Today, we get to discuss nutrition and its importance to health with Dr. Edwin McDonald, a gastroenterologist from the University of Chicago.
Here are the notes from today's show:
Intro:
00:00 Hey everyone and welcome to unconventional wellness radio, powerful and inspiring podcast Set to revolutionize and disrupt healthcare. It's time to put you in the driver's seat to be the force of change necessary for the lifestyle you've always wanted.
Frank:
00:19 Hey everyone. This is Frank from unconventional wellness radio and I have the special pleasure and privilege of being able to bring in my new friend Dr Edwin Mcdonald on the call today. Dr Edwin Mcdonald is a board certified gastroenterologist who teaches at the University of Chicago and he of course also sees patients there and he is also the associate director of human nutrition at the University of Chicago. And I had the great pleasure of meeting Dr Mcdonald a very recently, a matter of fact here in the Asheville area at the Healthy Eating in Conference Practice, uh, which was held by an organization called Asap, which is a great organization. It's a nonprofit trying to bring about awareness of sustainable agriculture. And they had this conference where they had folks who are just getting started with their medical careers. And then folks like Dr. Mcdonald has been practicing for a while, but they're doing very innovative and very cool things with the attrition and the bringing in all of these other aspects of wellness. And so Dr Mcdonald was a pleasure to have you on the call today.
Dr. McDonald:
01:26 Hey, what's up, frank? And I'm honored to be here. Really appreciate everything that she's doing. So, uh, thanks for having me on the show, man.
Frank:
01:33 Absolutely. So one of the things that captivated us was your story that you, you're just a natural storyteller and I really want to share you with everybody out there in the, uh, the unconventional wellness world about just how brilliant is the journey has been for you leading up to your eventual deciding to go to medical school, but you really have this really great history of culinary arts. If you don't mind, why don't you go ahead and just kind of tell us a bit of that story of how you got started with that.
Dr. McDonald:
02:05 Yeah. So, you know, it's really interesting story about how I got into medicine. So, um, you know, originally what inspired me to get into medicine. Thanks. And my great grandfather who had never met before because he passed away before I was born, like before I was born. So I'm actually at when Mcdonald was for a, so I'm the fourth generation of men in my family with that name. And my son is assist. Uh, but my great grandfather was a actually a physician. Um, so we hear these stories about like how amazing this guy was. Um, and I have his name, but I never met him. Um, so I've always felt like I was, you know, living in that shadow. So he, uh, he was born in like 1893 or something like that. And his father was actually born a slave. Uh, so was born like before slavery ended.
Dr. McDonald:
03:01 He was just a baby at that time. Um, but my great grandfather ended up going to medical school at northwestern, which I didn't really know until I was actually a medical student at northwestern. Like I thought he went to medical school somewhere else and I literally found out when I was a medical student, coincidentally at northwestern. That's all. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, you know, my great grandfather, it's funny, he was a pediatrician here in Chicago, so, uh, at that time African Americans can only go to certain hospitals. Do you know the way the world was that time? Of course, the unfortunate. Yeah. But that's, I mean, that was the reality of it. So, uh, he was a pediatrician in the hospital that was the only house in Chicago that was the African American and uh, as a result, a lot of my patients who are like in their nineties now actually his patients.
Dr. McDonald:
03:54 Is that right? Yeah. You never even knew that you were going to follow in his footsteps. And we actually have the same patient to some degree, but I have at least at least maybe 15 patients that had my great grandfather as their. Yeah. So I got into a, that's how I originally got interested in the medicine and um, subsequently, uh, you know, went to medical school and all that good stuff. But I got into nutrition primarily. It really started when I was younger. I always enjoy cooking from my grandmothers, taught me how to cook and everything. Uh, when I was younger, my mom was off in the hospital frequently, so I had to be the person that cooked for the family. So, uh, one of my grandmothers and, you know, these are like matriarchs of the family, so they really sat me, gave me cookbooks, you know, I'm like 10 years old, flipping through July of cooking, trying to find recipes for the family.
