What if I told you that one of the most common foods in your kitchen could flip the powerful switches in your body right now? The very same switches that billion-dollar weight loss drugs are designed to target. This video from Dr. Alan Mandel has millions of views. It claims that a simple spoonful of peanut butter can melt belly fat like Ozempic. Sounds too good to be true. Well, then it probably is. Today, we're going to dive in and break down every one of his claims of this specific video and compare it to the published scientific evidence. So, let's dive in and see if this is actually a helpful hack. Or harmful hype. Welcome back, team, to the Building Lifelong Athletes podcast. Thanks so much for stopping by. Really appreciate it. If we haven't had the chance to meet yet, my name is Jordan Rannke, and I'm a dual board certified physician in family and sports medicine. And the goal of this podcast is to keep you active and healthy for life through actionable eminence and form education. Today, we're talking about a video that I saw on the internet talking about can peanut butter melt fat like Ozempics? So let's dive into it. And before we dive into it, I just want to talk about where I found this video. I do these reaction videos just based off of things that I find. So I'm not like going out looking for things. I just am scrolling YouTube. And then when I see things like this that make big claims, I'm like, oh, let's take a look at it. And then I take a look at it and say, oh. We probably needed to talk about that, and so that's where I get these from. This literally came out my suggested feed. Um, this is from Dr. Alan Mandel. His handle is at Motivational Doc on YouTube, has like 10 million subscribers, so a lot of people here that are following him. Once again, this is never an attack on a civic person. I'm just breaking down what this person is saying, just a way to kind of show my thinking when I watch these videos. It helps hopefully give you a little understanding of what I look for when I'm looking at videos and understanding when people make big claims, how I go about evaluating them. People spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars every month on injections like Ozempic to control appetite and blood sugar. But your body already has the natural ways to do this, and you can trigger them with something as simple as one spoonful of peanut butter before bed. Think of it as your body's natural appetite dimmer switch. Instead of cravings blasting at full volume. It turns the knob down so you can rest, repair, and burn more efficiently. So he's saying here, essentially, peanut butter is acting as a dimmer switch. The idea behind that can hopefully decrease your appetite by regulating things. So we'll see what he talks about. Now let's be clear. I'm not saying peanut butter is a miracle overnight fat burner. What I'm saying is that the physiology inside your body responds in a very predictable, proven ways When you give it the right nutrients at the right time. And nighttime is one of the most important windows to influence your metabolism, your hormones, and even your hunger signals for the next day. So it is nice. He's not saying it's a miracle, right? So that's right off the bat. I appreciate that. But he's saying that there's predictable physiology. When you eat peanut butter, that it's going to happen, especially if you eat it at night, these certain benefits you're going to get. So let's dive into these claims that he's talking about. Here's how it works. When you go to bed on an empty stomach, blood sugar can dip during the night, and that triggers a stress response, cortisol, and adrenaline. Rise up to keep your brain fueled. The problem. Elevated cortisol makes it harder to burn fat, increases belly fat storage, and disrupts sleep quality. It's like running your engine on fumes. The body panics, and instead of burning fat smoothly, it clings to it. But when you take just one spoonful, about one tablespoon, of natural peanut butter 30 minutes before bed, you can change the entire equation. Peanut butter is rich in protein, primarily amino acids like tryptophan and arginane. Now tryptophane is the raw material for serotonin Which later converts to melatonin, the hormone that controls your sleep cycle. All right, so let's talk about this first claim about tryptophan. He says peanut butter contains tryptophan, which becomes melatonin, which helps you sleep. And so let's take a look at that. Is that true? Well, kind of, there's a kernel truth to that, right? So, biochemically, that is a correct pathway, and that tryptophan is a precursor to serotonin and melatonin. But that's pretty much where it stops here. This is a classic case of a dose-response mismatch, right? So, a tablespoon of peanut butter, like he's saying, a tablespoon of peanut butter has about 37 milligrams of tryptophan. So, 37 milligrams give or take. The clinical trials that show improvement with sleep show a way higher dose. Usually they're saying, Hey, to get a reliable improvement in sleep, you want to have about a thousand milligrams or more. So, once again. 