The Human Experience · Episode
Episode 24 – Dr. Paul Jaminet
A conversation with Dr. Paul Jaminet
The Perfect Health Diet Click this image to purchase the book Dr. Paul Jaminet is a scientist with a Ph.D. in physics, University of California at Berkeley, 1992; Astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for…
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Episode field notes
Show notes
Click this image to purchase the book
Dr. Paul Jaminet is a scientist with a Ph.D. in physics, University of California at Berkeley, 1992; Astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 1992-1996, turned Internet entrepreneur and executive, turned strategy consultant and economist.
Dr. Jaminet and his wife have had a longstanding interest in diet and health after suffering from their own chronic health problems and moving away from their respective industries they joined together and co-authored their book “The Perfect Health Diet”. After experimenting with low-carb Paleo diets in 2005, they spent seven years refining them, and have successfully healed their own “middle-age” and chronic health problems through diet, learning a great deal about the benefits – and pitfalls – of these diets.
From Dr. Jaminet’s Website:
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Disease, premature aging, and impaired health have four primary causes: malnutrition, food toxicity, evolutionarily discordant lifestyles, and chronic infections by bacteria, viruses, fungi, and protozoa.
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These causes go together. People who eat toxic, nutrient-poor diets are more likely to contract chronic infections and do not easily recover from them.
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Yet the body has amazing powers of recovery. On a healthy diet, the immune system can tackle and defeat most infections, especially with the aid of antimicrobial drugs.
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A diet like the Perfect Health Diet should be the first treatment option in most diseases and an adjunct to therapy in all.
This was an interesting interview where we cover the various impacts of evolutionary biology, diet, health, nutrition and their respective roles in our everyday lives. We covered dietary supplements, which vitamins that may or may not be best for you, circadian rhythms and some very informing ideas on intermittent fasting, when and when not to eat and some common misconceptions about diet.
You can find Dr. Jaminet’s work here: http://perfecthealthdiet.com/
A big thanks to Dr. Jaminet for making the time to come on the show to talk to us
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Transcript
A full transcript has been published for this conversation.
Click here for transcriptIdeas worth returning to
Quotes
Five substantial excerpts from the published transcript, lightly edited for clarity without changing their meaning.
“We approached an optimal diet by listing known nutrients, estimating the amounts the body needs, and translating that pattern into whole foods. The method begins with biological requirements rather than allegiance to a diet label. Individual needs still vary, but nutrient sufficiency provides a more testable foundation than ideology.”
From the conversation“Foods built mainly from refined starch, oil, and sugar retain calories while removing much of the original fiber and micronutrition, then add flavor back through processing. That is why heavily processed foods are generally poor staples. Prefer ingredients that remain recognizably connected to whole foods and carry more than energy alone.”
From the conversation“Early twentieth-century medicine discovered major vitamins and nutrients, then much of its attention moved toward pharmaceuticals and infectious disease. Those advances were enormous, but chronic illnesses involving many interacting causes require renewed attention to nutrition, metabolism, environment, and daily behavior.”
From the conversation“Medication can be valuable, but it cannot replace every lifestyle signal the body requires. In chronic disease, a drug may redistribute risk or delay one complication while other damage continues. Treatment should therefore combine appropriate medicine with nutrition, movement, sleep, and environmental changes rather than asking one prescription to carry the whole burden.”
From the conversation“Writing reveals how little you know because every clear statement creates another research question. As my father, aunts, and uncles began developing health problems, I wanted to organize what I had learned for them. A personal document expanded into a book because responsible advice required far more evidence and explanation than I first expected.”
From the conversation
About the guest
Dr. Paul Jaminet
Dr. Paul Jaminet is a scientist with a Ph.D. in physics, University of California at Berkeley, 1992; Astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 1992-1996, turned Internet entrepreneur and executive, turned strategy consultant and economist. Dr. Jaminet and his wife have had a longstanding interest in diet and health after suffering from their own chronic health problems and moving away from their respective industries they joined together and co-authored their book “The Perfect Health Diet”. After experimenting with low-carb Paleo diets in 2005, they spent seven years refining them, and have successfully healed their own “middle-age” and chronic health problems through diet, learning a great deal about the benefits – and pitfalls – of these diets.
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