These beautiful women don’t just look healthy, they are healthy. More specifically, their genes are healthy.
You’ve probably heard of how healthy some of these diets are: the Okinawan, the Mediterranean, the hunter- and herder-gatherer (still consumed today by the Surma and Maasai of Africa, for example) and of course the “paradoxical” fat-eating French. Have you ever wondered what it is about various diets that makes them healthy? Do they have something in common?
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It helped. I feel great.
"It’s helped. I feel great."
Kobe Bryant
NBA baskeball player
This has been life changing
"Let me tell you this has been life-changing. I have all of her books, in audible and ebooks! I have gotten rid of all the hateful 8 oils. I have trained my body to eat its own previously toxic body fat. Download that pod it's a game changer!"
I would like to thank you for literally saving my life. Back in February, I had to be hospitalized while on vacation in Phoenix with an A1C of 11% and had to start taking 2 types of insulin and 2 other meds. I read the Fatburn Fix in April, and followed the program to a tee, and I’m down by 15 pounds, 6.8 A1C, and only one once weekly diabetes medicine. Prior to reading the book, it was almost impossible for me to lose weight as a diabetic.
Leontyne Tompkins
I feel free
For the last month, I have really been reading all labels on everything. I have completely remove those 8 oils you talk about. I must tell you, I feel great! I have more energy and I am now 197 lbs (have always been around 205 to 210lbs). I eat potatoes with real butter, grass fed steak, pasta with the right toppings. I eat everything! I seem to crave less sugar. I love it!
Robert Kirkendall
I feel so much better
I had terrible aches and pains everywhere in my body, my hands, shoulders and knees. I feel so much better and the way I feel is motivating me every day! Thank you
Mike Deb Wootan Burcin
Better than ever
I am an anesthesiologist in Orlando and a huge fan of both of your books! I have been incorporating your principles for the last 10 months and feel that my health is better than ever.
Marnie Robinson, MD
My allergies disappeared
The biggest difference for me (and a surprising one) is that my allergies have almost completely disappeared! This is a big deal for me, because I’ve had allergies most of my life and they have often affected what I do which is a teaching music in [a public school district]. In general, I feel much better and have more consistent energy throughout the day.
Erica Turrell
Heart Palpitations have Stopped
I’ve lost 20+ pounds (also fasting 16-24 hours daily) and haven’t had palpitations except for one occasion — I had a mini bag of Fritos for the first time in July. And, I feel better now on a daily basis than I ever did all through college.
Mike Wright
Deep Nutrition and Fatburn Fix reader
I’ve lost over 50 pounds
I’ve lost over 50 pounds. I’m 56 years old. Cutting processed food and unhealthy fats from my diet was one of the first things I did on my health recovery journey...I went cold turkey off the bad oils. Emptied my pantry into the trash and just started eating real food
Mitzi Wilkinson Champion
Knowledge I didn’t know I needed
Your Fatburn Fix book is amazing, my friend. Thank you! I’m an Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioner and I know my stuff. This is the extra layer of knowledge I didn’t know I needed. Well done!
Jennifer Dillman
Fatburn Fix reader
Lost a solid 20 lbs and my bloodwork is great
I have lost a solid 20 lbs and my bloodwork (after 3 months of eating your way) was even better! I was metabolically healthy (per your book) before I read your book, but barely. Lowering my weight, sealed the deal! I have been talking about you and your book to anyone who will listen...Thank you for all you’ve done and what you continue to do! You are changing lives for the better!
Missy Cramer
FatBurn Fix reader
Lost 20 lbs I could never shed
I love your Fatburn Fix! Has helped me so so much! I have had the dreaded weight all my life - 20 or so pounds I could never shed. I have lost that now. I only eat 2 meals a day lunch and dinner with a glass of milk or cappuccino around 4 to hold me over. No snacking and not bad oils. It has been the key to unlocking my fatburn. I work out in the am and believe I am burning fat for energy not from food!
My waist is four inches smaller. I feel great and many of the minor aches and pains that I had (knees and lower back) are gone. Also, my muscle tone is amazing, even though I have not increased my workout routine.
Richard Janelle
Completed Dr Cate's online course
The go-to for strength and conditioning coaches
Whenever I advise my clients about eating to perform I go straight to what I have learned from Dr. Cate. Her book Deep Nutrition has become the go-to for strength and conditioning coaches across the country.
Kent Matthes
Major League Baseball Agent with WME Sports
Dismantles the lie
Dr. Cate dismantles the lie that seed oils are healthy, which may the biggest lie about nutrition and health because it’s so insidious.
