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Slows. Full terms at mintmobile.com. Dr. Casey Means, Stanford-trained physician and co-founder of Levels, a health technology company that is striving to address what they call the world's metabolic health crisis and co-author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Good Energy, the Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health. And Dr. Casey Means joins us now. I see you in person now and your brother I saw last two weeks ago and one of your best advertisements for your book is that you both look so healthy.
I mean, that's one of the things- As do you. Right. Oh, thank you. But I didn't write a health book, but I think it always helps when someone writes a book and says, this is what's going on.
And you subscribe to it. Thank you. And you just to give people some background before we get to your book, for you, you're going through, you're becoming a doctor.
Your brother wasn't. Yeah. So you're going, and you were describing what it was like that you were going through. You went all the way through your residency and what were you discovering that disillusioned you along the way? Yeah, four years Stanford Medical School, four and a half years of head and neck surgery residency. I'm nine years into training and I look around me and I realize, I've kind of been in this tunnel vision.
Like this is the answer. Conventional medicine is the answer, but I look around me at the trends. I'm cutting into people all day long and Americans are getting sicker every year. We're spending $4.3 trillion on healthcare costs and Americans are getting sicker every single year. Brian, life expectancy is going down in the United States. Even since the pandemic, I thought the pandemic was the reason for that. The pandemic is not the reason. It's started having a sustained decline before the pandemic, the longest period of decline of health since 1860s.
We are going down. So we extended lifespan in the early 1900s due to infectious disease control. Now it's going down because of chronic lifestyle conditions rooted in metabolic dysfunction and 93% of American adults now have metabolic dysfunction tied to food and lifestyle.
So that's what's killing us now. It's not the infectious diseases. It's these lifestyle diseases based on our toxic food system, our sedentary lifestyle, our poor habits. So what's metabolic dysfunction?
How do you define that? Yeah, so metabolic health is basically the core foundational process in our bodies that make energy. We have 40 trillion cells. They all need energy to function. All the chemical reactions happening in our body need energy. That all bubbles up into our lives. That's the core of metabolic health.
You remember from high school biology, the mitochondria, powerhouse of the cell, that's metabolism. Right now, because of basically every aspect of our modern Western world, our toxic ultra-processed food system, we're sitting all the time, we're sleeping 25% less than we were 100 years ago, there's 80,000 synthetic toxins in our food, water, air, personal care products, our emotional health and stress is poor through the roof. All of those are hurting our metabolic health. And so we have this problem where literally research from the American College of Cardiology says that 93% of Americans have this fundamental problem in how we power our bodies, the most foundational part of health. And that we know now the science is telling us that leads to cancer, type 2 diabetes, obesity, stroke, fatty liver disease, cancer, all of the conditions that are going up all at once.
And everyone's waving their hands saying, we have no idea why. The science is telling us exactly why is because we have this fundamental problem in our bodies tied to food and lifestyle. Colon cancer too is up, isn't it? On younger people.
Young people going up. This is the first year in history that we are expected to have over 2 million new cases of cancer in the United States. So we are throwing money at cancer research and cancer rates are going up. The reason for this is because we're focusing on the symptoms of cancer. We're focusing on treating cancer after it develops. We spend virtually zero dollars on cancer prevention.
We know that much cancer, especially colon cancer is tied to our terrible ultra-processed diets in the United States. So there's plausible deniability. We're working so hard, but the rates are going up. We don't know why. We do know why.
It's because of the environment that we're living in. And unfortunately, there's trillions and trillions of dollars of incentives between this devil's bargain of the food system and the healthcare system that both make money when we're addicted to crappy food and then we're getting treatment. And so I think the thing that people really understand is that the financial incentives of our healthcare system right now, they make more money when patients are sick and it makes less money when patients are healthy. That's why I had to leave the system because that is the financial reality of the American healthcare system. But are there grand secret, grand higher up meetings behind closed doors among the rich and the powerful and the medical profession and the big pharma that say we're going to keep Americans sick in order to make money? Are they in cahoots? You know, I mean, it's hard to say, right?
I haven't been in those rooms. I know that there is about $6 trillion invisible hand that totally benefits off of us being sick. $4.3 trillion of healthcare costs and then over $2 trillion of ultra-processed food system. In the 1980s, three of the four biggest mergers that happened were cigarette companies acquiring ultra-processed food companies. So like Philip Morris acquiring Kraft. So we know that there's some understanding there about addiction as a business model, right? That's what's happening with ultra-processed foods. They're following the exact same playbook as cigarettes. So, you know, I can't say, but I think that you've got a really, really big incentive problem that benefits off sick dependent Americans. And we have to be aware of that. John Stewart was on filling in on two bears in one cave podcast yesterday, and he talked about this.
Cut 38. Even if you look at food stamps, right? So food stamps ostensibly is like a pretty good program. Like people, first of all, there shouldn't be food insecurity in a country as rich as this. Right.
That's just no, that's just ridiculous. But the really strange part of it to me is food stamps are really a subsidy to like Kraft or Nabisco or the giant food conglomerates, because the majority of the foods that people are buying are these ultra-processed box foods. They're going to sodas and foods that go right into PepsiCo.
