Why You Always Feel Tired and Bloated: The Truth About Ultra-Processed Foods | Dr. Mark Hyman

This episode focuses on the detrimental effects of ultra-processed foods on health, exploring how they contribute to chronic conditions and symptoms like fatigue and bloating.

1. Ultra-processed foods contribute significantly to "FLC syndrome," leading to symptoms like fatigue, bloating, and systemic inflammation.
2. Nutrigenomics shows how food choices impact genetic expression and overall health.
3. Switching to whole foods can rapidly improve symptoms and reduce chronic disease risk.
4. A simple detox can reset the body's response to food, helping identify triggers for symptoms.
5. Practical dietary adjustments can have profound effects on health within just days.

1: Introduction to FLC Syndrome

Dr. Hyman explains "FLC syndrome" and its common symptoms, which many people normalize despite their detrimental effects on quality of life. Mark Hyman: "FLC syndrome means you feel like crap. It’s a catchy way to highlight everyday ailments that are not normal but have become common."

2: The Role of Diet in Health

A detailed look at how dietary choices lead to inflammation and chronic diseases, and how simple changes can make a significant difference. Mark Hyman: "Food is not just calories; it’s information that communicates with our DNA and cells."

3: Nutrigenomics and Health

Exploration of nutrigenomics and how understanding this can empower individuals to make better food choices that enhance health. Mark Hyman: "Every bite of food you eat is a choice between health and disease."

4: Practical Detox Strategies

Discussion on practical detox methods that can help individuals reset their health and pinpoint dietary triggers for their symptoms. Mark Hyman: "A 10-day detox can significantly reduce or eliminate symptoms of FLC syndrome by removing irritants like gluten, dairy, and processed foods."

1. Eliminate ultra-processed foods: Start by cutting out foods high in additives and low in nutrients.
2. Incorporate whole foods: Focus on vegetables, fruits, and lean proteins to supply your body with necessary nutrients.
3. Understand your body’s signals: Pay attention to how different foods impact your wellbeing.
4. Conduct a dietary detox: Consider a short-term elimination diet to identify food sensitivities.
5. Stay informed about nutrigenomics: Learn how foods interact with your genes to better manage your health.

Have you ever wondered why you constantly feel tired, achy, or bloated? In this episode, I delve into "Feel Like Crap Syndrome," a term I coined to describe the chronic low-level systemic inflammation that affects so many of us. I’ll share my clinical insights on how ultra-processed foods and other dietary choices may explain why you’re feeling so run down. Plus, find out how a 10-day elimination diet can help you reset your health and live your best life.

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Mark Hyman
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And if you're looking for curated, trusted supplements and health products for your health journey, visit my website, drheiman.com, for my website store and a summary of my favorite and thoroughly tested products. Welcome to the doctor's pharmacy. I'm Doctor Mark Hyman, and welcome again to another juicy episode of Health Bites. Now, before we begin, I want to ask, do any of these symptoms sound familiar to you? Chronic fatigue, joint pain, muscle aches, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, irritable bowel syndrome, and acid reflux.

You got any of those? How about congestion, allergies, asthma and sinus issues, brain frog headaches, insomnia, depression, anxiety and mood swings. Or maybe you get weight gain, cravings or trouble losing weight. Or maybe your skin's not great and you got acne or eczema or psoriasis. How about canker sores, frequent colds, feeling sick and run down a lot?

Maybe you got low libido or PM's or pcos or menopause if you answered yes to any of these, you might have something called FLC syndrome. Now, what the heck is FLC syndrome? Well, it means you feel like crap and you know what I'm talking about. And people walk around feeling like this, and they don't have to. I coined this term FLC syndrome after seeing thousands of patients in my clinical practice.

Now, these low level, insidious symptoms that hold you back from feeling great and living your best life, their body's way of saying, ouch. Something is going on beneath the surface, and you need to deal with it. It's not normal to have these things. It's not part of the human condition. It really isn't, I promise you.

And when you leave these problems untreated, they often can spiral into more serious and more chronic diseases. Now, the worst part about this is that FLC syndrome is just so common, it's become normalized. But just because something is common doesn't mean that it's normal. In fact, it's anything but normal. Now, what's really good to know, and this is the important part to listen to, is that we have way more control over how we feel than we realize, and we have way more control over our health then we've been led to believe.

