiber that kind of slows some of that flux down, then it will probably help, but at a certain point, it's easy to see why eventually that will catch up. Because if you're constantly sending, it's, it's hard to keep that level of activity that high for your entire life.

30:12Chris:And it's very easy to keep a poor diet going for your entire life. So oftentimes it starts to work out in the wash, which is unfortunate.

30:21Chemaine:I mean, I will argue with you there, because I do think there, there's a small percentage of people who will maintain a good lifestyle for their whole life, but it's a very small percentage.

30:35Chris:Exactly. Yeah. I applaud that so much. It's discipline people. People are heroes. They are absolutely amazing. I know your story is amazing. Yeah.

30:48Chemaine:And I sometimes wonder how long can I keep this up for? What will I look like as I get older and older? Like, will I be able to maintain it? Thankfully, this is my background. So I know how to manipulate it, but it's definitely something that crosses my mind. I think like at this stage, most people know that I've maintained my weight for like 20 years. So I'm confident I will keep it off forever, but it is something. And I'm well aware that I am part of that small minority of peoples.

31:23Chris:Yeah. And getting over the hump can be probably the biggest part of it, right? And when you're fighting your biology to get there, that's why it really needs to be applauded. Like that's, it's hard work because basically, like I said, you, you're sending a signal to your body that your cells are starving and the only reaction to that is the appropriate one to try to solve that energy problem. The issue is that if we don't recognize what is causing that low energy signal or that it even exists, then that's where there's a major problem. And that's why I think this conversation needs to be had because it's not just sugar. Like we, we mentioned briefly that the body produces its own fructose and it's beautiful to think of this as an elegant system because any good.

32:13 Your body makes its own fructose: the polyol pathway

32:13Chemaine:So we didn't, we didn't actually mention that. So go into that. So I know the body produces its own glucose as needed. And a lot of people do know that with fructose in what mechanistic action is that happening under what circumstances? Like how is that happening? When is that happening? And where is it happening?

32:34Chris:Excellent questions. So the body has a system called the polyol pathway where it uses, um, Aldose reductase to basically kick this off. And what it does is it recognizes a high glucose level and it converts it into sorbitol and then sorbitol is converted into fructose. So in this is where, where glucose, high glucose levels become relevant because it's basically saying that the issue is not, um, the body. So the body has a mechanism in order to use excess glucose as fructose. And it loops back to the survival signal. But so what basically happens is when you have a high glucose level, then

33:19Chris:some of that gets shuttled in by, and the mechanism is basically it uses Aldose reductase to convert that glucose into sorbitol and then sorbitol is converted into fructose. And initially, um, for many years, basically they just assume that this was a problem for diabetics. Um, and because they recognize it and they typically have high glucose levels, but we, it also happens when we spike our glucose. So this actually is quite relevant to basically everybody. It's like any time, the stress response, exactly. So, and it starts to explain why high glucose levels might be problematic. In fact, Dr. Johnson did some work where he basically gave a, uh, a fructose, um, metabolism inhibitor to rodent models and then gave them a high glucose load, and they

34:08Chris:actually found that they developed less metabolic dysfunction, which is fascinating because it's saying, okay, you give them all this glucose, but you don't let the, the fructose conversion happen and it's safe. So then is the problem with glucose fructose? Interesting question.

34:27 Dehydration, the vascular system, and the brain's energy triage

34:27Chris:And so this happens in basically all energy sensitive tissues. So we mentioned how like the liver soaks up like 80% or more of your fructose, the dietary stuff, but then what about the brain? What about the vascular system? What about the kidneys? What about like all these downstream metabolic crisis zones that we're seeing? Is there a gut brain connection? We've talked about that for years. Effectively what this is suggesting is that anywhere that there's a high glucose level, it can be converted into this signal that tells the body to conserve. And so that exists in the vascular system. And it's largely triggered by osmolality, which is saying that that is, that is

35:17Chris:effectively the saltiness, the relative saltiness of your blood. And so when it recognizes that your blood is getting thick, like a sauce, you reduce it down and get saltier or you're just dehydrated. It's the same signal. What happens there is aldose reductase boosts up and then suddenly all of the available glucose in your vascular system starts impacting your endothelial cells so that your, your blood vessels start getting tighter because that process reduces nitric oxide. So suddenly it's, it's very relevant to like your vascular system. Same thing. You can move the conversation to the brain. The brain we know runs on glucose and fructose does not

