#115 David Unwin: Reversing Type 2 Diabetes & The Truth About Food Addiction

Listen: Spotify • Apple Podcasts • Fountain
Watch: YouTube • Rumble

Struggling with weight gain and feel like it's your fault? In this episode, award-winning NHS GP Dr. David Unwin explains why the real problem isn't a lack of willpower, but a modern diet of ultra-processed foods scientifically engineered to be addictive. He shares his pioneering low-carb approach to reversing Type 2 Diabetes through diet alone and discusses the silent pandemic of fatty liver disease, the truth about 'fat jabs' like Ozempic, and the system that profits from making you sick. Listen now to understand the real cause of our health crisis and how you can take back control.

---

• Transcript

  Peter McCormack

  And so you can find out more@iron.com which is i r e n.com that is iron.com Welcome David. Welcome. Good to meet you. Thank you. I can't remember who recommended you to me, somebody recommended you and said, You cover too much politics. You need to get into some other subjects, and I highly recommend getting David Unwin on the show. So I did my research, and I think it was for two reasons. I think one, yeah, I think you're fascinating and a good person to talk to be good for the audience. I think they were also thinking of what I've got going on here in my show.

  David Unwin

  I was just looking at your tummy there and thinking, maybe we could do something about

  Peter McCormack

  that. I'm a bit overweight. David, I so I once got into really good shape running every day got down to about 12 and a half stone. There's a time when I was vegan, and I know you're not a fan of that, but I was very healthy, and then I put my back out, and I slowly just got bigger and bigger over the last seven Do

  David Unwin

  you there's a little thing there that could be wrong? Do you believe that the lack of exercise is why you are larger. Now, is that a belief that you have

  Peter McCormack

  no I think it's diet. Thank you. Yeah, I think it's a mixture of lifestyle and diet. Mainly my lifestyle so busy that I don't plan my meals. So when I got into good shape, when I was a vegan, I took a year off work, yeah? So I made every meal fresh. Now it's like today, we had a bit bagel at lunchtime, and we're rushing around sad, yeah? But I know it's completely down to personal just all of this is down to personal discipline.

  David Unwin

  Ah, you know, I dispute that as well. I I think we talk far too much about, you know, because that, if it's down to personal discipline, how does that feel for you? You know, does this mean you're lazy? Does it mean you lack discipline? And if that is so, how is that for all the listeners that are overweight? Because my message is not that you lack willpower, that you're somehow weak, I think that is almost a dangerous statement, and it's really bad for people's self esteem to believe that there's some kind of an inevitable consequence of their lack of discipline. Because I think there are some other major factors we're getting ahead of ourselves here the choices around us, isn't it? It is the choices around us. But we'll come back to this. But I absolutely believe that many junk foods are addictive, and so, you know, if you think about somebody with nicotine or alcohol, the choices they make, it's something way beyond weakness of spirit, isn't it? Yeah, and what if, so, if something like nicotine or alcohol? What if those factors were similar for food? And what if your food choices were also governed by a possible addiction? Because if that was true, that would be another explanation why so many people in the UK have a big tummy and high blood pressure and all of the other things that come with being overweight, and that would be a very different thing. So you touched on politics. I think one of the things about politics is they like to think, well, it's it's all down to. Individual freedoms. You should all eat what you like, and that's great, because they can just wash their hands of you now, because it's all up to you. But, but what if there was if, if junk food addiction did exist and it was serious and many people were eating without the ability to control what they're eating as something far more serious.

  Peter McCormack

  Okay, fair. Okay. So there we are. Well, look, I know it's within my control, because I've done it before, good. And I know is a combination of the choices I make, yes, with the options in front of me, yes, that I don't always make the best choice. We will come to that. Let's go, Yeah, let's go back a step, and I'll use myself as the patient for this. I'm 46 Yes. I am probably 16 Stone. I don't know what that is. In kilos, I I know when I was 12 and a half stone, I was, I felt good, look good. Could wear smaller clothes, yeah, but lots of parts of my lifestyle were better, sleeping better, all these parts. But I am 46 and every year that takes over. I think it becomes more important this. It becomes more aware to me. I need to be thinking about these things. So why? Why should people care about this? Wow.

  David Unwin

  Because the choices you make with every meal you eat is helping choose your future. So as you sit there right now, I can see with my experience as a doctor, I've looked after the same population of 10,000 people for 40 years. I have seen people like you grow older, and I know there's a range of possibilities, and some of those make me sad, and that's why I do this now, because I think how much better that I speak to you now and say, you could be amazing, you could be magnificent, you could be so healthy and Strong. But equally, you know, with a bigger belly brings with it an increased risk of eight cancers. Did you know that?

  Peter McCormack

  I didn't. I assumed cancer, but yeah, eight

  David Unwin

  forms colorectal is I've seen colorectal cancer going up and up in my practice, and it's occurring at a younger age, and it's linked to a big belly. The other thing is high blood pressure, which you may not have yet, but it'll probably come. My personal passion is preventing type two diabetes, and that starts with the big belly. So you see, you have a spectrum of futures that really interests me. And being a doctor is about making a difference. That's It's like being a magician, because I sit in front of people like you, and sometimes the magic really works. You wouldn't believe what I see in clinic after clinic, people choosing a better future. And I think that diet has a massive part to play, but you have to want a better future. Motivation is absolutely key, and then support and information. And so I often say to people, it often comes about that somebody comes in and you, if I did your blood pressure now, it might be raised a little you're 16 Stone, that wouldn't surprise me, and then you'd have a choice. Only, normally or nearly never would you be given that choice. So my if I found that you were maybe pre diabetes, or if I found your blood pressure was up, I'd be saying, right, this is really interesting. We've got a choice today. Would you be interested in improving your lifestyle? Or shall we consider starting lifelong medication? Which would you rather? Should we start drugs today? Or are you interested in my ideas around losing weight, getting fit? Which do you want to do? I want that second option, of course, because you're an intelligent person, and this is what I've discovered with my patients. So for 12 years, whenever this has come up, so it could be a weight problem, it could be blood pressure, it could be diabetes, I'm saying to people, well, I'm using a collaborative approach, so that this is you are an expert in yourself, and you're in charge of your future, because it is your future. So I'm not going to bully you, okay, but I'm giving you the choices. And I find that for sort of blokey blokes like you, that goes down really well, because you quite like to be free of choice, and what has happened within my practice is astonishing. So we save. We've saved so far. So I started this approach in 2013 and last time I calculated it, we've saved 370,000 pounds. Pounds on the diabetes drug budget alone. Because if with person after person, you say, you know, do you want life lifestyle or long term medication? And if most patients say to me, just like you, well, I keep saving. And those savings are like standing orders, aren't they, because every time I start somebody on lifelong medication, that's a standing order against the Treasury, so that these savings mount up startlingly. And now I'm at somewhere around 370,000 on diabetes alone. But I'm also saving with blood pressure. I've written papers on all of these things. Can I ask? Do you work privately, or you work not at all? No, my credibility absolutely rests on I'm an NHS GP doing 10 minute appointments, and I'm proof of concept of lifestyle medicine, because I'm doing it. These people? No, I never take on private patients. I won't do it because it's kind of bad for me.

  Peter McCormack

  That's not, you're not, you're not gonna be the standard NHS, GP,

  David Unwin

  I No, but increasingly so, I'm a fellow of the British society of lifestyle medicine and those are hundreds of doctors interested in this approach. Because, you know, if you could just imagine my life so up until I was 55 this conversation would have been so different. I would just use medication. I didn't believe that people were capable of lifestyle change and so, well, really, and why did that happen? I'm really, why did that happen? And it happened because my advice was rubbish. And, you know, I never had the humility to admit so I blame patients because they're lazy, I would, you know, and my least favorite patients were people who were overweight and with diabetes, because I had a completely erroneous belief that they were lazy and weak willed as we began this discussion, how shocking. Now I am so sorry, because if you think about it, what was the common denominator behind all those failures, it was me. My advice was poor. I had some terrible advice. You know, I used to say to somebody about weight. I actually said things like, well, nobody fact came out of Bel. I used to suggest the most horrendous diet, I'd say, right, going to put you on this diet, and it's, I think it was two pints of skim milk a day and a table tablespoon of all Bran and a vitamin tablet. Why? Who can live on that was grotesque. And then when it didn't work, I thought, there you go. And I medicated people until I was 55 years old, and now I think so differently, and I'm so sorry for what I did before then using the medication. I'm not believing in people like you, because surely that's the beginning of a relationship where you believe, try and believe the best in people, and they often surprise you and delight you. But what

  Peter McCormack

  happened at 55 what was the switch? Oh, two, two things, two very clever women.

