From Wheelchair to Walking: How Dr. Sarah Conquered Multiple Sclerosis (MS) With Her Diet!

welcome to the plant free MD podcast with Dr Anthony chafee where we discuss diet and nutrition and how this affects health and chronic disease and show you how you can use this to optimize your health and happiness both mentally and physically hey everyone it's Dr Anthony chafee again here with another episode of plant free MD and today I am very happy to have my guest Dr Sarah who is a PhD in well we'll let you tell we'll let her tell us what she's a recent PhD doing research and biostatistics and she has a very interesting story to tell with her her case and experience with carnivore and her issues with multiple sclerosis so Sarah thank you very much for coming on thanks for having me I'm I'm a avid listener of the channel and uh really appreciate the opportunity to connect with Dr chafee um hi everyone I have graduate degrees in human sciences and psychology background in behavioral neuroscience and biostatistics I do psycho oncology research with an emphasis in biostatistics and I'm also a part-time psychotherapist so I help people with help individuals couples and families with uh relational and mental health challenges so yeah and so I guess uh Dr chafee should I just kind of get started on you know when I started carnivore yeah no that'd be great yeah yeah let us know yeah when you started and why you started and what sort of improvements you found sure so I've been in the carnivore diet the past six months since October um it was a little bit of an accident or unintentional I should say um I was initially on uh the walls protocol which uh was designed by Dr Terry walls specifically um for Ms which I was diagnosed with last year um and the point of that protocol is to uh address mitochondrial issues and Dr walls uh came up with it and kind of reversed well she reversed um her Mobility symptoms and I I thought to try that so I was doing that and um I had been doing keto before that just for um mostly reproductive health and things like that and I was having a lot of digestive problems on the walls diet there's a lot of vegetables involved and uh it was a high also high fat diet so it was keto um kind of yeah I would say keto lots of coconut milk and olive oil and avocados um and seaweed and different fruits and vegetables so it's kind of a Paleo version of Keto um I guess I would that's how I would describe it and I was having a lot of digestive problems in a lot of pain and eventually I was just feeling really sick like just in my digestive tract nauseous and um I was kind of a little bit at my Wit's End I always in the process of getting connected with the nutritionist at the time and I remember going to the store and thinking I don't feel like I can go near another you know I just I walk through the produce aisle and I was a little bit finished and um uh at the time I so I had never I'd never bought or cooked a steak uh I uh my mom's side of the family is Indian and mostly raised on you know vegetarian some meat like chicken curry dishes and things like that a lot of spices and so I remember going to the meat case at the store and you know I asked the gentleman that was working there you know I said I I've never made this I don't know how to cook this but I think that I can eat it this feels like the only thing I can eat even though I'm not familiar with it I didn't I didn't really understand that um and so I got that and it was I believe it was a rib eye that was like well it's a very large piece of meat and I made it um I realized now that it was really overdone the way that I cooked it um and that was kind of my entry point into carnivore so it was a matter of listening to my body um I also then went to the store and got eggs which I wasn't eating at all and I just was listening to what it seemed like I could eat um I noticed actually after three days of that I the I had like really bad stiffness in my arms from my my elbows down a dexterity things um fine motor things um but I noticed that I had uh pretty immediate relief after three days which I thought was a fluke um but I was in a kind of in a position where so I was it was kind of like this my hands were like this and so I couldn't really go I wasn't able to do that and then after three days I was able to do that kind of from here um and so I thought okay well I'm probably just gonna keep doing this my digestive stuff didn't get better after three days but it didn't get worse um within a few weeks I was had much improvement in back pain symptoms and things like that um and I think it was probably after six to eight weeks I started to really my digestive tract started to feel a lot better um and my walking started to improve so last year when I went to the hospital um I had to have some assistance with walking and they sent me home with the Walker and [Music] um that was that was a very uh eye-opening process because I was I was told that there is you know it looks like I have progressive MS and um so it was a bit of a um I always I think I was probably in shock a little bit um and just kind of process that later um but the carnivore diet was a bit of a paradigm shift for me it has been a paradigm shift for me um I would say I initially kind of felt bad because I was eating cows I just felt I don't I just felt like I was doing something wrong or um I don't I don't have that that sense so much anymore and um I was kind of reflecting on it recently and I think actually the carnivore diets made me a better Steward of the environment and animals which is not something I would have expected um mostly because I'm I'm mindful around you know how is this animal treated that I'm eating and and things like that and um I stay on the grass-fed grass finish beef side of things and Elk mostly um so there's kind of been a lot of surprises as I go things that just things I haven't expected and um I had