37 milligrams in a tablespoon of peanut butter, a thousand milligrams is what they see in studies. And so the amount of tryptophan in a spoonful of peanut butter is only about 3. 7% of the dose shown to actually work in scientific studies. So to get the clinically effective dose, You need to eat about 27 tablespoons of peanut butter, which is about 2,400 calories. So, your day's worth of calories right there. And so, the claim is misleading because the dose is biochemically negligible, right? So, just say Little, little amount there, that is not going to lead to an appreciable improvement in your sleep. So that's like the first thing there. And arginine, on the other hand, is converted into nitric oxide. Which improves circulation and vascular function, supporting oxygen delivery and repair while you sleep. Next, let's talk about peanut butter, saying how it boosts circulation via arginine. The claim here was that arginine is in peanut butter and it boosts nitric oxide for better circulation. So, let's look at that claim. So, is there truth in this? Yes, arginine is the substrate for nitric oxide production, and nitric oxide is very important for relaxing blood vessels. Very, very clitically important. However, once again, this is not the entire picture here, right? So there's something called the arginine paradox, where your body's enzymes are pretty much already fully saturated with arginine from a normal diet. So the average person already gets about Four to five grams per day of arginine. And adding a really small amount from a tablespoon of peanut butter doesn't really increase nitric oxide production. In fact, there's actually been some studies that use way higher doses, looking at like six to twelve grams, which would be You know, 15 to 30 times more than you'd find in peanut butter, and these big doses at you know six to twelve grams don't always show reliable increases in nitric oxide biomarkers. There are some that do show improvements and some that don't, and so it's kind of interesting, we're not sure. But this claim kind of ignores this whole arginine paradox, meaning that your body already has more than enough arginine to work with. And adding a little 400 milligram from peanut butter is like adding a cup of water to a full swimming pool. It pretty much will make no difference. The healthy fats in peanut butter are mainly monounsaturated fats, are slow to digest. This means instead of blood sugar spiking and crashing, Energy is released gradually all night long. Okay, next, we want to talk about the blood sugar section. And overall, I would give them props. This is probably the most scientifically accurate area right here. And so. He claims that the fats and protein in peanut butter slow digestion and balance blood sugar throughout the night. I think that's actually pretty good, largely supported, but context is key, right? So The fat and protein in peanut butter definitely do slow gastronomy, right? That's the big thing we talk about when you eat mixed meals. We don't want to eat just simple carbohydrates, it's a mixed meal. But when we see that blunt in blood sugar, it's usually because we're eating fat and protein with some sort of carbohydrate, right? So we wouldn't have necessarily a spike if we're just eating fat and protein, but it's with carbohydrates. So I wouldn't necessarily expect to see. Great blunting of blood sugar if you're just eating fat and protein. That wouldn't be huge. Obviously, yes, you do get some increase with protein that can happen. But overall, it's really the carbohydrates that when we see in studies that Adding fat and protein to carbohydrate eating, that is when we kind of flatten things out. And studies will confirm this as well: adding peanut butter to a high-carb meal significantly lowers the post-meal blood sugar spike. So, he's actually spot on for that. I think it's great. But as I mentioned before, this effect is most powerful when peanut butter is eaten with carbohydrates. When you eat a spoonful by itself, there's not necessarily a significant carbohydrate load to even blunt a blood sugar response. And so. While it does promote satiety potentially, right? Because we know that fat and protein can be more satiating there, its direct impact on blood sugar when eaten alone is probably minimal. Obviously, everyone might be different, and your blood might respond differently, your sugars might go up. But either way, it's kind of taking a leap going from this helps with blood sugar control to melts belly fat. That's a big oversimplification. But I do owe them credit here. A lot of