36:02Chris:cross the blood brain barrier. So it's like, okay, well then fructose isn't a problem. But now if we're saying that glucose can be converted into fructose and there is research showing that this is very relevant to the brain, then the conversation can be opened up where it's like a high glucose level in the brain in targeted areas actually starts to explain some of the problems that we're seeing cognitive dysfunction. Where, so let's think about this from a survival perspective. If, why would we want to effectively triage energy in the brain? If, if there is a crisis coming, then, and the brain is able to sense that,

36:49Chris:then it will probably say, okay, I need vision. I need motor control. I need to be able to eat. These are important. These are really important for my survival. However, I don't really need to worry as much about, um, short-term memory. Um, I don't really need to worry about, uh, reproduction, reproduction, because those are luxury things like the, I can do without that. Like I'm going to focus on just survival. And so what we actually see in the brain is that parts of the brain, um, have a higher affinity for fructose metabolism where this is actually happening where like that glucose is being converted into fructose. And so then we start mapping it out where it's like, this actually starts

37:36Chris:to explain some of our cognitive impairment and even the downstream effects of it. Like in Alzheimer's patients, for example, they can generally still see, they can move, but they start losing short-term memory. They start, um, it maps out very clearly that this is a targeted response to basically an energy triage. There's an energy crisis in the brain and the brain is saying, let's preserve this and let's down-regulate this for now. It makes a lot of sense. And so basically this, this whole endogenous fructose conversation starts opening up a lot of really interesting, um, conversations about metabolic

38:22Chris:dysfunction and unifying the entire conversation as well.

38:26 Stress, alarm systems, and the bird that flies from Alaska to New Zealand

38:26Chemaine:So with this conversion of glucose to fructose, whether it be in the brain or anywhere else, do you think the caveat there is there's a stress factor, as you mentioned, if the body or the brain perceives something is about to happen, whether or not it's bad news or a dinosaur coming in the back door, whatever it might be, that in that circumstance, that stress response influences the inflammatory response and upregulates that conversion to fructose, but also the metabolic conversation. Like really what I'm gathering here is that when you have a lot of glucose, it is your ability to utilize that glucose adequately, which is pretty much

39:14Chemaine:your saving brace here, that if you can utilize the glucose properly, then there is less likelihood that it's going to be converted into fructose and then downstream to uric acid. And then we've got, like we mentioned on whatever else. Am I correct?

39:33Chris:Yeah, I think it I think it's really useful to think of this as a cohesive alarm system in a way, basically any good alarm system will have multiple redundancies in your house. You have like many fire alarms because there's many places where a fire could happen. And so I think I think it's useful to think of this in the same way. It's like if we have a dietary signal of fructose, then we're telling your body that we have an abundance of fuel available and we should probably hang on to that. That would be very useful if you have an abundance of alcohol. For example, it's kind of a stronger signal of the same thing. It's saying like, OK, there's there's fuel around. Let's let's kind of enter this conserving state so that we can

40:22Chris:survive what might be coming. Now you flip it. If you look at the the the endogenous triggers of fructose, oftentimes it has it's more of like a stress response effectively. Like dehydration is a major player in the endogenous production, your vascular system, which would say, OK, as an animal, I don't have I don't have much water around. So if I produce fructose, then that's going to allow me to store more metabolic water and glycogen and fat because it's going to push me into that conserving state so that basically I can now survive the difficult time. And that's why it's like it it kind of maps out with both sides

41:07Chris:of the equation. Like you I look at this. So there's a there's a bird in Alaska that makes its way. It migrates from Alaska to New Zealand and. It's it's incredible that that can happen when you think of the distance it has to travel because it can't land in the middle of the ocean. It just keeps going. And so what would something what an animal like that need to do? It would need to really prepare well to be able to survive. And then once it takes off, it needs to conserve as well as it possibly can to make the entire trip. That's effectively exactly what happens is it bulks up before it leaves and then and uses fructose as a signaling to enable that conservation. And then once it takes off, dehydration is going to start kicking in

41:53Chris:because it has so far to travel without water and then it stretches its resources. So it's like when you see it from both sides of the equation where it's scarcity and abundant scarcity and abundance that's triggering this alarm system, it starts to make a lot more sense from a survival perspective.