Dr. McDonald:
04:50 And uh, I loved it. So I ended up with a halfway decent cook. And in fast forward to my teenage years, I started working at Mcdonald's and actually became a manager at McDonald's. So when I was working there, uh, I will see these families who will come in to Mcdonald's every day for dinner or some people come in every morning for breakfast. And I, you know, I just thought something was odd about that. Um, I don't really have the medical terminology to express what I thought was odd about it, but something just didn't seem right about people going to Mcdonald's every single day all the time, you know. So I started cooking thing. So then that wasn't on the menu. So I'll make omelets in the morning like you can't get, you know, Mcdonald's, but I would take the, the Canadian Bacon from the egg mcmuffins and the onions from the big Mac, uh, and the eggs from the egg mcmuffins and, you know, put them all on the skillet and own the grill and make omlettes.
Dr. McDonald:
05:54 Um, and it got to the point where my Mcdonald's had a secret many became the iron chef at Mcdonald's there just for one, you shouldn't have. I should've put a 16 year old and anything. This is true and that's what you get. You get secret menu at Mcdonald's on the 16 year old is running the show. Uh, but, you know, for whatever reason, people enjoyed it. And uh, you know, seeing the fact that people enjoy what I was doing, a really showed me how important cooking was outside of my own home. You know, cooking for your family is one thing. But then when you start cooking for other people and really seeing how the positive impact that can have on somebody outside of people who actually like or no, you, uh, it's good. Uh, and that's something that I carried with you throughout Undergrad and subsequently in medical school.
Dr. McDonald:
06:43 Now when I got into medical school, uh, you started learning about disease. Um, you know, for the most part in Undergrad and high school, you don't really learn about it disease and like what goes wrong with the human body and why. Uh, so even though I had this premed curriculum that was all science class, it wasn't actually learning about what happens to people and why, why things happen to people. So medical school was my first exposure to some of those concepts. And I remember being in some of those lectures sitting in front of the class and lectures would say, you know, we'll have a talk on diabetes. And they're like, well, diabetes, most of the reason why people have diabetes type two diabetes United States is because of the foods that we, uh, high blood pressure people in the United States eat too much sodium a heart disease. People eat foods that are too high in cholesterol. So I wouldn't raise my hand after all those lecturers and ask the lecturer, uh, well, what should we be eating? And uh, there will be a blank face, a blank stare on their face and no one would have a response. They will just say, well, we need right.
Dr. McDonald:
07:55 But no one would actually define with eating right was, um, and I would sit in the front of the class and a lot of these conditions disproportionately affect African Americans. And for me as an African American, you know, I'm asking the question not only as a position but also for myself, like I don't want to get diabetes for sure. Sure. I don't want to have high blood pressure. Uh, so, you know, there was definitely a desire to help others. But there was also, you know, I'm asking the question, how is self preservation to some degree? And no one would give me an answer and that effect, people will get annoyed. Like, why are you asking this question? So, you know, medical school, it didn't really, it just said these were the problem, but we didn't really learn about solutions. I mean, we learned about pharmacology. What medications the kids for high blood pressure.
Dr. McDonald:
08:49 I mean, I can tell you a dozen medications for high blood pressure, but your average Dr probably couldn't tell you a dozen foods that can help with high blood pressure. Um, so that's something that, that carry on that I took when I went to a, become a resident and as a resident when I started having my own clinic, I had a clinic at the Jesse Brown VA where I had the privilege of taking care of veterans and like I told you at the conference and everyone at the conference, I really appreciate it taking care of that. Uh, if I had to pick out the one and one of the most important parts of my training, uh, probably my exposure to the veterans and, you know, being able to provide care for them.
Dr. McDonald:
09:33 It was an amazing experience to be able to hang out with the World War II veterans, Korean War veterans and a Vietnam veterans. Most of the patients at that time with Vietnam veteran. And then, uh, at that time, uh, some of the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, you know, I saw the first wave of people coming back. So, you know, people were able to share the experiences without what you're actually talking to one of those on the podcasts right now.