  Unknown Speaker

  One was

  David Unwin

  we were paid at the time, maybe we still are, in part, to check that our patients with diabetes were taking their medication, and the computer system keeps a kind of log of who's who's taking the drugs. And I knew that one of my patients wasn't taking her Metformin, which is the usual drug for diabetes. And so what we used to do at the time was write a slightly aggressive letter saying, Dear Mrs. So and So, I'm a bit disappointed. I noticed maybe you're not taking a medication, which you know is there for your health, please. I've made your appointment a week on Thursday. Please come and see me. Wow. Nothing prepared me for what was going to happen this lady who I'd known for 10 years well, and her husband and her family was hopping mad. She came in hopping mad. And if there's one thing you know, old doctors, you fear complaints, they're messy, they take time, and she was clearly going to put in a grievance against me, and the basis of this was, Well, Dr Amr, for 10 years, you've given me that Metformin, and now you're going to tell me off because I'm not taking it. But actually, when you do my blood test, you will find my blood sugar is completely normal because I have completely reversed my diabetes. Without your help, the reason I'm not taking the Metformin is I don't need it. When we did the blood test, she was correct. Her blood sugars were normal. She didn't need the Metformin. Then when that was a second appointment. She said, Dr, when I met you last time, you know, I was upset, really, because you didn't seem very curious about what I've done. And, you know, I'm wondering whether you're medically qualified, because my problem as somebody with type two diabetes is basically sugar and a school boy knows that starchy foods, like bread, like potato, like rice and breakfast cereals all break down into loads of sugar. That's o level biology. Have you even got o level biology? I was scared, but she'd made an absolutely accurate point I had never once I might have mentioned sugar, but I never once mentioned starchy carbs, and that was one woman. So she had me really interested. And it turned out she was part of 40,000 people online putting their diabetes into remission, but being criticized and ridiculed by healthcare professionals across the UK and I suddenly saw, this is a terrible injustice, because these people were getting good results, and doctors like me were shroud waving and say, well, you'll probably die because you're not taking the medication. Now we have to come to the second clever woman. That was a very clever woman. The second one was my wife. She is a consultant psychologist, so she specializes in behavior change, and it is her that knows a lot about the collaborative approach. Don't tell people off if you want them to check. You know, she said to me one day, so how's it going, David, with your approach? Because telling people off, how does that go? And the truth is, people go and never come back. You didn't come to me to be told off. It doesn't, you know, I've got to intrigue you. I have to motivate you. And Jen, my clever wife, taught me a great deal about that. And together, what happened over the next, however many years it is, since 2013 we've done it together, my wife and I as a project for fun and to help, and I can't believe what's happened. I just can't believe that was me then, and how different I am now, and the influence that we have and the lives we've changed. You know, we were front page last week of the Daily Express. There we go, which is like, who gets to be on the front page the fall of the front page? I've been on the front page of the New Scientist that most of the news is all cooked up. In my opinion, the front pages are all cooked up. But if somebody like me gets on the front page, and that's weird, and it doesn't happen easily.

  Peter McCormack

  Did your lifestyle change alongside

  David Unwin

  this? Oh, completely. And that's, that's a really good question, because I was like you only older. So I had, I had, I thought I just gained weight because of age.

  Peter McCormack

  See if you can find any old pictures of David Conn see if we can find

  David Unwin

  I was very careful there one or two, but I was very what you actually do is suck your tummy in, don't you? And just at

  Peter McCormack

  the top, I used to get away with that. Now, even sucking in, I'm barely sticking out.

  David Unwin

  So I think in common with very many people. So I had middle age spread. I was tired. Yeah, I lacked stamina, and I thought that was just age. In fact, for me, it was so bad. I was the senior partner of the practice, so I'm in charge. So at lunchtime, I would need a 20 minute sleep on my own doctor's couch. So you just press, do not disturb. I'm the boss. Nobody is to disturb and I was fast asleep. But what would I do when I woke up? I'd need a strong coffee and a bar of milk chocolate. Okay, biscuits. And, you know, where did that lead? And then my blood pressure went up, but I didn't want to be a patient, so I put my head in the sands, and I just stopped. I stopped measuring my own blood pressure because I didn't want bad news. Yeah, it's like, how ridiculous. And I think if I can be that foolish, so can you, yeah, I was a doctor with all I know, and I had the high blood pressure, but I was too busy to address it tomorrow. But then so a little bit more of the story. So I came up with the idea of this. This is the low carb approach. So instead of eating starchy carbs, you have more protein and more green veg. And I thought, Well, how about we do this for the for some of the patients, particularly younger people with pre diabetes, because we weren't doing anything for that population at all. We knew who they were because we were paid to maintain a register of people with pre diabetes. But how horrible is this? We knew who they were and did absolutely nothing. And I was really worried about the young people. So I said to the partners, right? I want to do this thing. And they said we argued a lot because they said, You're not paid to do it, because we weren't. And they said, you know, we're not a charity. We can't as a practice, do work that's just not remunerated. And I argued and fought. And then we come to that second, clever woman, my wife, and she said, So David, we're not going to do this exciting thing because we're not paid. And she looked me right in the eye, and she said, David, how many cars do we have, and are we short of something? And she said, I thought I'd married a doctor. Yeah, she's formidable. She didn't look it, but, yeah, clever. She's a psychologist. Yeah, she no lady and, but then she said, right, David, we're gonna do this for free. So we set up a group on a Monday night, every Monday night, a nurse, a lovely nurse called Heather, said, I'd love to do this. I want to do something I believe in. I work for free. And my wife said, I'll work for free, and David, you're going to work for free. And we did them as group consultations. And you know what? We're still doing them for free. So I did one last Wednesday night, and it's fun and it's collaborative. And now I've got a great many patient experts who will go on television for me. They will go on that on the media, and also they're helping me coach other people with diabetes, overweight. So you see, what an adventure. And then it's led to many other enormous things,

  Peter McCormack

  all of this. So we're talking about type two diabetes.

  David Unwin

  We are, and it's very important, nobody says diabetes anymore. It's, it's, it's people with type two diabetes, yes, so they're not diabetics, they're people with two type two diabetes. Type One is a completely separate subject, and is not really my expertise. I am a for your interest. I'm a Royal College of General practitioners, clinical expert in diabetes, but my expertise is type two diabetes, and I try and stick where I know and So explain to me

  Peter McCormack

  what is happening with type two diabetes? When, when somebody is pre diabetic? Yes, and then they become diabetic. And then we'll talk about reverse and how would I know, for example, if I'm pre diabetic?

  David Unwin

  Okay, do you know? I'd rather there's something else we must touch on before then the context. So the context is not just an epidemic of type two diabetes. It's a pandemic. Okay? It's an absolute pandemic. All over the world, doctors like me are struggling to cope with a sheer number of people with type two diabetes, and I can illustrate this with my own practice when I started. So I'm a GP north of Liverpool in Southport. When I started there, we audited everybody with type two diabetes in the whole practice. Just a month after I joined them as a partner, and at that time, there were 56 individuals with type two diabetes in my practice. There are. Now about 600 and it's the same practice. So what we have over what period was that? That was 1986 to now, 8696 that's about 40 years. Yeah. So now I've got a question, yes, why do you think I have seen a 10 fold increase in type two diabetes in my practice? What do you why do you think people have diabetes? What's the reason?

  Peter McCormack

  I think it's a change in dietary habits. It is

  David Unwin

  thank you. That's the you get a thank you. That's the right answer. The Wrong answer is like genetics and stuff like that, because you couldn't change the genetics of my patients in 40 years, and people believing that their genes mean that they're heavy or diabetic is a slightly do me type thing, because then you think, Well, I'm an inevitable consequence of my genes. Now, genes do play a part, but the environment is acting on genetic predisposition, and you're absolutely right what I have seen. So I've seen a 10 fold increase in type two diabetes in my own practice. And you know, just think about what that means. That means amputation, that means blindness, that means a lot of unhappiness and great deal of suffering. And sometimes I'm signing death certificates. Think about that. Yes. How is it to go, you know, several times a week and see people you've known and sign the death certificates. It really affects you.

  Unknown Speaker

  It's tragic.

  Peter McCormack

  What has come up? How many people have Okay, an estimated 6.3 million people are at an increased risk of type two diabetes in the UK, based on blood sugar levels, we estimate that 1.3 million are currently living with type two diabetes, but yet to be diagnosed. They don't even know. That means an estimated 12 point 1 million adults in the UK are living with diabetes or previous they are huge numbers. Yeah, so I could actually be you may.