You just have to understand that what you eat and how you live is deeply connected to how you feel and your risk for chronic disease. Now, we're never taught how to make this connection between what we eat and what we feel. So we're leading this lifestyle that doesn't make us feel good. And it's not our fault, because nobody ever taught us how our bodies work. I mean, who got the operating manual for the human body when you were born?

Did it come out of the birth canal with you? Probably not. Right now, today's episode is all about giving you the tools you need to make better food choices to serve your health so you can start feeling better now. I mean, I always say I want you to help turn your body back to its original factory settings. Most of us don't realize we're just a few days away from feeling better.

And I want you to feel better now. In my treatment of my patients, I discovered that these issues stem from one common root cause. Can you guess what it is? That's right. Chronic, low level systemic inflammation.

You don't really notice it, but it's there, and it's causing all these symptoms. And what's the main way we can get rid of this food, getting rid of the bad stuff, adding in the good stuff, because you literally are what you eat. New cells, organs, tissues, brain cells, skin, muscles, bone, that's just manufactured out of thin air. The raw materials all come from what we eat. The structure of our cells, which determines our function and how good or bad we feel also depends on what we eat.

The proteins, the fats, the minerals and more are the building blocks of who we are. Now, let me ask you this. Would you rather be made of Doritos or maybe grass fed steak? Would you rather be made of coca cola or wild blueberries? It's not too hard to figure that out.

Now, this relationship between what we eat and how we feel comes down to the impact that food has on our DNA and something called gene expression. We can't change our genes, but we can change how our genes are expressed, whether we turn on or off health genes or disease genes. Now, this whole new field is emerging that's shedding light on this. It's called nutrigenomics, or nutrigenetics. Different people call it different things.

Now, nutrition genomics is a study of how food interacts with our bodies to create health or disease. Simply put, food is code, and you can literally upgrade or downgrade your biological software with every single bite. It's information that talks to your genes and controls the expression of those genes, which then impacts your hormones, your metabolism, your immune system, your microbiome, your brain chemistry, and lots more. With every bite, the food we eat sends messages to our genes instructing them to express health or disease. Is a calorie a calorie?

A calorie. Well, in a lab it is, yes. If you burn 1000 calories of Coca Cola or 1000 calories of broccoli in a lab, it releases the same amount of energy, which is essentially a calorie, is how much energy it requires to raise the temperature of one liter of water, one degree centigrade. That's just a scientific definition. But when you eat those calories, it's different.

If you drink a thousand calories of coca cola or eat a thousand calories of broccoli, it has profoundly different effects on your body. So they're not really identical when you eat them. So most of us understand that food provides energy in the form of calories. The food you eat gets digested into vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, amino acids, carbohydrates, sugars, which combine with oxygen that we breathe to make energy in the form of something called ATP. That's inside our cells, in these little energy factories called mitochondria.

Now, the APD produced by our mitochondria powers each and every one of the trillions of biological processes that take place in our bodies every second. And so when we gum up our engine with junk and junk food, our energy declines, our inflammation goes up, our oxidative stress goes up, disease goes up, symptoms go up, and we have FLC syndrome. Now theres a more serious version, we dont see that as much. Its called fls. We have treatments for that too.

So why does the quality of our fuel matter? Well think of the food you eat, like loading fuel into your car. Whole foods are premium clean burning, whereas ultra processed foods are like dirty diesel running on fuel made from starch, sugar, refined grains, additives, preservative gums, emulsifiers, contaminated food with toxins like BPA, pfaS, phthalates, not good for you and all that. Junk food also doesn't contain the essential nutrients that the engines need to run smoothly. Because basically the nutrients, vitamins and minerals are the essentially the grease that lubricates the wheels of our metabolic engine.

And so we need the right nutrients, we need the right protein, fiber, micronutrients. And when we don't have that, we basically get into trouble. When we burn dirty fuel, in other words junk food, it creates a lot of free radicals, or we call reactive oxygen species like pollution or exhaust, which comes out our mitochondria. And that causes all sorts of problems like inflammation, more oxidative stress, FLC symptoms, and chronic disease. Now the body produces its own antioxidants to protect us from this damage.

