0:00

Before we get into today's episode, I'd like

0:02

to take a minute to remind you some

0:04

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0:06

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Up on this episode of The Duchess

0:36

Pharmacy. Or it. So what is a

0:38

function medicine approach to reversing your biological

0:40

eve? Will you gotta get to the

0:42

root cause of disease? The root cause

0:44

of aging. So what is the root

0:46

cause of the imbalances? The drive, aging,

0:48

What? Do we need to get rid of that's

0:50

causing our bodies to be unhappy? That's base, toxins,

0:53

allergens, my cousin, so forth and what do we

0:55

need? More have to restore balance and function So

0:57

we visit to get rid of the bad stuff

0:59

and with the and the good stuff and this

1:02

is a simple principle a also medicine and it

1:04

works across all diseases. Before

1:07

we get into today's episode, I'd like to

1:09

take a minute to remind you some exciting

1:12

news. My new cookbook, the Young Forever Cook

1:14

will be released on Tuesday, June fourth nationwide

1:16

in My New Cook But The Cooking Campaign.

1:19

To my book: Young Forever, You'll find

1:21

over a hundred mouthwatering, anti inflammatory recipes

1:23

that are going to help you live

1:25

longer, healthier life. You can preorder the

1:27

Young Forever Cookbook A Young Forever cookbook.com

1:29

Just click on the preorder button at

1:31

the top right. I'm so excited to

1:33

share these recipes with you and so

1:35

much more and again. The Young Forever

1:37

Cook Book comes out on Tuesday, June

1:39

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1:42

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to doctor's pharmacy and another edition of

3:35

Health Bytes. I'm Dr. Mark Hyman. Now,

3:38

every year we celebrate our birthdays. It's another

3:40

year of getting older and hopefully wiser. But

3:43

what about a world where we focus on

3:45

the reverse, celebrating getting younger

3:47

instead? Well, thanks to new advances

3:49

in science and longevity and technology,

3:52

that could be possible. With the right

3:54

tools and diet and lifestyle and supplement

3:56

regimen, we can throw

3:59

our biological. thought in reverse and

4:01

I'm telling you it works. I've done it. The

4:03

science is there. And how do I know this isn't some

4:06

new age pseudoscience? Well, I've been using

4:08

myself as a test subject and my patients

4:10

and it's working. The last time I tested

4:12

my biological age, I was over

4:14

20 years younger than my chronological

4:16

age. So even though I'm in

4:18

my early 60s, my internal biological

4:20

systems function similarly to that of a

4:23

40 year old. Now, look,

4:25

aging is inevitable, but the speed at

4:27

which we age is not. What

4:30

kills people today isn't getting older, but instead

4:32

it's the bioaccumulation of stressors of what

4:34

we call our exposome, which are all

4:37

the factors that we've been exposed to

4:39

throughout our life that age us. This

4:41

can be everything from psychological stress to

4:43

lack of sleep or diet, our

4:46

sedentary lifestyle, inflammation for many

4:48

cause, the bioaccumulation of toxins,

4:50

loneliness, disconnection, all these things

4:53

affect our biology and

4:55

affect our rate of aging. Now, all

4:57

these things will fuel inflammation. They'll

5:00

fuel oxygen stress. They'll damage our DNA. They'll shorten

5:02

our telomeres. All the things we do not want

5:04

to happen if we want to stay younger as

5:06

we get older. But there's a

5:08

lot we can actually do to reverse our

5:10

biological age and feel better for longer. So

5:12

today I'm sharing the science behind what ages

5:14

us, how to reverse this

5:17

aging using six simple steps. So

5:19

let's get into it. What's

5:21

the difference between chronological age versus biological age?

5:23

Well, there's nothing we can do about our

5:25

chronological age or the number of years we've

5:28

lived on the planet, but our

5:30

biological age, our inner age, it tells

5:32

a different story. Our biological age refers

5:34

to the age of our biological systems.

5:37

And unlike our chronological age, our

5:40

biological age is modifiable. Now it's influenced

5:42

by genetics, by environmental exposures, by diet

5:44

and lifestyle choices, by stress, good or

5:47

bad. And we'll learn that there are

5:49

actually good kinds of stress. It

5:52

can be influenced by exercise, sleep and lots

5:54

more. Now we can reverse or

5:57

we can accelerate biological aging by pulling on

5:59

these levers. right, for good or bad. So

6:02

let's talk about a concept called epigenetics

6:04

and how that influences our biological age.