times, if we do eat a mixed meal with fat and protein, that does help kind of blunt out and calm down glucose responses. Now think of it like throwing a thick log on a fire instead of crumbled paper. The log burns slow and steady, keeping your system calm and stable. That steadiness prevents the cortisol spikes. That sabotage fat burning. Next, we're going to talk about the cortisol spike. So he talks about that peanut butter eating it can reduce cortisol spikes, and cortisol is talked about everywhere, right? It's the Essentially, the bad guy for everything it causes, you know, all these issues with weight gain, and that is true. There are some issues if you have really, really high, clinically high cortisol, it can lead to excess adipostin, all that stuff. Is that clinically happening? Let's break it down here. So, he says that eating peanut butter before bed prevents cortisol spikes that store belly fat. And so, this is this one's kind of like a direct contradiction to human physiology, and we'll kind of break it down here. So, first, This problem doesn't really exist that you're having these cortisol spikes like intermittently randomly, right? So, for a healthy people, which maybe he's talking about people who are not medically healthy, and that could be the case, but For most people, cortisol follows a circadian rhythm where it's at its lowest point around midnight, right? And so there's no necessarily a spike to reduce. It's gradually going down, and then eventually it'll peak back up in the morning. And so this kind of has this natural circadian flow. So there's no real spike to reduce it. But the thing on top of that is the solution that it offers pretty much does the opposite. So, food intake is a known stimulus for increasing cortisol secretion. Not in a huge, crazy pathologic way, like, oh, huge cortisol spikes, but it will bump up. Clinical studies do confirm that consuming a meal. Triggers a rise in plasma cortisol. That happens. And so the claim is kind of flawed on two levels, right? So, first, it events a problem that doesn't exist, this nighttime cortisol spike. We know that naturally, cortisol is just going to kind of go down until midnight and then it'll kind of peak up and it'll be pretty high early in the morning. And so, we don't necessarily see these nighttime spikes. Maybe is it possible? Of course, it's always possible, but that is not like the normal rhythm of cortisol. And then, on top of that, if you do eat something, the proposed solution, that's actually going to cause the opposite effect. It's going to increase that cortisol. It's going to be temporary. And so, once again, when we see these temporary rises, I never freak out, right? We know this is a normal physiological response to have an increase in cortisol after eating. Not a big problem. They're not worried about that. It's that long-term rise in cortisol that we really care about. And I don't think eating a spoonful of peanut butter at night is going to greatly reduce your cortisol levels. Now, let's talk about hormones. Because this is where credibility matters. Peanut butter slows gastric emptying. That action stimulates satidi hormones like GLP1 and PYY. GLP-1 is exact hormone, the drug like Ozempic, that's designed to mimic it. And when GLP-1 levels rise, your stomach empties slower, hunger shuts off. and your pancreas gets a break from pumping out insulin. Less insulin at night means less fat storage and better fat mobilization. Think of GLP One as a natural overnight traffic cop. It slows everything down, clears the lanes and keeps your system flowing smoothly instead of crashing into chaos. And this isn't just my opinion. A study in the British Journal of Nutrition found that eating peanuts stabilizes blood sugar for hours after consumption. A twenty eighteen trial in the Journal of American College of Nutrition shows that peanuts reduce postmeal glucose spikes and increase satiety. And a review in Nutrients 2019 confirmed that nut consumption stimulates GLP1 secretion. Mimicking what pharmacological agents are designed to do. So, yes, there is a real science backing this. And so now we have to talk about the core of the video, right? The core claim. He is saying that peanut butter mimics the very same switches that billion-dollar drugs are designed to target. And is that the case, right? Because if you look everywhere, Just scroll on YouTube, type in natural GOP1 or natural Lozempic. You'll see hundreds of videos saying, hey, this is nature's Lozempic. This is there. Is that the case? Spoiler, no, not even close. So, nutrients in peanut butter, like fat and protein, absolutely do stimulate your guts cells to release your own GLP, right? So, that's the big thing. GLP one. Is the peptide that is getting released when we eat. And that's like what Ozempic and Monjara, so semi-glutide, intrazepatide, those