SHAWN STEVENSON: Welcome to the Model Health Show. This is fitness and nutrition expert, Shawn Stevenson, and I'm so grateful for you tuning in with me today. There's all this talk about longevity, all the things that you should eat and drink and do to live as long and healthy life as possible. But what about the opposite? What are the things that you should eat if you want to guarantee a shorter lifespan? If you want to live as short and unhealthy life as possible, what are the five things that you should eat and drink on a regular basis? That's what we're going to cover right now. 

First up, approximately 20 percent of the calories that the average American takes in is in liquid form. What you drink has a huge impact on how long you're going to live. And there's one beverage that puts a slippery wet puddle right next to an early grave. And that beverage is soda. Here's the reason that soda is coming in at number one on our list. A huge meta analysis was published in 2020 titled, Association of Consumption of Sugar Sweetened Beverages or artificially sweetened beverages with mortality. The scientists scoured all of the leading sources for peer reviewed data in search of the most well constructed longitudinal studies and what they found was shocking. 11 cohort studies that included nearly 1 million people found that each serving of sugar sweetened beverage someone consumed daily significantly increased their risk of early death.

Soda was, of course, the most notable drink in this category, but this also included fruit drinks, energy drinks, and vitamin water drinks containing added sugars. There was a clear dose response relationship. The more you drank this stuff, the more likely you were to die prematurely. Now, one of the most eyebrow raising, I'm talking about the rock style eyebrow raising. Parts of this study was the relationship that was uncovered between artificially sweetened beverages and early death. A small amount of these beverages consumed actually lowered mortality, lowered the risk of early death. But even moderate up to large amounts of artificially sweetened drinks saw rates of early death skyrocket.

The scientist concluded, "higher sugar sweetened beverages and artificially sweetened beverage intakes were associated with higher risk of all cause mortality and cardiovascular disease mortality". Again, drinking soda, especially the run of the mill types, but even if it's artificially sweetened. If you want to live a shorter life, go ahead and keep drinking these things on a regular basis. There's something nefarious about them. And we know this. We already know this culturally. But they're so seductive. They're so delicious. There's so much variety. There's so many types. But this category of so called nutrition, of so called human beverages, is deleterious to human health.

It is harming us and another one of these reasons why is that we know that being overweight. And in particular obesity is one of the leading conditions that increase our all cause mortality, and drinking soda goes hand in hand with excessive amounts of body fat. And this is being ignited in younger and younger populations, right along with our shortened lifespan. A shortened lifespan very often is due to what's happening earlier on in our lives, the choices that we're making. A recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association that included over 400,000 kids found that consuming just one soda, just one soda or more each day dramatically increases the rate of being overweight or obese in children.

The process of obesity is taking hold of our lives, of our children's lives, earlier and earlier, in shortening our lifespans. And again, switching to a "diet soda" is likely going to land you in a similar place based on the study that we covered previously. But why? Artificial sweeteners don't tinker with your blood sugar? They don't elevate your blood sugar. They don't elevate insulin. Why would this lead to the same results? Well, another recent clinical trial involving 17 obese test subjects who did not regularly consume artificial sweeteners, found that the artificial sweetener sucralose elevated their blood sugar levels by 14 percent and elevated their insulin levels by 20 percent on average.

We are utilizing these newly invented synthetic sweeteners to try to trick our biology, but our biology is shouting back. It's not easily fooled. And having something that's shooting up our blood sugar when they're telling you this doesn't do that, getting insulin going. What metabolic scientist Dr. Ben Bickman shared with us right here on the model health show was that our bodies simply cannot burn fat when insulin is active. Insulin is our body's primary energy storage hormone. Fat storage hormone. And when it's active, it's got one job to do. And so we could be taking in a "diet soda", hoping that we're gonna get our blood sugar reduced, that we're going to reduce insulin levels, that hey, these things shouldn't even be shooting up because these are "non glycemic sweeteners".

Well, guess what? The data is out and more is on the way that we cannot trick our biology that easily. Drinking these ultra processed beverages littered with all kinds of other toxic chemicals is one of the things that is shortening our lifespan. So the question should be, at this point, well, what should I drink? I like the bubbly. I like the fizzy. I like the flavor. It's a part of my nostalgia. My childhood. Have a coke and a smile. The Pepsi Challenge, alright? And there's some Dr. Pepper fans out there as well. It's got all the herbs and spices. But Dr. Pepper's not a doctor. I promise you. As a matter of fact, if Dr. Pepper's a doctor, it's more Closely related to maybe like a Dr. Kevorkian type. 