some supplements to help me at the beginning like bile salts which were really really helpful uh now I don't take those I don't need those and I'm I'm kind of adapted to the diet so um I had initially done that because of a lot of the the digestive pain and I had eventually seen a gastro doctor who said you know seems like you have chronic appendicitis and gallstones and I thought oh my well I'll be keeping my organs so let's start trying to figure out any way to do that um when I found out that the confirmatory test for that involved swallowing Radioactive material and then doing kind of like an x-ray or live x-ray um I didn't go through with the tests uh mostly because I realized I was working really hard to help my digestive tract and I wasn't comfortable swallowing the material the radioactive material um and then I thought you know I'm going to be treating this the same regardless of how it's brought to me diagnostically so I've just kind of continued with the with the nutritionist and um I'm also doing something called the coin drop protocol um it's a high dose vitamin D therapy uh Dr coimbra is a neurologist I believe he's located in Brazil uh and the protocol is primarily used there and I believe in Europe um and I think the study I saw for it um so far in terms of uh it was addressing the Autumn autoimmune diseases maybe it was psoriasis and it was Vitiligo Vitiligo and psoriasis so reversing um reversing those with high high dose uh vitamin D therapy under the assumption that there's a Defector polymorphism on the vitamin D receptor or autoimmune conditions and so if you have an autoimmune condition you may need really high doses it requires a low calcium diet and two to three liters of water a day so um that's under uh physician guidance so I think there's maybe five physicians in America who are trained in that protocol um so I'm using that to address Ms alongside the carnivore diet awesome hey guys just want to take a second to thank our sponsor at carnivore bar I don't promote many products because honestly all you need to be healthy is to just eat meat for those times that you're out hiking road tripping or stuck at work and you want nutritious snack that is just meat fat and salt if you want it the carnival bar is a great option so I like this product not because it's just pure meat but also because I want the carnivore Market to thrive as well and the more we support meat only products the more meat only products there will be available in the mainstream so if this sounds like something you'd like to get behind check it out using my discount code Anthony to get 10 off which also applies to subscriptions giving you 25 off total all right thanks guys and what what uh what dose they have you go on for this protocol um so I started around 40 000 IUS a day and now I'm at 74 000. wow I use the day yeah did you find that that gave it added benefit on top of just the dietary changes that you've had that you've made yeah so after six months it would have been six months of the coinbro protocol and then at that point I was one month into carnivore um my a lot of my spinal cord lesions came back as faded like right and so it was um I think one of my doctors was a little bit you know surprised she said this looks really great Sarah yeah like they put you they put you on this protocol and then they're surprised at work that's a that's a good sign you know yeah so um so I think uh so the coinder protocol I am uh there's a general physician and I think he's trained in also in functional medicine and so he's doing the vitamin D protocol and then kind of uh my neurologist handles the the MRIs and things like that and you know I've been prescribed uh multiple um medications that I am not yet comfortable taking so kind of um would like to further give this a chance a fair chance I should say um before uh determining whether or not something like a disease modifying therapy is is a route that I would want to go yeah well definitely and you know as we were sort of talking about before we started you know there are all these medications and and and that's great if that's your only option but you know if there is another option that's something that you can try then obviously to me even as a doctors when we prescribe this why why wouldn't you try that and why wouldn't you suggest that to your patients you know if there is something hey this this could work and it could save you from being on these medications and there's always always the medications there is a fallback if you don't have that and so that's great um what sort of differences have you noticed on the MRI it's obviously showing clear objective Improvement on your lesions fading but what have you noticed um on just on a personal level from your symptoms yeah I also so I want to just to kind of address that the objective and then yes personally so I also there's some Labs I order separately for myself um and so I've kind of I was very interested in the inflammatory markers kind of before starting the carnivore diet so I did take things like C-reactive protein rheumatoid Factor um Advanced lipid panel things like that I just I kind of wanted to see because when I initially went on the diet I remember thinking am I gonna die if I do this I just eat meat you know I was like am I I don't know what I'm doing you know um but I the way that I was feeling was it was just really awful anyway so um it was it felt like sort of a last resort um so I took those inflammatory markers beforehand and then I recently got them back as um very very improved particularly the um serum IGA um I took that yeah so improved by almost 100 100 points so it was way out of range elevated and so um I was really excited about that and and so because you know with the Science Background the the objective evidence is important to me too yeah definitely so um yeah so that's that's just something else and the same thing with