6:06

Now biological age is how slowly or

6:09

rapidly our bodies are aging on a

6:11

cellular and a functional level. Biological

6:13

age is measured based on biological

6:16

factors such as DNA methylation, telomere

6:18

length, and inflammation. There's things that we can

6:20

measure in science to look at the rate

6:22

of aging and we can see

6:24

the impact they have on the expression of our

6:27

genes or what we call our epigenome which

6:29

is essentially what regulates our genes. So

6:31

what is epigenetics? So epigenetics is the

6:33

idea that our genes which are fixed

6:36

and assigned at birth, not changeable, are

6:39

not our fate. Now we don't have control

6:41

over which genes we have but we do

6:43

have control over which genes are expressed or

6:45

turned on or off through our

6:48

environment and things like our diet,

6:50

our lifestyle, exercise, stress, sleep,

6:53

our nutrient levels, toxins,

6:55

all these things affect our epigenetic expression

6:57

and regulate which genes are turned on

6:59

or off. Now there are

7:02

chemical compounds and proteins that attach

7:04

to DNA and modify its function. It's

7:07

like methyl groups, histone, cytokine, so don't

7:09

worry about too much about all that

7:11

but it doesn't alter the DNA sequence

7:13

but basically it is controlling the gene

7:15

expression and this is the call the

7:17

epigenome. Epi means above the genome. So

7:20

harnessing the power of epigenetics is crucial

7:22

for both measuring and assessing and reversing

7:24

our biological age. Now the

7:26

science behind what ages us is pretty

7:28

clear. Let's discuss a few of the

7:30

main reasons we age, the mechanisms. The

7:32

first and one of the most important

7:35

is inflammation or as some like to

7:37

call it, inflamaging. Now inflamaging is one

7:39

of the key features or what we

7:41

call hallmarks of aging. Now

7:43

the immune system declines as we

7:45

age, that happens, it's called immunosenescence.

7:47

It leads to reduced immune surveillance

7:49

so immune cell populations are

7:52

not tracked as well. Now with immunosenescence,

7:54

our immune system doesn't work as well. It

7:56

doesn't work as well to find infection or

7:58

cancer and it doesn't actually keep our body's

8:00

working properly, it leads to chronic sterile inflammation

8:02

which is not caused by an

8:04

infection but by low-grade exposure to

8:07

bad diet, toxins, stress and so forth.

8:10

We also see an uptick in

8:12

our immunity and other things like

8:14

allergies. So what factors drive inflammation

8:16

and what accelerates the aging process?

8:18

Well my friends, you guessed it,

8:20

it's the exposome, what we've been

8:22

talking about. It's everything that washes

8:24

over our genes from our poor

8:26

diet, nutrient deficiencies, the

8:28

lack of anti-inflammatory nutrients like

8:31

omega-3, fats, zinc,

8:33

magnesium, environmental toxins affect

8:35

it, heavy metals, our microbiome,

8:37

leaky gut, low-grade infections,

8:40

bacterial or viral on our sedentary

8:42

lifestyle. All will make us age

8:44

faster. Now and all will make

8:46

us inflamed, right? So what are the signs we're

8:48

inflamed? Well we don't recover from

8:50

health challenges as well. We might

8:53

have mental health issues. We know that

8:55

most mental health challenges are because of

8:57

an inflamed brain. You might

8:59

have brain fog, we might have

9:01

joint pain, fatigue, lethargy, skin issues,

9:04

maybe eczema, acne, rosacea, gut

9:06

issues start to develop and then we get sick

9:08

more often like the cold and flu. So all

9:11

this is sort of clues that we're

9:13

having more inflammation. So why do

9:15

we get sick more as we get older?

9:18

Well there's a gland we have called the

9:20

thymus gland. It's the seat of your immune

9:22

system. It's a site of T-cell maturation which

9:24

is your T-cells or your basically white blood

9:26

cells that find infections and cancer and that

9:28

shrinks as we age. Shrinks about 3% a

9:31

year until middle age and after that

9:33

it slows down to about 1% a

9:35

year. Now COVID-19 is a perfect example

9:37

of how this all works and

9:39

how older people are at higher risk.

9:41

See when you look at the

9:44

population you know 60% of the COVID hospitalizations

9:47

and nearly 90% of the COVID-19 deaths in 2023 were in

9:52

people who were were elderly whose immune systems

9:54

were not working properly. So who else was

9:57

at risk for COVID? Well those with any

9:59

chronic disease come things like diabetes,

10:01

high blood pressure, heart disease. If you had

10:03

one or two of these you had 70%

10:05

higher risk of death. If you had three

10:07

or more of these you had 130% higher

10:10

risk of death. And by the way four

10:12

out of ten Americans have two or more.

10:15

Okay, there's 40% of us. Six in

10:17

ten Americans have one or more of these

10:19

diseases. So what do these things have in

10:21

common? Well, low-grade chronic

10:23

systemic inflammation. Now there are a

10:26

lot of lab tests you can

10:28

tell you if you're inflamed. White

10:30

blood count, something called C-reactor protein,

10:32

sedimentation rate, ANA, anti-nuclear antibodies, rheumatoid

10:35

antibodies, thyroid antibodies, food

10:37

sensitivity testing. We can test for

10:39

tick-borne infections, viruses, bacteria and

10:42

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10:44

lab testing more accessible and affordable to so

10:46

many. It allows you to test

10:48

almost all these things. So you go to

10:50

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10:53

skip the wait list which is like 150,000 people. And for

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$4.99 a year membership you can get most

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of these tests and learn what's really going

11:01

on under the hood and see what's happening

11:03

with your immune system and inflammation. So

11:06

how do you actually measure the impact of inflammation

11:09

and aging? Well there's actually a work

11:11

of a scientist at Stanford called Dr.

