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Foods to Boost Metabolism & Lose Weight | Dr. Marie-Pierre St-Onge & Dr. Andrew Huberman

Huberman Lab Clips10:02Added Aug 31, 2026

Dr. Marie-Pierre St-Onge and Dr. Andrew Huberman discuss the impact of functional foods on metabolism, highlighting how ginger can increase the thermic effect of food and the nuanced effects of fermented dairy and coffee-derived oligosaccharides on body composition.

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Contributed by 刘嘉琪

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  1. Kefir & Cholesterol Studies

  2. 00:00Let's talk about food and nutrients.
  3. 00:02You've done a substantial amount of work
  4. 00:03here in this area and I have a bunch of
  5. 00:05questions, but first I want to talk
  6. 00:07about kefir.
  7. 00:08Yeah.
  8. 00:09I love Bulgarian full fat plain yogurt,
  9. 00:12but it's right next to the kefir.
  10. 00:14Uhhuh.
  11. 00:14And I'm always like, do I get the kefir?
  12. 00:16Well, I don't know. I love the Bulgarian
  13. 00:17full fat plain yogurt. So, I haven't
  14. 00:19tried the kefir yet. What's special
  15. 00:20about kefir and why why did you study
  16. 00:22kefir?
  17. 00:23Kefir we we studied because it was a
  18. 00:26fermented dairy product. uh probiotics.
  19. 00:29We figured, you know, maybe it will
  20. 00:31improve uh cholesterol synthesis based
  21. 00:34on its impact on short- chain fatty
  22. 00:36acids. So, that was at the the subject
  23. 00:38of my master's thesis.
  24. 00:41And for that study, uh that was when I
  25. 00:43was at McGill. We recruited men that had
  26. 00:47mildly elevated cholesterol levels. We
  27. 00:49gave them two cups per day versus just
  28. 00:52regular milk for a month. So two cups
  29. 00:55like two mugs like this.
  30. 00:57Two cups like the measuring cup.
  31. 00:59Okay.
  32. 00:59Yeah.
  33. 01:00Okay.
  34. 01:00Um like 500 mls.
  35. 01:02Okay.
  36. 01:03And uh and we measured their the amount
  37. 01:07of cholesterol they they produced at
  38. 01:10baseline endpoint in both phases and
  39. 01:14there was no effect. It was a null study
  40. 01:16was one of those. It was hard to get
  41. 01:19published.
  42. 01:20Kept at it and and we got it published
  43. 01:23but yeah. So these fermented yogurts and
  44. 01:26things they don't do anything for for
  45. 01:28cholesterol levels
  46. 01:29at least in our study in this population
  47. 01:32at this level with this comparison
  48. 01:35didn't have any effect.
  49. 01:36What's your general thought about uh low
  50. 01:38sugar fermented foods? I don't know if
  51. 01:39kefir uh qualifies as low sugar, but
  52. 01:42based on Justin Sonnenberg's work at
  53. 01:44Stanford and others, I've been I've been
  54. 01:46really bullish on this idea of
  55. 01:48sauerkraut, kimchi,
  56. 01:50uh full fat Bulgarian yogurt. Fermented
  57. 01:53foods are are interesting.
  58. 01:55Yeah.
  59. 01:55Are you a proponent in general?
  60. 01:57I'm a proponent. Yeah, absolutely. I
  61. 01:59think it's important to feed your gut. I
  62. 02:01think that uh the gut microbiome is uh
  63. 02:04getting a lot of attention for all sorts
  64. 02:05of, you know, uh health benefits.
  65. 02:09So I think that that's something that's
  66. 02:11uh that's is important. So also it's
  67. 02:13important to also consider that you know
  68. 02:16for that study right our main outcome
  69. 02:19was cholesterol synthesis but there's so
  70. 02:22many other things we could have looked
  71. 02:24at that we didn't look at right then
  72. 02:26maybe it didn't have any impact for
  73. 02:28cholesterol synthesis but maybe
  74. 02:33glycemic control might be better or for
  75. 02:38gut inflammation it would be better but
  76. 02:41you know You you pick your outcomes,
  77. 02:42right? You study something and
  78. 02:44this is the challenge of doing
  79. 02:45controlled science. Yeah. Yeah. Sort of
  80. 02:48the opposite end of the like X what used
  81. 02:51to be called Twitter science where like
  82. 02:52people just like report anecdotes but
  83. 02:56actually anecdotes of that sort of
  84. 02:57become very powerful now in the public
  85. 02:59health space for better or worse like
  86. 03:00people you know because
  87. 03:02I we can look at any study and say well
  88. 03:04that's a very artificial circumstance.
  89. 03:06You say, "Well, intentionally, because
  90. 03:07we're trying to isolate variables,
  91. 03:10people get frustrated." Oh, that's an
  92. 03:12observational study. Well, I'm going to
  93. 03:15continue to eat low sugar fermented
  94. 03:16foods every day. I I I do think in a
  95. 03:19study like the one you described,
  96. 03:21occasionally there's just there's, let
  97. 03:23me state this differently. Historically