Frank:
10:00 Yeah, I was, I was a Iraq war veteran, so it's so know for me, uh, I have nothing but the utmost respect and appreciation for the veterans. And then I also really appreciated hearing their stories and perspective because you know, what we see on the news and what really goes down. These aren't necessarily one and the same and you don't really know that until you have the opportunity to talk to somebody about that. So for me, you know, it was humbling. Uh, but I learned a lot and I didn't want that. If it's one of those experiences that you really. Well first of all we say you,
Frank:
10:37 it was a veteran. We love our physicians and so if I tell you we thank you for your service as well and that uh, and that there really is like just value in hanging out with the veteran community because there's just so many stories like we come from all corners of the United States and to be able to descend what that common thread of curving, you know, and then just the networking that goes along with that is just changing. So, and
Dr. McDonald:
11:04 on a side note for you listeners, if you guys have any politicians that threatened to take funding away from the Va hospital and does not want to give va hospital needs, like those politicians are terrible and you should not support them. Uh, and you know, you can quote me on that and calling you versus Chicago Hospital and tell them, I said Mcdonald, you have to add an a to z so you'll still be able to find it. But yeah, no, thank you for that. So I had one veteran in particular and he talked about his story at the conference. So I'm a young intern. I have my clinic and I came into medicine with a certain degree of idealism. I'm very idealistic and I want to be this great doctor and I really want to help people and I see this patient for the first time, uh, I look over his chair, get his history and I see all the notes from other doctors and he had all the common diseases that affect Americans.
Dr. McDonald:
12:05 Uh, so diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, had a mild stroke in the past, you know, mild heart attack and the path also had fatty liver disease is probably 100, 150 pounds overweight. And he also recently got divorced because he had erectile dysfunction. Uh, so with all the stuff he had gone on as far as health issues that lead to erectile dysfunction, which led to the divorce. And then plus, you know, he had some depression and you know, a whole bunch of things going on. And I lived through his chart. Every time we will come to the doctor, his blood pressure would be a little bit elevated. And when my colleague, which is add on another blood pressure medication or increase the dose blood pressure medication, if he came in, let's see, it could be a little bit higher and you know, every person, all they would do with that, another medication on our increased insulin and insulin actually promotes weight gain. So as his insulin, uh, as, as, as insulin builds with increasing his weight was simultaneously increasing with it. Um, he would have a heart attack, you know, they just give them aspirin or you will go from a baby aspirin to a full dose aspirin. And I was the response to heart attack, uh, if I may
Frank:
13:21 for the workers for the benefit of the listeners. Dr McDonald, I wanted to let you guys know where there's a, there's a description is that I'm, I'm a, I'm a physician assistant. I didn't necessarily say that, but you guys probably know that to me, my other podcast. But that's something that we call it polypharmacy. And there's a way that a lot of Americans these days are being managed is that it's like if one blood pressure medication isn't working, there is a complimentary blood, my blood pressure medication that has been created, different class of medication, but then you ended up running into patients that are on five, six, seven medication to handle all these conditions that Dr Mcdonald was talking about. And then you can run into a slew of possible side effects that may or may not be going on. You know, like one of the most typical side effects with somebody like in the veterans community, the antidepressants is going to be erectile dysfunction and you have to watch out for some of the medications that folks are on commonly because a lot of folks just will tack these medications on. They do a quick little scrub, but then they're on five or six medications, which I don't know if anybody really likes to do that. But that's the concept of polypharmacy if that's okay. Then I ended that.
Dr. McDonald:
14:30 Oh definitely, definitely. And then for me as a physician, I don't want to downplay the need for medication because in many situations people need medications, medications, and well study to, you know, have some positive benefits for absolutely scenarios, but when you use medications without addressing the underlying problem, um, I think it's like know, I don't want to say the elephant in the room, but for lack of a better analogy, like we're ignoring the obvious in certain situations in his situation. No one address what he was eating. And for me I felt like it was, there was obviously an issue or obviously something that we should talk about. But when I looked through all the notes, I didn't see any comment on what he was eating. I didn't see any, uh, you know, dietician though switching, unfortunately America, it's actually hard to sit down with a dietician, a.