  David Unwin

  Now there's something Do you know? I'm so sorry I haven't answered your question. I want to come back to something else. I want to come back to fatty liver. And so fatty liver is about a third of the whole of the developed world now fatty liver. But before we come back to fatty liver, which is another pandemic, let me just answer your questions. So you were asking me about the diagnosis of pre diabetes and diabetes, and how you might know and how it might affect you. Having a big belly, in my opinion, is a real risk factor, okay, and that's I mean, one real way to for listeners is your belly should be less than half your height. So if you put a piece of tape around your tummy, yeah, all right, and then doubled it, you should then be short. That piece of cotton should be shorter than you are.

  Peter McCormack

  So, and if it was on my belly, yeah, it's just less than three foot, right?

  David Unwin

  So you might be bored, like, I don't know, and but the other question for men is measuring your belly at its fattest. So a lot of blokes and I used to do this, hike the belly up and get your belt on underneath. Yeah, I do that. And, and you might tell me, here's a question, what size waist are your jeans?

  Peter McCormack

  My jeans are a 34 inch right? Well, I would

  David Unwin

  believe that your tummy is bigger than that, so you're wearing your jeans at the top. So I, you know, I'm a great one, if I can, for scrupulous honesty. And so if you're measuring your waist, and you're going to do that, measure it at the fattest, because who you're fooling if you tell me your waist is 34 it's your health, not mine. And so waist to height ratio is a very good predictor of cardiovascular disease and many other things. And it's so simple, 36

  Peter McCormack

  inches would be three foot. Yes, it would. And I'm in 34 inch genes with this over so I'm probably nearer

  David Unwin

  40 something. Yeah. I mean, I've done this on hundreds and hundreds of patients, and I always ask them what they think their waist is. And then I say, I'll just measure waste for you. And then that begins again, a curious cut. And then they there's a bit of reality there, yep. And you know what I did all those years ago was I was King, can you Ting? It wasn't I. I was not being honest. And I had to start being honest about that. So just so that's a simple thing, keeping on track with pre diabetes and type two diabetes, use your waist to height ratio as a doctor, I'm measuring how sugary is your. Blood. And the blood test is called the hemoglobin, a, 1c That's the fancy name, but it's, it's, that's the average sugar Enos of your blood in the preceding 120 days before you have the blood test. Okay, and that's so you can't cheat. So my mother, bless I have a remarkable mother. She's 89 and she would just not eat the donuts and the cakes on the day of the blood test, when we used to just measure blood sugar, but now we've got cleverer than that. So if you think about this, if it's the average sugariness of your blood, well then it's no good giving up Mars Bars today or yesterday. Because I know, right? I know. So that's the hemoglobin, a, 1c, and then just a few figures for you. If it's under 42 if the result comes in as under 42 that's officially normal. If it's between 42 and 48 you are you have pre diabetes. If it's 48 or above, you actually have type two diabetes and all sorts of things come from that.

  Peter McCormack

  Are this? Other symptoms? I Yes,

  David Unwin

  personally, I found tiredness was the thing, kind of a lack of energy. So I was 55 and the sort of thing I remember is putting my feet up on the city a lot, you know. And I'd say I'm tired at the end of the day, so I couldn't wait to get my feet up. And if you'd said to me in the evening, shall we go walk? Or shall we whatever? I was tired Connor, what are our evenings

  Conor McCormack

  like? He ends up falling asleep on the couch. Yeah, that was me

  Peter McCormack

  about eight, nine o'clock. I used to be able to work till midnight. Eight, nine o'clock. Feed up. We put a film on, I'm asleep within

  David Unwin

  five minutes, five minutes. Yeah, that was me completely. And I just put that down to age.

  Conor McCormack

  There is a lack of sleep involved as well, sure,

  Peter McCormack

  but whether I sleep where I don't sleep, it's the same every evening, pretty

  David Unwin

  much, yeah, and what's in what I found very within a month, I needed an hour's less sleep a night, and I didn't need my lunchtime sleeps anymore, and I started feeling more energetic. The thing I value most is the mental clarity that I have now. So the fog gone, I did. Well, you don't know it's gone till it's gone. I didn't know I had mental fog or what that even meant. And when patients tried to tell me, of course, I wasn't even curious. But that was, that was the thing that, and I tell you how it happened, that blokes were a bit competitive, slightly loudly, mildly competitive. And the younger male partners, I could feel that mentally, they were overtaking me in their mental stamina. It's a sense I had. But after only two months, I was as sharp as I'd been ever and it was wonderful. And since then, that same sharpness has allowed me to I've now published 30, at least 30 peer reviewed papers. I'd never written anything. It was beyond me to write things. I've done TV, radio, loads of things requiring concentration, and now I can really concentrate, which I couldn't.

  Peter McCormack

  I find the mental fog is new, yeah, but most days from about now, I am I feel a tiredness through my body. Yes, it just exists all day long.

  Unknown Speaker

  Let's discuss that. You know, I'm really enjoying this.

  David Unwin

  So the model I would give you is, you are a marvelous dual fuel engine. You can burn two different fuels, and your fuels are fat or sugar. However, one of the things with getting a bigger belly, and some of the things with age for some people, is your insulin, the hormone that regulates blood sugar, may not be working quite as well, and that means, if that happens, in order to regulate your blood sugar, so insulin reduces blood sugar, it controls it, but if it's not working as well, your only alternative is to produce more insulin, which is just naturally how you still have A normal blood sugar. But that has some disadvantages. So insulin, one thing think about. Here's another question. Would you agree that insulin sorts out a high blood sugar? So if you eat a miles bar, your blood sugar goes up, insulin is going to get rid of that spike of blood sugar. Would you agree with that?

  Peter McCormack

  That I don't really know, but I'm gonna nod, and I think so only because I know

  David Unwin

  of well, people with type one diabetes are using insulin, aren't they to get rid of their blood sugar, and sometimes they're having a Mars bar, yes, yeah. So the question is, if it's very important, a raised blood sugar damages your arteries in about six hours. So nature gives you insulin to protect your arteries from a raised blood sugar, right? What does the insulin do with that sugar? There's a question for you. Turns into fat, correct? Well done. Find somewhere to hide it. Yeah, that's your belly, right there. But it's not just the belly, is it? No, it's your liver. It's particularly the liver and your belly. And that brings me to the point that I wanted to come back to fatty liver. So we had a weird thing in the practice that obviously we do hundreds and hundreds of blood tests, and we were finding that the liver function of at least a third of all the patients always came back wrong. And it changed. It wasn't when I was a young doctor, but all the liver function came back wrong, and I had no idea why. But then when we started doing ultrasound scans on the liver, the liver was echo bright, full of fat, fatty liver. I didn't even know that mattered. So I used to say to patients, well, you know, do a bit more exercise and we'll, you know, I was fudging it. I didn't understand what is happening is the fatty liver. So what's happening there is you, your insulin isn't working as well. You're beginning to lay down fat in your belly and your liver, but the fat in your liver interferes with the good work of insulin, and your insulin doesn't work as well.

  Unknown Speaker

  Becomes a flywheel. Yes,

  David Unwin

  yeah, you can see. And there's another thing that happens is you start laying down fat in your pancreas gland, the very gland that's trying hard to give you enough insulin, and then the whole system collapses. After about 10 years, there's a prof Roy Taylor has the most wonderful quote. He's a very famous professor of medicine at Newcastle University, and he explains, there's a long, silent scream from your liver 10 years before you actually become diabetic, and people are not listening, and liver function is important, and your big belly is important, and fatty liver is a third of everybody you know. It's a third of your friends, of your family, of everybody we know, and increasingly, it's children. So I'm now seeing, I am seeing type two diabetes in people under 20. That was completely unknown. When I was a young doctor, we called it maturity onset diabetes. It was supposed to be old people, and when I was in 1986 I didn't, we didn't have a single patient under 55 or 60 with diabetes, and the youngest I've got now is 12 years old. This is how serious. This is why I'm so passionate and aggressive about this, because it's very serious, and people's lives can be impacted really badly by this, and they've no idea what's doing it, and it's the food supply. Are there symptoms of fatty liver, I would be aware of, not really, apart from possibly the tiredness, yeah, and the bigger belly, that's what I had. And also this raised insulin. So if your insulin isn't working as well, then the way you compensate is by producing more insulin, which is has a name, hyper insulinia. It's a posh name for that. But actually a high insulin level tends to cause high blood pressure, so it's one of the causes, right, high blood pressure. And I've written a paper. Always wonder about that, but we've known since 1927 that insulin is one of the major causes of high blood pressure, and I've published a paper on it. It's open access, if you look me up on Google, it's a paper with Professor Brady and Scott Murray and my own name, and there's a paper on blood pressure there for anybody that's interested.

  Unknown Speaker

  So this is, this is really a public health crisis, massive.

