#1393 - James Wilks & Chris Kresser - The Game Changers Debate

Joe Rogan (0:02)

All right, here we go. First of all, welcome, James.

James Wilks (0:06)

I really appreciate you having me on.

Joe Rogan (0:08)

My pleasure. And welcome again, Chris.

So this is essentially giving you an opportunity to refute some of the things that Chris has said about your film. We should tell everybody that you're the producer of The Game Changers.

James Wilks (0:22)

Yeah, I'm one of two producers.

Joe Rogan (0:25)

I know you also, of course, from The Ultimate Fighter, UFC.

And Chris, this is your, what, fourth appearance here? Fourth or fifth? Fourth or fifth. Did you get a chance to see what Chris had said?

James Wilks (0:37)

Yeah, I've watched it.

Joe Rogan (0:38)

You watched it. Okay.

James Wilks (0:39)

I've made a bunch of notes.

Joe Rogan (0:40)

Excellent. Let's start from the beginning. The beginning of the show, the beginning of your film, you talked about the gladiators and all that stuff and the fact that you were shocked to find out that they had eaten a vegetarian diet.

James Wilks (0:55)

Yeah. I mean, you know, that's been misrepresented, right? So, even before the film came out, people were like, oh, there's this vegan film coming out. It's vegan propaganda. People were judging the film before they'd seen it, right?

And the vegan sort of community really pushed it like, hey, look at this documentary. So there's been things saying they claimed that the gladiators were vegan, right? And if we can just prove they think the whole film is based on this premise, that was just like an inciting incident for me to start digging into it. First of all, Fabian Kent said they were predominantly vegetarian and I said they ate mostly plants. And that is what I couldn't believe, right? So they wouldn't claim that they were vegan, didn't even claim that they were vegetarian. They were just fueled mostly by plants. You know, and people say, oh, you cherry picked one location.

It was the only known gladiator burial site in the world based on archaeological and anthropological data at the time.

Joe Rogan (1:42)

At the time when you read the study, because there have been other studies that were...

James Wilks (1:46)

Well, there's been some that have been questioned. So like there's one in York, there was one in New York at the time that had a few gladiator skeletons and it was questioned whether that was the thing. But I'm happy to address every critique.

But if you wouldn't mind, I just want to make sure that Chris, we're on the same page about how evidence is evaluated.

Joe Rogan (2:00)

Sure.

James Wilks (2:01)

So Chris, would you consider yourself a nutrition expert?

Chris Kresser (2:07)

No, I would consider myself someone who is adept at reading the literature and learning from experts in nutrition, medicine, anthropology, etc. Although I do have master's level training in nutrition.

James Wilks (2:24)

Okay.

So, is it fair to say that any one study cannot show what the human race should be eating? Is that fair? Any one study?

Chris Kresser (2:32)

Absolutely.

James Wilks (2:33)

So basically, any time you show a study, if you say something, you have to give a citation for it, right? Is that fair to say?

And then someone can claim that that's cherry picked, because you've got to show a study or some studies, and then someone can claim it's cherry picked, right? So what we have to do in order to understand nutrition is look at the totality of the evidence. And I just want to make sure we're on the same page, and then we can address each critique if that's okay. Sure.

Chris Kresser (2:52)

That is the core of my argument.

James Wilks (2:54)

Right, exactly. So you would say, is it fair to say, like, there's three main areas. So there'd be, like, preclinical data, which would either be in animals or in test tubes, petri dishes, right?

There'd be observational data, where you look at people and see how they're doing. And obviously, there's the healthy user bias potential. And there's interventional trials, right? So let's just take trans fats, for example, right?

You look in a petri dish at endothelial cells and trans fats, and you can see that it creates vascular inflammation in those cells, right? And then you look at people who eat more trans fats, and they have higher levels of inflammation. And then you can actually do interventional randomized control trials, and you can tell that trans fats cause inflammation. So we basically all agree that trans fats are bad, based on all of those data points. Is that fair?

So therefore, again, if you start any one study, people can just, someone can just claim that you're cherry picking, right? You can just say cherry picking. Everyone can say that. I can say that you're cherry picking, you can say that I'm cherry picking.