the gut microbiome so I reached recently got back from the nutritionists and she does uh stool samples so you can see everything that's going on and uh a lot of improvement there I had actually had severe E coli before doing carnivore um so which she said would have been more likely from vegetables because I wasn't eating the meats I fish every once in a while um so I got rid of that which I think that kind of clears anyway um you know in a month or so but uh so the GI map um was uh very improved um are you familiar with the and the zanyolin enzyme Dr chafee um second corn what is that well no it's um I might not be pronouncing it correctly uh it's one of the enzymes that's an indicator of the leaky gut so in terms of the Junctions oh the type Junctions yeah yeah and so that was really elevated beforehand meaning you know she said you're kind of your your system is just kind of like this it's open it's letting whatever to your bloodstream and she said leaky gut equals leaky brain uh so she's like we need to you know repair your gut is repairing your gut is Central to you know helping you with MS and and inflammation and keeping inflammation down uh so the zonulin uh came way down after six months of carnivore so it's more normalized and that's an indicator um that those Junctions are healing or working more discriminating in terms of what goes through into the to the bloodstream um that's as far as I understand it so those are several other objective indicators um in terms of I guess quality of life um I've noticed a really it's been really great in terms of improvements in fatigue um so I had some challenges with um sometimes staying awake in the middle of the day regardless of how much sleep I've had Improvement in quality of sleep which is really great it helps fatigue it's kind of a cycle um it's hard to explain the severity of the fatigue with Ms the best way I can describe it is it would be like doing a workout uh if you do cardio it'd be like doing as much cardio as you can do to fail so if you're running running till your legs fell off or whatever Marathon sort of situation um if you were doing a Weight Workout I would just describe it as going to fail so you can't do any more reps kind of situation um and then you know trying to recover after that process alongside what it feels like when you're in kind of stage one sleep so a little bit of a foggy sort of feeling and then your body's kind of Zapped that's what that's how I've experienced the fatigue with Ms um so I just noticed you know with the protocol um and then adequate sunlight has been part of that too getting adequate sunlight in the mornings um I've just noticed uh you know I don't get kind of a crash I also don't need um caffeine which was um it was a very difficult parting for me coffee was very difficult for me to part with um the caffeine was really helpful for me uh for work and maintaining work in in you know the energy that I was needing um the first several weeks is very difficult I didn't know if I was going I wasn't sure I was going to be able to maintain it um but it was also not good on my gastrointestinal system the coffee I noticed particularly after starting carnivore [Music] um and you know I thought well it's plant-based and so I I'm gonna go 100 if I'm gonna try this I'm going to try it 100 so um I haven't had it in several months and my fatigue is is really um really really improved um and I'm a little it's just very unexpected so I I get surprised at multiple turns with the with the pro this protocol that I'm doing so yeah well that's great though and so you you were mostly vegetarian before that is that right yes yeah vegetarians sometimes fish yeah okay and doing that for most of your upbringing is that right or a lot of it yeah we like I said we would have chicken curry and a lot but a lot of dull and vegetable uh sort of uh dishes so yeah I have um some some meat in my past but it's pretty sparing and uh most of my family is is the same way um now still today so it's a sort of a sort of a traditional sort of you know Indian diet that you'd say like that sort of mostly vegetable but Whole Foods it sounds like you guys made your own dishes and things like that and a bit of meat every now yeah I would say I would yes I would describe it as uh Indian and also Whole Foods like my father does uh he does like a Whole Foods plant-based diet he does like a lot of lentils and the so it's it's mixed I guess I would say yeah and then so when she basically came to carnivorebis because you sort of ran out of options on on what you could eat um had you had you come had you come by any information like on the Internet or seen anything about a carnivore Diet before that or was that after no I hadn't I was uh I was actually following uh his name's Dr Berg he's like a keto he talks about health keto um and I thought oh wow this is great it's helping uh you know with my reproductive menstrual cycle I started doing intermittent fasting and things like that and I was like oh wow that made everything normal and so um yeah and then I I started doing keto and I noticed I was like wow I've had because I I had fatigue before um I've had MS symptoms for over 10 years I I didn't you know that they said that uh some of the neurologists said that it seemed like I've had this for a long time it just wasn't diagnosed and so I had been diagnosed with um with other like chronic fatigue and Hashimoto's those sorts of things um which were pretty you know pretty improved after I got rid of gluten so I have a long history of kind of trying um dietary things to to improve um but yeah so oh good yeah well that's the interesting thing too you were already doing keto and you know which can have huge benefits for so many different things I'm I'm a big fan of just that whole idea um but it's did you find that that helped well you said it helped your your reproductive issues um your hormonal issues