  David Unwin

  It's internationally. Yeah, I don't go to any country that's not facing a crisis. Either they're struggling to afford the drugs for diabetes, or insurance companies are struggling. So it might be a country that's struggling to pay for the drugs, or insurance companies are really struggling to pay for the drugs. Or some countries like India, what happens there is, you know, I don't know you have you got a dad? Yes, right? Well, what happens there is, you know, you love your dad. And the doctor in India says, well, your dad needs these expensive medications to keep him alive. And you say, but I haven't got much money. And he said, Well, you'll have to borrow the money, or you mortgage yourself to keep your dad alive, which he would just do, which you would do. And you have how terrible is that when maybe dad just needs to eat less rice? Maybe you know, but there's a lot more money in dad using insulin or drugs. And I see this as an international thing, and how we're not really looking at seriously. We're not looking at the cause. Why? How is the answer to the Epidemic Of Type two diabetes or obesity, the fat jabs. Or, you know, how is that the answer? If we're not looking at the true cause,

  Peter McCormack

  what do you think of those fat jabs, the ozempics?

  David Unwin

  That would be a good hour. I've done some lecturing on this and written, I think, for the Telegraph and The Daily Express.

  Unknown Speaker

  Okay, sticking plaster, yes.

  David Unwin

  I mean, it helps people. Yeah, helps people. And I would say for people who are really addicted, if you cannot give up bread, it might help you do that, okay, but it's a window of opportunity to learn to eat better. But you know, let's not forget, in the British Medical Journal, it was published that 82 people have died associated with these jobs. Did you know that? I did not know exactly so many things upset me in the modern world. So, you know, if we, if we've been grown ups, I'm telling you the pros and cons of that, you know, you come to me say, I wondered about the fat jabs, and we should discuss the pros and cons, shouldn't we? Yeah, of course, of course. You say, and you would say informed consent was right that you have before you do this, injecting yourself. And that is not what's happening. You'd never even heard that. 82 people have died. I've had a patient in intensive care, very ill.

  Peter McCormack

  and secure your Bitcoin today. That is ledger.com which is L, E, D, G, E, r.com that is ledger.com but I have heard the DWP are interested in people being prescribed whose M pick, because there are people who are overweight and not going to work.

  David Unwin

  Again, shocking. Absolutely horrifies me, because again, it speaks, it speaks to the belief that overweight people are lazy or whatever, and then you're going to medicate them to solve them. Is callous and inhumane and wrong, and it medicalizes Those people. So yes, I do actually use the injections very carefully, but I try a low carb diet first, and I have published a paper with tro collagen, who's an American, passionate doctor like me, and we got using the low carb diet better results for patients with diet than you get with using the fat jabs. So we beat them at one year, so that they both work, and I have patients who use the jabs, and they benefit. But you need to have informed consent. You need to know what you're doing. Now, at the moment, I can only, you can only have them legally for two years. So what you're going to do after the two years, think it through. What will happen to you. Yeah, the evidence is you regain the weight. The other thing, really key thing, is, sort of why, one of the recurring themes for me is being curious about, why are people ill? What's the true problem? Because if we as a public health thing, if we don't understand the true problem, you know, then are the, you know, the fat jabs, is that going to help? How's that going to go? Are we going to how can, you know, preventing diabetes, I type two diabetes, I think would be good. Can that be done with drugs? No, not really. Also, are we going to use these jobs on young people? Do we know? Happens long term. I have no idea. Would you know you've got a son? Would How would you feel about us giving him an injection? How old is he your son? 21 right? He's 21 you love him and how he's all right, he's all right. But Shall we do an experiment? Should he be an experiment? Shall we medicate him or inject him when you have no idea, and yet we are, yeah, no, you can go to an online pharmacist and get these drugs. I have patients that tell me afterwards. I didn't tell you, Dr men, but I went online, and, you know, I've been using

  Peter McCormack

  this. I completed the form on boots, did you? But it wasn't as empic, it was one of the others, yeah, and it got to the and I think I had fascinated. So you thought about, well, I thought about that. I was just because Quick Fix exactly it was with my dis like, so for context and background, yes, I have a background of addiction, and I always seem to have addictions in my life, but I have good and bad ones. I've had a running addiction, yes, where I had to run every day, yes. Or it can be a business addiction, or it can be nicotine. I've always got seem to have addictions I can't break and have good and bad ones, right?

  David Unwin

  This is I've got to interrupt because it's so exciting, because I didn't know that. Did you know that my very clever wife is a world expert on food addiction. She's probably, I would say she is the world expert on food addiction. To get her in here as well, you should and tomorrow, the reason I'm in London is so my wife has a charity which his son knows all about, that I told him about the CHC, and we are running an international conference today in the Royal College of General Practitioners, starts tomorrow, and we are flying in the cleverest people in the world on the subject of ultra processed food addiction, because there is, that's what's going on tomorrow. Wow. And we've raised 50,000 pounds of charitable money to pay to get these clever people in. And there's two days, maybe you should come, because I think you've, you

  Peter McCormack

  know, we have, uh, we've, we have more interviews tomorrow. What a pity this Friday too. What will the will the presentations go online. Yes, yes,

  David Unwin

  they're being recorded. But can we just touch on so this is part of my of what I learned. So initially, people did really well, people like you can do very well, and I could get you down no trouble, down to your 12 and a half stone. I know how to do it. Okay, but then what would happen is you'd have Christmas, or you'd go on a holiday, or you'd have an argument with your son, and that would be the excuse to lose control, and you would start on the bread and the junk, and you'd lose it. And I this happened with patients, wherein, here's the thing, when intelligent people like you do stupid stuff, what does it mean? We can all do it. Yeah. Number one, maybe it's addiction. Yeah, because intelligent people have problems with drugs, they are not a heroin addict. To annoy me, they're not doing it for a reason. People with an alcohol problem, there's no gain. It's a very sad thing for them, and they come to me for help, and that is really rough, or nicotine. So when intelligent people do stuff they know can harm their health, think about addiction. My wife would tell you that 14% of the population is now addicted to junk food. It may be bread, it could be pizza, it could be crisps. You will have. If I had longer with you, I could find out what they are, you know already, you know. And if you think, does the idea of junk food addiction, does that seem unreasonable to you from your experience of life?

  Peter McCormack

  See, it's funny, having been through various addictions, I'd never thought I actually have a junk food addiction. I just think I take shortcuts for meals.

  Unknown Speaker

  No, that's not true. You're not being truthful.

  Peter McCormack

  No, I'm being truthful. It's like today we do an interview and there's another one. The guys pop out and they get me a bit, I

  David Unwin

  agree, but that's what, that's your belief. But underlying it is quite likely some features of addiction. Because if you're addicted to something, the answer is always that thing. So if you're addicted to biscuits and I feel a bit stressed, which I was. So for me, why was I eating milk chocolate? Why did I eat so many jaffa cakes to a point where I ruined my health? I believed I was stressed. I believed that I couldn't plan for meals, and I was busy and I lacked energy. I. Those were my beliefs. But behind those beliefs was something far more sinister, and it wasn't until I tried to give them up. Do you know it took me a year to properly give up biscuits a year and my wife kept saying, What is wrong with you? I remember one time I had we did our own on call at night, and somebody rang me in the middle of the night, and my dad's collapsed, please come right now. My wife found me in the kitchen eating biscuits. She said, why are you not in your car? And my response to stress, kind of before I could go, was eating these biscuits, and that was addiction only. I didn't spot it because I've I justified it myself anyway, 14% there is research to show that 14% of the adult population is now addicted to junk food. It affects how your brain is wired. Get my wife on. She'd explain all this to you. It's to do with dopamine, serotonin, all these things, yeah, and it gives you so what you get from the junk food is a very brief comfort, but it doesn't last long, and then gradually you need more and more of that. Yeah. And that was me with the biscuits. So why did I eat the biscuits? Because it just gave me that little, tiny fix of energy that I needed to face a very difficult situation. But what I hadn't realized was I needed biscuits to face a difficult situation, whereas 10 years previously, I didn't, and that is how addiction,

  Peter McCormack

  that's the hook. It's no different from alcohol, like no, I need a drink, not at all,

  David Unwin

  exactly, or cigarettes. I remember my father was hopelessly addicted to, well, to alcohol to an extent, but cigarettes, and he had to smoke so much to get through a difficult day, and he couldn't function. He had a heart attack and came off cigarettes. But he was a monster to live with because he was without his fix. Yeah, he couldn't function. So this, I'm now really interested because in junk food addiction, because it's part of why are we in this fix? Why are our young people obese? Why are you know, what's going wrong with society? Because, you know, when you were young, I would imagine that children with a weight problem were quite rare,

  Peter McCormack

  yeah. And also, look, every meal we had, my mum would cook the five of us, yeah. And we'd have that meal, and it would be meat and veg. It would be, I don't know, a roast on a Sunday. But now, our lifestyles have changed, and I would say three of our least three of our meals a week, maybe four yes is either a takeaway or us going out to dinner. Yes, and going out to dinner is still, it's not as bad as a, you know, ordering a pizza, but it's still kind of a takeaway. There's a lot of there's a drink, you have it or a dessert.