Dr. McDonald:
15:22 most insurance companies don't pay for dieticians and Medicare, Medicaid, you know, good luck. You have to have really bad diabetes to be able to sit down with a Dietitian or um, and, and even still, they may not cover everything. Uh, so it's just like, why do you have to wait till you have diabetes in order to see a dietician? Like we should see Dietitians so we won't get diabetes. Right. That's a whole separate conversation. So I sat down and I asked them a simple question. I'm like, hey man, you know, so I see you have all these diseases that done from diet, like, what are you eating? And you just told me how and you know, I didn't think he meant hot dogs for every meal. So I asked them, I'm like, well, what are you doing for breakfast? And you know, he calmly said hot dogs.
Dr. McDonald:
16:13 And then I'm like, well, what are you doing for lunch? And he seemed a little bit, a little bit more annoyed. I could hear it in his voice a little bit, a little bit of anger and he's just like hot dogs. And then I asked them again, I'm like, okay, well what are you, what are you doing for dinner now? At this point I could tell he was visibly annoyed. Like he stood up, he looked like he was gonna walk out and I'm just like, listen, work with me man. And then he said hot dog again. Um, and so I realized he was really just eating hot dogs every single meal. Uh, and, and these weren't even hot dogs with relish on it. It was no festival whatsoever. It was just the hot dog and he didn't put ketchup on it. It was hot dogs and mustard because in Chicago, you know, Chicago style dog typically does not have ketchup on it.
Dr. McDonald:
17:03 Yeah. So he was just more of a southern thing I suppose. Yeah. I, you know, I should look up the history of that. But, uh, nonetheless, he was just eating hot dogs with mustard and, and I, you know, I told them, I'm like, you can't live on hot dogs. That is, that is not a life promoting dies, if anything that is a death promoting died show. And I realized we had to make some changes. So I gave them a recipe, a nothing fancy at that point in my life. And I knew how to cook what I wasn't a trained chef or anything like that. So I gave them a recipe. I just said, look man, what vegetables do you like? And he was just like, well, I love Broccoli, I love cauliflower. And I'm like, okay, cool. We can work with Broccoli. Um, I told him to basically just put some grass on cauliflower and Broccoli.
Dr. McDonald:
17:57 So some olive oil on it, a little bit of salt, not too much because you have high blood pressure, a roasted and up and put it in for 25 roasted for 15, 20 minutes, get a little bit drawn and not too much. It'll come out the list. And he said, okay. I wrote down the recipe, we shook hands and I thought I'd come back and see me in three months. So three months later he comes back and I mean, he's like 40, 50 pounds down if he complained of dizziness because blood sugar was going low periodically. And also his blood pressure, uh, was a lot lower than what it has been a. So I'm looking at this guy, you know, I think the guy had cancer or something. I'm like, man, we need to check your prostate, like what was going on, did you get colonoscopy because she lost all this weight and I'm and I'm like, what have you been eating?
Dr. McDonald:
18:48 And he basically was like, well, I stopped eating the hotdogs and I just ate the roasted vegetables. I'm like, well what's your this? And he wrote us lunch and you got a little bit of Noi roasted vegetables, dinner, the same thing. So he essentially switched over to a plant based diet and found that his blood pressure was low. Again, the blood sugar is on the low side. So we had to slowly decreases insulin. We had to slowly decreases blood pressure medication and you know, being on just Broccoli and cauliflower alone, that's not the healthiest diet to be on. And the longterm of. So we had the, you know, add some more plant based sources of protein and things of that nature and other, you know, variety of different vegetables. But know nonetheless, he switched over to becoming a vegetarian. And, you know, one thing that stood out that stood out to me, he said, when he lost all that weight, uh, he noticed that he can like his buddies, uh, whereas before, when he had so much weight on him, he couldn't really do that anymore.
Dr. McDonald:
19:51 He lost more weight, even mentioned that he had an easier time tying his shoes and put on his socks on. Whereas before, you know, he couldn't really put his socks on easy. Like it was a struggle. Uh, he had to have, you know, different tools to help him get his socks on and just, you know, simple things like being able to wipe himself easily and put it in the socks on, was his motivation to take things a step further. So, you know, he started riding his bike, he started, um, you know, walking more and started engaging in more physical activity. And, you know, subsequently as a result, he started feeling better. His depression got a little bit better. Uh, his erectile dysfunction got better. He started dating and you know, what I took away from that story was this was just all food, uh, this had nothing to do with me as a physician, you know, that there was no, uh, you know, it wasn't like a, I was, you know, the coaches it notre dam or something.
