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619: Health Myths Debunked: The Truth About Cholesterol, Supplements & Heart Disease Risk with Dr. Gil Carvalho

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619: Health Myths Debunked: The Truth About Cholesterol, Supplements & Heart Disease Risk with Dr. Gil Carvalho

The internet is full of conflicting health advice—one expert says cholesterol is dangerous, another claims it doesn’t matter. Some swear by supplements, while others call them a scam. So, how do you separate fact from fiction?

In this episode, Ted welcomes back Dr. Gil Carvalho, a medical doctor and nutrition scientist, to bring clarity to some of the most controversial topics in health today. They discuss heart disease risks, cholesterol myths, the role of genetics in health, and whether you should trust supplements. Gil also breaks down how to evaluate research properly and why even high-level studies can sometimes mislead people.

If you’re tired of health misinformation and want real, science-backed insights into what actually works, don’t miss this episode!

 

Today’s Guest 

Dr. Gil Carvalho 

Gil Carvalho, MD PhD is a physician, a research scientist, science communicator, speaker and writer. He is the host of “Nutrition Made Simple”, a YouTube Channel that breaks down the science of healthy eating and provides weekly tips for a healthy diet, always science-based, and always kept simple. His content has been watched by over a quarter-million people. 

Connect to Dr. Gil Carvalho 

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You’ll learn:

  • The truth about cholesterol and whether you should be concerned
  • What most people get wrong about heart disease risk factors
  • Why some supplements may not be as effective (or safe) as you think
  • How to critically evaluate health research and spot bad science
  • The impact of genetics on your heart health and longevity
  • Why relying on feelings instead of data can be dangerous for your health
  • How to make informed, science-backed decisions about your health and fitness
  • And much more…

 

Related Episodes:  

582: Heart Health Made Simple: How to Reduce Cardiovascular Disease Risk, Boost Longevity, and Optimize Performance, with Gil Carvalho, MD PhD 

513: Nutrition Made Simple: How To Make Better Food Choices, Outsmart “Bad Genes” & Finally End Your Nutrition Confusion with Dr. Gil Carvalho 

 

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Podcast Transcription: Health Myths Debunked: The Truth About Cholesterol, Supplements & Heart Disease Risk with Dr. Gil Carvalho

Ted Ryce: Gil Carvalho, thanks so much for coming back on the show really looking forward to catching up with you and also tackling some of these more popular and controversial topics that you've covered on your YouTube channel, which by the way, if you're listening right now, you've got to follow nutrition made simple that's Jill's YouTube channel. 

And it's just a wealth of information. So, thanks for coming back on Gil. Yeah. And I would like to start because last time our interview is all about heart disease, what you should do. And based on that, I ended up following up with a cardiologist when I was in Brazil and getting a CT angiogram. And we just had a brief conversation about that. 

And I was freaked out. Like I told you, I've had some and still do struggle with anxiety, a bit of anxiety disorder and, um, I have it under control for the most part, but I feel like was there anything wrong with my heart? Maybe that could be contributing. I'm not a doctor. I'm a coach, health coach. 

Great at what I do, but I wanted to consult an expert. So I ended up getting the all types of tests done. wore the Holter monitor for 24 hours, got the ultrasound, uh, of my carotid arteries. And it even ended up getting this CT angiogram where they injected the contrast. It was super freaky, got my calcium score, but everything's fine. 

And so thanks for, for kind of sparking that conversation. And then, you know, you, you prompted me to take action and can you share a personally with. Your heart health because that's that's like one of the main topics of your channel and something you're an expert in  

Gil Carvalho: Well, I think it depends a lot on the on the individual like family history and risk factors that the person has so I have Two genetic risk factors that run in my family. 

