Avocado Benefits and Blood Work Insights

Hello all champions! Today we're going to talk about when I ate 100 servings of avocado in 10 days and what happened to my blood work. But first a few fun facts that I looked up about one of my favorite foods, the avocado. One serving is usually defined as 50 grams of the edible portion which is about one third of a medium to large avocado. Another thing is that even though we usually talk about it as a vegetable, it is actually both a fruit and a berry. And the origins of the avocado goes back a very, very long time. As far as 50 to 60 million years is how long avocado has existed. And during that time, it has been kept alive. The seeds have been spread by very, very large prehistoric... animals. But since those animals became extinct about 13,000 years ago, it could no longer be spread by those animals, and the survival of the avocado since then depended on humans. So humans have cultivated and enjoyed avocado for over 10,000 years, and the area where it was first cultivated was in South America and Central America. And very often we're told that we should eat more fruits and vegetables, more fruits and vegetables. But I want to do a little comparison and show you what enormous differences there can be between different fruits. So the avocado is a fruit. And if we look at a hundred and fifty gram amount of this fruit and we look at the total carbs, we look at the fiber, we look at the net carbs, we look at sugar and we look at the amount of fats. And when it compares to the amount of fat that we have in the food, we look at the Compare it to an apple. So the avocado has about 13 grams of total carbohydrate, whereas an apple, a medium to large apple, has about 23 grams. So there is a significant difference, but they're still sort of on the same scale. But then what's really interesting, when we look at the amount of fiber, the avocado has four times more fiber than an apple. And so often we hear that apples, they're so full of fiber. They're such a fantastic source of fiber. If you check various lists on the internet, virtually all of them are going to have apple on there, but not necessarily every one of them are going to have avocado. And one of the biggest problems that we face today is insulin resistance and poor carbohydrate tolerance. So when we eat carbohydrate... Then we break down that food, we absorb it, and it turns into blood glucose, which then triggers insulin. And if we do too much of that, we become insulin resistant, we become overweight, and we become metabolically unhealthy. So what we need to understand is that it's not carbohydrate per se, it's the carbohydrate that we can absorb. And we cannot absorb the fiber. And this is why we want... to calculate net carbohydrates which means we take the total carbohydrates and we subtract the total fiber and now when we compare avocado to apple we see that there's an enormous difference that there's virtually nothing in the avocado that can become blood sugar whereas almost everything in the apple becomes blood sugar in fact the apple has seven times more net carbohydrates things that can be absorbed into the bloodstream and become blood sugar. And when we look at the sugar, at the sucrose, the stuff that is glucose plus fructose, the things we really want to try to avoid when we have metabolic problems and insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, now we see that there's this tiny, tiny little white sliver of sugar in the avocado versus almost all of the carbohydrate in the apple. is sugar, meaning half of that is actually fructose. And while fruit like an apple or an orange or a pear is still infinitely better than added sugar, like white sugar or high fructose corn syrup, it is still sugar. It's still a challenge. It's still a burden on the person that is insulin resistant. And when we compare the amount of sugar or fructose in these two, There's 41 times more sugar and fructose in an apple than there is in an avocado. So why is that we have sayings like an apple a day keeps the doctor away rather than an avocado a day? And why is the apple so much more popular on lists of healthy foods? And the answer is, of course, the fat, because the avocado has 15% fat. We have 23 grams of fat in... a medium to large avocado. Whereas if you look at that tiny, tiny little sliver, it almost doesn't register. There's like 0.2 grams of fat in an apple. It's virtually fat free. And this is why I believe the apple is so much more popular with dieticians and with people trying to lose weight, because we have this idea that it's still about calories and fat and eating low fat and fat free and so forth. And indeed... The avocado has 154 times more fat than the apple. But we have to realize that all these metabolic problems that we're experiencing as a species have to do with the sugar and the fructose, which is half of this white bar, and the net carbohydrates that become blood sugar. So let's look at the first part of the blood work, which has to do with blood sugar control, how well the body manages blood sugar and carbohydrates. And the first classic marker is glucose. And the optimal range is anywhere from 65 to 88. And I would say if you're fasting, if you're doing an extended fast, at least 24 hours, it could go down to 65. Or if you're doing a ketogenic diet, it might be 65. If you're doing something a little more moderate and you're eating a couple of times a day, you probably want to be maybe like 72 or 75 to 88. But the standard range, the lab range, if you go get your blood work done and you get the results back, then there's a range called the lab range. And if you're outside that range, you get a little flag. And that's the only indication that something is good or bad. And the lab range for blood glucose is usually about 65 to 100. So how do they come up with that? Well, it is based on a statistical distribution. It's called a bell curve. So if you take just about any variable and you test the population, you're going to find that the values fall on this distribution called a bell curve. And then when it comes to lab results, what they do, is they take the middle 95% and they call that normal. So if you're above or below, what that means is you're basically in the 2.5% that is above or below that range. So as the population gets sicker or as we get more overweight or as