did it did it help any of the with the chronic fatigue and those sort of symptoms that were later attributed to the MS um well to be quite Frank not the same um it wasn't the same so I I think I just I probably just don't do very well with carbohydrates or sugars or you know things like that so I still had some bloating and things and you know it was much better but it now that now that I'm on Carnivore I didn't realize how great it could be if that makes sense so I thought I was like okay keto's kind of it and this is probably as well as I can do with it and um carnivore is just I was like oh okay wait so this is that kind of the end point so it really helped me realize that but no I hadn't I was following Dr Berg and a few other Dr Westman and there's uh Jason Fung I think I think that's the same but um a lot of yeah a lot of the keto the keto doctors um so I hadn't no I hadn't heard about carnivore so I was like oh okay this looks kind of dangerous and then it's like a lot of meat like cows and so um but it turns out um I'm experiencing it as a lot safer than what I was doing yeah and that's yeah that's that's the thing too I think that the keto Community is is very is probably a very good group to talk to about these sorts of things because they already understand that hey some some of the things that we're eating are causing a lot of problems and they see it firsthand remove the carbohydrates things get better in a lot of ways also you're eating Whole Foods generally you're avoiding processed garbage which is Rife with carbs and sugar and so there are a lot of benefits from that so they understand that hey I changed the way I eat I make a big difference and then just impressing upon them that there are other things in that mix as well that can that can cause a problem too and and then they you know some of them maybe are having you know ongoing issues maybe it hasn't helped everything and they just try that next step and like like you said it's just like I didn't realize how good it could be and so I think that's um I think it's it's a it's a well it's a progression that a lot of people are making and and having good results with which is great yeah and I yeah I completely agree I think it's the more the the maybe the keto and the carnivore Community can um maybe kind of stay connected I think that's probably the best and you know it can get kind of tribal if what what's more accurate which one's better and I I tend not to go there I just try to you know learn what I can from you know whoever the speaker is um so yeah I I definitely would agree with that and I think you know I'm I hope you know I'm planning that that you know to to keep doing this I I didn't think I would be doing I was like six months later it was just kind of a desperate sort of situation when I went to the grocery store and you know now I'm making steak and just learning about different cuts of meat and and so it's just not something I ever thought that I would be doing it wasn't planned and um they don't have any real interest in um introducing different things at this time I I haven't felt that it's necessary and I I don't want to lose what I you know just things I've gained so I have some concerns around you know if I try to put fiber or something like that back into my diet um you know what's gonna happen and so I still you know I'm I still certainly have um MS symptoms but I don't have them with the severity that I have I mean I was having trouble walking last year I fell three times I I wasn't injured but I had three Falls um I haven't had any this year I'm I'm back to to dancing ballet um which I I stopped at College yeah so I'm trying to you know I'm getting my flexibility back and um I I you know I don't have that yet completely and um there's still you know certain things that happen with my legs um but uh and sensory things but it's just it's really really dialed down and in a way that um I I wouldn't have anticipated because of the progression of things and how how bad they were getting um just with fine motor skills and and you know difficulty walking and falling and things like that um so I wasn't expecting to be here I mean it's been it's been 11 months since um yeah since I was having those initially went to the hospital it's been a 11 months hasn't even been a year um so yeah it's it's quite a uh quite a difference and I'm I'm sure that the high dose vitamin D therapy you know alongside that has been useful I know there's some conflicting science on that um which you know I don't um I I certainly have some things to say regarding how those studies were done and so I I support the the high-dose vitamin D therapy definitely great well I mean it's a huge Testament you know going from having difficulty walking having a number of Falls to now being just able to do ballet you know I mean most people can't do I can't do ballet you know so and um you know but but being able to progress like that is is amazing and it really is six months you know less than a year anyway but six months of this of this protocol that you've been on anyway or or have you been so it's been maybe 11 months since you started the vitamin D therapy and then sort of six months since you've been on Carnivore is that right that's a massive Improvement especially with with nerves because they just grow so slow and they heal so slow and you know it's not like a broken bone or something like that that can heal in a matter of weeks or months it's uh it's a lot longer than that yeah I right and I and it's so interesting because you know I I really wonder about things with the like absorbing the vitamin D and how the carnivore diet has helped potentially helped that um just through healing um healing the digestive tract you know when I was in the hospital I had been on was I on 50 I was on 50 or 60 000 I use at that time in my vitamin B levels came back normal like in the middle and I was like