So we have this thing called lpa or sometimes called lp little a uh, that's pretty high and uh, and that's You know, fundamentally genetically determined. There's a little bit of variation with lifestyle, a little bit of modulation that you can do, but not much. It's mainly whether you have the genes or not for that thing to be high people who have it low pretty much have it low throughout and people who have a high can maybe modulate that thing maybe 15 20 percent but it's going to be high for life right now we don't have great tools to lower that so the and by the way that that's a lot more common than people think about one in five people have high LPA. 

So it's incredibly common. If you think about it, every five people that you know, one has high LPA and all the evidence we have right now points to it being a causative factor for heart disease. So basically, if you have it elevated, that population has more heart attacks, more aortic valve. calcification and stenosis and all of these things. 

And so it's a, it's a, an emerging risk factor. A lot of research coming out, actually a study just came out, a big study just came out this week showing that it's an independent risk factor. What that means is they looked at people who had elevated LBA and people who had elevated LDL cholesterol, which is a more well known risk factor, and then combinations of both. 

And what they found was basically that both things. Elevate risk independently. So if you have either one high, you're at higher risk. If you have both higher and highest risk, so they are independent and additive to each other. And so basically because I have that, and I, and then I also have a kidney condition that runs in my family, polycystic kidney, that's autosomal dominant runs like every, every 50 percent in average of every offspring has it. 

Those are both. Risk factors for heart disease later in life in life. So What I try to do is I try to control all the The main risk factors really tightly. So, uh, you know, body weight and physical activity and not smoking and bottom, uh, blood pressure, ApoB, which is kind of related to LDL cholesterol, but I'm a more robust metric of heart disease. 

So all of those things, glucose levels, I try to keep everything. I try to stay as healthy as I can, uh, bottom line so that my overall risk is lowest so that those, those things that I can't really change my genetics, you know, don't. So that the, the, the overall risk is as low as I can because I already have these, these, the, the, the, the, let's say the, the hand I was dealt, at least in those aspects is, was not the best. 

I have other things that are working well, like glucose metabolism works well. I have low fasting glucose. I can, you know, blood pressure is really good when I tweak lifestyle. So those things I have, I got lucky on. But yeah, that's basically a strategy is you, you optimize everything else so that your overall risk is low. 

And so I did a lot of those tests as well. Got the calcium score. That's zero. But the problem with the calcium score is at our age. I think we're around the same age. I'm 47 right now.  

Ted Ryce: 47,  

Gil Carvalho: it's normal to have, it's normal to have a calcium score zero and, and, and are in the forties, even in the, in the Western for Western society. 

So, calcium is an indicator of kind of intermediate to advanced black. So, having a calcium score is a 0 is reassuring, but it's like a temporary. Hall pass, right? You know, you're very unlikely to have a major event in the next. 10 years, give or take, but I want to live more than 10 years. So, uh, the calcium score of zero is not an, a get out of jail free card for the rest of my life. 

So I I'm taking other precautions, like all the risk factors we talked about. And then I got the, um, The same one you got, the SIMT, the carotid ultrasound, because that looks at soft plaque, which calcium score, calcium score just gives you kind of a readout of the calcified plaque, but doesn't really address soft plaque, and soft plaque is actually the more vulnerable plaque, it's the one that usually bursts and gives rise to heart attacks and strokes. 

It's usually not the calcified bits. So, uh, those assays that look at soft plaque, like the Carotid Ultrasound give you a little bit more information, because you could have soft plaque and have a calcium score of zero and still have soft plaque. I seem to be good there. There was no detectable plaque there, and then yeah, I basically try to manage all these other daggers that are pointed at us all. 

Ted Ryce: Yeah. Thanks for talking about that. Something I also did was get my LP little a or L LPA checked and I'm okay. Nice. However, one of our clients, so we started putting that in the panels that we run for our clients. I had one client. It was super elevated and yeah, it's just, if you're listening right now, like Jill said, one in five people have this LP little a that's it's genetic in nature and it's separate. 