  98. Coffee & Weight Loss

  99. 03:26in science, there's been a lot of
  100. 03:28interesting discoveries that have come
  101. 03:29from researchers designing a study to
  102. 03:32look at one thing and then kind of
  103. 03:33noticing, oh, like all the subjects feel
  104. 03:36better or sleep better, their skin, they
  105. 03:38they're reporting things that then lead
  106. 03:40to another
  107. 03:41another line line of inquiry. But you
  108. 03:44moved on from Kefir. Tell me about this
  109. 03:46um this paper. I was intrigued by this
  110. 03:48when I looked over your CV. A uh a
  111. 03:51weight loss diet that includes a coffee
  112. 03:53beverage enriched in let me try this
  113. 03:55menolosaccharides.
  114. 03:57Yeah.
  115. 03:58Okay. Long word leads to a greater loss
  116. 04:00of atapose fat tissue than placebo
  117. 04:03beverage in overweight men.
  118. 04:05Y
  119. 04:05tell me about this study and what these
  120. 04:07men oligosaccharides are and if somebody
  121. 04:11wants to lose weight should they be
  122. 04:12including this in their coffee?
  123. 04:14So this was industry sponsored research
  124. 04:16that I did. um they wanted to replicate
  125. 04:18a study that had been done in a
  126. 04:21different country because they wanted to
  127. 04:23replicate the findings. So we did this
  128. 04:25study uh it was basically a placeboc
  129. 04:28controlled study. We got we were
  130. 04:30provided um coffee manualsaccharides. So
  131. 04:33these are extracted from spent coffee
  132. 04:36grounds. So it was basically satchets
  133. 04:38right? So a white packet one had the cap
  134. 04:42coffee manualsaccharides the other one
  135. 04:44didn't. We gave it to our study
  136. 04:46participants. We measured their body
  137. 04:48composition. We found an effect on body
  138. 04:52composition in men, not in women.
  139. 04:54And so that was the end of that product.
  140. 04:56Really? They wouldn't market it just
  141. 04:57because it only had an effect in men.
  142. 04:59Yeah. Yeah.
  143. 05:00I assure you there are many men who
  144. 05:01would love to drink a coffee drink and
  145. 05:02lose more weight as a consequence.
  146. 05:04It's not going to be our market, you
  147. 05:05know.
  148. 05:06But do we know what the ingredients
  149. 05:07were?
  150. 05:08It was manualsaccharides.
  151. 05:10Extracted. Yeah. Uh so it was just uh
  152. 05:12basically uh a product that was tasted
  153. 05:16like coffee, strong coffee, but it
  154. 05:19didn't have the caffeine or anything
  155. 05:20like that. It just had this this
  156. 05:22manosaccharide that was extracted from
  157. 05:24coffee.
  158. 05:26So this substance comes from coffee
  159. 05:28ordinarily.
  160. 05:29But coffee is very low low calorie on
  161. 05:32its own,
  162. 05:32but it's from the spent ground. So you
  163. 05:34no one really consumes this really
  164. 05:37because you know when you brew your
  165. 05:39coffee you're
  166. 05:41you're not getting it. No.
  167. 05:42Can you buy it? Can people get it?
  168. 05:45I don't think so.
  169. 05:46So
  170. 05:47what what do you First of all, how much
  171. 05:49weight did they lose relative to the
  172. 05:50It was statistically significant. Yeah.
  173. 05:53Okay. I was intrigued by it because I
  174. 05:54thought there there's something that I
  175. 05:56mean you studied it's interesting you
  176. 05:58studied kefir menolosaccharides from
  177. 06:01coffee. Yeah. And now I'm going to ask
  178. 06:02you about ginger.
  179. 06:03Well, when I was a graduate student, I
  180. 06:05was interested in functional foods