42:11 Hummingbirds, bears, and why fruit ripens before scarcity

42:11Chemaine:I think of like hummingbirds. We don't see a lot of fat hummingbirds going around, but they primarily eat sugar. Then I figured that that kind of determining factor is because they exercise so much. Like they move so much that they're utilizing. Back to our conversation, people go for a walk. I do like animals can't. That's a perfect example. Yeah, just like bears. I've set this, right? Yeah, just like bears and squirrels, they bulk up in the winter and they have adopted metabolically to utilize that true hibernation.

42:56Chemaine:And then they come out lovely and slim and slender. So we've either got the exercise component. Yeah, we've got the hummingbird exercise example, or we've got the bear feast famine. But two things people are not doing now because we're in that era of comforts and abundance and strikes.

43:16Chris:Exactly, and so it makes a lot of sense when you start talking about fruit again, because in a natural world, fruit ripens before a period of scarcity. And it's beautiful to think of how it works. Basically, the fruit protects itself with high fiber and polyphenols and blunt colors and all of that until it's ready for the seeds to be distributed. And then suddenly, it shines a brilliant light to all the animals nearby to come and eat it. It brightens its colors. It gets soft and delicious, of course, because now it's full of fructose. And so then the animal eats it right when it needs that signal in late summer or whenever, right before a dry season,

44:04Chris:if we're talking about equatorial zones. And now the animal gets to have the same benefit of saying, okay, it's going to help me survive what's to come.

44:18 Fruit in context: glycogen depletion and super compensation

44:18Chemaine:So I do want to touch on fruit because people primarily associate fruit with fruit along with- And rightly. high-fructose corn syrup, but that doesn't mean that fruit is bad for you. I really want to get this across because it can be one of the most nutritious foods. And look, me and you probably agree that the majority of people eat more junk food and take out than they do eat fruit. So you're not getting fat eating a bag of apples. That's not happening. It's the alternative. But there still, again, needs to be context here. Like, balance- Beautifully said. I don't know how much experience you have in the nutrition world and different terminology, but with my clients, I'm primarily focusing on

45:06Chemaine:getting my clients into like a glycogen depleted mode by the end of the week, but it's in a balanced way. They are still having carbs each day, but it's depleted. And I'm really smart about the choices that we make in their anti-inflammatory, but they still have carbs. So by the time the weekend comes, they're in what we call super compensation mode, where they're so depleted that if I do bring in sugar, the body is just ready to suck it right back into the muscles, the tissues, and it really is them. As I say, you're giving your body a hug with carbs. You're coming in and you're saying like, hey, we're not in that famine mode anymore. We're not starving. Everything is safe. Thyroid, you can work. Adrenals, like everything is okay. But it is not a state of abundance every single day.

45:55Chemaine:There is a plan where we can deplete you, but not so much that because I primarily am working with like midlife women who are very stressed with a million things to do, that I'm not pulling carbs from them completely because I need to support that stress response. But this is the context. It's not like we're not saying, go eat all the fruit you want. Although if all you eat is McDonald's and you move to just fruit, then probably do that instead. But I really think the conversation is balanced. Metabolic health, reduce inflammation, understand your stress. Like you can't have your cake and eat it. As they say, you have to have balance there. And there has to be, which I think I've heard you mentioned before,

46:40Chemaine:there has to be some sort of restriction somewhere.

46:44 Whole fruit versus dried fruit, juice, and smoothies

46:44Chris:I agree. I think that we need to kind of realize how elegant our neutral world is and try to follow it. I think like if you can eat fruits easily even, but I mean fruit for itself is a really amazing model for this because it really shows that this has an elegance behind it. If a fruit has fat burning components, high fiber, water, polyphenols, like we use those things in like fat burning choices. And then the same fruit, you leave it on the countertop and it gets softer and riper and sweeter and brighter.

47:31Chris:And eventually if you leave it there long enough, it starts developing ethanol and becomes even alcohol. Like all of that becomes a stronger signal of fructose. It takes those safeguards away and replaces it with something that could potentially, it's very documented that it is more metabolically risky. The further you get from an unripe fruit. So then basically it's amazing. It's like a whole fruit is fantastic. It's probably very difficult to abuse it depending on the fruit. If it's a really, really sweet one, okay, maybe you can introduce more problems, but we kind of understand that part at least. But it's wonderful to kind of get this contextual thing behind it

48:20Chris:because it shows that the natural world is elegant and we need to respect it. And so then if we dry our fruit, if we juice our fruit, if we take out those safeguards that nature built into it to kind of buffer it a little bit, then we're going to get closer and closer to what is effectively candy and soda. And then you have to start thinking about it slightly differently.