are based off of, right? So that is very true. And the reason we found this is because this happens naturally when you eat pretty much anything, you're going to have that. But a study Even found that adding peanut butter to a meal resulted in higher post-perennial GLP-1 levels. So, there is some truth to that. So, you're saying, okay, cool, it's higher than before. What does that mean? Well, it's certainly different from pharmacologic doses, that's for sure. So, this is a kind of a physiologic Pulse, right? So when you eat food, your native GLP1 response has about a half-life of only one to two minutes before it's destroyed by the DPP4 enzyme. So you eat something. Your GLP1 elevates one or two minutes, then it goes back down. So, very, very short time. This is a tiny, short-lived nudge that's gone almost as soon as it appears. And even after a large meal, your natural GLP-1 levels only rise to what, 11 to 14 picomoles per liter. So it doesn't really matter what the units are on that, but just remember 11 to 14 picomoles per liter. So not a huge one. So let's talk about ozempic or semiglutide, what that does. So, ozempic isn't a stimulant, it's a pharmacological replacement. Essentially, it's a synthetic molecule engineered to be a Super hormone. Like, this isn't something like, oh, I'm just giving you normal doses. Like, no, this is bringing in the big guns. This is huge. It is specifically engineered to get the response that they wanted to get. So, we talked about DPP4, right? That enzyme that breaks down GLP-1. Well, they've engineered specifically a way that it can be resistance to it. It's structurally modified so that the dPP4 enzyme can't break it down. So, therefore, it lasts longer. On top of that, they've also added a fatty acid chain, allowing it to attach to albumin to kind of ride in the bloodstream to help avoid being cleared by the kidneys. Once again, allowing it to stay. Around longer. And so these changes extend his half-life from two minutes naturally, right, two minutes to roughly seven days or 168 hours And so you're talking about natural Zempic, not even close, like not even in the same stratosphere. Actually, looking at this, I looked at this up so I could learn myself, and I was just shocked at. Man, turns out they actually know what they're doing, right? Like they specifically targeted this and made the half-life way longer, so 168 hours. And what this does is it creates a constant, high-level steady state of GLP-1 receptors 24-7. Which is very different from a very slow, you know, and very small rise up and down, eating a little bit. Okay, now I want to do a little bit of a head-to-head here comparison, right? Of this natural GOP1 stimulation versus things like Semiglutide or Shepatide. I'm specifically looking at semi-glutide here, but the same principle applies. And so, once again, the half-life for natural GLP1 release is about one to two minutes, whereas for semi-glutide, it's about 168 hours. That's a pretty big difference there. That's a 5,000 to 10,000 times longer duration of action. And so, this, once again, not even in the same ballpark when someone says nature's Ozempic, not even close. But now let's look at the blood concentration, right? So, the blood concentration at the peak of the average, right? So, we're looking at for peanut butter, the natural peak is about, as I mentioned, 14 picomoles per liter. For a one milligram dose of semi-glutide or Zempic, looking at the average steady state of that, it's about 47,400 picomoles per liter. So huge. This drug creates a constant hormonal pressure that's over 3,000 times higher than the brief peak your body produces. So, once again, I'm comparing the steady state of semi-glutide. To the peak of natural GLP1. So, to compare these two is like comparing a handheld fan to a hurricane, essentially. Both move air, but at the scale, duration, impact are worlds apart. And so, that's when I hear nature's Ozempic, that's just almost laughable at this point, right? GLP1 is something you have naturally. That will happen when you eat. That is a natural thing. Like, how else do you think we figured this out? Like, we figured it out looking at human studies, looking at different animal studies as well. You have this little increase in nature when you eat something. And then you compare it to the pharmacological increase, and it's not even close. It's in different stratospheres. And so that's something that, you know, I really learned the actual levels of it. I knew before just. Conceptually, there, but this really kind of cemented it for me. But when someone says this is nature's Zempic, what they're saying is, this probably won't do what it needs to do, it probably won't work. And that's why these medications work so well, right? It's just Very, very hard to beat how incredibly powerful these are. And once again, I'm not saying