Ever reached a point of “wellness fatigue”? As much as we love learning about natural health and nutrition and everything in between, everyone has their limit. Somehow, we found ours when it came to the topic of “lectins”.
That changed when we met with renowned heart surgeon, Dr. Steven Gundry, and got our hands on his new book, The Plant Paradox. Dr. Gundry has used a simple, but therapeutic diet on hundreds of patients in his private practice with some pretty astonishing results — and it’s all based on the notion that humans were never intended to eat the plant-based proteins called lectins.
After reading The Plant Paradox cover to cover overnight and trying the diet for a few days ourselves, we can’t shake the notion that the lectin-free way of life might be as big a phenomenon as going “gluten-free” has been over the last five years. Read on to learn more and enter to win the book below…
Q: Before meeting you and reading your book, the topic of “lectins” simply wasn’t a priority. Now it’s at the top of our list. Should a lectin-free diet be the new modern norm?
A: When I did a deep dive with very sophisticated blood tests, the results about lectins’ damaging effects on most people surprised me. Lectins aren’t just a cause of digestive upset or bloating. At a very basic level, lectins are the root of all disease. Why? Because they are the base cause of inflammation as they are designed to attack the body’s cells in order to discourage you from eating plants that make them again. Lectin-free diets or seriously reduced lectin consumption is a prescription for health for all, young and old, food allergic or not. In this country alone, if we all ate a lectin-light diet, the American obesity epidemic would plummet. That’s because lectins also promote fat storage.
Q: Could lectins be the root of the widely varying food sensitivities out there right now? There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the variety — how big a role do lectins play?
A: Not too long ago, no one had a reaction to peanuts even though 94% of all humans have pre-formed peanut antibodies. Ever wonder why food allergies and autoimmune diseases only appeared in the last three to four decades? It’s not that we are sensitive to foods all of a sudden, it’s that our immune system is hyper-sensitized and on high alert from the overdose of lectins and what I call the seven other deadly disruptors mentioned in my new book, The Plant Paradox. Because of these disruptors, the gut wall and the good bugs in our system have been decimated (i.e., leaky gut). Now our immune system is on guard 24/7 and shoots to kill things that it would never be sensitized to in the past.
Q: There are incredible case studies in your book. You’ve helped improve clients’ health from ALS patients to those with dementia by using this diet. It seems too good to be true! Is it?
A: If someone would have asked me if this was possible 15 years ago, I would have laughed them out of the room. As a medical doctor who bases everything on science and research, my patient’s blood work is the proof I needed and the proof required to publish in peer-reviewed articles. In one study on 1000 participants, 800 of them had a family history or personal history of autoimmune disease. Of the 800 patients that followed a lectin-free diet, 100% of the 800 participants had no markers of inflammation within three months!
Also the reverse of this study has happened – this is also in the same study mentioned above. You’ll read in my book several cases where patients inadvertently cheated, eating things like cashews, and then rushed into my office with flare-ups.
It’s quite incredible what avoiding lectins can do. Some of my favorite stories include: a patient with MS in a wheelchair who was able to walk again; an artist with such crippling arthritis he could no longer paint or sculpt, returned to creating art with no pain; a 42-year-old woman with metastatic inflammatory breast cancer that followed my Keto Plant Paradox program and abolished the cancer completely; and so many more success stories.
Q: Where are lectins generally found?
A:Lectins can be found in grains of all kind (especially whole wheat); beans and legumes (especially soy, as it has most of the 7 deadly disruptors); seeds (such as cashews, sunflower, pumpkin, chia, not sesame, etc.); nightshade veggies (eggplant, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers); dairy (avoid dairy products from U.S. cows, consume only Southern European dairy or substitute out sheep/goat milk and cheese); eggs (avoid commercial eggs and eggs labeled “cage-free,” “free-range.” Only eat omega-3 or pastured-raised; meats (eat only pasture-raised proteins. Grain-fed livestock are fed corn/wheat, which are full of lectins.)