That's an Easter egg for all the adults out there that have been around for a while. Now, what do we do? Number one, let's at minimum, keep the consumption of sodas to an extremely rare situation. You know, a couple times here or there, special event, special outing. But we want to make it the exception and not the rule. We definitely do not want to consume this stuff on a regular basis. It's just delivering a rapid intake of refined sugar or again, these artificial sweeteners and there's noted carcinogens. There are noted obesogens that come along with these ultra processed beverages.

We want to keep this stuff at a minimum and keeping in mind that, that's easier said than done because many of these sodas are addictive. And we know this. There are certain ingredients that are noted to be addictive for our biology. So if you want to drink something, if it's like, well, what do I drink? I'm thirsty. Listen, let's just be 1000 first and foremost. If you're thirsty, drink some water. Okay. Water is what we're designed to drink. We've evolved drinking. Most of our body is made of water. Yes, there is some water that's coming along with that soda, but there's a whole lot of other nonsense that's coming along with it.

So, agua, first and foremost, make that the beverage of choice. I'm just that guy. People at the table might be getting a little drink, little, little, little Mai Tai, little, you know, whatever. Little soda, juices, whatever. I'm, water please. I'm good with some water. And if we want the bubbliness, of course you can go for the sparkling water. Now I know this might sound like the no fun police, okay? I get it. I get it. But if we are allowed to make a choice and to have some strategy, you know. It would be better served if we have some, for example, some flavored liquid stevia drops and adding that to some sparkling water to give it a little pizzazz.

You know, it can help to quench that fizzy feel that we're looking for, but also add some flavor. And there are also some companies that are stepping up in making sodas with some better ingredients. Now again, you've got to be careful because there's a lot of sketchiness in the soda industry, but you know, it's happening. There are better options. But most importantly, again, make sure that we're hydrating ourselves with water and there's a class of beverages that do the opposite of what soda does. It's a type of beverage that's been associated with a longer lifespan. In fact, a study published just last year in 2024 found that people who regularly drink tea age slower than those who do not.

And there are so many varieties of tea that are teeming with health benefits, from green tea to rooibos tea to ginger tea and more. And speaking of anti aging and anti obesity effects, a study published in the journal, clinical interventions in aging took 59 overweight or mildly obese subjects to see if a tea, a renowned tea, has been utilized for centuries called Pu erh, makes a notable difference in weight loss. The randomized, double blind, placebo controlled trial randomly put participants to either receive a placebo or Pu erh for a 20 week study period. There were no other interventions noted, and here's what happened, "Consumption of Puerh was associated with statistically significant weight loss compared to the placebo. Fat loss was seen for arms, legs, and the hip and belly region". 

The participants who received Puerh lost more overall body fat and, what was especially remarkable, they maintained their lean mass. They maintained their muscle. This is something that is truly remarkable and it's been utilized for centuries. It's natural. It's real. And again, people who drink tea age slower than everybody else. This is a resonance with the human body. And if you're interested in Pu erh, there's only one Pu erh tea that I drink. And actually, this is the tea that I drink most often. In general, I drink Pu erh most often. The only one that I drink is a triple toxin screen for purity.

SHAWN STEVENSON: It's made through a patented cold extraction technology. And it's wild harvested. Making it truly the best Pu erh on earth. And you can get your hands on some too. Head over and check out the Pu erh from Pique Life. Go to Piquelife.com/model right now. And you'll receive up to 20 percent off plus some limited time free bonuses like an electric frother and beaker to mix your favorite beverages. I travel with my frother. I literally just got back from out of the country. I brought my frother with me. I don't want to be up in the hotel room trying to whip things up with a fork. So, I love my frother. You can get a frother as a free bonus right now.

Again, go to Piquelife.com/model. That's P I Q U E L I F E.com/model to get hooked up with the very best pu erh in the world. And Pique Teas have a risk free 30 day money back guarantee. You either love it or you get a full refund. So again, head over to check them out to start more intentionally drinking the beverage that has been found in study after study to help humans to age more slowly. All right. So again, number one on this list of foods and beverages to go ahead and have on a regular basis, if you want to live a shorter life, number one is soda. 

