Michael Klaper, MD - Food and Lifestyle Choices Supersede Genetics

Dr. Klaper has devoted the last 35 years of his medical career to helping people understand the power of food and lifestyle choices to prevent the need for hospitalization and surgery. He sits atop the pantheon of lifestyle medicine doctors changing how physicians practice with his initiative “Moving Medicine Forward.”

In this episode, he shares his wisdom on aging well with us, touching on important topics such as andropause, the unwavering protein myth, and how we are not baby cows.

CORRECTION! Dr. Klaper mixed up the alpha and beta receptors in the breast cancer discussion, 17:30 minutes in. Alpha promotes growth of breast tissue and beta puts the brake on growth.  Soy prefers beta receptors.  

For more info on his work visit doctorklaper.com.

Transcript

Lauren Bernick: What do Benjamin Franklin and today's guest, Dr. Michael Klaper, have in common? They both believe that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Dr. Klaper has devoted the last 35 years of his medical career to helping people understand the power of food and lifestyle choices to prevent the need for hospitalization and surgery. 


When he is not seeing patients, Dr. Klaper is busy educating future doctors about nutrition in medical schools. His initiative, called Moving Medicine Forward, teaches medical students about the power of plant based healing. He said, quote, This is what I wished I learned about nutrition in medical school, unquote. 


Dr. Klaper has recently relocated to Vancouver with his wife, Elise, who is a yoga teacher, to join a Roga lifestyle medicine practice. You can go to drKlaper. com, D O C T O R K L A P P L A R D O C T O R K L A P E R dot com to find the latest health information through his numerous articles and videos and subscribe to his free newsletter, Medicine Capsule. 

You'll see that he has a way of taking very complicated medical jargon and making it understandable. And that's why Lisa and I wanted to have Dr. Klaper on our podcast, because if anyone can explain the correlation between aging well and eating well and lifestyle, it's this man. So please welcome Dr. Klaper. 


Dr Klaper: Well, what a lovely introduction. Hi, nice to see you both.  


Lauren: Nice to see you. So, Dr. Klaper, we usually start by asking people, um, how old they are. Is that okay if we ask you that?  


Dr Klaper: Absolutely. Uh, I'll be turning 77, uh, in next July. So I'm right in the middle of 76. How old do you feel? Oh, I feel about what I did when I was in my late 40s. 

Uh, certainly there's a sunny side of 50, uh, but right around there I can still run and, um, and play sports and, uh, and go hiking in the mountains and living my life like I used to. 

Lisa Rice: Well, that's, that's  
really good. That's what we all want. That's why we're here.  


Lauren: Tell us a little bit about, you know, just for people who don't know, I think there's going to be a lot of people who are familiar with you who listen to this, but for anybody who's not, can you give us a little background? 


Dr Klaper: I grew up eating the standard American diets. I, uh, uh, got a standard medical education at the university of Illinois college of medicine in Chicago. Uh, and I thought I was going to be doing blood and guts medicine, uh, Fixing people up in the emergency room and delivering babies and fixing broken arms for my whole career. 

That changed early in my career. I was witnessing my first five years of general practice. I saw so many people getting more obese, more ill, more hypertensive, diabetic, and eventually having strokes and heart attacks despite my best effort. I felt like a complete failure. As a physician, so much so that I left general practice and went to become an anesthesiologist, and I did most of my anesthesia residency. 


Until I wound up on the cardiovascular anesthesia service, dealing with people's hearts and blood vessels, and day after day I'm putting people to sleep and watching surgeons open their chest and their arteries and their heart and pull this yellow guck out of their arteries called atherosclerotic plaques. 


And that we're causing their heart attacks and strokes. And there are already studies in the journal showing not only that this is largely the fat of the animals these people are eating, uh, but that this is actually a reversible disease. A plant based diet would, will help melt these plaques away. Uh, and I had a great interest because my father died of clogged arteries. 


I know I've got those genes. And I knew that if I didn't change my diet, uh, I was going to be my body on that table with that striker saw going up my sternum. And I sure didn't want that. So I changed my diet at age 31. And, uh, to a plant based diet, my body loved it. My, uh, uh, numbers all got immediately better. 


A 20 pound spare tire of fat around my waist melted away in 12 weeks. My blood pressure went to normal. My cholesterol went to normal. I felt great waking up in a nice, lean body every day. And I realized at that point I didn't want to be an anesthesiologist. I'd spend my career putting people to sleep, literally. 


I would rather go back to general practice. And help them wake up, because that's what they're eating, is why they're sitting in front of us, overweight, hypertensive, diabetic, clogged up, and inflamed from what they're running through their arteries every four hours. It's the food. It's the food. And so I did, much to my parents dismay, I left my anesthesia residency. 