48:48Chemaine:The dried fruit conversation makes me laugh. I'm like, if I'm going to have something that's that high concentration of sugar, I'm just going to have some gummy bears. Like it's the same thing. I'd rather have fresh strawberries than dehydrate, unless like zombie apocalypse, okay. Well, at that stage, I've probably stocked up on gummy bears in any way. And not that I'm addicted to gummy bears, but I think this is important to recognize. Dried fruit is a no for my clients during the week, apart from goji berries, because they pretty much, they have not got a lot of sugar, but I personally think they taste like snot. Super high antioxidants. Yeah, so that's the only dried fruit. I'm like, that's okay if you want to do that.

49:33Chris:No, it's true. And you think about it. It's like, I could maybe eat like one or two apricots, like whole, but suddenly I can eat 20 if I dry them. And the sugar content is really the important thing there, because it's the same amount of sugar. It's just a higher flux. It's a way higher load. And so then the volume of what you can eat when you start processing this fruit changes dramatically.

49:58 The equator, UV light, and "it's not one thing, it's everything"

49:58Chemaine:It's saying the same thing with juicing. And you can eat a way higher amount of these foods when you process them. And most people make their juices or their smoothies really sweet. They add in a load of bananas and this mango. And I'm like, no, no, no, how come yours don't taste as good? You mean, well, they're probably better for you. And then there is, I don't know if you're aware of Dr. Jack Kruse's work around people who live along the equator, that there is an influence of the UV rays as well on how well the body can metabolize glucose and fructose. And this is why people who live along the equator,

50:44Chemaine:they will eat an abundance of papaya, mango, all these very sweet fruits, but they still look very healthy and slim because their mitochondrial action is pretty much optimal because of the UV rays back to what we were saying about mitochondrial health and all of that. I mean, this, as we started off in the beginning, it's not one thing, it's everything. You cannot tell me that obesity started when we introduced canola oil in the 1970s or when we introduced processed food because I don't agree with that. I think it's Netflix's fault. I think it's the toxins in the air. I think it's hormones in our food. I think it's an overabundance. I think it's laziness. I think it's everything. It's not one thing.

51:29Chemaine:It's everything.

51:30 Fructose as a signal, not a calorie

51:30Chris:I do agree with you, but I think that some of the research on the way that fructose impacts the brain though plays into this because if it is signaling cravings and if it is signaling a conserving posture where it actually will make you lazy, Dr. Johnson's work has shown this where it'll make an animal less likely to move, but it will also be more likely to scavenge. So it'll go and look for food weirdly, but it'll also be kind of lazy. And it's funny, we look at ourselves and don't we do the same thing? Like we eat dinner, and we go and crash on the couch and we're lazing around, whatever. And then for whatever weird reason,

52:16Chris:by like nine o'clock, we get up and start scavenging the cupboards. We're not hungry. Like we're actually just in this weird loop. So it actually fits the research that's showing that this is the influence that is having in our brain. And so I actually believe that a lot of what we're discussing here is really compounded by this signal. And it's important, I would say, to think of fructose, not as a calorie, but as a signal. If it's telling your body to conserve, that means that I'm gonna end up storing as much as I possibly can, that my cells are not gonna be working as quickly as they possibly can. And eventually, everything's gonna cascade from there. And so I think that, yes, you can pay attention to not eating sugar,

53:02Chris:not eating high glycemic carbs, lowering your alcohol, making sure you're hydrated, making sure you're getting good sleep, making sure that you're exercising really well, and so many other things. But we've been talking about that for like 40 years. And so if at the root of all of those things is fructose, whether it's dietary or endogenous, it feels like that's something that we should be looking at. Because it just seems to act as sort of a linchpin where, yes, control all of those things, but recognize that it's really challenging. And we probably want to be taking a deeper look at this actual enzymatic reaction that's happening in our cells and see if we can influence that more directly.

53:47Chemaine:Just to repeat you, you said with fructose being a signal. I'm assuming that's with the endogenous fructose, and that is basically, as I'm reading it, a mitochondrial stress signal. When we're talking about the brain directly, the mitochondria in the brain are not working properly for whatever reason, and that's that signal.