more insulin resistant, then this... curve is going to shift. And it's also different in different states. So that's why I believe it's not such a great marker. And therefore, people who work with blood work and who study people and try to figure out what's really healthy, they have come up with what's called an optimal range. So I believe 65 to 88 is about an optimal range. And before I was at 86, and after I was at 85. So basically no change, but it is inside this optimal healthy range. And glucose is a very useful marker and it's simple to do, but a much better marker is called hemoglobin A1c. It is a much more useful marker at determining trends, at seeing what the average glucose is over a longer period of time, because glucose can shift very, very quickly. If you cut down your carbs or you fast for even a couple of days, there can be dramatic shifts in that glucose. But the A1C works the way that glucose is going to stick to the proteins in the red blood cells, to the hemoglobin in the red blood cell. And then we can see how much of it is stuck. And the normal range, the optimal range is four. 4.8 to 5.3. And the lab range again will go up to 5.7 and above 5.7, they call it pre-diabetic. So my numbers were 5.3 before and 5.3 after. So again, in the optimal range and no change. But then one more marker we absolutely want to test is called insulin. And it's a much better marker again than either glucose. or hemoglobin A1c in determining insulin resistance rather than just blood glucose levels. And the optimal range here is anywhere from 2 to 5. That's a very insulin sensitive person would have a fasting insulin of about 2 to 5. And mine was 4.2 before and 3.9 after. So in other words, eating 100 servings of avocado did not change my blood glucose levels. glucose control really in any way. But the thing to understand about lab ranges here is that the lab ranges are a little wider, but not dramatically different than the optimal when it comes to glucose and A1c. They're within a few points. But when we look at insulin, this is where this trend is really changing when people are getting more and more insulin resistant and this curve shifts. So If we look at these values for the 95 percentile distribution, then this would be an insulin value of about 2, and this would be an insulin value of about 25. So now the optimal range is actually down here. So this is how few people are actually metabolically really healthy. Whereas. the majority of the population are slipping into insulin resistance and pre-diabetes and even type 2 diabetes. So many people are going to be, by the time they hit 25, they're going to be type 2 diabetic. But if we only measure glucose, which is the variable controlled and suppressed by the insulin, we're going to completely miss that trend. So in the end, I actually ate 104 servings of avocado in those 10 days. And this provided me with 8,684 calories, which was 31% of all the calories that I ate. I didn't count every single calorie, but I was around 2,800 calories per day. So this also gave me 102 grams of protein, 354 grams of fiber, only 96... grams of net carbs and only 15 grams of sugar. So the vast majority of those calories came from 801 grams of fat. And again, we have a fat phobia as a culture. We've been told for so long that fat is bad, fat clogs up the heart, fat makes you gain weight, none of which is true. And at the same time, we're being told that the Mediterranean diet is so healthy. And those people actually eat tons of olive oil, which is mostly monounsaturated fat. And it turns out the fat in avocado is mostly monounsaturated. It's pretty much almost the exact same percentage of monounsaturated fatty acids in avocado as it is in olive oil. So you could make a very good case for avocado. other than the fact that it didn't originate in the Mediterranean, that avocado is just as healthy as the Mediterranean diet. And not only that, but it tastes so good, at least to me, that even after eating 104 servings in 10 days, I still like avocado and I have had it since. But let me mention something called the fasting mimicking diet and how that relates to avocado. So the fasting mimicking diet is where you eat a certain way so that it mimics fasting, that you get virtually all the same benefits as a complete fast, but you're still eating some things. And the things you have to restrict is calories, sugar, and protein primarily. And there are companies that will sell you a kit where you have all these little pouches and all these little powders, you can mix them up. and you can make soups and it costs you a couple of hundred bucks and it's okay it doesn't taste all that great but it gets you through and it's pre-packaged or you can spend a significant amount of time and do the research and find all the recipes online and cook your own food and in a way that meets the parameters or you could simply eat three to four avocados per day and nothing else And what that would give you would be approximately 868 calories per day, which is almost exactly what you get on average if you buy that kit. You would get 10 grams of protein. And this is also what the diet, the method. recommends to meet the parameters of a very low protein intake would be about 10 grams a day. It would give you plenty of fiber to keep your bowels moving and it would give you a very small amount, only about 10 grams of net carbs, which is actually way less than you would get with a kit, so you would get even better results. It would only have 1.5 grams of sugar and of course it would have almost all the calories as fat, 80 grams of fat. But again, this is the same type of fat as in olive oil. So 51 grams of the fat would be monounsaturated fatty acids, oleic acid, just like in olive oil. So with the fasting mimicking diet, they usually recommend that you do maybe two days a week and then you eat five days normally. Or you could just pick one day or three days, whatever you feel like. But if you wanted to try this, you could actually do this so simply, so inexpensively, and just eat three to four avocados. But I want to give you a little more detailed breakdown on how much nutrients there are in these avocados. So when I ate these 104 servings in 10 days, per day, I got the following nutrients. I got 35 grams of fiber, which... is 118% of what they recommend that we get in a day. And let me tell you, that will give you some glorious bowel movements. Avocados are rich in iron. 3.2 milligrams will give you 40% of your daily iron. Magnesium, 38%. Phosphorus, 40%. Potassium, 77% of the potassium you need. You will get 32%... of the zinc, and you will get 98% of the copper, and also 34% of the manganese that you need in the day. So these were the fiber and the minerals. Now let's look at the vitamins. You get 51% of your vitamin C. You get 33% of your vitamin B1. You get 57% of your vitamin B2, 62% of B3. 