Do you know how much money you're giving up? Yes, mom, I know. Uh, but it's not in truth for me any longer. And I'm a I'm a general GP at heart, and I wanted to go back and, uh, and give my patients the counseling they really deserved. And so I did, and, uh, the patients who, uh, followed my advice, I found someone in the area who could give plant based cooking lessons, and those folks who, Uh, change their diet to plant based ones. 


Notice the same wonderful effects I did. They lost weight, their high blood pressures came down, their high cholesterol, their high blood sugars came down. And I could get them off their medications, something else I was told never happens, but you have to get these people off their blood pressure medicines. 


They'll stand up and pass out on you if you don't. And that was 35 years ago, as you mentioned, and in 1981 I went completely vegan. And, uh, you know, you can't un ring the bell, you know, once you look behind the curtain, you can't pretend you don't know what's behind the curtain. And I saw what a plant based diet can do. 

And there's no going back to conventional practice where it's just beta blockers and statins, and, you know, and hope they don't have their stroke when you're on call. You know, that's the basic strategy these days. And, um, so I became a plant based physician ever since, uh, and, um, have helped hundreds and hundreds of people get off their medications. 


I spent eight years on the staff at, uh, True North Health Center in Santa Rosa, California, where, uh, applied plant based nutrition was done in all its glory. And I saw the power of that, uh, dietary style to actually reverse killer diseases. And finally, uh, after I, you know, this obvious The healing paradigm was firmly fixed in my head. 

Again, why didn't somebody tell me this in medical school, first of all? And why isn't somebody telling the young doctors about this powerful tool, the most powerful therapeutic tool they'll ever wield, far more than statins and ARBs? Uh, why isn't somebody telling the young doctors this? And, uh, a little voice on my shoulder said, well, how about you, Doc? 


And, and so for the past, uh, three years, we've been going to the nation's medical schools, uh, and, uh, telling the young students, again, it's, this is not etiology unknown, these diseases, it's the food they're eating. And you get these people on a plant based diet and you'll see these diseases reverse. And the students are very open to this understanding and it's been the most satisfying part of my career is to give them the lecture. 
I wish someone would have given me in medical school. 

Lisa: I'm listening  to you and I'm like, yes, yes. Like we're all three of us are here because we, we have experienced that transformation. And then you experienced that transformation and you took it to the masses of your patients. And now you're doing what we've all wished also is that doctors would be doing this.  I'm, I'm so curious that, um, that you were able to infiltrate and penetrate the medical establishment. Can you talk about that a little bit?


Dr Klaper: Absolutely. That's such a key point because I knew that, um, that if we go through the standard, curriculum committee and have to submit 20 different forms. 

This is heretical stuff to the medical establishment. It goes against their intellectual understanding of what is causing these diseases. Um, it shakes up their treatment protocol. You got to have the dietician in on the treatment team. And after you see the patient clinic, we want you to see Ms. Jones, the plant based dietician, before you leave. 

She's going to talk to you about what to eat. I'll show you some videos. You eat like she's saying, and you come back and see me in a month. Let's see if you're not leaner and healthier. That's how practice should be done in the 21st century. But we've been traditionally holding the dietician at arm's length. 
Well, we've got to bring her onto the treatment team. Who's going to pay for that?  


Lisa: Well, and I imagine the dieticians need to be trained too, because I don't think nutrition and dietetics, they're not trained this way. 


Dr Klaper: Right. No, but there's going to be more and more plant based dietitians around. It's really spreading through their ranks gloriously. 
It's so exciting to see. And of course, finally, it challenges their financial model, because they get paid for treating disease, putting in stents and doing surgery. You don't get paid for telling people to eat broccoli, but we got to change the financial system. So there's tremendous resistance. And so we didn't even want to Tangle with that briar patch of of bureaucracy. 

It turns out that people in your endeavor, actually, in communications and education, which is what this podcast is about, have have tilled the soil for prepared the soil, if you will, in that now. In every medical school class I lecture to, there's 20, 30 students. They've seen films like Forks Over Knives, they've seen What the Health. They've seen Conspiracy. And they've listened to podcasts where people are talking about this and relating their experiences. And so that makes it much easier. So what happens is that we find out who Uh, is there anyone in on a medical school staff that's a member of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine? 
Do they have a lifestyle medicine interest group? And we get the students in that group and we communicate with them, who's the head student of the lifestyle medicine interest group. And we get her or his name and we go right to the students and they arrange the lecture time. Uh, they send out the notices and we, we get these big audiences online, uh, and we go right to the students. We just do an end run around administration. Um, it's the information age and, and it's been much easier, much less hassle. And we've made wonderful the inroads, the comments I get back from the students. Thank you for this lecture. 
So we're, so we're going, we're, we want to start bonfires in every med school and have the flames. Uh, it's going to be a bottom up revolution.  