Ken D Berry, MD
Author of Lies My Doctor Told Me
She knows the chemistry
Dr. Cate alerts us to the harms of seed oils and she’s convincing because she knows the chemistry better than anyone.
Dr. Drew Pinskey, MD
Globally recognized internal medicine and addiction medicine specialist, media personality, LoveLine Host, and New York Times bestselling author
No one is better at communicating nutritional truth
Dr. Cate has had the single greatest impact on how we talk to people about fueling for both performance or durability. While we all are a little unique, the foundational principles of human nutrition are immutable. If you are looking to create a more durable, resilient body, no one is better at communicating nutritional truth than Dr. Cate.
Dr. Kelly Starrett
Physiotherapist coach and New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author
Highly recommend The Fatburn Fix
Dr. Shanahan has had a significant impact on my practice of medicine. I am known as a Low Carb Doctor, but I never really appreciated the negative effects of processed seed oils on the health of my patients. I highly recommend The Fatburn Fix to my patients and have a loaner copy in my waiting room. It is amazing how quickly blood sugars and overall health improves with cutting seed oils. It is not just about the carbs!
Dr. Brian Lenkzes, MD
CEO of LowCarbMD San Diego, co-host of Low Carb MD Podcast and host of Life's Best Medicine Podcast
Respected in the sports world
Dr. Cate reordered my diet when I was with the L.A. Lakers, and the benefits, for me personally, were felt immediately and have served me to this day. I’ve come to take real food so seriously I started a small family farm. I know of no M.D./nutritionist more respected in the sports world than Dr. Cate Shanahan.
Chris Kaman
NBA Player
Brought seed oil issue front and center
Cate brought the seed oil issue front and center. Healthy fats matter. So much so that I created an entire product line to swap out bad fats with good.
Mark Sisson
Founding Father of the Primal/Paleo Movement
Optimal health starts with food
If you want to understand how optimal health starts with food, start with Dr. Cate. Her book Deep Nutrition leaves you with an appreciation of the profound relationship between our genes and the planet, inspiring us to be good shepherds of both.
Dallas Hartwig
Attribution author of The Whole 30
Helped me with endurance
Deep Nutrition really helped me with endurance. I started to feel better as a player. I was able to run more, I was able to be more active …and I just decided to keep going with it to this day.
Dwight Howard
NBA Player
Silver bullet for me
Dr Cate’s teachings helped me lose 60 pounds like it was nothing. It was like a silver bullet for me.
Paul Grewal, MD
Dr Grewal Internal Medicine, MD, author of Genius Foods
Radically improve your health…
Dr. Shanahan has provided a solid reference that deserves a place in the library of anyone who is seriously interested in nutrition. Her perspective on the vital role that healthy fat has in our diet is novel and, if implemented, can radically improve your health.
Dr. Joseph Mercola
Author of Fat for Fuel and Founder of Mercola.com
Pull up a chair…
I have based my work on the idea that getting the right kinds of healthy fats into your body and avoiding the worst fats is essential to optimal health. I've interviewed dozens of the world's top experts about this, and I know of no one who speaks more eloquently on this topic than Dr Cate. If she’s talking fats, pull up a chair. Take notes.
Dave Asprey
Author of the Bulletproof Diet
The key to unlocking my fatburn
I love your Fatburn Fix! Has helped me so so much! I have had the dreaded weight all my life - 20 or so pounds I could never shed. I have lost that now. I only eat 2 meals a day lunch and dinner with a glass of milk or cappuccino around 4 to hold me over. No snacking and not bad oils. It has been the key to unlocking my fatburn.
Lauren Smith
Saved my life
I would like to thank you for literally saving my life. Back in February, I had to be hospitalized while on vacation in Phoenix with an A1C of 11% and had to start taking 2 types of insulin and 2 other meds. I read the Fatburn Fix in April, and followed the program to a tee, and I’m down by 15 pounds, 6.8 A1C, and only one once weekly diabetes medicine.
Leontyne Tompkins
> Tears of joy
I'm crying tears of joy and appreciation for all you've done for me and my health! Without Deep Nutrition and Fatburn Fix, I would literally still be in the vicious cycle I'd been fighting all my life! In a nutshell - I am no longer a compulsive overeating addict suffering under the crushing 'thumb' of all food and alcohol.
Penni Wicks
It turns out that apparently different cuisines, perfected and enjoyed by people all over the globe, are nearly equivalent in terms of the chemicals they deliver to your body! The healthiest diets all share four common food categories. And we call these categories the Four Pillars of World Cuisine. In the past, they were part of every successful human culture. This website explores the many benefits of those culinary traditions, and will help you learn to cook the same dishes and enjoy the same, delicious meals that the healthiest people on Earth all do.