152% of B5, 115% of B6, and 116% of B9. You get 68% of vitamin E, and you get 91% of vitamin K. And now let's look at the next section of the blood work. So one of the benefits that they're talking about, the reason they say that the Mediterranean diet is so healthy, is that people get less heart disease, less chronic disease, etc. And most of that has to do with inflammation. So let's look at some of these inflammatory markers. And one of the most popular ones is called HSCRP or high sensitivity C-reactive protein. And if you have an acute infection, this number could go through the roof. It could go into double digits or even higher. But When you don't have an acute infection, then it's supposed to be 0 to 1. Again, the lab range is 0 to 3. And a lot of people with inflammation and metabolic disease are going to have 5 and 6 and 7. But you really want it to be as close to 0 as possible. And before, mine was at 0.83 and after it was at 0.22. So this would fit the idea that a diet like the Mediterranean diet, which is very low in processed foods and very high in monounsaturated fats, would lower inflammation. Another important marker is called homocysteine, and we check that on every blood work in the office. Because it's an inflammatory marker, it's an independent risk factor for heart disease. And what it is, it's an intermediary. metabolite in the body. So it is produced as a byproduct of certain things the liver does, but then we are supposed to convert the homocysteine into something harmless, and eventually it becomes glutathione, which is our body's most important antioxidant. But if we don't convert the homocysteine effectively, if we're missing certain factors, mostly B vitamins, Or if we have a genetic predisposition, if we have a defective or an alternative MTHFR gene, then we don't convert it so well. And the lab range, again, closer to zero is better. The optimal range is 0 to 7. The lab range is 0 to 15. But if you have 13 or 14, that is really way, way too high. If you're at 8 or 9, then I would not maybe worry about it so much. But anything higher than that, you want to look at some supplementation to start taking care of that. Now, mine was at 10.7 before. And afterwards, it was less. than three, which interestingly is the lowest value I have ever recorded. Another interesting marker is ferritin, and it shows us two things, two different things. On the one hand, it is our best marker for iron reserves. And menstruating women who are in childbearing age and have heavy periods, they are often very low in ferritin, even if their red blood cells and their hemoglobin is normal. And if... they're losing blood, then the ferritin is low. That means they are close to running out. On the other hand, very, very high number of ferritin could indicate iron overload. It could indicate a disease called hemochromatosis if you get very, very high. So the optimal range is typically 40 to about 250. And some people put it even a little bit lower, like 150. or 200, which could indicate, if you're a little higher than 150, could indicate inflammation. But if you're way high, if you're like 600, 800, or over a thousand, then it is probably iron overload. And that's something you want to watch. You want to check ferritin on every blood test because it's very inexpensive. And if you have extremely high numbers, Hemochromatosis is a very serious condition that can cause severe liver stress and pancreas stress. But the way ferritin can also show us inflammation is that inflammation causes cellular damage. And ferritin is supposed to be inside blood cells. That's where it stores the iron for the body. So 60% of the iron in the body is red blood cells, 40% is in the ferritin. on average. And then if the cell breaks, now some of this ferritin spills out and we get elevated levels in the bloodstream. So my numbers were 334 beforehand and 231 after. So these numbers don't tell us anything absolutely definite, but they are all good indications. And that's the idea of blood work is that you look at multiple markers. And you see where the trend, where the big picture is heading. So now let's look at the traditional cholesterol panel, where they measure total cholesterol. And they want that usually to be under 200. And in my opinion, this is an almost irrelevant marker. And I believe that optimal values are between 170 and 270. And we're going to talk about some other things that... are much more related to actual risk. So my number was 239 before and 211 after. Then we look at LDL and again traditionally mainstream they want to see that under 100 and I'd like to see it between 100 and 170. It wouldn't be a disaster if it went down into 80 or 90 but again we'd have to look at the rest of the panel to try to figure out why. And my LDL went from 154 to 117. And then we have HDL or high density lipoproteins as opposed to low density lipoproteins. And traditionally, they speak about LDL as bad and HDL is good. But in reality, there's only appropriate LDL and appropriate HDL. The body manufactures exactly what it needs. based on the circumstances in the body. And typically, we want to see HDL between 55 and 75. And if you have cholesterol that's a lot higher, like 270 to 300, and that could be normal for you, then you probably want to see HDL a little bit higher than 75 also. My numbers were 69 before and 72. And then we have a marker called triglycerides, and this is the fat in the blood. And it's circulating so that we can get energy to the cells. And there is a particle called VLDL, very low density lipoprotein, that is just full of these triglycerides. And then as these VLDLs circulate, they drop off the triglycerides as fuel, and the VLDL... becomes an LDL. So if the cell is metabolically healthy, then it's going to willingly absorb these triglycerides and they're not going to stay in the bloodstream