We're going to move on to number two on our list. And number two on this list of foods to shorten your lifespan to help you to live as unhealthy as possible is consuming ultra processed meat substitutes. Now this one hits home for me personally because when I was going through all the iterations, working in this field for about 22 years now. All the iterations in Diet Frameworks and having that time period, years, where I was eating primarily vegan plant foods, primarily raw vegan foods for a time period, there was a welcomed time when I had alternatives to have the foods that I loved but they were made from les plants. 

Alright, so I loved having a good sandwich. Alright, look, a nice sub sandwich. A nice submarine. Right, sub is short for submarine. A nice submarine sandwich. And I can get these slices that were made from tofu. Supposedly, it's called tofurkey. Tofurkey. So instead of the turkey, we got the tofu turkey put together. Brilliant. All right. So now, it sounds all good on the surface to match my, my diet framework and the perception of what was going to be healthier. But let me share with you the ingredients of their plant based smoked ham deli slices, one of my favorites. This includes water, vital wheat, gluten, tofu.

SHAWN STEVENSON: There is some tofu in there. Expeller press canola oil. Wheat protein, cane sugar, color, tapioca starch, sea salt, yeast extract, natural flavor, carrageenan, potassium chloride, natural smoke flavor, white vinegar, gluco delta lactone, sunflower oil, cone jack, celery seed, lactic acid, clove oleoresin. Just to get some slices. All right. This food, although I was trying to eat this for better health, this food is the very definition of an ultra processed food. It no longer has any essence of anything real. And let me share why this makes the list. The lead cause of early death in the United States is heart disease. In a collaborative study conducted by researchers at Yale, the University of Missouri, and others, titled, Our Hidden Enemy, Ultra Processed Foods, Inflammation, and the Battle for Heart Health, detailed how ultra processed foods contribute to oxidative stress, inflammation, and endotoxemia that dramatically increases the risk of cardiovascular disease.

One aspect of the study that included over 105, 000 people found that people with the highest ratio of ultra processed foods in their diet had nearly a 30 percent greater incidence of developing heart disease than those who ate the lowest amount. Now this matters so much because according to an analysis cited in the BMJ, over 60 percent of the average American's diet, it's now made of ultra processed food. Specifically the average American adult, because for children, that number is far higher. According to JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, nearly 70 percent of the average U. S. child's diet is now made of ultra processed foods. And we can have the illusion that, hey, I'm not eating a typical deli slice, ham, turkey, bologna, whatever the case might be, I'm eating the plant version, right? 

This is made from plants. It's ultra processed through and through with all of these different ingredients to make the appearance of the thing that we're familiar with. And the question should be, why am I so attracted to these deli slices? And I'm telling myself I can't have it. Oh, but they're making these fake deli slices. Fake hot dogs. Fake thanksgiving turkey, the tofurkey. We had the mound. All right, we had the mound of tofurkey meat. Well, I don't know if you call it meat, but we had the mound of this ultra processed product for the holiday thinking that this is more healthy.

Now, let's dig in deep on why this matters because this isn't a plant versus animal food thing. This is an ultra processed food thing in a recent report from the USDA detailed the overall calorie sources in the American diet and revealed an interesting phenomenon. Over a 10 year time span the average person's calorie consumption here in the United States actually went down. But for some strange reason, our rates of obesity and being overweight went up. What? It just doesn't make any sense. Now, we can explain it away that we're moving less during this time span as well, but exercise rates have remained relatively stable. As a matter of fact, they've gone up multiple times. There are other things that we can use as a deflection and miss the point. That what we're consuming has changed radically. What we're making our bodies out of is changing and our metabolism is changing accordingly.

Again, the ratio of plant to animal foods Americans are eating was the same over the USDA multi year analysis. Folks are continuing to primarily eat plants, but the predominant type of plant foods were noted to be, one, wheat and two, vegetable oils, which keeps going up as a percentage of our diet. This is abnormal. This is a new thing in the human experience. The dominant portion of our diet being wheat and vegetable oil. This has only happened in the last few decades. Now what about these vegetable oils? Because there's still so much confusion. I highly recommend checking out the interview that we did recently with Dr. Cate Shanahan. 

She's been studying vegetable oils, specifically, for about 20 years, and citing the data. She's got more studies on this stuff than anybody, and citing the confusion. Why a study might show, for example, that it's been found to be super healthy. If anything, not bad for you. So, definitely check out that episode after this one. A meta-analysis published in the journal BMJ Open Heart found that these vegetable oils can be a major culprit behind organ failure, cardiac arrest, and even sudden death. If you want to live a shorter life, go ahead and keep on eating these fake meat substitutes. Another one. Again, I wish I wanted some eggs when I stopped eating real eggs. 