Dr. McDonald:
20:50 I'm giving them a great speech that inspired him. It wasn't like that. It was just, he just changed his diet and if anything he inspired me, uh, to, to talk about this with more patients because the change I saw him, I'm like, you know, can we replicate this? Can other people do what he did? Uh, and I found that yes, people can and people want to, um, we just have to give people the right guy to do that. Um, so that's why I decided eventually to after residency, a study nutrition and got to color in your school and get certified as a chef. So when I was doing my fellowship and nutrition at the newer Chicago, uh, that fellowship was mostly here towards clinical nutrition, which is very different than just talking about food. So clinical nutrition is really a, using a tpn and ivy nutrition, uh, and you know, placing feeding tubes and people's stomachs and stuff like that and feeding them.
Dr. McDonald:
21:52 And it's really a sick population of patients. So these are people who've had severe injuries, uh, you know, be from trauma or car crashes and you know, a lot of their bowel has been removed so they can't include the regular way, uh, or people who have cancer and the cancer is blocking her bowels and we have to figure out ways to is to give them so they can survive, you know, as they're finishing chemotherapy. So a really sick population of patients. Uh, but then at fellowship wasn't teaching me about, you know, how to feed people who have diabetes. It wasn't talking about like everyday stuff. Uh, so that's, that's why I went to culinary arts school and in the evening and got trained as a chef and a, culinary arts training. Uh, you had to actually take a nutrition class. And the crazy thing is, you know, throughout medical school, I didn't have a nutrition class. I had to go to culinary arts school to get my first class and nutrition. Wow. And I went to a top notch medical school. I mean like one of the best in the country.
Dr. McDonald:
22:55 So that's crazy. But that, that's like the state of healthcare nowadays. And that also explains why, you know, we spend all this money on healthcare. We're the number one in the world when it comes to health spending. But in terms of, you know, our actual longevity, I think the United States where it's like 31st 33 in the world as far as how long were you actually living was there's a huge disconnect. Like we spend all this money but we don't necessarily get the outcome that we're paying for. So a lot of it has to do with we're, we're missing the simple stuff. And the simple stuff is important. So yes, you know, you can get the craziest complex surgery here. Uh, you can come see me for colonoscopies and I can take out polyps and possibly move cancers and you know, all these problems. But when it comes to, you know, the foundation for preventing some of these problems, uh, I think there's a lot of room for improvement in that space and you know, doctors play a role, uh, but there's a lot of stuff that can be done outside of the hospital and you know, the kitchen is just as important.
Dr. McDonald:
24:02 I think the kitchen is probably as important as the medicine cabinet.
Frank:
24:07 I, I just thank you so much for sharing that by the way. Ours is my, my second time, maybe third time hearing that story and it just gets better every time I hear it. He was like, I just get some nuggets out of it. So thank you so much for sharing that Dr Mcdonald and I think I echo exactly what you're setting and uh, and what this entire, you know, what does the entire concept of unconventional one of us is really centered around is still the patient provider relationship. There's still massive value in that. And I think that we both can say that we appreciate the fact that we live in a society where we do have major advancements in medical care. I mean, people are getting cured from different types of cancers all the time, all around the world. I mean, we might be on the cost of actually understanding.
Frank:
24:56 I mean, we now live in a world where we can treat hepatitis C, where we never. We never thought about that when I was going through PA school or medical school. Yeah. That was it. We were talking about, you know, these folks possibly having to go on the liver transplant list, but now we have a medication that could do it. So amen to the, to the advancements that we have in our medical care. But yes, some of those statistics that came out of the same conference that we attended was a, you know, it's unbelievable how 80 percent of Americans have a preventable disease. We don't die from tuberculosis anymore in this country, you know? Yeah. We'll get cases of it and stuff like that. But other, by and far these things have been treated and we thankfully have a society free of them. Um, but of that 80 percent of American, um, you know, depending upon, I guess the, the source that you're looking at.