you can't do this without a Zempic. You can't do it without Drazepatide. You absolutely can, but. You now understand why these are so successful because they are stacking the deck for you to have success. But what I am saying is that you can't compare anything natural to anything like semi-glutide, trucepatide, because it just doesn't exist, right? There's a reason that they created this in the lab. You know, people always talk about like, Bad athlete. It looks like he was created in the lab. He's a freak. That's exactly what we're doing. This is like the freak version of GLP1, only from a pharmaceutical industry. And I'm not saying, oh, it's perfect, it's amazing, but it does a really, really good job of what it was setting out to do. Now you might ask, won't eating at night make me gain weight? That depends on what you eat. You see refined carbs or sugar at night? Yes. That promotes fat storage, but a small controlled serving of slow-burning protein and fat has the opposite effect. It keeps you in balance and sets your metabolism up for the next morning. In fact, many people who try this notice fewer cravings the following day, more stable energy, and better appetite control. At just 90 calories. It's not enough to cause fat gain, but it is enough for your hormones to stay steady throughout the night. So here's exactly what you need to do. You'll take one tablespoon of natural peanut butter, preferably organic, if you can. That's about 90 calories, 4 grams of protein, and 8 grams of healthy fat. Not a half a jar, just one spoonful. I do like that he mentions that the big thing is: don't eat half a jar of peanut butter. I 100% agree with that. We do not want to have, you know, a calorie bomb before bed where we're eating a thousand calories. And so the one spoon of peanut butter, that's totally fine. Once again, do not care if you do this. And I'm glad that he mentioned that. There's still a lot calories in peanut butter, so if you're just doing this all the time, it can lead to excess calories that you didn't account for. Make sure it's natural or organic. No added sugar, no hydrogenated oils. Take it about thirty minutes before bed with a glass of water or herbal tea. That timing gives your gut enough time to release those satiety hormones and smooth out blood sugar before you sleep. Now here's my challenge to you. Try this simple habit for seven straight nights. Notice your sleep, notice your late night cravings, and especially notice how you feel in the morning. Do you wake up calmer, less hungry, more in control? That's not magic. That's your physiology responding exactly the way it was designed to. And so I'll give him credit here. He's saying, hey, if you take this, you may feel less hungry in the morning. That's great. Once again, I do not have a problem with this. Like eating a two Tablespoon of peanut butter, that's not dangerous at all. That's fine. For me, the biggest things is when someone's talking about intervention, how much is it going to cost and is it safe? This is very low cost, very low risk. So, I have no problem with people trying this. I just want to set a realistic expectation that this is not going to be a magic unlock to losing weight like getting on a medication like semaglutide. And yeah, when he says, See how you feel. That's totally valid. Like, that's really ultimately from this. If you're like, hey, I want to try this and see how I feel, that's great. I have no problem with that at all. I do not think this is going to make or break you. I do not think it's going to hurt you. So for me. If there's a cheap intervention, it's not going to hurt you. I say, knock your stuff out. I just want you to be informed. But hey, everyone's going to respond differently. You say, hey, actually, I feel great on this. Then, hey, maybe there's something to You eating this and providing yourself with a little bit of more calories in a kind of a slower burning way overnight, that's totally plausible and fine. But once again, saying it's a Zempic, that's really where I have the problem with this. So let me leave you with that. We live in a world where people are chasing the newest, most expensive solutions. But the truth is, your body already has built-in switches for appetite, metabolism, and fat burning. Sometimes all it takes is the right input to activate them. One spoonful of peanut butter before bed may be simple, but it's backed by science. It's accessible to almost everyone, and it might just surprise you with how powerful it can be. And so, his sign-off at the end, he says, Hey, your body has everything it already needs to lose weight. And yes, he's absolutely right. But in today's modern society, that may not be the case for everybody. They may not be set up for success and may need some additional help, whether that's through additional exercise, dietary inventions. You