The Root Cause Medicine Podcast · Rupa Health

Metabolic Freedom: How to Burn Fat, Not Sugar, with Ben Azadi

·52 min·3 clips

Five ounces of McDonald's-style fries in vegetable oil produced aldehydes equal to smoking 25 cigarettes.

Dr. Keri Jones opens the conversation by framing the episode around weight loss resistance. She introduces Ben Azadi and sets up a discussion centered on metabolism and metabolic freedom. Ben argues that a lot of people are trying to lose weight while carrying a hidden load of stored toxins. He points to seed oils and vegetable oil frying as one major source of concern. He cites a study discussed in Dr. Kate Shanahan's Dark Calories and says Martin Grudfeld analyzed aldehydes produced by frying French fries in vegetable oil. He describes aldehydes as carcinogenic compounds and connects them to tobacco smoke. He also makes a dramatic comparison between the aldehyde content of five ounces of fries and 25 cigarettes. The point, as he uses it, is that seed-oil-fried fries are not a harmless food choice. The conversation then widens from food into environmental exposures. Ben says toxins can be shuttled into fat cells through PPAR gamma activity. He describes these stored compounds as obesogens because they can promote obesity in animals and humans. He says fat loss can get harder when the body keeps dumping toxins during weight reduction. That, for him, explains why some people hit a wall when they try to burn fat. Ben also describes a second category of toxins that he calls diabetogens. He says these can disrupt pancreatic beta cell function and contribute to prediabetes, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes. The episode then shifts into practical exposure reduction. He recommends drinking from glass instead of plastic bottles. He also suggests using glass food storage, wooden cutting boards, and avoiding cash register receipts because of BPA exposure concerns. He brings up microplastics and cites a University of Newcastle finding that the average American consumes a credit card's worth of plastic each week. He ties those ideas to his own history of mercury poisoning and mold toxicity. Keri keeps the conversation grounded in listener relevance and closes with the show's familiar thank-you and review ask.

As heard by us

A forceful metabolism conversation that links fat loss, toxin load, and everyday exposures.

The episode treats metabolic resistance as a root-cause discussion about fat loss, toxin load, insulin disruption, and the materials that may be muddying the picture. Dr.

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Want a root-cause take on weight-loss resistance that starts with toxins, not calories?

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