So it's not like, well, my cholesterol is low. It's not a problem. It's, it's a separate risk factor. And if you have both high is you really need to pay attention, but it's something also as you'll from looking a lot of blood work. You know, I don't play doctor or anything, but we, you know, get our clients blood work. 

We, we want them to understand their health a bit deeper than what typically what their doctors will do. And. Yeah, we see. So, so yeah, it just is one of those things where the data, um, helps people to change their lifestyle a little bit more. And like you said, or at least that's what I found in my coaching practice and. 

Yeah, that L P little way. I, I, I don't have a paper. I want to share it with you, uh, sometime, but it basically, it goes over some things that might affect L P little way, but the big thing was like niacin. It's a little bit weird, right? When it comes to lowering it, are you taking any specific thing? I know it's, uh, you know, the research on is quite new, but are you doing anything in particular, just in case there's someone listening right now? 

They are. Yeah. Yeah. They have this LP low A. Now they're like, okay, what do I do beyond? Okay. Lose body fat, right? Exercise. Right. What else would they do?  

Gil Carvalho: I don't take anything specifically to lower LPA because the thing in general with taking a medication or a supplement or something like that is you want to see. 

The the end result you want to see what we call the outcomes So a drug that lowers lpa isn't necessarily Something that I want unless it actually lowers risk This is a little It might seem counterintuitive, but some drugs, when, when drugs go through this, the, the trial process, sometimes there's a different stages of the trial process, right? 

So usually like stage 2, you're showing safety. So you're showing that over a short period of time, maybe a couple of months or a few few months, maybe a year. You're able to lower the metric that you're targeting and it's safe. And in other words, there, there isn't a lot of side effects. So then you go to phase three and phase three, you're looking at actual outcome reduction, and that usually goes for several years. 

And it's a large trial with thousands of participants. So a lot of times. A drug will lower the metric. So for example, a drug can lower cholesterol, but not necessarily lower cardiovascular risk, the actual risk of having heart attacks. How does that happen? I mean, do we understand  

Ted Ryce: why that happens?  

Gil Carvalho: Yeah. 

In some cases you do, or at least there's good candidates to explain it. So you can have off target effects. So a drug can have multiple effects, right? And even if it's doing something good, the net effect could be neutral or even negative. So that's possible sometimes happens. Uh, so some drugs will. Do one thing, but then also raise blood pressure, for example, or, you know, different things. 

And so the net effect is not, not what you want, and those drugs don't get approved. Even though they lower the metric, they don't get approved. So this is something that's important to understand. Bottom line is that niacin can lower LPA, but it's not recommended because, uh, in the trials that we have with niacin, As a rule, it didn't lower cardiovascular risk. 

So it's, it was kind of a flop. Now it gets more complicated than that, but that's kind of the big picture conclusion, and so niacin isn't really recommended in general.  

Ted Ryce: And is that, did they figure out, is that because of the side effect that was creating the problem or in niacin because niacin is just a B vitamin, right? 

It's just a high dose B vitamin. Is that correct?  

Gil Carvalho: So niacin, one of the applications was to raise, uh, HDL cholesterol. Originally. They had these two big observations, right? Coming out of, um, studies like pop these observational studies like Framingham in the eighties and the seventies and like second half of the 20th century, they had these large studies where they looked at these large populations. 

Framingham was like the, the MO is the most, most famous one, but there's a bunch. And two observations that came out was that people who had higher LDL cholesterol had higher risk, and people who had higher HDL cholesterol had lower risk. Right. Right, this is where the good cholesterol, bad cholesterol meme comes from. 

The problem is with those associations, sometimes they pan out as a cause and effect, and sometimes they don't. So those things that associate associate with risk could be causes of risk or they could just be innocent bystanders that correlate with something else Like having like a silly example, but would be having a gym membership, right? 

If you look population wide people who own a gym membership You'll probably find they are leaner and they're healthier than people who don't as a general correlation But then if I go and get a gym membership that by itself is not going to improve my health make sense You  

Ted Ryce: Right.  

