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Deepak Chopra, author, public speaker and alternative medicine advocate who shot to fame on The Oprah Winfrey Show in the 90s, was the first guest at this week’s “Fat Summit” online conference. Hosted by Mark Hyman, celebrity doctor, long time Clinton family advisor and author of upcoming book, Eat Fat, Get Thin, the Fat Summit’s tagline-- “Separating Fat From Fiction”-- is clever fluff.
Boasting interviews with thirty “top scientists, doctors and health experts,” Hyman's summit purports to explain to viewers of the online conference, available at no cost for a limited time (after which there is a fee for download), why eating more fat is the key to getting healthy and fit. Featuring the who’s who of food quackery, from David Asprey of the unscientific butter-in-your-coffee school of thought, to Vani “The Food Babe” Hari, known for her fearmongering antics, the summit is less about fat and more about demonizing modern technologies like genetic engineering and ingredients like artificial preservatives.
"I feel like a slacker, I only have nine New York Times bestsellers,” Hyman laughed as he introduced Deepak Chopra, who has more than 20 bestsellers under his belt. The summit’s first guest, he touted the benefits of Indian-style clarified butter known as “ghee,” as well as the advantages of keeping a gratitude journal, which he claims can reduce “leaky gut,” in turn decreasing incidence of heart disease and diabetes.
While “leaky gut syndrome” is poorly understood and is not a diagnosis taught in medical school, Chopra blames stress and an “inflamed microbiome” for causing the condition, which he implicates in a raft of health problems. Though "leaky gut syndrome" is largely promoted by pseudoscientists and is not recognized by the mainstream medical community, scientists are learning that "the gut," or intestinal tract, can "leak," allowing substances through microscopic openings in its lining and into the rest of the body. And although our understanding of intestinal permeability is changing, Chopra’s misinformation-laden messaging is a far cry from evidence-based.
According to Chopra, that pesky inflamed microbiome is sentient. The genome, microbiome and epigenome, which the author collectively calls the “super gene,” are referenced throughout the interview. His book, Super Genes: The Key to Health and Well-Being, was published last year.
In the world of science, the genome is the entirety of the genetic information contained in the nucleus of each somatic cell in any organism’s body, coding for the functions of life. The microbiome is a term used to describe the entirety of all of the microorganisms in any environment, as well as the genetic information contained therein, with those myriad little guys’ genes outnumbering the human genes in our body by 100 to 1. The epigenome is an array of structural compounds that don’t code for proteins the way genes do, but that interact with and affect gene activity.
The functions, interactions and inner workings of these “omes” are complex, with our understanding of them still at an infant stage. In other words, what we know about the microbiome, epigenome and genome is dwarfed by what we have yet to learn, and Deepak Chopra exploits this, taking brazen liberties to fill in the gaps.
In Deepak Chopra’s dream world, “we are a few human cells hanging on to a bacterial colony, we are the awakening of bacterial consciousness.” According to the celebrity butcher of science, the microbiome has likes and dislikes.
“It doesn’t like anything that’s refined, manufactured, processed, GMO’d, because again GMO interferes with its ecology. It is the life of the earth. And when it gets inflamed, it sends out metabolites that cause disruption of the activity, both of the epigenome and of the gene directly.”
Though the effect of the herbicide glyphosate, often used on crops engineered to resist it, on intestinal bacteria strains has been studied in vitro, meaning in laboratory culture and not in the body, it’s a huge leap to say our friend the microbiome doesn’t like things that are “GMO’d.”
After all, the terms “GMO” and "Genetically Modified Organism" are scientifically arbitrary, so using it as a verb is no expert move. Considering that the famous meditation proponent loves wielding genomics jargon, he should know that “GMO” describes diverse techniques and products, a term that scientists don't use in serious discussion. From crops engineered with an insecticidal protein to prevent boring insect damage, to genetically engineered papayas bred to be resistant to a virus that nearly wiped them out, "GMO" can hardly describe the diversity in products and techniques onto which the term is so haphazardly slapped.
Chopra should also know that the vast majority of the foods we consume, including organic and so-called "non-GMO" varieties, have had their genomes altered in the field or in a lab with techniques like selective breeding, radiation or chemical mutagenesis, and wide cross hybridization, which unnaturally “forces” organisms of different species or genera to produce offspring.
Either disingenuous or ignorant of these facts, frequent criticism doesn’t seem to deter Chopra from spouting microbiome misinformation. While discussing yoga during his interview with Chopra, Mark Hyman gushed, “I love yoga, and I do it, and I always feel transformed, and it’s amazing that not only your genes are listening to your thoughts, but your microbiome, the bacteria are listening to your thoughts.” Yoga can be a great form of exercise, but this is a bit of a stretch.
But Chopra agreed with Hyman: “Yeah, the bacterial genes are listening to your thoughts.”
Kavin Senapathy’s book examining popular food myths, “The Fear Babe: Shattering Vani Hari’s Glass House,” with co-authors Marc Draco and Mark Alsip, is available now. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.
