Episode Details

This is an extended version of the interview with Rick Johnson, author of Nature Wants Us to Be Fat.

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TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

RICK JOHNSON [00:00:00] My name is Richard Johnson. I’m a professor of medicine here at the University of Colorado.

SHELLEY [00:00:04] In fact, you direct the Department of Hypertension, or have you changed your position now?

RICK JOHNSON [00:00:09] I was the chief here from 2008 till 2017, but currently I’m simply a professor.

SHELLEY [00:00:17] That gives you more time to research and less that you have to be directing.

RICK JOHNSON [00:00:20] Absolutely correct.

SHELLEY [00:00:22] Are you doing a lot of research?

RICK JOHNSON [00:00:23] I am. I continue to be a researchaholic. I’ve been doing research since the early eighties. It makes up a great part of my life. It’s exciting, exhilarating and hard work.

SHELLEY [00:00:38] It is all those things with a lot of mysteries, a lot of dead ends, a lot of sudden doors that open up.

“This whole story that I’ve written about is like finding treasure.”

RICK JOHNSON [00:00:44] It’s been a series of great surprises and discoveries. The best I can say is that this whole story that I’ve written about is like finding treasure, I found a piece of gold. And we thought that was the best thing in the world. And then we found another one, and then we found another. And then we found a whole treasure chest. It’s sort of like finding King Priam’s treasure. What we’ve realized is that this pathway that we’ve identified seems to be involved, not just in obesity and diabetes, but in many, many current diseases, having a role in cancer and having a role in dementia and other medical problems.

SHELLEY [00:01:22] Backing up just a little bit. You’re in the Division of Hypertension and Nephrology, which means that you deal with things like high blood pressure and kidney disease and gout.

RICK JOHNSON [00:01:36] Yes, that’s right. So I started primarily in the world of kidney disease and high blood pressure. But as my research progressed, I migrated into other fields and ended up studying metabolic syndrome, obesity, diabetes and other conditions.

SHELLEY [00:01:55] Metabolic syndrome is that very strange thing where somebody’s metabolism gets out of balance and they get really hungry for things that they don’t really need. They lose energy. They can’t build muscle as much. They’re more prone to heart disease.

RICK JOHNSON [00:02:10] Yeah, metabolic syndrome refers to a constellation of findings and usually it includes abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, elevated blood sugar, sort of like insulin resistance. So it’s not true diabetes, but it’s sort of pre-diabetes.

SHELLEY [00:02:29] Cells their body can’t take in energy, and the insulin levels are very high.

RICK JOHNSON [00:02:37] You become resistant to the effects of insulin. So the insulin levels go up to help control your blood sugar. But even with that, your blood sugars tend to be a little bit on the high side and then you have elevated triglycerides in your blood, which is fat, and oftentimes you’ll have fatty liver. And this constellation of signs got the name metabolic syndrome many years ago. We now know that about a quarter of all adults have metabolic syndrome in the U.S. and some places in the world. It’s higher. So it seems to be a real common issue.

SHELLEY [00:03:12] In the US it’s common, but in some parts of the world. It’s lower, though.

RICK JOHNSON [00:03:15] Absolutely. So it can be lower. It’s sort of like, in our country, diabetes is present in about 10 to 12% of the population. You go to Samoa, it’s like 40%. You go to Kuwait, it’s like 25%. You study the Pima Indians where it’s 50%. And so diabetes and me