Lisa: I can't tell you how many times I, I showed Lauren, cause when I was at the Whole Foods Medical Wellness Center, you know, I, I created a lot of educational, um, presentations, um, because, you know, it starts with the education. 

They have to understand even why this is something that they want to attempt. A video clip that I used often, which is one of my favorites is. Do you have ears? Do you have a tail? The dairy, your dairy bit from, um, when you talk about it in Cowspiracy is one of my favorites.  


Dr Klaper: Oh my, there's so many reasons not to eat dairy products that comes out of the udder of a cow. 
It's not a healthy, it's meant for, to turn a 65 pound calf into a 700 pound dairy cow as rapidly as possible. It's filled with growth factors that promote cancer in humans. It's full of estrogens. The cows are all pregnant now. Breast lumps gives guys prostate cancer. Um, it's filled with hormones and antibiotics and bovine viruses. 


And it's dirty stuff to begin with. Um, there's so many reasons for what, for what? So he gets, get some calcium and some protein, you get calcium. From green leafy vegetables, that's where cows get their cows. Right. Uh, and, uh, and, and protein, there are plenty of that around in the beans and the peas, et cetera. 


So, uh, there's no reason to consume dairy products, especially now you go into the grocery, any grocery store, and there's all these wonderful dairy substitutes, you know, there's plant milks made from rice and hemp and oats and all these wonderful plant milks. These non dairy yogurts and ice creams and cheeses, no one's saying they're health foods, or they're treats, you know, to pour in your cereal a little bit. 

But, but, but it completely takes away the reason to eat dairy products. So, uh, and so I tell people, you know, go, go in the bathroom, have a look in the mirror. Do you, uh, do you have big ears and a long snout and whiskers? Are you a baby calf? If you're not a baby calf. So, I've been trying to reach the young med students, uh, with the message before what I call pharmacosclerosis sets into their brains where they think that drugs and surgery Are the only treatment for these illnesses that are being asked to treat when they're treating dietary diseases.

Lisa: Thank you.

Dr. Klaper: Yes Nothing else to do at this point!


Lauren: Speaking of dairy like I have this friend Who you know gave her kid a ton of milk and you know for all the reasons he needs this He needs calcium blah blah and if I was like, well give him some soy milk and you know explain the reasons and she was like well then his testicles are going to shrink up and his, you know, just all the, and people think that the soy is bad for breasts and prostate. Can you address that?


Dr Klaper: Back in the, um, late 1980s, uh, uh, author John Robbins wrote this book, Diet for New America, about the reality of animal agriculture. culture what's going to the planet and our bodies and to the animals. Uh, and, um, I joined with, uh, John Robbins, uh, former organization called Earth Save and for, uh, throughout the late, uh, 1980s and early 1990s, we're going across the country, uh, telling people reasons that they should reduce their meat consumption. 


Well, I think that, and indeed, if you look at the meat consumption in America and in the mid 1990s, it started taking a nosedive down. I can't say this, I'm totally due to Mr. S and myself work. Uh, but, but there was definitely a decrease in meat consumption. Well, that must have set off alarm bells in Denver and, uh, and Houston and the folks, uh, where the meat folks, uh, meat producers, uh, live and hang out because by the mid 1990s there, and because of, because now soy burgers and soy hotdog, and soy and tofu, et cetera, were, were on the ascendancy in the media. 


This huge anti soy tsunami got unleashed, and I think it was, uh, from the meat and dairy folks. And they put out the most outrageous claim. Oh, there's phytoestrogens in soy. And that's if you feed your baby soy milk or soy formula, it's like giving them birth control pills. And, uh, and soy is going to turn your son gay. 


And it's going to give guys man boobs and all these things. And, and, and echoes of that are still rattling around. And it's, and, and it's in your question that you posed and, and we all run into this. I run into it every q and a that I do, and, and it's in, it's in all of our, our heads and all that stuff. 


They were very effective in planting these seeds of doubt. Well, it turns out, uh, that after the initial alarm bell stopped clanging. Uh, the scientists can say, wait a minute, you know, they're, uh, people in Japan and China have been eating lots of soy for lots of years. They don't have an increased risk of breast cancer. 


In fact, they got a decreased risk of breast cancer and they don't get more gynecomastia, you know, man, uh, mavericks, et cetera. And, uh, and, and now by that time, by the 90s, and certainly the 2000s, 2010s, we've seen three, four generations of children, raised, nursed on soy formula, who's now grown up. They're adults. 

They don't have a higher risk of breast cancer. In fact, they have a lower risk of breast cancer. They don't have a higher risk of homosexuality or prostate cancer. Any of those things that were flown in our faces. None of that was true. And ironically, you know, nature gets the last bat here. It turns out that Soy products are actually protective against breast cancer. 