54:10Chris:The signal I would say is that, yes, it is telling your mitochondria to slow down. It's creating a conservation signal inside your cells. And so that's not just endogenous. That's happening, as we mentioned, with dietary fructose right in the liver. Regardless, that same signal is happening anywhere that fructose metabolism happens, because the initial step there is basically converting ATP it's stealing a phosphate away from it, and it's basically degrading that ATP into uric acid, which is sort of like, I would think of it like burning a battery.

54:55Chris:ATP is a rechargeable battery. It's a triphosphate. Which then will drop down to a duophosphate, and then your mitochondria boost it back up into a triphosphate. But what happens when you put fructose into the equation, is it goes past a duophosphate into a monophosphate, AMP, and then it degrades further until it basically is now a waste product inside your cell. And that's why the problems start happening. It's like, it's causing an inflammatory stress signal inside your cell, and eventually, that's going to catch up with you. That's why it's, that's why Dr. Johnson now basically calls it a signaling molecule. It is effectively, I hope I'm quoting that right, it's effectively telling your body

55:40Chris:to that it's sending a conservation signal, and the signal really is all about cellular energy. It's dropping, it's regulating your cellular energy capacity.

55:52 Hypoxia, sleep apnea, and why obesity locks in

55:52Chemaine:So before we jump to polyphenols, because I want to, I think like what I would like people to take away from this right now, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, in that apart from fructose being that signaling molecule and how it influences every factor of energy production. In the start point, we're looking at how healthy are your mitochondria? How well is your metabolic flexibility? And if it's not good, for whatever reason, now this is where we do have to be aware of this fructose conversation.

56:31Chris:Yes, I agree, because yes, we want to be doing all those things. We need good sleep. I didn't mention this, but hypoxia is another trigger for fructose production endogenously. And we know that from primarily from sleep apnea. If you start getting too much weight on your chest, you're not getting enough oxygen, especially in your sleep, and then you're going to be causing effectively a stress response that produces fructose. And when you look at those things, just as a quick aside, it makes sense as to why obesity gets so hard to unlock and why it's so hard to shift off of. Because if your glycogen stores are maxed out, then you're chronically dehydrated that produces fructose. If you get sleep apnea,

57:16Chris:now you're producing fructose there as well. Your glucose levels are maxed out. That's an obesity signal that's enabling the production of endogenous fructose. So then you're causing all of this without even talking about diet. Yes, you want to stop eating sugar, but you become fructose generating machines and that becomes a major problem. And so it really does get into this question of like, how do we unlock that? Especially if I'm already in this locked in conserving posture. It's really challenging, especially if you're telling someone that they need to go and exercise and they need to change their diet. You see good results, I'm sure, with your clients, but it's challenging at a certain point.

58:01Chris:So I think that targeting it directly can make a huge difference.

58:06Chemaine:As you're saying that, I'm thinking this must be an aha moment for a lot of people who have massive amounts of chronic stress and keep saying, I've tried everything. I've tried every diet. All I eat is broccoli and I still can't get some flavor. I don't know, me and your heart goes out. Because of, again, that huge stress response, which really brings us into that more physiological aspect of how stress influences your weight. Because most people, I think still, think stress is just a woo woo emotion that we feel, but it actually influences all these different biochemical pathways. And that's not even talking about the emotional burden there.

58:45Chris:You think it's your fault, right? And then you can't celebrate the amazing willpower adjustments that you've made to your diet and exercise and everything else, because you're not seeing the result there. And so it's, I really, my heart goes out for so many that are struggling with that. But I do think that if this all lynches down to this one enzyme that causes this survival signal from like every different direction, I think it makes sense as to why it would be worth at least experimenting with to see if that can help break open kind of this locked in posture.

59:26 Polyphenols: taste preferences and the case for luteolin

59:26Chemaine:So polyphenols is where I want to go next, because you do have a product with your colleague that is primarily designed around polyphenols. And I have spoke, I always speak a lot around polyphenols. One of my colleagues and mentors, Joel Green, first introduced me to like the importance of polyphenols, not just for weight loss, but also for weight maintenance and preventing rebound weight gain. And of course, there's the impact on everything from looking good to gut health, to anti-aging. Like I eat a lot of polyphenols every day. Fantastic. I think that's part of my success. It just has made life easier for me.