know, maybe it's a spoonful of peanut butter for you. Who knows? That's great. But he's making it seem like, once again, it can be incredibly powerful. And comparing this to a pharmacologic-grade medication is just two different worlds. But once again, No harm, no fall. I have no problem if you want to try this. I'm just trying to make sure we have really good expectations, right? When you watch this video, that's my biggest thing. You watch a video like this, this person's coming across very confident, saying, Hey. This is going to unlock your metabolism. When in reality, that is not going to happen for almost anybody. But there will be people who benefit from this. So I'm okay with it. I'm okay with it. But I just always want to. Talk about this with people. I want people to understand the risks, the benefits, the reality of what may happen. And if you know all those things and say, hey, I still want to try it, that's great. Wonderful. I have no problem with that. If you want to spend some money on peanut butter, that's great. I have no problem at all. Once again, it's just the Confidence and saying, hey, this is going to happen for you. This is going to unlock it. Like, that's, I think, that is concerning. And that I think it's probably misleading a lot of people. And so, once again, this is no shade to anybody, but this is a common thing that I see. And the reason why is because that just works really well for videos, right? I mean, this has what, millions and millions of views. Like being very confident in one thing gets you lots of views. That's very simple. I see that all the time. And the stronger the stance I take, the better a video will do. And I try to be academically honest and rigorous and say, hey, like, where are we at? And once again, I have no horse in this race. If you want to eat peanut butter, that's fine. But to say it is melting belly fat like Ozempic is just pretty much a straight-up lie. And I want to at least. Tell people that, hey, this is what you should be looking out for. But once again, you do you. It's your life. And if you say, hey, Jordan, you're an idiot, and it disagrees with you. That's fine. That's cool. I have no problem with that. I'm just trying to, you know. I'm a one beggar to another beggar telling you where to find food. That's essentially my whole motto here. And so, can a spoonful of peanut butter melt belly fat away like Ozempic? The scientific verdict is an absolute no. The video is built on misinterpreted science, gross exaggerations, and claims that are directly contradicted by basic human physiology. But let's be fair, there is a little kernel of truth here. A spoonful of natural peanut butter as a bedtime snack, that's totally fine. No issue with that. It's certainly better than a bowl of ice cream, right? It can help with satiety. May have some small valid effects on stabilizing blood sugar when eaten with carbs, so that's totally reasonable. But the harm in this misinformation is that it equates a gentle physiologic nudge when you eat a little bit of food and get a natural GOP1 rise with a powerful Pharmacologic shove, which sends your GLP levels through the roof, right? It creates an unrealistic expectation and it kind of trivializes medications saying, oh, like these medications, this is the same. And that's not the case at all. Obviously, There are lots of side effects from these medications. You can have nausea, stomach upset, risk of pancreatitis, thyroid tumors, lots of things and lots of reasons not to just take this medication if you just need to lose a couple pounds. But to pretend that they're the same is just totally irresponsible. And so, the final takeaway is that your body is complex. There are no simple magic bullet solutions. A healthy diet can help optimize your natural hormone systems, but it cannot replicate a powerful pharmacologic drug. That's just fantasy. And that's going to be it for today. Thank you so much for stopping by. If you did find this helpful, me and the world's meeting share this with a friend, or liked it on YouTube, or Left a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice. Either way, I'd really appreciate any of the help. But that's going to be it. So get off your phone, get outside, have a good rest of your day. We'll see you next time. Disclaimer, this podcast is for entertainment, education, and informational purposes only. The topics discussed should not solely be used to diagnose, treat, or prevent any condition. The information presented here was created with an evidence-based approach, but please keep in mind that science is always changing, and at the time of listening to this, there may be some new data that makes this information incomplete or inaccurate. Always seek the advice of your personal physician or qualified healthcare provider for questions regarding any medical condition.
