Read the full transcript of James Joseph’s talk titled “A Simple Solution To Treat Your Fatty Liver” at TEDxGateway 2024 conference.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
The Diabetes Crisis in India
JAMES JOSEPH: My story is about leaving the biggest software company to serve the biggest fruit to a billion people, 365 days, to control diabetes. 101 million people in India are diabetic, but that’s not the problem. 136 million people in India are pre-diabetic, 18% of our largest state, Uttar Pradesh, is pre-diabetic. And if we don’t do anything, in four years, they will all become diabetic and India will overtake China in diabetes.
The Real Problem: Fatty Liver
Even that is not the problem. The real problem is, one in three people in India, including children, have fatty liver from food. Friends, the sad truth is, we cannot fix diabetes without fixing fatty liver. For the whole family, including children, you know why?
Before the excess food gets stored as fat in this tiny pancreas causing diabetes, a lot of fat gets stored in the biggest organ inside our body, the liver. So treating diabetes without treating fatty liver is like mopping the floor without turning the tap off. But what has fatty liver got to do with the jackfruit, which is not even a fruit, till the last two days?
The Jackfruit Discovery
Till then, it is consumed as a green vegetable. In 2014, I wrote a book about coming back to India and working for Microsoft from a village in Kerala. And the publisher sent the first copy to Dr. Kalam.
And towards the end of the book, Dr. Kalam spotted that I have found a treasure in the jackfruit in my backyard. And he called me for a meeting. And during the meeting, I told him about a discovery.
The Kerala tradition of consuming the green jackfruit as a meal is better than roti for diabetes. Convinced by the nutritional advantage, Dr.
Kalam asked me to find an easy way to add the green jackfruit to roti to reduce wheat than replacing roti itself. Inspired by that ask, I invented a flour from the green jackfruit using the soluble fiber of the jackfruit itself as a binder.
And I put it through a clinical trial to confirm adding one tablespoon of jackfruit flour in a breakfast, lunch, and dinner with roti can reduce average blood sugar level in just 90 days. And I presented the evidence at the American Diabetes Association’s conference and even published that in the Nature Journal. And that prompted a lot of people to start using the jackfruit flour in their roti and we started hearing cases after cases of reversing fatty liver.
And the turning point was a call from Dr. Abichandani from Ahmedabad. “James, we started using the jackfruit flour and my wife not only reduced her blood sugar level but she reversed her grade 2 fatty liver to grade 1 in just three months. James, this is bigger than diabetes.”
Scientific Studies and Results
And that led to two separate studies. The first one, a preclinical study on mice by Dr. Divya Kumar, an expert researcher on fatty liver at JSF Medical College, Mysore. The study was on the Western diet, which is high sugar and high fat compared to the healthy diet. And the study was on a high fat burger with a large glass of cola, which is full of sugar. And as you can see in the graph, in the first 12 weeks, the Western diet significantly increased body weight.
And in the 12th week, we replaced just 5% calorie in the Western diet with jackfruit flour and the placebo group with wheat flour. And the wheat flour group continued to increase body weight while the green line, the jackfruit flour remained flat. And the liver fat was significantly lower. It completely prevented obesity and fatty liver.
The Secret Sauce
And this study revealed two things. First, just 5% jackfruit flour in any processed food from an apple pie to biscuits to a burger patty can prevent obesity and fatty liver. Number two, the mechanism of action. The secret sauce in the jackfruit flour turned out to be the soluble fiber. It has 50% more soluble fiber than even oats and has the property to prevent sugar, fat and cholesterol from reaching our liver.
The second study, a real-world clinical trial at Dr. Abichandani‘s clinic, a long-term study. He asked a group of 30 diabetes patients to start adding jackfruit flour in their roti. And in the first three months itself, 50%, half of them reduced their fatty liver markers, including cases of grade 3 to grade 2, grade 2 to grade 1 and grade 1 to nil in just three months.
A Scalable Solution for India
What does this mean to an average person in Uttar Pradesh who consumes 8 kg wheat flour in a month for roti? One tablespoon of jackfruit flour is equivalent to just 10% of that wheat flour per meal. And the way India iodized salt, if we can fortify wheat flour with just 10% jackfruit flour, we can reverse fatty liver and prevent diabetes for the whole family, including children.
And this is a massively scalable and practical idea for India. You know why? We have 2.5 billion jackfruits in India, 2.5 billion, and half a million people in India have already used the jackfruit flour in their roti with 90% satisfaction. You know why? A two-minute video of me presenting to Prime Minister Modi going viral.
A Cultural Connection
To close, I have something romantic. I come from the only place on earth where every tension between couples melts away like butter when one of them says, “end karale, my dear liver.” Or even better, “end karale end karale, you are the liver of my liver.”
Our ancestors from the land of Vairaveda knew the liver is bigger and more beloved than the sweetheart. So every time you see a plate with more roti than vegetables, you should say, “end karale.” It’s going to hurt your liver. And if the roti has the jackfruit flour, you should say, “end karale end karale.” It’s going to melt away the fat in your liver. Thank you.