Little did the meat and folks know, and we didn't know back in the 90s, there's two kinds of estrogen receptors on breast tissue. One of them, the, uh, uh, the beta receptor, if stimulated, will increase cancer growth. But it turns out the alpha receptor Um, actually suppresses cancer growth, makes the cancer cells more resistant to malignant change. 
And guess what? The soy phytoestrogens stimulate the alpha receptors that, that inhibit cancer growth. And it's like nature made them just to make a beeline to be cancer protective. So all those scare tactics were, were just that, uh, and unnecessary. No one's saying two gallons of soy milk a day. Uh, it's a, it's a treat. 
It's a, it's a half a cup on your cereal in the mornings. It's a little splash on your berries in the evening. It's how we use it. Uh, but it's certainly not gonna do anyone harm and it's got lovely proteins and the phytoestrogens are actually beneficial. 


Lisa: Well, I mean,  tofu and tempeh and edamame and the soy products are such good options for people instead of meat. 
So, um, but I, I don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole, but, um, you know, that it just goes to show like the meat industry and the farm pharmacy industry, like how much money and power they have. Cause I have a. friend who's very, was a very high powered PR person in New York and the beef industry actually flew them to one of their big conferences. 


They paid a lot of money cause she's her, her firm was very expensive. Um, and she had a sign in NDA and they were actually wanting to roll out. That, um, this sarcopenia, I think they called it, that you would get if you didn't eat meat. And she, she turned down the, she turned it down, she didn't take it on, but like, that's, those are the ends that they'll go to, to, to make a profit, right? 


Dr Klaper:  Absolutely. And that's so cynical and so venal in a word. It's an appropriate adjective. Uh, in that sarcopenia is a wasting of muscle. And when, by definition, people become frail in old age there, that's, you know, sarcopenia. And it's not a good thing. And you want to be able to get up out of a chair. You want to be able to, uh, Uh, due to the open car doors and things that require some muscular activity, no doubt. And so sarcopenia needs to be avoided, but to think that the answer is why they don't eat meat.  

Lisa: It's kind of like kwashiorkor, just it's a calorie deficit, right?  

Dr Klaper: Well, that's another disease. They're implying that. It has nothing to do with that. Sarcopenia prevents sarcopenia by using those muscles by getting some elastic bands or some little light dumbbells. 


And as you're, uh, as you're sitting, watching TV, doing some curls and, uh, and, uh, and going to the gym, or as I said, you can do it all in your living room with some elastic bands. Use it or lose it, mother nature tells us. And that's the real issue here. It's not a matter of eating more protein.  


Lisa: But I do have a question about that. I totally understand the protein myth and I've, you know, written about it and talked about it a lot. Um, but I do keep hearing, um, that as we age, our protein needs Change. Is that  true?


Dr Klaper: That has entered the, the lexicon or the dog? Uh, people get age and it might be true, but we're talking, what are we talking about? 
An extra five, 10 grams of protein have an extra humus sandwich. Uh, or an extra scoop of lentil stew and get on with your life. It's not that big an issue here. If you want to make a smooth doing up a Green smoothie you want to put a tablespoon of pea protein in there fine Uh, but it shouldn't It's the implication that you better be eating meat then…


Lisa:  So it's the same if you're eating enough calories you're getting your adequate protein. 


Dr Klaper: That's the key thing. If you're eating whole plants, if you're eating rice and beans and lentils and chickpeas, you're going to be getting the protein you need. It's not an issue really.  


Lauren: And then I think like one other myth I just want to touch on before we move on, because I think that we have a lot of women listeners. It's just, especially because of the name, Age Like a Badass Mother, we're going to have a lot of women who listen to this. And as I encourage people to go plant based, I think that a lot of them, they, well, they, they're like, well, I'm starving all the time and I, this isn't working because, and I find out after I questioned them, they're not eating - carbs are not, they don't want the brown rice. They don't want the oats. They're scared. They're scared of the potatoes. They're scared of the things that keep you full. And so they have one foot in the plant based and one foot in the low carb. And can you just address that, the low carb thing? Like we've been so brainwashed about that. 


Dr Klaper: That's exactly the, the issue there. It makes, you gotta get out your machete and start hacking through there. underbred of all the non stats, that carbs make you fat. No, carbs will not, in their whole form, the, the carbohydrate that is in beans and rice and potatoes will not turn into fat. You will burn it off as heat, but it basically goes to your muscles for glycogen storage for energy. 


Before the Western diet got there, the average Chinese person was eating 2, 000 calories a day at a And their skin, they're lean. You can't build fat by eating whole carbohydrate foods. And so, um, so people who eat rice and beans and greens and fruits and vegetables wind up lean. And that's the classic body image of, when you think of vegans, you think of fat people. 