for a very long time. But if the cells are resistant, as in insulin resistant, fuel resistant, then they're not going to accept these triglycerides and then that number goes up. So in my book, Optimally, I want to see 50 to 90 milligrams per deciliter. The lab range goes up to 150. But again, a lot of the people included in that lab range are not metabolically healthy. So I started at 72 and I went down to 68. So this is the traditional cholesterol and lipid panel. in the vast majority of cases, probably 90-95%, this is all they measure. And then if you are over 200 for total or over 100 or 120 for LDL, then they suggest that you get a statin medication. But this is not where you get your true risk assessment. Instead, you want to look at the detailed cholesterol. You want to look at the particle count and the size. So here the first marker is LDLP or the LDL particle count. And ideally we'd like to see 500 to 1,500 particles. And here I went from 1,232 down to 1,009. So there was a significant reduction in the LDL particle count. And why is that important? Because it's not the weight. of the cholesterol, it is the number of particles as they bump up against the inside of the blood vessel wall. The risk of these particles getting through is going to be higher the more particles we have, the higher number of particles. But the other factor that matters is the size. So the smaller the particles are, the easier it is for them to slip through these gaps. and cause problems. So here there's not really a range. Typically they say that you should have less than 500 and here they say that your particles should be less than a thousand. So they pretty much allow you to have 50% of your particles as being small. But to me that's not a great sign because if you have 50% of the particles being small that means a lot of them are small and a lot of them are damaged. because it's inflammation and glycation, meaning that sugar sticks to them, and oxidative stress. So all the same things that are associated with heart disease and with plaquing, they cause that because they cause the particle to shrink. So I'd like to see that number as low as possible, and ideally under 20%, not under 50%. And my numbers went from 354 down to 194. And I'll give you the percentages in a second. The other thing is we want to measure the average size. And of course, all these are dependent on each other, but it's nice to get these numbers on paper. So when they count the small particles, the number of small particles, they count the particles that are less than 20.5 nanometers. But Ideally, you want to see the average size being 21.5 and up. So typically, you're not going to see a number over 23, but I've seen a lot of people with numbers in the 22 range. And mine went from 21.4 and up to 21.6. So again, this matches what we saw. We saw a decrease in total particles. We saw a decrease in the number of small particles. and we saw an increase in size. So this is very consistent. And when we look at the percentage of the LDL particles that were less than 20.5 nanometers, we saw that I'm going from 29% down to 19%. So these are much more important indicators of heart disease risk than total cholesterol or LDL. So when we look at the LDL particle count and the size, the take-home message is that these things can change very quickly. They can change dramatically. So I did a video before where I fasted for 100 hours, and afterwards I had less than 90. of a count for these small particles. But another time I ate junk food. I ate the average standard American diet with ultra processed foods for 10 days and then it went over 600. So we can see these numbers can fluctuate in the same person in a very short time. So your lifestyle and the food that you put in the body matters tremendously and it changes quickly. At another time, I've done various experiments and I have been as low as under 900 on the total particle count. And after eating junk food, I've been as high as 1700. So we got a factor one to two here of the total particle count, which is really indicative of your heart disease risk. And it can change that much in 10 days. And just to reinforce that idea a little bit, that we all have genetic tendencies. And then you add your genetic tendency to your lifestyle. And now you have a trend going from the very moment that you're born. And that's a predisposition. But then we want to understand that this metabolic health, these problems, they take a long, long time. You don't see... type 2 diabetes you don't see atherosclerosis in kids typically even though that's changing with how much sugar we're feeding them but it takes years to decades to develop these problems and even though we have genetic tendencies that go throughout our entire life and problems that have taken decades even with that we can make changes in our lifestyle and we can change our blood markers in a matter of days to a few weeks. That's how powerful it is to change your lifestyle. So if you want to learn more about how blood work operates and understand more about the intricacies so that you can really take charge of your life, I have created a course where you can learn all these markers and the physiology and the mechanisms in the body of why the markers turn out one way or the other. So then you can also get blood work that matches what that... course says so you can figure out what's going on with you. And if you still have questions, then my telehealth team at the clinic, they can offer a consult where they can sit down with you, take your history, and go over and explain your blood work to you. But it would still be very valuable for you to have the course if you're interested because then you would understand a whole lot more of what they're talking about. So now as we're getting into the holidays, we've created a few packages where you can give someone the gift of health. And I'll put some information down below where you can go check that out. And you can give this as a gift to someone that you care about or give it to yourself. And then you can start taking charge and get healthy in the new year. If you enjoyed this video, you're going to love that one. And if you truly want to master health by understanding how the body really works, make sure you subscribe, hit that bell and turn on all the notifications so you never miss a life-saving video.