Frank:
25:49 I've seen it as high as $2,000,000,000,000 in American medical costs to actually manage those 80 percent of Americans who have a preventable disease and so there's got to be. There's a problem here and I think that the biggest disconnect starts with the choices that we as the patients are actually making and so we need to empower our physicians, I think to let them understand that we want this and we need this and that. I don't care to be seen by a doctor, you know, many times throughout my entire year, I would love to come in, shake a hand, maybe have to do my colonoscopy when I'm 50 and you know, everything looks good. Mr Ritz, take care. Of, you know, I would love to. We would love for it to be like that, but you're absolutely right. I think that we are really losing touch with food. It's becoming far too easy for us to look at a way
Frank:
26:44 of saying, I just need this food. Maybe it is fast. We have a very fast food mentality and I'm not talking about just fast as restaurants. I think I'm talking about. We have this mentality that whole foods has made a massive market for themselves and they're a multibillion dollar corporation on the sense that yes, they sell good food, but the thing is, is that they also, you know, the reason why they were able to get people into the door was that they were taking their good food and then we're making it fast. So you could walk up and say, I want this, I want this, I want this. They'll put it into a tray and then you're out the door. So at least we're eating healthy foods. But yes, it's still a fast food mentality. So let me think about whole foods. We act like wholesome is a brand new concept, but if you go back to the 19 seventies, you know, 50, 60 years, etc.
Dr. McDonald:
27:32 Like every grocery store will hold on it. It, you know, there wasn't a whoLe, like most of the vegetables organic. Uh, if you went to the deli section, do you had, you know, people who really worked at a deli section mate fluid in the deli section. Um, so if anything, wholefoods is just returning to, you know, simpler day what we just focused on absolute. Well. And then one of the other talks that I remember that you had during your discussion with us at the conference was a, you know, these food swamps, food deserts, you know, and so if you wouldn't mind, could you describe a little bit about the food swamps in food desert concept for whiskers? Yeah. So, you know, food deserts, it's a term that really became popular and then they 2000 and it really describes neighborhoods where there is a lack of access to fresh fruits and vegetables, grocery stories that contain, you know, fruits and vegetables.
Dr. McDonald:
28:28 Most of these neIghborhoods have convenience stores but not necessarily full fledged grocery stores. Uh, so those are basically call it food deserts. And the term actually originated in scotland and originate and United States. United states kind of took it and ran with it. Um, so chicago, a city in which I live in a definitely have some food deserts and most of the food desert is actually, uh, an african american neighborhood. It's not all of them are african american neighborhood. Okay. Uh, so food deserts do not affect everyone equally. However, allow retail areas, which they don't really get as much attention as he deserved. A, are also qualified as food deserts for different reasons. And so even though real areas may have farms and stuff like that, but, um, the fruit growing on those farms may not actually get to the residents of those areas and many places.
Dr. McDonald:
29:22 So those area technically can, are considered food deserts, a food swamps, a little bit different concept. If anything, it's more of a realistic concept because one, if you go to any urban community has designated a food desert. It's not like you won't see food. Uh, there's plenty of food joints and you know, a plenty convenience stores. Uh, and so in many ways, those areas or swamp a swamp, unhealthy food and the food swamps, if anything, that's really driving a problem. Uh, you know, imagine if you're, if you don't have a whole lot of money, a hit, you're hungry. And when you're driving home from work or walking home from work or taking the train from home from work or just, you know, walking around the neighborhood in general and you pass, you know, your favorite barbecue spot or your favorite chicken joint or you know, mcdonald's or whatever, and you have to walk by all of these places. Uh, and these are places are the list of foods. It's not like the food taste better places and it's so easy and so tempting just to walk in there and get, you know, three wings for $2 or interference for us. And it's hard to, to be healthy in that scenario. I mean, it takes, like I, I hate to say everyone wants to talk aboUt willpower and self control and like I feel like these concepts are unfair to some degree because it's hard out here.
Frank:
30:58 So that's all the time that we have for today's podcast. But please make sure that you hit that subscribe button because we're gonna be bringing you part two of the interview with dr edwin mcdonald. As we dive into local regional food, they give you some juicy tidbits on how you can start making better choices and live a life of unconventional. Please subscribe to this podcast on itunes or wherever you're listening to us through so you can always receive this great content as soon as we make it. So subscribe right now and here's to your good health.