11:13

David Furman who developed the tool

11:15

called iAge or the Immune Age. Now his

11:17

team screened more than a thousand people who

11:20

aged or aged from 8 to 96 for

11:22

the presence of something called pro-inflammatory

11:25

cytokines. You heard about the cytokine

11:27

storm. So they're looking for inflammatory

11:30

cytokines, these markers of inflammation or chronic

11:32

sterile inflammation. And they call this the

11:34

immuno. And then they

11:36

use artificial intelligence to correlate the

11:39

specific inflammatory biomarkers in the blood

11:41

test that can be used to

11:43

assess inflammation levels and the age of the immune

11:45

system. Now the good news is

11:47

that these Biomarkers, these cytokines,

11:49

can be reversed through simple diet and

11:52

lifestyle and supplement protocols. So Even if

11:54

you find your immune system is aging

11:56

faster and you have inflammation, you can

11:58

actually reverse it. We're gonna. More

12:00

into what that is Exactly as we talk

12:02

about how to reverse the biological age is

12:04

in the practical part of the podcast. But

12:07

but stay to her getting that since no

12:09

one to talk about something else which is

12:11

really important which is is considered our epigenome

12:13

is regulating. It's a little technical but stay

12:16

with me some he called dna methylation. This

12:18

is basically a chemical process using. Methyl.

12:20

Groups which are regulated by be Sex,

12:22

Phone, any, B, Twelve and it's a

12:24

biochemical process that as these chemical groups

12:26

it's carbon and three. Hadrian's. To.

12:29

Dna. Can attack them and essentially

12:31

what that does is it regulates which

12:34

genes are turned on or off. So

12:36

what impacts dna methylation and whether or

12:38

not. These. Are are functioning properly

12:40

well, they're skinny, trees, are epee nutrients

12:43

and they Macys Co factors for the

12:45

Dna methylation activity that you need an

12:47

expression of the enzymes and these come

12:50

from your food, but you gaza take

12:52

them as supplements like B Twelve fully

12:54

be six which are all metal aiding

12:57

b vitamins now blood initial diet. A

12:59

lot of other factors will affect

13:02

your epigenome things like exercise, sleep,

13:04

sleep quality, stress management, All.

13:06

Can possibly or daily affecting the

13:08

methylation. And. One of my colleagues and friends

13:10

doctor care if is Cheryl show that. That.

13:12

Is it was grabbing? Is that even if

13:14

forty three healthy adult men aged fifty to

13:17

seventy two and a treatment group. They

13:19

wanted to begin reverse by like glaze.

13:21

The treatment group adopted a plant rich

13:23

not played bass, more quito leaning diet,

13:25

healthy habits I regular exercise, getting enough

13:28

sleep, relaxing and n and a limited

13:30

amount of supplements for just eight weeks.

13:33

The. Control Group. Didn't. Have any those

13:35

interventions. Now old was amazing

13:37

is the treatment group showed an

13:39

average reversal of biological age by

13:41

three point two three years in

13:43

eight weeks. The outside improvements in

13:45

cholesterol triglycerides. Him for levels

13:47

because they had a lot of misleading

13:49

foods which underscores the positive and powerful

13:52

impact them die the most on aging

13:54

so that's super caught the universe your

13:56

biological age by three years in eight

13:58

weeks. That's good map

14:00

the how do they measure this? While

14:02

they are a number of different Dna

14:05

clocks out there and they're still being

14:07

developed and modified improved, I really a

14:09

better better at it. but there's something

14:11

called the Horvath Dna age clock and

14:13

there's other methylation testino age Grim major.

14:15

I'd. Done in pace of aging all them

14:17

have in a person minuses but anyway that

14:20

in a steady they showed that diet and

14:22

lifestyle changes affect the dna methylation. And.

14:24

Influences: Beautiful intersection between your

14:27

genes. Gene. Expression and biological

14:29

aging. So. Really important when

14:31

talked about one of the nutrients you'd

14:34

need actually to optimize your dna methylation

14:36

I what lifestyle have as you should

14:38

follow to optimize your biological aging. At

14:41

me that so you can slow down.

14:43

Now the other the other happens as

14:45

we get older is something called telomere

14:47

shortening. Not telomeres are these little protective

14:49

and caps at the end of our

14:51

chromosomes that prevent or a Dna from

14:53

unraveling. candlelight. The thing of the any

14:55

your shoelaces. Know. Telomere shortening every

14:57

time a cell divides or replicate, so telomere

14:59

length gives a sort of a clue. About.

15:02

How much time we have left until

15:04

I cells can no longer able to

15:06

and me things will shorten are telomeres,

15:08

inflammation for diet centralized our smoking stress

15:11

titans I'd be usual stuff record assassin

15:13

like rag and sides here. What makes

15:15

us age faster in a study by

15:17

Doctor illicit apple from you Csf. Analysts

15:19

at Blackburn who won the Nobel Prize

15:21

in Physiology Medicine for discovering. The.