One serving is usually defined as 50 grams of the edible portion which is about one third of a medium to large avocado. Another thing is that even though we usually talk about it as a vegetable, it is actually both a fruit and a berry. And the origins of the avocado goes back a very, very long time.

As far as 50 to 60 million years is how long avocado has existed. And during that time, it has been kept alive. The seeds have been spread by very, very large prehistoric...

animals. But since those animals became extinct about 13,000 years ago, it could no longer be spread by those animals, and the survival of the avocado since then depended on humans. So humans have cultivated and enjoyed avocado for over 10,000 years, and the area where it was first cultivated was in South America and Central America.

And very often we're told that we should eat more fruits and vegetables, more fruits and vegetables. But I want to do a little comparison and show you what enormous differences there can be between different fruits. So the avocado is a fruit.

And if we look at a hundred and fifty gram amount of this fruit and we look at the total carbs, we look at the fiber, we look at the net carbs, we look at sugar and we look at the amount of fats. And when it compares to the amount of fat that we have in the food, we look at the Compare it to an apple. So the avocado has about 13 grams of total carbohydrate, whereas an apple, a medium to large apple, has about 23 grams. So there is a significant difference, but they're still sort of on the same scale. But then what's really interesting, when we look at the amount of fiber, the avocado has four times more fiber than an apple.

And so often we hear that apples, they're so full of fiber. They're such a fantastic source of fiber. If you check various lists on the internet, virtually all of them are going to have apple on there, but not necessarily every one of them are going to have avocado.

And one of the biggest problems that we face today is insulin resistance and poor carbohydrate tolerance. So when we eat carbohydrate... Then we break down that food, we absorb it, and it turns into blood glucose, which then triggers insulin. And if we do too much of that, we become insulin resistant, we become overweight, and we become metabolically unhealthy. So what we need to understand is that it's not carbohydrate per se, it's the carbohydrate that we can absorb.

And we cannot absorb the fiber. And this is why we want... to calculate net carbohydrates which means we take the total carbohydrates and we subtract the total fiber and now when we compare avocado to apple we see that there's an enormous difference that there's virtually nothing in the avocado that can become blood sugar whereas almost everything in the apple becomes blood sugar in fact the apple has seven times more net carbohydrates things that can be absorbed into the bloodstream and become blood sugar.

And when we look at the sugar, at the sucrose, the stuff that is glucose plus fructose, the things we really want to try to avoid when we have metabolic problems and insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, now we see that there's this tiny, tiny little white sliver of sugar in the avocado versus almost all of the carbohydrate in the apple. is sugar, meaning half of that is actually fructose. And while fruit like an apple or an orange or a pear is still infinitely better than added sugar, like white sugar or high fructose corn syrup, it is still sugar. It's still a challenge. It's still a burden on the person that is insulin resistant.

And when we compare the amount of sugar or fructose in these two, There's 41 times more sugar and fructose in an apple than there is in an avocado. So why is that we have sayings like an apple a day keeps the doctor away rather than an avocado a day? And why is the apple so much more popular on lists of healthy foods? And the answer is, of course, the fat, because the avocado has 15% fat.

We have 23 grams of fat in... a medium to large avocado. Whereas if you look at that tiny, tiny little sliver, it almost doesn't register. There's like 0.2 grams of fat in an apple. It's virtually fat free.

And this is why I believe the apple is so much more popular with dieticians and with people trying to lose weight, because we have this idea that it's still about calories and fat and eating low fat and fat free and so forth. And indeed... The avocado has 154 times more fat than the apple.

But we have to realize that all these metabolic problems that we're experiencing as a species have to do with the sugar and the fructose, which is half of this white bar, and the net carbohydrates that become blood sugar. So let's look at the first part of the blood work, which has to do with blood sugar control, how well the body manages blood sugar and carbohydrates. And the first classic marker is glucose.

And the optimal range is anywhere from 65 to 88. And I would say if you're fasting, if you're doing an extended fast, at least 24 hours, it could go down to 65. Or if you're doing a ketogenic diet, it might be 65. If you're doing something a little more moderate and you're eating a couple of times a day, you probably want to be maybe like 72 or 75 to 88. But the standard range, the lab range, if you go get your blood work done and you get the results back, then there's a range called the lab range. And if you're outside that range, you get a little flag. And that's the only indication that something is good or bad. And the lab range for blood glucose is usually about 65 to 100. So how do they come up with that? Well, it is based on a statistical distribution.

It's called a bell curve. So if you take just about any variable and you test the population, you're going to find that the values fall on this distribution called a bell curve. And then when it comes to lab results, what they do, is they take the middle 95% and they call that normal. So if you're above or below, what that means is you're basically in the 2.5% that is above or below that range.

So as the population gets sicker or as we get more overweight or as more insulin resistant, then this... curve is going to shift. And it's also different in different states. So that's why I believe it's not such a great marker. And therefore, people who work with blood work and who study people and try to figure out what's really healthy, they have come up with what's called an optimal range.