  David Unwin

  And I think the other thing, when we were young, snacking was frowned upon. My mother would say, you're going to spoil your tea, yes, so she wouldn't let me snack. We were quite we didn't. I was only allowed sweets on a Friday night. So I remember after school, we went via the post office. That was once a week. That was it. Yeah. Fast forward. You, I don't know your two young time grandchildren yet, but maybe work in progress, young man, work in progress. Ready? Yeah, but what you'll find when you go to school now is you'll see a third of the children are not what you saw. Yeah, they're overweight, and what we children, we reward them, don't we with chocolate bars, with biscuits, well done. Have a bum is Christmas? Have this is Easter? Have that you did well in school today? Think and psychologically. If you wanted to train a dog, what would you do? Treats Exactly. Have lost dogs? Yeah, only now it's have lost children. Think about that is so serious, and so my wife and I have set up two charities. The first one is the public health collaboration, where we are worried about the quality of the advice of about around public health. That's our public health collaboration charity. So we have international conferences. There's lots of information. So there's two. That's the first one, what is the quality of the advice that you get if you go online or if you question a healthcare professional? Do you come away from it knowing what to do? Second point is the second charity is the food addiction charity. Hence the thing tomorrow, where at the moment, here's the thing. So at the moment in the world, first of all, a question, would you say that food addiction seems reasonable to you that there are people in the world eating that know it's harming their health? Is that reasonable? Reasonable? Well, yes, because I will eat things that I know harm my health. So it's reasonable that food addiction to you as a construct, as an idea, sounds kind of worse, probably right, and you maybe eat stuff you shouldn't. Yeah, absolutely. Well, here's a surprise for you. So let's think about the World Health Organization and addiction, or indeed, in my own practice. So if you come to me with a nicotine addiction, I can offer you help. Alcohol, I can help you. Drugs, I can help you. Food addiction, according to the World Health Organization, does not exist, therefore you cannot get help. And in fact, you've just invented it right? Against this, against this is the fact, if you come to me with gambling addiction, where there isn't even a substance. The World Health Organization agree that gambling addiction exists. So my wife is fighting the World Health Organization. That's what this conference is about. She's publishing. She's got now a consensus on what is food addiction, and she's lobbying the World Health Organization

  Peter McCormack

  it exists. That seems kind of insane that she has to do, that you would think so. You would have thought, if it's the health organization of the world, they would already be on top. You would

  David Unwin

  think that, wouldn't you, and particularly now when we're saying the fat jabs and, you know, and obesity is such a problem and what so in clinical practice? Do you know, just about nobody's surprised when I say, do you think you could be addicted to some of these foods? Are you eating them despite knowing it's harmful? And they go yet And yet. The World Health Organization are going, but, but, but,

  Peter McCormack

  but does that? Does that mean you don't trust the World Health Organization? Are they correct?

  David Unwin

  Now, that's a big thing. I don't know. I shouldn't say what I don't know. Yeah, but I dare say there are reasonably powerful people who do not want, uh, ultra processed food addiction to be acknowledged.

  Peter McCormack

  But if you, if you are a manufacturer of a fat jab, yeah, and making billions of pounds dollars selling the fat jab, if you don't have a supply of fat people, you don't have a

  David Unwin

  market, exactly so. And again, there's supermarkets and so on and so forth. That we have a system, which it's really funny, it makes money out of you. This is sounds awful, really, but we have a system, in my opinion, that makes money out of you while it makes you fat, and then makes money out of you through the medication as I merely control what's wrong instead of sorting it.

  Peter McCormack

  We just, we just went out to Ibiza on holiday as a family, yeah. And there was a little supermarket near us, equivalent size to say a Tesco is local, yeah. And they had a butcher in there, yes, with two butchers working on it, they had a fishmonger in there. They had endless fresh fruit and veg. But I looked at the butcher and the fish monger, I thought we used to have a butcher and a fishmonger at Sainsbury's. And when I say Sainsbury's, I'm on about the big super storm. They don't even have the butcher or the fish monger anymore. They have, they have it packaged on the shelves,

  David Unwin

  but it's not the same. It's not the same, I think,

  Peter McCormack

  but so compared to that, because I was like, Look at this Connor here. They have all quality food. Look at food. But I think there's another psychological element there in that you would go to the counter, you would look at the big slab of meat and say, I want three rib eyes. I want, you know, some salmon. But if you're now going to a cabinet and you're buying a packed rib eye, your condition that everything you buy is in a package, yes, so there's like, a psychological change there.

  David Unwin

  There are many different factors behind this many, but they've all led in one way, which is the, you know, the supermarket is very convenient. If the food has a long shelf life, yes, it's very and then, if you were manual, if I wanted to make money, what the way to make money out of making food is? You want to shell a long shelf life to please the supermarket. You want to package it so you can stack it. You also want to use cheap ingredients. What are cheap ingredients? Well, water's a cheap ingredient, so stick some of that in there, like they do with the bacon. But also, sugar is a very cheap ingredient? Yes, carbohydrate. So wheat flour is very cheap, so protein is never cheap. And so one of the things I'd say is I see a lot of people not getting enough protein, and yet, protein is how your son's going to be ripped, isn't it? How do you make muscle without eating protein? And many young people having so much sugary drinks crisps that they're not actually getting much protein, if you think so, they could have breakfast cereals before you go to school, sugary. And they're like, sweets, aren't they? Those breakfast cereal Yeah? Croissants, yeah. Then when you get to school, you might have it. They sometimes have a snack. And then mid morning, a snack. What's your lunch? Sandwiches, that kind of thing, crisps. So you've had sugar with your sugar, with your sugar, it's just sugar all day. And then when you get home, your mom's busy because she's working. So there's your pizza and chips. There's your dominoes, yeah, so you just had just sugar all that. Where was the protein? Where was the green veg? And of course, children will, if you give them an opportunity, as you know, with your own kids, they will just eat crap and it, you know, your mother disciplined you a little, didn't she? And I bet you weren't allowed your pudding till you had years first. Or my father was just clearly, you're not hungry. David, so no second goals.

  Peter McCormack

  Was it? There's been this weird switch as well in that we didn't have a lot of money, so we couldn't afford to have cupboards full of snacks and sweets. Yes, you know, there might be some biscuits. I have a biscuit when I go home from school. But you know, my mum had to plan to cook. My mother too, yeah, so she had to plan to cook seven dinners over the week for five people and breakfast, and we probably had cereal at that time. But she had to plan for that. It's flipped now. Some people can't afford to cook seven meals from fresh ingredients, or they feel like they can't, yes, and they feel like there's cheaper options which are maybe processed.

  David Unwin

  It's a trap. And so, funnily enough, we've investigated this with my patients, because I've done this now so many times. And you can do low carb cheaply, but you do require some cooking skills, although let's think, let's think about beef burgers. Have you ever made a beef burger? What from fresh mint? Yeah. Mint, yeah. All you have to do, how fat, how? You know, it's two minutes while you do that, stick it in the pan. That's fast food, isn't it? Mince is cheap. So you could do beef burgers, then you could get frozen beans and add some butter to them. So it's all doable. Yes, I've, I've, we're making Excuse me. Well, I don't think excuses is right. I I think we've been very slowly funneled over the years, through advertising, through many things, to forget some very important stuff about like, here's a thought, really, the most important things in our lives are our children. They are. Maybe they are. He's all right. But you know, yes, you know, just the thing. So say you had a really important car, a very valuable car, you'd kind of care about the fuel, wouldn't you? You wouldn't port rubbish fuel in something worth 100,000 pounds, if the if the person told you know, this particular car requires good fuel, and you'll have to pay more. You just do it. But have you thought about your son in that way? Because what fuels him, he is what he has eaten, and really so the quality of what he eats is one of the major influences on who we will become, you know, and yet we don't think like that, do we? And so you're probably in the mindset of the odd treat is okay, but how often is a treat an odd treat? My mother believed it was once a week. Well, it's just not odd anymore. No, it's all day. And is this loving? Is it caring? You know what? What are we doing? And I used to, I remember with my own children, it was just I didn't think about it. And one of my children ended up being quite heavy, and I realize now I had done that. I had done it as a child with the sugary breakfast cereals. I remember Ribena. She used to love Ribena, and she was mad because she said, You will never make it strong enough, Dad, you're so mean. So I started making it stronger. But what is strong Ribena sugar? And I never thought, I never thought about my responsibility in terms of nutrition to the most important people in my life, never once occurred to me, yeah, and I'm a doctor. What's my excuse