60:12Chemaine:And then there's the polyphenols altering taste buds. Like it's a whole huge conversation, but your product is mostly based around tart cherry and luteolin, if I'm correct. That's not magic. Yep, exactly. Lots and lots of polyphenols people, but most people don't have polyphenols because they're bitter, they're tart, they're sour, and the majority of people are gravitating towards sweet food. So even if I ask someone to have, oh, God forbid you ask someone to have a black coffee, they can't put dark chocolate. I get a lot of like, oh, that's too bitter, it's too sweet. But then once I do my work by week three, they're like, this is the best tasting thing ever because we changed the taste buds

60:58Chemaine:and everything and the microbiota. But from your experience, how can having an abundance of polyphenols in your diet help offset some of these damaging effects of fructose?

61:11Chris:I love this conversation. So before we dive into that, I want to address the fact of like its taste because it kind of makes sense. Dr. Johnson's work suggests that our taste preferences, not just in humans, but like animals in general, they do match up with survival signals. So like if all of these different paths match to fructose, then you think about it. Sweet, salty, because that's a dehydrating state. Umami flavors, because that's a uric acid signal. Like all of the things we enjoy eating map up to the fructose signal. And on the other hand, the bitter ones don't.

61:56Chris:And but what do they do? Now we're looking at maybe they offset those ones on a cellular level. It's like protecting our energy and our mitochondria rather than conserving energy in our mitochondria. So it's a very interesting thing to look at that. So yes, polyphenols make a big difference because they're starting to. Some of the research is showing that there are certain polyphenols that can actually influence fructokinase. So that first step of fructose metabolism, that unregulated step that basically allows fructose to now start to have that exact problematic step in your cell. That's what we're trying to target here. So luteolin is looking like

62:42Chris:at this moment, the best option for inhibiting fructokinase. So luteolin is a very fascinating polyphenol because the preclinical research shows that it actually inhibits fructokinase. The fructokinase is the enzyme that allows fructose to start to have this cellular energy depleting effect in your cells. So it's exactly where we want it to intervene. And basically, what that means is that if you can, yes, we want to target the many, many ways that the body interacts with fructose, with diet and restriction and everything else, all those good habits. We've been trying them for a long time. We should keep trying them.

63:28Chris:But this is basically saying that there is a step where that signal now starts to affect our biology. And if we can interrupt that signal, then maybe we can turn down the downstream effects. And luteolin looks like the best candidate for that at the moment. And then you look at the research that it, not necessarily the fructose research, but just the research on general, like, is this a good polyphenol? And oh my goodness. There's one randomized controlled study that shows that it dropped liver fat by like 22% in the first six months. That insulin resistance improved by like 43% in the first six months. And like piles of other markers with cholesterol and everything else. And then there's other reviews on it that show

64:13Chris:that it shows promise for cognitive issues, for cardiovascular issues, for like a whole range of different things. I look at it and it's like that all sounds too good to be true. But it kind of matches a lot of other polyphenols. It's like they're just broadly good for you. But I think that luteolin's special. Yeah, but I think what makes this special is it seems to interrupt fructokinase. And that, to me, the research is showing that that's the linchpin here.

64:46 Polyphenol-rich foods, dietary luteolin, and tart cherry

64:46Chemaine:So you're saying

64:46 Polyphenol-rich foods, dietary luteolin, and tart cherry

64:46Chemaine:I should eat the celery that comes with the chicken wings. I hate celery. Right? But there's lots of it. There's like one of my handouts that I give to my clients is a list of polyphenol rich foods. Like that's literally the title. And it's not hard. Dark chocolate, balsamic vinegar, green tea, black tea, all teas. Cinnamon, ginger. Like all of us, if that's your thing, are berries. Like it's so easy. It just is almost like you have to make a habitual. Because a lot believe. Because I work primarily in nutrition. To me, and you were like, yeah, these are really common foods. They're really easy. People eat them all the time. No, they don't.

65:31Chemaine:They do not eat these foods. Most people never eat these foods. Most people don't drink green tea. They don't go to dark chocolate unless it's in like a Christmas chocolate box. Like people are not actively eating these foods that are. And I think, you know, I get the question all the time of like, what's the perfect human diet? Like, what do you think is the perfect diet for women? And I will say, well, protein, fiber, and lots and lots of polyphenols and electrolytes. Like that really is, in my opinion, the perfect diet. And that would include like sweet potatoes. We've got our polyphenols in there. Like, I don't think it's hard. The problem is people

66:16Chemaine:are just not doing it.