However, over time, a buildup of exposure to environmental toxins, infections, food sensitivities, too many calories, a poor diet, an unhealthy microbiome, and nutrient deficiencies all damage our energy producing centers and our cells called the mitochondria. And they do that to the point where the body's own protective mechanisms and antioxidant systems can't keep up. And then you get an energy crisis, you get mitochondrial damage and chronic disease. You see, poorly functioning mitochondria are an underlying root cause of many FLC symptoms and chronic disease, including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, GI issues, dementia, Parkinson's, chronic fatigue, and fibromyalgia. In fact, a study published in the British Medical journal, or BMJ, linked ultra processed foods to 32 adverse health outcomes, including cancer.

All cause mortality means death from anything, insomnia, depression, anxiety, asthma, hypertension, fatty liver prediabetes, and lots more. Studies linking ultra processed foods to chronic fatigue syndrome found that 70% of people suffering from chronic fatigue ate unhealthy fats had low fruit and vegetable intake, and 95% had a low fiber intake, a diet that's high in sugar and starch, which spikes blood sugar signals to our pancreas to release insulin, to deliver those glucose molecules and energy and fuel to the cells. But sometimes the insulin overshoots and your blood sugar drops too low, and that can cause hypoglycemia or low blood sugar. And again, that's a stress to the body, and it tells the body to release fight or flight hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. And that leads to all sorts of symptoms, like anxiety, palpitations, sweating, panic attacks, and nervousness and blood sugar.

Things like this lead to high insulin levels over time, which creates more free radicals, more inflammation, more insulin resistance. You can see it's a vicious cycle where basically we're eating all this crap, it's causing our metabolic system to become dysfunctional, it makes us gain weight, it makes us inflame, and it just makes you have FLC syndrome. It can cause all kinds of symptoms from this kind of stuff, including headaches, lack of focus, fatigue, weight gain, imbalances in your sex hormones. Now, the key to fixing FLC syndrome is making the connection between what we eat and how we feel. And so getting rid of those foods for a short time and then removing the most common food sensitivities, gluten, dairy, ultra processed food, grains, beans, for just a short time, like three weeks, and then adding them back is the best way to see how food affects you and to reset your system.

Think of it like hitting the reset button on your computer or putting your body back to its original factory settings. And it happens in days. It doesn't take weeks, literally, within days. In fact, I wrote a book called the ten day detox diet about ten years ago. Because I was doing so much repetition, explaining what to do.

I wrote a book to help my patients and to help the average person just implement this. And we've seen amazing results. Tell you more about them in a minute. But we've seen dramatic results with this approach in a very, very short time. So when you.

When you do the opposite, right, when you load your car with clean fuel, it balances our sex hormones, it helps our energy, it reduces inflammation. And so what is really clean fuel? Well, it's obvious, right? It's real nutrient dense, whole food that has all the essential nutrients, proteins and vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, fiber, all of which help you maintain a stable blood sugar, and they keep you full and energized for longer. And they're crucial for protecting your mitochondria and maintaining optimal health.

So, what is the functional medicine approach to preventing and reversing FLC syndrome, or worse? First it's taking out the bad stuff, and then it's putting in the good stuff. So what should you not eat? Well, over 30 years of practice, I developed a simple addition subtraction diet, or what we call an elimination reintroduction diet, to help you reset your body to its original factory settings and identify how many of your FLC symptoms are related to what you're eating. So just take out the bad stuff.

Don't eat ultra processed food. You shouldn't ever eat it anyway. But especially for this initial period, I would say ideally 21 days, but minimum ten. Ultra processed foods are basically engineered to be hyper palatable, to be addicting, to make you crave them, to make you want to eat more. They're high in added sugars, in flour and unhealthy fats and sodium, refined oils, gums, artificial flavors, dyes, preservatives, and they're low in really things we need, like essential nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, fiber.