Gil Carvalho: So then you need to test further. 

So one way you do that is with the randomized trials, these, these trials that we're talking about, these drug trials. And so basically fast forward 30 years, the drugs that lower LDL cholesterol, you know, you have your statins and your azetamide and your PCSK9 inhibitors and this whole thing consistently have worked to lower, not just the lower LDL cholesterol, as we were saying, but to lower. 

Cardiovascular risk, they lower heart attacks, they lower strokes, they lower mortality. So those have gotten consistently approved and used widely. The other side of the picture is drugs that were aimed at increasing HDL cholesterol. So these two are going on at about the same time over the last 20 or 30 years, but the drugs that were developed to raise HDL cholesterol have as a whole have flocked. 

So they have not, they raise HDL cholesterol, but they don't affect risk. Sometimes there's a tiny effect, sometimes there's an effect in the wrong direction, risk gets a little worse, and so they're generally, they've generally been disappointing. Uh, in fact, there's a, there's a kind of a running joke because LDL stands for low density lipoprotein and HDL stands for high density lipoprotein, but some people joke that it's, That HDL stands for Highly Disappointing Lipoprotein, but just because all of these trials have been huge kind of letdowns. 

And that there's still other drugs in development, and there's like finer points because it might not be, it might not be the level of HDL cholesterol, but it might be the function of these lipoproteins, the function of the HDLs, that is the critical thing that you want to modulate. So that's not off the table yet. 

But so niacin was one of these drugs. Long story short, niacin was one of these drugs together with CTP inhibitors and other categories that were very interesting initially because they do raise HDL cholesterol, but they've generally not been very, um, the results have not been very promising as far as risk. 

Ted Ryce: Yeah, it's so good to have this conversation to flesh this stuff out because it's really hard to, let's say, read. A blog post or listen to even a YouTube channel, even on a channel like yours, Jill, where you do such an excellent job question for you. So, and this, this going in a little bit of a different direction, you and I, we've had a conversation in the past. 

I think our first conversation, who is about some of the, let's say, mistrust of, of the scientific information, because there are, you know, there's Right. Drug companies make their business. And I even, I worked with, uh, uh, an oncologist recently, fascinating conversation. Maybe, hopefully I can get him on the podcast, but he's a little bit reluctant to come on, but we had some conversations about that, about how these drug companies end up kind of hyping up some of these cancer drugs, where. 

The risk is probably greater than what they say or the Beneficial effect is probably not as powerful. It's more neutral than what gets talked about but when we're talking about i'm just curious like you read so much research like You know you're talking like i read a lot of research probably more than the average definitely more than the average medical doctor, right? 

They're too busy working with patients unless they're actively also involved in research You How do you suss out like the good research from the research that you think is maybe biased in a way that might affect the result? Like my client mentioned  

Gil Carvalho: to make a long story short to two main things that I look at. 

One is experimental design. So you're looking at how the experiment was carried out and there's specific, specific things you look for. For example, like we were saying, you know, randomized trial, everything else held equal, randomized trial weighs more. Then an observational study, but then it gets a little bit deeper, right? 

You're going to look at how how they carried out the experiment. What was in a drug trial? There's this is more standardized because in these really high level trials, you're looking at a drug and usually a placebo in the control group. But you're still looking at like the size of the of the the sample, like how many people, how many participants they had. 

You're looking at the baseline characteristics of the population they're looking at. Are they high risk? Are they low risk? All of these things you're, you're, you're taking into consideration. And then when it comes to nutrition, you have all these variables because you. It's not that you can't, but it's really hard to do a placebo control, right, because people kind of know what they're eating. 

So, with nutrition, you're looking at, for example, what's the comparator, what's the thing they're comparing it to. Again, like, how careful are they to control for variables, for example. Yeah, these kinds of things, how large is the study? How long is the study? Characteristics of the baseline, uh, baseline population, all these things you're bearing in mind. 