Oh, they got plant eggs. I was on it. So today we've got fake eggs, aka fags. Not to be mistaken with f--ing eggs. These are fake eggs. Now let me share the ingredients with you from a popular fag product called Just Egg. Water, mung bean protein, expeller pressed canola oil. Carrot extract for color. Dehydrated onion. Gelatin gum. Potassium citrate. Salt. Sugar. Tapioca syrup solids. Tetra sodium pyrophosphate. Transglutaminase. Turmeric and Nissen. All of these ingredients to make Eggs, or fake eggs. Alright, and the product is called Just Eggs. But it's not just eggs. It's trying to copy a product that does have just one ingredient.

Just eggs is just an egg. All right. And it's a real whole food that humans have been utilizing for thousands and thousands of years. And so I don't want us to be fooled. By consuming these ultra processed versions of these things now again here are there is okay But many, many, many, many people are making these staples in their diets. They're eating these ultra processed meat substitutes every single day and thinking that they're doing something good for their health. Now, unfortunately, we don't yet have studies on fake eggs versus real eggs, at this point. But we do have studies on real eggs versus other ultra processed foods that are often used as substitutes for eating eggs.

A study conducted by researchers at St. Louis University, published in the International Journal of Obesity, sought to discover what happens with weight loss when you eat an egg breakfast or a bagel breakfast, an ultra processed food. When the calorie count of the meals is exactly the same. The researchers had study participants decrease their overall caloric intake by 1000 calories a day in this study, but had different people eat different foods for their first meal of the day. Here's what they found after the eight week study period. The study participants in the egg breakfast group showed a 61 percent greater reduction in body mass index, a 65 percent greater weight loss, a 34 percent greater reduction in waist circumference, and a 16 percent greater reduction in body fat percentage.

It's not just the fact that this egg, this real food with one ingredient, has rich sources of amino acids and essential fatty acids. It's the fact that the other food is ultra processed. So, if we're going to live a long healthy life, we're not going to include a lot of meat substitutes, ultra processed meat substitutes. And being fooled, being under this hypnotic spell that eating ultra processed versions of fake meats is somehow healthier for us. This advent into our cultures so widely has coincided with our shortening lifespan. So that was number two on our list of these foods and beverages to consume. If you want to live a shorter lifespan.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Now we're going to move on to number three on our list. Another one that is a very close proximity to my heart. Number three on this list of foods to eat if you want to live a shorter unhealthy life. Number three is breakfast cereal. The makers of breakfast cereals are the largest purveyors of what is known as cradle to grave marketing. According to one of the latest reports from the Federal Trade Commission, the FTC, the makers of breakfast cereals, fast food, and carbonated beverages. All major sources of added sugars in the American diet had the majority of their marketing budget go towards marketing to children.

72 percent of their dollars, we're talking billions of dollars. It should no longer be called cradle to grave marketing. It should be called cradle to early grave marketing. These breakfast cereals are literally a conglomeration of sugar, of refined grains, of synthetic dyes, of carcinogens, of obesogens, of pesticide residues. The list goes on and on and on. Now let's just look strictly at what's on the label of one of my all time favorite breakfast cereals. The quintessential. Barney, Wilma, Bam Bam, I'm talking about Fruity Pebbles. In addition to the absurd amount of sugar, it also contains vegetable oil, BHA, Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 1, and Blue 2.

Why does this matter when it comes to these food dyes and our lifespan? Well, according to a study published in Environmental Health Perspectives. Red 40, Yellow 5, and Yellow 6, all included in my top 5 favorite, Fruity Pebbles, contain a well noted human carcinogen. Yeah! But, hey, it's safe amounts. The problem is, a lot of these things are getting into pseudo approval with grass generally regarded or recognized as safe. And these regulatory agencies are not looking at this data. It's taking grass roots movements to identify these things and get funding, get these things studied and then go through the process of advocating to get them out of our food. A big part of longevity is, of course, this should be obvious.

A big part of longevity is not dying. A big part of longevity is not dying prematurely from largely preventable diseases. And if we're consuming a wealth of carcinogens every day, many people, most meals of the day, we're just stacking conditions against us. Plus for our longevity, we don't just want to live a long life. We want to keep our wits about us. We want to keep our brain healthy. We want to keep our mental health in a good place so that we can enjoy our longer lifespan. We also have a randomized, double blind, placebo controlled crossover study that included hundreds of children to test whether intake of artificial food colors affected their behavior, affected what's going on with their brain and their nervous system.