Now, certain things are worse than others. Thickeners, gums, emulsifiers like carrageenan, xanthan gum, lecithin, locust, bean gumdeh can cause inflammation and dysbiosis, the overgrowth of bad bugs in the gut. And these emulsifiers, these thickeners, which are in all the processed food, essentially irritate the gut lining. They cause a leaky gut and they cause this low grade systemic inflammation, which is the driver of FLC syndrome. Right.

Joint pain, fatigue, headaches, irritable bowel bloating gas. Ultra processed is basically deconstructed foods from commodity products like corn we enjoy, that are reassembled in totally different chemical structures to something that the body doesn't even know what to do with. And that's what makes us sick. Now, the center aisles of the grocery store are full of processed junk, and you don't want to go down there. I mean, occasionally you want a condiment or something, fine, but just stay out of the aisles.

I did a whole episode on this, and I'm going to link to it in the show notes as well, so you can learn more if you want. Now, what are the big things that seem to be causing FLC syndrome? I think dairy, gluten and sugar are probably the top three. So if you don't want to do everything, you don't get rid of everything. I would say dairy, gluten and sugar, generally.

I recommend that people actually really limit their sugar and most gluten and most traditional dairy, because they definitely cause inflammation, they disrupt our gut health, and they contribute to a wide range of chronic illnesses, from migraines to chronic fatigue to autoimmunity. The list goes on. That's not to say that some dairy is not fine, like sheep or goat or some forms of grains can be fine, but most of the time, I would say dairy and gluten are the number one and two culprits. This is after decades of practice and also what the literature supports. Now, this can occur even with people who don't have celiac disease.

Why? Because dwarf wheat, which is the kind of wheat we're eating now, has a much higher starch and gluten content today than it used to 100 years ago because it's basically been hybridized and has way more gluten proteins, and it's more likely to cause leaky gut and more likely to cause inflammation. Now, on top of being inflammatory, today's wheat is often sprayed with the weed killer glyphosate at harvest to dry it out, which, aside from being a known carcinogen, acts like an antibiotic, wiping out our good gut bacteria and even damages the lining of the gut. Bad, bad for your gut. And that can lead to intestinal permeability increases or leaky gut.

So you want to avoid all the starchy stuff, right? All the gluten free stuff? Everything, right? Bagels, wraps, pasta, pastries, bread, even ones that say gluten free on the label. They're often worse because they're even more starchy.

You want to avoid sugar in all forms, right? Everything. Syrups, nectars, honey, stevia, sucralose, xylitol, any of the sugar alcohols, they all can drive inflammation. Just quit it. Cold turkey for ten days.

You can do anything for ten days, right? Just ten days. See how you feel. You don't want to trust me, just trust your body. It will tell you whether it likes it or not.

At the end of ten days, you'll know if you feel good or if you feel bad, if you have your symptoms resolved or if you've still got lingering symptoms. And maybe it's something else besides food. Maybe it's heavy metals or mold or lime or something else, but most of the time, it's food. So when you get to the cleaning up of your diet, you get rid of all the inflammatory foods, you get rid of a lot of the FLC syndrome and more serious diseases. Now, I've written a lot of books about this.

If you really want to learn about how to do this really well, and so you don't avoid a lot of the pitfalls of getting rid of the crap from your diet. You can check my book out, the ten day detox diet. We'll put in a link in the show notes. Now excess starch and sugar in the diet disrupts your hormone balance. It slows your metabolism and impairs your body's ability to burn fat.

So don't eat it or just very little right dairy stay away from industrial processed milk and cheese. Conventionally raised dairy cattle are often treated with hormones and antibiotics, and that messes up your hormones and can contribute to antibody resistance. And dairy also contains allergenic proteins and inflammatory compounds that can trigger immune responses and lots of inflammation in the body. You also want to avoid flavored and sweetened things like yogurt or kefir, which can have upwards of 20 grams of sugar per serving, which is a lot are you tired of sleeping hotter than you'd like? In our quest for well being, we often overlook the importance of sleep temperature.

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For example, grass fed a two cows that there are out there which are better locally sourced cheeses that are often better tolerated from regenerative farms or grass fed farms with a two cows a one casein is essentially the one that causes a lot of inflammation. Also, don't drink liquid sugar, right, fruit juice, sugar sweetened beverages. All these lead to sugar spikes in the blood, increased belly fat storage, a greater chance of developing prediabetes and type two diabetes. And many juices, even green juices or smoothie bowls are made with really a high glycemic tropical fruit like bananas, mango, pineapple, and they may have as much sugar as soda. Now there's vitamins, minerals and fiber and a few better things, but still, it's a whopping load of sugar.