New research studies the effect of good and bad nutrition across generations
A new field of genetics called epigenetics explains that our genes are not written in stone as once thought. They are changing all the time in response to everything we do, think, and – most directly – what we eat. By examining human health from this more complete and holistic perspective, we can understand the effect of food on our growth in prenatal and childhood life. Our genes, like our bodies, can get sick when we don’t eat right. And there are patterns of facial development that serve as a good indication how healthy your genes are. This research helps us understand not only the influence of food on appearance, but it enables us to recognize how closely connected a given person is to their culinary and genetic roots.
The women pictured on this page are living very much as all humans did in our distant past, when an individual’s survival depended on stamina and well built bodies. On the left, a member of an Ethiopian herder-gatherer tribe called the Surma. In the middle, a woman from Tehran. On the right, a member of a Thai hill tribe. Their cultures have preserved ancient traditions. Their bodies have preserved ancient symmetry and health.
Understanding the explosion of adult and childhood chronic disease in America
Many of us today are suffering from malnutrition related illnesses brought on not just by our own bad diets, but by our parents’ too. If our genes are unhealthy when we have children, we pass on the effects of our poor heating habits to our children, and the effects can be magnified in the next generation.
The past five decades of medical advice to cut out fat, perhaps more than any other factor, has had devastating consequences. When you examine families you can see a frightening phenomenon developing: the oldest members often have fewer health problems than the youngest. The older members, raised on an entirely different, far more natural, and often traditional diet, inherited healthier genes. The youngest have asthma, allergies, eczema, learning or behavioral problems, and thinner, weaker bones, thinner faces, and more organ and musculoskeletal problems. We are seeing increasing rates of cancer and other chronic diseases because of so many decades of declining nutrition in America and across the industrialized world.
My goal is to help you reduce your risk of getting sick, and to help you recover if you already are.
You can see the effects of relatively poor nutrition in our faces by clicking on the celebrity album. Clicking on the links in the list below will take you to a description of how processed, overcooked, and low-fat foods lead to the following diseases:
With over two decades of clinical experience and expertise in genetic and biochemical research, Dr. Cate can help you to reverse metabolic disease and reshape your body.
The Blue Zones book has powerfully influenced medical thinking on nutrition. But the Blue Zones website and Adventist Healthcare system contradict the reality of people's diets that are presented in the book itself.
Going through menopause is miserable for millions of women. But it can be (almost) a breeze! if you eat to optimize your metabolic health. In fact, while I was living in Hawaii, I noticed a particular group of patients breezed through menopause. Discover their secrets!
Please note: Please do not share personal medical information in a comment on our posts. It will be deleted due to HIPAA regulations.
This Post Has 8 Comments
I read Deep Nutrition last year and found the topic of epigenetics to be especially interesting. My husband seems always to be riddled with health issues (chronic severe aphthuous ulcers [canker sores] since childhood; an out-of-the-blue attack of pancreatitis last year that landed him in the ER and completely confused all the doctors he saw; fatigue, to name a few) and having a broader view of health as something that is multi-generational was really helpful. Both of his parents struggled with severe alcoholism before (and after) he was conceived and one of them with a severe eating disorder. I can’t help but wonder if his pancreas bears the marks of damage resulting from his parents’ alcoholism (my husband is not an alcoholic and drinks only a little occasionally). My hope has been that changing his diet (we have now been following the Four PIllars diet pretty well for over a year) would begin to turn things around for the better, but so far we’ve seen no real significant change, especially with the canker sores, which is the most persistent problem. I’d be interested to hear if other readers of Dr. Cate’s site have similar sorts of health problems. How long did it take for a change in your diet to improve your health? For people who bear the marks of generations of malnutrition (or the marks of alcoholism and bulimia as the case may be) is there hope for more aggressive sorts of treatment to turn the genetic tide in their own lifetimes?
Hi Dr. Cate,
I’m almost done with Deep Nutrition and ready to make some changes for myself and my family. My question is about raw, organic, milk. This would be very difficult for me to get. I have some other choices that are more readily available to me… Organic milk that is homogenized and ultra-pasteurized, Non-organic milk that is pasteurized but not homogenized, or possibly raw milk that is non-organic. Would you recommend any of these over the others? Organic, whole milk yogurt would also not be as easy to get either.
Thanks for your time,
Jody
I have read most of your book Deep Nutrition and I was curious as to what your opinion is with respect to the current discourse on healthy weight, fat vs muscle, BMI, etc. Because you employ a cross-cultural approach, I’m sure that you’ve noticed that cultures have different standards of what is considered healthy and beautiful. In the U.S. in general (not all ethnic groups agree with this) the idea is that a slim body with almost no fat is the healthiest and most beautiful while in other cultures (some north African cultures and Middle Eastern cultures), a plumper body with both muscle and fat is optimal in men and women. I am an anthropologist by training and I have always found this to be an interesting (and puzzling) topic of debate. I would greatly appreciate your thoughts on this topic.