  181. Defining Functional Health Claims

  182. 06:08and I was interested in those foods that
  183. 06:10provide health benefits beyond their
  184. 06:13nutritional value.
  185. 06:14Right? So, keir is a fermented dairy
  186. 06:18product. It would we were studying it
  187. 06:21for its a functional benefit on
  188. 06:23cholesterol synthesis. That's not a uh
  189. 06:28that's not a function of dairy, right?
  190. 06:30Dairy is you consume it for bone health,
  191. 06:34right? So it's basically when we talk
  192. 06:36about different claims that foods have,
  193. 06:38you know, there's those structure
  194. 06:39function claims like consuming dairy
  195. 06:42contains calcium that's good for your
  196. 06:44bones and then there's um functional
  197. 06:48claims, those functional claims or
  198. 06:49health claims we call them that say okay
  199. 06:51well health claim there's a health claim
  200. 06:53for oats for example, right? So
  201. 06:55consuming fiber from oats uh reduces
  202. 06:58cholesterol levels.
  203. 06:59That's been demonstrated.
  204. 07:01Yes. So that's that's a health claim.
  205. 07:03That's an approved health claim. That's
  206. 07:05why you see the hearts on some boxes of
  207. 07:07cereal. But that's different than fiber
  208. 07:12is good for maintaining regularity.
  209. 07:15Right? So anyways, I was interested in
  210. 07:16in functional foods for health benefits
  211. 07:19beyond their their nutritional content.
  212. 07:22And so uh we we studied kefir for I
  213. 07:26studied kefir for my master's degree and
  214. 07:27then for my PhD studied uh mediumchain
  215. 07:31triglycerides
  216. 07:32um and then um ginger that was uh that
  217. 07:37was something that I that I uh offered
  218. 07:39to a grad student at Colombia. It was
  219. 07:42interesting because uh the McCormick
  220. 07:44company
  221. 07:46had an advertisement in uh one of the
  222. 07:48nutrition journals and they were going
  223. 07:50to donate
  224. 07:52um spices for research. I was like,

  225. Ginger & Energy Expenditure

  226. 07:54"Okay." They had a list of different
  227. 07:56herbs and spices that they were going to
  228. 07:58donate for research. And I had a grad
  229. 08:00student and I said, "Take a look at this
  230. 08:02list. Come back to me, say if there's
  231. 08:05something in there that we should test
  232. 08:08in the lab based on the things that I
  233. 08:10do. Don't come to me with something
  234. 08:12that's, you know, that I don't study."
  235. 08:14But, and then he did some research and
  236. 08:17he came back. He said, "I think we
  237. 08:18should study ginger." I'm like, "Okay."
  238. 08:20And to do what? like I think you know
  239. 08:22for energy expenditure looking at
  240. 08:25thermic effect of food like okay so so
  241. 08:28we did this study I had some some funds
  242. 08:31that I could use for him to do that and
  243. 08:33uh
  244. 08:33what did the study look like
  245. 08:34a study where we looked at the thermic
  246. 08:36effect of food
  247. 08:36like so people ate ginger root spicing
  248. 08:39their food
  249. 08:40we dissolved ginger powder in warm water
  250. 08:45and so that was one beverage and then uh
  251. 08:47in the crossover again crossover design
  252. 08:50so next time when they came it just hot
  253. 08:52water.
  254. 08:52And how many times a day are they
  255. 08:53drinking it?
  256. 08:54This was a one time one time uh
  257. 08:57consumption period. And we looked at the
  258. 08:59thermic effect of food over a six-hour
  259. 09:01period. So again, they're they're under
  260. 09:03this um we call it a metabolic hood,
  261. 09:06right? So a little bubble and we measure
  262. 09:09their uh oxygen consumption, carbon
  263. 09:11dioxide production for I think it was
  264. 09:13four or five hours
  265. 09:14and it's significantly elevated.
  266. 09:16Mhm.
  267. 09:16With ginger.
  268. 09:17With ginger.
  269. 09:18Yeah.
  270. 09:19Wow. So we think through the capsain
  271. 09:21receptor there's an increase in the
  272. 09:23thermic effect of food. So yeah, so I
  273. 09:25was interested to see are there little
  274. 09:28things that we could do, little changes
  275. 09:30we can make to our diet to boost energy
  276. 09:33expenditure relative to intake, you
  277. 09:35know, just to tip the scale because many
  278. 09:39adults over the course of their life
  279. 09:40lifetime gain weight. And it's not a big
  280. 09:45imbalance in calories on a daily basis
  281. 09:48that leads to
  282. 09:5010 lbs of weight gain over 10, 15 years,
  283. 09:53right?
Foods to Boost Metabolism & Lose Weight | Dr. Marie-Pierre St-Onge & Dr. Andrew Huberman — Transcriptly