Juicing and blending destroys fiber which helps slow the fructose absorption and promotes satiety. So you just basically dont want to drink juice, even if its healthy juice like orange juice you think is good, or apple juice. Its basically drinking liquid sugar and fructose in particular, which has some problems and weve talked about that on the podcast before. You might want to check the one I did with Doctor Robert Lustig, where we go in detail about what fructose is and what it does to the body. Also, alcohol, not a good thing to do if you want to reset your body.

Just get rid of alcohol. Actually just, it's amazing epigenetic test I recently did myself. And they can actually tell how much alcohol you drink just by looking at your genome and the epigenetic marks which will scare you off alcohol for good, I think. And basically in your body, alcohol turns to sugar, especially when mixed with sweetened mixed. I mean so many mixed drinks are so sweet.

I just, I can't ever drink those. But also all the sugar and sweetened coffees and teas, not good. Diet soda. Again, diet sodas sound like they're healthier, but they actually may be associated with other issues. Gut microbiome changes.

I mean, they're for sure better than soda, but not better than water for weight loss. Also, avoid drinks with more than 5 grams of sugar per serving. 4 grams is about a teaspoon. And that includes flavored nut milks. Watch out for those creamers, protein drinks, green juices, kombuchas, which have a lot of sugar.

So that's what not to eat. That's what you get rid of, right? Processed food, sugar, starch, all the high glycemic fruit, get rid of all liquid sugar, calories, get rid of gluten, dairy, I would also say grains and beans. And the reason for that is that a lot of people have gut issues, a lot of people have metabolic issues, and they're just a little starchy or a little more high dose of carbohydrates. They can be harder to digest.

We just want to give your body a break, not say grains or beans are bad. It's just for the ten days I would get off of them. All right, what should you be eating? Well, you should be eating medicine, right? And now you might think, oh, my God, doctor hyman, that just sounds overwhelming.

I don't know, is it a lot? But theres so many delicious foods that we can eat to fuel our bodies while reducing blood sugar spikes. Now, if youre thinking to yourself, gee, can I have monk fruit, can I have this, can I have that? It probably means youre an addict, right? Youre negotiating.

So just be aware of that. When you eat in the right way and you add in the right foods and you take out the bad stuff, your blood sugar balances, you get less inflammation. Your cravings that are like very addictive tend to go away, usually by day, two or three at the latest. And at the same time, you know you want to eat all the good foods that are going to support your optimal health. Right?

Nutrient dense whole foods that control blood sugar to make you feel full quality protein, about a gram per pound of body weight. Ideal body weight. We generally raise meats like wild game, elk, venison, bison, grass fed beef, wild caught fish, the small ones like salmon, mackerel, anchovies, herring, sardines, pasture aged pulte chicken, turkey, peasant. If you can get that. I don't know you can get that, but sometimes it's okay.

Duck whole organic non gmo soy like tofu, tempeh, although it's a bean, but it's processed in a way that's easier to digest and less reactive. Eggs are fine pasture raised eggs or omega three rich eggs. Goat and sheep cheese I probably would stay away from for the first ten days. If you want to do ideally a full elimination to see if you really want to hit the reset button. I would just get rid of all dairy.

But if you want to add back stuff, add back goat and sheep, which are a little bit better tolerated, and a lot of healthy fats, right? Good fats don't make you fat, right? If you want to replace the bad fat with the good fat, just get rid of all the soybean oil, canola oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, cottonseed oil, vegetable oil, hydrogen oil, margarine, palm oil, those are all just not things to be consumed and eat. The good fats, right? Anti inflammatory omega three s olive oil, right?