So this is, experimental design would be the first factor, huge factor. The second factor, which is massive, is reproducibility. So, you know, even one study, if it looks amazing, That's not going to settle a field. You're looking for a pattern of reproducibility. You want to see the same thing shown by different researchers, you know, in different universities, looking at different populations, and that's when your confidence really goes up. 

Because seeing something once, anyone who's worked in a lab, you know, knows that you can see almost anything once, but it's seeing the same thing reproducibly, and you test the same thing in Americans and in Europeans and in Japanese. And And in people who are older, and in people who were younger, and in people who have diabetes, and in people who don't, with drugs that affect the same pathway, but different drugs, right, at different points of the pathway, and you keep seeing the same thing over and over and over, and your confidence just goes higher and higher and higher. 

So that's really the main, the main factor there, and to circle back to your question about the, the pharma concerns. I mean, I share those. I don't think anybody trusts pharma blindly or any industry. I don't think pharma is uniquely evil. I think all of these industries are. Like you were saying, they're businesses. 

So whether it's big, big pharma or big fossil fuel or, you know, big meat or, or big, whatever, like all of these things, they're there to sell their product. They're not there to, to do charity. So there needs to be a lot of supervision and there needs to, you need to see a lot of reproducibility across different teams, but across different populations. 

And then it becomes across different techniques too, because for example, with these drugs. You might see something in clinical trials, but then you look, for example, at genetics and you're looking for reproducibility. People who are born with a form of the target of the drug, uh, that where it's less active, for example, it's a hypomorph. 

And so they have that. That molecule that gets turned off by the drug, they genetically already have it turned off. And if you see the same thing in those people, lower risk of heart disease, okay, this is a completely high, different level of certainty than just the, the drug trials. Uh, yeah, so you're looking for this kind of reproducibility. 

You keep testing it from different angles and you keep seeing the same thing. The likelihood that it's a hoax or just some kind of conspiracy You know, very, very, very, very infinitesimally low.  

Ted Ryce: Yeah. And, and I want to throw something into that. Thanks for that breakdown, because I think it's really important how people, you know, having conversations like this with yourself, who, you know, you're not, you're a content creator right now. 

I mean, you're a medical doctor, you have your PhD, but. You're not doing any clinical practice right now. You're creating content. I wanted to bring something else up because I don't think it's talked about, you know, with this research, I feel like, and this was me for a long time, like, oh, well, drug companies, bad, anything that they say. 

You really have to be critical of, but supplements on the other hand, like, you know, they're okay because supplement companies have our best interest. And to come back to that point that you made, they're a business too. And in fact, there's one supplement and I I'm going to talk about it and I'm not throwing it under the bus. 

I'm just bringing up questions. Maybe it turns out to be as good as, you know, what the, the research says, but are you familiar with. MitoPure, timeline MitoPure is the, the brand name. It's, it's, uh, Uh, urolithin A supplement.  

Gil Carvalho: Okay. Uh, I haven't heard the brand name. Yeah. I haven't looked into that in depth. No. 

Ted Ryce: So urolithin A it, I forget all the details. It basically improves your mitochondria at which, you know, that's one of the hallmarks of aging and it supposed to rejuvenate them and, uh, you know, help replace. Old damaged mitochondria with new ones and just to go to like what it says, says timeline MitoPure Urolithin A first clinically proven supplement for healthy aging and cellular renewal. 

And, um, I forget the studies. Oh, here's one MitoPure has been shown to improve mitochondrial health, increase muscle strength by up to 12 percent after just 16 weeks. And endurance by up to 15 percent after eight weeks when compared to placebo. So really interesting about urolithin A and this product in particular. 

