What if the most-watched health topics of 2025 could help you live healthier, longer, and with more control over your body?

This Best of The Exam Room Podcast 2025 compilation brings together the three pisodes that viewers couldn't stop watching — because they tackled problems that affect nearly everyone:

✔️ High cholesterol
✔️ Low fiber intake
✔️ Exposure to microplastics

This episode features highlights from separate interviews with Chuck Carroll and Dr. Michael Greger, Dr. Danielle Belardo, and Dr. Hana Kahleova — the conversations that delivered the most practical, science-backed value to viewers in 2025.

🥉 LOWER CHOLESTEROL NATURALLY

Learn how food can help lower LDL cholesterol without medication, which foods actively remove cholesterol from the body, and how small daily changes may reduce heart disease risk.

🥈 FIBER FOR HEART, GUT & WEIGHT HEALTH

Discover why fiber helps you feel fuller, supports heart health, improves digestion, and may make weight management easier — plus how to increase fiber safely without discomfort. And why Dr. Belardo eats an astonishing 90 grams of fiber every day!

🥇 MICROPLASTICS — AND HOW TO REDUCE THEM

Understand how microplastics enter your body, why they matter for long-term health, and what research suggests about using diet and movement to help your body clear them out. Dr. Kahleova shares how your food choices can help cleanse the body of microplastics naturally.

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About Us
The Physicians Committee is dedicated to saving lives through plant-based diets and ethical and effective scientific research. We combine the clout and expertise of more than 17,000 physicians with the dedicated actions of more than 175,000 members across the United States and around the world.

Are ultra-processed foods the hidden reason weight loss feels impossible?

Chuck Carroll is joined by Dr. Jim Loomis, medical director at Barnard Medical Center, to break down the science behind ultra-processed foods and their powerful impact on weight gain, metabolism, hunger, and fat storage.

From packaged snacks and fast food to so-called "healthy" convenience items, ultra-processed foods now make up a majority of the modern diet. Dr. Loomis explains how these foods affect appetite hormones, blood sugar, calorie intake, and the body's ability to lose weight — and why simply "eating less" often doesn't work when ultra-processed foods dominate the plate.

You'll learn:

- What qualifies as an ultra-processed food
- Why these foods drive overeating and cravings
- How ultra-processed foods interfere with fat loss
- The role of fiber, nutrients, and food quality in weight control
- What to eat instead to support sustainable weight loss

Whether you're trying to lose weight, improve metabolic health, or understand why progress has stalled, this episode delivers practical, evidence-based answers.

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About Us
The Physicians Committee is dedicated to saving lives through plant-based diets and ethical and effective scientific research. We combine the clout and expertise of more than 17,000 physicians with the dedicated actions of more than 175,000 members across the United States and around the world.

GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, and Zepbound are changing medicine — but at what cost?

In this episode of The Exam Room Podcast, host Chuck Carroll sits down with Ben Urich, PharmD, PhD, to break down the real-world data behind the GLP-1 explosion.

You'll learn:

- How many people are actually using GLP-1 drugs
- Why most users stop — and why that's starting to change
- The true cost of GLP-1 medications to employers and health plans
- Common and serious side effects to be aware of
- Why GLP-1s are now being studied for Alzheimer's disease and addiction
- What the future holds as more than 30 new drugs enter the pipeline

This is a must-watch conversation for anyone considering GLP-1 medications, currently using Ozempic or Wegovy, or wondering where modern weight-loss medicine is headed next.

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Is cheese really addictive? According to Dr. Neal Barnard, the answer is a resounding YES. The brain reacts nearly identically to cheese as it does narcotics and alcohol. While it sounds shocking, these claims are backed by science.

In this episode of The Exam Room Podcast, Chuck Carroll sits down with the author of The Cheese Trap to uncover how opioid-like compounds concentrated in cheese—activate powerful pleasure pathways, why U.S. cheese consumption has exploded to nearly 40 pounds per person per year, and how the dairy industry keeps us hooked.

You'll discover:
• The opiate chemistry of cheese
• How cheese contributes to obesity and diabetes
• The link between dairy hormones and breast cancer
• Why kids are showing early artery damage
• Which cheeses contain the highest casomorphin levels
• The surprising role of sodium and saturated fat
• How quitting cheese can dramatically improve health

If you've ever said, "I could go vegan except for cheese," this is an episode you cannot miss.

This episode is sponsored by The Gregory J. Reiter Memorial Fund. Visit their website: https://gregoryreiterfund.org

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About Us
The Physicians Committee is dedicated to saving lives through plant-based diets and ethical and effective scientific research. We combine the clout and expertise of more than 17,000 physicians with the dedicated actions of more than 175,000 members across the United States and around the world.

Discover the truth about omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids in this eye-opening interview with Dr. Kaixiong (Calvin) Ye, one of the world's leading genetic epidemiologists studying nutrition and chronic disease.