From monounsaturated fats, macadamia nuts, which are like the olive oil of nuts, lots of omega three s from your diet, the smashed fish I just mentioned, salmon, mackerel, anchovies, sardines and herringen, walnuts, chia flax, hemp seeds, lots of olives, olive oil, avocados, almonds, pecans, macadamia nuts, almond oil, macadamia nut oil, that all is monounsaturated, although they are often complex mixtures of other fats as well. What about saturated fat? Well, some people can do fine, and some people don't. Just be aware of what your body does, but coconut oil, grass fed butter, ghee, things that are rich in prebiotic fibers that help your gut. Bacteria and phytochemicals like probably 30 to 50 grams to feed and grow your good gut bugs help your gut stay healthy.

Which if you haven't understood from this podcast yet, getting your leaky gut sorted is a key part of getting rid of FLC syndrome. I eat lots of veggies, non starchy veggies, unlimited refills. You know, you can have six to eight cups, which is not five to nine servings, it's more like twelve to 18 servings. So fill your plate with 75% veggies, kale, broccoli, lettuce, radishes, arugula, celery, bok choy, asparagus, bell peppers, watercress, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, tomatoes, dandelion, greenshouse, hearts of palm, eggplant, cucumbers, the more color the better. What about fruit can you eat fruit?

Yeah, you can have fruit. About a half a cup of berries or one piece of fruit a day. Keep it low because again, it turns into sugar. We try to just keep the sugar really low for the detox and then you'll see how you feel, you know, like, oh my God, my FLC syndrome's gone, my joints feel better, I don't have migraines, my digestion's good, my sinus is better. When I'm posting a little drip, my pm's is gone, my energy is better, I'm sleeping better.

I mean, the list goes on and on and on. So make sure if you're going to have fruit, the citrus is fine, lemon slimes are fine. Stick with the berries. Blackberries, strawberries, raspberries, wild blueberries. The higher tropical fruit you don't want to eat, like the pineapple, bananas, mangoes, those spike your blood sugar, obviously no fruit juice, lots of spices and herbs, go for it, right?

Cinnamon, fenugreek, ginseng, berberine, oregano, sage, all that's great. We're going to put a link to how to do the ten day detox in the bio. So check it out. We're going to put it in the show notes. In fact, I led a group of 600 people through this detox.

They lost 4000 pounds in ten days, an average of two inches from their waist, two inches in just ten days, 1.4 inches from their hips. The average blood sugar dropped 18 points, blood pressure dropped eleven points. But more importantly, it fixed their FLC syndrome. Now here's what was remarkable. In just ten days, all symptoms from all diseases dropped by 62%.

And that included things like fatigue, migraines, irritable bowel reflux, joint muscle pain, rashes, hives, acne, depression, anxiety, binge eating, cravings, and list goes on. In other words, any symptom of FLC syndrome seem to get better. Now there is no drug on the planet that can produce those results, except for food. So as we wrap up, understand that this isnt about imposing some strict, arbitrary dietary limitation or fearing the occasional indulgence. Its about empowering us each to make informed choices that nourish our bodies.

We need to reject the complacency of just being okay when we have all these symptoms, when we actually are just a few days away from feeling good. So good news is you're just a few days away from getting rid of FLC syndrome. Thanks for listening today. If you love this podcast, please share it with your friends and family. Leave a comment on your own best practices on how you upgrade your health and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and follow me on all social media channels.

Drmarcyman and we'll see you next time on the Doctors pharmacy. For more information on today's episode, please check out my new video and audio podcast, Health hacks. It airs every Tuesday and includes a more detailed breakdown of these Friday health bites episodes. I'm always getting questions about my favorite books, podcasts, gadgets, supplements, recipes and lots more. And now you can have access to all of this information by signing up for my free marks picks newsletter@drheiman.com.

markspicks I promise I'll only email you once a week on Fridays, and I'll never share your email address or send you anything else besides my recommendations. These are the things that helped me on my health journey, and I hope they'll help you too. Again, that's drheiman.com markspicks. Thank you again, and we'll see you next time on the doctor's pharmacy. This podcast is separate from my clinical practice at the Ultra Wellness center and my work at Cleveland Clinic and Function Health, where I'm the chief medical officer.

This podcast represents my opinions and my guests opinions, and neither myself nor the podcast endorses the views or statements of my guests. This podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided on the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for your help in your journey, seek out a qualified medical practitioner.

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