yeah I'm taking 60 times the amount that and so I don't know if if the body's just using that in the setting of inflammation or if it I don't know if the absorbency I don't know what was going on with that um that I was on 80 000 IUS and then uh the level used to determine um you know which dose you'll be on is actually the parathyroid so it's meant to be um brought down I think to six or seven does that has something to do with calcium um and so for active Ms it would be between six and seven and um you know the the doctor was like oh you're you you know you went past we actually have to take you you need less vitamin D now and I thought oh well that that's strange I wonder if I'm absorbing it better now on Carnivore what what's going on that that level over there is kind of passed where I needed to be um and so yeah I went from 80 000 to now 174. so yeah well that's really great and yeah and it's funny too because the levels that we look at for vitamin D in the normal reference range is already too low because they're just the averages for you know the population that the average person is low vitamin D and so you know if you're if you're in the middle of that range that means you're probably too low and on that much that much vitamin D it's uh that I think there's definitely something going on uh you know that's uh absorption issue or a utilization issue and and so healing that with with carnivore and I'm sure there are many other contributory things in just eating meat you're getting all the other nutrients that you need you're getting vitamin you know B12 I mean that's really important for for your neurons and your axons and and then remyelinating these damaged lesions and and then just eliminating out all of these things that could be contributing towards the precipitation of the further damage and and antibodies and things like that and we see that in the clinic we see that in the labs where I mean even specifically for Hashimoto's you know you can track people's antibodies and you just you just see them coming down they just creep down and creep down and creep down on a carnivore diet now the other things help too but I've seen it work very dramatically with a carnival diet have those of those antibodies just come down and and you know it takes a while uh for for everything to resolve or if they've resolve not everyone completely resolves but everyone improves and you know it can take a while for the body to heal and um you know it's just it's just amazing that um that we can even do this at all because this was heretofore thought that this is just Progressive and it just gets worse and it's not a fun thing to have you know you were saying before that this is something that people put a lot of weight on and think that this is a very very heavy diagnosis and and uh you know you were saying uh you know that you you didn't think of it that way is that right yeah I mean I know um my grandmother was that you know she she eventually didn't walk she's a Leo's chair and um you know my uncle is is doing fine um with his Ms managing um and he's he's walking he doesn't have any assisted devices so I know it's different for everyone um but yeah I did notice kind of you know there's when you say Ms there's kind of shutters you know and it and versus saying something like yeah I have diabetes or and you know it's you look at the literature that's actually more dangerous if you're talking about death I mean um so it's uh but I mean Ms certainly um it's can be very debilitating but I I look at it like um you know we have a body and we have choices around what we can make uh you know for the most part some people have fewer choices that's certainly the case um but I think for me you know making certain choices I'm I think of it as you know I want to optimally position my body to do well if I'm abusing it with thing toxins and things like that um you know that's that's gonna slow it down or you know harm something um and you know it just seems like with carnivore I haven't had you know I'm not concerned about toxins other than uh personally for me going outside of the grass fed um I'm not comfortable with that just because of the the um the fatty acid difference like the three and the six difference for bad animals and um but I haven't found it to be expensive it was a lot it's a lot less expensive than what I was doing you know don't like you know going out to eat it's that's that's not really a thing sometimes I'll just get a steak or something um so uh yeah I'm I definitely I would tend to agree on my conference so just not it's nice to have uh it's really nice to have choices and and kind of work um with my body versus against it um and it's kind of been it's actually been like a really which I was again I wasn't expecting but it's been really like a spiritual uh experience because I'm like you know I'm taking care of myself and and I'm very intentional about that and it just made me more mindful of certain things um and you know so there there's a lot of different you know and I did like meditations and I've done meditations and and prayers throughout this process and you know I thought if I'm not supposed to be doing this then there should be an indicator of it right so um but I I also think that the way that animals were designed you know the further we get away deviate from treating them how they're meant to be treated which is keeping them their natural environments with their natural diets which is not soy and corn and all of these things um then they are healthier and then I'm consuming them and I'm healthier so it's there's a there's a lot of events going on in this process and um I I wasn't I really wasn't expecting to acquire that much from it so something that went from a last resort uh situation that I'm doing six months later and having improvements and dancing again and being a better Steward to animals and the environment it was just