So I believe 65 to 88 is about an optimal range. And before I was at 86, and after I was at 85. So basically no change, but it is inside this optimal healthy range. And glucose is a very useful marker and it's simple to do, but a much better marker is called hemoglobin A1c. It is a much more useful marker at determining trends, at seeing what the average glucose is over a longer period of time, because glucose can shift very, very quickly. If you cut down your carbs or you fast for even a couple of days, there can be dramatic shifts in that glucose.

But the A1C works the way that glucose is going to stick to the proteins in the red blood cells, to the hemoglobin in the red blood cell. And then we can see how much of it is stuck. And the normal range, the optimal range is four. 4.8 to 5.3.

And the lab range again will go up to 5.7 and above 5.7, they call it pre-diabetic. So my numbers were 5.3 before and 5.3 after. So again, in the optimal range and no change. But then one more marker we absolutely want to test is called insulin. And it's a much better marker again than either glucose.

or hemoglobin A1c in determining insulin resistance rather than just blood glucose levels. And the optimal range here is anywhere from 2 to 5. That's a very insulin sensitive person would have a fasting insulin of about 2 to 5. And mine was 4.2 before and 3.9 after. So in other words, eating 100 servings of avocado did not change my blood glucose levels. glucose control really in any way. But the thing to understand about lab ranges here is that the lab ranges are a little wider, but not dramatically different than the optimal when it comes to glucose and A1c.

They're within a few points. But when we look at insulin, this is where this trend is really changing when people are getting more and more insulin resistant and this curve shifts. So If we look at these values for the 95 percentile distribution, then this would be an insulin value of about 2, and this would be an insulin value of about 25. So now the optimal range is actually down here. So this is how few people are actually metabolically really healthy.

Whereas. the majority of the population are slipping into insulin resistance and pre-diabetes and even type 2 diabetes. So many people are going to be, by the time they hit 25, they're going to be type 2 diabetic.

But if we only measure glucose, which is the variable controlled and suppressed by the insulin, we're going to completely miss that trend. So in the end, I actually ate 104 servings of avocado in those 10 days. And this provided me with 8,684 calories, which was 31% of all the calories that I ate.

I didn't count every single calorie, but I was around 2,800 calories per day. So this also gave me 102 grams of protein, 354 grams of fiber, only 96... grams of net carbs and only 15 grams of sugar. So the vast majority of those calories came from 801 grams of fat. And again, we have a fat phobia as a culture.

We've been told for so long that fat is bad, fat clogs up the heart, fat makes you gain weight, none of which is true. And at the same time, we're being told that the Mediterranean diet is so healthy. And those people actually eat tons of olive oil, which is mostly monounsaturated fat. And it turns out the fat in avocado is mostly monounsaturated.

It's pretty much almost the exact same percentage of monounsaturated fatty acids in avocado as it is in olive oil. So you could make a very good case for avocado. other than the fact that it didn't originate in the Mediterranean, that avocado is just as healthy as the Mediterranean diet. And not only that, but it tastes so good, at least to me, that even after eating 104 servings in 10 days, I still like avocado and I have had it since.

But let me mention something called the fasting mimicking diet and how that relates to avocado. So the fasting mimicking diet is where you eat a certain way so that it mimics fasting, that you get virtually all the same benefits as a complete fast, but you're still eating some things. And the things you have to restrict is calories, sugar, and protein primarily.

And there are companies that will sell you a kit where you have all these little pouches and all these little powders, you can mix them up. and you can make soups and it costs you a couple of hundred bucks and it's okay it doesn't taste all that great but it gets you through and it's pre-packaged or you can spend a significant amount of time and do the research and find all the recipes online and cook your own food and in a way that meets the parameters or you could simply eat three to four avocados per day and nothing else And what that would give you would be approximately 868 calories per day, which is almost exactly what you get on average if you buy that kit. You would get 10 grams of protein. And this is also what the diet, the method.

recommends to meet the parameters of a very low protein intake would be about 10 grams a day. It would give you plenty of fiber to keep your bowels moving and it would give you a very small amount, only about 10 grams of net carbs, which is actually way less than you would get with a kit, so you would get even better results. It would only have 1.5 grams of sugar and of course it would have almost all the calories as fat, 80 grams of fat. But again, this is the same type of fat as in olive oil.

So 51 grams of the fat would be monounsaturated fatty acids, oleic acid, just like in olive oil. So with the fasting mimicking diet, they usually recommend that you do maybe two days a week and then you eat five days normally. Or you could just pick one day or three days, whatever you feel like. But if you wanted to try this, you could actually do this so simply, so inexpensively, and just eat three to four avocados. But I want to give you a little more detailed breakdown on how much nutrients there are in these avocados.

So when I ate these 104 servings in 10 days, per day, I got the following nutrients. I got 35 grams of fiber, which... is 118% of what they recommend that we get in a day.

And let me tell you, that will give you some glorious bowel movements. Avocados are rich in iron. 3.2 milligrams will give you 40% of your daily iron. Magnesium, 38%.