15:23

Molecular nature of telomeres until I'm

15:25

raise the enzyme this responsible for

15:27

he beer a Hummer. As without

15:30

good. They found that women exposed

15:32

to stress every day and increase

15:34

Isis stress, they've reduced. The. Dead

15:36

telomerase activity which is you need to

15:38

rebuild it telomeres and lead to shorter

15:40

telomeres. The. Highest levels and proceed stress

15:43

had a difference until really the club

15:45

or to ten years am educated at

15:47

the women under high stress. Work.

15:49

And I are significantly higher. As for

15:51

age related diseases, there are other biological

15:53

agent has. We used different calculators to

15:56

figure this out at Function House, a

15:58

company I cofounded. you can actually

16:00

measure your biological age through various

16:03

epigenetic markers that are tracked and

16:05

correlate with blood biomarkers and that gives

16:07

you a good sense of your biological

16:09

age. You can learn

16:11

more and you can go to functionhealth.com, photososhmark to learn

16:14

more and check your biological age and then you

16:16

can see what happens. I mean if you make

16:18

changes, I made changes over a period of six

16:20

months and I reversed my biological age by a

16:22

year. So if you basically do certain things, you

16:24

can change the trajectory of the rate of aging.

16:26

The good news is there's lots of interventions we

16:29

can make to lengthen our telomeres and in doing

16:31

so probably extend our lifespan. Although, telomeres turned out

16:33

not to be probably the most predictive marker but

16:35

it's one of the things we look at. Now,

16:38

we're going to get into this protocol. All

16:40

right, so what is a functional medicine approach

16:42

to reversing your biological age? Well,

16:44

you got to get to the root cause of

16:47

disease, the root cause of aging. So what is

16:49

the root cause of the imbalances that drive aging?

16:52

What do we need to get rid of that's causing

16:54

our bodies to be unhappy? What's basically

16:56

toxins, allergens, microbes and so forth and what do

16:58

we need more of to restore balance and function?

17:00

So we basically have to get rid of the

17:02

bad stuff and we have to add in the

17:04

good stuff and this is a simple principle of

17:06

functional medicine and it works across all diseases. So

17:10

how is your exposed home, in other words,

17:12

helping or harming your body

17:14

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17:16

biological age? If

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18:46

aging is driven by things we

18:48

know about. Too much of the

18:50

bad stuff. Ultra processed food, sugar,

18:52

refined flours, hydrogen oils, refined oils,

18:54

environmental toxins for both heavy metals

18:56

and petrochemical toxins, lead

18:58

infections, things like tick-borne illnesses, viruses,

19:00

long COVID. Biological age

19:03

is one of the actual homeworks of aging

19:05

and we have a lot of microbiome challenges

19:07

in our society. We take a lot of

19:09

gut-busting drugs like antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs, acid

19:12

blockers, and we don't eat food but in

19:14

the fiber. And so our guts are really a problem, especially

19:16

as we get older. The other thing that affects it

19:18

is stress. So stress

19:20

will for sure accelerate biological

19:22

aging and make our

19:24

exposome worse. Environmental allergens

19:27

can, food sensitivities can, lack of exercise, social

19:29

isolation, loneliness, all of that is really significant.

19:31

So we want to get rid of those

19:33

things as much as possible or fix those

19:35

things and that will help us a lot.

19:38

And then there's things we need to add

19:40

in to actually help ourselves

19:42

reverse the biological aging process, putting in

19:45

the good stuff. And of course

19:47

it's the usual stuff I've talked about. It's not

19:49

surprising. It's real, whole, unprocessed food. It's

19:52

ideally regenerally raised, grass fed or

19:54

finished, pasture raised meats, eggs, paddyfish.

19:56

It's the right amount of fiber,

19:59

phytochemicals, polyphenols. from all the colorful

20:01

fruits and vegetables, enough micronutrients to optimize

20:03

our levels, not just a normal

20:05

amount you need to prevent deficiency but actually what's

20:08

your optimal level like vitamin D and zinc and

20:10

magnesium and the B vitamins and omega-3 fats, all

20:12

of which are important. And by the way, all

20:14

of which we test for on function health. And

20:16

what's amazing, everybody, is we're seeing about 67% of

20:19

people, and this is a health forward group,

20:22

who are deficient in one or more nutrients

20:24

at the minimum level, not to optimize health

20:26

but to prevent a deficiency disease. So we're

20:28

way, way low, guys. Also, you

20:31

need the adequate balance of hormones, thyroid hormone,

20:33

adrenal hormone, sex hormones, and those can be

20:35

modified through lifestyle and other things, diet. We

20:37

need the right kind of light exposure at

20:39

the right time of day. We need good

20:41

hydration, exercise, good sleep, active

20:43

relaxation, getting our parasympathetic nervous

20:45

system activated, meditation, things like

20:47

that. We need community, love,

20:49

meaning, purpose. Those are all the ingredients for health.

20:52

So what is, in more detail, a functional

20:55

medicine approach to reversing biological age? We take out the

20:57

bad stuff, put in the good stuff. Let's get more

20:59

specific. So first, we need to focus on

21:01

our diet, and that is important because

21:03

we need to increase the intake of methylation

21:06

supporting nutrients. And this was shown in Dr.

