Insights from the research by a leading scientist in nutrition and metabolism. A leader for conducting rigorous randomized trials of humans along with animal models for understanding nutrition and metabolism, Dr. Kevin Hall is a Senior Investigator at the National Institutes of Health, and Section Chief of the Integrative Physiology Section, NIDDK. In this podcast, they spoke about “Immune System Signatures for Vegan vs Ketogenic Diets”, “Plant-Based, Low Fat Diet vs Animal-Based, Low Carbohydrate Ketogenic Diet”, “Ultra-Processed Foods”, “Pathogenesis of Obesity” and about much more. The timing of optimizing our diet and nutrition seems apropos, now that we’re in in the midst of the holiday season!

Among other things, Kevin Hall says that over-processed diets lead to excessive calorie intake and weight gain, and ultra-processed foods potentially causing obesity. He also suggests that we should avoid foods high in sugar, saturated fat and sodium, but we should try to include products that contain lots of whole grains, legumes, fruit and vegetables in our diets. A recent study of his showed that the vegan diet seemed to stimulate the innate immune system and the ketogenic diet seemed to stimulate the adaptive immune system. This ability of our diet to alter the immune system is interesting and has to do with the effect of the gut microbiota.