The study, published in The Lancet in 2007, demonstrated that Artificial colors and conventional preservatives in these children's diet resulted in increased hyperactivity in the majority of kids in the study. In fact, in one subset of over a hundred three year olds, it was found that all of these children were negatively impacted by artificial colors and preservatives. Cereal, it's, it's pretty good. It's pretty good. But there's a reason it's Cereal killers. Okay? There's a reason. Now, real talk, this is such a big part of our culture. Cereal is not just relegated to a breakfast thing. You know, many a night I've had multiple bowls of cereal. Alright? It just is so attractive and there's a reason why.

Food scientists have created absolute masterpieces in getting us addicted to these cereals and marketers. And studies, after studies, after studies that these cereal manufacturers are doing to make sure that even the packaging is enticing. Just to get us and our kids to reach for them. So this is one of those things to be mindful of, but I want to give a little special shout out to cereal bars as well. It's a big part of our culture, right? Handy dandy, portable, on the go. This is something when I was working at the university gym, when I was in college, I always kept a cereal bar on me. I was strapped up. I kept it on me, ready. And as I was getting my, of course, my conventional education, I was also studying outside of school and studying nutrition and I found that some of the ingredients in my favorite cereal bar were getting banned.

For example, there's certain partially hydrogenated oils in my favorite Kellogg's cereal bar and that led me to start showing my clients as well. So every new client I'm keeping my cereal that cereal bar was in my bag for a couple of years. All right, keeping it a thousand. And it still had like a like, firm, firm bendiness to it that it had originally, but just to show them, Hey, this thing is on here. And then I'm pulling up articles and showing them like, this is getting banned. At the time it was New York city was the first major city banning it. But I'm like, there's a reason why and then we go into some of the data on why this is harmful for human health, and now it's common knowledge. 

But at the time, nobody knew this. And I wouldn't have known had I not been getting educated outside of my expensive college education. Now let's use the popular cliff bars, for example. I don't mean to drop names, okay? I don't like to drop other rappers names into my, into my bars. Alright, I don't want to make Clif bar is even more famous. But we're gonna use them as an example because they're all over the place, you know at your checkout counter at many stores for example, but a clif bar is full of ultra processed ingredients and even though the marketing shouts, this is great for your health and fitness. The Clif Bar contains 16 grams of ADDED sugar.

ADDED! That's in addition to the already naturally occurring sugars in the grains that are in the product. In fact, a class action settlement against Clif Bars healthy marketing claims denotes that as much as 37 percent of the calories in the snacks in these bars come from ADDED sugars. Now you add in the sugars that are already naturally occurring. We're talking over well over 50 percent of that product is sugar, crazy pants. So folks seeking convenience, you find yourself in a tight spot with nothing to eat, just on the go. These bars are easy and I get it. And there are real food bars. That use real food ingredients. The food bars that we keep here actually at the studio at all times and I keep at my house for my family that I travel with that.

I've been utilizing it for years now. Not only does it have eight plus organic superfoods and Collagen rich 100 percent grass fed bone broth protein. There are no added sugars or sugar alcohols, no added sugars in the superfood bars from PaleoValley. And they have something special going on right now for you for a limited time. Right now, PaleoValley is giving us buy one get one free on their boxes of superfood bars. You can choose from any of their amazing flavors including red velvet. Lemon meringue, dark chocolate chip, and apple cinnamon. Buy one, get one free. Go to themodelhealthshow.com/superfoodbars.

Altogether, one word, superfoodbars. Make sure that S is on there. Alright, themodelhealthshow.com/superfoodbars. Alright, limited time when you get a box of their superfoodbars, they're going to give you an entire box for free. All right. So we're living at a time where convenience is a factor for us to consider, but we don't have to sacrifice and jump right to an ultra processed synthetic chemical filled version of a thing. Companies are stepping up to make these products more wholesome, more real, and also pretty tasty. So head over there, check them out. Themodelhealthshow.com/superfoodbars. So circling back, if you're like, I don't want to eat real foods. I want to eat stuff to make my life shorter. Go ahead and keep eating cereal on a regular basis.

