Many thanks for your emails, reviews and tweets of appreciation of my latest run of episodes on maximising your metabolic health with Prof Tim Noakes, Graham Philliips and Tucker Goodrich.

I’m delighted to spoil you now with none other than Ben Bikman, bioenergetics PhD, superstar scientist.

He is it when it comes to researching the role of insulin and fat cells in what he calls the Plagues of Prosperity – “The human race is eating itself into metabolic disarray”.

He has his own obesity and metabolism research lab at Brigham Young University.

We get into all of it – the Prof Ben Bikman motherlode and then some. He kindly goes off piste, giving me a hugely personal masterclass on menopause, pregnancy, puberty, miscarriage, estrogen and metabolic rates.

You’ll learn:

• How insulin resistance is the root cause of modern chronic diseases
• “The key to metabolic flexibility is getting insulin sensitive and allowing the body to shift between [sugar-burning and fat-burning] fuels”
• Why we all need to care about our insulin levels, even in our 20s and 30s
• How insulin fertilizes fat cells and those secrete problematic hormones
• Why “hunger always wins”  if your get-healthier strategy is eating lots of carbs and counting calories
• Glucagon and why protein doesn’t mean trouble if you keep your blood sugar low
• What fat and leptin have to do with infertility – “Fat is essential to human fertility”
• We also talk puberty, pregnancy, menopause, estrogen, metabolic rates, vegan ideology – “A purely vegan diet is incompatible with human survival” – and the “absolutely laughable and harmful” push to manufacture protein alternatives from plants and from animal cells – “I grow muscle cells in my lab.. that is a shockingly intensive process that involves a myriad of chemicals, hormones included”

What a guy. So much knowledge shared with so much clarity, charisma and humility. You’ll understand why his students adore him and why you’ll want to listen to this one more than twice. Enjoy!

Please view the information in this episode as only that; it should not be construed as medical advice. Go to your GP or family doctor for that.

Links

• Ben’s new book Why We Get Sick
• Ben on “Insulin v Glucagon: The relevance of dietary protein” – from 2018’s Low Carb Down Under
• PCOS in young women + mild insulin resistance
• Fasting respiratory exchange ratio and resting metabolic rate as predictors of weight gain: the Baltimore Longitudinal Study on Aging
• That “moment of weakness” Cold Cereal Lesson video
• InsulinIQ
• The Clean Label Project
• Ben on Twitter

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• Hosted + produced by Susan Flory
• Music: “Beautiful Day” by Sahin Koc