So I looked at the research and actually I did this with a mentor of mine who helps me understand this stuff a bit better with nutrition and supplement. Research in particular, and so if you look, there's like 5 supplement, I'm sorry, 5 studies done on urolithin A, but if you look at like what you said, the experimental design, to their credit, they're high level, and of course, you have a lot more experience in reading about experimental design and understanding it. 

But it's high level stuff. I don't remember exactly, but you were just reading it and it's like, okay, these are extremely expensive techniques. Like, who's going to reproduce this? Because you're going to spend a ton of money to do it. And so the, the, like the five or six, Research papers that are looking at urolithin A in particular, because there's a bunch of urolithins like urolithin A, urolithin B, urolithin C, and for whatever reason this one was chosen, and it's, you know, powerhouse marketing behind it, a lot of money behind it because of the experimental design. 

Again, none of this means that it's bad or doesn't work, just brings up questions. And if you look at the studies, they're all done by the same group of people, And all with these, I don't want to call it reproducibility issue because it very well could be easily reproduced if someone had the money to put into it to do the same level of studies. 

So. Hopefully it turns out to be great. And you compare that to, so urolithin A is found in a bunch of different things like walnuts and pomegranates, but you look at all the research on pomegranate juice, which is less expensive, easily accessible, and, um, it's quite good. Right. And cheaper. And, you know, so, you know, even with some of these, some of these supplements that let's say have a lot of money and science behind it, you still have to, you still have to ask questions, I feel. 

Gil Carvalho: I agree a hundred percent. Like, I think that's a great point. And I think, uh, there, there is this notion out there that big pharma is bad, but supplements. Are safe in our benign, but the results don't support that at all. Like supplements can have side effects supplements can have all kinds of, can lead to all kinds of problems. 

And so I try to be consistent. I want to see results, promising results and convincing results for anything that I take, whether it's a supplement or a drug, the problem we have. And yeah, this is, this is exploited on social media where, you know, influencers will poo poo pharmaceuticals. Because they can't prescribe them and then in the same breath, they will say, you know, all the, all the scientists are corrupt and all these drugs don't work. 

So come buy my supplement on my online store that has no tests. Sometimes it has a level of evidence that is a joke compared to the level of evidence of the, of the drugs that they're poo pooing. So I'm not. Pro drug or pro supplement. I'm pro evidence and I think we have to be consistent that our standards should be the same for whatever it is. 

Supplements are also a multi billion dollar industry, so that's not exactly a, you know, a non profit charity. So I have the same concerns there. And by the way, It's the same people that control supplements are also a lot of the people that control big pharma own supplements as well. Big stock, big shares in supplements. 

So it's not like it's a completely different crew that is all, you know, peace and love. It's the same, it's the same group. But so the other thing to add is the level of control, the level of regulation on drugs and on pharmaceutical prescription drugs and supplements is in a different universe. This is why drugs to prescription drugs. 

To get to market need to go through all these hoops of these trials. And a lot of times they don't make it through and they are not, they come, they don't go to market. with supplements. I researched this some time ago cause I made a video about supplements and I was shocked how unregulated it is. It is almost entirely unregulated, especially if your supplement contains molecules that are already out there that are not novel. 

You can pretty much put together any concoction that you want. Again, if the molecules are not considered novel, you don't need to show that it works. You don't even need to show that it's safe. You can just sell it. You can market it as Whatever you want, pretty much there's almost no regulation for supplements. 

So I think that's a concern. And I, I just try to look for the same standard of evidence. I take some supplements, I take some prescription drugs, but I want to see data for all of them. I don't really believe, uh, stories. I don't really care. I want to see, I want to see hard data.  

Ted Ryce: Yeah. You know, what's hard about that is that, uh, I mean, even for me, right? 

Like, We're trying to be, we're trying to show more data and, you know, from our coaching program, for example, right? How many, how many people lose how many pounds and what's the average and all that stuff. And I think it's really important, but man, if I want to sell, if I want more clients, I get a testimonial and have one of my clients tell a story, right? 