Dr. Ye joins Chuck Carroll to explain new findings on:

- Whether omega-6 is really inflammatory

- How omega-3 and omega-6 impact cancer and mortality

- Why the omega-6:omega-3 ratio is misleading

- The controversy around omega-3 and prostate cancer

- How genetics influence omega-3 metabolism

- What precision nutrition will look like in the future

You'll learn what the latest science says about who benefits most from omega-3, what blood biomarkers really mean, and why two people eating the same food may get very different health outcomes.

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About Us
The Physicians Committee is dedicated to saving lives through plant-based diets and ethical and effective scientific research. We combine the clout and expertise of more than 17,000 physicians with the dedicated actions of more than 175,000 members across the United States and around the world.

Can a streaming network help change the future of food, media, and the planet?

Emmy-winning journalist and UnchainedTV founder Jane Velez-Mitchell sits down with Chuck Carroll to reveal why plant-based storytelling is exploding right now — and why mainstream media still resists the movement.

Discover how UnchainedTV grew to more than 20 million views, what FAST channels mean for the future of television, and why the meat industry launched an all-out messaging war against veganism. Jane also shares behind-the-scenes insight into new documentaries, adorable rescued pigs, celeb cooking shows, and the forgotten 1890s vegetarian movement.

If you love food, media, history, or social change… this episode will absolutely light you up.

Topics Covered:
✔ Why streaming is replacing cable and traditional TV
✔ The rise of FAST channels (free ad-supported TV)
✔ Inside the meat industry's anti-vegan messaging campaigns
✔ Why plant-based stories struggle to reach mainstream newsrooms
✔ The shocking climate impact of animal agriculture
✔ Behind the scenes of "Pig Little Lies" and "At Home with the Jenners"
✔ The surprising vegetarian movement of the 1890s
✔ How UnchainedTV helps people make compassionate, healthy transitions

📺 Watch UnchainedTV: https://unchainedtv.com

About Us
The Physicians Committee is dedicated to saving lives through plant-based diets and ethical and effective scientific research. We combine the clout and expertise of more than 17,000 physicians with the dedicated actions of more than 175,000 members across the United States and around the world.

Can your cholesterol drop more than 150 points in just 15 days without medication?

Dr. Ted Barnett joins Chuck Carroll at the International Conference on Nutrition and Medicine to reveal the stunning results he's seeing with patients who adopt a whole food plant-based diet.

Inside Lifestyle Medicine Grand Rounds, Dr. Barnett has witnessed cholesterol levels fall by 150–200 points in two weeks, average drops of 64 points, and dramatic improvements in blood sugar, inflammation, and energy — often outperforming the results of statins.

This episode dives deep into why lifestyle changes can be more powerful than prescriptions, what's holding back the medical system from using these tools, and how simple foods like arugula, broccoli, sweet potatoes, mushrooms, and black-eyed peas can transform your health quickly.

What You'll Learn:

- How patients are lowering cholesterol 150+ points naturally

- Why whole food plant-based diets outperform many medications

- The 15-Day Jumpstart program and its life-changing results

- Why the medical system overlooks lifestyle solutions

- The top foods Dr. Barnett "prescribes" to every patient

- How doctors collaborate in Lifestyle Medicine Grand Rounds

- How you can experience similar results at home

Please support PCRM and The Exam Room Podcast on Giving Tuesday. Your gift will be matched dollar-for-dollar to fuel the content you love, like this podcast, while keeping all of PCRM's lifesaving work moving full steam ahead. Please donate today: https://pcrm.org/examroommatch

🩺 Visit Dr. Barnett and learn more about his Grand Rounds and https://www.rochesterlifestylemedicine.org

If you feel like you've raised your health IQ, please leave a 5-star rating and nice review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

About Us
The Physicians Committee is dedicated to saving lives through plant-based diets and ethical and effective scientific research. We combine the clout and expertise of more than 17,000 physicians with the dedicated actions of more than 175,000 members across the United States and around the world.

New research shows that simply choosing plant-based foods can slash your environmental footprint — and dramatically improve your health at the same time.

In this episode of The Exam Room Podcast, Chuck Carroll is joined by Dr. Hana Kahleova to uncover how different diets compare when it comes to land use, water use, greenhouse gases, and planetary health.

The results are stunning:

🌱 Vegan diets use up to 8× less land
💧 Up to 85× less water
🔥 Up to 28× lower warming potential
💰 Cheaper and healthier overall
🏋️ Participants in clinical trials lost 14+ pounds while cutting their carbon footprint in half

🌎 Review the study: https://bit.ly/PlantBasedCarbonFootprint

If you feel like you raised your health IQ by a point or two, please consider leaving a five-star rating and nice review wherever you're listening.