Like we don't do anything that doesn't have a middleman with a corporate owner to it. So all that government money goes, it's really their subsidies. Like why is there corn syrup and everything? It's the government just paying farmers for, and then they're just given the corn syrup and fructose to, and so what do they do? They give us all diabetes.
And then what's the next step? Big pharma comes in and now you're in the cycle. They're literally combating the drug of ultra-processed food with the drugs from big pharma. And you're, Casey, you're nodding along.
They nailed it. This is why I left the system to become an evangelist for Root Cause Health. Right now, SNAP, which is the largest federal system program for food, you've also got WIC for mothers and children. It is, in many ways, because of a rigged system, because we are allowed to buy soda on SNAP.
SNAP is the number one line item on SNAP. Okay, soda is diabetes water. Soda has no nutritional value and causes chronic disease. 10% of all SNAP funding goes towards soda, which means it is able to essentially money laundering from American taxpayers to ultra-processed food companies to keep people, especially people who are minorities and the poor, sick.
This is a rigged system. People say, oh, if we control what people buy on SNAP, it's a nanny state. You know, that's overreach of the government. But you are, but by definition, you're providing food for people that need it. So of course you could control what they have.
Right. I mean, what if we could incentivize people buying healthy fruits and vegetables to keep them healthy? Why is it more expensive to get healthy stuff? It's more extensive because of our farm bills.
Again, this is a second tier of the rigged system. Our farm bills, financially subsidized, again, taxpayer money for commodity crops like corn, wheat, and soy, most of which go towards animal feed for large-scale animal production operations, not healthy beef, the bad beef that comes from these confined animal feeding operations where they're, you know, in squalor. And then the farm bills are going to the process, so the grains that go towards animal feed and ultra-processed foods. So that corn, it's not going to a beautiful piece of corn you're throwing on your grill. It's going to high fructose corn syrup, which is essentially makes sugar cheaper than in many cases water. You walk into a convenience store, soda is cheaper than water because taxpayers are paying for it.
Casey Means is here. The name of her book, the number one book in the country right now is called Good Energy. So, and she's a doctor. Dr. Means, let me ask you this. What about people that push back and say we're looking to put these preservatives in order to preserve food so it can last longer? Is that a good argument? It's an argument that's been used.
It's not, it's not a good argument. When we look at processed food with preservatives in it, it has virtually no nutritional value. If you actually look at spinach straight out of the ground, it has tons of vitamin C. You process it, it has zero milligrams of vitamin C in it. So we're basically just giving people this essential, people are overfed and undernourished in our country. And what we need to do is put our innovation and our dollars towards helping people get access to fresh food.
What would pressure the system to change? It would be awareness and people boycotting this stuff. And for example, I used to hear this a lot when I was in California after the riots in 92, was it? They said, you know, they're poisoning our working class areas by putting nothing but fast food in our areas and a lot of liquor stores. And I thought, well, that's because people want that in that area. But no, that came first and then came the customer.
So we could somehow reverse that, right? And I don't want to, look, fast food has a place. I don't want to drive people out of business. But if people were only buying things that were healthy, fast food would change. Yeah, the incentives come first, then the behavior comes.
I think that's a really key point. If we simply changed what people could buy on SNAP and incentivize fresh fruits and vegetables, we'd eliminate food deserts because the commerce is going to follow the incentives. Right now, it's cheapest to serve people the ultra-processed grains, the seed oils, the ultra-processed sugar. That's basically what the backbone of fast food, right? If we changed SNAP, if we changed the farm bill, simple incentive shifts, it would change everything.
How many people are on this? A lot of people on food stamps? Huge amount. So you could really make a difference by changing the basics in SNAP and food stamps? Absolutely, and the farm bill, yeah.
But there's many other layers to it from a policy standpoint, simple policies that would change a lot. Right now, the USDA school lunch program serves 3 billion meals per year to children. Okay. And it is totally corrupted by big food.
I thought Michelle Obama straightened that out. Absolutely not. There was just a brokered deal between Kraft and the USDA school lunch program to put Lunchables in schools. Does Kraft do anything to have the nutritional value in it?
No. I mean, this food is ultra-processed, frankened food filled with chemicals, artificial dyes, preservatives that really shouldn't be touching a child's body. Children in America right now are really suffering. You have 40% of 18-year-olds with a mental health diagnosis. You have cancer rates and heart disease.
Literally, we're seeing hypertension, high blood pressure in kids, and 30% of teens, Brian, have prediabetes. So I always go back and forth. I never put them together. What are we feeding them? And also, why are they so inactive?
Because of their phones, the Xbox, people worried about playing outside, unscripted playing doesn't happen. Nope. But you're saying it's all part of it. You got the foods are part of it.
It'd also be great to get kids more active. Yeah. I think it's a big societal shift that's happened.
You basically... I mean, this gets kind of out there, but you get women outside of the home. You tell people that climbing the corporate ladder is the only way to have value in America. So you have no one actually thinking about or preparing food in the country. Then you've got kids basically eating convenience food.