21:08

Kerafins Gel's study, right? They include all

21:10

kinds of nutrient-dense organic foods which

21:13

has specific nutrients that support

21:15

methylation. So what are those? Well,

21:17

betin, which is in beets, quinoa,

21:19

spinach, regenibularized beef and

21:21

turkey, folate, which comes from pasteurized

21:24

eggs and dark green leafy veggies.

21:26

Vitin B6 and 12, which are

21:28

in pasteurized eggs and regenibularized beef and

21:30

liver. I love liver. Actually, I had

21:32

liver pate yesterday for lunch. I was

21:34

an organic chicken liver. And vitamin

21:36

C also is important. It's found

21:39

in colorful fruits and veggies. All

21:41

these phytochemicals also activate

21:43

anti-inflammatory and detoxifying pathways

21:45

by something called phytohormesis, which is a

21:47

good thing. Hormesis is

21:50

essentially a biological phenomenon where it's

21:52

a stress to your body that doesn't kill you. And

21:54

that's a beneficial effect that results from low doses

21:57

of an agent that may be considered

21:59

toxic or lethal. when given a higher dose. So in

22:01

other words, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. So for

22:03

example, cold plunge is good, but if you stay there too

22:05

long, you die hypothermia. Or as soon as good, but if

22:07

you stay there too long, you're going to die heat stroke.

22:11

And some of the chemicals in

22:13

food are quite amazing because they're

22:15

the plants defense mechanisms and they're

22:17

a little bit toxic, but a

22:19

little dose of them actually stimulates

22:22

your body to heal. For example,

22:24

precipitous veggies have a lot of

22:26

things that are helpful with detoxification

22:28

and inflammation, glucosinolates, isothiocyanate, sulforaphane, which

22:30

are all these amazing biochemicals and phytochemicals

22:33

that promote healthy aging and also have

22:35

anti-cancer properties. So what would

22:37

you eat? Well, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels

22:40

sprouts, bok choy, rugelic kale, mustard greens,

22:42

watercress, rutabaga, kohlrabi, Swiss chard, and turnips.

22:44

Well, those aren't actually Christopher's, but they're

22:47

all greens are good for you. Lots

22:50

of phytochemicals are important. Turmeric,

22:52

rosemary, green tea, garlic, really

22:54

great for reducing inflammation. Shurn

22:57

polyphenols are great. Rosemary acid

22:59

for rosemary, green tea, extracts like

23:01

ECGC, quercetin, which is an onion,

23:03

all that can help modulate DNA

23:06

methylation and activate all these amazing

23:08

anti-inflammatory pathways, which you need to

23:10

reduce inflammation as you get older.

23:12

Like for example, NRF2, which is

23:14

a transcription factor that plays a

23:16

really critical role in defending yourselves

23:19

against free radicals and toxins. So

23:21

you can activate these by what you

23:23

eat. It's pretty cool actually. Food literally

23:25

is medicine. You also want to

23:27

avoid inflammatory foods. Obviously, we talked about this

23:29

forever, but refined carbs and sugar, they're super

23:32

pro-aging. If you want to age

23:34

fast, eat sugar and carbs. I didn't

23:36

mean refined sugar and carbs, like flour. It's

23:39

the single biggest thing you can do to

23:41

reduce the rate of aging is to cut

23:43

those things out of your diet because they

23:46

drive inflammation, they drive belly fat, they

23:48

scrub your gut bacteria, they feed cancer

23:50

cells. They cause metabolic dysfunction, they cause

23:52

cancer, heart disease, diabetes, dementia, you name

23:55

it. Also, I would probably avoid

23:57

a conventional dairy. Many people are

23:59

having issues. with casein which is the

24:01

allogenic protein. There's A1 casein which is

24:03

it's in most modern cows plus they're

24:05

all raised with antibiotics and hormones. Many

24:08

people have lactose intolerance and all these

24:10

things can create inflammation even autoimmunity has

24:12

been linked to dairy such as Hashimoto's

24:15

or type 1 diabetes.