Because that's what leads to. That's what leads to people's spine behavior. Now, you know, I'm not selling something that could be potentially dangerous, although that's arguable, but it's not something that let's say coaching doesn't, let's say, you know, mess with the physiology of a person in an unknown way, right? 

Well, I mean, we, we talk, we, we get our clients to get, you know, We make sure they're cleared for exercise and all that with injuries and all that. But again, it comes back to that thing where yeah, people complain But you know, I think on both sides, right but it's just like I mean for me i'm not gonna stop doing testimonials Because it's anecdotal. 

It's like Hell yeah, I'm going to put those up there because, uh, if I don't make any money, my business is going to go out of business. So it's really tough. And again, that's what causes people to take action. But to your point though, it's one of the goals that I have with this podcast is just to make people a more informed consumer about this stuff, kind of pulling back the curtains and helping. 

Them to understand, like, because, because there's a lot of smart, successful entrepreneurs and high performing professionals that, you know, fall for some BS simply because they're either too busy doing their work and having their family to, let's say, to, to do a deep dive. Right. So who do you go to you, the guy who you trust? 

I mean, gosh, I don't want to, maybe I'll regret saying this, but I think politics is a light, a lot like that too. Uh, you know, like it's, it's like, who is the best salesman who comes across as the most confident and influencers selling supplements and promoting things. Yeah. We just have to, yeah, I think one more thing, and then I want to turn it over to you. 

There was a great point that. I can't remember who made it, but I was reading this article about this Wild wild world we're in right now and they were saying we're not in the information age anymore Like information is just like exponentially Just going crazy. It's really about you know, the trust age or the reputation age, right? 

It's like it we none of us have time to be an expert in everything that we would need to be an expert in Like health and Business and all the other things. So it's like, we need to have experts out there, but you have to really learn who to trust and. Yeah, it's it's it's uh, it's wild times especially with the ai thing. 

I think that's going to complicate it even more Any any follow up to that any thoughts you want to add?  

Gil Carvalho: Yeah, I mean I think about this all the time and I don't know that I have the perfect answer Or i'm pretty sure that I don't have the perfect answer. But Uh, but what i've tried to do essentially with the channel and the content is While i'm showing people the scientific results on some question that they're interested in So for example, we just published a big video on vitamin d and showing them. 

Okay here. Here's what we know Here's how much you need. Here's how much here's where you get it. Here's the dangers of vitamin d supplementation Here's people who should get it These are just people who probably are not going to benefit from vitamin d supplements as we're going through those answers I try to also give people a little bit of the the tools of Understanding why things are the way they are and a little bit of scientific understanding a little bit of the backstage look Because I think this is the problem is people are frustrated that they get a lot of contradictory messages on the internet. 

They, you can find an influencer to tell you anything you want pretty much. And the question is, well, okay, I got someone for each possible message under the sun. Now, what do I do? Some people go with credentials. Some people go with, this guy's telling me what I want to hear. Some people go with, I like this person. 

None of those are great. They're not great heuristics. But of course the irony is, or the, yeah, I mean, you can't go do all this, all the work that would allow you to fact check each person because by the time you do that, you don't need them anymore. Right. Then you know, everything you need to know, you don't need the influencers. 

So you have this, and  

Ted Ryce: your wife is wondering where you are and the kids feel neglected and you know,  

Gil Carvalho: yeah, you're doing nothing else. So. You end up having to rely on some surrogates, but what I try to do is, is impart a little bit of these ideas, and it's surprising how little understanding you have to have a lot of times to fact check most of the content out there just by understanding a few ideas. 

Sometimes just this idea of the storytelling, I harp on that a lot. Here's what is, telling a story sounds like this, showing evidence sounds like this. Yeah, a lot of these, these things that are very, there's three or four tricks on social media that are used over and over and over again. Testimonials is one thing, right? 