that one it's just not something I would have predicted and that's part of my job is what I do is predict things so yeah but you know you need you need the right data set to be able to predict things you know you can only you can only predict things if you have if you have the information and now you have a lot more information to work with yeah a lot more information so I definitely encourage people um you know if particularly if they're having trouble and um it's of interest to them you know uh you know I I don't know what exactly what you have to lose you might have something to lose I don't know because I don't know you but I you know you may find it wonderful um just paying off of sugar and carbohydrates and it's hard to argue with um you know the idea that you don't need there's no such thing as an essential carbohydrate yeah it's essential fats and proteins so that's it I've gotten some questions and some brow raises about not having salads and things like that so essential essential leaves I guess definitely yeah um yeah that's the thing you know I mean people may have something to lose just their you know sometimes social aspects you know the the having freedom of eating anything even sometimes people have their their identity sort of wrapped up in this and they've been you know eating vegetarian or culturally vegetarian or vegan for a number of years or most of their life and and that's something that they have to give up but you can gain a lot too and you know even just just seeing if there's more to gain than you would lose is I think worth it I mean I've gained so much more than I've lost I don't look at anything uh that I've that I've had to give up as as a loss I don't I don't see it as giving up I intentionally pushed it away I said I don't want that anymore because I I want to feel like this I want to be as healthy as I possibly can be and I know what's in there and I know I don't want it and so you know I I think that we have a relationship with food as we do with with drugs sometimes is that we go for that well it makes me feel good I enjoy the experience of it so even if it's bad you know it's not that big of a deal uh we we sort of have that our argument with with drugs you know what makes me feel good it makes me have a good time and I enjoy that and that adds something to my life and there's something to be said for that but if it's at a cost and for me personally it's not it's not worth the cost and some people will say it's very restrictive but I don't think it's restrictive I don't feel restricted at all I don't look at anything except for like the first two weeks I was looking at things that oh I can't do that I can't eat that after that I just didn't care because I felt so much better I felt much more free you know and and what I tell people is well isn't it so restrictive and I said no Ms is restrictive not being able to walk is restricted diabetes is restrictive having to take pills four times a day and injections four times a day that's restricted you know aging early not being able to have kids not being able to play with your grandkids having to go to a nursing home having your brain degrade and develop Alzheimer's and Dementia when you should have another 40 Years of healthy vigorous life that's restrictive I think that's the most restrictive thing eating this way is liberating it's one of the most liberating things I've ever come across yeah and you know I think it just depends on how people think about that right I I would certainly agree with that and because you know what's been liberating is okay I have improvements in my Mobility I don't have um digestive pain um my energy levels really improved uh throughout the day I usually start out really great and then I kind of around two o'clock it's just limited reserves kind of situation um they describe Ms as an accelerated aging process um which I think definitely makes sense but I also thought about well what goes into aging okay cellular death okay well what goes into that when the in you know when you you keep asking the whys kind of a root cause analysis um and you keep asking the whys around you know mitochondrial functioning and things like that you know dietary is is huge I think and and I agree with you I don't think it's restrictive um you know it it could be viewed as extreme but I think from the other side I view it as you know what's extreme is how far Society has deviated from um what I believe is sensible for humans so with all of the the synthetics and things you know that we can't pronounce that are put into the Foods um and then you know there's a heavy Reliance on um Pharmaceuticals which certainly makes sense for some people um but a lot of these things I believe are are you know reversed um partially if not completely with with dietary Lifestyle Changes um but just in what's in the water and and and things like that the the EMF blue light oh there's we're up against a lot of different environmental toxins that you know even from 50 years ago have changed and and so I think what's extreme is the societal changes not not the diet I think the the diet or the the carnivore lifestyle um I personally think that I need that now more than ever based on the toxins that I'm surrounded with that have have come into the environment or the things that um that are more you know we're more readily able to be harmed by um so I don't I don't think the diet is Extreme it's the deviations that have occurred in society I believe are extreme and require this at least um for me so that's just that's just how I look at it why yeah I I definitely agree we've gone a long way from you know um from Hippocrates teaching his medical students under a tree out in the out in the field in costs and uh Pythagoras uh have not teaching anyone unless they were fasted and eating well and things like that and and people being outside and being outdoors and and being you know part