24:17

Gluten also is a problem and

24:20

it's especially modern gluten wheat it's

24:22

dwarf wheat that is hybridized

24:24

it has much higher amounts of gluten

24:26

proteins sprayed with herbicides like glyphosate which

24:28

have been linked to cancer and leaky

24:30

gut and skin issues so you want

24:32

to get rid of that. If you're

24:34

gonna have gluten products have more heirloom

24:36

products or non-wheat grains particularly in the

24:38

US. Also protein is important because you

24:41

need to actually build muscle

24:43

and I think one of the things we

24:45

we don't realize it as we age is

24:47

we lose a tremendous amount of muscle. So

24:49

any high quality protein is critical for preventing

24:52

muscle loss which is so common so

24:54

you need about a gram per pound

24:56

of protein especially as you get older and you want

24:58

to get pasture-raised eggs you want to have basically

25:01

a palm-sized portion of grass-fed, original raised meat,

25:03

fish, chicken and so forth. Also you can

25:05

do simple things to increase autophagy which helps

25:07

with longevity you can basically overnight fast for

25:10

12 to 14 hours which something

25:12

allow it it's not basically we get our seven

25:14

sorry you can eat breakfast at seven

25:16

in the morning or nine nine would be a 14 hour

25:19

fast. The body basically shifts from digestion when

25:21

you do that to repair and rejuvenation which is cool

25:23

and it's kind of like a mild form of stress

25:25

to the body and so it activates

25:28

the the body's own healing

25:30

mechanisms. Now a professor is

25:32

Sachinandapandai and his colleagues at the

25:34

Salk Institute has shown how time-restricted

25:36

eating impacts gene expression. Now they

25:38

published a study in cell metabolism

25:40

and they revealed that time-restricted

25:42

eating affects about 70% of

25:45

the mouse genes including the adrenal

25:47

gland hypothalamus pancreas all which are

25:50

key for regulating hormones. It also

25:52

impacts cortisol and metabolism your blood

25:54

sugar your microbiome so it can

25:56

be really good just to not eat I mean most of

25:58

us just eat and Until we go to bed and

26:00

then we wake up and we eat. We should just take a break. 12

26:03

hours, it's called breakfast. 14 hours, maybe a

26:05

little bit better. These findings suggest lots

26:08

of pathways through which time restricted eating can

26:10

influence our health and help with issues like

26:12

diabetes and heart disease, high blood

26:15

pressure, cancer. When you

26:17

do this, it activates a lot of

26:19

anti-aging genes like sirtuins, AMPK, Foxo, NAD,

26:21

and Hibis-MTOR, which activates autophagy, which is

26:24

cellular clean up. You have all these

26:26

longevity switches and all these longevity pathways

26:28

that when you time restrict your

26:30

eating a little bit, I don't want to talk

26:32

about lung fasting, you start to activate these pathways

26:34

every day. That leads to killing

26:37

up all the bad stuff and cleaning

26:39

up your body through this process we

26:41

call autophagy, which is essentially a cellular

26:44

clean up mechanism. It's recycling. Auto

26:46

means self and phagy means

26:49

eat. It's like eating yourself, basically. That

26:51

kills a lot of the senescent cells or

26:53

zombie cells, which are kind of these in-between

26:56

cells that don't die, don't live, but

26:58

they cause inflammation throughout the body and

27:01

are really damaging. We call

27:03

these zombie cells. They resist the immune

27:05

system's ability to clear them. They basically protect

27:07

themselves or kind of never die. They

27:09

accumulate in key organs and tissues and make

27:12

all these diseases worse like arthritis and heart

27:14

disease and cataracts and fatty liver and Parkinson's

27:17

and Alzheimer's and increased your cancer risk. These

27:19

are just nasty inflammatory molecules. You want to

27:22

get rid of them. You also

27:24

want to make sure sleep is a priority. Less than five

27:26

hours of sleep a night is associated

27:28

with increased risk of diabetes, heart

27:30

disease and other age-related disorders, even

27:32

dementia. Why? Well,

27:35

the research says a lot about this. In

27:37

a study of 245 women published in the

27:39

Journal of Aging Research, the women who were

27:41

about between 59 and 66 who

27:44

had poor quality sleep had significantly

27:46

shorter telomere length. Other

27:48

studies also link other problems of sleep

27:50

like obstructive sleep apnea, which is where

27:52

you kind of store and don't breathe

27:54

at night, Where you get low oxygen

27:56

states. And Then they found that led to

27:59

shorter telomere length. Damage Dna so like

28:01

of high quality sleep. Typically fire see breaking

28:03

up a lot the other night from a

28:05

fi back asleep or waking up too early

28:07

in the morning is more common as we

28:09

age but it's so she with a lot

28:11

more stress in the body. Higher court is

28:14

all levels. damage, proteins, Damage. Dna

28:16

accumulation and so when we go sleep we

28:18

don't clear out the joke from our brain

28:20

either because we had his brain cleaning system

28:22

is called the glen Sather system and it

28:24

turns on we go to sleep he declares

28:26

way all the side business and cells from

28:28

our brains but otherwise if we don't we

28:30

have five years fight. When you see be

28:32

brain doesn't dog and rohit you feel buggy

28:34

and that clear so you really want to

28:36

optimize the as be dodging and more free

28:38

radicals, more information or telomere shortening and it's

28:40

at the heart is is gonna make routine

28:42

him at go to bed and wake up

28:44

at the same time. Every day he's your

28:46

med receive and romance major. I'm totally dark

28:49

I'm asked sound machine or earplugs. I use

28:51

those though. Don't get exposed to blue light

28:53

for two three hours before bad. As for

28:55

my your devices you can get that the

28:58

blue light biking glasses you condemn realize but

29:00

the red light candles lamps his calf on

29:02

actually avoid caffeine and alcohol. Do it. Alcohol

29:04

within three hours of bed and caffeine afternoon

29:07

at the having any and you could try

29:09

May as he masterclass as free as we

29:11

have had a link in the show notes.