  Peter McCormack

  for those of you out there who want to protect your Bitcoin? I want to tell you about casa, the lead in Bitcoin security solution and a solution that I use for my bitcoin and my Football Club's Bitcoin treasury. Now, if you're serious about protecting your Bitcoin, you will need a rock solid security plan, and carsa gives you just that with their multi signature security and key management services. Carsa makes it easier than ever to take control of your Bitcoin. One without ever having the risk of a single point of failure. Now they offer multiple levels of protection, all designed with simplicity and ease of use in mind, and that works even if you're not a tech expert. So don't leave your Bitcoin security to chance. Go to castle.io and check out the services that I am using today to protect my bitcoin so you can protect your stack and sleep easily. You can find out more@casa.io which is C, A, S, a.io that is castler.io but we know now, yes, and we know enough now, yes. I mean, you know enough now. So, so if you're advising somebody right now, you're advising me, yeah? And I say because it I don't think the goal is to lose weight. I think the goal is to change your lifestyle. If it's to lose weight, once you hit a spot, you can come back. Thank you. It's a permanent lifestyle

  David Unwin

  change, right? Yeah, the mindset is, one of my patients explained this so well, so I'll tell you what she said. She said, a diet is a thing you are on and will come off. A diet is a thing you're doing to look good for your holiday. And this lady told me, she said, this is a lifestyle. It's how you live your life, and you have to accept that with but with it comes lots of good stuff. So will I ever eat Christmas cake ever again? No, I won't. I actually have type two diabetes. I didn't know that I had. Do you don't know, having any little trees here or there? Yes, but they're low carb treats. Okay, so you see, I we have learned. So we've also helped write eight recipe books. Amazing. So with a really lovely London chef called the counties, and we helped Giancarlo reverse his diabetes. And he was a very heavy Italian chef on pasta and pizza and all that in Marylebone near here, and he contacted me out of the blue and said, what you do has reversed my diabetes. I don't think you understand food like I do. Let's do a partnership, and I understand food. And we've written, I've loved what fun to go out to the world of medicine into doing recipe book. We've done eight. And so there are you can get. So we can make so I have eight grandchildren. They're all being brought up low carb from babies. So we can do low carb cakes. My wife can make a low carb Christmas pudding. We can do Christmas parties or low carb we've learned how to do it. But if you're tied to diabetic, I understand I was, Yeah, mine is in remission.

  Peter McCormack

  So, but So, for example, with lovely Connor over there, are we basically saying goodbye pieces forever, or is it is there a balance that can be struck?

  David Unwin

  There is a balance and a few for Yeah. So I want to give you a new concept, yeah, I discovered with my patients that it wasn't really their age that mattered. So the oldest person who I reversed diabetes was 92 Wow. 9292 Yeah, but it was worth it because it improved her quality of life, because she wanted to live independently in her own home and garden, so we achieved what she wanted. So the concept is that you and I, it's not to do with how old you are. It's your metabolic age. So because my metabolic age is quite high, because I have damaged my metabolism, I have to be very careful, because I'm full blown diet, type two diabetes, so I am not going to mess with that. It's not worth it, because I could lose vision. Stuff can happen. But for Conor, he's metabolically much younger, so he could just start being sensible and going back to a treat occasionally, and some alcohol and so on, but not cake every day and more protein. So, you know, my, my, I have two sons. The reason they won't mind me saying, the reason they went low carb was to get ripped because they wanted to be able to look, you know, magnificent. And they do my absence. I was 18. So well, they these boys, they changed. And remarkably, they're not as low carb as me. Okay, they don't have to be for me. I don't know you, and you're not my patient, so I can't tell you. I mean, I'm your temporary patient for now, as a temporary patient, I would do a blood test on you and find out, or I tell you what I might do. Have you heard of the these continuous glucose monitors? Yes, put on your arm. So are those little circles? That's right. So who was the prime minister that had one of those? I don't know, but I read Conservative Prime Minister type one diabetes wore a little white disc on her arm. Nice lady. Um. Before Johnson, before Johnson, a lady Prime Minister, Theresa May, yeah, she has type one, and she often you'd see a little white disc on her arm, so that you can now buy on Amazon, continuous glucose monitors, which gives a signal to your phone continuously of your blood

  Peter McCormack

  sugar. I've heard with those, you get a little bit shocked with them sometimes, like you can eat a couple of grapes and suddenly, yeah, well,

  David Unwin

  but yes, but if that's what's happening, and if your blood sugar goes into the red, well, maybe you need to know. I wonder if

  Peter McCormack

  it's worth doing it for a week, but maintaining your normal diet just so you're overwhelmed

  David Unwin

  find out. So I think what's good about you? You're clearly curious. So I'd say, try one of those, yeah, and see and find out. Because the truth find it out. I didn't till I was I avoided the truth till I was 10 years older than you, and by then I'd done more damage. So so, I mean, there's obviously some planning around the food you keep in the house. How you prepare? Yeah, let's just go back to that really. So what we're doing, but you're breaking in a break in a cycle as well, yes, particularly if there's some Ultra processed food addiction. So what we're saying is start eating whole foods, yes, so turn the white stuff green, so I could have a curry if you want why having the rice? Because that's just adding a pile of sugar. But enjoy your curry. But what about those frozen green beans you've got in the freezer? You could add that or do a stir fry, or whatever, instead of the chips you could have. So I'd say experiment with turning the white stuff green and increasing the protein. So your breakfast could be scrambled egg and smoked salmon. That's a pile of protein, right? Then a good way to start the day. Try that, or for your son, either instead of the cereals, scrambled egg in the microwave, not going to take you very long.

  Unknown Speaker

  Interesting. So,

  David Unwin

  so definitely,

  Peter McCormack

  I still come back. There's a there's a certain amount of discipline to it, like in a day like today, when we are we have a an hour or two between interviews, and I'm going to need to read. It's easy. It's being aware of what's around here. It's either prepare something to bring with me exactly, or being aware of something around exactly so. But

  David Unwin

  so people often ask me, why? How is it my patients changed their lifestyle, and it all boils down to, Are you motivated? And do you believe this thing could improve your health? Because if you believe this thing would improve your health? You'll do it. You'll find out. You'll experiment, and if then you notice. So I would call you back, when you weigh 12 and a half stone, what does that feel like when you put on your jeans? So I weigh, I'm 67 and I weigh, I'm 73 kilos. So that's about 12 stone, yeah, and I wear my jeans like, Oh, I'm 67 but that feels good, David,

  Peter McCormack

  I've still got all the clothes when I was 12 and a half star, and you could wear them there. One of the features I couldn't, I couldn't believe how tight it was, yeah, I used to wear this.

  David Unwin

  So I would say, if you believe in a thing, you're clever, you're a man of resources. You'll investigate, experiment and try.

  Peter McCormack

  We should plan. We should pencil in a follow up in six months and see what

  David Unwin

  have a follow up. Also discuss it. Do you have a partner? I do is this person who does the cooking,

  Peter McCormack

  who does the shopping, but to be honest, the best person is with me. And him are together all the time, right? Something we both need. Like, you listen to this and you thinking, Yeah, whatever, I'm fine. Are you actually thinking, Ah, maybe I need to,

  Conor McCormack

  yeah, there's definitely some changes I could make. But also, at the same time, it feels like the way you talk about it as an addiction. If you're addicted to smoking and you want to give up. You can never touch a cigarette again.

  David Unwin

  So if your dad, if he actually is a junk food addict, which you will find out over the next six months, if you do it, then abstinence is the only answer. But actually, there is a spectrum of addiction. Some people are what you call harmful users, and they can have the odd treat and not derail. I'll give you an example. My wife is a very severe junk food addict, so we did the low carb thing in 2012 and then the first Christmas, she thought, I'll just have one day off. Cheat day. Yeah, a cheat day. She did not recover from that cheat day till May, because for her, she's her mind was craving what she had. And she kept saying, Monday, I'll do it on Monday. And we had loads of arguments, because I'm saying, What are you doing? And she got heavier. And heavier during that time, and also she's very unhappy when she's heavy. And I love her, yeah, so I saw her doing this thing, and she's making tray bakes for the kids. And why are we doing this?