of the world we're all just enclosed in a box with a bunch of artificial light which and I remember hearing since I was a kid is like oh that can't be good for you you know and uh and now we're sitting like oh yeah you know it actually isn't good for you you know yeah and so it's um yeah I think you're I think you're right that the deviation from the norm is is uh much much more restrictive and and strange too and it's something that because we're just we're you know this generation of people in the general you know most people have just been born into this this is just normal and we didn't realize yeah and so we don't we don't realize that this is not how the entirety of humanity lived or the rest of History you know this is this is new and so we're dealing with new challenges that we don't even realize are there yet yeah yeah definitely new challenges and um you know it's interesting when you think about ancestrally you know because I've listened to to Paul saladino and um uh don't I don't think I've I've reviewed him enough to fully understand why he includes the other Foods um but you know I would guess that we would have some fruits and things like that along the way sparingly if they were found or something like that but not in any sort of regular way you know um so it's it's interesting um just ancestrally to consider okay well what makes the most sense but situating an ancestral diet in a modern time there there could be um I guess there could be elements that need to be revised like I know for me I need to um I do because I don't like organ meat um but I really I really want the vitamin A my vitamin A level is it's it's normal but it's it's at the lower end um and so I take uh I get like the freeze-dried whatever the the capsules are the liver and the actually open them because I don't want the capsule it's like just keep capsules away from my appendix um so I noticed that they just it's irritating to take you know having certain supplements and so um but I just kind of fold them into ground beef as if it was the spice like that I'm like something that I'm mixing in with salt and it's not so bad um let me know first for the organ Meats I think that I probably need those right now or the the vitamin A that that's coming from them but maybe not everybody does on the carnivore diet so you know there's really no rdas around this yeah yeah not yet anyway and you know I mean that's what some people do is they'll they'll chop up like like ground beef but they'll ground up some liver in it as well and you don't really taste that because it's all just mixed in and that can be very helpful and and cheaper than buying supplements and things like that and yeah and yeah I'd agree with you with the fruit I'm sure people did eat fruit occasionally but it was it was different kinds of fruit we've bred these things to be intensely sweet the natural you know ancestors of you know the apple and the mango are very different very different fruits and so they have much less sugar in them and also you know I I always think about about like yeah sure maybe during in between ice ages you know we weren't having we had more access to fruit and you know occasional whatever but a lot of our existence and a lot of our history what we're during ice ages and there there were none of these things available and so you know if we needed them if they were necessary then we wouldn't have made it or at least those people wouldn't have made it people think well maybe we just came closer to the Equator well that's I mean that's a fine Theory and all but it goes directly against all of the fossil records when the ice cells started coming down our answers started going up they started going into the ice and presumably because that's where the megaphone it was that's where the their their prey were and and they Thrive you can't you can't survive an Ice Age without without thriving you either Thrive or you go extinct those are the two options and so if we were just you know low thyroid and pretty crummy and people were just sort of sick and and you know just just you know needed you know all these uh you know different fruits and carbs and things like that again going back to there is no such thing as an essential carbohydrate so if there's no such thing as essential carbohydrate then we obviously don't need carbohydrates to optimize our hormone optimize everything else because there non-essential we don't need them and I think it's clear from that you know that we did survive the ice ages that we obviously didn't need them because you cannot survive those conditions unless you are doing really really really well and you know by all accounts they were they were you know they're little people taking down mammoths that's difficult especially when you're dealing with sticks you have sticks and you know sharpened sticks and rocks to deal with a mammoth and so you know I think it's I think it's pretty impressive and it's a testament to their health and they're on average they were six foot two six foot four in some areas on average these were big big people big strong healthy adults that lived very healthy strong dangerous hard lives and you you can't do that unless you're you're really really thriving yeah I agree no I completely agree with you and I think my you know one comment is on that with you know around things with dance and stuff I'm like wow my so I've I was you know the small thin child and so um I think I I lost a little bit of weight on Carnivore um and I but I noticed like muscle in terms of just starting to do like more targeted exercise things particularly for dance and I'm like wow you it's the response is very quick the muscle like building is very quick I'm like okay well that's great you know I um so that that's been helpful and and kind of also not getting so caught up with okay we're you know weight ranges because um you know the dot I started to pay attention