29:14

Or. A what else could you do to

29:16

reverse your by was for aids, well

29:18

exercise right as you did. Package the

29:20

benefits of exercise into appeal. It

29:23

probably be the greatest blockbuster drug them all

29:25

time. Everybody understands it. Exercise is so she

29:27

will extend your life span and your over

29:29

health. But. It's also so she was

29:31

time his age related declines in dna

29:33

methylation which we see. Be. A with

29:36

the epigenetic changes and exercise which

29:38

is amazing possibly impacts all of

29:40

the hallmarks of aging. It.

29:42

Helps balance your hormones, an insulin

29:44

sensitivity exceeds of damage proteins which

29:46

were found alzheimer's and diabetes and

29:49

repairs damage Dna at length is

29:51

your telomeres a goose. And.

29:53

or energy to any the ah it

29:55

reduces information it kills your zombie cells

29:58

and bruises races your metics hundred increases

30:00

your stem cell production. All right,

30:03

what about stress? Well, you have to manage your stress

30:05

if you want to live a long time.

30:07

No one can avoid stress. So we have to learn how to

30:09

handle it and to reduce the effects of it on our biology.

30:11

So when you have chronic stress, it's just unmitigated. It

30:33

just accelerates cellular aging. It shortens

30:36

our telomeres. It's implicated as

30:38

a risk factor for every known chronic disease.

30:40

For example, in a study published in the

30:42

BMJ, the British Medical Journal, a Finnish cohort

30:44

of about 40,000 people between the ages

30:47

of 25 and 74 years

30:49

old reported a nearly three-year lower life

30:51

expectancy in men who found their life

30:53

almost unbearable due to stress. So

30:55

basically, your life's cut short by three years

30:58

if you have lots of stress. So

31:00

what can you do to help regulate your nervous

31:02

system? Well, gratitude, journaling,

31:05

breath work, meditation, yoga, hiking, being

31:08

nature, all those things help. In

31:10

fact, a narrative review assessing the clinical benefits

31:12

of yoga and meditation found

31:14

that there were lower amounts of

31:17

pro-inflammatory genes that were expressed. There

31:20

were increased expressions of telomere maintenance

31:22

and lengthening genes and also better

31:24

DNA repair just from doing yoga.

31:27

Hey, you know, close friends, I think, you know,

31:29

it's really important building your network of relationships, especially

31:32

as your age is important. Lowliness is

31:34

linked to age-related diseases like dementia. So

31:37

make sure you find ways to create,

31:39

establish community, meaning and purpose. Really important.

31:41

All right, what about supplements? Well,

31:43

they're not a fantasy other supplements, but

31:45

they are important. And

31:47

I recommend between four or 5,000 units

31:49

a day of vitamin D3. When they

31:51

did 4,000 units of vitamin D3 in

31:54

an operation with no other changes, they

31:56

reduced biological age by 1.85 years in

32:00

in just 16 weeks. That's impressive. Probiotics

32:02

also can be helpful, particularly

32:05

ones that contain a certain strain

32:07

called Lactobus Hylus Plantarum 299V, and

32:10

that's been shown to increase folate production,

32:12

which also helps support DNA methylation.

32:15

You wanna take B vitamins, particularly the methylation B

32:17

vitamins. We talked about methyl folate, methyl B12, methylated

32:21

form of B6 called P5P, all

32:23

really important to the right form, and we'll

32:25

link to those in the show notes. And

32:27

that, of course, will help fill any dietary

32:30

gaps and support your DNA methylation. Also, I

32:32

like certain things like NMN, which is helps

32:34

support AAD production, 1,000 milligrams a day. Phycetin,

32:37

500 to 1,000 milligrams. It's

32:39

killed the zombie cells. It's from

32:41

strawberries, actually. It's a phytochemical and

32:44

stimulates itophagy, activates sirtuins, AMPK,

32:46

all good things. These are the

32:48

longevity switches. Curcumin, I love that.

32:51

500 to 1,000 a day. Green T

32:53

extract or EGCG, which

32:55

is great, 500 to 1,000 a day. Also,

32:57

I like Urolithin A, which is great. It's a

32:59

postbiotic made from pomegranate in your gut bacteria, but

33:01

most of us don't have it, so we really

33:04

need to take it. And the form I like is

33:06

called Midopure. It's made by a company in Switzerland. So

33:08

I think it's, I take that every day, for example.

33:10

So there's a lot of stuff you can do. There's

33:13

also, if you're crazy like me and you wanna do

33:15

all kinds of other stuff, you can experiment. I

33:18

experiment myself. I encourage you to do

33:20

that. But things like stem cells, things

33:23

like exosomes, which are little packets of

33:25

healing, and from compounds, peptides, particularly can

33:27

be helpful, like BP157, thymus

33:30

and alpha-1, which helps immunity. So there's a lot

33:32

of peptides out there. You need to find someone

33:34

who can help you navigate that. But some

33:36

of the regenerative medicine therapies can be really

33:38

helpful. Also, I think more and more research

33:40

will come out on plasma-free cyst. This is

33:42

basically a process of cleaning your

33:44

blood, especially where they take out

33:46

your blood, they separate out the cells and the

33:48

plasma, and they throw the plasma out, and they

33:51

add back a protein called albumin and reconstitute your

33:53

blood. But essentially, it's like getting rid of all

33:55

the old damaged crap, and it seems to have

33:57

the most impact on reversing biological age. of

34:00

the interventions we can do. Now there's some

34:02

other things that are on the track to

34:04

potentially be helpful like drugs like rapamycin, metformin,

34:07

we're learning more about those but we're not quite there

34:09

yet. So it's a lot, you know, there's a lot

34:11

of things we know that cause rapid aging and there's

34:14

a lot of things we know that can actually slow

34:16

or even reverse biological aging. So that's the good news,

34:18

it's very empowering and I'm a living example of it.