Phosphorus, 40%. Potassium, 77% of the potassium you need. You will get 32%... of the zinc, and you will get 98% of the copper, and also 34% of the manganese that you need in the day. So these were the fiber and the minerals.

Now let's look at the vitamins. You get 51% of your vitamin C. You get 33% of your vitamin B1.

You get 57% of your vitamin B2, 62% of B3. 152% of B5, 115% of B6, and 116% of B9. You get 68% of vitamin E, and you get 91% of vitamin K. And now let's look at the next section of the blood work. So one of the benefits that they're talking about, the reason they say that the Mediterranean diet is so healthy, is that people get less heart disease, less chronic disease, etc.

And most of that has to do with inflammation. So let's look at some of these inflammatory markers. And one of the most popular ones is called HSCRP or high sensitivity C-reactive protein.

And if you have an acute infection, this number could go through the roof. It could go into double digits or even higher. But When you don't have an acute infection, then it's supposed to be 0 to 1. Again, the lab range is 0 to 3. And a lot of people with inflammation and metabolic disease are going to have 5 and 6 and 7. But you really want it to be as close to 0 as possible.

And before, mine was at 0.83 and after it was at 0.22. So this would fit the idea that a diet like the Mediterranean diet, which is very low in processed foods and very high in monounsaturated fats, would lower inflammation. Another important marker is called homocysteine, and we check that on every blood work in the office.

Because it's an inflammatory marker, it's an independent risk factor for heart disease. And what it is, it's an intermediary. metabolite in the body.

So it is produced as a byproduct of certain things the liver does, but then we are supposed to convert the homocysteine into something harmless, and eventually it becomes glutathione, which is our body's most important antioxidant. But if we don't convert the homocysteine effectively, if we're missing certain factors, mostly B vitamins, Or if we have a genetic predisposition, if we have a defective or an alternative MTHFR gene, then we don't convert it so well. And the lab range, again, closer to zero is better.

The optimal range is 0 to 7. The lab range is 0 to 15. But if you have 13 or 14, that is really way, way too high. If you're at 8 or 9, then I would not maybe worry about it so much. But anything higher than that, you want to look at some supplementation to start taking care of that.

Now, mine was at 10.7 before. And afterwards, it was less. than three, which interestingly is the lowest value I have ever recorded.

Another interesting marker is ferritin, and it shows us two things, two different things. On the one hand, it is our best marker for iron reserves. And menstruating women who are in childbearing age and have heavy periods, they are often very low in ferritin, even if their red blood cells and their hemoglobin is normal.

And if... they're losing blood, then the ferritin is low. That means they are close to running out. On the other hand, very, very high number of ferritin could indicate iron overload.

It could indicate a disease called hemochromatosis if you get very, very high. So the optimal range is typically 40 to about 250. And some people put it even a little bit lower, like 150. or 200, which could indicate, if you're a little higher than 150, could indicate inflammation. But if you're way high, if you're like 600, 800, or over a thousand, then it is probably iron overload. And that's something you want to watch.

You want to check ferritin on every blood test because it's very inexpensive. And if you have extremely high numbers, Hemochromatosis is a very serious condition that can cause severe liver stress and pancreas stress. But the way ferritin can also show us inflammation is that inflammation causes cellular damage. And ferritin is supposed to be inside blood cells.

That's where it stores the iron for the body. So 60% of the iron in the body is red blood cells, 40% is in the ferritin. on average. And then if the cell breaks, now some of this ferritin spills out and we get elevated levels in the bloodstream. So my numbers were 334 beforehand and 231 after.

So these numbers don't tell us anything absolutely definite, but they are all good indications. And that's the idea of blood work is that you look at multiple markers. And you see where the trend, where the big picture is heading. So now let's look at the traditional cholesterol panel, where they measure total cholesterol. And they want that usually to be under 200. And in my opinion, this is an almost irrelevant marker.

And I believe that optimal values are between 170 and 270. And we're going to talk about some other things that... are much more related to actual risk. So my number was 239 before and 211 after.

Then we look at LDL and again traditionally mainstream they want to see that under 100 and I'd like to see it between 100 and 170. It wouldn't be a disaster if it went down into 80 or 90 but again we'd have to look at the rest of the panel to try to figure out why. And my LDL went from 154 to 117. And then we have HDL or high density lipoproteins as opposed to low density lipoproteins. And traditionally, they speak about LDL as bad and HDL is good.

But in reality, there's only appropriate LDL and appropriate HDL. The body manufactures exactly what it needs. based on the circumstances in the body. And typically, we want to see HDL between 55 and 75. And if you have cholesterol that's a lot higher, like 270 to 300, and that could be normal for you, then you probably want to see HDL a little bit higher than 75 also. My numbers were 69 before and 72. And then we have a marker called triglycerides, and this is the fat in the blood.