to that when the positions were like you need to you know you need to put on like 10 pounds you know you're you don't weigh enough and I'm like well I feel good it's like I feel good and I'm I'm sort of thinking you know I'm in America in you know a lot of people are overweight here so are they just thinking I look smaller or like that I'm smaller and I'm like just metabolically healthy I was trying to figure out you know because I'm like I'm in my range just way at the low end of it um and so but I noticed with more targeted exercise I'm like oh okay it's it's I am putting on like able to put on muscle mass and like much quicker than you know it in a way like lean muscle mass and it's a little I'm a little surprised because um I I don't think I was I wasn't expecting that I thought oh well that's a true Testament to how you know your body physique is really a lot of it is your diet you know and so um I noticed with carnivore I'm like well it doesn't take much to get etched so so you know so be it sort of situation um and get you know I thought keto I thought it was keto I'm like oh there's really definitely a reduction in like the visceral fat the carnivore was like well this is pretty much all of it's gone now so it's uh that's been really interesting and it wasn't uh those weren't goals of mine it was just a byproduct um you know and it's hard to be able to have somebody speak to that because people are so unfamiliar with with what's going on and some of the people Healthcare Providers just have expressed concern and you know about cholesterol and and so I I don't get into arguments with people about the science um usually if somebody is making has a concern about cholesterol um that's an indication to me that they probably haven't reviewed the science um so there's there's not really a much I I don't know how much there wouldn't be necessarily a debate there um but then I I just kind of let them know like oh you know I just thank them thanks for your concern and we all watch it sort of situation and I'll continue to review the science I just tell them that so um yeah so trying to be diplomatic about it yeah well that's you know that's good too and and um maybe just uh a last question you know being having your academic background and being a boss a professional biostatistician Who as a living you go through these studies and you dissect them and the data or you go through the data and dissect them to then put this out in studies um and you presumably have gone through the the studies for cholesterol and uh do you have any do you have any quick thoughts on that um yeah and so I definitely do a lot of uh in the uh psycho oncology you do certainly do a lot of biostatistics and so yeah and I have I have a focus in in the applied data analysis and applied data science so um yeah I've reviewed uh the research on cholesterol and um I you know it's very interesting uh to look at because you know I found I think a handful of studies on you know the small particle LDL as as potentially as as dangerous but I haven't I haven't found um what I would consider um you know um reliable evidence regarding uh you know the dangers of high cholesterol it's actually there's some studies where it's more protective it can be dangerous to have lower cholesterol um and so uh and you know some evidence around um you know higher cholesterol lower cancer rate you know sort of situations and so um and I know the the small small particle of the yellow is uh you know that's that's coming from it's not coming from meat as far as I can see I don't see sufficient evidence or any evidence for that at this time um so yeah let's see yeah well it's good too I mean so it's always good to get get other sets of eyes on these sorts of things because that was certainly my impression from the literature and and you know the pressure of other peoples but you know you you coming at this from an outside you were you come from a vegetarian background and and sort of came to this by you know by by by chance you sort of had to sort of force into it and so you didn't have any you know preconceived sort of Notions or biases uh you didn't listen to a bunch of people and say okay well I'll think what they think and then go into it you sort of did this and we're like oh crap all right this is this is the only way I can eat I should look into this and am I gonna die like you said earlier like is this gonna kill me you know so you know it at that point you're looking at this going like this might be dangerous I need to I need to look into this and so coming from that standpoint or from that mindset and finding oh actually no I don't think this is dangerous at all I think this is actually good for me is great uh you know to to get that uh you know extra set of eyes on it yeah definitely yeah my bias was in the other direction like oh no red meat we're not supposed to eat cows or thing you know red just meat you know yeah cause cancer and now I won't go near a chicken so right I'm also yeah yeah well cool well Sarah thank you so much for coming on it was an absolute pleasure and I'm so glad to hear that you're doing so well and I'm sure you'll just keep doing better and better and better and hopefully this just is just a blip on the radar and it just goes away and never never rears its head again that's the Hope thank you Dr chafee for what you do I appreciate you well thank you very much all right I'll see you bye now hey guys thank you very much for taking the time out to listen to what I had to say if you like it then please like And subscribe to my YouTube channel and podcasts and if you're on YouTube then please hit that little bell and subscribe and that'll let you know anytime I have a new video out which should be every week if not more and if you can share this with your friends that would help me get the word out and let me know that you like what I'm doing thanks again guys foreign [Music]