Eat conventional cereal bars on a regular basis. And these are the types of foods and beverages that can help you to achieve your goal of living a shorter and unhealthy lifespan. We're going to move on to number four on our list. And number four is ultra processed sauces. and dressings. Conventional solid dressings are a mad scientist's wet dream. All right. I'm not saying that that's what they're putting in the bottle, but could be. All right. This is a mad scientist's wet dream. It is loaded with toxic chemicals and also the caloric density in such a small space. Often shocks people how many calories they can consume with these conventional salad dressings and sauces.

Let's take the American staple, Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing, for example. The ingredients are vegetable oil, water, buttermilk, sugar, salt, egg yolk, spices, phosphoric acid, xanthan gum, modified cornstarch, monosodium glutamate. Natural flavors, artificial flavors, disodium phosphate, sorbic acid, calcium disodium, and EDTA to preserve freshness. Alright, again, ultra processed ingredients in a bottle. There are a couple of real food ingredients in there. But many ingredients that are known to be nefarious to human health. And also, a hundred and thirty calories for two tablespoons. Have you ever looked at a tablespoon? Like actual, like, the little measuring tablespoon?

It's a little bit! Nobody puts two tablespoons on their salad! That's crazy. That's like messing with your mind. All right. So keeping this in mind, just how much we're consuming, how quickly people are trying to get healthier. Like, you know, I'm going to eat more salads and they're using hidden Valley ranch and not only hitting their metabolism with all these newly invented synthetic chemicals. And highly refined ultra processed ingredients like vegetable oil, but also the sheer caloric density. Another product that I looked into, just kind of the same class of sauces and dressings and dippable items, was Cheez Whiz. Alright, now, first of all, cheese is spelled C H E E Z. Alright, they know it's not enough cheese in this Cheez Whiz, first and foremost. 

And the fact that they put Cheez whiz on there in the first place like the cheese is taking a piss into a jar is crazy. So I'm not gonna list all the ingredients to you here, but just know is bonkers, obviously. But for me and for many people dipping your healthy broccoli into some saucy Cheez whiz is ideal. And this is a fact my grandmother got me to eat vegetables, got me to eat specifically broccoli by putting on a little Cheez whiz. All right, and it got me it was like a gateway drug into eating broccoli, but also loving the whizzy Cheez. So for many people, it's right, it's actually right on the label of the Cheez Whiz jar.

It's a broccoli floret with Cheez Whiz on it. Now again, we're dipping our healthy produce into some saucy garbage and thinking that this is real food. Another one was Ragu Alfredo sauce. I use this a lot. When I was a bachelor, college, The Ragu Alfredo was hitting. All right. Yes, it has some cheese in it. But the primary ingredient in this Alfredo sauce is soybean oil. Not to mention one of the most common ingredients in popular dressings and sauces is synthetic emulsifiers. Emulsifiers are substances that help mix things that usually don't combine well. They're commonly used in ultra processed foods to improve texture, consistency, and to extend the shelf life.

A study published in the Lancet noted how commonly used emulsifiers in ultra processed foods, "induced metabolic perturbations, alterations to the gut microbiota, inflammation, and colon carcinogenesis" in animals, of course. The research is going to state something else that's largely overlooked. "so far, except in particular cases, there are no human studies on additive exposure and long term health outcomes, and there is hardly any data on mixtures of these chemicals, and their potential cocktail effects". And that is something to not look past the entourage effect. The cocktail effect of combining all of these newly invented chemicals that are not studied together.

There aren't any studies that are studying these different ingredients that go into a Cheez whiz or a breakfast cereal. All together. If there's any data on them, they're looking at them in isolation. So what happens when that chemistry gets combined and then put into your chemistry? All of this stuff, if it's coming from eating ultra processed foods, is a new experiment on humanity. We're going to move on to number five on our list of these five foods that if you want to live a shorter, unhealthy life, you should definitely be having five foods and beverages. Number five on this list. Mmm. Okay. It said before. Don't shoot the messenger. Number five and I want you to bear with me.

Number five. Alright. This is all. It's love. We're in a safe space. Number five is alcohol. Alcohol is yet another thing that's been utilized by humans for thousands of years. So it can't be all that bad, right? Well, if you look openly at the data, you see some pretty interesting things manifest. For example, a study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology analyzed the data of over 333, 000 participants for eight years and found that light to moderate drinkers, approximately two or less drinks per day for men and one drink per day for women, we're about 20 percent less likely to die from any cause during the study period compared to non drinkers.

