2026 Commencement - Psychology

[0:00]Hey, I'm Dr. Steven Gundry and I'm the medical director at the International Heart and Lung Institute in Palm Springs, California, and the founder of Gundry MD. And I'm also the author of a number of New York Times best-selling books, including my first book, Dr. Gundry's Diet Evolution, and my most famous book, The Plant Paradox, and my last book, Unlocking the Keto Code. Today I want to talk about probably my favorite supplement of all time, and that's Polyphenol-Rich Olive Oil. As many of you know, I wrote about it in The Plant Paradox. And in fact, it has become such an integral part of my program and the programs of my patients. It used to be that the Italians and Greeks said, If you want to live a long life, you should consume a liter of olive oil a week. Well, it turns out that they weren't too far off. But what do we mean by polyphenol-rich olive oil? Well, all olive oils contain polyphenols, but the vast majority of olive oils that are available in supermarkets and even in specialty stores are what are called refined olive oils, even if they're extra virgin olive oils. And I wrote about this in The Plant Paradox. The reason is that to be an extra virgin olive oil, it has to have a free fatty acid content of less than 0.8% and a taste panel has to say it tastes like an extra virgin olive oil. They don't have to measure the polyphenols. And polyphenols give olive oil a bitter taste, and they also give olive oil that peppery kick in the back of your throat. And believe it or not, most Americans equate bitter taste with something being bad, something being rancid. So most olive oil producers actually refine the olive oil, even if it's extra virgin olive oil, so that it doesn't have a bitter taste, and it doesn't have that peppery kick. And unfortunately, when you remove the bitter taste and you remove the peppery kick, you remove the polyphenols. So what are polyphenols in olive oil so important for? Well, first of all, they're super important for protecting your heart. It's one of the best ways to protect your heart that there is. Number two, it's one of the best ways to protect your brain, particularly from brain fog and improving memory. Number three, it's actually one of the best ways to protect your blood vessels and the lining of your blood vessels, the endothelium. And it does that by increasing nitric oxide, which is a vasodilator, and it actually helps blood vessels to relax. In fact, one of the secrets to my new book, Unlocking the Keto Code, is how to increase nitric oxide production. And one of the absolute best ways to do it is with high polyphenol olive oil. But the other thing that olive oil does, and especially the polyphenols in olive oil, is it feeds your gut bacteria. And in my new book, I actually talk about how important the postbiotic called butyrate is. Butyrate is a short-chain fatty acid that your gut microbes make from fiber. And as I talk about in Unlocking the Keto Code, butyrate is actually the preferred fuel of your mitochondria. And if you want your mitochondria to work well, if you want your metabolism to work well, you need butyrate. And the polyphenols in olive oil are actually one of the best sources for your gut bacteria to make butyrate. In addition, polyphenols are actually great at increasing sirtuins. And sirtuins are also discussed in Unlocking the Keto Code. Sirtuins are proteins that literally help our body repair itself, protect our chromosomes, and actually improve mitochondrial function. So sirtuins are often called longevity genes, and they are. And many of the beneficial things that we see with fasting and with calorie restriction are actually due to increased sirtuin production. So if you want to activate your longevity genes, then polyphenol-rich olive oil is one of the best ways to do it. So why Gundry MD Polyphenol-Rich Olive Oil? Well, our olive oil is the highest polyphenol olive oil available on the market. It has 30 times more polyphenols than regular store-bought olive oil. And our olive oil actually comes from Morocco. It's harvested from 1,000-year-old trees, and it's harvested by hand at exactly the right moment to get the highest polyphenol count possible. Then it's cold pressed within hours of harvest to preserve these precious polyphenols. It's stored in a dark bottle to preserve those polyphenols from sunlight, which can destroy them. And it is the real deal. So I actually recommend taking one tablespoon of Gundry MD Polyphenol-Rich Olive Oil every day. It's the absolute perfect way to begin your day. I call it my morning ritual, but you can also use it in salad dressings. You can use it in cooking. You can pour it over vegetables. You can use it as a finishing oil. The one thing you don't want to do is you don't want to burn it. So use it at low temperature cooking, or just use it as is. It's going to protect your heart, it's going to protect your brain, it's going to protect your blood vessels, and it's going to activate your longevity genes. So go ahead and grab yourself some Gundry MD Polyphenol-Rich Olive Oil today, and you'll thank me later.