No, they're lean because they're all, it's mostly fiber and water, these foods. And what little carbohydrates are in the bean and the rice, it's either stored or you burn it off. It's not going to turn out. And your brains need it. And your brains absolutely need the glucose that's in those carbohydrates. 


Now, if you're, if you're eating the Snickers bars and energy drinks and Oreo cookies. Um, yeah, the, if you just add high fructose corn syrup in various, uh, forms will turn into fat. The body's going to turn that into triglycerides and you're going to run into problems. But if you're eating whole plant foods, there are no fat giraffes, there's no fat antelope. 
I mean, they've been brilliant to the, the keto guys and the paleo folks and the, and the meat folks. Oh, you got to, you know, carbs make you fat. Don't eat them carbs. So we are carbohydrate burning organisms. The mitochondria in every one of our cells preferentially burns glucose as its desired fuel. Now we are, we are sugar burning creatures. 
Fat is an emergency fuel. Now, in times of starvation and calorie deprivation, you dip into your fat stores. But to think that running on fats and being in ketosis. It's somehow healthy. Um, it's like driving your car from L. A. to Seattle in passing gear. You're going to burn out the bearings in that engine. 



Lisa: Well, they're putting the fear of  fruit into people. It's terrible.  


Dr Klaper: Exactly. And so, many of us, rightly, we move away from the term vegan. There's so much value to that. Uh, whereas a whole food plant based, you know, a full style, think about it, a whole food. Okay, this is food like you could recognize growing in the garden. 
Oh, there's a cucumber there, there's a tomato there, there's a lettuce. Those are the foods we're telling you to keep your belly full of, and you're going to wind up lean and healthy. And yes, they're high carbohydrate foods, lettuces, but you're not going to get fat eating lettuce and rice and beans. It just doesn't happen. 

Yeah, the opposite happens. You get nice and lean. So we've got to keep, uh, uh, coming back to the same truth. You know, every, uh, all the powerful lean animals on the planet are plant eaters and, uh, and plant foods in their whole fat, whole form will not make you fat.  


Lauren: My mom raised me on the Atkins diet, which was the predecessor to the keto, and I'd wake up in the morning, she'd be smoking a cigarette, frying up a hamburger, no bun, for me for breakfast. My lunch was like, you know, bologna and cheese, no bread. And by the time I got home, I was starving and I would just stuff my face with whatever I could get into it. It was terrible. And, um, you know, had heart disease by the time I was 46, no surprise there from. Just clogging up my arteries. 



Lisa: And that's a good lead in, too. I wanted to ask Dr. Klaper, um, how you address the genetic component of these things with your, the medical doctors you're training. 


Dr Klaper: That's very important. And that used to be a real conversation stopper there. Well, it's in your genes. Right. Uh, I, my father died of heart disease and my grandfather died of heart disease. 
His an uncle died of heart disease. It's in my genes. And yeah, you might have a, a propensity to put out more, uh, lipoprotein a uh, uh, type cholesterol, et cetera. But we've learned a couple of things. One, you can't really change your. Well, I can't even say that anymore because now we know you may have the genetic blueprint for a particular disease state, but whether those genes actually get active and manifest largely, not completely, but largely depends on the food you are running through your The cells every meal, because within minutes of eating anything, molecules of that food are washing through every cell in your body where your DNA lies unfolded and your genes are exposed. 


And the food molecules wash over your DNA and they play your DNA like a piano. They turn genes on, they turn genes off, they induce enzymes, they shut enzymes down. Every meal brings in not only nutrients, it brings in information. Every meal changes us on a genetic, molecular level. And the genes that are going to be turned on by a broiled steak, the genes that we know drive aging and, uh, cancer initiation. 


Those genes are going to be a totally different set of genes than those that are going to be turned on by a kale smoothie, like my wife just made me this morning. With every one of those plant based meals, you are flooding your tissues with. Antioxidants that quench free radicals, molecules that promote tissue repair, that promote membrane stabilization, that promote cellular healing. 


It's the difference between one and zero, the difference between an animal based meal and a plant based meal. It's a phenomenon called epigenetics, and it's what is turning your genes on and off by environmental factors, the most powerful, which is the food, but there's other things in the water, etc. But yes, these genes are not immutable dictators of your, of your medical future. 


They are, they're malleable. They're depending on what you, uh, how you treat yourselves, what you run through them every day. So, um, so yes, in most doctors, they don't think about it. My patient's never going to change their diet, Americans will never change what they eat. Now it's a waste of time to talk to them about it. 