66:19Chris:Yeah, it's true. You know what? I wish I had the numbers in front of me, but there was a population study done on dietary luteolin. And it like I was talking like huge numbers of people. And I don't put a lot of weight in these kind of studies, but because it's hard to track this stuff. So it's basically saying like, what was your diet like here? And what was your diet like after this long period of time? And it's basically looking under the hood and saying, okay, how much dietary luteolin was in there? And when we're talking that, we're talking like maybe a couple milligrams. Like because they actually had a habit of eating parsley or something like that in their diet. But the numbers and all-cause mortality was crazy. It was like 22% difference

67:04Chris:in those that actually like, I think that's right, that actually would eat a lot of this dietary polyphenol compared to those that didn't. And it's like that's crazy that there's a statistical significance there in something just as like introducing parsley into your diet or whatever it may happen to have been. But polyphenols make a huge difference. There's no question about it. And so that's why we're focused on this. The other side of it is tart cherry, which you mentioned. And tart cherry is sort of known for its ability to kind of help clear out uric acid. So if you start to think about it, if that cell becomes, if the mitochondria in your cell are being crushed, it's not just from the fructose. It's from the byproduct of fructose,

67:49Chris:which is uric acid, which is causing that inflammatory response in the cell. So you want to clear that out. And I actually believe that that's where gout is coming from. It's like intracellular uric acid. It's not your serum uric acid that's measurable by a lab that's just floating within your body. I think it's actually coming from within the cell because of this process that's happening. That's happening. And so you want to flush as much of that out as possible because then it gives your mitochondria time to breathe and start to recharge and start to rebuild those networks and effectively restore cellular energy. And tart cherry is also delicious.

68:30Chemaine:It's like, choose your delicious. But like, we mean, you could probably be here for the rest of the day just discussing all the different benefits of polyphenols and all the influences they have from adrenal health, hormone health, cardiovascular disease, and then to the basic superficial level skin quality, how your skin glows, your hair is how young you look. And there's nothing wrong with the superficial because really how good you look is a reflection of how while your mitochondria are working. If you look sick, you're probably sick. Your skin is your the first signal, right?

69:04Chris:It's oftentimes like your face can be puffy. That's inflammation. It can be blotchy. That's inflammation and all of those things. You talk to people that cut sugar from their diet that are actually able to do it. And oh my goodness, like they it's hard, but it makes sense why it's hard. But it but it they see almost immediate changes in in their skin quality, in their bloating, in like so like their energy levels, their cravings drop off. It is it is consistent. I wish that there was more research showing it because I'm part of a community on Reddit that looks at cutting sugar out of their diets. And the signal is loud and clear that when we actually control fructose

69:52Chris:from a dietary place, it makes a massive difference on our health. So it's basically what we're trying to do with this as well.

69:59 What people report when fructose is controlled

69:59Chemaine:A lot of I find a lot of the people who do go sugar free are completely cut sugar. They go for terrible lifestyles and terrible lifestyle habits and lots of junk food and everything. And then they just go eliminate it all. They tend to not be the people who maybe are doing paleo or Mediterranean or like eating vegetables. So I really just want to put that context in there because I don't want people to think sugar is bad. Like content is important. But that's what we're saying about like we can list all these benefits, but most people are not proactive in doing this, which is unfortunate. I really hope everyone who's listening will be proactive. And I'm happy to send you my polyphenol list if you want. But this is why you

70:44Chemaine:and your colleague came up with a supplement. It's like, okay, well, if people are not going to be proactive, we can at least get this in this way and make it a little bit easier.

70:53Chris:Exactly, exactly. And that's the amazing thing is observationally, we're seeing that the exact same results that people that cut sugar do, we see in the people that are taking our little supplement. I think we're seeing numbers as high as about 80% notice a drop in cravings within the first few weeks. And then it cascades from there. Like if you think of how that works, the cravings dropping is the same signal as your cells having enough energy. And that's what we're seeing is this happens simultaneously they see a burst in energy. They feel more vibrant, more like not in any way stimulated, but just like the baseline energy level goes up. And then the cravings stop

71:38Chris:almost exactly in that same timing. And then what happens with the lack of cravings, we see the same thing and in GLP1 medications, for example, if you don't crave food, then you just don't eat it as much. And so we're seeing like you send that timeline a bit and within the next two, three months or so, people start dropping the significant amount of weight. They lose something like 25 pounds in the first six months without really trying to do it. Like it just, I just, no, I didn't eat as much. It was not lovely. And so like it's, it's wonderful to see the what feels like a confirmation that it's doing the same thing as those really restrictive diets of like cutting fructose completely out and controlling it really, really heavily. And that's what is really exciting.