34:20

I tried everything on myself and it actually is working

34:22

so that I see it in my patients and I

34:25

encourage you to explore some of this. You don't have

34:27

to do everything but do what you can. You know,

34:29

the thought of living longer for people who

34:31

are older can kind of be scary because they're

34:34

thinking of all the diseases they're going to get. They

34:36

know heart disease and diabetes and then you'd frail and

34:38

they're going to fall. I mean no one wants to

34:40

live longer if that means that you're

34:42

going to be sicker and more uncomfortable and

34:44

more in pain but aging just in just

34:46

about how long we live. It's about how

34:48

well we live and this is really a

34:51

concept that's known as our health span. Our health

34:53

span is how many years we're healthy. Now most

34:56

people spend the last 20 percent of their life

34:58

in poor health. You want your health span to

35:01

equal your lifespan. If you live to be 90 you want you know

35:03

89.9 years to be

35:05

healthy and then maybe last week you're kind of doing a

35:07

little and then you go, right? And I

35:09

think most of us given what I just talked

35:12

about today could get to 100 healthy years. It's

35:14

our mission at Function Health. We

35:16

help you do that through guidance. Everybody can

35:18

see me as a patient but through Function

35:20

Health we've made this information accessible to all

35:22

of you and it'll actually track your own

35:25

biological data over time and see how you

35:27

can even measure your own biological age and

35:29

reverse it just like I did. So you

35:31

can check that out. Go to functionhealth.com,/mark to

35:33

learn more and also to skip the wait

35:36

list which is about 150,000 people.

35:38

So it's never too late to start. You

35:40

can reverse your biological clock at any age

35:42

and you can live your best life. So

35:45

through our diet and lifestyle choices,

35:47

through managing sleep, through stress management,

35:49

the right supplements community, maybe certain

35:51

advanced therapeutics that we've talked about,

35:53

we can activate these anti-aging genes.

35:55

We can reverse our biological

35:57

age. We can activate our longevity and

36:00

we can feel and look younger from the

36:02

inside out. And also the point is you

36:05

don't want to just add years to your

36:07

life. You want to add life to your

36:09

years. You want to have vitality, energy, and

36:11

joy and meaning and purpose. So aging as

36:14

a decline into discomfort and disease. I see

36:16

it as an amazing opportunity to redefine our

36:18

golden years as a time of renewal, of

36:20

vitality, of thriving, health. And you

36:23

know with the right tools and the right knowledge and the right

36:25

commitment, we can all look forward

36:27

to celebrating not just another birthday, but another

36:29

chance of living and feeling truly alive and

36:31

vibrant. So thanks for joining me on this

36:33

journey toward a younger you both inside and

36:35

out. If you want to learn more you

36:37

can go check out my book, Young

36:40

Forever, where I go into all this in more

36:42

detail in my Young Forever cookbook. It's come out

36:44

as well. So check that out and I hope

36:46

you enjoy learning how your body

36:48

works and how to work with it to

36:51

create health for yourself and have

36:53

more energy, more vitality, and more

36:55

life. Thanks for listening

36:57

today. If you love this podcast, please

36:59

share it with your friends and family.

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Leave a comment on your own best

37:03

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37:05

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37:07

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37:09

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37:11

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37:13

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37:15

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37:17

lots more. And now you can have

37:19

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37:24

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37:28

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37:32

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37:34

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37:36

too. Again, that's drhyman.com/Mark's picks. Thank you again,

37:38

and we'll see you next time on The

37:40

Doctors Pharmacy. This podcast is separate

37:42

from my clinical practice with Delta Wellness Center

37:45

and my work at Cleveland Clinic and the

37:47

function health where I'm the chief medical officer.

37:49

This podcast represents my opinions and my guest

37:51

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37:56

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37:59

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38:01

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38:03

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38:05

the understanding that it does not constitute

38:07

medical or other professional advice or services.

38:09

If you're looking for your help in

38:11

your journey, seek out a qualified medical

38:13

practitioner. You can come see us at

38:15

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38:17

Just go to ultrawellnesscenter.com. If you're looking

38:19

for a functional medicine practitioner near you,

38:21

you can visit ifm.org. A search find

38:23

a practitioner database. It's important that you

38:25

have someone in your corner who is

38:27

trained, who's a licensed healthcare practitioner and

38:29

can help you make changes, especially when it

38:31

comes to your health. Keeping this podcast free

38:33

is part of my mission to bring practical

38:36

ways of improving health to the general public.

38:38

In keeping with that theme, I'd like to

38:40

express gratitude to the sponsors that made today's

38:42

podcast possible.