Hi Dr. Cate,
Interesting post, but I wanted to mention that genes changing is actually mutation, not epigenetics. Epigenetics is definitely a very new and interesting concept, it causes other changes to the genome-not the genes-like methylation of DNA that can then alter the regulation of gene expression. So genes haven’t changed, but gene expression has.
Gene change, which we call mutation, is possible. In chapter two of Deep Nutrition entitled The Intelligent Gene, we cite evidence for the fact that epigentic gene tagging leads to alteration of replication in ways that can cause the kind of letter code changes we term mutations. This can occur in any of your cells at any point in your life. If it affects your ovaries/testes, then your offspring will have different genes than you. This process is usually driven by natural environmental changes but now there are rediculous amounts of toxic exposure and the ability of our intelligent genes to adapt intelligently is being tested. I believe this kind of letter code alteration is one reason we are finding multiple new gene mutations in children with autism and other neurologic illnesses.
Note: Please do not share personal information with a medical question in our comment section. Comments containing this content will be deleted due to HIPAA regulations.
I read Deep Nutrition last year and found the topic of epigenetics to be especially interesting. My husband seems always to be riddled with health issues (chronic severe aphthuous ulcers [canker sores] since childhood; an out-of-the-blue attack of pancreatitis last year that landed him in the ER and completely confused all the doctors he saw; fatigue, to name a few) and having a broader view of health as something that is multi-generational was really helpful. Both of his parents struggled with severe alcoholism before (and after) he was conceived and one of them with a severe eating disorder. I can’t help but wonder if his pancreas bears the marks of damage resulting from his parents’ alcoholism (my husband is not an alcoholic and drinks only a little occasionally). My hope has been that changing his diet (we have now been following the Four PIllars diet pretty well for over a year) would begin to turn things around for the better, but so far we’ve seen no real significant change, especially with the canker sores, which is the most persistent problem. I’d be interested to hear if other readers of Dr. Cate’s site have similar sorts of health problems. How long did it take for a change in your diet to improve your health? For people who bear the marks of generations of malnutrition (or the marks of alcoholism and bulimia as the case may be) is there hope for more aggressive sorts of treatment to turn the genetic tide in their own lifetimes?
Hi Dr. Cate,
I’m almost done with Deep Nutrition and ready to make some changes for myself and my family. My question is about raw, organic, milk. This would be very difficult for me to get. I have some other choices that are more readily available to me… Organic milk that is homogenized and ultra-pasteurized, Non-organic milk that is pasteurized but not homogenized, or possibly raw milk that is non-organic. Would you recommend any of these over the others? Organic, whole milk yogurt would also not be as easy to get either.
Thanks for your time,
Jody
This has been discussed in the comments section of one or more of my posts on the topic of dairy.
Dear Dr. Cate:
I have read most of your book Deep Nutrition and I was curious as to what your opinion is with respect to the current discourse on healthy weight, fat vs muscle, BMI, etc. Because you employ a cross-cultural approach, I’m sure that you’ve noticed that cultures have different standards of what is considered healthy and beautiful. In the U.S. in general (not all ethnic groups agree with this) the idea is that a slim body with almost no fat is the healthiest and most beautiful while in other cultures (some north African cultures and Middle Eastern cultures), a plumper body with both muscle and fat is optimal in men and women. I am an anthropologist by training and I have always found this to be an interesting (and puzzling) topic of debate. I would greatly appreciate your thoughts on this topic.
Fondly,
Mia
I’d like to see some photos! How about a link.
Hi Dr. Cate,
Interesting post, but I wanted to mention that genes changing is actually mutation, not epigenetics. Epigenetics is definitely a very new and interesting concept, it causes other changes to the genome-not the genes-like methylation of DNA that can then alter the regulation of gene expression. So genes haven’t changed, but gene expression has.
Gene change, which we call mutation, is possible. In chapter two of Deep Nutrition entitled The Intelligent Gene, we cite evidence for the fact that epigentic gene tagging leads to alteration of replication in ways that can cause the kind of letter code changes we term mutations. This can occur in any of your cells at any point in your life. If it affects your ovaries/testes, then your offspring will have different genes than you. This process is usually driven by natural environmental changes but now there are rediculous amounts of toxic exposure and the ability of our intelligent genes to adapt intelligently is being tested. I believe this kind of letter code alteration is one reason we are finding multiple new gene mutations in children with autism and other neurologic illnesses.
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