And let's see what medication we can use to pound down that cholesterol level and pound down those blood pressures. And that's where modern medicine is stuck in the muck there. But they don't understand and they weren't taught about the stunning power of the patient's daily diet, uh, to affect the, how the body functions. 

Lauren:  Okay. Yes, I was raised on the Atkins diet, but I absolutely do have the genetic profile for somebody for heart disease. I have the high LP, little a, I have in my cholesterol, I've been eating this way a half years, whole food, plant based diet, no oil, and my cholesterol is still super high. But what I've learned from you is that's. 

Cholesterol that my body loves to make, for whatever reason, I don't know why, maybe we don't know, maybe we do, but I'm not getting cholesterol from chicken or eggs or fish or cheese and why do certain people like me make so much cholesterol, do we know that?


Dr Klaper: Uh, let me start, what Lauren just shared with us is really profound. Cholesterol is not an evil molecule. Your liver is making it right now, uh, as we're speaking. Why? Because your body uses it for many different things. Uh, your adrenal glands take the cholesterol molecule and turn it into cortisol and endosterone and, uh, essential molecules that your adrenals need for life. If you're a woman with ovaries, uh, you know, they take that cholesterol molecule and turn it into estrogen and estradiol and, uh, and important female hormones. Us guys, our testicles take that cholesterol from the liver and turn it into testosterone and all those male, male hormones there. Uh, it's an essential molecule. 
It's not a matter of Pounding down that bad old cholesterol, uh, but the question is, where's the cholesterol coming from? And Lauren already mentioned the key difference. With the standard Joe's six pack, meat eating American guy, uh, with a cholesterol of 240, every third molecule, uh, they say that your dietary cholesterol only affects about a third of the, uh, of your total cholesterol. 

Well, that means that every third molecule in In an omnivore's bloodstream is cow cholesterol, chicken cholesterol, pig cholesterol, fish cholesterol, and it comes in with all the oxidized cholesterol molecules, all the saturated fats, all the free radicals, all the fryer oil, uh, all the advanced glycation end products that damage our cell, our cell membranes. 
It's a, it's a dirty Uh, uh, molecular marauder filled mixture, uh, that's, uh, accompanies that those cholesterol molecules from the cows, pigs, chickens, et cetera. Uh, and, and those molecules are the ones that damage the lining of the arteries that allow the, uh, uh, the oxide cholesterol molecules to get in and set off the plaque formation in Lauren's long-term vegan bloodstream. 


Her cholesterol might be 2, 4, I don't know what it is, but if so, every one of those cholesterol molecules was made by her own liver. For its own reasons, and, and whether her adrenal glands, we need some more cholesterol for steroid synthesis, or ovaries, we need cholesterol for whatever reason, because the liver said, okay, we'll, we'll put in some more cholesterol this morning. 


And that needle goes in the vein. Oh, your cholesterol is 240. But that cholesterol might have been coming down. Um, it might have been going up. We give these numbers such power, but the question is, are they turning, are they injuring the, the arteries wall, the walls of the arteries? Is it actually fostering plaque formation, which is the final. 

Most important question, it's either causing plaque or it isn't. And in Lauren's case, yeah, that cholesterol that her liver's making is flowing through the bloodstream, but it's not damaging the artery wall, she's not developing plaque. And very importantly, the plaque formation is an inflammatory process. 
It sets off inflammation. Uh, and inflammatory markers, as she mentioned, like high sensitivity CRP and myeloperoxidase and phospholipase. Uh, those start showing up in the bloodstream as those plaques get bigger and ornery and ready to rupture. So I tell people don't just measure your cholesterol, check your oxidized cholesterol and your inflammatory markers like HSCRP and myeloperoxides. 


If they're not elevated, then that inflammatory fire is not burning in the walls of your arteries. And then I say, as Lauren did, go over and get an ultrasound scan of your carotid arteries. And if there's no plaque there, Then you don't have the disease.  


Lisa: Well, you know, I went plant based in the eighties. I didn't know any of this. I did it for other reasons and, um, I've always had. Excellent. My doctors have always told me, you know, you've got the, you've got the labs of a 19 year old. But a few years ago I went to a family reunion, my father's side of the family, and they, my entire father's side of the family has, you know, high cholesterol, everyone's taking statins, and my cousins, all in my age range, same thing. 
Um, but guess what? They're all eating the same thing that my father ate and that my father's father ate and they eat a lot of pork. You know, they're from the Philippines. It's a high pork, high, high beef consumption. Um, and so, um, but you know, and so it's really fascinating. Um, because they, their assumption is that, well, that's just, you know, it's in our, our culture. 
It's in our genes. Everybody in the family has it. I'm like, well, but everybody in the family doesn't have to have it.  


Dr Klaper: We inherit not only our genes from our parents, we inherit our eating  habits. 

Lisa: Exactly.  