72:23Chris:It's like, it's like, okay, if we have that much of a parallel signal, it feels like even without a randomized controlled trial to saying that humans and it has these results, I'm perfectly convinced.

72:42 Where to find SugarShield and The Fructose Model

72:42Chemaine:Where can people find out more about this supplement, Chris?

72:46Chris:Our website is liv3health.com liv3health.com and I got a YouTube channel the fructose model that kind of dives into this from so many other angles because effectively what this is starting to argue is that there's a, there's a energetic model behind this. And if fructose is having such a significant impact, then we should talk about cognitive dysfunction. We should talk about hormone health. We should be talking about liver fat. We should be talking about gut health. We should be talking about cancer, all of these different things like it should sit in this like above place that starts to unify conversations. We should be talking about the caloric model, the insulin hormone model,

73:31Chris:all these things like they become part of the conversation and the amazing thing is it does seem to resolve so many of the debates that we've had for decades. That's the really exciting things. I'm not saying anything's proven here but when you look at it from a hypothesis standpoint and the mechanism and the history behind it and it just starts to it maps so nicely.

74:01Chemaine:I am. So your supplement is SugarShield. Yes, sorry. I will pop all the links below and of course send you the collaboration links and everything. Well, I think you'll find this interesting. One thing I hear a lot from like new clients who would have got awful diets like and then I'll just change a few things. And all of a sudden they're like I don't have cravings anymore. Like it's a Christmas miracle. How does that work? And one thing that I introduce to every single one of my clients from day one is a high quality dark chocolate in the morning which is very high quality phenols. That one change alone makes a huge difference and that is not hard. But I thought you'd find that interesting

74:46Chemaine:because I mean there's more to the story but that's a big part of it.

74:50Chris:But it's all it's all pulling on it. Like I take EGCG in the morning because I know what's gonna which is in dark chocolate. I love all these different things that like they do what they can to help your metabolism, to help your mitochondria function well. Those are wonderful like high intensity workouts all of those different things and zone two like just walking and getting your mobility. Like there's so much that makes that pulls on this lever but I'll say it again. If fructose is this universal drag on our cellular energy and the biomechanics are right there for all to see then it makes a lot of sense where it's like we want to address that as directly as possible because it's just like

75:35Chris:plugging the hole in the bucket and then all those extra things that we're trying to do to preserve our mitochondrial energy are just going to take that much better. That's where I think this is really exciting.

75:47 Closing thoughts: fructose is a miracle, until it isn't

75:47Chemaine:Yeah well thank you for this conversation because I'll be honest I was apprehensive. I'm like where is this going to go? I don't want demonized sugar. Well what we've really focused on is the mitochondrial health aspect. Polyphenols as medicine too. Sugar as medicine in context but polyphenols as medicine which they really are. People don't eat enough polyphenols. I know I've said that about seven times but I'm passionate about polyphenols. Especially red wine in case anyone wants to send me a gift but

76:21Chris:I don't think we have done that. I don't think we've demonized sugar really just highlighted that excess. I sure hope not. Understanding how it works and this is important for people to understand. I'll say it loud and clear I think fructose is a miracle. I think it's amazing because what it is is I don't think that many species would be on the planet today without it. Because if it's the evidence of our conservation ability as an animal then it means that we can survive a difficult period and every animal needs that. We need that little bit of a backup system to survive.

77:06Chris:We just now are in a state where it doesn't serve a purpose anymore for our particular biology because we have everything we could ever want to eat. And none of the will power to really really put the brakes on it. And I think that because of that it's become maladaptive. Too much of a good thing can become a bad thing. It's as simple as that.

77:29Chemaine:Yeah well Chris thank you for your time today. Maybe you're going off to watch the FIFA now.

77:37Chris:Yeah thank you so much it was great to meet you and it was a great chat.

77:40Chemaine:Good I'm glad. Thank you for joining me today. Thanks so much. We'll chat soon bye. Thanks you too. Thank you all for listening and as always thank you for spending some of your day with me. I hope you found this episode helpful and informative. Please like share and subscribe if you haven't done so already. And if you feel that this information was helpful and you would like more of it feel free to give me a review. Reviews help small podcasts like mine reach more people which allows me to get on more quality guests and more ears on podcasts too. Thank you so much. I appreciate you and I will chat to you guys real soon.

78:26Chemaine:Bye bye.