So, light drinkers appear to actually extend their lifespan. Alright, so again, I said bear with me. So it's not all bad. But the part of the study that was really eye opening was that researchers noted there's a drastic increase in risk of death from all causes in people who are heavy drinkers, more than three drinks per day for men, more than two per day for women. The study authors noted that, "a balance between beneficial and detrimental effects of alcohol consumption on health should be considered when making individual or population wide recommendations. But the reduction. of harmful or high consumption of alcohol remains necessary and essential".

Now there's a very thin line here because there are so many different psychoactive and addictive qualities to this that it can be easy to, to slip, you know, this slippery slope. It could be easy to, I'm thinking about the thin line between love and hate scenario. And so just to be mindful of that. But what about the impact that alcohol has on body fat, which again, it's one of those very well established risk factors for early death. Well, first of all, a meta analysis published in the journal Current Obesity Reports deduced that many studies show light to moderate alcohol intake, again, at most two drinks a day for men, one for women, does not seem to be associated with obesity risk in short term follow up period. Heavy drinking, on the other hand, was clearly linked to an increased risk of obesity and the accumulation of more visceral belly fat.

But even light, this is, this is where I want you to lean in this is where I was I want you to stick with me on this, But even light to moderate drinking long term raised some serious concerns. Since alcohol is quickly burned as fuel, it takes a sneaky route to influence weight and body fat. The researchers found that frequent alcohol consumption, even at low amounts, light drinkers, could lead to something referred to as "fat sparing", where fatty acid oxidation is suppressed. And one other thing in the same vein was noted in a study publishing clinical endocrinology that even moderate intake of alcohol can have an inhibitory effect on our major satiety hormone, leptin. 

As a matter of fact, a joint study from the USDA and the NIH determined that increased alcohol consumption is directly associated with increased consumption of ultra processed foods. They go hand in hand. They're like spaghetti and banana. I'm just kidding. Is that from Big Daddy? That's Rob Schneider's character. Spaghetti and meatball. So, I have scenes from Big Daddy go through my mind on a daily basis, watched it so many times with my, with my older kids when they were little. So keeping that in mind that it literally alters our metabolism, alters our perception of what to eat, what we're eating.

And one other connection that I want to note for you again, part of longevity is not dying prematurely from things that are largely preventable. According to the National Cancer Institute, "there is strong scientific consensus that alcohol drinking can cause several types of cancer." And a study site in the journal nutrients titled alcohol and cancer, epidemiology and biological mechanisms, detailed more on the specific types of cancer that alcohol is implicated in. And the researchers state that nearly 5 percent of all cancers are caused, they are caused by alcohol. Specifically, cancers heavily influenced by alcohol include various head, neck, and throat cancers, oral cavity cancers, liver cancer, breast cancer, colon cancer as well. Metabolites, and according to the NIH, one of the major reasons that alcohol consumption contributes to cancer is due to its suppressive impact on our immune system.

SHAWN STEVENSON: If we want to live a shorter life, we should regularly drink alcohol. So now I know that this is a reframe for us because we want to live a longer, healthier, more vibrant life. But sometimes if we flip things around and look at it through a different lens, what are some of the things that I should do if I wanted to see the opposite outcome? What are those things that if I was really about this life for me to proactively avoid and to change the culture within our families, within our own communities, and with our own society. We have so much power in our hands, as a matter of fact, we have a lot of power at the end of our fork.

So let's make smarter choices, let's be proactive in adding in the good stuff, and starting to press out and move away from the stuff that we know is harming us and ending our lives prematurely. I hope that you got a lot of value out of this, if you did, please share this out with your friends and family. Of course, you could share this on social media, take a screenshot of the episode, share it out on social media, show some love. To your followers, you can at me, I'm @ShawnModel and I always, always, always love to see the love on social media. And you can send this directly through the podcast app that you're listening on as well or pop over to the YouTube channel and hang out with me in the studio.

I'd love to see you there as well. We've got some epic masterclasses, world class guests coming your way very, very soon. So make sure to stay tuned, take care, have an amazing day. And I'll talk with you soon. And for more after the show, make sure to head over to the model health show. com. That's where you can find all of the show notes. You can find transcriptions, videos for each episode. And if you've got a comment, you can leave me a comment there as well. And please make sure to head over to iTunes and leave us a rating to let everybody know that the show is awesome. And I appreciate that so much and take care. I promise to keep giving you more powerful, empowering, great content to help you transform your life. Thanks for tuning in.