Dr Klaper: But no matter what your cholesterol is, take care of your arteries. It's a biological process. 
It's Your cholesterol. And, uh, and you don't want to be eating lots of fried anything and a lot of sugary stuff and a lot of processed foods. And keep your restaurant meals down to once or twice a month. Be, be very prudent with all that. Take care of your arteries. It's not a matter of just being vegan there. 
And if you've got a high LP little a or whatever, you want to be extra careful about not damaging those artery walls, uh, with a lot of fried and processed foods.  


Lauren:  We've talked to several female doctors about menopause and things like that. Is there like a comparative thing for men? Do they, I've heard of andropause. I've heard of manopause. Is that really a thing or?  


Lisa: Like what are their changes? Like, yeah, like women are going through hormonal changes as at a certain age range. And, um, so we're curious. Because we're, a lot of the doctors we've had on are sort of helping our women listeners like age well, and that's a big part of the process. 
So what, what about for men? Is there an area they could ease through similarly?  


Dr Klaper: What about us guys? What happens to us as we age? Uh, well, I don't have the muscles I did when I was 35, no doubt. And at 76, Mother Nature is letting me know that I'm, uh, that this life does not go on indefinitely. Uh, and, uh, I'm looking at the literature and Uh, the question is, is there anything we can do to, uh, reverse the inevitable decrease in function that we get? 
Um, there's such difference among guys as we age. And, you know, the overarching spectra of what you need to be taking testosterone, you know, maintain your virility and all that stuff. Well, uh, you know, nothing for nothing in this life. There's definitely a price to everything. And, uh, and, uh, taking testosterone, uh, results in everything from, uh, increased risk for liver damage and your testicles will atrophy and, uh, uh, increased prostate cancer risk, et cetera. 

For what? Uh, to maintain function. If you want to maintain function, you want to maintain your muscles, use them. Go to the gym, guys, uh, or, or buy some weights to have at home and use those muscles. Keep them fit. You know, Mother Nature is so clear about that. Well, any of the organs, bones.  


Lisa: I was going to say it goes for bones too, right? The whole osteoporosis  thing, right? 

Dr Klaper: It's largely disuse atrophy of the bones. Our bones are dissolving because we're sitting all day in front of computers. 
It's just a matter of maintaining good function. There's no magical divide. Just take a bunch of creatine and carnitine and testosterone magically in my muscles. No, it's not going to work like that. And again, your arteries, your liver, everything. You can't do one thing in the body, um, that everything sets off cascades of reactions. 


And so I would really caution guys, uh, make your own testosterone by working out in the gym, uh, taking some walkers of a hand, some hand weights and a weighted vest and, uh, and stress that body a little bit. That's how you keep your, uh, You know, your muscle mass and your bone mass in healthy levels. So more weight bearing. 

Yeah, absolutely. It's got to be weight bearing. Swimming is very nice. Cycling is very nice. But it doesn't really strengthen your bones or your muscles very much. Swimming will certainly help your endurance. That's a wonderful thing to do. But while you're at the pool there, pick up the weights there and do a weight bearing exercise as well. 

Now I've seen so many ill effects from hormones and supplements, uh, and it's, it's cheating Mother Nature. Um, I would, uh, uh, and it's unreal expectation to place on these agents that suddenly you're going to be young and healthy again. Um, it doesn't work like that. 


Lisa: I think that's why we, we call our podcast the anti, anti aging podcast, because we're looking for ways to age well, not to try to stop it or reverse it, because that's not going to happen. 


Dr Klaper: Nobody's getting out alive!

Lisa: Well, and Lauren and I had an experience recently where we went to, um, Chef Ajay gave a conference in Sacramento and Among the participants were, um, there was a, uh, gentleman in his eighties who was wheelchair bound with, do you remember what his, he had a lot of different diseases going on, but he, in his early eighties went whole food plant based, um, changed his lifestyle and he walked into that auditorium and he gave a speech and in his eighties he was able to stop the disease process. 

Um, likewise, there was a woman in her seventies who had been morbidly obese and, and went whole food plant based in her seventies and lost over a hundred pounds. Same thing. She walked up and, and, um, so I, can you speak to that a little bit, like, um, for our listeners who want to age well. And might think it's too late to, you know, they're, they're set in stone. 

What would  you say to that? 


Dr Klaper: Thank you. When you look at the major forces that impinge upon us and turn these lovely youthful bodies that we all had when we were young, into old and aged bodies there, what are the forces? At least three come to mind. Um, one is, um. is disused atrophy. We stop using the muscles and the joints and the bones, etc. 