  Peter McCormack

  But Connie, you could be a junk food addict. Probably

  David Unwin

  what it's just a thought. I mean, once what happens is the way we are living because of the dopamine and the other brain substances, junk food changes the wiring of your brain. Now Chris Van Tolkien did that wonderful experiment for BBC television. Children these days get 60% of their diet from junk food. So Chris Van Tolkien, for a month, ate junk food for 60% of his diet, and they did brain scans, it changed the wiring of his brain. Three months later, his the wiring was still not right. Three months after he'd gone back to a whole food diet, he still wanted those junk foods, and the brain when they did the brain scan, was not normal.

  Peter McCormack

  Do you believe the companies producing these ultra high processed foods are designing them and producing them in the way that they know they're making

  David Unwin

  absolutely and there's evidence this has been this was terrible. It is terrible. It was well documented, I think, by the New York Times. So they have laboratories, and they're looking for the bliss point. So when they're making biscuits or whatever, they have volunteers go in, some of whom get head scans, and they're looking for what gets those little lights to go off in your head? What is the bliss point? And they know, because the bliss point means you will eat. Well, what's the perfect product? The perfect product is something you buy more than you think you even need. Who can eat one Dorito, you know what I mean, don't you? I mean, I remember, there's this other thing. Pringles are another one, and who can eat one?

  Peter McCormack

  What do we know about Pringles? Connor? It's a whole packet, isn't it? You get a TARDIS gone in the night, yeah. And so he's so cheeky. So we'll get, we'll get a tub of Pringles. Conor will get a tub of Pringles, yeah, and nearly 85% and then leave just a few at the bottom.

  Conor McCormack

  That's also a lie. He's speaking like an addict. He is, yeah, he

  David Unwin

  probably is, so but he's called the bliss point. They know they now, let me tell you something else. So medicine in the world took 30 years to realize that smoking killed 30 years one of the senior partners before me in the practice used to recommend cigarettes for anxiety for his patients. So he spoke, he smoked Marlboros, and I still have patients now who say, I started smoking because this particular doctor said, Try. One of these doctors did not know that cigarettes caused cancer for 30 years. However, the writing was on the wall for a long time, and the companies making the cigarettes caused confusion and ridicule the doctors who were saying, This kills. They were ridiculed. There was all sorts of yes, you don't understand the detail. And they found experts who said, it's not that bad. But before they knew that the tide was going out on nicotine, and then started using their expertise in advertising and all of these things, into things like breakfast cereals, and they moved and now those same expertise, why are the breakfast cereals for children full of little plastic, this, that and the other for pester power? Why did you know? Why did I go getting happy meals all the time for my kids? Because they went on and on about the little plastic they knew, yeah, and the same expertise went across into junk food, and that's what we're fighting now.

  Peter McCormack

  They got rid of this funny they got you never had a time where you had the cereals with the little toy inside, did you? So it was a whole thing, yeah. Do you even remember it cut? Yeah? So you'd get your Cocoa Pops, and you would open it, and within the actual cocoa pop, somewhere in there would be a toy.

  Unknown Speaker

  Yeah, we used to search. My brother and I were like, Yeah,

  Peter McCormack

  put your grubby hands in, like, fight through it, and you'd find a little toy. And it's like, you know, like a Kinder egg, so little toy like that. But every week, when you did the shopping, and if I would go with my mum, I'd be looking up which had the toy I wanted, and then I'd get home, that's all I would think about, is getting that toy. Yeah, it's, it was a man there.

  David Unwin

  Eventually they did, but you by then, by then, maybe you were already addicted, yeah. And so they've used their immense experience, immense I mean, what resources do I have none? Yeah, what resources do they have? Oh, gazillions. I don't even know, but we're now. This is all coming to fruition, and you see it in the streets. You see it everywhere. Think about buying petrol. Just look around in there. Yeah, it's all addictive. It's all junk. Yeah, yeah. Do you want to vape? Do you want to smoke? Do you want to buy alcohol, pornography or chocolate bars? It's all there, yeah? So if you were addicted to any of those things, it's quite you're running a gauntlet just to pay for your petrol, because otherwise you're reaching, aren't you for the cream egg,

  Peter McCormack

  yeah and yes, yeah, I'll usually pay for the petrol, get a coffee and a packet of

  David Unwin

  disco, exactly you have. So you can see what I'm saying is kind of reasonable. And we've set up a perfect storm, yeah, if you want obesity to be the national problem, and then to suggest that spending huge amounts of money on fat jabs as the answer, when what we should be doing? I mean, there's been wonderful experience in Northumberland where they, for a little while, they didn't allow planning permission for takeaways in an area, they just didn't, whereas another area they let it go, and then they monitored the effect on obesity in children. Because every time you give planning permission for a tuck shop or a pizza place or whatever, you're affecting the health of the local population. We've known that for a while. Who do you think eats all this stuff.

  Peter McCormack

  So I own a little coffee shop, and we sell cakes, yeah, and we've also just taken a lease on a new building to open a pizza restaurant. So like, I'm a drug dealer Now,

  David Unwin

  you might be, you might be, and I just you know, but you're only doing what everybody else does, so I don't judge you, and I'm not sure you'd thought about all of this before I came.

  Peter McCormack

  No, I hadn't. And I also think a pizza restaurant, pizza is not going to leave my life for now. I might fund I believe I could fundamentally change my diet, see you in six months. Yeah, and be in much better shape. That's when having had pizza.

  David Unwin

  Yeah? So that's the challenge. So what I do? If you were my patient, I'm not an expert in you are, yeah, if you succeed, reflect on how that feels and do more of it. If you succeed and then fail, one of the most important things about failure is to learn, you know, and you'd say to Connor, he's going to make mistakes. Yeah, don't beat yourself up, but don't do it again. Yeah, and I'm an old guy, and I like to think I've got experience and I've learned from my mistakes. So if you do it in his success, I'm proud of you. Really. Well done. If you do it's a success. But then you have a holiday or Christmas, and it all goes wrong. Why? Why? And then you need to do things differently. And I have patience, and I can give you one example that's probably coming towards the end of this chat, but let me leave you with this. This patient has consented for me to share this with the world. So this person has poorly controlled diabetes, and he knows that bread is giving him really major health problems. And his wife knows too, so she was in the habit of putting detergent, washing up liquid, on any crust that were in the bin, because he would get up in the night and eat those crusts. But you know what? He would eat the crusts, even with the detergent on the only thing that would stop him. So his wife came up with the idea of spray bleach, and if she would leave the spray bleach on the side, so that if he did get up in the night, he didn't even try it because she'd already gone through the bin with the bleach, and that was the only thing that would stop that person, and that person struggles and struggles and struggles, and that is a very painful process for him, really painful because he's a Highly intelligent person, and this threatens his way of life, yeah. And very serious. And he consented, in a way. It was very kind of him, because it gives you a perfect helps you understand that for this is a successful person in every other way.

  Peter McCormack

  Look, it's a really embarrassing thing to admit. But my habit, my worst habit, is I can wake up at three in the morning really hungry and go and make like a cheese, toasty.

  Unknown Speaker

  Simple. That is worrying. Yeah, that is worrying.

  Peter McCormack

  But I sometimes think I almost don't even know I'm doing it. I'm conscious, yeah, but it's, it's,

  David Unwin

  it feels like autopilot, yes, my wife says, she said, It's like your disembodied hand is reaching inside the fridge, and you're looking at it, thinking, what? Why? But you can't stop

  Peter McCormack

  it. It used to be worse. There were times I'd go downstairs and just like, get a like, it was terrible. You had a handful of Maltese, and just stuffed my face. But didn't. I wasn't fully conscious. I was doing it like I was. I knew I was doing it and but wasn't aware. Because, like, during most of the day, I can be pretty

  David Unwin

  good, yeah, but you see, that worries me, and you Yes, because the other thing is, habits are very powerful. Yeah, so one of the reasons you shouldn't cheat. So do you think about brushing your teeth? No, you don't, and that there's a book, isn't there on this about habits? My wife would always say, it's easy to maintain a habit. So I am in the habit of being always low carb, so I don't have to worry or think about what I'm going to eat, because it's not going to be bread. But you see, you've got a habit there that's quite difficult, and if you cheat occasionally, that little light will come on in your head. And we're hungry through habit. It's a habit. So I only eat twice a day or once a day. I haven't eaten breakfast for years. I don't need to. I've kind of just cut it out. I'd rather lie in bed, and my habit is to not eat till lunchtime. Today, I haven't eaten a particle of food.

  Peter McCormack

  What about what about things like coffee, cappuccinos

  David Unwin

  and well, I've I've enjoyed that was a delicious Thank you.