Kids are getting sick. Now they're on a dopamine loop, or they're addicted to sugar, and they're addicted to processed foods. That, of course, predisposes them more to being addicted to their devices, their phones, video games, social media.
So you've basically got this destruction of the... In many ways, I think, the foundation of American family life where kids are not eating meals with their parents anymore. Only 30% of Americans are eating more than three meals together per week. So it's just all about convenience.
And unfortunately, on many levels, I think what would solve a lot of this is people getting back to the basics, like buy real food that is grown close to your home, eat meals with your family, prepare food together. So, Casey, stick around. Yeah. Because when we come back, I want to talk about Gozampic and all these other miracle drugs, as some people are saying, have changed their lives. And other people are saying, we're still trying to find out what it's about.
You have definite opinions on this. The number one book in the country right now is here. Back with us, Dr. Casey Means, who was kind enough to come on One Nation two weeks ago.
And the book remains the number one in the country in the New York Times list. So when we left, we talked about Gozampic. And you know, we were talking about the magic pill the week before. Yeah.
Now you have a different feeling about Gozampic and everything else. Yeah. I think what we really understand is that obesity, this fat that we're literally just 3D printing on our bodies in America, 75% of Americans overweight are obese now. A hundred years ago, if you had obesity, you were in the circus.
Literally, it didn't really exist. People need to recognize that. This is a new phenomenon. It's not a genetic issue. This is the lifestyle we're leading, the food we're eating. It's the environment causing us to be metabolically dysfunctional and therefore 3D print all this fat. Gozampic comes in and says, oh, we'll melt your fat for you and everything will be great. It's a magic pill. But unfortunately, without changing the environment, we're not actually creating health. We can melt some fat, but are we truly becoming healthy? That's the question. And so we're kind of being gaslighted to think that a shot for life, it's a weekly injection you have to take for life can somehow ameliorate the effects of an environment that is just crushing our health on every level.
Johan Hari, you spoke with him on your show. On this show and on TV. Yeah. And he says that Americans, that yeah, of course the drug has side effects.
Of course, it's got problems. But we have two choices. We deal with the consequence of obesity, or we deal with the consequences of the drug.
We actually have a third choice, Johan. We can actually just eat real food and clean up our environment and our bodies will naturally become a healthy weight. There are many people who make simple, simple changes focused on metabolic health and they lose a drastic amount of weight.
So we have more than two choices in this. And unfortunately, because there's so little incentive for doctors to talk to patients about healthy food and lifestyle and we're so laser focused on pharmaceuticals. They don't know much about it. They don't know much. You are a doctor.
Yeah. I mean, you are a doctor. 80% of medical schools do not have a single class on nutrition, even though 90% of healthcare costs right now are going to our conditions tied to food. Why is that?
Why is that? Why wouldn't they put nutrition? I'm sure there's a natural curiosity for a doctor.
You have to follow the money. You know, I think that the way that our healthcare system is financed right now, the way doctors and hospitals and insurance companies and pharmaceuticals all make money is have more patients in the system utilizing services for a longer period of time. This is why chronic disease, which is a new phenomenon over the past 50 to 100 years.
That's why it's such a cash cow. So you are not for Ozempic and all these others? No, Ozempic is a bandaid. Ozempic is a bandaid.
And right now, the parent company, Novo Nordisk, which is based in Denmark in Europe, it is surpassed Louis Vuitton LVHM to become the largest company in Europe. They are profiting off the broken healthcare and food system in the United States. And there's an all out war, an all out effort right now to classify obesity as a genetic disease. Because if we do that, then we can have Ozempic covered by insurance. And if we have Ozempic covered by insurance, then we can have taxpayer money going towards it. And what that will, and this is actually up in Congress right now, this exact topic. If that happens, if Medicare starts covering this for overweight and obesity, we will essentially be funneling potentially hundreds of billions, if not eventually trillions of dollars every year from the US to Denmark to a Danish company to basically put a bandaid on an issue caused by our broken system.
And then guess what? All of America will be paying for it because all our insurance rates are gonna go higher because now we have to digest, pun intended, this new drug. And I'm not convinced it's actually gonna make people healthy over the long term because if our environment stays the same, the ultra processed food, the chronic stress, the not moving much at all, we will still have problems. Casey, where should we shop? Is Whole Foods the place to shop? The best possible place to shop is the farmer's market, 100%.
Whole Foods is great. We wanna do organic. We spray 50 billion pounds of glyphosate, pesticides, all of our food each year.
It's basically toxin. We wanna get the cleanest food possible from the best soil. There are 9,000 farmer's markets in the United States.
It's gonna give you the best nutrients and will make you feel full cuz it's filled with nutrients. And in those working class areas, put those farmer's markets. It'll help everybody, right?
Put the farmer's markets, whatever you can do, eat real food. All right, whatever you do, pick up her book. Yeah, expand on it. Good Energy, The Surprising Connection to Metabolism and Limitless Health. Dr. Mies, thanks. Thanks, Brian. Listen to the show ad-free on Fox News Podcast Plus, on Apple Podcast, Amazon Music with your Prime membership, or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