So show an anecdote. Uh, instead of, if you show a testimonial to illustrate, but you're backing it up with science, I don't think that's a big deal. But what we often see is people have an idea that is not supported by science, so they show a testimonial or an anecdote to validate their idea, and they ignore it. 

Piles of evidence. So, yeah, just different ways of storytelling of presenting a narrative, which is much more compelling in terms of communication than showing evidence, but I'm trying to give people these tools and it's it's not easy. It doesn't happen overnight because it's it's much harder to get that type of message across then. 

Oh, this food is toxic. This is poison and this is a superfood. That's a message that is sticky, even though it's rarely substantial. So yeah, i'm trying to go the long route, uh, and I don't know if it's gonna work. Um, But I know that what is being what's out there and what was out there when I started making videos that I didn't think was satisfying or Very helpful. 

Ted Ryce: But you got almost 300, 000 subscribers on YouTube.  

Gil Carvalho: Yeah. Surprisingly surprising in most of my interviews, they're like, people actually say, I I'm surprised you get this much, uh, viewership where you get people to click because it's not the typical, every scientist is wrong. You know, everything you've ever heard is, is a lie. 

You know, it's not, it's not that typical thing that gets, that gets a lot of clicks and a lot of attention and a lot of applause. And i'm trying to never do that. And so that's it's slow going but but uh, yeah, I can't complain  

Ted Ryce: same same, I I think I crossed the line a couple times on on twitter with some of the uh, Some of the statements I made I got checked on because i'm up to like 60 almost 65 000 followers on twitter And uh, I I got I got the the physical therapist got mad at me for using The term, uh, shoulder impingement. 

So that was, I actually learned a lot from it and I was, most of them were cool and got the education on, uh, but, but man, it's hard to, it's hard to be on top of everything. I'm like trying to help my clients and mostly reading research about nutrition and behavior change, those types of things, you know, it's really funny, Jill with coaching. 

Most of it's just psychology. So a lot of this stuff, the physiology that people talk about and love to argue about and get into the minutia of it's mostly like, well, I have friends and they like to drink and, um, yeah, I have a hard time, like, you know, modulating my behavior and, you know, it, it's more of these, it's, uh, it's mostly psychological and social, what people deal with. 

That's 80%, maybe even 90 percent what I, what I deal with, because I deal with super intelligent, high performing professionals, either running a business or doctor, attorney, accountant, it's like they can learn the stuff super fast. They just, it's hard to figure out what you should learn if you're just listening to your average, you know, just scrolling social media, scrolling Twitter, Instagram. 

But once you dial things in, they learn it super fast, but it's the rip, like repeating those habits, like tracking calories and tracking. Workouts to make sure they're using progressive overload in a way to build muscle. It's like, it's more psychological and, and again, social or maybe logistical you could use with travel schedule. 

So it's kind of funny. It always, Cracks me up about the stuff that people focus on that said, though, you know, I think you do an amazing job on your channel again, if you're listening right now, nutrition made simple on YouTube, it's just, it's just a really, if you want to take a deep dive into heart health and heart disease and preventing that, you know, some of the other stuff that you cover. 

With, uh, you know, you, you did a video on microplastics a few months ago, the science of satiety, how to lower your blood pressure, just a wealth of information, Jill. I know it's getting a little bit late there in Portugal, so I want to let you go here, but I really appreciate you coming back on today and having this conversation with me. 

Gil Carvalho: Thanks, man. Had a blast. We'll talk again sometime. 

 

Ted Ryce is a high-performance coach, celebrity trainer, and a longevity evangelist. A leading fitness professional for over 24 years in the Miami Beach area, who has worked with celebrities like Sir Richard Branson, Rick Martin, Robert Downey, Jr., and hundreads of CEOs of multimillion-dollar companies. In addition to his fitness career, Ryce is the host of the top-rated podcast called Legendary Life, which helps men and women reclaim their health, and create the body and life they deserve.

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