  Unknown Speaker

  But do you worry about milks and

  David Unwin

  cheeses? Well, now for me, a latte, because I have type two diabetes, a latte will double my blood sugar. So I've worn the continuous glucose monitors and that if I had one recently, because I was too embarrassed, I did a I did a speech for all of the pediatricians, consultant pediatricians in Merseyside, and somebody very kindly brought me a latte, and it was too polite to say, I don't drink that. I drank it on the way back. I knew my blood sugar was crazy, and it doubled with the milk in the latte. That's how damaged my metabolism is I can't even drink milk. What? I couldn't eat an apple. I couldn't eat a quarter of an apple because it would put my blood sugar up, and alcohol was just a no for you. ICU, no, actually, it isn't. And they're good news. The good news for you and me is, yeah, so dry white wine and dry red wine. I do drink alcohol. I have to be careful, because I can become addicted to that too, and so I have to, I have to keep it under control. Otherwise, I start looking forward to it too much. Yes, like Today's the day I'm going to drink. To know whether you've ever felt like that. I'm so happy. Today's the day I'm going to have a drink. So I've discovered that if I if I drink, if I don't allow myself to drink more than once a week, I don't get that sort of cheaty feeling, and I can control it if I drink too often. Or holidays are very dangerous, because I get into a drinking every day, and then it's terrible lunchtime when you get you know, you come back and I'm running a surgery, and about one o'clock, I could just murder a gin and Tommy. That's terrible, isn't it? It is, yeah, so I now I'm aware of it as a danger, and I'm more in touch with the voices. Again, back to me at 55 I didn't hear any of the messages my body was trying to give me. I was deaf to what my brain was telling me. And then when I cut out junk food, I could tell what was a good day and a bad day. And I was chasing those good days because I love the sharpness. And if you look at me now, you can see I have every bit as my. Energy as I had when I started, and I could do this for hours. I have a lot of stamina, a lot as I'm flagging and you're flagging, I'm flagging, I can tell just to look at you, this is you're flagging and I'm not. And why is that? Why is that? Because I want a burger, yes, but it, no, it's slightly more interesting than that of a moment. Do you remember me saying you're a dual fuel agent? The brain slightly prefers fat as fuel. Okay, so And because I I'm burning fat, so I'm in ketosis. I've got 1000s of calories of fat on me so I can burn my fat now, and whether I eat now or tonight, tomorrow morning makes no difference to my energy. Mine's burning the bagels, yours is gone now. Yeah, and you're on the way down because you're relying on carbohydrate. I am not relying on carbohydrate because I haven't I don't have much. I'm I'm burning fat. And one of the world experts who's coming tomorrow, and you could really do to meet her, is Dr Georgia Reid, and she's a world famous psychiatrist, and she specializes in nutritional psychiatry. How do we use food for mental health? She's a close friend of mine. She is to the world of psychiatry what I am to type two diabetes. And she's come all the way from America to talk at our conference, because she wants people to know how your brain could be better burning fat. And there are RCTs going on now, special studies in Edinburgh University on bipolar disorder, which is being helped by a keto diet. It's the world of nutrition is waking up. People all over the world are thinking about food in a very different way. Do you

  Peter McCormack

  have any questions? Con nothing you want to ask. Where's the bleacher? Where's the bleach Oh, yeah. You need Yeah. Yesterday, he was like, Dad, when did you have those crumpets? There was two crumpets. I can't remember. I knew one. Had them about

  David Unwin

  three in the morning, I used to eat I used to eat my children's easter eggs like a monster, but yes, like a monster, and they dad, but they would hide them, and I would in the night, I'm like, where are they? I know they're here somewhere, and

  Conor McCormack

  he's had stuff, and then first thing in the morning gone to the shop and replaced

  David Unwin

  because you feel so bad, don't you like Easter eggs, it's your own children. And so I've done that. And do you know that has been so interesting. I think it was really good that you rep. It's funny how we start off almost like a role play, yeah? But actually becomes very genuine.

  Peter McCormack

  No. I mean, it's all very real. Yeah, I'm not a I'm not a granddad yet. I'd like to be one day soon, hopefully, but

  David Unwin

  have me back in six months. Have an experiment and reflect with me. Yeah, reflect with me. I'll take you through the next thing. This is what I do with patients. So it finishes now. And I say, right, so what you're going to do? So this is what I how I'd finish with a patient, I'd say, so what specific changes can you commit to right now?

  Peter McCormack

  Change in the makeup of our fridge? Yes, easily, yeah. And just making my meals myself, just making

  Unknown Speaker

  your meals yourself, you're gonna commit that. We're gonna shake

  Peter McCormack

  Yes. We're on it. We're on it. Oh, okay. We'll put six months. We'll check six months. We'll put it in.

  David Unwin

  That's how I leave it. And then when I see you, next time, I would write in the notes, that's what you've done. And then I asked, How did it go? Not in a judgmental way, because you cannot fail. Yeah, you're just learning about yourself. And if you can, if you can understand your own physiology and your own psychology better. Wouldn't that be great if you understood the engine that you have?

  Peter McCormack

  So, so I'm using power. I'm using myself as the lens for anyone listening who feels similar. But if, if someone's listening now and they're like, Yeah, okay, I need to think about this more. Is there any resources you would There

  David Unwin

  are loads, yeah. So one of the things is, please follow me on Twitter, so I'm at low carb GP on Twitter got 100,000 followers. I'm showing all the time. Where are the conferences? Where's the things if you want an app, a free app. So my work has been taken on by the wonderful fresh well practice, an NHS practice, and they have designed a free app you can download on your phone, and it's called the fresh well app, free, so we're not making money out of any of this. The fresh well app. Download it on your phone. You can go I set up with there were 16 of us clinicians worried. Led by public health. And we set up a charity, the public health collaboration. And that website, which you've got up there somewhere, has got resources, diet sheets for you to look at, recipes, that kind of thing you could you could look on there. Well, we'll share that all. I've got one important one. Final one, my wife wrote a book called fork in the road, published on Amazon. It's not for profit. All of the profit goes to those two charities. I've told every penny we haven't made any money out of what we do. But she has written a self published book called fork in the road, which you can download from Amazon or Kindle. So if you go off the rails, she said, I've written the book I wish I'd read when I was 16, because she spent all her life as a food addict, as a consultant psychologist, not understanding her own behavior. And if you get in a pickle in the next few months, you could buy that book and read it, and you would learn a great deal. And I think that's probably I've got other stuff, but that's enough. We'll put

  Peter McCormack

  that in the show notes. I mean, this has been quite an indulgent episode for me, because I've allowed it to be about me, but I do look, I know won't be alone, so hopefully other people have got benefits from it, and we should, let's get together

  David Unwin

  in six months. Yes, see other things I you know, just, there's so many things I would like to talk about dyslexia. Yes, I'd love to do that, because I have dyslexia quite badly and many members of my family, and that's an interesting topic. I run 40 Acres of bird reserve, and so I'm really interested in biodiversity and sustainable agriculture. And if you're going to suggest a diet, who's going to grow it, and it has to be sustainable. So that's kind of interesting, too. And so literally, I've got land, and we're we're producing food, so that'd be another end. I've got loads.

  Peter McCormack

  I could go on and on. Well, hopefully we won't have to talk about low carb too much next time, because I'll be here, I'll be looking

  David Unwin

  we could do as a consultation that with the world can see how you're doing. Yeah. What I would say is, what you should do today is, honestly, get Connor to measure your waist. Yes, get him to do it with a tape measure at the fattest. Yes. And don't make your waist small. The other thing I would say is, what if today was the fattest you're going to be? The other thing is take a private photo of yourself, honestly in front of a mirror as you are, and if what you do works, you'll be proud to show me a before and after. Yeah, because, and that would be very good in terms of psychology, because you would see the evidence of exactly how you are, yeah, and then you can come and that would help motivate you. Then if you felt the Doritos are calling to me, you get out your photo and think that is not me, and I've got patients. Some of my patients have lost 10 stone in weight, 11 stuff. Some of them, we don't even know how much weight they've lost, because they were too heavy to weigh at the beginning, too heavy to

  Peter McCormack

  weigh. I thought you can get those things where you weigh elephants,

  David Unwin

  not in the on the NHS, you don't I all. What I did with them is I just measured their waist circumference and waited for them to become weighable. That happens at 150 kilos.

  Peter McCormack

  Well, thanks. I'm not there. Okay, I feel determined. Good, Connor, you're gonna have to support me on this, boy. Thank you. It was very indulgent in me, but

  David Unwin

  it's just where it went. I was into I loved that because I had no idea where it was going. And it's fun because it's original. Or people,

  Unknown Speaker

  I have a

  Peter McCormack

  two to three times a week. I am released onto YouTube, so hopefully people will see some kind of progression. But let's do it. Six months, I'm committed now. Let's do it. The world is watching. Let's go. Thank you. Thank you everyone for listening. Fat Pete, no more. We'll see you soon. Bye. You.