So we, we, we give up much of our strength and mobility. Second is, is molecular damage to the tissues. Oxidation of fried food, sugary foods, processed foods, full of things are full of free radicals that rip electrons now off our proteins and off our cell membranes. The, the food stream coming through, uh, should be a, a healing and, and alkalizing and antioxidant rich food stream that gives the chemical message to the cells and the tissues. 


Everything's okay. Uh, it shouldn't come in with a bunch of free radicals and, uh, uh, and, um, and advanced glycation end products, uh, that rip electrons off your proteins, off your cell membranes. So, so the food stream and and its amount of ability to to quench oxidation is an important issue, and the lack of that is goes to aging. 
And there is improper use of, um, We injure ourselves so much of, of the aches and pains and infirmities of old age, our cumulative injuries, uh, from the truck driver, those of us who drive a lot or sit in front of computers, what happens to our lumbar spine is a Uh, from lack of, uh, lack of mobility. You know, the, the discs squish down and the nerves get compressed. 
And we have pains on our legs. It makes us move less. And so our muscles atrophy more than we set up these, these spirals of disuse. Uh, and it can happen, you know, anywhere from, uh, uh, the rock drummers or, uh, and the jackhammer operators. Yeah. After a while, they, you know, they go into their old age, but really severe hearing loss and it's, and it's an injury. And, uh, so it's important to, to pay attention to the signals your body is giving you mechanically. If you've got a chronic pain, it's not a matter of just taking ibuprofen or going to the chiropractor. What is your body saying? Every time I move my shoulder this way, I get this sharp. 


Well, what is there? What have you been doing with that shoulder that has now stretched and strained or the ligaments around your shoulder joint that now they're complaining? There's it's a message to you. Stop and look at what you're doing. But those of us who just, you know, have a drink of alcohol or, uh, or just take some pain relievers and plow out. 


After years of that, you've got a lot of accumulated injuries. So, so the disuse, the toxic food stream, the, uh, the mechanical injuries that we ignore and accumulate, I think those are three really big factors that, that turn us old and sore and weak. And, and that in turn makes us less likely to maintain our, our vitality. 


So, um, again, that food stream, uh, is really important. And, you know, those fresh green, yellow veggies are full of antioxidants. You know, a big salad every day is really important and, and as stop with the chips and the sch shrimps and the BS and all the processed oil, leaf fried, uh, junk foods there. So get that food stream whole and plant-based, uh, full of, full of, uh. 


Uh, phytonutrients that, that nourishes tissues. Keep using that body, uh, challenge yourself, keep growing, um, uh, keep taking those hikes in the woods and do another extra mile every weekend, you know, get out in nature as much as you can. I think we are suffering from nature deficit disorder, NDD, and I think that's really ages us. 

And I really insidious way, but I think that's part, part of the problem as well.


Lisa: Well, we hear so much about connection and community now and how important that is for our health and aging. And Lauren had brought up that you, um, your wife, Elise, and you guys met later in life. Can you address that and how that impacts, um, aging and health? 
And, and, and that experience. Can you share that with us? 


Lauren: And were you married before? Is this your first marriage?


Dr Klaper:  No, it's not. I had a practice one before this. This one I'm going to do right. Uh, it is such a gift to have a woman of this. And all you women, you all know about love. You all, you're all treasures on this planet. 
All women, if you give them love, they blossom and you want to take care of them. I want her to be the most. Most confident, most powerful and, and, uh, and actively, uh, uh, tasting of life as she can be. And, uh, and so it's, it's my honor to, uh, to, to make every day a gift to her. What, what, how can I help with, what can I do to love you more? 
Because, because one like this ain't coming around again. And at my age…


Lisa: I can see right now how much she's doing for you. You're glowing. 


Dr Klaper: Indeed. Well, at the end. of our lives. We're going to be asked one question. You were given a human heart and time on this planet. What'd you do with it?  


Lisa: Wonderful words. 


Lauren: How did  you meet Elise?  


Dr Klaper: 35 years ago when I was working at EarthSafe with John Robbins back in the 80s. She was the head of volunteer at EarthSafe. We became friends, nothing romantic. We went our separate ways, but we stayed in touch from time to time. But, uh, I had been living in New Zealand and, uh, for three years and I came back, was looking for a job and passed through Florida, uh, where, uh, Lisa's living here and, uh, and we have, we shared a meal together and, uh, at her house and, She walked me out to the driveway and we shared a kiss on the driveway that said, something here for you fella. 


Lisa: And you two are so beautiful together. I love Elise. It's just, I could see the connection that you have and you really compliment each other. And she's such a beautiful soul. 


Dr Klaper: So happy. Yes. She does your gender credit. 


Lauren: Well, thank you. Thank you for, for sharing with us today.  


Dr Klaper: You're, you're both lovely. I think we did some good work today. 


Lisa: We did. Thank you so much. We got to keep spreading the word.