And it's circulating so that we can get energy to the cells. And there is a particle called VLDL, very low density lipoprotein, that is just full of these triglycerides. And then as these VLDLs circulate, they drop off the triglycerides as fuel, and the VLDL...

becomes an LDL. So if the cell is metabolically healthy, then it's going to willingly absorb these triglycerides and they're not going to stay in the bloodstream for a very long time. But if the cells are resistant, as in insulin resistant, fuel resistant, then they're not going to accept these triglycerides and then that number goes up.

So in my book, Optimally, I want to see 50 to 90 milligrams per deciliter. The lab range goes up to 150. But again, a lot of the people included in that lab range are not metabolically healthy. So I started at 72 and I went down to 68. So this is the traditional cholesterol and lipid panel. in the vast majority of cases, probably 90-95%, this is all they measure.

And then if you are over 200 for total or over 100 or 120 for LDL, then they suggest that you get a statin medication. But this is not where you get your true risk assessment. Instead, you want to look at the detailed cholesterol. You want to look at the particle count and the size.

So here the first marker is LDLP or the LDL particle count. And ideally we'd like to see 500 to 1,500 particles. And here I went from 1,232 down to 1,009.

So there was a significant reduction in the LDL particle count. And why is that important? Because it's not the weight. of the cholesterol, it is the number of particles as they bump up against the inside of the blood vessel wall. The risk of these particles getting through is going to be higher the more particles we have, the higher number of particles.

But the other factor that matters is the size. So the smaller the particles are, the easier it is for them to slip through these gaps. and cause problems. So here there's not really a range.

Typically they say that you should have less than 500 and here they say that your particles should be less than a thousand. So they pretty much allow you to have 50% of your particles as being small. But to me that's not a great sign because if you have 50% of the particles being small that means a lot of them are small and a lot of them are damaged. because it's inflammation and glycation, meaning that sugar sticks to them, and oxidative stress.

So all the same things that are associated with heart disease and with plaquing, they cause that because they cause the particle to shrink. So I'd like to see that number as low as possible, and ideally under 20%, not under 50%. And my numbers went from 354 down to 194. And I'll give you the percentages in a second.

The other thing is we want to measure the average size. And of course, all these are dependent on each other, but it's nice to get these numbers on paper. So when they count the small particles, the number of small particles, they count the particles that are less than 20.5 nanometers. But Ideally, you want to see the average size being 21.5 and up.

So typically, you're not going to see a number over 23, but I've seen a lot of people with numbers in the 22 range. And mine went from 21.4 and up to 21.6. So again, this matches what we saw. We saw a decrease in total particles. We saw a decrease in the number of small particles.

and we saw an increase in size. So this is very consistent. And when we look at the percentage of the LDL particles that were less than 20.5 nanometers, we saw that I'm going from 29% down to 19%.

So these are much more important indicators of heart disease risk than total cholesterol or LDL. So when we look at the LDL particle count and the size, the take-home message is that these things can change very quickly. They can change dramatically. So I did a video before where I fasted for 100 hours, and afterwards I had less than 90. of a count for these small particles.

But another time I ate junk food. I ate the average standard American diet with ultra processed foods for 10 days and then it went over 600. So we can see these numbers can fluctuate in the same person in a very short time. So your lifestyle and the food that you put in the body matters tremendously and it changes quickly. At another time, I've done various experiments and I have been as low as under 900 on the total particle count. And after eating junk food, I've been as high as 1700. So we got a factor one to two here of the total particle count, which is really indicative of your heart disease risk.

And it can change that much in 10 days. And just to reinforce that idea a little bit, that we all have genetic tendencies. And then you add your genetic tendency to your lifestyle.

And now you have a trend going from the very moment that you're born. And that's a predisposition. But then we want to understand that this metabolic health, these problems, they take a long, long time.

You don't see... type 2 diabetes you don't see atherosclerosis in kids typically even though that's changing with how much sugar we're feeding them but it takes years to decades to develop these problems and even though we have genetic tendencies that go throughout our entire life and problems that have taken decades even with that we can make changes in our lifestyle and we can change our blood markers in a matter of days to a few weeks. That's how powerful it is to change your lifestyle.

So if you want to learn more about how blood work operates and understand more about the intricacies so that you can really take charge of your life, I have created a course where you can learn all these markers and the physiology and the mechanisms in the body of why the markers turn out one way or the other. So then you can also get blood work that matches what that... course says so you can figure out what's going on with you.

And if you still have questions, then my telehealth team at the clinic, they can offer a consult where they can sit down with you, take your history, and go over and explain your blood work to you. But it would still be very valuable for you to have the course if you're interested because then you would understand a whole lot more of what they're talking about. So now as we're getting into the holidays, we've created a few packages where you can give someone the gift of health.

And I'll put some information down below where you can go check that out. And you can give this as a gift to someone that you care about or give it to yourself. And then you can start taking charge and get healthy in the new year.

If you enjoyed this video, you're going to love that one. And if you truly want to master health by understanding how the body really works, make sure you subscribe, hit that bell and turn on all the notifications so you never miss a life-saving video.

Transcript for:Avocado Benefits and Blood Work Insights

Transcript for:
Avocado Benefits and Blood Work Insights